Peace and policy had diffused a halcyon calmness over the land, and the
people now discerned the approach of another era. Henry the Eighth, who
appears with such opposite countenances in the great gallery of history,
gave the country more glorious promises of an accomplished sovereign
than England had yet witnessed; and however he may appear differently
before the calm eye of posterity, the passions of his own times secured
his popularity even to his latter days. Youthful, with all its vigorous
and generous temper, and not inferior in the majesty of his intellect
any more than in that of his person--learned in his closet, yet
enterprising in action--this sovereign impressed his own commanding
character on the nation. Such a monarch gave wings to their genius. Long
pent up in their unhappy island, they soon indulged in a visionary
dominion in France, and in rapid victories in Scotland; insular England
once more aspired to be admitted into the great European family of
states; and Henry was the arbiter of Francis of France, and of Charles
of Germany. The awakened spirit of the English people unconsciously was
preparatory to the day which yet no one dreamed of. The minds of men
were opening to wider views; and he who sate on the throne was one who
would not be the last man in the kingdom to be mindless of its progress.
This lettered monarch himself professed authorship, and a sceptre was
his pen. When he sent forth a volume which all Europe was to read, and
was graced by a new title which all Europe was to own, who dared to
controvert the crowned controversialist, or impugn the validity of that
airy title? His majesty alone was allowed to confute himself.[1] Trained
from his early days in scholastic divinity, for he was designed to be
an archbishop, the volume, however aided by others, was the native
growth of his own mind. The king's taste for this learning was
studiously flattered by the great cardinal, who gently recommended to
his restless master a perusal of the nineteen folios of Thomas Aquinas,
possibly with the hope of fixing the royal fly in the repose of the
cobwebs of the schoolmen. Such, indeed, were his habits of study, that
he could interest himself in compiling a national Latin grammar, when
the schools succeeded to the dissolved monasteries. The grammar was
issued as an act of parliament; no other but the royal grammar was to be
thumbed without incurring the peril of a premunire.[2]
It is to be regretted that we are supplied with but few literary
anecdotes of this literary monarch. Some we may incidentally glean, and
some may be deduced from inference. The age was not yet far enough
advanced in civilization to enjoy that inquisitive leisure which leaves
its memorials for a distant posterity in the court tattle of a
Suetonius, or the secret history of a Procopius. It has, however, been
recorded that certain acts of parliament and proclamations were
corrected by the royal pen, and particularly the first draught of the
act which empowered the king to erect bishoprics was written by his own
hand; and he was the active editor of those monarchical pamphlets, as
they may be classed, on religious topics, which were frequently required
during his reign.
This learned monarch was unquestionably the first patron of our
vernacular literature; he indulged in a literary intercourse with our
earliest writers, and evinced a keen curiosity on any novelty in the
infant productions of the English press. On frequent occasions he took a
personal interest in the success, and even in the concoction, of
literary productions. He fully entered into the noble designs of Sir
Thomas Elyot to create a vernacular style, and critically discussed
with him the propriety of the use of new words, "apt for the purpose."
And on one occasion, when Sir Thomas Elyot projected our first Latin
dictionary, the king, in the presence of the courtiers, commended the
design, and offered the author not only his royal counsel, but a supply
of such books as the royal library possessed.
The king was not offended, as were some of the courtiers, with the
freedom displayed by Elyot in some of his ethical works. Elyot tells
us--"His grace not only took it in the better part, but with princely
words, full of majesty, commended my diligence, simplicity, and courage,
in that I spared no estate in the rebuking of vice." The king, at the
same time that he protected Elyot from his petty critics, rewarded the
early efforts of another vernacular author, who had dedicated to him his
first work in English prose, by a pension, which enabled the young
student, Roger Ascham, to set off on his travels. A remarkable instance
of Henry's quick attention to the novelties of our literature appears by
his critical conversation with the antiquary, Thynne, who had presented
to him his new edition of Chaucer. His Majesty soon discovered the
novelty of "The Pilgrim's Tale," a bitter satire on the pride and state
of the clergy, which at the time was ascribed to Chaucer. The king
pointing it out to the learned editor, observed, in these very
words--"William Thynne! I doubt this will not be allowed, for I suspect
the bishops will call thee in question for it." The editor submitted,
"If your grace be not offended, I hope to be protected by you." The king
"bade him go! and fear not!" It is evident that his majesty was "not
offended" at a severe satire on the clergy. But even Henry the Eighth
could not always change at will his political position--the minister in
power may find means to counteract even the absolute king. A great stir
was made in Wolsey's parliament; it was even proposed that the works of
Chaucer should be wholly suppressed--some good-humoured sprite rose in
favour of the only poet in the nation, observing that all the world knew
that Dan Chaucer had never written anything more than fables! The
authority of Wolsey so far prevailed that "The Pilgrim's Tale" was
suppressed, and it seems that the haughty prelate would willingly have
suppressed the editor in his own person. THYNNE was an intimate
acquaintance of SKELTON, whose caustic rhymes of "Colin Clout" had been
concocted at his country-house. THYNNE, in this perilous adventure of
publishing "The Pilgrim's Tale," was saved from the talons of the
cardinal, for this monarch's royal word was at all times sacred with
him.
A literary anecdote of this monarch has been recently disclosed, which
at least attests his ardour for information. When Henry wanted time, if
not patience, to read a new work, he put copies into the hands of two
opposite characters, and from the reports of these rival reviewers the
king ventured to deduce his own results. This method of judging a work
without meditating on it, was a new royal cut in the road of literature,
to which we of late have been accustomed; but it seemed with Henry
rather to have increased the vacillations of his opinions, than steadied
the firmness of his decisions.
The court of Henry displayed a brilliant circle of literary noblemen,
distinguished for their translations, and some by their songs and
sonnets. Parker, Lord Morley, was a favourite for his numerous versions,
some of which he dedicated to the king; the witty Wyat, who always
sustained the anagram of his name, was a familiar companion; nor could
Henry be insensible to the elegant effusions of Surrey, unless his
political feelings indisposed his admiration. It was at the king's
command that Lord Berners translated the "Chronicles of Froissart," and
the volume is adorned by the royal arms. Sternhold, the memorable
psalm-enditer, was a groom of the chamber, and a personal favourite with
his master; and Henry appointed the illustrious Leland to search for and
to preserve the antiquities of England, and invested him with the
honourable title of "The King's Antiquary."
Scholars, too, stood around the royal table; and the company at the
palace excelled that of any academy, as Erasmus has told us. Learning
patronised by a despot became a fashionable accomplishment, and the
model for the court was in the royal family themselves. It is from this
period that we may date that race of learned ladies which continued
through the long reign of our maiden queen. Yet, before the accession
of Henry the Eighth, half a century had not elapsed when female
literature was at so low an ebb that Sir Thomas More noticed as an
extraordinary circumstance that Jane Shore could read and write. When
Erasmus visited the English court, he curiously observed that "The
course of human affairs was changed; the monks, famed in time passed for
learning, are become ignorant, and WOMEN LOVE BOOKS." Erasmus had
witnessed at the court of Henry the Eighth the Princess Mary and
Elizabeth, both of whom held an epistolary correspondence in Latin; the
daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, and Lady Jane Grey, versed in Greek; and
the Queen Catherine Parr, his fervent admirer for his paraphrase on the
four gospels. Erasmus had frequented the house of the More's, which he
describes as a perfect _musarum domicilium_. The venerable Nicholas
Udall, a contemporary, has also left us a picture of that day. "It is
now a common thing to see young virgins so nouzeld (nursed) and trained
in the study of letters, that they willingly set all other vain pastimes
at nought--reading and writing, and with most earnest study, both early
and late." The pliable nobility of Henry the Eighth easily took the bend
of the royal family, and among their daughters, doubtless, there were
more learned women than are chronicled in Ballard's "Memoirs." Lady Jane
Grey meditating on Plato was not so uncommon an incident as it appears
to us in the insulated anecdote. The learning of that day must not be
held as the pedantry of a later, for it was laying the foundations of
every knowledge in the soil of England.
The king's more elegant tastes diffused themselves among the finer arts
at a time when they were yet strangers in this land; his father's
travelled taste had received a tincture of these arts when abroad, in
Henry the Eighth they burst into existence with a more robust aptitude.
He eagerly invited foreign artists to his court; but the patronage of an
English monarch was not yet appreciated by some of the finest geniuses
of Italy; we lay yet too far out of their observation and sympathies;
and it is recorded of one of the Italian artists, a fiery spirit, who
had visited England, that he designated us as _quelle bestie Inglesi_.
Raphael and Titian could not be lured from their studios and their blue
skies; but, fortunately, a northern genius, whose name is as immortal as
their own, was domiciliated by the liberal monarch, the friend of
Erasmus and of More--Hans Holbein.
Among the musicians of Henry we find French, Italians, and Germans; he
was himself a musician, and composed several pieces which I believe are
still retained in the service of the Royal Chapel.[3] He had a taste for
the gorgeous or grotesque amusements of the Continent, combining them
with a display of the fine arts in their scenical effects. One memorable
night of the Epiphany, the court was startled by a new glory, where the
king and his companions appeared in a scene which the courtiers had
never before witnessed. "It was a mask after the manner of Italy, a
thing not seen afore in England," saith the chronicler of Henry's
court-days. Once, to amaze a foreign embassy, and on a sudden to raise
up a banqueting-house, the monarch set to work the right magicians; an
architect, and a poet, and his master of the revels, were months
inventing and labouring. The regal banqueting-house was adorned by the
arts of picture and music, of sculpture and architecture; all was full
of illusion and reality; the house itself was a pageant to exhibit a
pageant. The magnificent prince was himself so pleased, that he
anxiously stopped his visitors at the points of sight most favourable to
catch the illusion of the perspective. A monarch of such fine tastes and
gorgeous fancies would create the artists who are the true inventors.