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Henry VIII and His Court
[Illustration: HENRY VIII
From the Portrait by Holbein, at Warwick Castle]
HENRY VIII
AND HIS COURT
BY
HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE
WITH FOUR FULL-PAGE PLATES
SIXTH EDITION
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1911
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
INTRODUCTORY
In these notes, written as a holiday task, it is not intended to give an
exhaustive record of the events of Henry's reign; but rather to offer an
impression of the more prominent personages in Shakespeare's play; and
perhaps to aid the playgoer in a fuller appreciation of the conditions
which governed their actions.
_Marienbad, 1910_
CONTENTS
PAGE
KING HENRY VIII. 1
WOLSEY 21
KATHARINE 47
ANNE BOLEYN 55
DIVORCE 63
THE REFORMATION 77
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 83
A NOTE ON THE PRODUCTION OF HENRY VIII. AT HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE 87
AN APOLOGY AND A FOOTNOTE 103
CHRONOLOGY OF PUBLIC EVENTS DURING THE LIFETIME OF HENRY VIII. 111
SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYS PRODUCED UNDER HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE'S
MANAGEMENT AT THE HAYMARKET THEATRE 115
LIST OF PLATES
HENRY VIII. _Frontispiece_
CARDINAL WOLSEY _Facing page_ 42
KATHARINE OF ARAGON " " 76
ANNE BOLEYN " " 96
KING HENRY VIII
_His Character_
Holbein has drawn the character and written the history of Henry on the
canvas of his great picture. Masterful, cruel, crafty, merciless,
courageous, sensual, through-seeing, humorous, mean, matter of fact,
worldly-wise, and of indomitable will, Henry the Eighth is perhaps the
most outstanding figure in English history. The reason is not far to seek.
The genial adventurer with sporting tendencies and large-hearted
proclivities is always popular with the mob, and "Bluff King Hal," as he
was called, was of the eternal type adored by the people. He had a certain
outward and inward affinity with Nero. Like Nero, he was corpulent; like
Nero, he was red-haired; like Nero, he sang and poetised; like Nero, he
was a lover of horsemanship, a master of the arts and the slave of his
passions. If his private vices were great, his public virtues were no less
considerable. He had the ineffable quality called charm, and the
appearance of good-nature which captivated all who came within the orbit
of his radiant personality. He was the "_beau garcon_," endearing himself
to all women by his compelling and conquering manhood. Henry was every
inch a man, but he was no gentleman. He chucked even Justice under the
chin, and Justice winked her blind eye.
It is extraordinary that in spite of his brutality, both Katharine and
Anne Boleyn spoke of him as a model of kindness. This cannot be accounted
for alone by that divinity which doth hedge a king.
There is, above all, in the face of Henry, as depicted by Holbein, that
look of impenetrable mystery which was the background of his character.
Many royal men have this strange quality; with some it is inborn, with
others it is assumed. Of Henry, Cavendish,[1] a contemporary, records the
following saying: "Three may keep counsel, if two be away; and if I
thought my cap knew my counsel, I would throw it in the fire and burn
it." Referring to this passage, Brewer says, "Never had the King spoke a
truer word or described himself more accurately. Few would have thought
that, under so careless and splendid an exterior--the very ideal of bluff,
open-hearted good humour and frankness--there lay a watchful and secret
mind that marked what was going on without seeming to mark it; kept its
own counsel until it was time to strike, and then struck as suddenly and
remorselessly as a beast of prey. It was strange to witness so much
subtlety combined with so much strength."
There was something baffling and terrifying in the mysterious bonhomie of
the King. In spite of Caesar's dictum, it is the fat enemy who is to be
feared; a thin villain is more easily seen through.
_His Ancestry_
Henry's antecedents were far from glorious. The Tudors were a Welsh family
of somewhat humble stock. Henry VII.'s great-grandfather was butler or
steward to the Bishop of Bangor, whose son, Owen Tudor, coming to London,
obtained a clerkship of the Wardrobe to Henry V.'s Queen, Catherine of
France. Within a few years of Henry's death, the widowed Queen and her
clerk of the wardrobe were secretly living together as man and wife. The
two sons of this morganatic match, Edmund and Jasper, were favoured by
their half brother, Henry VI. Edmund, the elder, was knighted, and then
made Earl of Richmond. In 1453 he was formally declared legitimate, and
enrolled a member of the King's Council. Two years later he married the
Lady Margaret Beaufort, a descendant of Edward III. It was this union
between Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort which gave Henry VII. his claim
by descent to the English throne.
The popularity of the Tudors was, no doubt, enhanced by the fact that with
their line, kings of decisively English blood, for the first time since
the Norman Conquest, sat on the English throne.
_His Early Days_
When Henry VIII. ascended the throne in 1509, England regarded him with
almost universal loyalty. The memory of the long years of the Wars of the
Roses and the wars of the Pretenders during the reign of his father, were
fresh in the people's mind. No other than he could have attained to the
throne without civil war.
Within two months he married Katharine of Aragon, his brother's widow, and
a few days afterwards the King and Queen were crowned with great splendour
in Westminster Abbey. He was still in his eighteenth year, of fine
physical development, but of no special mental precocity. For the first
five years of his reign, he was influenced by his Council, and especially
by his father-in-law, Ferdinand the Catholic, giving little indication of
the later mental vigour and power of initiation which made his reign so
memorable in English annals.
The political situation in Europe was a difficult one for Henry to deal
with. France and Spain were the rivals for Imperial dominion. England was
in danger of falling between two stools, such was the eagerness of each
that the other should not support her. Henry, through his marriage with
Katharine, began by being allied to Spain, and this alliance involved
England in the costly burden of war. Henry's resentment at the empty
result of this warfare, broke the Spanish alliance. Wolsey's aim was to
keep the country out of wars, and a long period of peace raised England to
the position of arbiter of Europe in the balanced contest between France
and Spain.
_The Field of the Cloth of Gold_
It was in connection with the meetings and intrigues now with one power,
now with the other, that the famous meeting with the French King at
Guisnes, known as "the Field of the Cloth of Gold," was held in 1520.
That the destinies of kingdoms sometimes hang on trifles is curiously
exemplified by a singular incident which preceded the famous meeting.
Francis I. prided himself on his beard. As a proof of his desire for the
meeting with Francis, and out of compliment to the French King, Henry
announced his resolve to wear his beard uncut until the meeting took
place. But he reckoned without his wife. Some weeks before the meeting
Louise of Savoy, the Queen-Mother of France, taxed Boleyn, the English
Ambassador, with a report that Henry had put off his beard. "I said,"
writes Boleyn, "that, as I suppose, it hath been by the Queen's desire,
for I told my lady that I have hereafore known when the King's grace hath
worn long his beard, that the Queen hath daily made him great instance,
and desired him to put it off for her sake." This incident caused some
resentment on the part of the French King, who was only pacified by
Henry's tact.
So small a matter might have proved a _casus belli_.
The meeting was held amidst scenes of unparalleled splendour. The
temporary palace erected for the occasion was so magnificent that a
chronicler tells us it might have been the work of Leonardo da Vinci.
Henry "the goodliest prince that ever reigned over the realm of England,"
is described as "_honnete, hault et droit_, in manner gentle and gracious,
rather fat, with a red beard, large enough, and very becoming."
On this occasion Wolsey was accompanied by two hundred gentlemen clad in
crimson velvet, and had a body-guard of two hundred archers. He was
clothed in crimson satin from head to foot, his mule was covered with
crimson velvet, and her trappings were all of gold.
There were jousts and many entertainments and rejoicings, many kissings of
Royal cheeks, but the Sovereigns hated each other cordially. While they
were kissing they were plotting against each other. A more unedifying page
of history has not been written. Appalling, indeed, are the shifts and
intrigues which go to make up the records of the time.
The rulers of Europe were playing a game of cards, in which all the
players were in collusion with, and all cheating each other. Temporizing
and intriguing, Henry met the Spanish monarch immediately before and
immediately after his meeting with the French King. Within a few months,
France and Spain were again at war, and England, in a fruitless and costly
struggle, fought on the side of Spain.
It was the divorce from Katharine of Aragon and its momentous
consequences, which finally put an end to the alliance with Spain, and to
the struggle with France succeeded a long struggle with Spain, which
culminated in the great event of The Armada in the reign of Henry's
daughter, Elizabeth.
However, in these pages it is not proposed to enlarge upon the political
aspect of the times, but rather to deal with the dramatic and domestic
side of Henry's being. In the play of _Henry VIII._, the author or authors
(for to another than Shakespeare is ascribed a portion of the drama), have
given us as impartial a view of his character as a due regard for truth on
the one hand, and a respect for the scaffold on the other, permitted.
_His Aspirations_
There can be no doubt that when Henry ascended the throne, he had a
sincere wish to serve God and uphold the right.
In his early years he was really devout and generous in almsgiving.
Erasmus affirmed that his Court was an example to all Christendom for
learning and piety. To the Pope he paid deference as to the representative
of God.
With youthful enthusiasm, the young King, looking round and seeing
corruption on every side, said to Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador:
"Nor do I see any faith in the world save in me, and therefore God
Almighty, who knows this, prosper my affairs."
In Henry's early reign, England was trusted more than any country to keep
faith in her alliances. At a time when all was perfidy and treachery,
promises and alliances were made only to be broken when self-interest
prompted. History, like Nature itself, is ruled by brutal laws, and to
play the round game of politics with single-handed honesty would be to
lose at every turn. Henry was born into an inheritance of blood and
blackmail. Corruption has its vested interests. It is useless to attempt
to stem the recurrent tide of corruption by sprinkling the waves with holy
water.
Then religion was a part of men's daily lives, but the principles of
Christianity were set at naught at the first bidding of expediency.
Men murdered to live--the axe and the sword were the final Court of
Appeal. Nor does the old order change appreciably in the course of a few
hundred years. In international politics, as in public life, when
self-interest steps in, Christianity goes to the wall.
To-day we grind our axe with a difference. A more subtle process of
dealing with our rivals obtains. To-day the pen is mightier than the
sword, the stylograph is more deadly than the stiletto. The bravo still
plies his trade. He no longer takes life, but character. To intrigue, to
combine against those outside the ring is often the swiftest way to
fortune. By such combination do weaker particles make themselves strong.
To "play the game" is necessary to progress. The world was not made for
poets and idealists. To quote an anonymous modern writer:
"'Act well your part, there all the honour lies';
Stoop to expediency and honour dies.
Many there are that in the race for fame,
Lose the great cause to win the little game,
Who pandering to the town's decadent taste,
Barter the precious pearl for gawdy paste,
And leave upon the virgin page of Time
The venom'd trail of iridescent slime."
Henry's eyes soon opened. His character, like his body, underwent a
gradual process of expansion.
_His Pastimes_
Soon the lighter side of kingship was not disdained. One authority wrote
in 1515: "He is a youngling, cares for nothing but girls and hunting." He
was an inveterate gambler, and turned the sport of hunting into a
martyrdom, rising at four or five in the morning, and hunting till nine or
ten at night. Another contemporary writes: "He devotes himself to
accomplishments and amusements day and night, is intent on nothing else,
and leaves business to Wolsey, who rules everything."
As a sportsman, Henry was the "_beau ideal_" of his people. In the lists
he especially distinguished himself, "in supernatural feats, changing his
horses, and making them fly or rather leap, to the delight and ecstasy of
everybody."
He also gave himself to masquerades and charades. We are told: "It was at
the Christmas festivals at Richmond, that Henry VIII. stole from the side
of the Queen during the jousts, and returned in the disguise of a strange
Knight, astonishing all the company with the grace and vigour of his
tilting. At first the King appeared ashamed of taking part in these
gladiatorial exercises, but the applause he received on all sides soon
inclined him openly to appear on every occasion in the tilt-yard.
Katharine humoured the childish taste of her husband for disguisings and
masquings, by pretending great surprise when he presented himself before
her in some assumed character."
He was gifted with enormous energy; he could ride all day, changing his
horses nine or ten times a day; then he would dance all night; even then
his energies were not exhausted; then he would write what the courtiers
described as poetry, or he would compose music, or he would dash off an
attack on Luther, and so earn from the Pope the much-coveted title of
"_Fidei Defensor_."
In shooting at the butt, it is said, Henry excelled, drawing the best bow
in England. At tennis, too, he excelled beyond all others. He was addicted
to games of chance, and his courtiers permitted him to lose as much as
L3,500 in the course of one year--scarcely a tactful proceeding. He
played with taste and execution on the organ, harpsichord and lute. He had
a powerful voice, and sang with great accomplishment.
One of Henry's anthems, "O Lord, the Maker of all thyng," is said to be of
the highest merit, and is still sung in our Cathedrals. In his songs,[2]
he particularly liked to dwell on his constancy as a lover:
"As the holly groweth green and never changeth hue,
So I am--ever have been--unto my lady true."
and again:
"For whoso loveth, should love but one."
An admirable maxim.
_As Statesman_
In spite of all these distractions, Henry was an excellent man of business
in the State--indeed, he threw himself into public affairs with the energy
which characterised all his doings. The autocrat only slumbered in Henry;
and before many years had passed, he threw the enormous energy, which he
had hitherto reserved for his pleasure, into affairs of State.
Under Henry, the Navy was first organised as a permanent force. His power
of detail was prodigious in this direction. Ever loving the picturesque,
even in the most practical affairs of life, Henry "acted as pilot and wore
a sailor's coat and trousers, made of cloth of gold, and a gold chain with
the inscription, '_Dieu est mon droit_,' to which was suspended a whistle
which he blew nearly as loud as a trumpet." A strange picture!
He was a practical architect, and Whitehall Palace and many other great
buildings owed their masonry to his hand.
He spoke French, Spanish, Italian and Latin with great perfection.
He said many wise things. Of the much-debated Divorce, Henry said: "The
law of every man's conscience be but a private Court, yet it is the
highest and supreme Court for judgment or justice." As the most unjust
wars have often produced the greatest heroisms, so the vilest causes have
often produced the profoundest utterances.
He appears to have been at peace with himself and complacent towards God.
In 1541, during his temporary happiness with Catherine Howard, he attended
mass in the chapel, and "receiving his Maker, gave Him most hearty thanks
for the good life he led and trusted to lead with his wife; and also
desired the Bishop of Lincoln to make like prayer, and give like thanks on
All Souls' Day."
Henry confessed his sins every day during the plague. When it abated, his
spirits revived, and he wrote daily love-letters to Anne Boleyn, whom he
had previously banished from the Court.
_As Moralist_
A stern moralist in regard to the conduct of others, he had an indulgence
towards himself which enabled him somewhat freely to interpret the Divine
right of Kings as "_Le droit de seigneur_." But it is human to tolerate in
ourselves the failings which we so rightly deprecate in our inferiors.
So strong was he in his self-assurance, that he made even his conscience
his slave.
Henry sometimes lacked regal taste. The night Anne Boleyn was executed he
supped with Jane Seymour; they were betrothed the next morning, and
married ten days later. It is also recorded that on the day following
Katharine's death, Henry went to a ball, clad all in yellow.
The commendation or condemnation of Henry's public life depends upon our
point of view--upon which side we take in the eternal strife between
Church and State.
In this dilemma we must then judge by results, for the truest expression
of a man is his work; his greatness or his littleness is measured by his
output. Henry produced great results, though he may have been the
unconscious instrument of Fate. The motives which guided him in his
dealings with the Roman Catholic Church may have been only selfish--they
resulted in the emancipation of England from the tyranny of Popedom. A
Catholic estimate of him would, of course, have been wholly condemnatory,
yet it must be remembered that his quarrel was entirely with the supremacy
of the Pope, and that otherwise Henry's Church retained every dogma and
every observance believed in and practised by Roman Catholics.
_His Greatness_
His learning was great, and it was illuminated by his genius. Gradually he
learned to control others--to do this he learned to control his temper,
when control was useful, but he was always able to make diplomatic use of
his rage--a faculty ever helpful in the conduct of one's life! In fact, it
is difficult to determine whose genius was greater--Wolsey's as the
diplomatist and administrator, or Henry's as the man of action, the
figurehead of the State. Around him he gathered the great men of his time,
and their learning he turned to his own account, with that adaptiveness
which is the peculiar attribute of genius. Shakespeare himself was not
more assimilative. In Wolsey, Henry appreciated the mighty minister, and
this is one of his claims to greatness, for graciously to permit others to
be great is a sign of greatness in a King.
WOLSEY
_His Early Life_
Wolsey was born at Ipswich, probably in the year 1471. His father, Robert
Wolsey, was a grazier, and perhaps also a butcher in well-to-do
circumstances. Sent to Oxford at the age of 11, at 15 he was made a
Bachelor of Arts. He became a parish priest of St. Mary's, at Lymington,
in 1500. Within a year he was subjected to the indignity of being put into
the public stocks--for what reason is not known. It has been said that he
was concerned in a drunken fray. I prefer to think that, in an unguarded
moment, he had been tempted to speak the truth. No doubt this was his
first lesson in diplomacy.
In 1507 Wolsey entered the service of Henry VII. as chaplain, and seems to
have acted as secretary to Richard Fox, Lord Privy Seal. Thus Wolsey was
trained in the policy of Henry VII., which he never forgot.
_His Growing Power_
When Henry VIII. came to the throne, he soon realised Wolsey's value, and
allowed him full scope for his ambition.
Wolsey thought it desirable to become a Cardinal--a view that was shared
by Henry, whose right hand Wolsey had become. In 1514 Henry wrote to the
Pope asking that the Hat should be conferred on his favourite, who in the
following year was made Lord Chancellor of England. There was some
hesitancy which bribery and threats overcame, and in 1515 Wolsey was
created Cardinal, in spite of the hatred which Leo X. bore him. Having won
this instalment of greatness, Wolsey promptly asked for the Legateship
which should give him precedence over the Archbishop of Canterbury. This
ambition was realised three years later, but only by what practically
amounted to political and ecclesiastical blackmail. In the Church and
State Wolsey now stood second only to the King.
HIS STATE
(_a_) _His Retinue_
As an instance of the state he kept, we are told that he had as many as
500 retainers--among them many lords and ladies. Cavendish, his secretary,
describes his pomp when he walked abroad as follows: "First went the
Cardinal's attendants, attired in boddices of crimson velvet with gold
chains, and the inferior officers in coats of scarlet bordered with black
velvet. After these came two gentlemen bearing the great seal and his
Cardinal's hat, then two priests with silver pillars and poleaxes, and
next two great crosses of silver, whereof one of them was for his
Archbishoprick and the other for his legacy borne always before him,
whithersoever he went or rode. Then came the Cardinal himself, very
sumptuously, on a mule trapped with crimson velvet and his stirrup of
copper gilt." Sometimes he preferred to make his progress on the river,
for which purpose he had a magnificent State barge "furnished with yeomen
standing on the bayles and crowded with his Gentlemen within and
without."
His stables were also extensive. His choir far excelled that of the King.
Besides all the officials attendant on the Cardinal, Wolsey had 160
personal attendants, including his High Chamberlain, vice-chamberlain;
twelve gentlemen ushers, daily waiters; eight gentlemen ushers and waiters
of his privy chamber, nine or ten lords, forty persons acting as gentlemen
cupbearers, carvers, servers, etc., six yeomen ushers, eight grooms of the
chamber, forty-six yeomen of his chamber (one daily to attend upon his
person), sixteen doctors and chaplains, two secretaries, three clerks, and
four counsellors learned in the law. As Lord Chancellor, he had an
additional and separate retinue, almost as numerous, including ministers,
armourers, serjeants-at-arms, herald, etc.
(_b_) _Gifts from Foreign Powers_
Nor was he above using the gentle suasion of his office to obtain
sumptuous gifts from the representatives of foreign powers--for
Giustinian, on his return to Venice, reported to the Doge and Senate that
"Cardinal Wolsey is very anxious for the signory to send him a hundred
Damascene carpets for which he has asked several times, and expected to
receive them by the last galleys. This present," continues the diplomat,
"might make him pass a decree in our favour; and, at any rate, it would
render the Cardinal friendly to our nation in other matters." The carpets,
it seems, were duly sent to the Cardinal.
(_c_) _His Drinking Water_
To show his disregard for money, it may be mentioned that in order to
obtain pure water for himself and his household, and not being satisfied
with the drinking water at Hampton Court, Wolsey had the water brought
from the springs at Coombe Hill by means of leaden pipes, at a cost, it is
said, of something like L50,000.
(_d_) _His Table_
Wolsey seems to have been a lover of good food, for Skelton, for whose
verse the Cardinal had perhaps expressed contempt, wrote:
"To drynke and for to eate
Swete hypocras[3] and swete meate
To keep his flesh chast
In Lent for a repast
He eateth capon's stew,
Fesaunt and partriche mewed
Hennes checkynges and pygges."
(Skelton, it should be explained, was the Poet Laureate.) It appears that
on this score of his delicate digestion, Wolsey procured a dispensation
from the Pope for the Lenten observances.
He had not a robust constitution, and suffered from many ailments. On one
occasion, Henry sent him some pills--it is not recorded, however, that
Wolsey partook of them.
(_e_) _His Orange_
Cavendish speaks of a peculiar habit of the great Cardinal. He tells us
that, "Whenever he was in a crowd or pestered with suitors, he most
commonly held to his nose a very fair orange whereof the meat or
substance within was taken out, and filled up again with the part of a
sponge, wherein was vinegar and other confections against the pestilent
airs!" The habit may have given offence to importunate mayors and
others--the Poet Laureate himself may have been thus affronted by the
imperious Cardinal, when he wrote:
"He is set so high
In his hierarchy
Of frantic phrenesy
And foolish fantasy
That in the Chamber of Stars
All matters there he mars.
Clapping his rod on the Board
No man dare speak a word;
* * * *
Some say "yes" and some
Sit still as they were dumb.
Thus thwarting over them,
He ruleth all the roast
With bragging and with boast.
Borne up on every side
With pomp and with pride."
As a proof of his sensuous tastes, Cavendish wrote:
"The subtle perfumes of musk and sweet amber
There wanted none to perfume all my chamber."
(_f_) _His Fool_
That Wolsey, like Henry, was possessed of a sense of humour we have
abundant evidence in his utterances. Yet he kept a Fool about
him--possibly in order that he might glean the opinions of the courtiers
and common people. After Wolsey's fall, he sent this Fool as a present to
King Henry. But so loth was the Fool to leave his master and to suffer
what he considered a social descent, that six tall yeomen had to conduct
him to the Court; "for," says Cavendish, "the poor fool took on and fired
so in such a rage when he saw that he must needs depart from my lord. Yet,
notwithstanding, they conveyed him with Master Norris to the Court, where
the King received him most gladly."[4]
(_g_) _Hampton Court_
At his Palace of Hampton Court there were 280 beds always ready for
strangers. These beds were of great splendour, being made of red, green
and russet velvet, satin and silk, and all with magnificent canopies. The
counterpanes, of which there were many hundreds, we are told, were of
"tawny damask, lined with blue buckram; blue damask with flowers of gold;
others of red satin with a great rose in the midst, wrought with
needlework and with garters." Another is described as "of blue sarcenet,
with a tree in the midst and beastes with scriptures, all wrought with
needlework." The splendour of these beds beggars all description.
(_h_) _His Plate_
His gold and silver plate at Hampton Court alone, was valued by the
Venetian Ambassador as worth 300,000 golden ducats, which would be the
equivalent in modern coin of a million and a half! The silver was
estimated at a similar amount. It is said that the quality was no less
striking than the quantity, for Wolsey insisted on the most artistic
workmanship. He had also a bowl of gold "with a cover garnished with
rubies, diamonds, pearls and a sapphire set in a goblet." These gorgeous
vessels were decorated with the Cardinal's hat, and sometimes too, less
appropriately perhaps, with images of Christ!
It is said that the decorations and furniture of Wolsey's Palace were on
so splendid a scale that it threw the King's into the shade.
(_i_) _His Prodigal Splendour_
Like a wise minister, Wolsey did not neglect to entertain the King and
keep his mind on trivial things. Hampton Court had become the scene of
unrestrained gaiety. Music was always played on these occasions, and the
King frequently took part in the revels, dancing, masquerading and
singing, accompanying himself on the harpsichord or lute.
The description in Cavendish's "Life of Wolsey" of the famous feast given
by the Cardinal to the French ambassadors gives a graphic account of his
prodigal splendour. As to the delicacies which were furnished at the
supper, Cavendish writes:--
"Anon came up the second course with so many dishes, subtleties and
curious devices, which were above a hundred in number, of so goodly
proportion and costly, that I suppose the Frenchmen never saw the like.
The wonder was no less than it was worthy, indeed. There were castles with
images in the same; Paul's Church and steeple, in proportion for the
quantity as well counterfeited as the painter should have painted it upon
a cloth or wall. There were beasts, birds, fowls of divers kinds, and
personages, most lively made and counterfeit in dishes; some fighting, as
it were, with swords, some with guns and crossbows; some vaulting and
leaping; some dancing with ladies, some in complete harness, justing with
spears, and with many more devices than I am able with my wit to
describe."
Giustinian, speaking of one of these banquets, writes: "The like of it was
never given either by Cleopatra or Caligula." We must remember that Wolsey
surrounded himself with such worldly vanities less from any vulgarity in
his nature than from a desire to work upon the common mind, ever ready to
be impressed by pomp and circumstance.
_The Mind of Wolsey_
If the outer man was thus caparisoned, what of Wolsey's mind? Its
furniture, too, beggared all description. Amiable as Wolsey could be, he
could also on occasions be as brusque as his royal master. A contemporary
writer says: "I had rather be commanded to Rome than deliver letters to
him and wait an answer. When he walks in the Park, he will suffer no
suitor to come nigh unto him, but commands him away as far as a man will
shoot an arrow."
Yet to others he could be of sweet and gentle disposition and ready to
listen and to help with advice.
"Lofty and sour to them that loved him not,
But to those men that sought him sweet as summer."
To those who regard characters as either black or white, Wolsey's was
indeed a contradiction. Charges of a personal character have been brought
against the great prelate, which need not here be referred to, unless it
be to say that if they were true, by so much the less he was a priest, by
so much more he was a man.
_His Ambition_
There is no doubt that the Cardinal made several attempts to become
Pope--but this enterprise was doomed to failure, although in it he was
supported warmly by the King. To gain this end much bribery was needed,
"especially to the younger men who are generally the most needy," as the
Cardinal said. Wolsey was a sufficiently accomplished social diplomatist
to conciliate the young, for their term of office begins to-morrow, and
gold is the key of consciences. He was hated and feared, flattered,
cajoled and brow-beaten where possible. But as a source of income he was
ever held in high regard by the Pope.
His own annual income from bribes--royal and otherwise--was indeed
stupendous, though these were received with the knowledge of the King.
So great was the power Wolsey attained to that Fox said of him: "We have
to deal with the Cardinal, who is not Cardinal but King." He wrote of
himself, "_Ego et rex meus_," and had the initials, "T. W." and the
Cardinal's hat stamped on the King's coins. These were among the charges
brought against him in his fall.
To his ambitions there was no limit. For the spoils of office he had "an
unbounded stomach." As an instance of his pretensions it is recorded that
during the festivities of the Emperor's visit to England in 1520, "Wolsey
alone sat down to dinner with the royal party, while peers, like the Dukes
of Suffolk and Buckingham, performed menial offices for the Cardinal, as
well as for Emperor, King and Queen."
When he met Charles at Bruges in 1521 "he treated the Emperor of Spain as
an equal. He did not dismount from his mule, but merely doffed his cap,
and embraced as a brother the temporal head of Christendom."
"He never granted audience either to English peers or foreign ambassadors"
(says Guistinian) "until the third or fourth time of asking." Small wonder
that he incurred the hatred of the nobility and the jealousy of the King.
During his embassy to France in 1527, it is said that "his attendants
served cap in hand, and when bringing the dishes knelt before him in the
act of presenting them. Those who waited on the Most Christian King, kept
their caps on their heads, dispensing with such exaggerated ceremonies."
Had Wolsey's insolence been tempered by his sense of humour, his fall
might have been on a softer place, as his Fool is believed to have
remarked.
_His Policy_
In his policy of the reform of the Church, Wolsey dealt as a giant with
his gigantic task. To quote a passage from Taunton: "Ignorance, he knew,
was the root of most of the mischief of the day; so by education he
endeavoured to give men the means to know better. Falsehood can only be
expelled by Truth.... Had the other prelates of the age realized the true
cause of the religious disputes, and how much they themselves were
responsible for the present Ignorance, the sacred name of religion would
not have had so bloody a record in this country."
Wolsey's idea was, in fact, to bring the clergy in touch with the thought
and conditions of the time. It is wonderful to reflect that this one brain
should have controlled the secular and ecclesiastical destinies of
Christendom.
To reform the Church would seem to have been an almost superhuman
undertaking, but to a man of Wolsey's greatness obstacles are only
incentives to energy. He was "eager to cleanse the Church from the
accumulated evil effects of centuries of human passions." A great man is
stronger than a system, while he lives; but the system often outlives the
man. Wolsey lived in a time whose very atmosphere was charged with
intrigue. Had he not yielded to a Government by slaughter, he would not
have existed.
The Cardinal realised that ignorance was one of the chief causes of the
difficulties in the Church. So with great zeal he devoted himself to the
founding of two colleges, one in Ipswich, the other in Oxford. His scheme
was never entirely carried out, for on Wolsey's fall his works were not
completed. The College at Ipswich fell into abeyance, but his college at
Oxford was spared and refounded. Originally called Cardinal College, it
was renamed Christ Church, so that not even in name was it allowed to be a
memorial of Wolsey's greatness.
_His Genius_
For a long time Wolsey was regarded merely as the type of the ambitious
and arrogant ecclesiastic whom the Reformation had made an impossibility
in the future. It was not till the mass of documents relating to the reign
of Henry VIII. was published that it was possible to estimate the
greatness of the Cardinal's schemes. He took a wider view of the problems
of his time than any statesman had done before. He had a genius for
diplomacy. He was an artist and enthusiast in politics. They were not a
pursuit to him, but a passion. Not perhaps unjustly has he been called the
greatest statesman England ever produced.
England, at the beginning of Henry VIII.'s reign, was weakened after the
struggles of the Civil Wars, and wished to find peace at home at the cost
of obscurity abroad. But it was this England which Wolsey's policy raised
"from a third-rate state of little account into the highest circle of
European politics." Wolsey did not show his genius to the best advantage
in local politics, but in diplomacy. He could only be inspired by the
gigantic things of statecraft. When he was set by Henry to deal with the
sordid matter of the divorce, he felt restricted and cramped. He was
better as a patriot than as a royal servant. It was this feeling of being
sullied and unnerved in the uncongenial skirmishings of the divorce that
jarred on his sensitive nature and made his ambitious hand lose its
cunning. A first-rate man cannot do second-rate things well.
Henry and Wolsey were two giants littered in one day. Wolsey had realised
his possibilities of power before Henry. But when Henry once learned how
easy it was for him to get his own way, Wolsey learned how dependent he
necessarily was on the King's good will. And then, "the nation which had
trembled before Wolsey, learned to tremble before the King who could
destroy Wolsey with a breath."
Had Wolsey been able to fulfil his own ideals, had he been the head of a
Republic and not the servant of a King, his public record would no doubt
have been on a higher ethical plane. That he himself realised this is
shown by his pathetic words to Sir William Kingston, which have been but
slightly paraphrased by Shakespeare: "Well, well, Master Kingston, I see
how the matter against me is framed, but if I had served my God as
diligently as I have done the King, He would not have given me over in my
grey hairs." In this frankness we recognise once again a flicker of
greatness--one might almost say a touch of divine humour.
The lives of great men compose themselves dramatically; Wolsey's end was
indeed a fit theme for the dramatist.
_His Fall_
In his later years, Wolsey began to totter on his throne. The King had
become more and more masterful. It was impossible for two such stormy men
to act permanently in concord. In 1528, Wolsey said that as soon as he had
accomplished his ambition of reconciling England and France, and reforming
the English laws and settling the succession, "he would retire and serve
God for the rest of his days." In 1529 he lost his hold over Parliament
and over Henry. The Great Seal was taken from him.
The end of Wolsey was indeed appalling in its sordid tragedy. The woman
had prevailed--Anne's revenge was sufficiently complete to satisfy even a
woman scorned. The King, too, was probably more inclined to lend a willing
ear to her whisperings, since he had grown jealous of his minister's
greatness. He paid to his superior the tribute of hatred. Henry, who had
treated the Cardinal as his friend and "walked with him in the garden arm
in arm and sometimes with his arm thrown caressingly round his shoulder,"
now felt very differently towards his one-time favourite.
Covetous of Wolsey's splendour, he asked him why he, a subject, should
have so magnificent an abode as Hampton Court, whereupon Wolsey
diplomatically answered (feeling perhaps the twitch of a phantom rope
around his neck), "To show how noble a palace a subject may offer to his
sovereign." The King was not slow to accept this offer, and thenceforth
made Hampton Court Palace his own.
Wolsey, too, was failing in body--the sharks that follow the ship of State
were already scenting their prey. As the King turned his back on Wolsey,
Wolsey turned his face to God. Accused of high treason for having acted
as Legate, Wolsey pleaded guilty of the offence, committed with the
approval of the King. He was deprived of his worldly goods, and retired to
his house at Esher.
[Illustration: CARDINAL WOLSEY
From the Portrait by Holbein, at Christ Church, Oxford]
_Wolsey an Exile from Court_
Cavendish says: "My Lord and his family continued there the space of three
or four weeks without beds, sheets, tablecloths, cups and dishes to eat
our meat, or to lie in." He was forced to borrow the bare necessaries of
life. The mighty had fallen indeed! This was in the year 1529. In his
disgrace, he was without friends. The Pope ignored him. But Queen
Katharine--noble in a kindred sorrow--sent words of sympathy. Death was
approaching, and Wolsey prepared himself for the great event by fasting
and prayer. Ordered to York, he arrived at Peterborough in Easter Week.
There it is said: "Upon Palm Sunday, he went in procession with the monks,
bearing his palm; setting forth God's service right honourably with such
singing men as he then had remaining with him.
_He Washes the Feet of the Poor_
And upon Maundy Thursday he made his Maundy in Our Lady's Chapel, having
fifty-nine poor men, whose feet he washed, wiped and kissed; each of these
poor men had twelve pence in money, three ells of canvas to make them
shirts, a pair of new shoes, a cast of mead, three red herrings, and three
white herrings, and the odd person had two shillings. Upon Easter Day he
rode to the Resurrection,[5] and that morning he went in procession in his
Cardinal's vesture, with his hat and hood on his head, and he himself sang
there the High Mass very devoutly, and granted Clean Remission to all the
hearers, and there continued all the holidays."
Arrived at York, he indulged with a difference in his old love of
hospitality; "he kept a noble house and plenty of both meat and drink for
all comers, both for rich and poor, and much alms given at his gates. He
used much charity and pity among his poor tenants and others." This
caused him to be beloved in the country. Those that hated him owing to his
repute learned to love him--he went among the people and brought them food
and comforted them in their troubles. Now he was loved among the poor as
he had been feared among the great.
_Condemned to the Tower_
On the 4th November, he was arrested on a new charge of high treason and
condemned to the Tower. He left under custody amid the lamentations of the
poor people, who in their thousands crowded round him, crying: "God save
your Grace! God save your Grace! The foul evil take all them that hath
thus taken you from us! We pray God that a very vengeance may light upon
them." He remained at Sheffield Park, the Earl of Shrewsbury's seat, for
eighteen days. Here his health broke down. There arrived, with twenty-four
of the Guard from London, Sir William Kingston with order to conduct him
to the Tower. The next day, in spite of increasing illness, he set out,
but he could hardly ride his mule.
_His End_
Reaching the Abbey at Leicester on the 26th of November, and being
received by the Benedictine monks, he said: "Father Abbot, I am come
hither to leave my bones among you." Here he took to his last bed, and
made ready to meet his God.
The following morning, the 29th of November, he who had trod the ways of
glory and sounded all the depths and shoals of honour, he who had shaped
the destinies of Empires, before whom Popes and Parliaments had trembled,
he who had swathed himself in the purple of kingdom, of power and of
glory, learned the littleness of greatness and entered the Republic of
Death in a hair-shirt.
KATHARINE
For purity and steadfastness of devotion and duty, Katharine stands
unsurpassed in the history of the world, and Shakespeare has conceived no
more pathetic figure than that of the patient Queen living in the midst of
an unscrupulous Court.
Daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, she was betrothed at the age
of five to Arthur, Henry VII.'s eldest son. Though known as the Princess
of Wales, it was not till 1501, when only sixteen years old, that she was
married to Prince Arthur. She had scarcely been married six months when
Arthur died, at the early age of fifteen, and she was left a widow. Henry
VII., in his desire to keep her marriage dower of 200,000 crowns, proposed
a marriage between her and Arthur's brother. Katharine wrote to her father
saying she had "no inclination for a second marriage in England." In spite
of her remonstrances and the misgivings of the Pope, who had no wish to
give the necessary dispensation for her to marry her deceased husband's
brother, she was betrothed to Henry after two years of widowhood. But it
was not till a few months after Henry VIII. came to the throne, five years
later, that they were actually married. Henry was five years younger than
Katharine, but their early married life appears to have been very happy.
She wrote to her father, "Our time is ever passed in continual feasts."
The cruel field sports of the time the Queen never could take any delight
in, and avoided them as much as possible. She was pious and ascetic and
most proficient in needlework. Katharine had a number of children, all of
whom died shortly after birth. It was this consideration in the first
instance which weighed in Henry's mind in desiring a divorce. The first
child to survive was Princess Mary, born in February, 1516. Henry
expressed the hope that sons would follow. But Katharine had no further
living children. Henry hoped against hope, and undertook, in the event of
her having an heir, to lead a crusade against the Turks. Even this bribe
to fortune proved unavailing. Henry's conscience, which was at best of the
utilitarian sort, now began to suffer deep pangs, and in 1525, when
Katharine was forty years old and he thirty-four, he gave up hope of the
much-needed heir to the throne. The Queen herself thought her
childlessness was "a judgment of God, for that her former marriage was
made in blood," the innocent Earl of Warwick having been put to death
owing to the demand of Ferdinand of Aragon.
The King began to indulge in the superstition that his marriage with a
brother's widow was marked with the curse of Heaven. It is perhaps a
strange coincidence that Anne Boleyn should have appeared on the scene at
this moment. Katharine seems always to have regarded her rival with
charity and pity. When one of her gentlewomen began to curse Anne as the
cause of the Queen's misery, the Queen stopped her. "Curse her not," she
said, "but rather pray for her; for even now is the time fast coming when
you shall have reason to pity her and lament her case."
Undoubtedly Katharine's most notable quality was her dignity. Even her
enemies regarded her with respect. She was always sustained by the
greatness of her soul, her life of right doing and her feeling of being "a
Queen and daughter of a King." Through all her bitter trials she went, a
pathetic figure, untouched by calumny. If she had any faults they are
certainly not recorded in history. Her farewell letter to the King would
seem to be very characteristic of Katharine's beauty of character. She
knew the hand of death was upon her. She had entreated the King, but Henry
had refused her request for a last interview with her daughter Mary.
With this final cruelty fresh in her mind she still could write: "My lord
and dear husband,--I commend me unto you. The hour of my death draweth
fast on, and my case being such, the tender love I owe you forceth me with
a few words, to put you in remembrance of the health and safeguard of your
soul, which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the
care and tendering of your own body, for the which you have cast me into
many miseries and yourself into many cares. For my part I do pardon you
all, yea, I do wish and devoutly pray God that He will pardon you."
ANNE BOLEYN
The estimation of the character of Anne Boleyn would seem to be as varied
as the spelling of her name. She is believed to have been born in 1507.
The Boleyns or Bullens were a Norfolk family of French origin, but her
mother was of noble blood, being daughter of the Earl of Ormonde, and so a
descendant of Edward I. It is a curious fact that all of Henry's wives can
trace their descent from this King. Of Anne's early life little is known
save that she was sent as Maid of Honour to the French Queen Claude. She
was probably about nineteen years old when she was recalled to the English
Court and began her round of revels and love intrigues. Certainly she was
a born leader of men; many have denied her actual beauty, but she had the
greater quality of charm, the power of subjugating, the beckoning eye. An
accomplished dancer, we read of her "as leaping and jumping with infinite
grace and agility." "She dressed with marvellous taste and devised new
robes," but of the ladies who copied her, we read that unfortunately "none
wore them with her gracefulness, in which she rivalled Venus." Music, too,
was added to her accomplishments, and Cavendish tells us how "when she
composed her hands to play and her voice to sing, it was joined with that
sweetness of countenance that three harmonies concurred."