HENRY VIII.—1509 to 1547.
How Henry the Eighth made war upon Scotland and France, and gained
the battle of Flodden and the battle of the Spurs; how he met the
King of France in the Field of the Cloth of Gold; how Cardinal Wolsey
fell into disgrace and died.
I have so many things to tell you about Henry the Eighth, that I dare
say I shall fill three chapters.
When he first became king, everybody liked him. He was very handsome,
and generous, and good-humoured. Besides all that, he was very
clever, and very learned; he liked the company of wise men, and
treated them all very kindly. One of his great amusements after
dinner was to invite the greatest scholars and the cleverest men,
such as clergymen, lawyers, physicians, and painters, to go and talk
with him. And so he learned a great deal from hearing what they said.
But as Henry grew older, I am sorry to say that he changed very much,
and became cruel and hard-hearted, as you will read by-and-by.
The wise old king, Henry the Seventh, had been very careful to keep
peace with the French and Scotch all his life, but the young king
liked the thoughts of gaining a little glory by fighting; so very
soon after he became king, he had a war with France, and another with
Scotland.
The war with Scotland ended sadly for the Scotch. The English army
was commanded by a very brave and clever nobleman, named the Earl
of Surrey, and he had with him several brave lords and knights. The
Scotch army was almost all made up of the boldest and best men in
Scotland, with their own king, James the Fourth, to command them.
The two armies met at a place called Flodden Field. They fought all
day; sometimes one side got the better and sometimes the other; so
when night came, nobody knew which had beaten the other. But in the
morning the Scots found that they had lost their king, whom they
all loved very much, and that with him the best and bravest of the
Scottish nobles had been killed.
After this there was peace between Scotland and England.
As to King Henry’s war in France, it did not last very long. I told
you Henry was young, and wished for the kind of glory that princes
gain by fighting. But he forgot that, besides the glory, there must
be a great deal of fatigue and suffering; so, after one battle, he
was persuaded to make peace. That one battle was called the BATTLE OF
THE SPURS, because the French made more use of their spurs, to make
their horses run away, than of their swords to fight with.
Not long after this battle, the old French king died. The new king
was called Francis the First. He was almost as young as Henry the
Eighth. He was handsome, too, and very fond of gaiety, and dancing,
and riding, and feasting, and playing at fighting, which is called
jousting. So the two young kings agreed that they would meet
together, and have some merry days. And so they did.
[Illustration: Henry VIII. embarking for France.]
They met near a place called Ardres, in France. The richest noblemen,
both of France and England, and their wives and daughters, were
there. The tents they feasted in were made of silk, with gold
flowers; their dresses were covered over with gold and jewels; even
their very horses were dressed up with silk and golden fringes; and
there was feasting, and dancing, and jousting, and music every day.
The two kings amused themselves with dancing, and all sorts of games,
till at last they found it was time to go home, and mind the affairs
of their own kingdoms.
This meeting was called THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD, because there
was so much gold in the dresses and tents, and the ornaments used by
the kings and their lords and ladies.
Besides the two kings who were at the Field of the Cloth of Gold,
there was a great man there, whom you must know something about. His
name was Wolsey. He was a clergyman, and in the time of King Henry
the Seventh he was known to be very clever indeed. But Henry the
Eighth first made him a bishop, and then the Pope (who you know is
the Bishop of Rome) gave him the rank of Cardinal.
In those days a cardinal was thought to be almost as great a man as
a king. He dressed in long fine silk robes, trimmed with fur, and
when he went out he wore a scarlet hat with a broad brim and fine red
cords and tassels.
This Cardinal Wolsey was very clever, as I told you, and very
learned; he was one of the scholars at Oxford when Thomas Linacre
taught Greek there; and with a part of the great riches that he got
from the king he built the great college, called Christ Church, at
Oxford, and a school at Ipswich, the town where he was born. He also
built the great palace of Hampton Court, and made a present of it to
the king. And these you know were all useful things.
But Cardinal Wolsey was proud towards the nobles, and had to tax
the people heavily to pay for the king’s wars; so he was greatly
disliked. And some persons told the king that the cardinal spoke ill
of him, and that he boasted of being richer and more powerful than
the king. So Henry, who was very passionate, ordered all his riches
to be taken away from him suddenly, and sent for him to London, where
I am almost sure he intended to order his head to be cut off. But the
cardinal fell ill and died on the road. His last words were—“If I had
served God as diligently as I have served the king, He would not have
given me over in my grey hairs.”
Now I must end this chapter. In the next I shall tell you about King
Henry’s six wives.