ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH, CALLED BLUFF KING HAL AND BURLY KING
HARRY
PART THE FIRST
We now come to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been too much the
fashion to call ‘Bluff King Hal,’ and ‘Burly King Harry,’ and other
fine names; but whom I shall take the liberty to call, plainly, one of
the most detestable villains that ever drew breath. You will be able to
judge, long before we come to the end of his life, whether he deserves
the character.
He was just eighteen years of age when he came to the throne. People
said he was handsome then; but I don’t believe it. He was a big, burly,
noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double-chinned, swinish-looking fellow
in later life (as we know from the likenesses of him, painted by the
famous Hans Holbein), and it is not easy to believe that so bad a
character can ever have been veiled under a prepossessing appearance.
He was anxious to make himself popular; and the people, who had long
disliked the late King, were very willing to believe that he deserved
to be so. He was extremely fond of show and display, and so were they.
Therefore there was great rejoicing when he married the Princess
Catherine, and when they were both crowned. And the King fought at
tournaments and always came off victorious—for the courtiers took care
of that—and there was a general outcry that he was a wonderful man.
Empson, Dudley, and their supporters were accused of a variety of
crimes they had never committed, instead of the offences of which they
really had been guilty; and they were pilloried, and set upon horses
with their faces to the tails, and knocked about and beheaded, to the
satisfaction of the people, and the enrichment of the King.
The Pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, had mixed
himself up in a war on the continent of Europe, occasioned by the
reigning Princes of little quarrelling states in Italy having at
various times married into other Royal families, and so led to _their_
claiming a share in those petty Governments. The King, who discovered
that he was very fond of the Pope, sent a herald to the King of France,
to say that he must not make war upon that holy personage, because he
was the father of all Christians. As the French King did not mind this
relationship in the least, and also refused to admit a claim King Henry
made to certain lands in France, war was declared between the two
countries. Not to perplex this story with an account of the tricks and
designs of all the sovereigns who were engaged in it, it is enough to
say that England made a blundering alliance with Spain, and got
stupidly taken in by that country; which made its own terms with France
when it could and left England in the lurch. Sir Edward Howard, a bold
admiral, son of the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself by his
bravery against the French in this business; but, unfortunately, he was
more brave than wise, for, skimming into the French harbour of Brest
with only a few row-boats, he attempted (in revenge for the defeat and
death of Sir Thomas Knyvett, another bold English admiral) to take some
strong French ships, well defended with batteries of cannon. The upshot
was, that he was left on board of one of them (in consequence of its
shooting away from his own boat), with not more than about a dozen men,
and was thrown into the sea and drowned: though not until he had taken
from his breast his gold chain and gold whistle, which were the signs
of his office, and had cast them into the sea to prevent their being
made a boast of by the enemy. After this defeat—which was a great one,
for Sir Edward Howard was a man of valour and fame—the King took it
into his head to invade France in person; first executing that
dangerous Earl of Suffolk whom his father had left in the Tower, and
appointing Queen Catherine to the charge of his kingdom in his absence.
He sailed to Calais, where he was joined by Maximilian, Emperor of
Germany, who pretended to be his soldier, and who took pay in his
service: with a good deal of nonsense of that sort, flattering enough
to the vanity of a vain blusterer. The King might be successful enough
in sham fights; but his idea of real battles chiefly consisted in
pitching silken tents of bright colours that were ignominiously blown
down by the wind, and in making a vast display of gaudy flags and
golden curtains. Fortune, however, favoured him better than he
deserved; for, after much waste of time in tent pitching, flag flying,
gold curtaining, and other such masquerading, he gave the French battle
at a place called Guinegate: where they took such an unaccountable
panic, and fled with such swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called
by the English the Battle of Spurs. Instead of following up his
advantage, the King, finding that he had had enough of real fighting,
came home again.
The Scottish King, though nearly related to Henry by marriage, had
taken part against him in this war. The Earl of Surrey, as the English
general, advanced to meet him when he came out of his own dominions and
crossed the river Tweed. The two armies came up with one another when
the Scottish King had also crossed the river Till, and was encamped
upon the last of the Cheviot Hills, called the Hill of Flodden. Along
the plain below it, the English, when the hour of battle came,
advanced. The Scottish army, which had been drawn up in five great
bodies, then came steadily down in perfect silence. So they, in their
turn, advanced to meet the English army, which came on in one long
line; and they attacked it with a body of spearmen, under Lord Home. At
first they had the best of it; but the English recovered themselves so
bravely, and fought with such valour, that, when the Scottish King had
almost made his way up to the Royal Standard, he was slain, and the
whole Scottish power routed. Ten thousand Scottish men lay dead that
day on Flodden Field; and among them, numbers of the nobility and
gentry. For a long time afterwards, the Scottish peasantry used to
believe that their King had not been really killed in this battle,
because no Englishman had found an iron belt he wore about his body as
a penance for having been an unnatural and undutiful son. But, whatever
became of his belt, the English had his sword and dagger, and the ring
from his finger, and his body too, covered with wounds. There is no
doubt of it; for it was seen and recognised by English gentlemen who
had known the Scottish King well.
When King Henry was making ready to renew the war in France, the French
King was contemplating peace. His queen, dying at this time, he
proposed, though he was upwards of fifty years old, to marry King
Henry’s sister, the Princess Mary, who, besides being only sixteen, was
betrothed to the Duke of Suffolk. As the inclinations of young
Princesses were not much considered in such matters, the marriage was
concluded, and the poor girl was escorted to France, where she was
immediately left as the French King’s bride, with only one of all her
English attendants. That one was a pretty young girl named Anne Boleyn,
niece of the Earl of Surrey, who had been made Duke of Norfolk, after
the victory of Flodden Field. Anne Boleyn’s is a name to be remembered,
as you will presently find.
And now the French King, who was very proud of his young wife, was
preparing for many years of happiness, and she was looking forward, I
dare say, to many years of misery, when he died within three months,
and left her a young widow. The new French monarch, Francis the First,
seeing how important it was to his interests that she should take for
her second husband no one but an Englishman, advised her first lover,
the Duke of Suffolk, when King Henry sent him over to France to fetch
her home, to marry her. The Princess being herself so fond of that
Duke, as to tell him that he must either do so then, or for ever lose
her, they were wedded; and Henry afterwards forgave them. In making
interest with the King, the Duke of Suffolk had addressed his most
powerful favourite and adviser, Thomas Wolsey—a name very famous in
history for its rise and downfall.
Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in Suffolk and
received so excellent an education that he became a tutor to the family
of the Marquis of Dorset, who afterwards got him appointed one of the
late King’s chaplains. On the accession of Henry the Eighth, he was
promoted and taken into great favour. He was now Archbishop of York;
the Pope had made him a Cardinal besides; and whoever wanted influence
in England or favour with the King—whether he were a foreign monarch or
an English nobleman—was obliged to make a friend of the great Cardinal
Wolsey.
He was a gay man, who could dance and jest, and sing and drink; and
those were the roads to so much, or rather so little, of a heart as
King Henry had. He was wonderfully fond of pomp and glitter, and so was
the King. He knew a good deal of the Church learning of that time; much
of which consisted in finding artful excuses and pretences for almost
any wrong thing, and in arguing that black was white, or any other
colour. This kind of learning pleased the King too. For many such
reasons, the Cardinal was high in estimation with the King; and, being
a man of far greater ability, knew as well how to manage him, as a
clever keeper may know how to manage a wolf or a tiger, or any other
cruel and uncertain beast, that may turn upon him and tear him any day.
Never had there been seen in England such state as my Lord Cardinal
kept. His wealth was enormous; equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of
the Crown. His palaces were as splendid as the King’s, and his retinue
was eight hundred strong. He held his Court, dressed out from top to
toe in flaming scarlet; and his very shoes were golden, set with
precious stones. His followers rode on blood horses; while he, with a
wonderful affectation of humility in the midst of his great splendour,
ambled on a mule with a red velvet saddle and bridle and golden
stirrups.
Through the influence of this stately priest, a grand meeting was
arranged to take place between the French and English Kings in France;
but on ground belonging to England. A prodigious show of friendship and
rejoicing was to be made on the occasion; and heralds were sent to
proclaim with brazen trumpets through all the principal cities of
Europe, that, on a certain day, the Kings of France and England, as
companions and brothers in arms, each attended by eighteen followers,
would hold a tournament against all knights who might choose to come.
Charles, the new Emperor of Germany (the old one being dead), wanted to
prevent too cordial an alliance between these sovereigns, and came over
to England before the King could repair to the place of meeting; and,
besides making an agreeable impression upon him, secured Wolsey’s
interest by promising that his influence should make him Pope when the
next vacancy occurred. On the day when the Emperor left England, the
King and all the Court went over to Calais, and thence to the place of
meeting, between Ardres and Guisnes, commonly called the Field of the
Cloth of Gold. Here, all manner of expense and prodigality was lavished
on the decorations of the show; many of the knights and gentlemen being
so superbly dressed that it was said they carried their whole estates
upon their shoulders.
There were sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains running wine,
great cellars full of wine free as water to all comers, silk tents,
gold lace and foil, gilt lions, and such things without end; and, in
the midst of all, the rich Cardinal out-shone and out-glittered all the
noblemen and gentlemen assembled. After a treaty made between the two
Kings with as much solemnity as if they had intended to keep it, the
lists—nine hundred feet long, and three hundred and twenty broad—were
opened for the tournament; the Queens of France and England looking on
with great array of lords and ladies. Then, for ten days, the two
sovereigns fought five combats every day, and always beat their polite
adversaries; though they _do_ write that the King of England, being
thrown in a wrestle one day by the King of France, lost his kingly
temper with his brother-in-arms, and wanted to make a quarrel of it.
Then, there is a great story belonging to this Field of the Cloth of
Gold, showing how the English were distrustful of the French, and the
French of the English, until Francis rode alone one morning to Henry’s
tent; and, going in before he was out of bed, told him in joke that he
was his prisoner; and how Henry jumped out of bed and embraced Francis;
and how Francis helped Henry to dress, and warmed his linen for him;
and how Henry gave Francis a splendid jewelled collar, and how Francis
gave Henry, in return, a costly bracelet. All this and a great deal
more was so written about, and sung about, and talked about at that
time (and, indeed, since that time too), that the world has had good
cause to be sick of it, for ever.
Of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy renewal
of the war between England and France, in which the two Royal
companions and brothers in arms longed very earnestly to damage one
another. But, before it broke out again, the Duke of Buckingham was
shamefully executed on Tower Hill, on the evidence of a discharged
servant—really for nothing, except the folly of having believed in a
friar of the name of Hopkins, who had pretended to be a prophet, and
who had mumbled and jumbled out some nonsense about the Duke’s son
being destined to be very great in the land. It was believed that the
unfortunate Duke had given offence to the great Cardinal by expressing
his mind freely about the expense and absurdity of the whole business
of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. At any rate, he was beheaded, as I
have said, for nothing. And the people who saw it done were very angry,
and cried out that it was the work of ‘the butcher’s son!’
The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey invaded France
again, and did some injury to that country. It ended in another treaty
of peace between the two kingdoms, and in the discovery that the
Emperor of Germany was not such a good friend to England in reality, as
he pretended to be. Neither did he keep his promise to Wolsey to make
him Pope, though the King urged him. Two Popes died in pretty quick
succession; but the foreign priests were too much for the Cardinal, and
kept him out of the post. So the Cardinal and King together found out
that the Emperor of Germany was not a man to keep faith with; broke off
a projected marriage between the King’s daughter Mary, Princess of
Wales, and that sovereign; and began to consider whether it might not
be well to marry the young lady, either to Francis himself, or to his
eldest son.
There now arose at Wittemberg, in Germany, the great leader of the
mighty change in England which is called The Reformation, and which set
the people free from their slavery to the priests. This was a learned
Doctor, named Martin Luther, who knew all about them, for he had been a
priest, and even a monk, himself. The preaching and writing of
Wickliffe had set a number of men thinking on this subject; and Luther,
finding one day to his great surprise, that there really was a book
called the New Testament which the priests did not allow to be read,
and which contained truths that they suppressed, began to be very
vigorous against the whole body, from the Pope downward. It happened,
while he was yet only beginning his vast work of awakening the nation,
that an impudent fellow named Tetzel, a friar of very bad character,
came into his neighbourhood selling what were called Indulgences, by
wholesale, to raise money for beautifying the great Cathedral of St.
Peter’s, at Rome. Whoever bought an Indulgence of the Pope was supposed
to buy himself off from the punishment of Heaven for his offences.
Luther told the people that these Indulgences were worthless bits of
paper, before God, and that Tetzel and his masters were a crew of
impostors in selling them.
The King and the Cardinal were mightily indignant at this presumption;
and the King (with the help of Sir Thomas More, a wise man, whom he
afterwards repaid by striking off his head) even wrote a book about it,
with which the Pope was so well pleased that he gave the King the title
of Defender of the Faith. The King and the Cardinal also issued flaming
warnings to the people not to read Luther’s books, on pain of
excommunication. But they did read them for all that; and the rumour of
what was in them spread far and wide.
When this great change was thus going on, the King began to show
himself in his truest and worst colours. Anne Boleyn, the pretty little
girl who had gone abroad to France with his sister, was by this time
grown up to be very beautiful, and was one of the ladies in attendance
on Queen Catherine. Now, Queen Catherine was no longer young or
handsome, and it is likely that she was not particularly good-tempered;
having been always rather melancholy, and having been made more so by
the deaths of four of her children when they were very young. So, the
King fell in love with the fair Anne Boleyn, and said to himself, ‘How
can I be best rid of my own troublesome wife whom I am tired of, and
marry Anne?’
[Illustration: Catherine was old, so he fell in love with Anne Boleyn]
You recollect that Queen Catherine had been the wife of Henry’s
brother. What does the King do, after thinking it over, but calls his
favourite priests about him, and says, O! his mind is in such a
dreadful state, and he is so frightfully uneasy, because he is afraid
it was not lawful for him to marry the Queen! Not one of those priests
had the courage to hint that it was rather curious he had never thought
of that before, and that his mind seemed to have been in a tolerably
jolly condition during a great many years, in which he certainly had
not fretted himself thin; but, they all said, Ah! that was very true,
and it was a serious business; and perhaps the best way to make it
right, would be for his Majesty to be divorced! The King replied, Yes,
he thought that would be the best way, certainly; so they all went to
work.
If I were to relate to you the intrigues and plots that took place in
the endeavour to get this divorce, you would think the History of
England the most tiresome book in the world. So I shall say no more,
than that after a vast deal of negotiation and evasion, the Pope issued
a commission to Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio (whom he sent
over from Italy for the purpose), to try the whole case in England. It
is supposed—and I think with reason—that Wolsey was the Queen’s enemy,
because she had reproved him for his proud and gorgeous manner of life.
But, he did not at first know that the King wanted to marry Anne
Boleyn; and when he did know it, he even went down on his knees, in the
endeavour to dissuade him.
The Cardinals opened their court in the Convent of the Black Friars,
near to where the bridge of that name in London now stands; and the
King and Queen, that they might be near it, took up their lodgings at
the adjoining palace of Bridewell, of which nothing now remains but a
bad prison. On the opening of the court, when the King and Queen were
called on to appear, that poor ill-used lady, with a dignity and
firmness and yet with a womanly affection worthy to be always admired,
went and kneeled at the King’s feet, and said that she had come, a
stranger, to his dominions; that she had been a good and true wife to
him for twenty years; and that she could acknowledge no power in those
Cardinals to try whether she should be considered his wife after all
that time, or should be put away. With that, she got up and left the
court, and would never afterwards come back to it.
The King pretended to be very much overcome, and said, O! my lords and
gentlemen, what a good woman she was to be sure, and how delighted he
would be to live with her unto death, but for that terrible uneasiness
in his mind which was quite wearing him away! So, the case went on, and
there was nothing but talk for two months. Then Cardinal Campeggio,
who, on behalf of the Pope, wanted nothing so much as delay, adjourned
it for two more months; and before that time was elapsed, the Pope
himself adjourned it indefinitely, by requiring the King and Queen to
come to Rome and have it tried there. But by good luck for the King,
word was brought to him by some of his people, that they had happened
to meet at supper, Thomas Cranmer, a learned Doctor of Cambridge, who
had proposed to urge the Pope on, by referring the case to all the
learned doctors and bishops, here and there and everywhere, and getting
their opinions that the King’s marriage was unlawful. The King, who was
now in a hurry to marry Anne Boleyn, thought this such a good idea,
that he sent for Cranmer, post haste, and said to Lord Rochfort, Anne
Boleyn’s father, ‘Take this learned Doctor down to your country-house,
and there let him have a good room for a study, and no end of books out
of which to prove that I may marry your daughter.’ Lord Rochfort, not
at all reluctant, made the learned Doctor as comfortable as he could;
and the learned Doctor went to work to prove his case. All this time,
the King and Anne Boleyn were writing letters to one another almost
daily, full of impatience to have the case settled; and Anne Boleyn was
showing herself (as I think) very worthy of the fate which afterwards
befel her.
It was bad for Cardinal Wolsey that he had left Cranmer to render this
help. It was worse for him that he had tried to dissuade the King from
marrying Anne Boleyn. Such a servant as he, to such a master as Henry,
would probably have fallen in any case; but, between the hatred of the
party of the Queen that was, and the hatred of the party of the Queen
that was to be, he fell suddenly and heavily. Going down one day to the
Court of Chancery, where he now presided, he was waited upon by the
Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, who told him that they brought an order
to him to resign that office, and to withdraw quietly to a house he had
at Esher, in Surrey. The Cardinal refusing, they rode off to the King;
and next day came back with a letter from him, on reading which, the
Cardinal submitted. An inventory was made out of all the riches in his
palace at York Place (now Whitehall), and he went sorrowfully up the
river, in his barge, to Putney. An abject man he was, in spite of his
pride; for being overtaken, riding out of that place towards Esher, by
one of the King’s chamberlains who brought him a kind message and a
ring, he alighted from his mule, took off his cap, and kneeled down in
the dirt. His poor Fool, whom in his prosperous days he had always kept
in his palace to entertain him, cut a far better figure than he; for,
when the Cardinal said to the chamberlain that he had nothing to send
to his lord the King as a present, but that jester who was a most
excellent one, it took six strong yeomen to remove the faithful fool
from his master.
The once proud Cardinal was soon further disgraced, and wrote the most
abject letters to his vile sovereign; who humbled him one day and
encouraged him the next, according to his humour, until he was at last
ordered to go and reside in his diocese of York. He said he was too
poor; but I don’t know how he made that out, for he took a hundred and
sixty servants with him, and seventy-two cart-loads of furniture, food,
and wine. He remained in that part of the country for the best part of
a year, and showed himself so improved by his misfortunes, and was so
mild and so conciliating, that he won all hearts. And indeed, even in
his proud days, he had done some magnificent things for learning and
education. At last, he was arrested for high treason; and, coming
slowly on his journey towards London, got as far as Leicester. Arriving
at Leicester Abbey after dark, and very ill, he said—when the monks
came out at the gate with lighted torches to receive him—that he had
come to lay his bones among them. He had indeed; for he was taken to a
bed, from which he never rose again. His last words were, ‘Had I but
served God as diligently as I have served the King, He would not have
given me over, in my grey hairs. Howbeit, this is my just reward for my
pains and diligence, not regarding my service to God, but only my duty
to my prince.’ The news of his death was quickly carried to the King,
who was amusing himself with archery in the garden of the magnificent
Palace at Hampton Court, which that very Wolsey had presented to him.
The greatest emotion his royal mind displayed at the loss of a servant
so faithful and so ruined, was a particular desire to lay hold of
fifteen hundred pounds which the Cardinal was reported to have hidden
somewhere.
The opinions concerning the divorce, of the learned doctors and bishops
and others, being at last collected, and being generally in the King’s
favour, were forwarded to the Pope, with an entreaty that he would now
grant it. The unfortunate Pope, who was a timid man, was half
distracted between his fear of his authority being set aside in England
if he did not do as he was asked, and his dread of offending the
Emperor of Germany, who was Queen Catherine’s nephew. In this state of
mind he still evaded and did nothing. Then, Thomas Cromwell, who had
been one of Wolsey’s faithful attendants, and had remained so even in
his decline, advised the King to take the matter into his own hands,
and make himself the head of the whole Church. This, the King by
various artful means, began to do; but he recompensed the clergy by
allowing them to burn as many people as they pleased, for holding
Luther’s opinions. You must understand that Sir Thomas More, the wise
man who had helped the King with his book, had been made Chancellor in
Wolsey’s place. But, as he was truly attached to the Church as it was
even in its abuses, he, in this state of things, resigned.
Being now quite resolved to get rid of Queen Catherine, and to marry
Anne Boleyn without more ado, the King made Cranmer Archbishop of
Canterbury, and directed Queen Catherine to leave the Court. She
obeyed; but replied that wherever she went, she was Queen of England
still, and would remain so, to the last. The King then married Anne
Boleyn privately; and the new Archbishop of Canterbury, within half a
year, declared his marriage with Queen Catherine void, and crowned Anne
Boleyn Queen.
She might have known that no good could ever come from such wrong, and
that the corpulent brute who had been so faithless and so cruel to his
first wife, could be more faithless and more cruel to his second. She
might have known that, even when he was in love with her, he had been a
mean and selfish coward, running away, like a frightened cur, from her
society and her house, when a dangerous sickness broke out in it, and
when she might easily have taken it and died, as several of the
household did. But, Anne Boleyn arrived at all this knowledge too late,
and bought it at a dear price. Her bad marriage with a worse man came
to its natural end. Its natural end was not, as we shall too soon see,
a natural death for her.