CHAPTER XXXIII.

HENRY VIII.

{1542.} Henry, being determined to avenge himself on the king of Scots

for slighting the advances which he had made him, would gladly

have obtained a supply from parliament, in order to prosecute that

enterprise; but as he did not think it prudent to discover his

intentions, that assembly, conformably to their frugal maxims, would

understand no hints; and the king was disappointed in his expectations.

He continued, however, to make preparations for war; and as soon as

he thought himself in a condition to invade Scotland, he published a

manifesto, by which he endeavored to justify hostilities. He complained

of James’s breach of word in declining the promised interview, which was

the real ground of the quarrel;[*] but in order to give a more specious

coloring to the enterprise, he mentioned other injuries; namely, that

his nephew had granted protection to some English rebels and fugitives,

and had detained some territory which, Henry pretended, belonged to

England. He even revived the old claim to the vassalage of Scotland, and

he summoned James to do homage to him as his liege lord and superior. He

employed the duke of Norfolk, whom he called the scourge of the Scots,

to command in the war: and though James sent the bishop of Aberdeen, and

Sir James Learmont of Darsay, to appease his uncle, he would hearken to

no terms of accommodation.

* Buchanan lib xiv. Drummond in Ja. V.

While Norfolk was assembling his army at Newcastle, Sir Robert Bowes,

attended by Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Ralph Evers, Sir Brian Latoun, and

others, made an incursion into Scotland, and advanced towards Jedburgh,

with an intention of pillaging and destroying that town. The earl of

Angus, and George Douglas, his brother, who had been many years banished

their country, and had subsisted by Henry’s bounty, joined the English

army in this incursion, and the forces commanded by Bowes exceeded

four thousand men. James had not been negligent in his preparations for

defence, and had posted a considerable body, under the command of the

earl of Huntley, for the protection of the borders. Lord Hume, at the

head of his vassals, was hastening to join Huntley, when he met with the

English army; and an action immediately ensued. During the engagement,

the forces under Huntley began to appear; and the English, afraid of

being surrounded and overpowered, took to flight, and were pursued by

the enemy. Evers, Latoun, and some other persons of distinction, were

taken prisoners. A few only of small note fell in the skirmish.[*]

The duke of Norfolk, meanwhile, began to move from his camp at

Newcastle; and being attended by the earls of Shrewsbury, Derby,

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

he advanced to the borders. His forces amounted to above twenty thousand

men; and it required the utmost efforts of Scotland to resist such a

formidable armament. James had assembled his whole military force at

Fala and Sautrey, and was ready to advance as soon as he should be

informed of Norfolk’s invading his kingdom. The English passed the Tweed

at Berwick, and marched along the banks of the river as far as Kelso;

but hearing that James had collected near thirty thousand men, they

repassed the river at that village, and retreated into their own

country.[**] The king of Scots, inflamed with a desire of military

glory, and of revenge on his invaders, gave the signal for pursuing

them, and carrying the war into England. He was surprised to find

that his nobility, who were in general disaffected on account of the

preference which he had given to the clergy, opposed this resolution,

and refused to attend him in his projected enterprise. Enraged at this

mutiny, he reproached them with cowardice, and threatened vengeance;

but still resolved, with the forces which adhered to him, to make

an impression on the enemy. He sent ten thousand men to the western

borders, who entered England at Solway Frith; and he himself followed

them at a small distance, ready to join them upon occasion. Disgusted,

however, at the refractory disposition of his nobles, he sent a message

to the army depriving Lord Maxwel, their general, of his commission, and

conferring the command on Oliver Sinclair, a private gentleman, who was

his favorite. The army was extremely disgusted with this alteration,

and was ready to disband, when a small body of English appeared, not

exceeding five hundred men, under the command of Dacres and Musgrave. A

panic seized the Scots, who immediately took to flight, and were pursued

by the enemy. Few were killed in this rout; for it was no action; but

a great many were taken prisoners, and some of the principal nobility:

among these, the earls of Cassilis and Glencairn, the lords Maxwel,

Fleming, Somerville, Oliphant, Grey, who were all sent to London, and

given in custody to different noblemen.

* Buchanan, lib. xiv.

** Buchanan, lib. xiv.

The king of Scots, hearing of this disaster, was astonished; and being

naturally of a melancholic disposition, as well as endowed with a high

spirit, he lost all command of his temper on this dismal occasion. Rage

against his nobility, who, he believed, had betrayed him; shame for a

defeat by such unequal numbers; regret for the past, fear of the future;

all these passions so wrought upon him, that he would admit of no

consolation, but abandoned himself wholly to despair. His body was

wasted by sympathy with his anxious mind; and even his life began to be

thought in danger. He had no issue living; and hearing that his queen

was safely delivered, he asked whether she had brought him a male or a

female child. Being told the latter, he turned himself in his bed:

“The crown came with a woman,” said he, “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.” A few days after, he expired, in the

flower of his age: a prince of considerable virtues and talents; well

fitted, by his vigilance and personal courage, for repressing those

disorders to which his kingdom, during that age, was so much exposed.

He executed justice with impartiality and rigor; but as he supported the

commonalty and the church against the rapine of the nobility, he escaped

not the hatred of that order. The Protestants also, whom he opposed,

have endeavored to throw many stains on his memory; but have not been

able to fix any considerable imputation upon him.[*]

{1543.} Henry was no sooner informed of his victory and of the death

of his nephew, than he projected, as James had foreseen, the scheme of

uniting Scotland to his own dominions by marrying his son Edward to the

heiress of that kingdom.[**] [18]

* See note R, at the end of the volume.

** Stowe, p. 584. Herbert. Burnet. Buchanan.

He called together the Scottish nobles who were his prisoners and after

reproaching them, in severe terms, for their pretended breach of treaty,

he began to soften his tone, and proposed to them this expedient, by

which, he hoped, those disorders so prejudicial to both states, would

for the future be prevented. He offered to bestow on them their liberty

without ransom; and only required of them engagements to favor the

marriage of the prince of Wales with their young mistress. They were

easily prevailed on to give their assent to a proposal which seemed so

natural and so advantageous to both kingdoms; and being conducted to

Newcastle, they delivered to the duke of Norfolk hostages for their

return, in case the intended nuptials were not completed; and they

thence proceeded to Scotland, where they found affairs in some

confusion.

The pope, observing his authority in Scotland to be in danger from the

spreading of the new opinions, had bestowed on Beaton, the primate, the

dignity of cardinal, in order to confer more influence upon him; and

that prelate had long been regarded as prime minister to James, and

as the head of that party which defended the ancient privileges and

property of the ecclesiastics. Upon the death of his master, this man,

apprehensive of the consequences both to his party and to himself,

endeavored to keep possession of power; and for that purpose he is

accused of executing a deed which required a high degree of temerity.

He forged, it is said, a will for the king, appointing himself and three

noblemen more regents of the kingdom during the minority of the infant

princess:[*] at least,--for historians are not well agreed in the

circumstances of the fact,--he had read to James a paper of that import,

to which that monarch, during the delirium which preceded his death, had

given an imperfect assent and approbation.[**] By virtue of this will,

Beaton had put himself in possession of the government; and having

united his interests with those of the queen dowager, he obtained the

consent of the convention of states, and excluded the pretensions of the

earl of Arran.

* Sadler’s Letters, p. 161. Spotswood, p. 71. Buchanan, lib.

xv.

** John Knox, Hist. of the Reformation.

James, earl of Arran, of the name of Hamilton, was next heir to the

crown by his grandmother, daughter of James III.; and on that account

seemed best entitled to possess that high office into which the cardinal

had intruded himself. The prospect also of his succession after a

princess who was in such tender infancy, procured him many partisans;

and though his character indicated little spirit, activity, or ambition,

a propensity which he had discovered for the new opinions had attached

to him all the zealous promoters of those innovations. By means of these

adherents, joined to the vassals of his own family, he had been able to

make opposition to the cardinal’s administration; and the suspicion

of Beaton’s forgery, with the accession of the noblemen who had been

prisoners in England, assisted too by some money sent from London,

was able to turn the balance in his favor. The earl of Angus and his

brother, having taken the present opportunity of returning into their

native country, opposed the cardinal with all the credit of that

powerful family; and the majority of the convention had now embraced

opposite interests to those which formerly prevailed. Arran was declared

governor; the cardinal was committed to custody under the care of

Lord Seton; and a negotiation was commenced with Sir Ralph Sadler, the

English ambassador, for the marriage of the infant queen with the prince

of Wales. The following conditions were quickly agreed on: that the

queen should remain in Scotland till she should be ten years of age;

that she should then be sent to England to be educated; that six

Scottish noblemen should immediately be delivered as hostages to Henry;

and that the kingdom, notwithstanding its union with England, should

still retain its laws and privileges.[*] By means of these equitable

conditions, the war between the nations, which had threatened Scotland

with such dismal calamities, seemed to be fully composed, and to be

changed into perpetual concord and amity.

But the cardinal primate, having prevailed on Seton to restore him to

his liberty, was able, by his intrigues, to confound all these measures,

which appeared so well concerted. He assembled the most considerable

ecclesiastics; and having represented to them the imminent danger to

which their revenues and privileges were exposed, he persuaded them to

collect privately from the clergy a large sum of money, by which, if

intrusted to his management, he engaged to overturn the schemes of

their enemies.[**] Besides the partisans whom he acquired by pecuniary

motives, he roused up the zeal of those who were attached to the

Catholic worship; and he represented the union with England as the sure

forerunner of ruin to the church and to the ancient religion.

* Sir Ralph Sadler’s Letters.

** Buchanan, lib. xv.

The nations antipathy of the Scots to their southern neighbors was also

an infallible engine by which the cardinal wrought upon the people;

and though the terror of Henry’s arms, and their own inability to make

resistance, had procured a temporary assent to the alliance and marriage

proposed, the settled habits of the nation produced an extreme aversion

to those measures. The English ambassador and his retinue received many

insults from persons whom the cardinal had instigated to commit those

violences, in hopes of bringing on a rupture; but Sadler prudently

dissembled the matter, and waited patiently till the day appointed

for the delivery of the hostages. He then demanded of the regent the

performance of that important article; but received for answer, that his

authority was very precarious, that the nation had now taken a different

impression, and that it was not in his power to compel any of the

nobility to deliver themselves as hostages to the English. Sadler,

foreseeing the consequence of this refusal, sent a summons to all those

who had been prisoners in England, and required them to fulfil the

promise which they had given of returning into custody. None of them

showed so much sentiment of honor as to fulfil their engagements, except

Gilbert Kennedy, earl of Cassilis. Henry was so well pleased with the

behavior of this nobleman, that he not only received him graciously, but

honored him with presents, gave him his liberty, and sent him back to

Scotland, with his two brothers, whom he had left as hostages.[*]

* Buchanan, lib. xv.

This behavior of the Scottish nobles, though it reflected dishonor on

the nation, was not disagreeable to the cardinal, who foresaw that all

these persons would now be deeply interested to maintain their enmity

and opposition to England. And as a war was soon expected with that

kingdom, he found it necessary immediately to apply to France, and to

crave the assistance of that ancient ally, during the present distresses

of the Scottish nation. Though the French king was fully sensible of

his interest in supporting Scotland, a demand of aid could not have

been made on him at a more unseasonable juncture. His pretensions on the

Milanese, and his resentment against Charles, had engaged him in a war

with that potentate; and having made great, though fruitless efforts

during the preceding campaign, he was the more disabled at present from

defending his own dominions, much more from granting any succor to

the Scots. Matthew Stewart, earl of Lenox, a young nobleman of a

great family, was at that time in the French court; and Francis, being

informed that he was engaged in ancient and hereditary enmity with the

Hamiltons, who had murdered his father, sent him over to his native

country, as a support to the cardinal and the queen mother: and he

promised that a supply of money, and, if necessary, even military

succors, should soon be despatched after him. Arran, the governor,

seeing all these preparations against him, assembled his friends, and

made an attempt to get the person of the infant queen into his custody;

but being repulsed, he was obliged to come to an accommodation with his

enemies, and to intrust that precious charge to four neutral persons,

the heads of potent families, the Grahams, Areskines, Lindseys, and

Levingstones. The arrival of Lenox, in the midst of these transactions,

served to render the victory of the French party over the English still

more undisputable.[*]

The opposition which Henry met with in Scotland from the French

intrigues, excited his resentment, and further confirmed the resolution

which he had already taken of breaking with France, and of uniting

his arms with those of the emperor. He had other grounds of complaint

against the French king; which, though not of great importance, yet

being recent, were able to overbalance those great injuries which he had

formerly received from Charles. He pretended that Francis had engaged to

imitate his example in separating himself entirely from the see of

Rome, and that he had broken his promise in that particular. He was

dissatisfied that James, his nephew, had been allowed to marry, first

Magdalene of France, then a princess of the house of Guise; and

he considered these alliances as pledges which Francis gave of his

intentions to support the Scots against the power of England.[**] He had

been informed of some railleries which the French king had thrown out

against his conduct with regard to his wives. He was disgusted that

Francis, after so many obligations which he owed him, had sacrificed

him to the emperor; and, in the confidence of friendship, had rashly

revealed his secrets to that subtle and interested monarch. And he

complained that regular payments were never made of the sums due to him

by France, and of the pension which had been stipulated. Impelled by

all these motives, he alienated himself from his ancient friend and

confederate, and formed a league with the emperor, who earnestly courted

his alliance.

* Buchanan, lib. xv. Drummond.

** Pere Daniel.

This league, besides stipulations for mutual defence, contained a plan

for invading France; and the two monarchs agreed to enter Francis’s

dominions with an army, each of twenty-five thousand men; and to require

that prince to pay Henry all the sums which he owed him, and to consign

Boulogne, Montreuil, Terouenne, and Ardres, as a security for the

regular payment of his pension for the future: in case these conditions

were rejected, the confederate princes agreed to challenge, for Henry,

the crown of France, or, in default of it, the duchies of Normandy,

Aquitaine, and Guienne; for Charles the duchy of Burgundy, and some

other territories.[*] That they might have a pretence for enforcing

these claims, they sent a message to Francis, requiring him to renounce

his alliance with Sultan Solyman, and to make reparation for all

the prejudice which Christendom had sustained from that unnatural

confederacy. Upon the French king’s refusal, war was declared against

him by the allies. It may be proper to remark, that the partisans

of France objected to Charles’s alliance with the heretical king of

England, as no less obnoxious than that which Francis had contracted

with Solyman: and they observed, that this league was a breach of the

solemn promise which he had given to Clement VII., never to make peace

or alliance with England.

While the treaty with the emperor was negotiating, the king summoned a

new session of parliament, in order to obtain supplies for his projected

war with France. The parliament granted him a subsidy, to be paid in

three years; it was levied in a peculiar manner; but exceeded not three

shillings in the pound upon any individual.[**]

* Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 768; vol. xv. p. 2.

** They who were worth, in goods, twenty shillings and

upwards to five pounds, paid fourpence of every pound; from

five pounds to ten pounds, eightpence; from ten pounds to

twenty pounds, sixteen pence; from twenty and upwards, two

shillings. Lands, fees, and annuities, from twenty shillings

to five pounds, paid eightpence in the pound; from five

pounds to ten pounds, sixteen pence; from ten pounds to

twenty pounds, two shillings; from twenty pounds and

upwards, three shillings.

The convocation gave the king six shillings in the pound, to be levied

in three years. Greater sums were always, even during the establishment

of the Catholic religion, exacted from the clergy than from the

laity; which made the emperor Charles say, when Henry dissolved the

monasteries, and sold their revenues, or bestowed them on his nobility

and courtiers, that he had killed the hen which brought him the golden

eggs.[*]

The parliament also facilitated the execution of the former law by which

the king’s proclamations were made equal to statutes: they appointed

that any nine counsellors should form a legal court for punishing all

disobedience to proclamations. The total abolition of juries in criminal

causes, as well as on all parliaments, seemed, if the king had so

pleased, the necessary consequence of this enormous law. He might

issue a proclamation enjoining the execution of any penal statute, and

afterwards try the criminals, not for breach of the statute, but for

disobedience to his proclamation. It is remarkable, that Lord Mountjoy

entered a protest against this law; and it is equally remarkable that

that protest is the only one entered against any public bill during this

whole reign.[**]

It was enacted[***] this session, that any spiritual person who preached

or taught contrary to the doctrine contained in the king’s book, the

Erudition of a Christian Man, or contrary to any doctrine which he

should thereafter promulgate, was to be admitted on the first conviction

to renounce his error; on the second, he was required to carry a fagot;

which if he refused to do, or fell into a third offence, he was to be

burnt. But the laity, for the third offence, were only to forfeit their

goods and chattels, and be liable to perpetual imprisonment. Indictments

must be laid within a year after the offence, and the prisoner was

allowed to bring witnesses for his exculpation. These penalties were

lighter than those which were formerly imposed on a denial of the real

presence: it was, however, subjoined in this statute, that the act of

the six articles was still in force. But in order to make the king more

entirely master of his people, it was enacted, that he might hereafter,

at his pleasure, change this act, or any provision in it. By this

clause, both parties were retained in subjection: so far as regarded

religion, the king was invested, in the fullest manner, with the sole

legislative authority in his kingdom; and all his subjects were, under

the severest penalties, expressly bound to receive implicitly whatever

doctrine he should please to recommend to them.

* Collier, vol. ii. p. 176.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 322.

*** 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 1.

The reformers began to entertain hopes that this great power of the

crown might still be employed in their favor. The king married Catharine

Par, widow of Nevil, Lord Latimer; a woman of virtue, and somewhat

inclined to the new doctrine. By this marriage Henry confirmed what had

formerly been foretold in jest, that he would be obliged to espouse a

widow. The king’s league with the emperor seemed a circumstance no less

favorable to the Catholic party; and thus matters remained still nearly

balanced between the factions.

The advantages gained by this powerful confederacy between Henry and

Charles, were inconsiderable during the present year. The campaign was

opened with a victory gained by the duke of Cleves, Francis’s ally, over

the forces of the emperor:[*] Francis, in person, took the field early;

and made himself master, without resistance, of the whole duchy of

Luxembourg: he afterwards took Landrecy, and added some fortifications

to it. Charles, having at last assembled a powerful army, appeared in

the Low Countries; and after taking almost every fortress in the duchy

of Cleves, he reduced the duke to accept of the terms which he was

pleased to prescribe to him. Being then joined by a body of six thousand

English, he sat down before Landrecy, and covered the siege with an army

of above forty thousand men. Francis advanced at the head of an army not

much inferior; as if he intended to give the emperor battle, or oblige

him to raise the siege: but while these two rival monarchs were facing

each other, and all men were in expectation of some great event, the

French king found means of throwing succor into Landrecy; and having

thus effected his purpose, he skilfully made a retreat. Charles, finding

the season far advanced, despaired of success in his enterprise, and

found it necessary to go into winter quarters.

* Mém. du Bellai, lib. x.

The vanity of Henry was flattered by the figure which he made in the

great transactions on the continent; but the interests of his kingdom

were more deeply concerned in the event of affairs in Scotland. Arran,

the governor, was of so indolent and unambitious a character, that,

had he not been stimulated by his friends and dependants, he never had

aspired to any share in the administration; and when he found himself

overpowered by the party of the queen dowager, the cardinal, and the

earl of Lenox, he was glad to accept of any terms of accommodation,

however dishonorable. He even gave them a sure pledge of his sincerity,

by renouncing the principles of the reformers, and reconciling himself

to the Romish communion in the Franciscan church at Stirling. By this

weakness and levity, he lost his credit with the whole nation, and

rendered the Protestants, who were hitherto the chief support of his

power, his mortal enemies. The cardinal acquired an entire ascendant in

the kingdom: the queen dowager placed implicit confidence in him: the

governor was obliged to yield to him in every pretension: Lenox

alone was become an obstacle to his measures, and reduced him to some

difficulty.

The inveterate enmity which had taken place between the families of

Lenox and Arran, made the interests of these two noblemen entirely

incompatible; and as the cardinal and the French party, in order to

engage Lenox the more in their cause, had flattered him with the hopes

of succeeding to the crown after their infant sovereign, this rivalship

had tended still further to rouse the animosity of the Hamiltons. Lenox,

too, had been encouraged to aspire to the marriage of the queen dowager,

which would have given him some pretensions to the regency; and as he

was become assuming, on account of the services which he had rendered

the party, the cardinal found that, since he must choose between the

friendship of Lenox and that of Arran, the latter nobleman, who was more

easily governed, and who was invested with present authority, was in

every respect preferable. Lenox, finding that he was not likely to

succeed in his pretensions to the queen dowager, and that Arran, favored

by the cardinal, had acquired the ascendant, retired to Dunbarton, the

governor of which was entirely at his devotion; he entered into a secret

correspondence with the English court; and he summoned his vassals and

partisans to attend him. All those who were inclined to the Protestant

religion, or were on any account discontented with the cardinal’s

administration, now regarded Lenox as the head of their party, and they

readily made him a tender of their services. In a little time he had

collected an army of ten thousand men, and he threatened his enemies

with immediate destruction. The cardinal had no equal force to oppose to

him; but as he was a prudent man, he foresaw that Lenox could not long

subsist so great an army, and he endeavored to gain time by opening a

negotiation with him. He seduced his followers by various artifices; he

prevailed on the Douglases to change party; he represented to the whole

nation the danger of civil wars and commotions; and Lenox, observing the

unequal contest in which he was engaged, was at last obliged to lay down

his arms, and to accept of an accommodation with the governor and the

cardinal. Present peace was restored; but no confidence took place

between the parties. Lenox, fortifying his castles, and putting himself

in a posture of defence, waited the arrival of English succors, from

whose assistance alone he expected to obtain the superiority over his

enemies.

{1544.} While the winter season restrained Henry from military

operations, he summoned a new parliament, in which a law was passed,

such as he was pleased to dictate, with regard to the succession of the

crown. After declaring that the prince of Wales, or any of the king’s

male issue, were first and immediate heirs to the crown, the parliament

restored the two princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, to their right of

succession. This seemed a reasonable piece of justice, and corrected

what the king’s former violence had thrown into confusion; but it was

impossible for Henry to do any thing, how laudable soever, without

betraying, in some circumstance, his usual extravagance and caprice:

though he opened the way for these two princesses to mount the throne,

he would not allow the acts to be reversed which had declared them

illegitimate; he made the parliament confer on him a power of still

excluding them, if they refused to submit to any conditions which he

should be pleased to impose; and he required them to enact, that, in

default of his own issue, he might dispose of the crown as he pleased,

by will or letters-patent. He did not probably foresee that, in

proportion as he degraded the parliament, by rendering it the passive

instrument of his variable and violent inclinations, he taught the

people to regard all its acts as invalid, and thereby defeated even the

purposes which he was so bent to attain.

An act passed, declaring that the king’s usual style should be “king of

England, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, and on earth the

supreme head of the church of England and Ireland.” It seemed a palpable

inconsistency to retain the title of defender of the faith, which the

court of Rome had conferred on him for maintaining its cause against

Luther; and yet subjoin his ecclesiastical supremacy, in opposition to

the claims of that court.

An act also passed for the remission of the debt which the king had

lately contracted by a general loan levied upon the people. It will

easily be believed, that after the former act of this kind, the loan

was not entirely voluntary.[*] But there was a peculiar circumstance

attending the present statute, which none but Henry would have thought

of; namely, that those who had already gotten payment, either in whole

or in part, should refund the money to the exchequer.

The oaths which Henry imposed for the security of his ecclesiastical

model, were not more reasonable than his other measures. All his

subjects of any distinction had already been obliged to renounce the

pope’s supremacy; but as the clauses to which they swore had not been

deemed entirely satisfactory, another oath was imposed; and it

was added, that all those who had taken the former oaths should be

understood to have taken the new one;[**] a strange supposition to

represent men as bound by an oath which they had never taken.

* 35 Henry VII. c. 12.

** 35 Henry VII c. 1.

The most commendable law to which the parliament gave their sanction,

was that by which they mitigated the law of the six articles, and

enacted, that no person should be put to his trial upon an accusation

concerning any of the offences comprised in that sanguinary statute,

except on the oath of twelve persons before commissioners authorized for

the purpose; and that no person should be arrested or committed to ward

for any such offence before he was indicted. Any preacher accused of

speaking in his sermon contrary to these articles, must be indicted

within forty days.

The king always experienced the limits of his authority whenever

he demanded subsidies, however moderate, from the parliament; and

therefore, not to hazard a refusal, he made no mention this session of

a supply: but as his wars both in France and Scotland, as well as his

usual prodigality, had involved him in great expense, he had resource

to other methods of filling his exchequer. Notwithstanding the former

abolition of his debts, he yet required new loans from his subjects; and

he enhanced gold from forty-five shillings to forty-eight an ounce,

and silver from three shillings and nine-pence to four shillings.

His pretence for this innovation was, to prevent the money from being

exported; as if that expedient could anywise serve the purpose. He even

coined some base money, and ordered it to be current by proclamation.

He named commissioners for levying a benevolence, and he extorted about

seventy thousand pounds by this expedient. Read, alderman of London,[*]

a man somewhat advanced in years, having refused to contribute, or not

coming up to the expectation of the commissioners, was enrolled as a

foot soldier in the Scottish wars, and was there taken prisoner. Roach,

who had been equally refractory, was thrown into prison, and obtained

not his liberty but by paying a large composition.[**] These powers

of the prerogative, (which at that time passed unquestioned,) the

compelling of any man to serve in any office, and the imprisoning of

any man during pleasure, not to mention the practice of extorting loans,

rendered the sovereign in a manner absolute master of the person and

property of every individual.

Early this year the king sent a fleet and army to invade Scotland. The

fleet consisted of near two hundred vessels, and carried on board ten

thousand men. Dudley, Lord Lisle, commanded the sea forces; the earl

of Hertford the land. The troops were disembarked near Leith; and after

dispersing a small body which opposed them, they took that town without

resistance, and then marched to Edinburgh. The gates were soon beaten

down, (for little or no resistance was made,) and the English first

pillaged, and then set fire to the city. The regent and cardinal were

not prepared to oppose so great a force, and they fled to Stirling.

Hertford marched eastward; and being joined by a new body under Evers,

warden of the east marches, he laid waste the whole country, burned and

destroyed Haddington and Dunbar, then retreated into England; having

lost only forty men in the whole expedition. The earl of Arran collected

some forces; but finding that the English were already departed, he

turned them against Lenox, who was justly suspected of a correspondence

with the enemy. That nobleman, after making some resistance, was obliged

to fly into England, where Henry settled a pension on him, and even

gave him his niece, lady Margaret Douglas, in marriage. In return, Lenox

stipulated conditions, by which, had he been able to execute them, he

must have reduced his country to total servitude.[***]

* Herbert. Stowe, p. 588. Baker, p. 292.

** Goodwin’s Annals. Stowe, p. 588.

*** Rymer, vol. xv. p. 28, 29.

Henry’s policy was blamed in this sudden and violent incursion, by which

he inflamed the passions of the Scots, without subduing their spirit;

and it was commonly said, that he did too much, if he intended to

solicit an alliance, and too little, if he meant a conquest.[*] But the

reason of his recalling the troops so soon, was his eagerness to carry

on a projected enterprise against France, in which he intended to

employ the whole force of his kingdom. He had concerted a plan with the

emperor, which threatened the total ruin of that monarchy, and must, as

a necessary consequence, have involved the ruin of England. These two

princes had agreed to invade France with forces amounting to above a

hundred thousand men: Henry engaged to set out from Calais; Charles from

the Low Countries: they were to enter on no siege; but leaving all the

frontier towns behind them, to march directly to Paris, where they were

to join their forces, and thence to proceed to the entire conquest of

the kingdom. Francis could not oppose to these formidable preparations

much above forty thousand men.

* Herbert. Burnet.

Henry, having appointed the queen regent during his absence, passed over

to Calais with thirty thousand men, accompanied by the dukes of Norfolk

and Suffolk, Fitzalan earl of Arundel, Vere earl of Oxford, the earl of

Surrey, Paulet Lord St. John, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, Lord Mountjoy,

Lord Grey of Wilton, Sir Anthony Brown, Sir Francis Bryan, and the most

flourishing nobility and gentry of his kingdom. The English army

was soon joined by the count de Buren, admiral of Flanders, with ten

thousand foot and four thousand horse; and the whole composed an army

which nothing on that frontier was able to resist. The chief force of

the French armies was drawn to the side of Champagne, in order to oppose

the imperialists.

The emperor, with an army of near sixty thousand men, had taken the

field much earlier than Henry; and not to lose time while he waited for

the arrival of his confederate, he sat down before Luxembourg, which was

surrendered to him: he thence proceeded to Commercy, on the Meuse, which

he took: Ligny met with the same fate: he next laid siege to St. Disier,

on the Marne, which, though a weak place, made a brave resistance under

the count of Sancerre, the governor, and the siege was protracted beyond

expectation.

The emperor was employed before this town at the time the English forces

were assembled in Picardy. Henry either tempted by the defenceless

condition of the French frontier, or thinking that the emperor had first

broken his engagement by forming sieges, or, perhaps, foreseeing at

last the dangerous consequences of entirely subduing the French power,

instead of marching forward to Paris, sat down before Montreuil and

Boulogne. The duke of Norfolk commanded the army before Montreuil; the

king himself that before Boulogne. Vervin was governor of the latter

place, and under him Philip Corse, a brave old soldier, who encouraged

the garrison to defend themselves to the last extremity against the

English. He was killed during the course of the siege, and the town was

immediately surrendered to Henry by the cowardice of Vervin, who was

afterwards beheaded for this dishonorable capitulation.

During the course of this siege, Charles had taken St. Disier; and

finding the season much advanced, he began to hearken to a treaty of

peace with France, since all his schemes for subduing that kingdom were

likely to prove abortive. In order to have a pretence for deserting

his ally, he sent a messenger to the English camp, requiring Henry

immediately to fulfil his engagements, and to meet him with his army

before Paris. Henry replied, that he was too far engaged in the siege of

Boulogne to raise it with honor, and that the emperor himself had first

broken the concert by besieging St. Disier. This answer served Charles

as a sufficient reason for concluding a peace with Francis at Crepy,

where no mention was made of England. He stipulated to give Flanders as

a dowry to his daughter, whom he agreed to marry to the duke of Orleans,

Francis’s second son; and Francis, in return, withdrew his troops from

Piedmont and Savoy, and renounced all claim to Milan, Naples, and

other territories in Italy. This peace, so advantageous to Francis, was

procured partly by the decisive victory obtained in the beginning of the

campaign by the count of Anguyen over the imperialists at Cerisolles in

Piedmont, partly by the emperor’s great desire to turn his arms against

the Protestant princes in Germany. Charles ordered his troops to

separate from the English in Picardy; and Henry, finding himself obliged

to raise the siege of Montreuil, returned into England. This campaign

served to the populace as matter of great triumph; but all men of sense

concluded, that the king had, as in all his former military enterprises,

made, at a great expense, an acquisition which was of no importance.

The war with Scotland, meanwhile, was conducted feebly and with various

success. Sir Ralph Evers, now Lord Evers and Sir Bryan Latoun, made

an inroad into that kingdom; and having laid waste the counties of

Tiviotdale and the Merse, they proceeded to the abbey of Coldingham,

which they took possession of, and fortified. The governor assembled an

army of eight thousand men, in order to dislodge them from this post;

but he had no sooner opened his batteries before the place, than a

sudden panic seized him; he left the army, and fled to Dunbar. He

complained of the mutiny of his troops, and pretended apprehensions

lest they should deliver him into the hands of the English; but his own

unwarlike spirit was generally believed to have been the motive of this

dishonorable flight. The Scottish army, upon the departure of their

general, fell into confusion; and had not Angus, with a few of his

retainers, brought off the cannon, and protected their rear, the English

might have gained great advantages over them. Evers, elated with this

success, boasted to Henry, that he had conquered all Scotland to the

Forth; and he claimed a reward for this important service. The duke

of Norfolk, who knew with what difficulty such acquisitions would be

maintained against a warlike enemy, advised the king to grant him, as

his reward, the conquests of which he boasted so highly. The next inroad

made by the English showed the vanity of Evers’s hopes.

{1545.} This general led about five thousand men into Tiviotdale, and

was employed in ravaging that country; when intelligence was brought him

that some Scottish forces appeared near the abbey of Melross. Angus had

roused the governor to more activity; and a proclamation being issued

for assembling the troops of the neighboring counties, a considerable

body had repaired thither to oppose the enemy. Norman Lesly, son of the

earl of Rothes, had also joined the army with some volunteers from Fife;

and he inspired courage into the whole, as well by this accession of

force, as by his personal bravery and intrepidity. In order to bring

their troops to the necessity of a steady defence, the Scottish leaders

ordered all their cavalry to dismount, and they resolved to wait, on

some high grounds near Ancram, the assault of the English. The English,

whose past successes had taught them too much to despise the enemy,

thought, when they saw the Scottish horses led off the field, that the

whole army was retiring; and they hastened to attack them. The Scots

received them in good order; and being favored by the advantage of the

ground, as well as by the surprise of the English, who expected no

resistance, they soon put them to flight, and pursued them with

considerable slaughter. Evers and Latoun were both killed, and above a

thousand men were made prisoners. In order to support the Scots in this

war, Francis some time after sent over a body of auxiliaries, to the

number of three thousand five hundred men, under the command of

Montgomery, lord of Lorges.[*] Reënforced by these succors, the governor

assembled an army of fifteen thousand men at Haddington, and marched

thence to ravage the east borders of England. He laid all waste wherever

he came; and having met with no considerable resistance, he retired into

his own country, and disbanded his army. The earl of Hertford, in

revenge, committed ravages on the middle and west marches; and the war

on both sides was signalized rather by the ills inflicted on the enemy,

than by any considerable advantage gained by either party.

The war likewise between France and England was not distinguished this

year by any memorable event. Francis had equipped a fleet of above two

hundred sail, besides galleys; and having embarked some land forces on

board, he sent them to make a descent in England.[**] They sailed to the

Isle of Wight, where they found the English fleet lying at anchor in

St. Helen’s. It consisted not of above a hundred sail; and the admiral

thought it most advisable to remain in that road, in hopes of drawing

the French into the narrow channels and the rocks, which were unknown to

them. The two fleets cannonaded each other for two days; and except the

sinking of the Mary Rose, one of the largest ships of the English fleet,

the damage on both sides was inconsiderable.

* Buchanan, lib. xv. Drummond.

** Beleair. Mém. du Bellai.

Francis’s chief intention in equipping so great a fleet, was to prevent

the English from throwing succors into Boulogne, which he resolved to

besiege; and for that purpose he ordered a fort to be built, by which he

intended to block up the harbor. After a considerable loss of time and

money, the fort was found so ill constructed, that he was obliged to

abandon it; and though he had assembled on that frontier an army of

near forty thousand men, he was not able to effect any considerable

enterprise. Henry, in order to defend his possessions in France, had

levied fourteen thousand Germans who, having marched to Fleurines, in

the bishopric of Liege, found that they could advance no farther. The

emperor would not allow them a passage through his dominions: they

received intelligence of a superior army on the side of France ready

to intercept them: want of occupation and of pay soon produced a mutiny

among them; and having seized the English commissaries as a security for

arrears, they retreated into their own country. There seems to have been

some want of foresight in this expensive armament.

The great expense of these two wars maintained by Henry, obliged him to

summon a new parliament. The commons granted him a subsidy, payable in

two years, of two shillings a pound on land.[*] The spirituality voted

him six shillings a pound. But the parliament, apprehensive lest more

demands should be made upon them, endeavored to save themselves by a

very extraordinary liberality of other people’s property; by one vote

they bestowed on the king all the revenues of the universities, as well

as of the chauntries, free chapels,[**] and hospitals. Henry was pleased

with this concession, as it increased his power; but he had no intention

to rob learning of all her endowments; and he soon took care to inform

the universities that he meant not to touch their revenues. Thus

these ancient and celebrated establishments owe their existence to

the generosity of the king, not to the protection of this servile and

prostitute parliament.

The prostitute spirit of the parliament further appeared in the preamble

of a statute;[***] in which they recognize the king to have always

been, by the word of God, supreme head of the church of England; and

acknowledge that archbishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastical persons,

have no manner of jurisdiction but by his royal mandate; to him alone,

say they, and such persons as he shall appoint, full power and

authority is given from above to hear and determine all manner of causes

ecclesiastical, and to correct all manner of heresies, errors, vices,

and sins whatsoever. No mention is here made of the concurrence of a

convocation, or even of a parliament. His proclamations are in effect

acknowledged to have not only the force of law, but the authority of

revelation; and by his royal power he might regulate the actions of

men, control their words, and even direct their inward sentiments and

opinions.

* Those who possessed goods or money above five pounds, and

below ten, were to pay eightpence a pound; those above ten

pounds, a shilling.

** A chauntry was a little church, chapel, or particular

altar in some cathedral church, etc., endowed with lands or

other revenues for the maintenance of one or more priests

daily to say mass or perform divine service, for the use of

the founders, or such others as they appointed: free chapels

were independent on any church, and endowed for much the

same purpose as the former. Jacob’s Law Dict.

*** 37 Henry VIII. c. 17.

The king made in person a speech to the parliament on proroguing them;

in which, after thanking them for their loving attachment to him, which,

he said, equalled what was ever paid by their ancestors to any king of

England, he complained of their dissensions, disputes, and animosities

in religion. He told them, that the several pulpits were become a kind

of batteries against each other; and that one preacher called another

heretic and Anabaptist, which was retaliated by the opprobrious

appellations of Papist and hypocrite: that he had permitted his people

the use of the Scriptures, not in order to furnish them with materials

for disputing and railing, but that he might enable them to inform their

consciences and instruct their children and families: that it grieved

his heart to find how that precious jewel was prostituted, by being

introduced into the conversation of every alehouse and tavern, and

employed as a pretence for decrying the spiritual and legal pastors:

and that he was sorry to observe, that the word of God, while it was

the object of so much anxious speculation, had very little influence

on their practice; and that, though an imaginary knowledge so much

abounded, charity was daily going to decay.[*] The king gave good

advice; but his own example, by encouraging speculation and dispute,

was ill fitted to promote that peaceable submission of opinion which he

recommended.

* Hall, fol. 261. Herbert, p. 534.

{1546.} Henry employed in military preparations the money granted by

parliament; and he sent over the earl of Hertford and Lord Lisle, the

admiral, to Calais, with a body of nine thousand men, two thirds of

which consisted of foreigners. Some skirmishes of small moment ensued

with the French; and no hopes of any considerable progress could be

entertained by either party. Henry, whose animosity against Francis was

not violent, had given sufficient vent to his humor by this short war;

and finding that, from his great increase in corpulence and decay in

strength, he could not hope for much longer life, he was desirous of

ending a quarrel which might prove dangerous to his kingdom during a

minority. Francis likewise, on his part, was not averse to peace with

England; because, having lately lost his son, the duke of Orleans, he

revived his ancient claim upon Milan, and foresaw that hostilities

must soon, on that account, break out between him and the emperor.

Commissioners, therefore, having met at Campe, a small place between

Ardres and Guisnes, the articles were soon agreed on, and the peace

signed by them. The chief conditions were, that Henry should retain

Boulogne during eight years, or till the former debt due by Francis

should be paid. This debt was settled at two millions of livres, besides

a claim of five hundred thousand livres, which was afterwards to be

adjusted. Francis took care to comprehend Scotland in the treaty. Thus

all that Henry obtained by a war which cost him above one million

three hundred and forty thousand pounds sterling,[*] was a bad and a

chargeable security for a debt, which was not a third of the value.

* Herbert. Stowe.

The king, now freed from all foreign wars, had leisure to give his

attention to domestic affairs; particularly to the establishment of

uniformity in opinion, on which he was so intent. Though he allowed an

English translation of the Bible, he had hitherto been very careful to

keep the mass in Latin; but he was at last prevailed on to permit that

the litany, a considerable part of the service, should be celebrated in

the vulgar tongue; and by this innovation he excited anew the hopes of

the reformers, who had been somewhat discouraged by the severe law of

the six articles. One petition of the new litany was a prayer to save

us “from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, and from all his detestable

enormities.” Cranmer employed his credit to draw Henry into further

innovations; and he took advantage of Gardiner’s absence, who was sent

on an embassy to the emperor: but Gardiner having written to the king,

that, if he carried his opposition against the Catholic religion to

greater extremities, Charles threatened to break off all commerce with

him, the success of Cranmer’s projects was for some time retarded.

Cranmer lost this year the most sincere and powerful friend that he

possessed at court, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk; the queen dowager

of France, consort to Suffolk, had died some years before. This nobleman

is one instance that Henry was not altogether incapable of a cordial and

steady friendship; and Suffolk seems to have been worthy of the favor

which, from his earliest youth, he had enjoyed with his master. The king

was sitting in council when informed of Suffolk’s death; and he took

the opportunity both to express his own sorrow for the loss, and to

celebrate the merits of the deceased. He declared, that during the

whole course of their friendship, his brother-in-law had never made one

attempt to injure an adversary, and had never whispered a word to the

disadvantage of any person. “Is there any of you, my lords, who can say

as much?” When the king subjoined these words, he looked round in all

their faces, and saw that confusion which the consciousness of secret

guilt naturally threw upon them.[*]

* Coke’s Inst. cap. 99.

Cranmer himself, when bereaved of this support, was the more exposed

to those cabals of the courtiers, which the opposition in party and

religion, joined to the usual motives of interest, rendered so frequent

among Henry’s ministers and counsellors. The Catholics took hold of the

king by his passion for orthodoxy; and they represented to him, that, if

his laudable zeal for enforcing the truth met with no better success,

it was altogether owing to the primate, whose example and encouragement

were, in reality, the secret supports of heresy. Henry, seeing the point

at which they aimed, feigned a compliance, and desired the council to

make inquiry into Cranmer’s conduct; promising that, if he were found

guilty, he should be committed to prison, and brought to condign

punishment. Every body now considered the primate as lost; and his

old friends, from interested views, as well as the opposite party from

animosity, began to show him marks of neglect and disregard. He was

obliged to stand several hours among the lackeys at the door of the

council chamber before he could be admitted; and when he was at last

called in, he was told that they had determined to send him to the

Tower. Cranmer said, that he appealed to the king himself; and finding

his appeal disregarded, he produced a ring, which Henry had given him as

a pledge of favor and protection. The council were confounded; and when

they came before the king, he reproved them in the severest terms; and

told them, that he was well acquainted with Cranmer’s merit, as well as

with their malignity and envy; but he was determined to crush all their

cabals, and to teach them by the severest discipline, since gentle

methods were ineffectual, a more dutiful concurrence in promoting his

service. Norfolk, who was Cranmer’s capital enemy, apologized for their

conduct and said, that their only intention was to set the primate’s

innocence in a full light, by bringing him to an open trial, and

Henry obliged them all to embrace him, as a sign of their cordial

reconciliation. The mild temper of Cranmer rendered this agreement more

sincere on his part than is usual in such forced compliances.[*]

But though Henry’s favor for Cranmer rendered fruitless all accusations

against him, his pride and peevishness, irritated by his declining state

of health, impelled him to punish with fresh severity all others who

presumed to entertain a different opinion from himself, particularly

in the capital point of the real presence. Anne Ascue, a young woman of

merit as well as beauty,[**] who had great connections with the chief

ladies at court, and with the queen herself, was accused of dogmatizing

on that delicate article; and Henry, instead of showing indulgence to

the weakness of her sex and age, was but the more provoked, that a woman

should dare to oppose his theological sentiments.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 342, 344. Antiq. Brit. in vita Cranm.

** Bale. Speed, p. 780.

She was prevailed on by Bonner’s menaces to make a seeming recantation;

but she qualified it with some reserves, which did not satisfy that

zealous prelate. She was thrown into prison, and she there employed

herself in composing prayers and discourses, by which she fortified her

resolution to endure the utmost extremity rather than relinquish her

religious principles. She even wrote to the king, and told him, that as

to the Lord’s supper, she believed as much as Christ himself had said

of it, and as much of his divine doctrine as the Catholic church had

required: but while she could not be brought to acknowledge an assent to

the king’s explications, this declaration availed her nothing, and was

rather regarded as a fresh insult. The chancellor, Wriothesely, who had

succeeded Audley, and who was much attached to the Catholic party, was

sent to examine her with regard to her patrons at court, and the

great ladies who were in correspondence with her: but she maintained a

laudable fidelity to her friends, and would confess nothing. She was

put to the torture in the most barbarous manner, and continued still

resolute in preserving secrecy. Some authors[*] add an extraordinary

circumstance; that the chancellor, who stood by, ordered the lieutenant

of the Tower to stretch the rack still farther; but that officer refused

compliance the chancellor menaced him, but met with a new refusal;

upon which that magistrate, who was otherwise a person of merit, but

intoxicated with religious zeal, put his own hand to the rack, and drew

it so violently that he almost tore her body asunder. Her constancy

still surpassed the barbarity of her persecutors, and they found all

their efforts to be baffled. She was then condemned to be burned alive;

and being so dislocated by the rack that she could not stand, she

was carried to the stake in a chair. Together with her were conducted

Nicholas Belenian, a priest, John Lassels, of the king’s household, and

John Adams, a tailor, who had been condemned for the same crime to the

same punishment. They were all tied to the stake; and in that dreadful

situation the chancellor sent to inform them, that their pardon was

ready drawn and signed, and should instantly be given them if they

would merit it by a recantation. They only regarded this offer as a new

ornament to their crown of martyrdom; and they saw with tranquillity the

executioner kindle the flames which consumed them. Wriothesely did not

consider, that this public and noted situation interested their honor

the more to maintain a steady perseverance.

* Fox, ii. p. 578. Speed, p. 780. Baker, p. 299.

But Burnet questions the truth of this circumstance; Fox,

however, transcribes her own papers, where she relates it. I

must add, in justice to the king, that he disapproved of

Wriothesely’s conduct, and commended the lieutenant.

Though the secrecy and fidelity of Anne Ascue saved the queen from this

peril, that princess soon after fell into a new danger, from which she

narrowly escaped. An ulcer had broken out in the king’s leg, which,

added to his extreme corpulency and his bad habit of body, began both to

threaten his life and to render him even more than usually peevish and

passionate. The queen attended him with the most tender and dutiful

care, and endeavored, by every soothing art and compliance, to allay

those gusts of humor to which he was become so subject. His favorite

topic of conversation was theology; and Catharine, whose good sense

enabled her to discourse on any subject, was frequently engaged in

the argument, and being secretly inclined to the principles of

the reformers, she unwarily betrayed too much of her mind on these

occasions. Henry, highly provoked that she should presume to differ from

him, complained of her obstinacy to Gardiner, who gladly laid hold of

the opportunity to inflame the quarrel. He praised the king’s anxious

concern for preserving the orthodoxy of his subjects; and represented,

that the more elevated the person was who was chastised, and the more

near to his person, the greater terror would the example strike

into every one, and the more glorious would the sacrifice appear to

posterity. The chancellor, being consulted, was engaged by religious

zeal to second these topics; and Henry, hurried on by his own impetuous

temper, and encouraged by his counsellors, went so far as to order

articles of impeachment to be drawn up against his consort. Wriothesely

executed his commands; and soon after brought the paper to him to be

signed; for, as it was high treason to throw slander upon the queen,

he might otherwise have been questioned for his temerity. By some means

this important paper fell into the hands of one of the queen’s friends,

who immediately carried the intelligence to her. She was sensible of the

extreme danger to which she was exposed; but did not despair of being

able, by her prudence and address, still to elude the efforts of her

enemies. She paid her usual visit to the king, and found him in a more

serene disposition than she had reason to expect. He entered on the

subject which was so familiar to him; and he seemed to challenge her

to an argument in divinity. She gently declined the conversation, and

remarked, that such profound speculations were ill suited to the natural

imbecility of her sex. Women, she said, by their first creation, were

made subject to men: the male was created after the image of God, the

female after the image of the male: it belonged to the husband to choose

principles for his wife; the wife’s duty was, in all cases, to adopt

implicitly the sentiments of her husband: and as to herself, it was

doubly her duty, being blest with a husband who was qualified by his

judgment and learning not only to choose principles for his own family,

but for the most wise and knowing of every nation. “Not so! by St.

Mary,” replied the king; “you are now become a doctor, Kate, and better

fitted to give than receive instruction.” She meekly replied, that she

was sensible how little she was entitled to these praises; that though

she usually declined not any conversation, however sublime, when

proposed by his majesty, she well knew that her conceptions could serve

to no other purpose than to give him a little momentary amusement, that

she found the conversation apt to languish when not revived by some

opposition, and she had ventured sometimes to feign a contrariety of

sentiments, in order to give him the pleasure of refuting her; and that

she also purposed, by this innocent artifice, to engage him into topics,

whence she had observed, by frequent experience, that she reaped profit

and instruction. “And is it so, sweetheart?” replied the king, “then

are we perfect friends again.” He embraced her with great affection,

and sent her away with assurances of his protection and kindness. Her

enemies, who knew nothing of this sudden change, prepared next day

to convey her to the Tower, pursuant to the king’s warrant. Henry and

Catharine were conversing amicably in the garden, when the chancellor

appeared with forty of the pursuivants. The king spoke to him at some

distance from her; and seemed to expostulate with him in the severest

manner: she even overheard the appellations of “knave,” “fool,” and

“beast,” which he liberally bestowed upon that magistrate; and then

ordered him to depart his presence. She afterwards interposed to

mitigate his anger: he said to her, “Poor soul! you know not how ill

entitled this man is to your good offices.” Thenceforth the queen,

having narrowly escaped so great a danger, was careful not to offend

Henry’s humor by any contradiction; and Gardiner, whose malice had

endeavored to widen the breach, could never afterwards regain his favor

and good opinion.[*]

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 344. Herbert, p. 560. Speed p. 780.

Fox’s Acts and Monuments, vol. ii. p. 58.

But Henry’s tyrannical disposition, soured by ill health, burst out soon

after to the destruction of a man who possessed a much superior rank to

that of Gardiner. The duke of Norfolk and his father, during this

whole reign, and even a part of the foregoing, had been regarded as the

greatest subjects in the kingdom, and had rendered considerable service

to the crown. The duke himself had in his youth acquired reputation by

naval enterprises: he had much contributed to the victory gained over

the Scots at Flouden: he had suppressed a dangerous rebellion in the

north; and he had always done his part with honor in all the expeditions

against France. Fortune seemed to conspire with his own industry in

raising him to the greatest elevation. From the favors heaped on him by

the crown he had acquired an immense estate: the king had successively

been married to two of his nieces; and the king’s natural son, the duke

of Richmond, had married his daughter; besides his descent, from the

ancient family of the Moubrays, by which he was allied to the throne,

he had espoused a daughter of the duke of Buckingham, who was descended

by a female from Edward III.; and as he was believed still to adhere

secretly to the ancient religion, he was regarded, both abroad and at

home, as the head of the Catholic party. But all these circumstances, in

proportion as they exalted the duke, provoked the jealousy of Henry;

and he foresaw danger, during his son’s minority, both to the public

tranquillity, and to the new ecclesiastical system, from the attempts

of so potent a subject. But nothing tended more to expose Norfolk to

the king’s displeasure, than the prejudices which Henry had entertained

against the earl of Surrey, son of that nobleman.

Surrey was a young man of the most promising hopes, and had

distinguished himself by every accomplishment which became a scholar, a

courtier, and a soldier. He excelled in all the military exercises which

were then in request: he encouraged the fine arts by his patronage

and example: he had made some successful attempts in poetry; and being

smitten with the romantic gallantry of the age, he celebrated the

praises of his mistress by his pen and his lance, in every masque and

tournament. His spirit and ambition were equal to his talents and his

quality; and he did not always regulate his conduct by the caution

and reserve which his situation required. He had been left governor

of Boulogne when that town was taken by Henry; but though his

personal bravery was unquestioned, he had been unfortunate in some

rencounters[**misspelling] with the French. The king, somewhat

displeased with his conduct, had sent over Hertford to command in his

place; and Surrey was so imprudent as to drop some menacing expressions

against the ministers, on account of this affront which was put upon

him. And as he had refused to marry Hertford’s daughter, and even waived

every other proposal of marriage, Henry imagined that he had entertained

views of espousing the lady Mary; and he was instantly determined to

repress, by the most severe expedients, so dangerous an ambition.

Actuated by all these motives, and perhaps influenced by that old

disgust with which the ill conduct of Catharine Howard had inspired him

against her whole family, he gave private orders to arrest Norfolk and

Surrey; and they were on the same day confined in the Tower. Surrey

being a commoner, his trial was the more expeditious; and as to proofs,

neither parliaments nor juries seem ever to have given the least

attention to them in any cause of the crown during this whole reign.

{1547.} He was accused of entertaining in his family some Italians

who were suspected to be spies; a servant of his had paid a visit

to Cardinal Pole in Italy, whence he was suspected of holding a

correspondence with that obnoxious prelate; he had quartered the arms

of Edward the Confessor on his scutcheon, which made him be suspected

of aspiring to the crown, though both he and his ancestors had openly,

during the course of many years, maintained that practice, and the

heralds had even justified it by their authority. These were the crimes

for which a jury, notwithstanding his eloquent and spirited defence,

condemned the earl of Surrey for high treason; and their sentence was

soon after executed upon him.

The innocence of the duke of Norfolk was still, if possible, more

apparent than that of his son; and his services to the crown had been

greater. His duchess, with whom he lived on bad terms, had been so base

as to carry intelligence to his enemies of all she knew against him:

Elizabeth Holland, a mistress of his, had been equally subservient to

the designs of the court; yet with all these advantages, his accusers

discovered no greater crime than his once saying, that the king was

sickly, and could not hold out long; and the kingdom was likely to fall

into disorders, through the diversity of religious opinions. He wrote a

pathetic letter to the king, pleading his past services and protesting

his innocence: soon after, he embraced a more proper expedient for

appeasing Henry, by making a submission and confession, such as his

enemies required; but nothing could mollify the unrelenting temper of

the king. He assembled a parliament, as the surest and most expeditious

instrument of his tyranny; and the house of peers, without examining the

prisoner, without trial or evidence, passed a bill of attainder against

him, and sent it down to the commons. Cranmer, though engaged for many

years in an opposite party to Norfolk, and though he had received

many and great injuries from him, would have no hand in so unjust a

prosecution; and he retired to his seat at Croydon.[*] The king was now

approaching fast towards his end; and fearing lest Norfolk should escape

him, he sent a message to the commons, by which he desired them to

hasten the bill, on pretence that Norfolk enjoyed the dignity of earl

marshal, and it was necessary to appoint another, who might officiate

at the ensuing ceremony of installing his son prince of Wales. The

obsequious commons obeyed his directions, though founded on so frivolous

a pretence; and the king having affixed the royal assent to the bill by

commissioners, issued orders for the execution of Norfolk on the morning

of the twenty-ninth of January. But news being carried to the Tower that

the king himself had expired that night, the lieutenant deferred obeying

the warrant; and it was not thought advisable by the council to begin a

new reign by the death of the greatest nobleman in the kingdom, who had

been condemned by a sentence so unjust and tyrannical.

The king’s health had long been in a declining state; but for several

days all those near him plainly saw his end approaching. He was become

so froward, that no one durst inform him of his condition; and as some

persons during this reign had suffered as traitors for foretelling the

king’s death,[**] every one was afraid lest, in the transports of his

fury, he might on this pretence punish capitally the author of such

friendly intelligence. At last, Sir Anthony Denny ventured to disclose

to him the fatal secret, and exhorted him to prepare for the fate which

was awaiting him. He expressed his resignation, and desired that Cranmer

might be sent for; but before the prelate arrived, he was speechless,

though he still seemed to retain his senses. Cranmer desired him to give

some sign of his dying in the faith of Christ. He squeezed the prelate’s

hand, and immediately expired, after a reign of thirty-seven years and

nine months; and in the fifty-sixth year of his age.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 348. Fox.

** Lanquet’s Epitome of Chronicles in the year 1541.

The king had made his will near a month before his demise; in which he

confirmed the destination of parliament, by leaving the crown first to

Prince Edward, then to the lady Mary, next to the lady Elizabeth: the

two princesses he obliged, under the penalty of forfeiting their title

to the crown, not to marry without consent of the council which he

appointed for the government of his minor son. After his own children,

he settled the succession on Frances Brandon, marchioness of Dorset,

eldest daughter of his sister, the French queen; then on Eleanor,

countess of Cumberland, the second daughter In passing over the

posterity of the queen of Scots, his eldest sister, he made use of the

power obtained from parliament, but as he subjoined that, after the

failure of the French queen’s posterity, the crown should descend to the

next lawful heir, it afterwards became a question, whether these words

could be applied to the Scottish line. It was thought that these princes

were not the next heirs after the house of Suffolk, but before that

house; and that Henry, by expressing himself in this manner, meant

entirely to exclude them. The late injuries which he had received from

the Scots, had irritated him extremely against that nation; and he

maintained to the last that character of violence and caprice by which

his life had been so much distinguished. Another circumstance of

his will may suggest the same reflection with regard to the strange

contrarieties of his temper and conduct: he left money for masses to be

said for delivering his soul from purgatory; and though he destroyed

all those institutions established by his ancestors and others for the

benefit of their souls, and had even left the doctrine of purgatory

doubtful in all the articles of faith which he promulgated during

his later years, he was yet determined, when the hour of death was

approaching, to take care at least of his own future repose, and to

adhere to the safer side of the question.[*]

* See his will in Fuller, Heylin, and Rymer, p. 110. There

is no reasonable ground to suspect its authenticity.

It is difficult to give a just summary of this prince’s qualities: he

was so different from himself in different parts of his reign, that, as

is well remarked by Lord Herbert, his history is his best character and

description. The absolute, uncontrolled authority which he maintained

at home, and the regard which he acquired among foreign nations, are

circumstances which entitle him, in some degree, to the appellation of

a great prince; while his tyranny and barbarity exclude him from the

character of a good one. He possessed, indeed, great vigor of mind,

which qualified him for exercising dominion over men; courage,

intrepidity, vigilance, inflexibility; and though these qualities lay

not always under the guidance of a regular and solid judgment, they were

accompanied with good parts and an extensive capacity; and every one

dreaded a contest with a man who was known never to yield or to forgive,

and who, in every controversy, was determined either to ruin himself or

his antagonist. A catalogue of his vices would comprehend many of the

worst qualities incident to human nature, violence, cruelty, profusion,

rapacity, injustice, obstinacy, arrogance, bigotry, presumption,

caprice: but neither was he subject to all these vices in the most

extreme degree, nor was he, at intervals, altogether destitute of

virtues: he was sincere, open, gallant, liberal, and capable at least

of a temporary friendship and attachment. In this respect he was

unfortunate, that the incidents of his reign served to display his

faults in their full light: the treatment which he met with from the

court of Rome provoked him to violence; the danger of a revolt from his

superstitious subjects seemed to require the most extreme severity. But

it must at the same time be acknowledged, that his situation tended

to throw an additional lustre on what was great and magnanimous in

his character; the emulation between the emperor and the French king

rendered his alliance, notwithstanding his impolitic conduct, of great

importance in Europe; the extensive powers of his prerogative, and the

submissive, not to say slavish, disposition of his parliaments, made

it the more easy for him to assume and maintain that entire dominion by

which his reign is so much distinguished in the English history.

It may seem a little extraordinary, that, notwithstanding his cruelty,

his extortion, his violence, his arbitrary administration, this prince

not only acquired the regard of his subjects, but never was the object

of their hatred: he seems even, in some degree, to have possessed to

the last their love and affection.[*] His exterior qualities were

advantageous, and fit to captivate the multitude: his magnificence and

personal bravery rendered him illustrious in vulgar eyes; and it may

be said with truth, that the English in that age were so thoroughly

subdued, that, like Eastern slaves, they were inclined to admire those

acts of violence and tyranny which were exercised over themselves, and

at their own expense.

* Strype, vol. i. p. 389.

With regard to foreign states, Henry appears long to have supported an

intercourse of friendship with Francis, more sincere and disinterested

than usually takes place between neighboring princes. Their common

jealousy of the emperor Charles, and some resemblance in their

characters, (though the comparison sets the French monarch in a very

superior and advantageous light,) served as the cement of their mutual

amity. Francis is said to have been affected with the king’s death,

and to have expressed much regret for the loss. His own health began to

decline: he foretold that he should not long survive his friend;[*] and

he died in about two months after him.

There were ten parliaments summoned by Henry VIII., and twenty-three

sessions held. The whole time in which these parliaments sat during this

long reign, exceeded not three years and a half. It amounted not to a

twelvemonth during the first twenty years. The innovations in religion

obliged the king afterwards to call these assemblies more frequently;

but though these were the most important transactions that ever fell

under the cognizance of parliament, their devoted submission to Henry’s

will, added to their earnest desire of soon returning to their country

seats, produced a quick despatch of the bills, and made the sessions

of short duration. All the king’s caprices were indeed blindly complied

with, and no regard was paid to the safety or liberty of the subject.

Besides the violent prosecution of whatever he was pleased to term

heresy, the laws of treason were multiplied beyond all former precedent.

Even words to the disparagement of the king, queen, or royal issue, were

subjected to that penalty; and so little care was taken in framing these

rigorous statutes, that they contain obvious contradictions; insomuch

that, had they been strictly executed, every man, without exception,

must have fallen under the penalty of treason. By one statute,[**] for

instance, it was declared treason to assert the validity of the

king’s marriage, either with Catharine of Arragon or Anne Boleyn; by

another,[***] it was treason to say any thing to the disparagement or

slander of the princesses Mary and Elizabeth; and to call them spurious

would, no doubt, have been construed to their slander. Nor would even a

profound silence with regard to these delicate points be able to save a

person from such penalties. For by the former statute, whoever refused

to answer upon oath to any point contained in that act, was subjected

to the pains of treason. The king, therefore, needed only propose to

any one a question with regard to the legality of either of his first

marriages: if the person were silent, he was a traitor by law: if he

answered either in the negative or in the affirmative, he was no less

a traitor. So monstrous were the inconsistencies which arose from

the furious passions of the king and the slavish submission of his

parliaments. It is hard to say whether these contradictions were owing

to Henry’s precipitancy, or to a formed design of tyranny.

* Le Thou.

** 28 Henry VIII. c. 7.

*** 34, 35 Henry VIII. c. 1.

It may not be improper to recapitulate whatever is memorable in the

statutes of this reign, whether with regard to government or commerce:

nothing can better show the genius of the age than such a review of the

laws.

The abolition of the ancient religion much contributed to the regular

execution of justice. While the Catholic superstition subsisted, there

was no possibility of punishing any crime in the clergy: the church

would not permit the magistrate to try the offences of her members, and

she could not herself inflict any civil penalties upon them. But Henry

restrained these pernicious immunities: the privilege of clergy was

abolished for the crimes of petty treason, murder, and felony, to all

under the degree of a subdeacon.[*] But the former superstition not

only protected crimes in the clergy; it exempted also the laity from

punishment, by affording them shelter in the churches and sanctuaries.

The parliament abridged these privileges. It was first declared, that no

sanctuaries were allowed in cases of high treason;[**] next, in those of

murder, felony, rapes, burglary, and petty treason:[***] and it limited

them in other particulars.[****] The further progress of the reformation

removed all distinction between the clergy and other subjects, and also

abolished entirely the privileges of sanctuaries. These consequences

were implied in the neglect of the canon law.

The only expedient employed to support the military spirit during this

age, was the reviving and extending of some old laws enacted for the

encouragement of archery, on which the defence of the kingdom was

supposed much to depend. Every man was ordered to have a bow;[v] butts

were ordered to be erected in every parish;[v*] and every bowyer was

ordered, for each bow of yew which he made, to make two of elm or witch,

for the service of the common people.[v**] The use of crossbows and

handguns was also prohibited.[v***]

* 23 Henry VIII. c. 1.

** 26 Henry VIII. c. 13.

*** 32 Henry VIII. c. 12.

**** 22 Henry VIII. c. 14.

v 3 Henry VIII. c. 3.

V* 3 Henry VIII. c. 3.

V** 3 Henry VIII c. 3.

V*** 3 Henry VIII. c. 13.

What rendered the English bowmen more formidable was, that they carried

halberts with them, by which they were enabled, upon occasion, to engage

in close fight with the enemy.[*] Frequent musters or arrays were also

made of the people, even during time of peace; and all men of substance

were obliged to have a complete suit of armor or harness, as it was

called.[**] The martial spirit of the English, during that age, rendered

this precaution, it was thought, sufficient for the defence of the

nation; and as the king had then an absolute power of commanding the

service of all his subjects, he could instantly, in case of danger,

appoint new officers, and levy regiments, and collect an army as

numerous as he pleased. When no faction or division prevailed among

the people, there was no foreign power that ever thought of invading

England. The city of London alone, could muster fifteen thousand

men.[***] Discipline, however, was an advantage wanting to those troops;

though the garrison of Calais was a nursery of officers, and Tournay

first,[****] Boulogne afterwards, served to increase the number. Every

one who served abroad was allowed to alienate his lands without paying

any fees.[v] A general permission was granted to dispose of land by

will.[v*] The parliament was so little jealous of its privileges, (which

indeed were, at that time, scarcely worth preserving,) that there is an

instance of one Strode, who, because he had introduced into the lower

house some bill regarding tin, was severely treated by the stannery

courts in Cornwall: heavy fines were imposed on him; and upon his

refusal to pay, he was thrown into a dungeon, loaded with irons, and

used in such a manner as brought his life in danger: yet all the notice

which the parliament took of this enormity, even in such a paltry court,

was to enact, that no man could afterwards be questioned for his conduct

in parliament.[v**] This prohibition, however, must be supposed to

extend only to the inferior courts: for as to the king, and privy

council, and star chamber, they were scarcely bound by any law.

There is a bill of tonnage and poundage, which shows what uncertain

ideas the parliament had formed both of their own privileges and of the

rights of the sovereign.[v***] This duty had been voted to every king

since Henry IV., during the term of his own life only: yet Henry VIII.

had been allowed to levy it six years, without any law; and though there

had been four parliaments assembled during that time, no attention had

been given either to grant it to him regularly, or restrain him from

levying it. At last the parliament resolved to give him that supply;

but even in this concession, they plainly show themselves at a loss to

determine whether they grant it, or whether he has a right of himself

to levy it. They say, that the imposition was made to endure during

the natural life of the late king, and no longer: they yet blame the

merchants who had not paid it to the present king: they observe, that

the law for tonnage and poundage was expired; yet make no scruple to

call that imposition the king’s due: they affirm, that he had sustained

great and manifold losses by those who had defrauded him of it; and to

provide a remedy, they vote him that supply during his lifetime, and no

longer. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding this last clause, all

his successors for more than a century persevered in the like irregular

practice; if a practice may deserve that epithet, in which the whole

nation acquiesced, and which gave no offence. But when Charles I.

attempted to continue in the same course which had now received the

sanction of many generations, so much were the opinions of men altered,

that a furious tempest was excited by it; and historians, partial

or ignorant, still represent this measure as a most violent and

unprecedented enormity in that unhappy prince.

* Herbert.

** Hall, fol. 234. Stowe, p. 515. Holingshed, p. 947.

*** Hall, fol. 235. Holingshed, p. 547. Stowe, p. 577.

**** Hall, fol. 68.

v 14 and 15 Henry VIII. c. 15.

v* 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 5.

v** 4 Henry VIII. c. 8.

v*** 6 Henry VIII. c. 14.

The king was allowed to make laws for Wales without consent of

parliament.[*] It was forgotten that, with regard both to Wales and

England, the limitation was abolished by the statute which gave to the

royal proclamations the force of laws.

* 34 Henry VIII.

The foreign commerce of England during this age was mostly confined to

the Netherlands. The inhabitants of the Low Countries bought the English

commodities, and distributed them into other parts of Europe. Hence the

mutual dependence of those countries on each other; and the great loss

sustained by both in case of a rupture. During all the variations of

politics, the sovereigns endeavored to avoid coming to this extremity;

and though the king usually bore a greater friendship to Francis, the

nation always leaned towards the emperor.

In 1528, hostilities commenced between England and the Low Countries;

and the inconvenience was soon felt on both sides. While the Flemings

were not allowed to purchase cloth in England, the English merchants

could not buy it from the clothiers, and the clothiers were obliged to

dismiss their workmen, who began to be tumultuous for want of bread. The

cardinal, to appease them, sent for the merchants, and ordered them to

buy cloth as usual: they told him that they could not dispose of it as

usual; and, notwithstanding his menaces, he could get no other answer

from them.[*] An agreement was at last made to continue the commerce

between the states, even during war.

It was not till the end of this reign that any salads, carrots, turnips,

or other edible roots were produced in England. The little of these

vegetables that was used, was formerly imported from Holland and

Flanders.[**] Queen Catharine, when she wanted a salad, was obliged

to despatch a messenger thither on purpose. The use of hops, and the

planting of them, was introduced from Flanders about the beginning of

this reign, or end of the preceding.

* Hall, fol. 174.

** Anderson, vol. i. p. 338.

Foreign artificers, in general, much surpassed the English in dexterity,

industry, and frugality: hence the violent animosity which the latter on

many occasions expressed against any of the former who were settled in

England. They had the assurance to complain, that all their customers

went to foreign tradesmen; and in the year 1517, being moved by the

seditious sermons of one Dr. Bele, and the intrigues of Lincoln, a

broker, they raised an insurrection. The apprentices, and others of the

poorer sort, in London, began by breaking open the prisons, where some

persons were confined for insulting foreigners. They next proceeded

to the house of Meutas, a Frenchman, much hated by them; where they

committed great disorders; killed some of his servants; and plundered

his goods. The mayor could not appease them; nor Sir Thomas More, late

under sheriff, though much respected in the city. They also threatened

Cardinal Wolsey with some insult; and he thought it necessary to fortify

his house, and put himself on his guard. Tired at last with these

disorders, they dispersed themselves; and the earls of Shrewsbury and

Surrey seized some of them. A proclamation was issued, that women should

not meet together to babble and talk, and that all men should keep their

wives in their houses. Next day the duke of Norfolk came into the city,

at the head of thirteen hundred armed men, and made inquiry into the

tumult. Bele and Lincoln, and several others, were sent to the Tower,

and condemned for treason. Lincoln and thirteen more were executed. The

other criminals, to the number of four hundred, were brought before the

king with ropes about their necks, fell upon their knees, and cried for

mercy. Henry knew at that time how to pardon; he dismissed them without

further punishment.[*]

So great was the number of foreign artisans in the city, that at least

fifteen thousand Flemings alone were at one time obliged to leave it, by

an order of council, when Henry became jealous of their favor for Queen

Catharine.[**] Henry himself confesses, in an edict of the star chamber,

printed among the statutes, that the foreigners starved the natives, and

obliged them from idleness to have recourse to theft, murder, and other

enormities.[***] He also asserts, that the vast multitude of foreigners

raised the price of grain and bread.[****] And to prevent an increase of

the evil, all foreign artificers were prohibited from having above two

foreigners in their house, either journeymen or apprentices. A like

jealousy arose against the foreign merchants; and to appease it, a law

was enacted obliging all denizens to pay the duties imposed upon aliens.

The parliament had done better to have encouraged foreign merchants and

artisans to come over in greater numbers to England; which might have

excited the emulation of the natives, and have improved their skill. The

prisoners in the kingdom for debts and crimes are asserted, in an act

of parliament, to be sixty thousand persons and above; which is scarcely

credible. Harrison asserts, that seventy-two thousand criminals were

executed during this reign for theft and robbery, which would amount

nearly to two thousand a year. He adds, that, in the latter end of

Elizabeth’s reign, there were not punished capitally four hundred in a

year; it appears that, in all England, there are not at present fifty

executed for those crimes. If these facts be just, there has been a

great improvement in morals since the reign of Henry VIII. And this

improvement has been chiefly owing to the increase of industry and of

the arts, which have given maintenance, and what is almost of equal

importance, occupation to the lower classes.

* Stowe, p. 505. Holingshed, p. 840.

** Le Grand, vol. iii. p. 232.

*** 21 Henry VIII.

**** 21 Henry VIII., 22 Henry VIII. C 8., 3 Henry VIII. c.

There is a remarkable clause in a statute passed near the beginning of

this reign,[*] by which we might be induced to believe that England was

extremely decayed from the flourishing condition which it had attained

in preceding times. It had been enacted in the reign of Edward II.,

that no magistrate in town or borough, who by his office ought to keep

assize, should, during the continuance of his magistracy, sell, either

in wholesale or retail, any wine or victuals. This law seemed equitable,

in order to prevent fraud or private views in fixing the assize: yet the

law is repealed in this reign. The reason assigned is, that “since the

making of that statute and ordinance, many and the most part of all the

cities, boroughs, and towns corporate, within the realm of England, are

fallen in ruin and decay, and are not inhabited by merchants, and men

of such substance as at the time of making that statute: for at this

day the dwellers and inhabitants of the same cities and boroughs are

commonly bakers, vintners, fishmongers, and other victuallers, and there

remain few others to bear the offices.” Men have such a propensity to

exalt past times above the present, that it seems dangerous to credit

this reasoning of the parliament without further evidence to support it.

So different are the views in which the same object appears, that some

may be inclined to draw an opposite inference from this fact. A more

regular police was established in the reign of Henry VIII. than in any

former period, and a stricter administration of justice; an advantage

which induced the men of landed property to leave the provincial

towns, and to retire into the country. Cardinal Wolsey, in a speech to

parliament, represented it as a proof of the increase of riches, that

the customs had increased beyond what they were formerly.[**]

But if there were really a decay of commerce, and industry, and

populousness in England, the statutes of this reign, except by

abolishing monasteries and retrenching holydays--circumstances of

considerable moment--were not in other respects well calculated to

remedy the evil. The fixing of the wages of artificers was attempted:

[***] luxury in apparel was prohibited by repeated statutes;[****] and

probably without effect.

* Henry VIII. c. 8.

** Hall, fol. 110.

*** 6 Henry VIII. c. 3.

**** 1 Henry VIII. c. 14. 6 Henry VIII. c. I 7 Henry VIII.

c. 7

The chancellor and other ministers were empowered to fix the price of

poultry, cheese, and butter.[*] A statute was even passed to fix the

price of beef, pork, mutton, and veal.[**] Beef and pork were ordered

to be sold at a halfpenny a pound; mutton and veal at a halfpenny half

a farthing, money of that age. The preamble of the statute says, that

these four species of butcher’s meat were the food of the poorer sort.

This ace was afterwards repealed.[***]

The practice of depopulating the country by abandoning tillage, and

throwing the lands into pasturage, still continued;[****] as appears by

the new laws which were from time to time enacted against that practice.

The king was entitled to half the rents of the land, where any farm

houses were allowed to fall to decay.[v] The unskilful husbandry was

probably the cause why the proprietors found no profit in tillage. The

number of sheep allowed to be kept in one flock, was restrained to two

thousand.[v*] Sometimes, says the statute, one proprietor or farmer

would keep a flock of twenty-four thousand. It is remarkable, that the

parliament ascribes the increasing price of mutton to this increase of

sheep: because, say they, the commodity being gotten into few hands, the

price of it is raised at pleasure.[v**] It is more probable, that the

effect proceeded from the daily increase of money; for it seems almost

impossible that such a commodity could be engrossed.

In the year 1544, it appears that an acre of good land in Cambridgeshire

was let at a shilling, or about fifteen pence of our present

money.[v***] This is ten times cheaper than the usual rent at present.

But commodities were not above four times cheaper; a presumption of the

bad husbandry in that age.

Some laws were made with regard to beggars and vagrants;[v****] one of

the circumstances in government, which humanity would most powerfully

recommend to a benevolent legislator; which seems, at first sight, the

most easily adjusted; and which is yet the most difficult to settle

in such a manner as to attain the end without destroying industry.

The convents formerly were a support to the poor; but at the same time

tended to encourage idleness and beggary.

* 25 Henry VIII. c. 2.

** 24 Henry VIII. c. 3.

*** 33 Henry VIII. c. 11.

**** Strype, vol. i. p. 392.

v 6 Henry VIII. c. 5. 7 Henry VIII. c. 1.

v* 25 Henry VIII. c. 13.

v** 25 Henry VIII. c. 13.

v*** Anderson, vol. i. p. 374.

v**** 22 Henry VIII. c. 12. 22 Henry VIII. c. 5.

In 1546, a law was made for fixing the interest of money at ten per

cent.; the first legal interest known in England. Formerly all loans

of that nature were regarded as usurious. The preamble of this very law

treats the interest of money as illegal and criminal; and the prejudices

still remained so strong, that the law permitting interest was repealed

in the following reign.

This reign, as well as many of the foregoing and even subsequent reigns,

abounds with monopolizing laws, confining particular manufactures to

particular towns, or excluding the open country in general.[*] There

remain still too many traces of similar absurdities. In the subsequent

reign, the corporations which had been opened by a former law, and

obliged to admit tradesmen of different kinds, were again shut up by act

of parliament; and every one was prohibited from exercising any trade

who was not of the corporation.[**]

Henry, as he possessed himself some talent for letters, was an

encourager of them in others. He founded Trinity College in Cambridge,

and gave it ample endowments. Wolsey founded Christ Church in Oxford,

and intended to call it Cardinal College: but upon his fall, which

happened before he had entirely finished his scheme, the king seized all

the revenues; and this violence, above all the other misfortunes of that

minister, is said to have given him the greatest concern.[***] But Henry

afterwards restored the revenues of the college, and only changed the

name. The cardinal founded in Oxford the first chair for teaching Greek;

and this novelty rent that university into violent factions, which

frequently came to blows. The students divided themselves into parties,

which bore the names of Greeks and Trojans, and sometimes fought with

as great animosity as was formerly exercised by those hostile nations.

A new and more correct method of pronouncing Greek being introduced, it

also divided the Grecians themselves into parties; and it was remarked

that the Catholics favored the former pronunciation, the Protestants

gave countenance to the new. Gardiner employed the authority of the king

and council to suppress innovations in this particular, and to preserve

the corrupt sound of the Greek alphabet. So little liberty was then

allowed of any kind!

* 21 Henry VIII. c. 12. 25 Henry VIII. c. 18. 3 and 4 Edward

VI. c. 20. 5 and 6 Edward VI. c. 24.

** 3 and 4 Edward VI. c. 20.

*** Strype, vol. i. p. 117.

The penalties inflicted upon the new pronunciation were no less than

whipping, degradation, and expulsion; and the bishop declared, that

rather than permit the liberty of innovating in the pronunciation of

the Greek alphabet, it were better that the language itself were totally

banished the universities. The introduction of the Greek language into

Oxford excited the emulation of Cambridge.[*] Wolsey intended to have

enriched the library of his college at Oxford with copies of all the

manuscripts that were in the Vatican.[**] The countenance given to

letters by this king and his ministers contributed to render learning

fashionable in England: Erasmus speaks with great satisfaction of the

general regard paid by the nobility and gentry to men of knowledge.[***]

It is needless to be particular in mentioning the writers of this reign

or of the preceding. There is no man of that age who has the least

pretension to be ranked among our classics. Sir Thomas More, though

he wrote in Latin, seems to come the nearest to the character of a

classical author.

* Wood’s Hist. and Antiq. Oxon. lib. I p. 245.

** Wood’s Hist. and Antiq. Oxon. lib. I p. 246.

*** Epist. ad Banisium. Also Epist. p. 668.