CHAPTER IX.

REIGN OF HENRY VIII. (_concluded_).

Divorce of Anne of Cleves--Catherine Howard's Marriage and

Death--Fresh Persecutions--Welsh Affairs--The Irish Insurrection

and its Suppression--Scottish Affairs--Catholic Opposition

to Henry--Outbreak of War--Battle of Solway Moss--French and

English Parties in Scotland--Escape of Beaton--Triumph of the

French Party--Treaty between England and Germany--Henry's Sixth

Marriage--Campaign in France--Expedition against Scotland--Capture

of Edinburgh--Fresh Attempt on England--Cardinal Beaton and

Wishart--Death of the Cardinal--Struggle between the Two Parties

in England--Death of Henry.

The death of Cromwell was quickly followed by the divorce of Anne of

Cleves. The queen was ordered to retire to Richmond, on pretence that the

plague was in London. Marillac, the French ambassador, writing to Francis

I., said that the reason assigned was not the true one, for if there had

been the slightest rumour of the plague, nothing would have induced Henry

to remain; "for the king is the most timid person in the world in such

cases." It was the preliminary step to the divorce, and as soon as she

was gone, Henry put in motion all his established machinery for getting

rid of wives. The Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke

of Norfolk, and others of the king's ministers, procured a petition to be

got up and presented to his Majesty, stating that the House had doubts

of the validity of the king's marriage, and consequently were uneasy

as to the succession, and prayed the king to submit the question to

Convocation. Of course, Henry could refuse nothing to his faithful peers,

and Convocation, accordingly, took the matter into consideration. The

marriage was declared--like his two former ones with Catherine and Anne

Boleyn--to be null and void; and the same judgment of high treason was

pronounced on any one who should say or write to the contrary. The queen

being a stranger to the English laws and customs, was not called upon to

appear personally, or even by her advocates, before Convocation.

All this being settled, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Southampton, and

Wriothesley proceeded to Richmond, to announce the decision to the queen.

On the sight of these ministers, and on hearing their communication, that

the marriage was annulled by Parliament, the poor woman, supposing that

she was going to be treated like Anne Boleyn, fainted, and fell on the

floor. On her return to consciousness, the messengers hastened to assure

her that there was no cause of alarm; that the king had the kindest and

best intentions towards her; that, if she would consent to resign the

title of queen, he proposed to give her the title of his sister; to grant

her precedence of every lady except the future queen and his daughters,

and to endow her with estates to the value of £3,000 per annum.

Anne received some of the spoils of the fallen Cromwell in different

estates which were made over to her for life, including Denham Hall, in

Essex. She resided principally at her palace of Richmond, and at Ham

House; but we find her living at different times at Bletchingley, Hever

Castle, Penshurst, and Dartford. Though she was queen only about six

months, she continued to live in England for seventeen years--seeing two

queens after her, and Edward VI. and Queen Mary on the throne--greatly

honoured by all who knew her, and much beloved by both the princesses

Mary and Elizabeth. Not in seventeen years, but in sixteen months, she

saw the fall and tragedy of the queen who supplanted her; so that one

of her maids of honour, Elizabeth Bassett, could not help exclaiming

at the news, "What a man the king is! how many wives _will_ he have?"

For which very natural expression the poor girl was very near getting

into trouble. As for Anne herself, she appeared quite a new woman when

she had got clear of her terrible and coarse-minded tyrant, so that the

French ambassador, Marillac, wrote to his master that "Madame of Cleves

has a more joyous countenance than ever. She wears a great variety of

dresses, and passes all her time in sports and recreations." No sooner

was she divorced than Henry paid her a visit, and was so delighted by

her pleasant and respectful reception of him, that he supped with her

merrily, and not only went often again to see her, but invited her to

Hampton, whither she went, not at all troubling herself that another was

acting the queen.

Anne's marriage was annulled by Parliament on the 9th of July, and on the

8th of August Catherine Howard appeared at Court as the acknowledged

queen. For twelve months all went on well, and the king repeatedly

declared that he had never been happy in love or matrimony till now;

that the queen was the most perfect of women, and the most affectionate

of wives. To gratify his new queen, and to accomplish some objects of

importance, Henry this summer made a progress into the north, and took

Catherine with him. One object was to judge for himself of the state of

the northern counties, where the late insurrections in favour of the old

religion had broken out. He promised himself that his presence would

intimidate the disaffected; that he should be able to punish those who

remained troublesome, and make all quiet; but still more was he anxious

for an interview with his nephew, James V. of Scotland. The principles

of the Reformation had been making rapid progress in that country, and

the fires of persecution had been lit up by the clergy. Patrick Hamilton,

a young man of noble family, who had imbibed the new doctrines abroad,

and Friar Forrest, a zealous preacher of the same, had suffered at the

stake. But far more dangerous to the stability of the Catholic Church,

was the fact that the Scottish nobility, poor and ambitious, had learnt

a significant lesson from what had been going on in England. The seizure

of the monastic estates there by the king, and their liberal distribution

amongst the nobility, excited their cupidity, and they strongly urged

James to follow the example of his royal uncle. In this counsel they

found a staunch coadjutor in Henry, who never ceased exciting James to

follow his example, and, to make sure of his doing so, invited him to an

interview at York, to which he consented.

Notwithstanding great preparations had been made, the King of Scots

excused his coming. The very first announcement of such a project had

struck the clergy of Scotland with consternation. They hastened to

point out to James the dangers of innovation--the certain mischief of

aggrandising the nobility, already too powerful, with the spoils of the

Church--the jeopardy of putting himself into the hands of Henry and the

English, and the loss of the friendship of all foreign powers, if he was

induced by Henry to attack the Church, which would render him almost

wholly dependent on England. They added force to these arguments by

presenting him with a gratuity of £50,000; promised him a continuance

of their liberality, and pointed out to him a certain source of income

of at least £100,000 per annum in the confiscations of heretics. These

representations and gifts had the desired effect. James sent an excuse

to Henry for not being able to meet him at York; and the disappointed

king turned homeward in great disgust. The fascinations of the young

queen, however, soon restored his good humour, and they arrived at

Windsor, on the 26th of October, in high spirits.

Little did the uxorious monarch dream that he was at this moment standing

on a mine that would blow all his imagined happiness into the air and

send his idolised wife to the block. But at the very time that he and

Catherine had been showing themselves as so beautifully conjugal a couple

to the good people of the north, the mine had been preparing. It was the

misfortune of all the queens of Henry VIII. that they had not only to

deal with one of the most vindictive and capricious tyrants that ever

existed, but that they were invariably, and necessarily, the objects of

the hatred of a powerful and merciless party, which was ready to destroy

its antagonist, and, as the first and telling stroke in that progress, to

pull down the queen. Catherine Howard was now the hope of the Romanists.

She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, the most resolute lay-Papist in

the kingdom, and the political head of that party. The public evidences

of the growing influence of Catherine with the king in the northern

progress, had been marked by the Catholics with exultation, and by the

Protestants with proportionate alarm. Both Rapin and Burnet assert that

Cranmer felt convinced, from what he saw passing, that unless some means

were found to lessen the influence of the queen, and thus dash the hopes

of the Catholics, he must soon follow Cromwell to the block. A most

ominous circumstance which reached him was, that the royal party took up

their quarters for a night at the house of Sir John Gorstwick, who, but

in the preceding spring, had denounced Cranmer in open Parliament, as

"the root of all heresies," and that at Gorstwick's there had been held a

select meeting of the Privy Council, at which Gardiner, the unhesitating

leader of the Romanists, presided. It was the signal for the Protestants

to bring means of counter-action into play, and such means, unfortunately

for the queen, were already stored up and at hand.

It was discovered that the queen had been guilty of numerous

improprieties before marriage, chiefly with a man called Derham, and it

was now alleged that an intrigue had been going on between Catherine

and her cousin, Thomas Culpepper, in the northern progress, at Lincoln

and York, and that one night Culpepper was in the same room with the

queen and Lady Rochford for three hours. But when it was attempted to

establish this fact on the evidence of women in attendance, Catherine

Tylney and Margaret Morton, this evidence dwindled to mere surmise.

Tylney deposed that on two nights at Lincoln, the queen went to the

room of Lady Rochford, and stayed late, but affirmed "on her peril that

she never saw who came unto the queen and my Lady Rochford, nor heard

what was said between them." Morton's evidence amounted only to this,

that, at Pontefract, Lady Rochford conveyed letters between the queen

and Culpepper, _as was supposed_; and one night when the king went to

the queen's chamber, the door was bolted, and it was some time before

he could be admitted. This circumstance must have been satisfactorily

accounted for to Henry at the time, jealous person as he was, yet on such

paltry grounds was it necessary to build the charge of criminal conduct

in the queen.

[Illustration: CATHERINE HOWARD BEING CONVEYED TO THE TOWER. (_See p._

185.)]

On the 21st of January, 1542, a bill of attainder of Catherine Howard,

late Queen of England, and of Jane, Lady Rochford, for high treason; of

Agnes, Duchess of Norfolk, Lord William Howard, the Lady Bridgewater,

and four men and five women, including Derham and Culpepper, already

executed, was read in the Lords. On the 28th, the Lord Chancellor,

impressed with a laudable sense of justice, proposed that a deputation of

Lords and Commons should be allowed to wait on the queen to hear what she

had to say for herself. He said it was but just that a queen, who was no

mean or private person, but a public and illustrious one, should be tried

by equal laws like themselves and thought it would be acceptable to the

king himself if his consort could thus clear herself. But that did not

suit Henry: he was resolved to be rid of his lately beloved model queen;

and as there was no evidence whatever of any crime on her part against

him, he did not mean that she should have any opportunity of being heard

in her defence. The bill was, therefore, passed through Parliament,

passing the Lords in three and the Commons in two days. On the 10th of

February the queen was conveyed by water to the Tower, and the next

day Henry gave his assent to the bill of attainder. The persons sent

to receive the queen's confession were Suffolk, Cranmer, Southampton,

Audley, and Thirlby. "How much she confessed to them," Burnet says, "is

not very clear, neither by the journal nor the Act of Parliament, which

only say she confessed." If she had confessed the crime alleged after

marriage, that would have been made fully and officially known. Two days

afterwards, February 12th, she was brought to the block.

Thus fell Catherine Howard in the bloom of her youth and beauty, being

declared by an eye-witness to be the handsomest woman of her time, paying

for youthful indiscretions the forfeit of her life to the king, though

some think she had not sinned against him. So conscious was Henry of

this, that he made it high treason, in the Act of Attainder, for any one

to conceal any such previous misconduct in a woman whom the sovereign was

about to marry. With Catherine fell the odious Lady Rochford, who had

long deserved her fate, for her false and murderous evidence against her

own husband and Anne Boleyn.

Having thus destroyed his fifth wife, Henry now turned his attention

to the regulation of religious affairs and opinions. In 1539 he had

attempted to set up a standard of orthodoxy by the publication of "The

Institution of a Christian Man," or "The Bishops' Book," as it was

called, because compiled by the bishops under his direction. After that

he published his "Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian

Man," which was called "The King's Book." In this it was observable that,

instead of approaching nearer to the Protestant creed, he was going fast

back into the strictest principles of Romanism. He had allowed the people

to read the Bible, but he now declared that, though the reading of it was

necessary to the teachers of religion, it was not so necessary for the

learners; and he decreed, by Act of Parliament, that the Bible should

not be read in public, or be seen in any private families but such as

were of noble or gentle birth. It was not to be read privately by any but

householders and women who were well-born. If any woman of the ordinary

class, any artificer, apprentice, journeyman, servant, or labourer dared

to read the Bible, he or she was to be imprisoned for one month.

Gardiner and the Papist party were more and more in the ascendant,

and the timid Cranmer and the more liberal bishops were compelled not

only to wink at these bigoted rules, but to order "The King's Book,"

containing all the dogmas which they held to be false and pernicious, to

be published in every diocese, and to be the guide of every preacher.

By this means it was hoped to quash the numerous new sects which were

springing from the reading of the Bible, and the earnest discussions

consequent upon it. Such a flood of new light had poured suddenly into

the human mind, that it was completely dazzled by it. Opinion becoming

in some degree free, ran into strange forms. There were Anabaptists,

who held that every man ought to be guided by the direct inspiration

of the Holy Ghost, and that, consequently, there was no need of king,

judge, magistrate, or civil law, or war, or capital punishment. There

were Antinomians, who contended that all things were free and allowable

to the saints without sin. There were Fifth-Monarchy men; members of

the Family of Love, or Davidians, from one David George, their leader;

Arians, Unitarians, Predestinarians, Libertines, and other denominations,

whom we shall find abundant in the time of the Commonwealth. What was

strangest of all was to see King Henry, who would allow no man's opinion

to be right but his own, and who burnt men for daring to differ from

him, lecturing these contending sects on their animosities in his speech

in Parliament, and bidding them "behold what love and charity there

was amongst them, when one called another heretic and Anabaptist, and

he called him again Papist, hypocrite, and pharisee;" and the royal

peacemaker threatened to put an end to their quarrellings by punishing

them all. During the four remaining years of his reign, he burnt or

hanged twenty-four persons for religion--that is, six annually--fourteen

of them being Protestants. During these years "The King's Book" was the

only authorised standard of English orthodoxy.

It is now necessary to take a brief glance at the proceedings of

Henry's government in Ireland and Wales, and towards Scotland. In the

Principality of Wales the measures of the king were marked by a far

wiser spirit than those which predominated in religion. Being descended

from the natives of that country, it was natural that it should claim

his particular attention. Wales at that time might be divided into two

parts, one of which had been subjected by the English monarchs, and

divided into shires, the other which had been conquered by different

knights and barons, thence called the lords-marchers. The shires were

under the royal will, but the hundred and forty-one small districts or

lordships which had been granted to the petty conquerors, excluded the

officers and writs of the king altogether. The lords, like so many counts

palatine, exercised all sovereign rights within their own districts, had

their own courts, appointed their own judges, and punished or pardoned

offenders at pleasure. This opened up a source of the grossest confusion

and impunity from justice; for criminals perpetrating offences in one

district had only to move into another, and set the law at defiance.

Henry, by enacting, in 1536, that the whole of Wales should thenceforth

be incorporated with England, should obey the same laws and enjoy the

same rights and privileges, did a great work. The Welsh shires, with one

borough in each, were empowered to send members to Parliament, the judges

were appointed solely by the Crown, and no lord was any longer allowed to

pardon any treason, murder, or felony in his lordship, or to protect the

perpetrators of such crimes. The same regulations were extended to the

county palatine of Chester.

The proceedings of Henry in Ireland were equally energetic, if they were

not always as just; and in the end they produced an equally improved

condition of things there. Quiet and law came to prevail, though they

prevailed with severity. On the accession of Henry to the throne, the

portion of the island over which the English authority really extended

was very limited indeed. It included merely the chief sea-ports, with

the five counties of Louth, Westmeath, Dublin, Kildare, and Wexford.

The rest of the country was almost independent of England, being in the

hands of no less than ninety chieftains--thirty of English origin, and

the rest native--who exercised a wild and lawless kind of sway, and

made war on each other at will. Wolsey, in the height of his power,

determined to reduce this Irish chaos to order. He saw that the main

causes of the decay of the English authority lay in the perpetual feuds

and jealousies of the families of Fitzgerald and Butler, at the head

of which were the Earls of Kildare and of Ormond. The young Earl of

Kildare, the chief of the Fitzgeralds, who succeeded his father in 1520,

was replaced by the Earl of Surrey, afterwards the Duke of Norfolk, whom

we have seen so disgracefully figuring in the affairs of Anne Boleyn

and Catherine Howard, his nieces. During the two years that he held

the Irish government, he did himself great credit by the vigour of his

administration, repressing the turbulence of the chiefs, and winning the

esteem of the people by his hospitality and munificence.

Unfortunately for Ireland, Surrey had acquired great renown by his

conduct under his father at Flodden, and when Henry, in 1522, declared

war against France, he was deemed the only man fitted to take command of

the army. The government of Ireland, on his departure, was placed in the

hands of Butler, Earl of Ormond. In the course of ten years it passed

successively from Ormond again to Kildare, from Kildare to Sir William

Skeffington, and back for the third time to Kildare.

Kildare, relieved from the fear of Wolsey, who had now fallen, gave

way to the exercise of such acts of extravagance, that his own friends

attributed them to insanity. At the earnest recommendations, therefore,

of his hereditary rivals, the Butlers, he was called to London in

1534, and sent to the Tower. Still, he had left his Irish government

in the hands of his son, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald--a young man of only

one-and-twenty, brave, generous, but with all the impetuosity of Irish

blood. Hearing a false report that his father was beheaded in the Tower,

young Fitzgerald flew to arms. He appeared at the head of 140 followers

before the council, resigned the sword of State, and demanded war against

Henry of England.

Cromer, the Archbishop of Armagh, earnestly entreated him not to plunge

himself into a quarrel so hopeless as that with England; but in vain.

The strains of an Irish minstrel, uttered in his native tongue, had more

influence with him, for they called on him to revenge his father, to free

Ireland; and the incensed youth flew to arms. For a time success attended

him. He overran the rich district of Fingal; the natives flocked to his

standard; the Irish minstrels, in wild songs, stirred the people to

frenzy; and surprising Allen, the Archbishop of Dublin, on the very point

of escaping to England, and supposed to be one of the accusers of the

Earl of Kildare, they murdered him in presence of the young chief and his

brothers. He then sent a deputation to Rome, offering, on condition that

the Pope should give him the support of his sanction, to defend Ireland

against an apostate prince, and to pay a handsome annual tribute to the

Holy See. He sent ambassadors also to the Emperor, demanding assistance

against the prince who had so grossly insulted him by divorcing his aunt,

Queen Catherine. Five of his uncles joined him, but he was repulsed

from the walls of Dublin. The strong castle of Maynooth was carried by

assault by the new deputy, Sir William Skeffington; and in the month of

October Lord Leonard Gray, the son of the Marquis of Dorset, arriving

from England at the head of fresh forces, chased him into the fastnesses

of Munster and Connaught. On hearing of this ill-advised rebellion, the

poor Earl of Kildare, already stricken with palsy, sickened and died in

the Tower.

Lord Gray did not trust simply to his arms in the difficult country into

which the Fitzgeralds had retired; he employed money freely to bribe

the natives, who led him through the defiles of the mountains, and the

passable tracks of the morasses, into the retreats of the enemy. He

found the county of Kildare almost entirely desolated. Six out of the

eight baronies were burnt; and where this was not the case, the people

had fled, leaving the corn in the fields. Meath also was ravaged; and

the towns throughout the south of Ireland, besides the horrors of civil

war, found fever and pestilence prevailing, Dublin itself being more

frightfully decimated than the provincial towns. The English Government

sent very little money to the troops, and left them to subsist by

plunder; and they first seized all the cattle, corn, and provisions,

and then laid waste the country by fire. By March, 1535, Lord Thomas

Fitzgerald was reduced to such extremity that he wrote to Lord Gray,

begging him to become intercessor between the king and himself. Lord

Gray, there can be little doubt, promised Fitzgerald a full pardon, on

which he surrendered. But Skeffington wrote to the king that, finding

that O'Connor, his principal supporter, had come in and yielded, "the

young traitor, Thomas Fitzgerald, had done the same, without condition of

pardon of life, lands, and goods."

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF THE FITZGERALDS. (_See p._ 189.)]

But this assertion is clearly contradicted by the council in Dublin, who

wrote entreating the king to be merciful to the said Thomas, to whom they

had given comfortable promises. O'Connor had been too wise to put himself

into the power of Henry on the strength of any promises: he delivered

only certain hostages as security for his good behaviour; but Lord

Thomas was carried over to England by Lord Gray, where he was committed

to the Tower. Gray was immediately sent back to Ireland, with the full

command of the army there, and he was instructed above all things to

secure the persons of the five uncles of Lord Fitzgerald. Accordingly,

on the 14th of February, 1536, the council of Ireland sent to Cromwell,

then minister, an exulting message, that Lord Gray, the chief justice,

and others, had captured the five brethren, which they pronounced to

be the "first deed that ever was done for the weal of the king's poor

subjects of that land." They added, "We assure your mastership that the

said lord justice, the treasurer of the king's wars, and such others as

his grace put in trust in this behalf, have highly deserved his most

gracious thanks for the politic and secret conveying of the matter."

But the truth was, that this politic and secret management was one of

the most disgraceful pieces of treachery which ever was transacted--the

Fitzgeralds being seized at a banquet to which both parties had proceeded

under the most solemn pledges of mutual faith. They were conveyed at once

to London, and in February, 1537, the young earl and his five uncles

were beheaded, after a long and cruel imprisonment in the Tower. Their

unprincipled betrayer, however, did not long enjoy the fruits of his

treachery. He was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland as a reward for his

dishonourable service, but was soon removed on charges of misconduct,

committed to one of the very cells which his victims had occupied, and

was beheaded on Tower Hill, as a traitor, on the 28th of June, 1541,

ending his life, according to Godwin, very quietly and godlily. Gray

certainly deserved better treatment from Henry; for, though his conduct

was infamous to the Fitzgeralds, it was most useful to the English king.

The rival factions of Fitzgeralds and Butlers continuing to resist the

English power, Gray contended against them till, by his brilliant victory

at Bellahoe, he broke the power of O'Neill, the northern chieftain, and

confirmed the power of England. Yet, being uncle, by his sister, to the

last surviving male heir of the Fitzgeralds--Gerald, the youngest brother

of the unfortunate Lord Thomas, a boy of only twelve years of age--he

was accused of favouring his escape, and all his services were forgotten

by his ungrateful sovereign. The young Gerald Fitzgerald escaped to the

Continent by the aid of a sea captain of St. Malo, and ultimately to

Italy, where he lived under the patronage and protection of his kinsman,

Cardinal Pole, till he eventually recovered the honours and estates of

his ancestors, in the reign of Queen Mary, at the suggestion of the

cardinal.

After the recall of Lord Gray, O'Connor, O'Neill, M'Murdo, and the

O'Tooles excited fresh insurrections, but they were speedily put down,

and in 1541 Anthony St. Leger found both the Irish chiefs and the lords

of the pale eagerly outstripping each other in professions of loyalty.

In 1541 Henry raised Ireland from the rank of a lordship to that of a

kingdom, and granted letters patent to the Irish chiefs, by the advice

of Sir Thomas Cusake, though unwillingly. Thus, by securing them in

possession of their lands, and raising them to new honours, he gained

their devoted attachment. Henry gave them houses in Dublin, which they

were to inhabit when summoned as peers of the Irish Parliament. Ulick

Burke was made Earl of Clanricarde, Murroch O'Brien Earl of Thomond,

and the great O'Neill became henceforth known by his new title of

Earl of Tyrone. The Irish council was instructed to proceed with the

suppression of the monasteries, though cautiously, not urging the monks

too rigorously, lest they stirred up opposition, but desirably persuading

them that "the lands of the Church were his proper inheritance." These

matters were so well carried out, that the ascendency of England had

never appeared so firmly established since the first invasion of the

island by Henry II.

In Scotland the French and Catholic party was all powerful. James V.

married a French wife, Mary of Guise, in 1538, and in 1539 David Beaton

succeeded his uncle, James Beaton, in the primacy, when the Pope, to

add additional honours to so devoted a servant, presented him with a

cardinal's hat. It was at this crisis that the Pope, acting in concert

with France and Spain, sent Cardinal Pole to co-operate with the Scots in

annoying Henry, and James being applied to by the Pontiff Paul, declared

himself willing to unite with Francis I. and the Emperor in the endeavour

to convert or punish the heretical English king. As if to show Henry

that there was no prospect of any co-operation of James with him, the

fires of persecution were kindled by Beaton and his coadjutors against

the Protestants in that kingdom, and this again drove the Reformers

to make common cause with the Earl of Angus and other Scottish exiles

in England. Henry, to encourage the Protestants, and to warn James if

possible, sent to him his rising diplomatist, Sir Ralph Sadler, who

represented to James that Henry was much nearer related to him than were

any of the Continental sovereigns, and who endeavoured to prevent there

the publication of the bill of excommunication.

But it became necessarily a pitched battle between the Papist party in

Scotland and Henry. They beheld with natural alarm his destruction of

the Papal Church in England, an example of the most terrible kind to

all other national churches of the same creed; and Henry, on the other

hand, knew that so long as that faith was in the ascendant in Scotland,

there would be no assured quiet in his own kingdom. It was the one

proximate and exposed quarter through which the Pope and his abettors on

the Continent could perpetually assail him. From this moment, therefore,

Henry spared no money, no negotiation, no pains to break down the Roman

Catholic ascendency in Scotland.

In the spring of 1541 Cardinal Beaton, and Panter, the Royal secretary,

were despatched to Rome with secret instructions. This alarmed Henry, and

yet afforded him a hope of making an impression on his nephew whilst the

cardinal was away. Once more, therefore, he invited James to meet him at

York. Lord William Howard, who was his envoy on the occasion, induced

James to promise to meet Henry there, and we have seen him on his way

accompanied by his bride, Catherine Howard, to the place of rendezvous.

But James came not; and Henry, enraged, vowed that he would compel James

by force to do that which he would not concede to persuasion.

The Romanist party in Scotland were better pleased with a hostile than

a pacific position, for they greatly dreaded that Henry might at length

warp the king's mind towards his own views. The leaders on both sides

were, in fact, never at peace. On the one side, the exiled Douglases

were always on the watch to recover their estates by their swords, and

the fugitives in Scotland, on account of the Pilgrimage of Grace, were

equally ready to fight their way back to their homes and fortunes. In the

August of 1542, accordingly, there were sharp forays, first from one side

of the Border, and then from the other. Sir James Bowes, the warden of

the east marches, accompanied by Sir George Douglas, the Earl of Angus,

and other Scottish exiles, and 3,000 horsemen, rushed into Teviotdale,

when they were met at Haddenrig by the Earl of Huntly and Lord Home, who

defeated them, and took 600 prisoners.

Henry, having issued a proclamation declaring the Scots the aggressors,

ordered a levy of 40,000 men, and appointed the Duke of Norfolk the

commander of this army. He was attended by the Earls of Shrewsbury,

Derby, Cumberland, Surrey, Hertford, Rutland, with many others of the

nobility. This imposing force was joined by the Earl of Angus and

the rest of the banished Douglases who had escaped the slaughter at

Haddenrig. After some delay at York the royal army, issuing a fresh

proclamation, in which Henry claimed the crown of Scotland, advanced

to Berwick, where it crossed into Scotland, and, advancing along the

northern bank of the Tweed as far as Kelso, burned two towns and twenty

villages. Norfolk did not venture to advance farther into the country, as

he heard that James had assembled a powerful force, whilst Huntly, Home,

and Seton were hovering on his flanks. He therefore contented himself

with ravaging the neighbourhood, and then crossed again at Kelso into

England.

James, indignant at the invasion and the injuries inflicted on his

subjects, marched from the Burghmuir at Edinburgh, where he was encamped

at the head of 30,000 men, in pursuit of the English. But he soon found

that different causes paralysed his intended chastisement. Many of the

nobles were in favour of the Reformation, and held this martial movement

as a direct attempt to maintain the Papal power and the influence of

Beaton and his party. Others were in secret league with the banished

Douglases, who were on the English side; and there were not wanting those

who sincerely advised a merely defensive warfare, and pointed out the

evils which had always followed the pursuit of the English into their

own country. They urged the fact that Norfolk and his army, destitute of

provisions and suffering from the inclemency of the weather, were already

in full retreat homewards. But James would not listen to these arguments;

he burned to take vengeance on the English, and after halting on Fala

Muir, and reviewing his troops, he gave the order to march in pursuit of

Norfolk; but, to his consternation, he found that nearly every nobleman

refused to cross the Border. They pleaded the lateness of the season,

the want of provisions for the army, and the rashness of following the

English into the midst of their own country, where another Flodden Field

might await them.

James was highly exasperated at this defection, and denounced the

leaders as traitors and cowards, pointing out to them their unpatriotic

conduct, when they saw all around them the towns and villages burnt,

the farms ravaged, and the people expelled or exterminated along the

line of Norfolk's march. It was in vain that he exhorted or reproved

them; they stole away from his standard, and the indignant king found

himself abandoned by the chief body of his army. For himself, however,

he disdained to give up the enterprise. He despatched Lord Maxwell with

a force of 10,000 men to burst into the western marches, ordering him

to remain in England laying waste the country as long as Norfolk had

remained in Scotland. James himself awaited the event at Caerlaverock

Castle; but, discontented with the movements of Lord Maxwell, whom he

suspected of being infected by the spirit of the other insubordinate

nobles, he sent his favourite, Oliver Sinclair, to supersede Lord Maxwell

in the command.

[Illustration: SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES.

Moss-troopers returning from a Foray.

FROM THE PAINTING BY S. E. WALLER, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF BRITISH

ART.]

This was an imprudent step, calculated to excite fresh discontent, as

it very effectually did. The proud nobles who surrounded Maxwell threw

down their arms, swearing that they would not serve under any such royal

minion; the troops broke out into open mutiny; and in the midst of this

confusion, a body of 500 English horse riding up under the Lords Dacre

and Musgrave, the Scots believed it to be the vanguard of Norfolk's army,

and fled in precipitate confusion. The English, charging furiously at

this unexpected advantage, surrounded great numbers of the fugitives, and

took 1,000 of them prisoners. All these were sent to London, and given

into the custody of different English noblemen. Many of the prisoners

were believed to surrender willingly, as disaffected men who were ready

to sell their country to England; and others are said to have been seized

by border freebooters, and sold to the enemy. This was the battle of

Solway Moss.

The king was so overwhelmed with grief and resentment at this disgraceful

defeat, through the disloyalty of his nobility, that he returned to

Edinburgh in deep dejection. From Edinburgh he proceeded to the palace of

Falkland, where he shut himself up, brooding on his misfortunes; and such

hold did this take upon him, that he began to sink rapidly in health. He

was in the prime of his life, being only in his thirty-first year; of a

constitution hitherto vigorous, having scarcely known any sickness; but

his agonised mind producing fever of body, he seemed hastening rapidly to

the grave. At this crisis his wife was confined. She had already borne

him two sons, who had died in their infancy, and an heir might now have

given a check to his melancholy; but it proved a daughter--the afterwards

celebrated and unfortunate Queen of Scots. On hearing that it was a

daughter, he turned himself in his bed, saying, "The crown came with a

woman, and it will go with one. Many miseries await this poor kingdom.

Henry will make it his own, either by force of arms or by marriage." On

the seventh day after the birth of Mary, he expired, December 14th, 1542.

No sooner did Cardinal Beaton and his party learn that the king had

expired than, guessing all that Henry and his party in Scotland would

attempt, they took measures to secure the young queen and the sovereign

power. Beaton produced a will as that of James, appointing him regent

and guardian of the young queen, assisted by a council of the Earls of

Argyll, Huntly, and Murray. The Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, on the

other hand, declared this will to be a forgery, and being himself the

next heir to the throne, after the infant queen, he assumed the right to

make himself her guardian, and to order the kingdom for her. By means

of the Protestant nobles, as well as the vassals of his own house, and

the prevailing opinion that Beaton had forged the will, Arran succeeded

in establishing himself as regent on the 22nd of December, 1542, and

the Protestant influence was in the ascendant. It was now conceded that

Angus and the Douglases should be recalled from their exile, and they

quitted England in the following January, the Earl of Arran giving them

a safe-conduct.

It was a deadly warfare between the Protestant and Papal parties. A list

of 360 of the nobles and gentry was produced by Arran, which was said to

have been found on the person of the king, all of whom were proscribed

as heretics, and doomed to confiscation of their estates and other

punishments. This list, which the Romanists in their turn denounced as

forged, was vehemently charged on Beaton, who was said to have drawn it

up when the heads of the army refused to march into England. The Earl

of Arran himself stood at the head of the list. The cardinal, who saw

the imminent danger of his cause and party, despatched trusty agents

to France to solicit instant aid in money and troops, to defend the

interests and guard the persons of the queen-dowager, Mary of Guise,

and the royal infant. To hasten the movements of the house of Guise, he

represented the certain dependence of Scotland on England if the king of

England succeeded in accomplishing the marriage of the infant queen with

his son.

To silence the cardinal, he was seized and incarcerated in the castle of

Blackness, under the care of Lord Seton; and a negotiation was actively

carried on through Sir Ralph Sadler for the marriage of the infant

queen and the Prince of Wales. It was agreed that Mary should remain in

Scotland till she was ten years of age; that she should then be sent to

England to be educated; that six Scottish noblemen should be at once

delivered to Henry as hostages for the fulfilment of the contract; and

when the union of the two kingdoms should take place, Scotland should

retain all its own laws and privileges.

But though Beaton was in prison, his spirit was abroad. The clergy had

the highest faith in the talents and influence of the cardinal. They

considered his liberation as necessary to avert the ruin of their party,

and they put in motion all their machinery for rousing the people.

They shut up the churches, and refused to administer the sacraments or

bury the dead; and the priests and monks were thus set at liberty from

all other duties to harangue and influence the passions of the people.

Everywhere it was declared that Arran, the regent, had formed a league

with Angus and the Douglases, who had been so long in England, to sell

the country and the queen to England under the pretence of a marriage;

that this was what the English monarchs had long been seeking; and that

not only the Douglases, but Arran himself, were pensioned by Henry for

the purpose. That this was but too true, the State Papers amply prove.

Henry and his successors spared no money for this end; and the traitorous

bargaining of a great number of the Scottish nobles with the English

monarchs stands too well evidenced under their own hands.

[Illustration: THE FIRST LEVEE OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. (_See p._ 191.)

(_After the Picture by W. B. Hole, R.S.A._)]

At this juncture Cardinal Beaton managed to escape from his prison, from

which he had never ceased to correspond with and inspirit his party. How

he came to escape has been considered a mystery; but perhaps that mystery

is not very deep when we reflect that Lord Seton, in whose custody he

was, was a man, though related to the Hamiltons, yet of a most loyal

temper, and a decided Romanist. Seton negotiated with Beaton to give up

his castle of St. Andrews; and, as if this could not be accomplished

without the cardinal's presence on the spot, Seton allowed him to

accompany him, but with so small a force, that the moment the cardinal

stood in his own castle he declared himself at liberty, and Seton had

no power to say nay had he wished it. As no punishment or even censure

befell Lord Seton on this account, it is most probable that Arran

himself was cognisant of the scheme. What makes this more likely is that

Hamilton, the abbot of Paisley, the natural brother of Arran, the Regent,

had returned just before from France; and that he was at the bottom of

the plot may not unreasonably be supposed, from the fact that he very

soon exercised a powerful influence over the weaker mind of the Regent.

Through the means of the abbot, Beaton even attempted to accommodate

matters with Henry. He declared that he was sincerely desirous of the

union of the young queen and the Prince of Wales, so that there should be

peace between the countries, yet a peace preserving the independence of

each. But this independence of Scotland was the very thing which Henry

was determined to annihilate, and he pressed his desires for it with such

violence that all hopes of an amicable arrangement vanished.

[Illustration: VIEW IN ST. ANDREWS.]

Arran, alienated from the English Government by the imperious demands

of Henry, and alarmed at the progress of the Papist faction, took care

to proclaim his resolute resolve to oppose the aims of Henry, even to

the extremity of war, and he dismissed his Protestant chaplains, friar

Williams and John Rough; and such was the spirit of the people that

Glencairn and Cassillis, the most devoted partisans of England, declared

that they would sooner die than agree to the surrender of the French

alliance. Such, in fact, was the popular exasperation that Sadler dared

not appear in the streets; and the peers in the interest of Henry were

equally the objects of the public resentment.

To induce Henry to pause in his fatal career, Sir George Douglas

hastened to London, and prevailed on him to abate the extravagance of

his demands. The immediate delivery of the infant queen, the surrender

of the fortresses and of the Government into the hands of Henry, were

waived, and Douglas returned to Scotland, bearing proposals of marriage

of a more reasonable kind. Henry, however, did not abandon his schemes

in secret. In the Public Record office there is a memorandum in the hand

of Wriothesley, saying that "the articles be so reasonable, that if the

ambassadors of Scotland will not agree to them, then it shall be mete

the king's majesty follow out his purpose by force." Sir George Douglas

renewed the offer formerly made by Henry to Arran, of marrying the

Princess Elizabeth and his eldest son, and Sir George and Glencairn were

sent to London to assist the ambassadors in bringing the negotiation to

a close.

But Arran was assailed as vehemently on the other side by the cardinal,

and the queen-dowager, who was the real head of the party. They sent

Lennox to endeavour to win him over to their side, so that all Scotland

might unite against Henry. Lennox delivered a very flattering message

from Francis I. to the Regent, offering him both men and money to

resist any attempt of invasion by the English; but this failing, the

queen-dowager and Beaton prosecuted the negotiation with France, and it

was agreed that 2,000 men, under Montgomerie, Sieur de Lorges, should

be sent to Scotland. The queen and cardinal called on their partisans

to assemble their followers and garrison their castles, whilst Grimani,

the Pope's legate, was entreated to hasten to Scotland with a formidable

store of anathemas and excommunications. The clergy assembled in

convention at St. Andrews, and so ardent were they in the cause which

they believed to be that of the very existence of the Church, that

they pledged themselves to raise the sum required for the war against

England, and, if necessary, not only to melt down the church plate, and

to sacrifice their private fortunes, but to fight in person.

Whilst public opinion was in this state of fermentation, Henry VIII.,

irritated at the conduct of the cardinal and a large body of the nobles,

committed one of those rash and foolish acts, into which the wild fury

of his temper often precipitated him. After the proclamation of peace,

a fleet of Scottish merchant vessels, driven by a storm, took refuge in

an English port, where, under the recent treaty, they deemed themselves

safe. But Henry had just proclaimed war on France and, making that a

pretence, he accused them of carrying provisions to his enemies, and

detained them. At this outrage the people of Edinburgh surrounded the

house of Sadler the English ambassador, and threatened to burn him in

it if the ships were not restored. Arran, the governor, came in for

his share of the odium as the staunch ally of Henry; and the common

friends of Arran and Henry, the traitorous faction of Angus, Cassillis,

Glencairn, and the other barons under secret bond to England, proposed

to call out their forces for immediate war. These base sons of a brave

country asserted that the time was come for Henry to send a great army

into Scotland, with which they would co-operate, "for the conquest of the

realm."

Everything boded the immediate outbreak of a bloody war, when a

surprising revolution took place. On the 3rd of September, Arran declared

to Sir Ralph Sadler that he was devotedly attached to the interests of

Henry, and within a week afterwards he met the cardinal at Callender

House, the seat of Lord Livingston, and entered into a complete

reconciliation with him. A short time before Beaton had refused to hold

any intercourse with him for fear of his life, and now he was seen

riding amicably with him towards Stirling. This singular exhibition was

followed by Arran's renunciation of Protestantism; his return, with full

absolution, into communion with the Roman Church; his surrender of the

treaties with England, and the delivery of his son as a pledge of his

sincerity. So marvellous a conversion must have had powerful causes, and

they are only to be explained by the weakness of Arran's character, and

the artful and alarming representations of his more able brother, the

abbot of Paisley. This zealous partisan of both France and the cardinal

is said to have persuaded him that by renouncing the Papal supremacy,

and allying himself with the arch-enemy of Rome, Henry of England, he

was running imminent danger of the total loss of his titles, estates,

and claim to the Regency, which could only be maintained by the Pope

declaring valid the divorce of his father from his former wife. All

Scotland was now united in its enmity to England.

The year 1544 found Henry bent on war both with Scotland and France.

Francis had deeply offended him by disapproving of his divorce and murder

of Anne Boleyn, and by his refusal to follow his advice in repudiating

his allegiance to the Pope. Francis had declared that he was Henry's

friend, but only as far as the altar. Charles V., aggravated as had been

the conduct of Henry towards him, by his divorce of his aunt Catherine,

and the stigma of illegitimacy which he had cast on her daughter the

Princess Mary, was yet by no means displeased to observe the growing

differences between Henry and his rival Francis. He, therefore, like

a genuine politician, dropped his resentment on account of Catherine,

and professed to believe that it was time to bury these remembrances

in oblivion. The only obstacle to peace between them was the declared

illegitimacy and exclusion from the succession of Mary. Henry lost no

time in getting over this point. He had no need to confess himself

wrong; he had a staunch Parliament who would do anything he required.

Parliament, therefore, passed an Act restoring both Mary and Elizabeth

to their political rights. Nothing was said of their illegitimacy, but

they were restored to their place in the succession. Thus the Parliament

had gone backward and forward at Henry's bidding to such an extent that

now it was treason to assert the legitimacy of the princesses, and it was

treason to deny it; for if they were illegitimate they could not claim

the throne. It was treason to be silent, according to the former Act on

this head, and it was now treason to refuse to take an oath on it when

required. To such infamy did honourable members of Parliament stoop under

this extraordinary despot.

This sorry compromise having been accepted by the necessities rather than

the will of the Emperor, Henry and he now made a treaty on these terms:

1st, That they should jointly require the French king to renounce his

alliance with the Turks, and to make reparation to the Christians for

all the losses which they had sustained in consequence of that alliance;

2nd, That Francis should be compelled to pay up to the King of England

the arrears of his pension, and give security for a more punctual payment

in future; 3rd, That if Francis did not comply with these terms within

forty days, the Emperor should seize the duchy of Burgundy, Henry all

the territories of France which had belonged to his ancestors, and that

both monarchs should be ready to enforce their claims at the head of a

competent army.

As Francis refused to listen to these terms, and would not even permit

the messengers of the newly allied sovereigns to cross his frontiers, the

Emperor, who was now desirous of recovering the towns which he had lost

in Flanders, obtained from Henry a reinforcement of 6,000 men under Sir

John Wallop, who laid siege to Landrecies; whilst Charles himself, with a

still greater force, overran the duchy of Cleves, and compelled the duke,

the devoted partisan of France, to acknowledge the Imperial allegiance.

Charles then marched to the siege of Landrecies, and Francis approached

at the head of a large army. A great battle now appeared inevitable; but

Francis, manoeuvring as for a fight, contrived to throw provisions into

the town and withdrew. Imperialists and English pursued the retiring

army; and the English, by too much impetuosity, suffered considerable

loss. Henry promised himself more decided advantage in the next campaign,

which he intended to conduct in person. This he had not been able to make

illustrious by his presence; for he had been busily engaged with his

approaching marriage to a sixth wife.

The lady who had this time been elevated to this perilous eminence was

the Lady Catherine Latimer, the widow of Lord Latimer, already mentioned

for his concern in the Pilgrimage of Grace. She was born Catherine Parr,

a daughter of Sir Thomas Parr. She was fourth cousin to Henry himself,

and had been twice married previous to his wedding her. She was the

widow of Lord Borough, of Gainsborough, at fifteen, and was about thirty

when Henry married her, only a few months after the death of her second

husband, Lord Latimer.

Catherine Parr, as she still continues to be called, was educated

under the care of her mother at Kendal Castle, and received a very

learned education for a woman of those times. She read and wrote Latin

fluently, had some knowledge of Greek, and was mistress of several modern

languages. She is said to have been handsome, but of very small and

delicate features. At all times she appears to have been of remarkable

thoughtfulness and prudence, extremely amiable, and became thoroughly

devoted to Protestantism; and she may, indeed, justly be styled the first

Protestant Queen of England, for Anne of Cleves, though educated in the

Protestant faith, became a decided Papist in this country. It was not

till after the death of Lord Latimer that her Protestant tendencies,

however, were known; yet then, she seems to have made no secret of them,

for her house became the resort of Coverdale, Latimer, Parkhurst, and

other eminent Reformers, and sermons were frequently preached in her

chamber of state, which it is surprising did not attract the attention

of the king. The marriage took place on the 12th of July, 1543, in the

queen's closet at Hampton Court.

The spring of 1544 opened with active preparations for Henry's campaign

in France. During the winter, Gonzaga, the viceroy of Sicily, was

despatched to London by Charles, to arrange the plan of operations. An

admirable one was devised, had Henry been the man to assist in carrying

it out. The emperor was to enter France by Champagne, and Henry by

Picardy, and, instead of staying to besiege the towns on the route, they

were to dash on to Paris where, their forces uniting, they might consider

themselves masters of the French capital, or in a position to dictate

terms to Francis. In May the Imperialists were in the field, and Henry

landed at Calais in June, and by the middle of July he was within the

bounds of France, at the head of 20,000 English and 15,000 Imperialists.

But neither of the invaders kept to the original plan. Charles stopped by

the way to reduce Luxembourg, Ligne, and St. Didier. Had Henry, however,

pushed on with his imposing army to Paris, Francis would have been at the

mercy of the allies. But Henry, ambitious to rival the military successes

of Charles, and take towns too, instead of making the capital his object,

turned aside to besiege Boulogne and Montreuil. The Imperial ambassador,

sensible of the fatality of this proceeding, urged Henry with all his

eloquence during eleven days to push on: and Charles, to take from him

any further excuse for delay, hastened forward along the right bank of

the Marne, avoiding all the fortified towns. But when once Henry had

undertaken an object, opposition only increased his resolution, and he

lost all consciousness of everything but the one idea of asserting his

mastery. In vain, therefore, did Charles send messengers imploring him to

advance; for more than two months he continued besieging Boulogne, and

the golden opportunity was lost.

Francis seized on the delay to make terms with Charles. He sent to him

a Spanish monk of the name of Guzman, and a near relative of Charles's

confessor, proposing terms of accommodation. Charles readily listened

to them, and sent to Henry to learn his demands. These demands were

something enormous, and whilst Francis demurred, Charles continued his

march, and arrived at Château-Thierry, almost in the vicinity of Paris.

The circumstances of both Francis and Charles now mutually inclined them

to open separate negotiations. Francis saw a foreign army menacing his

capital, but Charles, on the other hand, saw the French army constantly

increasing between him and his strange ally, whom nothing could induce

to move from the walls of Boulogne. Under these circumstances Charles

consented to offer Francis the terms which he had demanded before the

war, and which he had refused; but now came the news that the English

had taken Boulogne, and the French king at once accepted them. The Treaty

of Crépy, as this was called, bound the two sovereigns to unite for the

defence of Christendom against the Turks, and to unite their families by

the marriage of the second son of Francis with a daughter of Charles.

Henry, on his part, having placed a strong garrison in Boulogne, raised

the siege of Montreuil, and returned to England, like a great conqueror,

as he always did, from his distant campaigns.

By the end of April a scheme to assassinate Cardinal Beaton, of which

Henry was cognisant, having failed, he was prepared to pour on Scotland

the vial of his murderous wrath. A fleet of a hundred sail, under the

command of Lord Lisle, the High Admiral of England, appeared suddenly

in the Forth. The Scots seem to have by no means been dreaming of such

a visitant, and it threw the capital into the greatest consternation.

In four days, such was the absence of preparation, such the public

paralysis, that Hertford was permitted to land his troops and his

artillery without the sight of a single soldier. He had advanced from

Granton to Leith when Arran and the cardinal threw themselves in his way

with a miserable handful of followers, who were instantly dispersed and

Leith was given up to plunder.

The citizens of Edinburgh, finding themselves deserted by the governor,

flew to arms, under the command of Otterburn of Redhall, the provost

of the city. Otterburn proceeded to the English camp and, obtaining an

interview with Lord Hertford, complained of this unlooked-for invasion,

and offered to accommodate all differences. But Hertford returned a

haughty answer that he was not come to negotiate, for which he had no

power, but to lay waste town and country with fire and sword unless the

young queen were delivered to him. The people of Edinburgh, on hearing

this insolent message, vowed to perish to a man rather than condescend

to such baseness. They set about to defend their walls and sustain the

attack of the enemy; but they found that Otterburn, who had tampered

secretly with the English before this, had stolen unobserved away. They

appointed a new provost, and manned their walls so stoutly that they

compelled Hertford to fetch up his battering ordnance from Leith. Seeing

very soon that it was impossible to defend their gates from this heavy

ordnance, they silently collected as much of their property as they could

carry, and abandoned the town. Hertford took possession of it; and then

sought to reduce the castle. But finding this useless, he set fire to

the city; and, reinforced by 4,000 horse, under Lord Eure, he employed

himself in devastating the surrounding country with a savage ferocity,

which no doubt had been commanded by the bitter malice of the English

king.

[Illustration: FRANCIS I.

(_From the Portrait in the Louvre, attributed to the Elder Clouet._)]

On the 15th of May, Arran, having assembled a considerable force, and

liberated Angus and his brother, Sir George Douglas, in the hope of

winning them over by such clemency, marched rapidly towards Edinburgh.

The English, however, did not wait for his arrival. Lord Lisle embarked

a portion of the troops at Leith again, and Lord Hertford led away

the remainder by land. Both by land and water the English commanders

continued their buccaneering outrages, doing all the mischief and

inflicting all the misery they could. Lord Lisle seized the two largest

Scottish vessels in the harbour of Leith, and burnt the rest; he then

sailed along the coast, plundering and destroying all the villages and

country within reach. Lord Hertford, on his part, laid Port Seaton,

Haddington, Renton, and Dunbar in ashes, and returned into England,

leaving behind him a trail of desolation. Such was the insane and

ridiculous manner in which Henry VIII. wooed the little Queen of Scotland

for his son. A border war ensued, and Scotland was mercilessly ravaged.

Francis I. could not rest satisfied so long as Boulogne was in the hands

of the English, and he resolved in 1545, to make a grand effort to

recover not only that town but Calais, which had been for centuries in

the possession of England. Large galleys were built at Rouen, and as many

vessels were collected as possible from Marseilles and other ports in the

Mediterranean for this enterprise. He hired soldiers from the Venetian

and other Italian States, and he determined to send a body of troops to

Scotland to assist in making a diversion in that country. But he was

not contented with endeavouring to regain his own towns; his coasts

had often been harassed by the English vessels, and he now ventured to

carry the war to Henry's own shores. Henry, aware of his intentions,

raised fortifications on the banks of the Thames, and along the shores

of Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire. The French fleet, consisting of 130

ships, set sail on the 16th of July, and fell down the Channel. Francis

flattered himself that he could seize the Isle of Wight, and perhaps

maintain garrisons there, if he should not be able to get possession

of Portsmouth. Henry had himself proceeded to Portsmouth, where he had

sixty ships lying, under the command of Lord Lisle. The French fleet

sailed into the Solent, and anchored at St. Helen's. The sea being very

calm, the French admiral put out his flat-bottomed boats and galleys that

drew little water, and sailed into the very mouth of Portsmouth Harbour,

daring the English admiral to come out. But Henry commanded Lord Lisle to

lie still. The French admiral, firing into the port, sank the _Mary Rose_

with her commander, Sir George Carew, and 700 men. On the turn of the

tide Lord Lisle bore down on the enemy, and sank a galley with its men,

and the French vessels then bore away to the main fleet.

As the French could not provoke the English to come out of harbour,

though they burned the villages and farmhouses along the coast, they held

a council of war, and resolved to attempt the conquest of the Isle of

Wight. The invasion of the island was essayed in three places, but the

inhabitants repulsed with great spirit the soldiers as they landed; and,

after committing some ravages, the French thought it best to retire. They

then sailed along the coast of Sussex, making occasional descents, and

finally anchored before Boulogne, to prevent the entrance of supplies

for the army there. Another object was to hinder reinforcements of ships

from the Thames reaching Portsmouth, but in both these endeavours the

superior vigilance of the English prevailed; provisions were conveyed

into Boulogne, and a reinforcement of thirty ships arrived at Portsmouth.

At length Lord Lisle received orders from Henry to put to sea and attack

the enemy; he expressed himself highly delighted, but nothing came of it,

for the two fleets manoeuvred for some time in the face of each other,

exchanged a few shots, and then retired to their respective ports. And

thus ended the boastful enterprise of Francis. Henry, as we have seen,

had only succeeded in capturing Boulogne, and was accordingly glad to

make peace with Francis in 1546, on terms fairly advantageous to England.

As Scotland was included in the peace with France, the French party

appeared to be entirely triumphant. But Beaton's end was near, and it was

hastened on by his religious persecutions. Notwithstanding the endeavours

of Cardinal Beaton, and the apostacy of Arran, the Reformation had now

made great progress in Scotland, and it was while the struggle was going

on between the party of Angus and the party of the cardinal, backed by

the money and the arms of England, that there came upon the scene the

remarkable preacher, George Wishart. Wishart is supposed to have been

the son of James Wishart of Pitarro, justice-clerk to James V., and he

was patronised by John Erskine, Provost of Montrose. In Montrose he

became master of a school, and was expelled for teaching Greek to his

boys, avowedly as the original tongue of the New Testament. He fled to

England, and in Bristol was condemned as a heretic for preaching against

the offering of prayers to the Virgin. He then recanted to avoid death,

but remained some years in England, returning to all and more than the

opinions he had renounced in sight of the fagot. He boldly preached

the insufficiency of outward ceremonies when the heart itself was not

touched. He admitted only the sacraments recorded in the Scriptures;

derided auricular confession; condemned the invocation of saints and the

doctrine of purgatory, though he approved of fasting, and maintained

that the Lord's Supper was a Divine and comfortable institution. The

doctrines, conduct, and corruptions of his opponents he denounced with

unsparing severity.

These traits had made him a welcome agent of opposition to the cardinal

with the lords of the English party; and Beaton, at once hostile to his

religious views and to him personally, as the ally of those who were

seeking his life by the most abominable means, soon turned his resentment

upon him. Twice he is said to have escaped from the emissaries of the

cardinal lying in wait to seize him. How far he was aware of the plots

and mercenary villainy of those about him is uncertain; but living in the

very midst of the traitor lords, and often under the very roof of the

busy agent of Beaton's proposed murder, Brunston, he was so far cognisant

of the preparations for the invasion of Scotland and the destruction of

the cardinal's party, that he frequently announced in his sermons the

approach of the horrors which at length arrived, and thus acquired the

reputation of a prophet. Under the protection of the Angus party, he

preached in the towns of Montrose, Dundee, Perth, and Ayr, and produced

such a spirit of hostility to the old religion, that at Dundee the houses

of the Black and Grey Friars were destroyed, and similar attempts were

made in Edinburgh.

While the friends of Wishart were seeking the life of Beaton, Beaton,

aware of this, was seeking the life of Wishart, and Wishart in his

addresses to the people repeatedly declared that he should perish a

martyr to the cause of truth. At length Cassillis and the gentlemen of

Kyle and Cunningham sent for him to meet them at Edinburgh, where they

proposed that he should have an opportunity for public disputation with

the bishop. Wishart proceeded to the capital where, Cassillis and the

confederates not having arrived, he soon began to preach to the people,

under the protection of the barons of Lothian. At Leith, Sir George

Douglas bore public testimony to the truth of his doctrine, and declared

his resolution to protect the preacher. There, too, he converted John

Knox, who was destined to establish the Reformation in Scotland.

In the midst of these proceedings arrived the cardinal and the governor

in Edinburgh, and Beaton lost no time in endeavouring to secure the

person of the popular apostle. Brunston removed Wishart to West Lothian

to be out of the way till the arrival of Cassillis, who was the chief

conspirator against the cardinal; but Wishart was not a man to lie

concealed. He preached in the very face of danger, though a two-handed

sword was constantly borne before him on these occasions; and at length,

after a remarkable sermon at Haddington, where he prognosticated deep

miseries about to fall upon the country, he took leave affectionately

of his audience, and set out for the house of Ormiston, accompanied by

Brunston, Sandilands of Calder, and Ormiston. That night the house of

Ormiston was surrounded by a party of horse under the command of the Earl

of Bothwell. Wishart, Sandilands, and Cockburn were seized. Cockburn and

Sandilands were conducted to the castle of Edinburgh, Wishart to Hailes,

the house of Bothwell, who for some time refused to give him up to the

cardinal, but at length did so under promise of a great reward. Brunston

had managed to escape.

Beaton was anxious to have Wishart tried and condemned on a civil charge;

but to this Arran would not consent, and the cardinal was therefore

obliged to forego his vengeance, or arraign him as a heretic. He was

sentenced to be burnt, and this sentence was carried out at St. Andrews,

on the 28th of March, 1546. In this execution the cardinal's malice

far outran his usually sound policy. Nothing could be more mischievous

to his own cause than the murder of Wishart. Till then, the people,

whatever their religious opinions, regarded the political views of Beaton

as patriotic, and they supported him as the great bulwark against the

power and designs of England. But now they regarded him as a horrible

persecutor, and they shrank from him and his power fell. The meekness

and patience with which Wishart, whom they now honoured with the name of

martyr, bore his horrible fate, made a lasting impression on the public

mind.

While the people thus unequivocally condemned this barbarous deed, and

only the more eagerly inquired into the principles of the sufferer, the

immediate confederates against the cardinal found in this event a grand

warrant for carrying out their own murderous intentions. Cassillis,

Glencairn, and the rest of the nobles had delayed the desperate deed,

because they could not extract from Henry a distinct statement of the pay

they were to receive for it. But now Norman Leslie, the Earl of Rothes,

and John Leslie, his uncle, began to vow publicly that they would have

the blood of Beaton as an atonement for that of the martyred Wishart.

They opened anew an active correspondence with England, and associated

themselves with a number of others who were exasperated at the cardinal's

deed.

On the other hand, the partisans of Beaton lauded him to the skies as the

saviour of the Church in Scotland, and strong in the alliance of France

and the late ill-success of the English party, the cardinal appeared

to enjoy a season of triumph; but it was a triumph quickly quenched in

blood. Elated with his temporary success, the cardinal made a progress

into Angus, and celebrated the marriage of one of his natural daughters,

Margaret Béthune, to David Lindsay, Master of Crawford, at Finhaven

Castle, bestowing upon her a dowry worthy of a princess. The cardinal was

disturbed in his festivities by the news that Henry VIII. was pushing

on his preparations for a new invasion, and he hastened to St. Andrews

to put his castle into a perfect state of defence. On his arrival he

summoned the barons of the neighbouring coast to consult on the best

means of fortifying it against any attack of the enemy. But while thus

busily engaged in warding off the assault of a foreign enemy, a domestic

foe was eagerly at work close at hand for his destruction. The Laird

of Brunston was stimulating Henry to give the necessary assurance to

those who were ready at a word to plunge the sword into the body of the

cardinal. A quarrel arising between Beaton and the Leslies brought the

matter to a crisis. Norman Leslie, the Master of Rothes, had given up to

Beaton the estate of Easter Wemyss and, at a meeting in St. Andrews, had

found the cardinal indisposed to make the promised equivalent for it.

High words arose, and Leslie hastened to his uncle John; and both of them

deeming that there was no longer any safety after the words Norman Leslie

in his rage had let fall, they immediately summoned their confederates,

and resolved to put the cardinal to death without delay.

On the evening of the 28th of May, Norman Leslie, attended by five

followers, entered the city of St. Andrews, and rode, without exciting

any suspicion, in his usual manner to his inn. Kirkaldy of Grange was

awaiting him there, and after nightfall, John Leslie, whose enmity

to Beaton was most notorious, stole quietly in and joined them. At

daybreak the next morning, Norman Leslie and three of his attendants

entered the gates of the castle court, the porter having lowered the

drawbridge to admit the workmen who were employed on the cardinal's fresh

fortifications. Norman inquired if the cardinal were yet up, as if he had

business with him; and while he held the porter in conversation, Kirkaldy

of Grange, James Melville, and their followers entered unobserved; but

presently the porter, catching sight of John Leslie crossing the bridge,

instantly suspected treason, and attempted to raise the drawbridge;

but Leslie was too nimble for him; he leaped across the gap, and the

conspirators, closing round the porter, despatched him with their

daggers, seized the keys, and threw the body into the fosse, without any

noise or alarm. They then proceeded to dismiss the workmen as quietly

from the castle, and Kirkaldy, who was well acquainted with the castle,

stationed himself at the only postern through which an escape could be

made. The conspirators then went to the apartments of the different

gentlemen composing the household of the cardinal, awoke them, and, under

menace of instant death if they made any noise, conducted them silently

out of the castle and dismissed them. Thus were 150 workmen and fifty

household servants removed without any commotion by this little band of

sixteen determined men, and, the portcullis being dropped, they remained

masters of the castle.

The cardinal, who had slept through the greater part of this time, at

length awoke at the unusual bustle, threw open his chamber window and

demanded the cause of it. The reply was that Norman Leslie had taken

the castle, on which the cardinal rushed to the postern to escape; but

finding it in possession of Kirkaldy, he returned as rapidly to his

chamber and, assisted by a page, pushed the heaviest furniture against

the door to defend the entrance till an alarm could be given. But the

conspirators did not allow him time for that. They called for fire to

burn down the door, and Beaton, finding resistance useless, threw open

the door, when John Leslie and Carmichael rushed upon him, as he cried

for mercy, and stabbed him in several places. Melville, however, with a

mockery of justice, bade them desist, saying that though the deed was

done in secret, it was an act of national justice not that of mercenary

assassins, and must be executed with all due decorum. Then, turning

the point of the sword towards the wretched cardinal, he said, with

formal gravity, "Repent thee, thou wicked cardinal, of all thy sins and

iniquities, especially of the murder of Wishart, that instrument of God

for the conversion of these lands. It is his death which now cries for

vengeance on thee. We are sent by God to inflict the deserved punishment.

For here, before the Almighty, I protest that it is neither hatred of thy

person, nor love of thy riches, nor fear of thy power, which moves me to

seek thy death; but only because thou hast been, and still remainest,

an obstinate enemy to Christ Jesus and His holy Gospel." With that he

plunged his sword repeatedly into the prelate's body, and laid him dead

at his feet.

The death of Cardinal Beaton was at the same time the death-blow to the

Church in Scotland. Though he was a man of corrupt moral life and of a

persecuting disposition, he was one of the most able men of his time, and

resisted the designs of Henry for the subjugation of his native country,

with a vigour and perseverance which made Henry feel that whilst he lived

Scotland was independent. The death of Beaton, so ardently desired, and

so highly paid for by Henry, did not, however, bring him nearer to the

reduction of the country, or the accomplishment of his son's marriage

with the queen. On the contrary, so intense was the hatred of him and

of England, which his tyrannic and detestable conduct had created in

every rank and class of the Scottish people, that these objects were now

farther off than ever. Henry's own embarrassments were, in consequence

of his Scottish and French wars, become so intolerable, that he was

compelled, as we have already seen (p. 198), to make peace with France

in the month of June, by a treaty called the Treaty of Boulogne, and

to agree to deliver up Boulogne, on condition that Francis paid up the

arrears of his pension, and to submit a claim of 500,000 crowns upon him

to arbitration. Francis took care to have Scotland included in the peace,

and Henry bound himself not to interfere with it except on receiving some

fresh provocation.

[Illustration: THE ASSASSINATION OF CARDINAL BEATON. (_See p._ 200.)]

Henry was now drawing to a close of that life which might have been so

splendid, and which he had made so horrible. To the last moment he was

employed in base endeavours to elude the peace which he had submitted to

with Scotland; in the struggles between the two great religious factions,

and in still further shocking executions for treason and heresy. Henry

himself was become in mind and person a most loathsome object. A life

of vile pleasures, and furious and unrestrained passions, succeeded, as

other appetites decayed, by a brutal habit of gormandising, had swollen

him to an enormous size, and made his body one huge mass of corruption.

The ulcer in his leg had become revoltingly offensive; his weight and

helplessness were such that he could not pass through any ordinary door,

nor be removed from one part of the house to another, except by the

aid of machinery and by the help of numerous attendants. The constant

irritation of his festering legs made his terrible temper still more

terrible.

Of those about him, his queen, Catherine Parr, had the most miraculous

escape. With wonderful patience, she had borne his whims, his rages,

and his offensive person. She had shown an affectionate regard for his

children, and had assisted with great wisdom in the progress of their

education, living all the time as with a sword suspended over her head

by a hair. She was devotedly attached to the Reformed principles, and

loved to converse with sincere Protestants. She had made Miles Coverdale

her almoner, and rendered him every assistance in his translation of the

Bible. She employed the learned Nicholas Udal, Master of Eton, to edit

the translations of Erasmus's "Paraphrases on the Four Gospels," which,

according to Strype, she published at her own cost. Stimulated by her

example, many ladies of rank pursued the study of the learned languages

and of Scriptural knowledge.

Of this school, and one of Catherine's own pupils, was Lady Jane Grey;

and another lovely and noble victim, Anne Askew, whose turn it was to

fall under the destroying hand of Henry VIII. at this moment, was highly

esteemed and encouraged by her. She was tortured and then burnt (July 6,

1546) for denying the Real Presence, and it is said that the Chancellor

Wriothesley assisted in the application of the rack in the hope of

wringing a confession from her.

An attempt to involve the Queen in similar charges was a complete

failure, and Henry never forgave Gardiner for this attempt to deprive him

of his true wife and unrivalled nurse. Catherine is said to have treated

these her deadly enemies with great magnanimity; but she seems to have

become quite aware that Gardiner's was the daring hand that was lifted

to ruin her with the king, and it was probably this clear understanding

between the king and queen which destroyed Gardiner's influence with

Henry for ever. Henry struck Gardiner's name out of the list of his

council, and on perceiving him one day on the terrace at Windsor amongst

the other courtiers, he turned fiercely on Wriothesley, and said, "Did

I not command you that _he_ should come no more amongst you?" "My Lord

of Winchester," replied the chancellor, "has come to wait upon your

highness with the offer of a benevolence from his clergy." That was a

deeply politic stroke of Gardiner's; he knew that if anything could

redeem the lost favour of Henry, it was a sacrifice to his avarice next

to his vanity. Henry took the money, but turned away from the bishop

without a word or a look, and immediately struck his name from amongst

his executors, as well as that of Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster, who, he

said, was schooled by Gardiner. A deadly feud had grown up between the

house of Seymour and the house of Howard. The house of Howard was old,

and proud, not only of its ancient lineage, but of its grand deeds. The

glory of Flodden lay like a great splendour on their name. Two queens had

been selected from this house during the present reign, and the Princess

Elizabeth was a partaker of its blood. The Seymours, on the other hand,

were of no great lineage; but the two heads of it, Sir Thomas Seymour

and Edward, who had been created Earl of Hertford, and whom we have seen

executing the king's sanguinary pleasure more than once in Scotland,

were the uncles to the heir-apparent, Prince Edward. They had been lifted

into greatness entirely through the marriage of their sister with Henry

and the birth of the prince; they had no natural connection, therefore,

amongst the old nobility, and were regarded by them with jealousy as

fortunate upstarts. But there was a circumstance which gave them power

besides the alliance with the Crown and the heir to it, and this was

the Protestant faith which they held, and which, therefore, bound the

Protestant party in England to their cause, and in hope, through their

nephew, the future king. The Howards, on the other hand, held by the

ancient faith, and were among its most positive assertors. Thus the feud

between these rival houses was not only the feud of the old and new

aristocracy, but that of the old and new faith; and the rival factions

looked up to them as their natural lords and leaders.

The question, therefore, which of these families should become the

guardians and ministers of the new king was every day acquiring a more

intense interest. The Howards, from their old standing, and their great

employments under the Crown, naturally regarded themselves as entitled

to that distinction, and in this view they were, of course, supported by

the whole Papist party most anxiously. But the Seymours, as the uncles

of the prince, were equally bent on securing the preference. They had

little connection, as we have stated, amongst the aristocracy, but had

the whole Protestant party in their interest. They therefore regarded the

Howards with the deepest jealousy and alarm, and they lost no time or

opportunity in securing their ruin during the present king's life. There

were many things which they could so bring before Henry's mind as to

excite his most deadly fear. The Howards were the determined supporters

of the Roman faith. What chance, therefore, was there under them of the

preservation of the supremacy? What chance was there that they would

leave the young king to his own unbiassed choice in matters of religion

and of Church government? But still more, the Howards had not escaped

his secret dislike through the conduct of Catherine Howard, the queen.

A little thing could stimulate this dislike into something fearful.

Again, the Duke of Norfolk was rich, and never were the riches of a

subject overlooked or unlonged for by Henry Tudor. All these motives were

brought successfully into play. Bishop Gardiner was the man most to be

feared in the Howard interest, as it regarded the Church, and this had,

unquestionably, much to do with his disgrace and banishment from Court.

A few days after that event, namely, on the 12th of December, the Duke

of Norfolk and his son the Earl of Surrey, were, unknown to each other,

arrested on a charge of high treason, and sent to the Tower, the one

by water and the other by land. Surrey had never forgiven the Earl of

Hertford for having superseded him in command of the army at Boulogne; he

had in his irritation spoken with biting contempt of the parvenu Seymour,

and declared that after the king's death he would take his revenge. But

Henry was soon persuaded that the designs of Surrey went further. His

fears, in his morbid and sinking state, were easily excited, and he was

made to believe that there was a conspiracy of the Howards to seize the

reins of government during his illness, and make themselves masters of

the person of the prince. Surrey, with all the rash and lofty spirit of

the poet, denied every charge of disloyalty or treason with the utmost

vehemence, and offered to fight his accuser in his shirt.

The Duke of Norfolk wrote to the king from the Tower, expressing his

astonishment at the sudden arrest, and saying, "Sir, God doth know that

in all my life I never thought one untrue thought against you, or your

succession; nor can no more judge nor cast in my mind what should be

laid to my charge, than the child that was born this night." The only

thing which he thought his enemies might bring against him was for "being

quick against such as had been accused for sacramentaries," that is,

Protestants. He prayed earnestly to have a fair hearing before the king

or his council, face to face with his accusers. His gifted son, one of

the finest poets of the age, and whose fame still makes part of England's

glory, was brought to trial first, for he was young and full of talent,

and, therefore, more dreaded than his father. On the 13th of December

he was arraigned for treason in Guildhall, before the Lord Chancellor,

the Lord Mayor, and other Commissioners, and a jury of commoners, and

beheaded on the 19th of January. The Seymours pursued Norfolk with

relentless ferocity. The king was rapidly sinking, there was no time to

lose; a bill of attainder was passed through the Peers on the 26th of

January, 1547; on the 27th the Royal assent was given in due form, and an

order was despatched to the Tower to execute the Duke at an early hour

next morning. Before that morning the soul of the tyrant was called to

its dread account, and the life of the old nobleman was saved as by a

miracle.

Henry VIII. was fifty-five years and seven months old at his death, and

had reigned thirty-seven years, nine months, and six days. His will

was dated December 30th, 1546. He was authorised by Act of Parliament

to settle the succession by his will, and he now named his son Prince

Edward, as his lawful successor, then, in default of heirs, the Princess

Mary and her heirs; these failing, the Princess Elizabeth, and her heirs.

After Elizabeth, was named the Lady Frances, the eldest daughter of

his sister, the Queen of France, and her heirs; and such failing, the

Lady Eleanor, the youngest daughter of the late Queen of France. On the

failure of all these, then the succession was to be to his heirs-at-law;

but no particular mention was made in the succession of his sister

Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and of her issue.