But the time was at hand when Henry was to cease his hangings,
beheadings, and marriages. Worn out with debauchery, he died at the
age of fifty-six, a loathsome, unwieldy, and helpless mass of
corruption. In his will he left a large sum of money to pay for
perpetual prayers for the repose of his soul. Sir Walter Raleigh said
of him, "If all the pictures and patterns of a merciless prince were
lost in the world, they might all again be painted to the life out of
the story of this king."
It may be well to remember this, and along with it this other saying
of one of the ablest writers on English constitutional history, that
"the world owes some of tis greatest debts to men from whose memory it
recoils."[1] The obligation it is under to Henry VIII is that through
his influence--no matter what the motive--England was lifted up out of
the old medieval ruts, and placed squarely and securely on the new
highway of national progress.
[1] W. Stubbs's "Constitutional History of England."