CHAPTER VIII.

REIGN OF HENRY VIII. (_continued_).

The Maid of Kent and Her Accomplices--Act of Supremacy and

Consequent Persecutions--The "Bloody Statute"--Deaths of Fisher

and More--Suppression of the Smaller Monasteries--Trial and Death

of Anne Boleyn--Henry Marries Jane Seymour--Divisions in the

Church--The Pilgrimage of Grace--Birth of Prince Edward--Death

of Queen Jane--Suppression of the Larger Monasteries--The

Six Articles--Judicial Murders--Persecution of Cardinal

Pole--Cromwell's Marriage Scheme--Its Failure and his Fall.

The discontent aroused in the country amongst those attached to the

church of Rome, by the separation, and by the seizure of church property,

with the fear of still greater spoliation, excited many murmurings.

The king, aware that his proceedings were regarded with disapprobation

by a vast body of people both at home and abroad, grew suspicious of

every rumour, jealous, and vindictive. Amongst the singular conspiracies

against the royal transactions, one of the earliest arose out of the

visions of a young woman of Addington, in Surrey, of the name of

Elizabeth Barton, who was of a nervous temperament, and whose mind

was greatly excited by the sufferings of Queen Catherine. The rector

of the parish, struck by many of the words which fell from her in her

trances, regarded her as a religiously inspired person, and recommended

her to quit the village, and enter the convent of St. Sepulchre at

Canterbury. There her ecstacies and revelations, probably strengthened

by the atmosphere of the place, became more frequent and strong. The

nuns regarded her declarations as prophecies, and the fame of her soon

spread round the country, where she acquired the name of the "Holy Maid

of Kent." It was observed that her visions had all a tendency to exalt

the power of the Pope and the clergy, and to denounce the vengeance of

Heaven on all who disobeyed or attempted to injure them. At length Henry

considered that the words of the maid, which were sedulously taken down

and circulated through the press, were a powerful means of stirring up

the popular feeling against him, and he therefore ordered the arrest of

herself and the chief of her accomplices.

In November they were brought into the Star Chamber and carefully

examined by Cranmer, the archbishop, Cromwell, and Hugh Latimer, who

soon after was made Bishop of Worcester. This tribunal appears to have

intimidated both the maid and her abettors into a confession of the

imposture, and they were condemned to stand during the sermon on Sunday

at St. Paul's Cross, and there acknowledge the fraud. After that they

were remanded to prison, and it was thought that, having disarmed these

people by this exposure, he would be satisfied with the punishment they

had received. But Henry was now become every day more and more addicted

to blood, and ready to shed it for any infringement of those almost

Divine rights which the supremacy of the Church had conferred on him. On

the 21st of February, 1534, therefore, a bill of attainder was brought

into the House of Lords against the maid and her abettors, on the plea

that their conspiracy tended to bring into peril the king's life and

crown. The bill, notwithstanding that it was regarded with horror by the

public as a strange and cruel stretch of authority, was passed by the

slavish Parliament; and on the 21st of April, 1534, the seven accused

were drawn to Tyburn and hanged. Besides the persons who suffered

immediately with her, there were also accused of corresponding with her,

Edward Thwaites, gentleman, Thomas Lawrence, registrar to the Archdeacon

of Canterbury, the venerable Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas

More.

Fisher, who was in his seventy-sixth year, confessed that he had seen

and conversed with Elizabeth Barton; that he had heard her utter her

prophecies concerning the king; and that he had not mentioned them to the

sovereign, because her declarations did not refer to any violence against

him, but merely to a visitation of Providence; and because, also, he knew

that the king had received the communication of the prophecies from the

maid herself, who had had for that purpose a private audience with Henry.

He was, therefore, he said, guiltless of any conspiracy, and as he would

answer it before the throne of Christ, knew not of any malice or evil

that was intended by her or by any other earthly creature unto the king's

highness.

The name of Sir Thomas More was erased from this bill, though he could

not be more innocent than Fisher, but not more than a fortnight passed

before the bloodthirsty tyrant had contrived a more deadly snare for

them both. He had them summoned, and commanded to take the new oath of

allegiance. They were both of them ready to swear to the king's full

temporal authority, and to the succession of his children, but they could

not conscientiously take the oath which declared Henry the supreme head

of the English Church, and the marriage with Anne Boleyn lawful. Cranmer,

who on this occasion showed more mildness and liberality than he had

shown honest principles in his elevation, would fain have admitted these

illustrious men to take the oath so far as it applied to temporal, and to

dispense with it as regarded spiritual matters. But he pleaded in vain,

and they were both committed to the Tower.

Henry, having got the Acts of Parliament for the Supremacy and the

Succession, was not of a temper to let them become a dead letter.

Whether it was owing to the carelessness of Parliament or the

carefulness of the Crown, the oath of the Succession had not been

verbally defined, and Henry now availed himself of this emission to

alter and add to it so as to please himself. From the clergy he took

care to obtain an oath including the full recognition of his supremacy

in the Church, omitting the qualifying clause in the former one; and an

assertion that the Bishop of Rome had no more authority within the realm

than any other bishop. He spent the summer in administering this oath to

the monks, friars, and nuns, also to all clergymen and clerical bodies

whatever, and in obtaining decisions against the papal authority from

the two convocations and the universities. The oath to the laity was

administered to men and women alike. Remembering the mental reservation

of Cranmer when he swore obedience to the Pope, he now demanded from

every prelate an oath of renunciation of every protest previously or

secretly made contrary to the oath of supremacy. He ordered that the very

word Pope should be obliterated carefully out of all books used in public

worship.

If Henry had been a zealous Reformer, a disciple of the new creed, we

might have attributed his proceedings to an arbitrary and uncharitable

earnestness for what he deemed the truth; but he was just as bigoted

in the old faith as ever. His Bloody Statute, as it was called, the

Statute of Six Articles, maintained that the actual presence was in

the sacramental bread and wine; that priests were forbidden to marry;

that vows of chastity were to be observed; and that mass and auricular

confession were indispensable. Those who opposed any of these dogmas

were to suffer death; no doctrine was to be believed contrary to the Six

Articles; no persons were to sing or rhyme contrary to them; no book was

to be possessed by any one against the Holy Sacrament; no annotations or

preambles were to exist in Bibles or Testaments in English; and nothing

was to be taught contrary to the king's command. In fact, the country had

only got rid of an Italian Pope and got an English one in his stead--Pope

Henry VIII.

The first-fruits of this awful concession to a vain and selfish

man of the usurpation of God's own dominion in the soul, were an

indiscriminating mass of Lollards, Lutherans, Anabaptists, and Roman

Catholics committed to the flames. On the 22nd of July, during the

prorogation of Parliament, Firth, a young man of singular learning,

who had written a book against purgatory, transubstantiation, and

consubstantiation, was burnt in Smithfield; and a poor tailor, Andrew

Hewett, who simply affirmed that he thought Firth was right, was burnt

with him. Several Anabaptists underwent the same fate.

[Illustration: SIR THOMAS MORE. (_After the Portrait by Holbein._)]

As that year closed in blood, so the next opened. The priors of the

then Charterhouses of London, Axholm, and Belleval, waited on Cromwell

to explain their conscientious scruples; but Cromwell, who was become

the harsh and unhesitating instrument of Henry's despotism, instead

of listening to them, committed them to the Tower on a charge of high

treason, for refusing the king "the dignity, style, and name of his

Royal estate." When he brought them to trial the jury shrank from giving

such a verdict against men of their acknowledged virtue and character.

Cromwell hastened to the court in person, and threatened to hang them

instead of the prisoners, if they did not without further delay pronounce

them guilty. Five days later these three dignitaries were executed at

Tyburn, with Richard Reynolds, a doctor of divinity and monk of Sion, and

John Hailes, Vicar of Thistleworth. They were all treated with savage

barbarity, being hanged, cut down alive, embowelled, and dismembered. On

the 18th of June, nearly a fortnight afterwards, Exmew, Middlemore, and

Newdigate, three Carthusian monks from the Charterhouse, were executed,

with the same atrocities.

[Illustration: THE PARTING OF SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER. (_See p._

162.)]

Whilst these horrors struck with consternation all at home, Henry

proceeded to a deed which extended the feeling of abhorrence all over

Europe. He shed the blood of Fisher and More. We have stated that

Parliament had not enacted the precise oath for the refusal of which

Fisher and More were arraigned. But this made no difference: the king

willed it, and the submissive legislature passed a bill of attainder for

misprision of treason against them both. On this they and their families

were stripped of everything they had. The poor old bishop was left in

a complete state of destitution, and had not even clothes to cover his

nakedness. Sir Thomas More was dependent wholly for the support of his

life on his married daughter, Margaret Roper. They were repeatedly

called up after their attainder, and treacherously examined as to any

act or word that they might have done or uttered contrary to the king's

supremacy, as if to aggravate their crime and justify a more rigorous

sentence. The Pope Clement was dead, and was succeeded by Paul III.,

who, hearing of the sad condition of the venerable Fisher, sent him a

cardinal's hat, thinking it might make Henry less willing to proceed

to extremities with him. But the effect on the tyrant was quite the

contrary. On hearing of the Pope's intention, he exclaimed, "Ha! Paul may

send him a hat, but I will take care that he have never a head to wear it

on."

Accordingly, the aged prelate was brought out of the Tower on the 22nd of

June, 1535, and beheaded. His head was stuck upon London Bridge, with his

face turned towards the Kentish hills, amid which he had spent so many

pleasant years. The body of the old bishop was stripped, and left naked

on the spot till evening, when it was carried away by the guards, and

buried in Allhallows churchyard at Barking. Such was the manner in which

this supreme head of the Church treated his former tutor, and one of the

most accomplished and pious men in Christendom.

More, the scholar, the wit, the genius, raised reluctantly to the

chancellorship, had there so far deteriorated from the noble mood in

which he had written his "Utopia" as to have become, contrary to all its

doctrines and spirit, a persecutor. On the 14th of June he was visited in

the Tower by Doctors Aldridge, Layton, Curwen, and Mr. Bedle, and there

strictly interrogated in the presence of Pelstede, Whalley, and Rice, as

to whether he had held any correspondence since he came into the Tower

with Bishop Fisher, or others, and what had become of the letters he

had received. He replied that George, the lieutenant's servant, had put

them into the fire, against his wish, saying there was no better keeper

than the fire. He was then asked whether he would not acknowledge the

lawfulness of the king's marriage, and his headship of the Church. He

declined to give an answer.

At length, on the 1st of July, he was brought out of the Tower, and

was conducted on foot through the streets of London to Westminster. He

was wrapped only in a coarse woollen garment, his hair had grown grey,

his face was pale and emaciated, for he had been nearly a year a close

prisoner. This was thought well calculated to teach a lesson of obedience

to the people; when they saw how the king handled even ex-chancellors and

cardinals. When he arrived, bowed with suffering, and supporting himself

on a staff, in that hall where he had presided with so much dignity, all

who saw him were struck with astonishment. In order to confound him, and

prevent the dreaded effect of his eloquence, his enemies had caused the

indictment against him to be drawn out an immense length, and the charges

to be grossly exaggerated and enveloped in clouds of words. Sentence

of death was pronounced upon him, and he rose to address the Court. In

the rudest manner they attempted to silence him, and twice, by their

clamour, they succeeded; but the firmness of the noble victim at length

triumphed, and he told them that he could now openly avow what he had

before concealed from every human being, that the oath of supremacy was

contrary to English law. He declared that he had no enmity against his

judges. There would, he observed, have always been a scene of contention,

and he prayed that as Paul had consented to the death of Stephen, and

yet was afterwards called to tread in the same path, and ascend to the

same heaven, so might he and they yet meet there. "And so," he added, in

conclusion, "may God preserve you all, and especially my lord the king,

and send him good counsel."

As he turned from the bar, his son rushed through the hall, fell upon

his knees, and implored his blessing; and, on approaching the Tower

Wharf, his daughter, Margaret Roper, forced her way through the guard

which surrounded him, and, clasping him round the neck, wept and sobbed

aloud. The noble man, now clothed with all the calm dignity of the

Christian philosopher, summoned fortitude enough to take a loving and a

final farewell of her; but as he was moved on, the distracted daughter

turned back, and, flying once more through the crowd, hung on his neck

in the abandonment of grief. This was too much for his stoicism; he shed

tears, whilst with deep emotion he repeated his blessing, and uttered

words of Christian consolation. The people and the guards were so deeply

affected, that they too burst into tears, and it was some time before the

officers could summon resolution to part the father and his child.

On the 6th of July he was summoned to execution, and informed that the

king, as an especial favour, had commuted his punishment from hanging,

drawing, and quartering, to decapitation. On this Sir Thomas, who had now

taken his leave of the world, and met death with the cheerful humour of a

man who is well assured that he is on the threshold of a better, replied

with his wonted promptitude of wit, "God preserve all my friends from

such favour." As he was about to ascend the scaffold, some one expressed

a fear lest it should break down, for it appeared weak. "Mr. Lieutenant,"

said More, smiling, "see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift

for myself." The executioner then approached, and asked his forgiveness.

More embraced him, and said, "Friend, thou wilt render me the greatest

service in the power of any mortal; but," putting an angel into his hand,

"my neck is so short, that I fear thou wilt gain little credit in the way

of thy profession." The same fear of the eloquence of the illustrious

victim which had attempted to stop his mouth on the trial, now forbade

him to address the multitude; he therefore contented himself with

saying that he died a faithful subject to the king, and a true Catholic

before God. He then prayed, and, laying his head upon the block, bade

the executioner stay his hand a moment while he put back his beard. For

"that," said he, "has never committed any treason." His head was severed

at a single blow, and was, like Fisher's, fixed on London Bridge.

But it was not merely in lopping off the heads of honest statesmen and

prelates that Henry VIII. now displayed the powers of supreme head

over the Church. There was a more tempting prey which allured his

avaricious soul, and promised to recruit his exhausted treasury. These

were the monasteries, convents, and abbeys. These institutions had grown

excessively corrupt through time. Without depending on the reports of

Henry's commissioners, whose business it was to make out a case for him

against them, there is abundant evidence in contemporary writings that

the monks, nuns, and friars were grown extremely sensual and corrupt.

Rage and cupidity alike urged Henry to imitate the Reformers of Germany,

and seize the spoils of this wealthy body. Cromwell--whom he had

appointed Vicar-General, a strange office for a layman--went the whole

length with him in those views; nay, he was the man who first turned his

eyes on this great attractive mass of wealth, and hallooed him to the

spoil. He had told him that, if once he was established by Parliament as

head of the Church, all that opulence was his. There can be no doubt that

it was to carry out this seizure that Cromwell was put into that very

office of Vicar-General, as the only man to do the business, and he went

to work upon it with right good will.

The first thing was to appoint a commission, and to obtain such a

report as should induce Parliament to pass an act of suppression of the

religious houses, and the forfeiture of all their property to the Crown.

The Archbishop of Paris, years before, had confidently affirmed, that

whenever Wolsey should fall, the spoliation of the Church would quickly

follow. To expedite this matter as much as possible, the whole kingdom

was divided into districts, and to each district was appointed a couple

of commissioners, who were armed with eighty-six questions to propound to

the monastic orders. As acknowledgment of the supremacy of the king and

approbation of his marriage were made requisites of compliance, there was

little chance of escape for any monastery, be its morals what they might.

The visitors had secret instructions to seek, in the first place, the

lesser houses, and to exhort the inmates voluntarily to surrender them

to the king, and, where they did not succeed, to collect such a body of

evidence as should warrant the suppression of those houses; but after

zealously labouring at this object through the winter, they could only

prevail on seven small houses to surrender. A report was then prepared,

which considerably surprised the public by stating that the lesser houses

were abandoned to the most shameful sloth and immorality, but that the

large and more opulent ones, contrary to all human experience, were more

orderly. The secret of this representation was, that the abbots and

priors of the great houses were lords of Parliament, and were, therefore,

present to expose any false statement.

On the 4th of March, 1536, a bill was passed hastily through both Houses,

transferring to the king and his heirs all monastic establishments the

clear value of which did not exceed £200 per annum. It was calculated

that this bill--which, however, did not pass the Commons till Henry had

sent for them, and told them that he would apply his favourite remedy

for stiff necks--would dissolve no less than 380 communities, and add

£32,000 to the annual income of the Crown, besides the presents received

of £100,000 in money, plate, and jewels. The cause of these presents

was a clause in the Act of Parliament, which left it to the discretion

of the king to found any of these houses anew; a clause which was

actively worked by Cromwell and his commissioners, and, by the hopes

they inspired, drew large sums from the menaced brethren, part of which

lodged in the pockets of the minister and his agents, and part reached

the Crown. Cromwell amassed a large fortune from such sources.

The Parliament, which had now sat seven years, and which was one of the

most slavish and base bodies that ever were brought together--having

yielded every popular right and privilege which the imperious monarch

demanded, and augmented the Royal prerogative to a pitch of actual

absolutism; having altered the succession, changed the system of

ecclesiastical government, abolished a great number of the ancient

religious houses without thereby much benefiting the Crown--was now

dismissed, having done that for this worthless king which should cost

some of his successors their thrones or their heads, and a braver and

more honourable generation the blood of its best men to undo again.

Anne Boleyn, on hearing of Catherine's death, which occurred in January,

1536, was so rejoiced that she could not help crying out, "Now I am

indeed a queen!" And yet, in truth, never had she less cause for triumph.

Already the lecherous eye of her worthless husband had fallen on one of

_her_ maids, as it had formerly fallen on one of Catherine's in her own

person. This was Jane Seymour, a daughter of a knight of Wiltshire, who

was not only of great beauty, but was distinguished for a gentle and

sportive manner, equally removed from the Spanish gravity of Catherine

and the French levity of Anne Boleyn. Before the death of Catherine,

this fresh amour of Henry's was well known in the palace to all but

the reigning queen; and, according to Wyatt, Anne only became aware

of it by entering a room one day, and beholding Jane Seymour seated

on Henry's knee, in a manner the most familiar, and as if accustomed

to that indulgence. She saw at once that not only was Henry ready to

bestow his regards on another, but that other was still more willing to

step into her place than she had been to usurp that of Catherine. Anne

was far advanced in pregnancy, and was in great hopes of riveting the

king's affections to her by the birth of a prince; but the shock which

she now received threw her into such agitation that she was prematurely

delivered--of a boy, indeed, but dead. Henry, the moment that he heard of

this unlucky accident, rushed into the queen's chamber, and upbraided her

savagely "with the loss of his boy." Anne, stung by this cruelty, replied

that he had to thank himself and "that wench Jane Seymour" for it. The

fell tyrant retired, muttering his vengeance, and the die was now cast

irrevocably for Anne Boleyn, if it were not before.

It was a great misfortune for Anne that she had never been able to lay

aside that levity of manner which she had acquired by spending her

juvenile years at the French Court. After her elevation to the throne,

she was too apt to forget, with those about her, the sober dignity which

belonged to the queen, and to converse with the officers about her more

in the familiar manner of the maid-of-honour which she had once been.

This freedom and gaiety had been caught at by the Court gossips, and now

scandals were whispered abroad, and, as soon as the way was open by the

anger and fresh love affair of the king, carried to him. Such accusations

were precisely what he wanted, as a means to rid himself of her. A plot

was speedily concocted, in which she was to be charged with criminal

conduct towards not only three officers of the Royal household--Brereton,

Weston, and Norris--but also with Mark Smeaton, the king's musician,

and, still more horrible, with her own brother, the Viscount Rochford. A

court of inquiry was at once appointed, in which presided Cromwell, the

Lord Chancellor, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, Anne's determined

enemies. On the 28th of April they began with Brereton, and committed

him to the Tower. On Sunday, the 31st, they examined Smeaton, and sent

him also to the same prison. The following day, being the 1st of May,

the court was suspended to celebrate the gaieties usual on that day; and

these were used for the purpose of obtaining a public cause of accusation

against Sir Henry Norris. There was to be held a tournament at Greenwich

that day, in which the Viscount Rochford was to be opposed by Norris as

the principal defendant.

In the midst of the tournament, Henry, who, no doubt, was watching for

some opportunity to entrap his victims, suddenly found one. The queen,

leaning over the balcony, witnessing the tournament, accidentally

let fall her handkerchief. Norris took it up, and, it was said,

presumptuously wiped his face with it, and then handed it to the queen on

his spear. The thing is wholly improbable, the true version most likely

being that the courtly Norris kissed the handkerchief on taking it up--an

ordinary knightly usage--and that this was seized upon as a pretended

charge against him. Henry, however, suddenly frowned, rose abruptly from

his seat, and, black as a thunder-cloud, marched out of the gallery,

followed by his six attendants. Every one was amazed; the queen appeared

terror-stricken, and immediately retired. Sir Henry Norris, and not only

Norris but Lord Rochford, who had had nothing whatever to do with the

handkerchief (showing, therefore, that the matter was preconcerted), was

arrested at the barriers on a charge of high treason. The queen herself

was taken to her lodgings in the Tower.

[Illustration: ANNE BOLEYN. (_After the Portrait by Holbein._)]

Left alone in her prison, Anne's affliction seemed to actually disturb

her intellect. She would sit for hours plunged in a stupor of melancholy,

shedding torrents of tears, and then she would abruptly burst into wild

laughter. To her attendants she would say that she should be a saint in

heaven; that no rain would fall on the earth till she was delivered from

prison; and that the most grievous calamities would oppress the nation in

punishment for her death. At other times she became calm and devotional,

and requested that a consecrated host might be placed in her closet.

But the unhappy queen was not suffered to enjoy much retirement. It

was necessary for Henry to establish a charge against her sufficiently

strong to turn the feeling of the nation against her, and from him; and

for this purpose no means were neglected which tyranny and harshness

of the intensest kind could suggest. Whilst the accused gentlemen were

interrogated, threatened, cajoled, and even put to the torture in their

cells, to force a confession of guilt from them, two women were set over

Anne to watch her every word, look, and act, to draw from her in her

unguarded conversation everything they could to implicate her, and, no

doubt, to invent and colour where the facts did not sufficiently answer

the purpose required. These were Lady Boleyn, the wife of Anne's uncle,

Sir Edward Boleyn, a determined enemy of hers, and Mrs. Cosyns, the

wife of Anne's master of the horse, a creature of the most unprincipled

character.

Mrs. Cosyns asked her why Norris had told his almoner on the preceding

Saturday "that he could swear the queen was a good woman?" "Marry,"

replied Anne, "I bade him do so, for I asked him why he did not go on

with his marriage, and he made answer that he would tarry awhile. 'Then,'

said I, 'you look for dead men's shoes. If aught but good should come to

the king [who was then afflicted with a dangerous ulcer], you would look

to have me.' He denied it, and I told him I could undo him if I would."

Again, the queen expressed some apprehension of what Weston might say

in his examination, for he had told her on Whit Monday last that Norris

came into her chamber more for her sake than for Madge, one of her maids

of honour. She had told him he did love her kinswoman, Mrs. Skelton,

and that he loved not his wife; and he answered again that he loved one

in his house better than them both. She asked him who, and he said,

"Yourself," on which she defied him. Such was the stuff which Kingston

gathered at the hands of these wretched spies, to be used against the

queen, who was to be got rid of.

Anne exhorted Kingston to convey a letter from her to Cromwell, but he

declined such a responsibility; she contrived, however, by some means, on

the fourth day of her imprisonment, to forward a letter, which conveys a

very different impression from the conversation reported by the female

spies, through Cromwell to the king.

"Never," she wrote, "did I at any time so far forget myself in my

exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such

alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no

surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least alteration was fit

and sufficient (I knew) to draw that fancy to some other object.

"Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn

enemies sit as my accusers and as my judges; yea, let me receive an open

trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame. Then shall you see either

mine innocency cleared, your suspicions and conscience satisfied, the

ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared."

This letter, a copy of which was found amongst the papers of Cromwell,

when his turn came to pay the penalty of serving that remorseless tyrant,

is the letter of an innocent woman, and forms a strange contrast to the

dubious language put into her mouth by those who reported her speech on

the scaffold.

On the 10th of May an indictment for high treason was found by the grand

jury of Westminster against Anne and the five gentlemen accused; and on

the same day the four commoners were put upon their trial in Westminster

Hall, for the alleged offences against the honour and life of their

sovereign lord. A true bill was also found against them by the grand

juries of Kent and Middlesex, some of the offences being laid in those

counties, at Greenwich, Hampton Court, &c. Smeaton, the musician, was the

only one who could be brought to confess his guilt; and it is declared by

Constantyne, who was in attendance on the trials, and wrote an account

of the proceedings, that he "had been grievously racked" to bring him to

that confession. According to Grafton's chronicle, he was beguiled into

signing the deposition which criminated the queen as well as himself,

by an offer of pardon like that so repeatedly made to Norris. The weak

man fell into the snare; the rest of the accused stood firmly by their

innocence, and neither threats nor promises could move them from it.

Norris was a great favourite with the king, who still appeared anxious

to save his life, and sent to him, offering him again full pardon if he

would confess his guilt. But Norris nobly declared that he believed in

his conscience that the queen was wholly innocent of the crimes charged

upon her; but whether she were so or not, he could not accuse her of

anything, and that he would rather die a thousand deaths than falsely

accuse the innocent. On this being told to Henry, he exclaimed, "Let him

hang then! hang him up then!" All the four were condemned to death.

On the 16th of May Queen Anne and her brother, Lord Rochford, were

brought to trial in the great hall in the Tower, a temporary court

being erected within it for the purpose. The Duke of Norfolk, a known

and notorious enemy of the accused, was created Lord High Steward for

the occasion, and presided--a sufficient proof, if any were needed,

that no justice was intended. His son, the Earl of Surrey, sat as

Deputy Earl-Marshal beneath him. Twenty-six peers, as "lords-triers,"

constituted the court, and amongst these appeared the Duke of Suffolk, a

nobleman still more inveterate in his hatred of the queen than the chief

judge himself. The Earl of Northumberland, Anne's old lover, was one

of the lords-triers; but he was seized with such a disorder, no doubt

resulting from his memory of the past, that he was obliged to quit the

court before the arraignment of Lord Rochford, and did not live many

months. Henry, by his tyranny, had forcibly rent asunder his engagement

with Anne; had embittered his life; and tired of the treasure which would

have made Northumberland happy, he now called upon that injured man to

assist in destroying one whom he had already lost.

Lord Rochford defended himself with such courage and ability that even

in that packed court there were many who, by their sense of justice,

were led to brave the vengeance of the terrible king, and voted for his

acquittal. The chief witness against him was his own wife, who had hated

Anne Boleyn from the moment that she became the king's favourite; and

now with a most monstrous violation of all nature and decency, strove to

destroy her queen and her own husband together. Spite of the impression

which the young viscount made on some of his judges, he was condemned,

for Henry willed it, and that was enough.

When he was removed Anne, Queen of England, was summoned into court, and

appeared attended by her ladies and Lady Kingston, and was conducted to

the bar by the Constable and Lieutenant of the Tower. She stood alone,

without counsel or adviser; yet in that trying moment she displayed a

dignified composure worthy of her station and of the character of an

innocent woman. Crispin, Lord of Milherve, who was present, says that

"she presented herself at the bar with the true dignity of a queen, and

curtsied to her judges, looking round upon them all without any signs of

fear." When the indictment against her, charging her with adultery and

incest, had been read, she held up her hand and pleaded not guilty.

Anne seems to have shown great ability and address on the occasion. She

is said to have spoken with extraordinary force, wit, and eloquence,

and so completely scattered all the vile tissue of lies that was brought

against her, that the spectators imagined that there was nothing for it

but to acquit her. "It was reported without doors," says Wyatt, "that

she had cleared herself in a most wise and noble speech." But, alas! it

was neither wisdom, wit, truth, innocence, eloquence, nor all the powers

and virtues which could be assembled in one soul, which could draw an

acquittal from that assembly of slaves bound by selfish terror to the

yoke of the remorseless despot who now disgraced the throne. "Had the

peers given their verdict, according to the expectation of the assembly,"

says Bishop Godwin, "she had been acquitted." But they knew they must

give it according to the expectation of their implacable master, and she

was condemned.

Henry lost no time in getting rid of the woman, to obtain whom he had

moved heaven and earth for years--threatening the peace of kingdoms, and

rending the ancient bonds of the Church. The very day on which she was

condemned, he signed her death-warrant, and sent Cranmer to confess her.

There is something rather hinted at than proved in this part of these

strange proceedings. Anne, when she was conveyed from Greenwich to the

Tower, told her enemies proudly that nothing could prevent her dying

their queen; and now, when she had seen Cranmer, she was in high spirits,

and said to her attendants that she believed she should be spared after

all, and that she understood that she was to be sent to Antwerp. The

meaning of this the event of next day sufficiently explained. In the

morning, on a summons from Archbishop Cranmer, she was conveyed privately

from the Tower to Lambeth, where she voluntarily submitted to a judgment

that her marriage with the king had been invalid, and was, therefore,

from the first null and void. Thus she consented to dethrone herself,

to unwife herself, and to bastardise her only child. Why? Undoubtedly

from the promise of life, and from fear of the horrid death by fire. As

she had received the confident idea of escape with life from the visit

of Cranmer, there can be no rational doubt that he had been employed by

the king to tamper with her fears of death and the stake, and draw this

concession from her. Does any one think this impossible or improbable in

Cranmer--the great Reformer of the Church? Let him weigh his very next

proceeding.

Cranmer had formerly examined the marriage of Henry and Anne carefully

by the canon law, and had pronounced it good and valid. He now

proceeded to contradict every one of his former arguments and decisions,

and pronounced the same marriage null and void. A solemn mockery of

everything true, serious, and Divine was now gone through. Henry

appointed Dr. Sampson his proctor in the case; Anne had assigned her

the Drs. Wotton and Barbour. The objections to the marriage were read

over to them in the presence of the queen. The king's proctor could

not dispute them; the queen's were, with pretended reluctance, obliged

to admit them, and both united in demanding a judgment. Then the great

Archbishop and Reformer, "having previously invoked the name of Christ,

and having God alone before his eyes," pronounced definitively that the

marriage formally contracted, solemnised, and consummated between Henry

and Anne was from the first illegal, and, therefore, no marriage at all;

and the poor woman, who had been induced to submit to this deed of shame

and of infamous deception, was sent back, not to life, not to exile at

Antwerp--but to the block!

[Illustration: ANNE BOLEYN'S LAST FAREWELL OF HER LADIES. (_See p._ 168.)]

Friday, the 19th of May, was the day fixed for her execution, and on

that morning she rose at two o'clock and resumed her devotions with

her almoner. She sent for Sir William Kingston to be witness to her

last solemn protest of her innocence before taking the sacrament. A few

minutes before twelve o'clock she was led forth by the Lieutenant of the

Tower to the scaffold. "Never," said a foreign gentleman present, "had

the queen looked so beautiful before." Her composure was equal to her

beauty. She removed her hat and collar herself, and put a small linen cap

upon her head, saying, "Alas! poor head, in a very brief space thou wilt

roll in the dust on the scaffold; and as in life thou didst not merit to

wear a crown, so in death thou deserved not better doom than this." She

then took a very affectionate farewell of her ladies. Having given to

Mary Wyatt, the sister of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who attended her through all

her trouble, the little book of devotions which she held in her hand, and

whispered to her some parting words, she laid her head on the block. One

of the ladies then covered her eyes with a bandage, and as the poor queen

was saying, "O Lord, have mercy on my soul," the executioner, who had

been sent for from Calais, severed her head from her body at one stroke

of the sword. Her body was thrust into a chest used for keeping arrows

in, and buried in the same grave with that of her brother, Lord Rochford,

no coffin being provided.

[Illustration: ST. PETER'S CHAPEL, TOWER GREEN, LONDON, WHERE ANNE BOLEYN

WAS BURIED.]

Henry now repealed the late act of settlement, and passed a new one

through the compliant Parliament, entailing the crown on the issue by

Jane Seymour, whom he married on the morning after Anne's execution.

He obtained, moreover, a power to bequeath the succession by letters

patent, or by his last will, in case of having no fresh issue of his own,

on any person whom he thought proper. In life and in death he demanded

absolute power over every principle of the Constitution, and this

Parliament, which would have granted him anything, conceded it. It was

well understood that he meant to cut off his daughters, and to confer the

crown on his illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond. But as if Providence

would punish him in the very act, this son died before he could give his

Royal assent to the bill.

But if Henry had found a very submissive body in the Parliament, there

was much discontent amongst the people, who were encouraged in their

murmurs by the monks who had been dispossessed of their monasteries

or who feared the approach of their fall, and by the clergy, who were

equally alarmed at the progress of the opinions of the Reformers in the

nation. There were two great factions in the Church and the Government,

the opposed members of which were denominated the men of the Old and

the New learning. At the head of the Old or Romanist faction were Lee,

Archbishop of York; Stokesley, Bishop of London; Tunstal, Bishop of

Durham; Gardiner, of Winchester; Sherbourne, of Chichester; Nix, of

Norwich; and Kite, of Carlisle. These received the countenance and

support of the Duke of Norfolk and of Wriothesley, the premier secretary.

The leaders of the Reforming faction were Cranmer, the Primate; Latimer,

Bishop of Worcester; Shaxton, of Salisbury; Hilsey, of Rochester; Fox, of

Hereford; and Barlow, of St. David's. These were especially patronised by

Cromwell, whose power as Vicar-General was great, and who was now made

Lord Cromwell by the king.

Each of these parties, supported by a large body in the nation,

endeavoured to make their way by flattering the vanity or the love of

power of the capricious king. The Papist party swayed him to their side

by his love of the old doctrines and rites; the Reformers, by his pride

in opposing the Pope, and the gratification of his love of power as the

independent head of the Church. In this transition state of things, the

doctrines of the English Church, as settled by Convocation, exhibited

a singular medley, and were liable at any moment to be disturbed by

the momentary bias of the king, whose word was the only law of both

Church and State. The Reformers succeeded in having the standard of

faith recognised as existing in the Scriptures and the three creeds--the

Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian; but then the Romanists had secured the

retention of auricular confession and penance. As to marriage, extreme

unction, confirmation, or holy orders, it was found that there could

be no agreement in the belief in them as sacraments, and, therefore,

they remained unmentioned, every one following his own fancy. The

Real Presence was admitted in the sacrament of the Supper. The Roman

Catholics asserted the warrant of Scripture for the use of images; but

the Protestants denied this, and warned the people against idolatry in

praying to them. The use of holy water, the ceremonies practised on Ash

Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and other Festivals, were still

maintained, but Convocation, yielding to the Reformers, admitted that

they had no power to remit sin.

The Church being in this divided state, each party pushed its own

opinions and practice where it could, with the certain consequence

that there was much feud and heart-burning, and the people were pulled

hither and thither. In those places where the Reformers prevailed, they

saw the images thrown down or removed, the ancient rites neglected or

despised; and they felt themselves aggrieved, but more especially with

the ordinances of Cromwell as Vicar-General, who retrenched many of their

ancient holidays. He also incensed the clergy, by prohibiting the resort

to places of pilgrimage, and the exhibition of relics. These greatly

reduced the emoluments of the clergy, whom he on the other hand compelled

to lay aside a considerable portion of their revenues for the repairs of

the churches, and the assistance of the poor. This caused them to foment

the discontents of the people, and the thousands of monks now wandering

over the country, without home or subsistence, found ready listeners

in the vast population which had been accustomed to draw their main

support from the daily alms of the convents and monasteries. The people,

seeing all these ancient sources of a lazy support suddenly cut off by

Government, grew furious; and their disaffection was strengthened by

observing that many of the nobility and gentry were equally malcontent,

whose ancestry had founded monasteries, and who, therefore, looked upon

them with feelings of family pride, and, moreover, regarded them as a

certain provision for some of their younger children. There were many

of all classes who thought with horror of the souls of their ancestors

and friends, who, they believed, would now remain for ages in all the

torments of purgatory, for want of masses to relieve them.

All these causes operating together produced formidable insurrections,

both in the north and south. The first rising was in Lincolnshire. It

was headed by Dr. Mackrel, the Prior of Barlings, who was disguised like

a mechanic, and by another man in disguise, calling himself Captain

Cobbler. The first attack was occasioned by the demand of a subsidy for

the king, but the public mind was already in a state of high excitement,

and this was only the spark that produced the explosion. Twenty thousand

men quickly rose in arms, and forced several lords and gentlemen to

be their leaders. Such as refused, they either threw into prison or

killed on the spot. Amongst the latter was the Chancellor of Longland,

an ecclesiastic by no means popular. The king sent a force against them

under the Duke of Suffolk, attended by the Earls of Shrewsbury, Kent,

Rutland, and Huntingdon.

Suffolk found the insurgents in such force that he thought it best to

temporise, and demanded of them what they had to complain of. Thereupon

the men of Lincolnshire drew up and presented to him a list of six

articles of grievance. These consisted, first and foremost, of the

suppression of the monasteries, by which they said great numbers of

persons were put from their livings, and the poor of the realm were

left unrelieved. Another complaint was of the fifteenth voted by

Parliament, and of having to pay fourpence for a beast, and twelvepence

for every twenty sheep. They affirmed that the king had taken into his

councils personages of low birth and small reputation, who had got the

forfeited lands into their hands, "most especial for their singular

lucre and advantage." This was aimed by name, and with only too much

justice, at Cromwell and Lord Rich, who had grown wealthy on the spoils

of the abbeys. To these men they added the names of the Archbishop of

Canterbury, the Bishops of Rochester, Salisbury, St. David's, and Dublin,

whom they accused of having perverted the faith of the realm; and they

especially attributed the severe exactions on the people to the Bishop of

Lincoln and the officers of Cromwell, of whom it was rumoured that they

meant to take the plate, jewels, and ornaments of the parish churches, as

they had taken those of the religious houses.

The king answered by flatly refusing their petition, bidding them

meddle no more in the affairs of their undoubted prince, but deliver up

their ringleaders, and leave governing to him and his counsellors and

noblemen. This bluster appears to have frightened the simple clodhoppers

of the Fens; for we have, a few days later, another letter from the same

swelling hand, telling them that he has heard from the Earl of Shrewsbury

that they have shown a fitting repentance and sorrow for their folly

and their heinous crimes; and assuring them that in any other Christian

country they, their wives and children, would have been exterminated with

fire and sword. He orders them to pile their arms in the market-place of

Lincoln, and get away to their proper habitations and business, or, if

they remain a day longer in arms, he will execute on them, their wives

and children, the most terrible judgments that the world had ever known.

On the 30th of October, this frightened rabble, which seems to have been

led on and then deserted by the clergy and gentry, dispersed, having

first delivered up to the king's general fifteen of their ringleaders,

amongst whom were Dr. Mackrel, the Prior of Barlings, and Captain

Cobbler, said to have been a man of the name of Melton. These prisoners

were afterwards executed as traitors, with all the barbarities of the

age.

Scarcely, however, was the disturbance in Lincolnshire suppressed, when

a far more formidable one broke out in the north. The people there were

much more accustomed to arms, and their vicinity to the Scots created

alarm at Court, lest the latter should take advantage of the rising to

make an inroad into the country. The insurrection quickly spread over

Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Westmoreland, and Lancashire. The Lord

Darcy was conspicuous in it on the Borders, and there were calculated

to be not less than 40,000 men in arms. Henry was this time seriously

aroused, and sent Cromwell to the Jewel-house in the Tower to take as

much plate as he thought could possibly be spared, and have it coined to

pay troops, for he had no money in his coffers, notwithstanding all the

monasteries which he had seized. Wriothesley, the Secretary of State,

wrote from Windsor to Cromwell to expedite this business, superscribing

his letter, "_In haste--haste for thy life_;" and telling him that the

king appeared to fear much this matter, especially if he should want

money, "for on the Lord Darcy his Grace had no great trust."

As soon as money could be coined, a good sum was sent to the Duke

of Suffolk, who was posted at Newark, and who made free use of it

in buying over some of the ringleaders, and in sowing dissensions

among the insurgents. Meanwhile the Earl of Shrewsbury was made the

king's Lord-Lieutenant north of the Trent, and the Duke of Norfolk was

despatched into Yorkshire, to command there with 5,000 men. Robert Aske,

a gentleman of ability, was at the head of the rebel forces, and he had

given a religious character to the movement by styling it "The Pilgrimage

of Grace." Priests marched in the van, in the habits of their various

orders, carrying crosses and banners, on which were emblazoned the figure

of Christ on the cross, the sacred chalice, and the five wounds of the

Saviour. On their sleeves, too, were embroidered the five wounds, and

the name of Christ on their centre. They had all sworn an oath that they

had entered into the pilgrimage from no other motive than the love of

God, the care of the king's person and issue, the desire of purifying the

nobility, of driving base persons from the king, of restoring the Church,

and suppressing heresy.

Wherever they came, they compelled the people to join their ranks,

as they would answer it at the day of judgment, as they would bear

the pulling down of their houses, and the loss of their goods and of

their lives. They restored the monks and nuns to their houses as

they went along. The cities of York, Hull, and Pontefract had opened

their gates, and taken the prescribed oaths. The Archbishop of York,

the Lords Darcy, Lumley, Latimer, and Neville, with a vast number of

knights and gentlemen, gathered to their standard, either by free will

or compulsion, and the army presented a formidable aspect. But there

was already disunion in the host. The money of the Duke of Suffolk was

doing its work, and Wriothesley soon wrote that the insurgents were

falling to talking amongst themselves, and, if that went on, a pair of

light heels would soon be worth five pairs of hands to them. The Earl

of Cumberland repulsed them from his castle of Skipton; Sir Ralph Evers

defended Scarborough against them; Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, the

Earls of Huntingdon, Derby, and Rutland, took the field against them; and

they only managed to take Pomfret Castle, because the Lord Darcy and the

Archbishop of York, lying there, were supposed to be secretly in league

with them, and only made a show of force, which they might plead in case

of failure.

The insurgents, quite aware that the Government, which was attempting

to sow dissension among them by pretended negotiations, was but waiting

to seize and crush the leaders, again took the field in the very midst

of winter. On the 23rd of January, 1537, bills were stuck on the church

doors by night, calling on the commoners to come forth and to be true

to one another, for the gentlemen had deceived them, yet they should

not want for captains. There was great distrust lest the gentlemen had

been won over by the pardon and by money. The rebels, however, marched

out under two leaders of the name of Musgrave and Tilby, and, 8,000

strong, they laid siege to Carlisle, where they were repulsed; and, being

encountered in their retreat by Norfolk, they were defeated and put to

flight. All their officers, except Musgrave, were taken and put to death,

to the number of seventy. Sir Francis Bigot and one Hallam attempted to

surprise Hull, but failed; and other risings in the north proving equally

abortive, the king now bade Norfolk spread his banner, march through the

northern counties with martial law, and, regardless of the pardon he had

issued, punish the rebels without mercy.

As the monks had obviously been at the bottom of this commotion, Henry

let loose his vengeance especially upon them. He ordered Norfolk to go

to Sawley, Hexham, Newminster, Lanercost, St. Agatha, and all other

places that had made resistance, and there seize certain priors and

canons and send them up to him, and immediately to hang up "all monks and

canons that be in any wise faulty, without further delay or ceremony."

He ordered the Earl of Surrey and other officers in the north to charge

the monks there with grievous offences, to try their minds, and see

whether they would not submit themselves gladly to his will. Under these

sanguinary orders the whole of England north of the Trent became a scene

of horror and butchery, and ghastly heads and mangled bodies, or corpses

swinging from the trees. Nor did this admirable reformer of religion

neglect to look after the property of his victims. Their lands and goods

were all to be forfeited and taken possession of; "for we are informed,"

he says, "that there were amongst them divers freeholders and rich men,

whose lands and goods, well looked unto, will reward others that with

their truth have deserved the same."

Besides Aske, Sir Thomas Constable, Sir John Bulmer, Sir Thomas Percy,

Sir Stephen Hamilton, Nicholas Tempest, William Lumley, and others,

though they had taken the benefit of the pardon, were found guilty,

and most of them were executed. Lord Hussey was found guilty of being

an accomplice in the Lincolnshire rising, and was executed at Lincoln.

Lord Darcy, though he pleaded compulsion, and a long life spent in the

service of the Crown, was executed on Tower Hill. Lady Bulmer, the wife

of Sir John Bulmer, was burnt in Smithfield; and Robert Aske was hung in

chains on one of the towers of York. Having thus satiated his vengeance,

and struck a profound terror into all the disaffected, Henry once more

published a general pardon, to which he adhered; and even complied with

one of the demands which the insurgents had made, that of erecting by

patent a court of justice at York, for deciding lawsuits in the northern

counties.

On the 12th of October, 1537, Jane Seymour gave birth to the long-desired

prince, so well known afterwards as King Edward VI. This event took

place at the palace of Hampton Court, and the infant was immediately

proclaimed Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester. The

joy on so greatly desired an occurrence may be imagined, though it

was somewhat dashed by the death of the queen, which took place only

twelve days afterwards. During the confinement there was some question

whether the life of the mother or of the child should be sacrificed,

and on the question being put to the king, which should be spared, he

characteristically replied, "The child by all means, for other wives

can be easily found." The queen's death, however, was occasioned by

the absurd exposure which the pompous christening necessitated. Henry

appeared to be grieved when her death really took place, and put on

mourning, which he had never done for his wives before, and never did

again. He wore it three months.

[Illustration: THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. (_See p._ 171.)]

By the accession of Queen Jane a new family, greedy and insatiable of

advancement, was brought forward, whom we shall soon find figuring on

the scene. The queen's brothers, sisters, uncles, and cousins presently

filled every great and lucrative office at Court; closely imitating the

unpopular precedent of the relations of Elizabeth Woodville. Her eldest

brother, Edward Seymour, was immediately made Lord Beauchamp and Earl of

Hertford; and, in the joy of having an heir, Henry created Sir William

Paulet Lord St. John and Sir John Russell Lord Russell. Sir William

Fitzwilliam was made Earl of Southampton, and High-Admiral. Russell and

Paulet were sworn of the Privy Council; and John Russell, now in high

favour with the king, attended the wedding, flattered the bride, and

became, in the next reign, Earl of Bedford. Queen Jane received all

the rites of the Roman Catholic Church on her death-bed; thus clearly

denoting that neither she nor her husband was of the Protestant faith.

Any grief which might have affected Henry for his wife's death did

not prevent him from prosecuting his favourite design of seizing rich

monasteries and destroying heretics. The great amount of property

which Henry had obtained from the dissolution of monastic houses

only stimulated him and his courtiers to invade the remainder. The

insurrections laid the inmates of these houses open to a general charge

that they had everywhere fomented, and in many places taken public part

in, these attempts to resist Government. Prosecutions for high treason

and menaces of martial law induced many of the more timid abbots and

priors to resign their trusts into the hands of the king and his heirs

for ever. Others--like the prior of Henton, in Somersetshire--resisted,

declaring that it did not become them "to be light and hasty in giving up

those things which were not theirs to give, being dedicated to Almighty

God, for service to be done unto His honour continually, with many other

good deeds of charity which be daily done in their houses to their

Christian brethren."

To grapple the more effectually with these sturdy remonstrants, a new

visitation was appointed of all the monasteries in England; and, as a

pretence only was wanted for their suppression, it was not difficult to

find one where so many great men were eager to share in the spoils. But,

while the destruction of the monasteries found many advocates, there

were not wanting some who recommended the retention of those convents

for women which had maintained order and a good reputation. But the king

would hear of nothing but that all should be swept away together; and

the better to prepare the public mind for so complete a revolution in

social life, every means was employed to represent these establishments

as abodes of infamy, and to expose the relics preserved in their shrines

to ridicule, as impostures which deluded the ignorant people.

The work of suppressing the monasteries and convents went on briskly,

for, says Bishop Godwin, "the king continued much prone to reformation,

especially if anything might be gotten by it." The Earl of Sussex and

a body of Commissioners were despatched to the north, to inquire into

the conduct of the religious houses there, and great stress was laid on

the participation of the monks in the insurrection of the Pilgrimage of

Grace. The abbeys of Furness and Whalley were particularly rich; and

though little concern with the rebellion could be traced to the inmates,

yet the Commissioners never rested till, by persuasion and intimidation,

they had induced the abbots to surrender these houses into their hands.

The success of the Earl of Sussex and his associates led to similar

Commissions in the south, and for four years the process was going on

without an Act of Parliament.

The system generally adopted was this:--First, tempting offers of

pensions were held out to the superiors and the monks or nuns, and

in proportion to the obstinacy in complying was the smallness of the

pension. The pensions to superiors varied, according to the wealth and

rank of their houses, from £266 to £6 per annum. The priors of cells

received generally £13. A few, whose services merited the distinction,

£20. The monks received from £2 to £6 per annum, with a small sum in hand

for immediate need. Nuns got about £4. That was the first and persuasive

process; but, if this failed, intimidation was resorted to. The superior

and his monks, tenants, servants, and neighbours, were subjected to a

rigorous and vexatious examination. The accounts of the house were called

for, and were scrutinised minutely, and all moneys, plate, and jewels

ordered to be produced. There was a severe inquiry into the morals of

the members, and one was encouraged to accuse another. Obstinate and

refractory members were thrown into prison, and many died there--amongst

them, the monks of the Charterhouse, London.

In 1539 a bill was brought into Parliament, vesting in the Crown all the

property, movable and immovable, of the monastic establishments which

were already, or which should be hereafter, suppressed, abolished, or

surrendered, and, by 1540, the whole of this branch of the ecclesiastical

property was in the hands of the king, or of the courtiers and parasites

who surrounded him, like vultures, gorging themselves with the fallen

carcase. The total number of such establishments suppressed from first

to last by Henry was 655 monasteries--of which 28 had abbots enjoying a

seat in Parliament--90 colleges, 2,374 chantries and free chapels, and

110 hospitals. The whole of the revenue of this property, as paid to

superiors of these houses, was £161,000. The whole income of the kingdom

at that period was rated at £4,000,000, so that the monastic property was

apparently one twenty-fifth of the national estate; but as the monastic

lands were let on long leases, and at very low rents, in the hands of the

new proprietors it would prove of vastly higher value.

Henry distributed the property among his greedy courtiers as fast as it

came, and never was so magnificent a property so speedily dissipated.

What did not go amongst the Seymours, the Essexes, the Howards, the

Russells, and the like, went in the most lavish manner on the king's

pleasures and follies. He is said to have given a woman who introduced a

pudding to his liking the revenue of a whole convent. Pauperism, instead

of being extinguished, was increased to a degree which astonished every

one. Such crowds had been supported by the monks and nuns as the public

had no adequate idea of, till they were thrown destitute and desperate

into the streets and the highways, and at length became such a national

burden and nuisance as in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth to

cause the introduction of the poor-law system. The aristocracy, in fact,

usurped the fund for the support of the poor, and threw them on the

nation at large.

Education received an equal shock. The schools supported by the

monasteries fell with them. The new race of noblemen who got the funds

did nothing to continue them. Religion suffered also, for the wealth

which might have founded efficient incomes for good preachers was gone

into private hands, and such miserable stipends were paid to the working

clergy, that none but poor and unlettered men would accept them.

It is only justice to Cranmer to say that he saw this waste of public

property with concern, and would have had it appropriated to the

purposes of education and religion, and the relief of the poor; but

he was too timid to lay the matter before the Royal prodigal. Yet the

murmurs of the people induced Henry to think of establishing a number

of bishoprics, deaneries, and colleges, with a portion of the lands of

the suppressed monasteries. He had an act passed through Parliament

for the establishment of eighteen bishoprics, but it was found that

the property intended for these was cleverly grasped by some of his

courtiers, and only six out of the eighteen could be erected, namely,

Westminster, Oxford, Peterborough, Bristol, Chester, and Gloucester; and

some of these were so meagrely endowed that the new prelates had much

ado for a considerable time to live. At the same time Henry converted

fourteen abbeys and priories into cathedral and collegiate churches,

attaching to each a deanery and a certain number of prebendaries. These

were Canterbury, Rochester, Westminster, Winchester, Bristol, Gloucester,

Worcester, Chester, Burton-upon-Trent, Carlisle, Durham, Thornton,

Peterborough, and Ely. But he retained a good slice of the property

belonging to them, and, at the same time, imposed on the chapters the

obligations of paying a considerable sum to the repair of the highways,

and another sum to the maintenance of the poor.

At the same time that Henry had been squandering the monastic property,

and had falsified his promises of making the Crown independent of

taxation, by coming to Parliament within twelve months for a subsidy

of two-tenths and two-fifteenths, he had all along been riveting the

doctrines of the Church of Rome faster on the nation, and persecuting

those who questioned them. The Lower House of Convocation drew up a list

of fifty-nine propositions, which it denounced as heresies, extracted

from the publications of different Reformers, and presented it to the

Upper House. On this, Henry, who believed himself a greater theologian

than any in either house of Convocation, drew up, with the aid of some

of the prelates, a book of "Articles" which was presented by Cromwell

to Convocation, and there subscribed. This was then carried through

Parliament, and became termed too justly the "Bloody Statute," for a more

terrible engine of persecution never existed.

No sooner had the statute of the Six Articles passed, than Latimer and

Shaxton, the Bishops of Worcester and Salisbury, resigned their sees; and

Cranmer, who had been living openly with his wife and children, seeing

the king's determination to enforce the celibacy of the clergy, sent off

his family to Germany, and made himself outwardly conformable to the

law. At the end of the year 1539, the king put to death, in Smithfield,

three victims of his intolerance. The first two were a man and a woman

who were Anabaptists. The third was John Lambert, formerly a priest, who

had become a schoolmaster in London. He was a Reformer, and denied the

doctrine which Henry was now enforcing under the penalty of death, that

the Real Presence existed in the bread and wine.

During the whole of the years 1538 and 1539 Henry was, nevertheless, not

only grown suspicious of his subjects, but greatly alarmed at the rumours

of a combination between the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of France

against him. It was rumoured that Cardinal Pole, his relative, who had

rigorously opposed the divorce, was assisting in this scheme, and as

Henry could not reach him, on account of Pole's flight to the Continent,

he determined to take vengeance on his relatives and friends in England.

A truce for ten years was concluded under the Papal mediation, between

Charles and Francis, at Nice, in June, 1538. The two monarchs urged Paul

to publish his bull of excommunication against Henry, which had been

reserved so long, and Henry, whose spies soon conveyed to him these

tidings, immediately ordered his fleet to be put in a state of activity,

his harbours of defence strengthened, and the whole population to be

called under arms, in expectation of a combined attack.

But at this conference Cardinal Pole had been present, and Henry directly

attributed the scheme of invasion to him. At once, therefore, he let

loose his fury on his relatives and friends in England. Becket, the

usher, and Wrothe, server of the Royal chamber, were despatched into

Cornwall to collect some colour of accusation against Henry Courtenay,

the Marquis of Exeter, and his adherents and dependents. The marquis and

marchioness were soon arrested, as well as Sir Geoffrey Pole and Lord

Montagu, brothers of the cardinal, and Sir Edward Neville, a brother of

Lord Abergavenny. Two priests, Croft and Collins, and Holland, a mariner,

were also arrested, and lodged in the Tower. On the last day of 1538 the

marquis and Lord Montagu were tried before some of the peers, but not

before their peers in Parliament, for Parliament was not sitting. The

commoners were brought to trial before juries; and all on a charge of

having conspired to place Reginald Pole, late Dean of Exeter, the king's

enemy, on the throne. The king's ministers declared that the charge was

well proved, but no such proofs were ever published, which, we may be

sure, would have been had they existed.

[Illustration: GATEWAY OF KIRKHAM PRIORY.]

The fact was, those noblemen were descended directly from the old

Royal line of England: Courtenay was grandson to Edward IV., through

his daughter Catherine, and the Poles were grandsons to George, Duke

of Clarence, the brother of Edward. All had a better title to the

throne than Henry, and this, combined with their connection with the

cardinal, was the cause of the tyrant's enmity. If these prisoners

had been inclined to treason, they had had the fairest opportunity of

showing it during the northern insurrection, but they had taken no part

in it whatever. But Henry had determined to wreak his vengeance, which

could not reach the cardinal, on them; and the servile peers and courts

condemned them. It was said that Sir Geoffrey Pole, to save his own life,

consented to give evidence against the rest--secretly it must have been,

for it was never produced. His life, therefore, was spared, but the

rest were executed. Lord Montagu, the Marquis of Exeter, and Sir Edward

Neville were beheaded on Tower Hill on the 9th of January, 1539, and Sir

Nicholas Carew, master of the king's horse, was also beheaded on the 3rd

of March, on a charge of being privy to the conspiracy. The two priests

and the mariner were hanged and quartered at Tyburn. A commission was

then sent down into Cornwall, which arraigned, condemned, and put to

death two gentlemen of the names of Kendall and Quintrell, for having

said, some years before, that Exeter was the heir apparent, and should be

king, if Henry married Anne Boleyn, or it should cost a thousand lives.

[Illustration: BEAUCHAMP TOWER, AND PLACE OF EXECUTION WITHIN THE TOWER

OF LONDON.]

But the sanguinary fury of Henry was not yet sated. The cardinal was sent

by the Pope to the Spanish and French courts to concert the carrying out

of the scheme of policy against England. Henry defeated this by means

of his agents, and neither Charles nor Francis would move: but not the

less did Henry determine further to punish the hostile cardinal. Judgment

of treason was pronounced against him; the Continental sovereigns were

called upon to deliver him up; and he was constantly surrounded by spies,

and, as he believed, ruffians hired to assassinate him. Meanwhile it was

said that a French vessel had been driven by stress of weather into South

Shields, and in it had been taken three emissaries--an English priest of

the name of Moore, and two Irishmen, a monk and a friar, who were said to

be carrying treasonable letters to the Pope and to Pole. The Irish monks

were sent up to London, and tortured in the Tower--a very unnecessary

measure, if they really possessed the treasonable letters alleged. On

the 28th of April Parliament was called upon to pass bills of attainder

against Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the mother of Cardinal Pole;

Gertrude, the widow of the Marquis of Exeter; the son of Lord Montagu,

a boy of tender years; Sir Adam Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley. This

was a device of Cromwell's, who demanded of the judges whether persons

accused of treason might not be attainted and condemned by Parliament

without any trial! The judges--who, like every one else under this

monster of a king, had lost all sense of honour and justice in fears for

their own safety--replied that it was a nice question, and one that no

inferior tribunal could entertain, but that Parliament was supreme, and

that an attainder by Parliament would be good in law! Such a bill was

accordingly passed through the servile Parliament, condemning the whole

to death without any form of trial whatever.

The two knights were beheaded on the 10th of July; the Marchioness of

Exeter was kept in prison for six months, and then dismissed; the son of

Lord Montagu, the grandson of the countess, was probably, too, allowed to

escape, for no record of his death appears; but the venerable old lady

herself, the near relative of the king, and the last direct descendant

of the Plantagenets, after having been kept in prison for nearly two

years, was brought out, and on the 27th of May, 1541, was condemned to

the scaffold. There she still showed the determination of her character.

Unlike many who had fallen there before her, so far from making any

ambiguous speech, or giving any hypocritical professions of reverence for

the king, she refused to do anything which appeared consenting to her

own death. When told to lay her head on the block, she replied, "No, my

head never committed treason; if you will have it, you must take it as

you can." The executioner tried to seize her, but she moved swiftly round

the scaffold, tossing her head from side to side. At last, covered with

blood, for the guards struck her with their weapons, she was seized, and

forcibly held down, and whilst exclaiming, "Blessed are they who suffer

persecution for righteousness' sake," the axe descended, and her head

fell.

But, the time of Cromwell himself was coming. The block was the pretty

certain goal of Henry's ministers. The more he caressed and favoured

them, the more certain was that result. Reflecting anxiously on the

critical nature of his position, the deep and unprincipled minister came

to the conclusion that the only mode of regaining his influence with the

king was to promote a Protestant marriage. For a time at least Henry

allowed himself to be governed by a new wife, and that time gained might

prove everything to Cromwell. Circumstances seemed to favour him at this

moment. The king was in constant alarm at the combination between France

and Spain; and a new alliance with the Protestant princes of Germany,

if accomplished, would equally serve the purposes of the king and of

Cromwell. Now was the time for Cromwell, while Henry was chagrined by

these difficulties. He informed him that Anne, daughter of John III.,

Duke of Cleves, Count of Mark, and Lord of Ravenstein, was greatly

extolled for her beauty and good sense; that her sister Sybilla, the wife

of Frederick, Duke of Saxony, the head of the Protestant confederation

of Germany, called the Schmalkaldic League, was famed for her beauty,

talents, and virtues, and universally regarded as one of the most

distinguished ladies of the time. He pointed out to Henry the advantages

of thus, by this alliance, acquiring the firm friendship of the princes

of Germany, in counterpoise to the designs of France and Spain; and he

assured him that he heard that the sisters of the Electress of Saxony,

educated under the same wise mother, were equally attractive in person

and in mind, and waited only a higher position to give them greater

lustre, especially the Princess Anne.

The Duke of Cleves died on the 6th of February, 1539, and Henry

despatched Hans Holbein to take the lady's portrait. Being delighted

with the portrait--which agreed so well with the many praises written

of the lady by his agents--he acceded to the match; and in the month

of September the count palatine and ambassadors from Cleves arrived in

London, where Cromwell received them with real delight, and the king bade

them right welcome. The treaty was soon concluded; and Henry, impatient

for the arrival of his wife, despatched the Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam,

Earl of Southampton, to receive her at Calais, and conduct her to England.

On the 27th of December, 1539, Anne landed at Deal, having been escorted

across the Channel by a fleet of fifty ships. She was a thorough

Protestant, going into the midst of as thoroughly Papist a faction, and

to consort with a monarch the most fickle and dogmatic in the world. She

could speak no language but German, and of that Henry did not understand

a word. It would have required a world of charms to have reconciled all

this to Henry, even for a time, and of these poor Anne of Cleves was

destitute. That she was not ugly, many contemporaries testify; but she

was at least plain in person, and still plainer in manners. Both she and

her maidens, of whom she brought a great train, are said to have been

as homely and as awkward a bevy as ever came to England in the cause of

royal matrimony.

The impatient though unwieldy lover, accompanied by eight gentlemen of

his privy chamber, rode to Rochester to meet the bride. They were all

clad alike, in coats "of marble colour;" for Henry, with a spice of his

old romance, was going incognito, to get a peep at his queen without

her being aware which was he. He told Cromwell that "he intended to

visit her privily, to nourish love." On his arrival, he sent Sir Anthony

Browne, his master of the horse, to inform Anne that he had brought

her a new year's gift, if she would please to accept it. Sir Anthony,

on being introduced to the lady who was to occupy the place of the two

most celebrated beauties of the day, the Boleyn and the Seymour, was,

he afterwards confessed, "never so much dismayed in his life," but of

course said nothing. So now the enamoured king, whose eyes were dazzled

with the recollection of what his queens had been, and what Holbein and

his ambassadors had promised him should again be, entered the presence of

Anne of Cleves, and was thunderstruck at the first sight of the reality.

Lord John Russell, who was present, declared "that he had never seen his

highness so marvellously astonished and abashed as on that occasion."

Instead of presenting himself the new year's gift which he had brought--a

muff and tippet of rich sables--he sent them to her with a very cold

message, and rode back to Greenwich in high dudgeon. There, the moment

that he saw Cromwell, he burst out upon him for being the means of

bringing him, not a wife, but "a great Flanders mare." Cromwell excused

himself by not having seen her, and threw the blame on Fitzwilliam, the

lord admiral, who, he said, when he found the princess at Calais so

different from the pictures and reports, should have detained her there

till he knew the king's pleasure; but the admiral replied brusquely

that he had not had the choosing of her, but had simply executed his

commission; and if he had in his dispatches spoken of her beauty, it was

because she was reckoned beautiful, and it was not for him to judge of

his queen.

No way out of the marriage being found, orders were given for the lady to

proceed from Dartford, and at Greenwich she was received outwardly with

all the pomp and rejoicings the most welcome beauty could have elicited.

But still the mind of the mortified king revolted at the completion of

the wedding, and once more he summoned his council, and declared himself

unsatisfied about the contract, and required that Anne should make a

solemn protestation that she was free from all pre-contracts. Probably

Henry hoped that, seeing that she was far from pleasing him, she might be

willing to give him up; but though her just pride as a woman must have

been wounded by his treatment, and her fears excited by the recollection

of the fates of Catherine and Anne Boleyn, the princess could be no free

agent in the matter. The ambassadors would urge the impossibility of her

going back, thus insulting all Protestant Germany, and her own pride

would second their arguments on that side too. The ignominy of being sent

back, rejected as unattractive and unwelcome, was not to be thought of.

She made a most clear and positive declaration of her freedom from all

pre-contracts. On hearing this, the surly monarch fell into such a humour

that Cromwell got away from his presence as quickly as he could. Seeing

no way out of it, the marriage was celebrated on the 6th of January,

1540, but nothing could reconcile Henry to his German queen. He loathed

her person, he could not even talk with her without an interpreter; and

he soon fell in love with Catherine Howard, niece to the Duke of Norfolk,

a young lady who was much handsomer than Anne, but not well educated, and

greatly wanting in principle. From the moment that Henry cast his eyes

on this new favourite, the little remains of outward courtesy towards

the queen vanished. He ceased to appear with her in public. He began to

express scruples about having a Lutheran wife. He did not hesitate to

propagate the most shameful calumnies against her, declaring that she had

not been virtuous before her marriage.

Anne, in need of counsel, could find none in those who ought to have

stood by her. Cranmer, the Reformer, and Cromwell, the advocate of

Protestantism, and who had, in fact, brought about the marriage, kept

aloof from her. She sent expressly to Cromwell, and repeatedly, but in

vain; he refused to see her, for he knew that he stood on the edge of a

precipice already; that he had deeply offended the choleric monarch by

promoting this match; and that he was surrounded by spies and enemies,

who were watching for occasion for his ruin. There is no doubt whatever

that his ruin was already determined, but Cromwell was an unhesitating

tool of the quality which Henry needed; for it was just at this time

that Henry executed the relatives of Cardinal Pole, and probably it was

an object of his to load that minister with as much of the odium of

that measure as he could before he cast him down. Cromwell still, then,

apparently retained the full favour of the king, notwithstanding this

unfortunate marriage, but the conduct of his friends precipitated his

fate.

Bishop Gardiner, a bigoted Papist, and one who saw the signs of the

times as quickly as any man living, did not hear Henry's scruples about

a Lutheran wife with unheeding ears. On the 14th of February, 1540, he

preached a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, in which he unsparingly denounced

as a damnable doctrine the Lutheran tenet of justification by faith

without works. Dr. Barnes, a dependent of Cromwell's, but clearly a most

imprudent one, on the 28th of February, just a fortnight afterwards,

mounted the same pulpit, and made a violent attack on Gardiner and his

creed. Barnes could never have intimated to Cromwell his intention to

make this assault on a creed which was as much the king's as Gardiner's,

or he would have shown him the fatality of it. But Barnes, like a rash

and unreflecting zealot, not only attacked Gardiner's sermon, but got

quite excited, and declared that he himself was a fighting-cock, and

Gardiner was another fighting-cock, but that the _garden_-cock lacked

good spurs. As was inevitable, Henry, who never let slip an opportunity

to champion his own religious views, summoned Barnes forthwith before a

commission of divines, compelled him to recant his opinion, and ordered

him to preach another sermon, in the same place, on the first Sunday

after Easter, and there to read his recantation, and beg pardon of

Gardiner. Barnes obeyed. He read his recantation, publicly asked pardon

of Gardiner, and then, getting warm in his sermon, reiterated in stronger

terms than ever the very doctrine he had recanted.

The man must have made up his mind to punishment for his religious faith,

for no such daring conduct was ever tolerated for a moment by Henry. He

threw the offender into the Tower, together with Garret and Jerome, two

preachers of the same belief, who followed his example.

The enemies of Cromwell rejoiced in this event, believing that his

connection with Barnes would not fail to influence the king. So

confidently did they entertain this notion, that they already talked

of the transfer of his two chief offices, those of Vicar-General and

Keeper of the Privy Seal, to Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, and Clarke,

Bishop of Bath. But the king had not yet come to his own point of

action. Cromwell's opponents were, therefore, astonished to see him open

Parliament on the 12th of April, as usual, when he announced the king's

sorrow and displeasure at the religious dissensions which appeared in the

nation, his subjects branding each other with the opprobrious epithets

of Papists and heretics, and abusing the indulgence which the king

had granted them of reading the Scriptures in their native tongue. To

remedy these evils his Majesty had appointed two committees of prelates

and doctors--one to set forth a system of pure doctrine, and the other

to decide what ceremonies and rites should be retained in the Church or

abandoned; and, in the meantime, he called on both houses to assist him

in enacting penalties against all who treated with irreverence, or rashly

and presumptuously explained, the Holy Scriptures.

Never did Cromwell appear so fully to possess the favour of his

sovereign. He had obtained a grant of thirty manors belonging to

suppressed monasteries; the title of Earl of Essex was revived in his

favour, and the office of Lord-Chamberlain was added to his other

appointments. He was the performer of all the great acts of the State. He

brought in two bills, vesting the property of the Knights Hospitallers

in the king, and settling an adequate jointure on the queen. He obtained

from the laity the enormous subsidy of four-tenths and fifteenths,

besides ten per cent. of their income from lands, and five per cent. on

their goods; and from the clergy two-tenths, and twenty per cent. of

their incomes for two years. So little did there appear any prospect of

the fall of Cromwell, that his own conduct augured that he never felt

himself stronger in his monarch's esteem. He dealt about his blows on all

who had offended himself or the king, however high. He committed to the

Tower the Bishop of Chichester and Dr. Wilson, for relieving prisoners

confined for refusing to take the oath of supremacy; and menaced with

the royal displeasure his chief opponents, the Duke of Norfolk, and the

Bishops of Durham, Winchester, and Bath.

Yet all this time Henry had determined, and was preparing for his fall.

He appointed Wriothesley and Ralph Sadler Secretaries of State, and

divided the business between them. The king had met Catherine Howard, it

is said, at dinner at Gardiner's, who was Bishop of Winchester. As she

was a strict Papist, and niece to Norfolk, it was believed that this had

been concerted by the Catholic party; and they were not mistaken. She at

once caught the fancy of Henry. Every opportunity was afforded the king

of meeting her at Gardiner's; and no sooner did that worldly prelate

perceive the impression she had made, than he informed Henry that Barnes,

whom neither Gardiner nor Henry could forget, had been Cromwell's agent

in bringing about the marriage of Anne of Cleves; that Cromwell and

Barnes had done this, without regard to the feelings of the king, merely

to bring in a queen pledged to German Protestantism; and that, instead of

submitting to the king's religious views, they were bent on establishing

in the country the detestable heresies of Luther.

[Illustration: THOMAS CROMWELL, EARL OF ESSEX. (_After the Portrait by

Holbein._)]

Henry, whose jealousy was now excited, recollected that when he proposed

to send Anne of Cleves back, Cromwell had strongly dissuaded him, and as

Anne had now changed her insubordinate behaviour to him, he immediately

suspected that it was at the suggestion of Cromwell. No sooner had this

idea taken full possession, than down came the thunderbolt on the head

of the great minister. The time was come, all was prepared, and, without

a single note of warning--without the change of look or manner in the

king--Cromwell was arrested at the council-board on a charge of high

treason. In the morning he was in his place in the House of Lords, with

every evidence of power about him; in the evening he was in the Tower.

In his career, from the shop of the fuller to the supreme power in the

State, next to the king, Cromwell had totally forgotten the wise counsel

of Wolsey. He had not avoided, but courted, ambition. He had leaned to

the Reformed doctrines secretly, but he had taken care to enrich himself

with the spoils of the suppressed monasteries, and many suspected that

these spoils were the true incentives to his system of reformation. The

wealth he had accumulated was, no doubt, a strong temptation to Henry,

as it was in all such cases, and thus Cromwell's avarice brought its own

punishment. In his treatment of the unfortunate Romanists whom he had to

eject from their ancient houses and lands, his conduct had been harsh

and unsparing; and by that party, now in power, he was consequently hated

with an intense hatred; and this was a second means of self-punishment.

But above all, in the days of his power, he had been perfectly reckless

of the liberties and securities of the subject. He had broken down the

bulwarks of the Constitution, and advised the king to make his own

will the sole law, carrying for him through Parliament the monstrous

doctrine embodied in the enactment that the royal proclamation superseded

Parliamentary decrees, and that the Crown could put men to death without

any form of trial. Under the monstrous despotism which he had thus

erected, he now fell himself, and had no right whatever to complain.

Yet he did complain most lamentably. The men who never feel for others,

concentrate all their commiseration on themselves; and Cromwell, so

ruthless and immovable to the pleadings of his own victims, now sent the

most abject and imploring letters to Henry, crying, "Mercy, mercy!"

His experience might have assured him that, when once Henry seized his

victim, he never relented; and there was no one except Cranmer who

dared to raise a voice in his favour, and Cranmer's interference was so

much in his own timid style, that it availed nothing. His papers were

seized, his servants interrogated, and out of their statements, whatever

they were--for they were never produced in any court--the accusations

were framed against him. These consisted in the charges of his having,

as minister, received bribes, and encroached on the royal authority

by issuing commissions, discharging prisoners, pardoning convicts,

and granting licences for the exportation of prohibited merchandise.

As Vicar-General, he was charged with having not only held heretical

opinions himself, but also with protecting heretical preachers, and

promoting the circulation of heretical books. Lastly, there was added

one of those absurd, gratuitous assertions, which Henry always threw

in to make the charge amount to high treason, namely, that Cromwell had

expressed his resolve to fight against the king himself, if necessary, in

support of his religious opinions; and Mount was instructed to inform the

German princes that Cromwell had threatened to strike a dagger into the

heart of the man who should oppose the Reformation, which, he said, meant

the king. He demanded a public trial, but was refused, being only allowed

to face his accusers before the Commissioners. Government then proceeded

against him by bill of attainder, and thus, on the principle that he had

himself established, he was condemned without trial, even Cranmer voting

in favour of the attainder. His fate was delayed for more than a month,

during which time he continued to protest his innocence, with a violence

which stood in strong contrast to his callousness to the protestations of

others, wishing that God might confound him, that the vengeance of God

might light upon him, that all the devils in hell might confront him,

if he were guilty. He drew the most lamentable picture of his forlorn

and miserable condition, and offered to make any disclosures demanded of

him; but though nothing would have saved him, unluckily for him, Henry

discovered among his papers his secret correspondence with the princes

of Germany. He gave the royal assent to the bill of attainder, and in

five days--namely, on the 28th of July--Cromwell was led to the scaffold,

where he confessed that he had been in error, but had now returned to

the truth, and died a good Catholic. He fell detested by every man of

his own party, exulted over by the Papist section of the community, and

unregretted by the people, who were just then smarting under the enormous

subsidy he had imposed. As if to render his execution the more degrading,

Lord Hungerford, a nobleman charged with revolting crimes, was beheaded

with him.