THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. 1534-1547
LEADING DATES
Reign of Henry VIII., 1509-1547
The Acts of Succession and Supremacy 1534
Execution of Fisher and More 1535
Dissolution of the smaller monasteries and the Pilgrimage
of Grace 1536
Destruction of relics and images 1538
The Six Articles and the Act granting to the king the
greater monasteries 1539
Fall of Cromwell 1540
Henry VIII. king of Ireland 1541
Solway Moss 1542
Death of Henry VIII. 1547
1. =The Act of Succession. 1534.=--In September =1533= Anne had
given birth to a daughter, who was afterwards Queen Elizabeth. In
=1534= Parliament passed an Act of Succession. Not only did it
declare Anne's marriage to be lawful and Catharine's unlawful, and
consequently Elizabeth and not Mary to be heir to the crown, but it
required all subjects to take an oath acknowledging their approval
of the contents of the Act. More and Fisher professed themselves
ready to swear to any succession which might be authorised by Act of
Parliament; but they would not swear to the illegality of
Catharine's marriage. It was on this point that Henry was most
sensitive, as he knew public opinion to be against him, and he threw
both More and Fisher into the Tower. In the year before the language
held in the pulpit on the subject of Henry's marriage with Anne in
his wife's lifetime had been so strong that Cranmer had forbidden
all preaching on the subject of the king's laws or the succession to
the throne. Of the clergy, the friars were still the most resolute.
Henry now sent commissioners to visit the friaries, and those in
which the oath was refused were summarily suppressed.
2. =The Acts of Treason and Supremacy. 1534.=--In =1534= Parliament
also passed a new Act of Treasons which made it high treason to wish
or practise harm to the king, the queen, and their heirs, to use
words denying their titles, or to call the king a 'heretic,
schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the crown.' Later in the
same year, but in a fresh session, Parliament passed the Act of
Supremacy, which confirmed the title of Supreme Head on earth of the
Church of England, a title very similar to that to which the king
had obtained the qualified assent of the clergy in =1531= (see p.
386). From that time anyone who denied the king to be the Supreme
Head of the Church of England was liable to a traitor's death.
[Illustration: John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, 1504-1535; from a
drawing by Holbein in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle.]
3. =The Monks of the Charterhouse. 1534.=--It can hardly be doubted
that Henry's chief adviser in these tyrannical measures was the able
and unscrupulous Cromwell. It was Cromwell's plan to exalt the royal
authority into a despotism by means of a subservient Parliament. He
was already Henry's secretary; and in =1535= was appointed the
king's Vicar-General in ecclesiastical matters. He was quite ready
to push the Acts of Parliament which had recently been passed to
their extreme consequences. His first object was to get rid of the
Friars Observant, who had shown themselves most hostile to what they
called in plainness of speech the king's adultery. All their houses
were suppressed, and some of the inmates put to death. Then Cromwell
fell on the London Charterhouse,[3] the inmates of which had been
imprisoned in the year before simply for a refusal to take the oath
of the Act of Succession, though they had not uttered a word against
the king's proceedings. They could now be put to death under the new
Treason Act, for denying the king's supremacy, and many of them were
accordingly executed after the usual barbarous fashion, whilst
others perished of starvation or of diseases contracted in the
filthy prisons in which they were confined. "I profess," said the
Prior, Houghton, "that it is not out of obstinate malice or a mind
of rebellion that I do disobey the king, but only for the fear of
God, that I offend not the Supreme Majesty; because our Holy Mother
the Church hath decreed and appointed otherwise than the king and
Parliament hath ordained." Houghton and his fellows were as truly
martyrs as Frith had been. They at least had sown no seeds of
rebellion, and they died because a tyrannical king insisted on
ruling over consciences as well as over bodily acts.
[Footnote 3: The Charterhouse here means the house of the
Carthusians.]
4. =Execution of Fisher and More. 1535.=--Fisher and More were the
next to suffer on the same charge, though their sentences were
commuted to death by beheading. More preserved his wit to the last.
"I pray you," he said as he mounted the scaffold, "see me safe up,
and for my coming down I will shift for myself." After he had knelt
to place his head on the block, he raised it again to move his beard
aside. "Pity," he muttered, "that should be cut that has not
committed treason."
5. =The Dissolution of the Smaller Monasteries. 1536.=--Money never
came amiss to Henry, and Cromwell now rooted himself firmly in his
master's favour by pointing out to him fresh booty. The English
monasteries were rich and weak, and it was easy to trump up or
exaggerate charges against them. Cromwell sent commissioners to
inquire into their moral state (=1535=), and the commissioners, who
were as unscrupulous as himself, rushed round the monasteries in
such a hurry that they had no time to make any real inquiry, but
nevertheless returned with a number of scandalous tales. These tales
referred to some of the larger monasteries as well as the smaller,
but, when Parliament met in =1536=, Henry contented himself with
asking that monasteries having property worth less than 200_l._ a
year should be dissolved, and their estates given to himself, on the
ground that whilst the smaller ones were dens of vice the larger
ones were examples of virtue. Parliament granted his request, and
the work of spoliation began. There can be no doubt that vice did
exist in the monasteries, though there was not so much of it as the
commissioners asserted. It would have been indeed strange if
innocence had been preserved in communities living in enforced
celibacy, with no stress of work to occupy their thoughts, and with
the high ideals of their profession neglected or cast aside. On the
other hand, the monks were easy landlords, were hospitable to the
stranger and kindly to the poor, whilst neither the king himself nor
those to whom he gave or sold the lands which he acquired cared for
more than to make money. The real weakness of the monks lay in
their failure to conciliate the more active minds of the age, or to
meet its moral needs. The attack upon the vast edifice of Henry's
despotism in Church and State could only be carried on successfully
by the combined effort of men like the scholars of the Renascence,
whose thoughts were unfettered, and of those who, like the
Protestants, were full of aggressive vigour, and who substituted for
the duty of obedience the duty of following their own convictions.
[Illustration: Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, brother of Jane
Seymour, afterwards Duke of Somerset, known as 'the Protector', at
the age of 28 (1535), 1507-1552: from a painting at Sudeley Castle.]
6. =The Execution of Anne Boleyn. 1536.=--Before the end of =1536=
there was a new queen. Henry became tired of Anne, as he had been
tired of Catharine, and on a series of monstrous charges, so
monstrous as to be hardly credible, he had her tried and executed.
Her unpardonable crime was probably that her only living child was a
daughter, and not a son. Ten days after Anne's death Henry married a
third wife, Jane Seymour. As Catharine was now dead, there could be
no doubt of the legitimacy of Jane's offspring, but to make
assurance doubly sure, a new Parliament passed an Act settling the
succession on Jane's children, and declaring both Mary and Elizabeth
illegitimate.
7. =The Ten Articles. 1536.=--It is probable that when Henry took
the title of Supreme Head he intended to maintain the doctrines and
practices of the Church exactly as he found them. In =1536= the
clergy were crying out not merely against attacks on their faith,
but against the ribaldry with which these attacks were often
conducted. One assailant, for instance, declared the oil used in
extreme unction to be no more than the Bishop of Rome's grease or
butter, and another that it was of no more use to invoke a saint
than it was to whirl a stone against the wind. Many of the clergy
would have been well pleased with mere repression. Henry, however,
and the bishops whom he most trusted wished repression to be
accompanied with reasonable explanations of the doctrines and
practices enforced. The result was seen in the Ten Articles which
were drawn up by Convocation, and sent abroad with the authority of
the king. There was to be uniformity, to be obtained by the
circulation of a written document, in which the old doctrines were
stripped of much that had given offence, and their acceptance made
easy for educated men. Of the seven sacraments, three only, Baptism,
Penance, and the Sacrament of the Altar, were explained, whilst the
other four--those of Marriage, Orders, Confirmation, and Extreme
Unction--were passed over in silence. On the whole the Ten Articles
in some points showed a distinct advance in the direction of
Lutheranism, though there was also to be discerned in them an
equally distinct effort to explain rather than to reject the creed
of the mediæval Church.
8. =The Translation of the Bible authorised. 1536.=--The same
tendency to appeal to educated intelligence showed itself in the
sanction given by the king and Cromwell in =1536= to a translation
of the Bible which had been completed in =1535= by Miles Coverdale,
whose version of the New Testament was founded on an earlier one by
Tyndale. It is probable that Henry, in authorising the circulation
of this version, thought of the support which he might derive from
the silence of the Bible on the Papal claims. The circulation of the
Bible was, however, likely to work in a direction very different
from that of the Ten Articles. The Ten Articles were intended to
promote unity of belief. The Bible, once placed in the hands of
everyone who could read, was likely to promote diversity. It would
be the storehouse in which Lutherans, Zwinglians, and every
divergent sect would find weapons to support their own special
ideas. It would help on the growth of those individual opinions
which were springing up side by side with the steady forward
progress of the clergy of the Renascence. The men who attempted to
make the old creed intellectually acceptable and the men who
proclaimed a new one, under the belief that they were recurring to
one still older, were together laying the foundations of English
Protestantism.
9. =The Pilgrimage of Grace. 1536-1537.=--Slight as these changes
were, they were sufficient to rouse suspicion that further change
was impending. The masses who could neither read nor write were
stirred by the greed and violence with which the dissolution of the
smaller monasteries was carried on, and by the cessation of the
kindly relief which these monasteries had afforded to the wants of
the poor. A rumour spread that when Cromwell had despoiled the
monasteries he would proceed to despoil the parish churches. In the
autumn of =1536= there was a rising in Lincolnshire, which was
easily suppressed, but was followed by a more formidable rising in
Yorkshire. The insurgents, headed by Robert Aske, called it the
Pilgrimage of Grace, and bore a banner embroidered with the five
wounds of Christ. They asked among other things for the restoration
of the monasteries, the punishment of Cromwell and his chief
supporters, the deprivation of the reforming bishops, the
extirpation of heresy, and the restoration of the Papal authority in
a modified form. Their force grew so large that the Duke of Norfolk,
who was sent to disperse it, did not venture to make the attempt,
and the king found himself obliged to issue a general pardon and to
promise that a Parliament should meet in the North for the redress
of grievances. On this the insurgents returned home. Early in =1537=
Henry, who had no intention of keeping his word, took advantage of
some new troubles in the North to declare that his engagement was no
longer binding, and seized and executed, not merely the leaders, but
many of the lesser supporters of the insurrection. Of the Parliament
in the North nothing more was heard, but a Council of the North was
established to keep the people of those parts in order, and to
execute justice in the king's name.
10. =Birth of a Prince. 1537.=--In =1537= Jane Seymour gave birth to
a boy, who was afterwards Edward VI. Henry had at last a male heir
of undoubted legitimacy, but in a few days his wife died.
11. =The Beginning of the Attack on the Greater Monasteries.
1537-1538.=--The failure of the Pilgrimage of Grace brought in fresh
booty to Henry. Abbots and priors who had taken part in it, or were
accused of doing so, were hanged, and their monasteries confiscated.
Where nothing could be proved against the greater monasteries, which
had been declared by Parliament to be free from vice, their heads
were terrified into an appearance of voluntary submission. Cromwell
had his spies and informers everywhere, and it was as easy for them
to lie as to speak the truth. In =1537= and =1538= many abbots bowed
before the storm, and, confessing that they and their monks had been
guilty of the most degrading sins, asked to be allowed to surrender
their monasteries to the king. Cromwell's commissioners then took
possession, sold the bells, the lead on the roof, and every article
which had its price, and left the walls to serve as a quarry for
the neighbourhood. The lands went to the king. It not unfrequently
happened that Henry promoted to ecclesiastical benefices those monks
who had been most ready to confess themselves sinners beyond other
men. There is no doubt that the confessions were prepared beforehand
to deceive contemporaries, and there is therefore no reason why they
should deceive posterity.
12. =Destruction of Relics and Images. 1538.=--The attack on the
monasteries was accompanied by an attack on relics and such images
as attracted more than ordinary reverence. The explanation of the
zeal with which they were hunted down is in many cases to be found
in the gold and jewels with which they were adorned. Some of them
were credited with miraculous powers. The figure of the Saviour on
the rood at Boxley, in Kent, moved its head and eyes. A phial at
Hales, in Worcestershire, contained a substance which had been
brought from Germany in the thirteenth century, and was said to be
the blood of the Saviour. Pilgrims thronged in numbers to adore, and
their offerings brought in no small profit to the monks who owned
such treasures. What was fondly believed by the common people was
derided by critical spirits, and Henry was well pleased to destroy
all reverence for anything which brought credit to the monks. The
rood of Boxley was exhibited in London, where the Bishop of
Rochester pulled the wires which caused its motions, and the blood
in the phial of Hales was declared to be no more than a coloured
gum. An ancient wooden figure, worshipped in Wales under the name of
Darvel Gathern, served to make a fire which burned Friar Forest, who
maintained that in spiritual things obedience was due to the Pope
and not to the king. Instead of hanging him under the Treason Act
(see p. 392) Henry had him burnt as a heretic. It was the first and
only time when the denial of the royal supremacy was held to be
heresy. When war was made against superstition, the shrine of St.
Thomas of Canterbury could hardly be allowed to escape. Thomas was a
saint who had bearded a king, and his shrine, which had attracted
such crowds of pilgrims that the marks which they left as they
shuffled forward on their knees towards it are still to be seen on
the stone floor, was smashed, and the bones of the saint burnt.
Shrines were usually covered with gold and jewels, and all shrines
shared the fate of that of St. Thomas.[4] The images in parish
churches, not being attractive to the covetous, and being valued by
the people for ordinary purposes of devotion, were still left
untouched.
[Footnote 4: Shrines were receptacles above ground of the bodies of
saints. That of Edward the Confessor at Westminster was rebuilt by
queen Mary, and that of St. Alban at St. Albans in recent times.
These two are the only shrines now to be seen in England.]
13. =The Trial of Lambert. 1538.=--Henry's violence against
monasticism and superstition made him extremely anxious to show his
orthodoxy. The opinion held by Zwingli, the reformer of Zürich, that
the Body and Blood of Christ were in no way present in the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper was now spreading in England, and those who
held it were known as Sacramentaries. One of these, John Lambert,
was tried before Henry himself. Henry told Lambert scornfully that
the words of Christ, 'This is My Body,' settled the whole question,
and Lambert was condemned and burnt.
14. =The Marquis of Exeter and the Poles. 1538.=--Amongst the
descendants of the Duke of Clarence was Reginald Pole.[5] He had
been scandalised by the divorce, had left England, had been made a
Cardinal in =1536=, and had poured out a torrent of invective
against the wickedness of Henry. In the end of =1538= Henry, having
been informed that some of Pole's kinsfolk had been muttering
dissatisfaction, sent them to execution together with his own
cousin, the Marquis of Exeter, the son of his mother's sister.
[Footnote 5: Genealogy of the de la Poles and Poles:--
Richard, Duke of York
|
+---------------+--------+------------------------+
| | |
EDWARD IV. Elizabeth = John de la Pole, George, Duke of
| Duke of Suffolk Clarence
| |
+---------------+------+-----------+ |
| | | |
John Edmund Richard Margaret, = Sir R. Pole
de la Pole, de la Pole, de la Pole, Countess |
Earl of Lincoln, Earl of Suffolk, killed at Pavia, of |
killed at Stoke, beheaded 1525 Salisbury |
1487 (see p. 347) 1513 |
Reginald Pole]
15. =The Six Articles. 1539.=--Cruel and unscrupulous as Henry was,
he was in many respects a representative Englishman, sympathising
with the popular disgust at the spread of ideas hitherto unheard of.
In a new Parliament which met in =1539= he obtained the willing
consent of both Houses to the statute of the Six Articles. This
statute declared in favour of: (1) the real presence of 'the natural
Body and Blood of Christ' in the Lord's Supper; (2) the sufficiency
of communion in one kind; (3) clerical celibacy; (4) the perpetual
obligation of vows of chastity; (5) private masses; and (6)
auricular confession. Whoever spoke against the first was to be
burnt; whoever spoke against the other five was to suffer
imprisonment and loss of goods for the first offence, and to be
hanged for the second. By those who suffered from the Act it was
known as 'The Whip with Six Strings.' Cranmer, who was a married
archbishop, was forced to dismiss his wife. Bishops Latimer and
Shaxton, whose opinions had gradually advanced beyond the line at
which Henry's orthodoxy ended, were driven from their sees; but the
number of those put to death under the new Act was not great.
16. =Completion of the Suppression of the Monasteries.
1539-1540.=--So completely was the statute of the Six Articles in
accordance with public opinion, that Henry had no difficulty in
obtaining the consent of Parliament to an Act giving to his
proclamations the force of law, and to another Act securing to him
the whole of the monasteries whether they had been already
suppressed or not. Before the end of =1540= not a single monastery
was left. Three abbots, those of Glastonbury, Colchester, and
Reading, had been hanged the year before after the mere semblance of
a trial. The disappearance of the abbots from the House of Lords
made the lay peers, for the first time, more numerous than the
ecclesiastical members of the House. The lay peers, on the other
hand, were reinforced by new creations from amongst Henry's
favourites, whom he had enriched by grants of abbey lands. The new
peers and the more numerous country gentlemen who had shared in the
spoil were interested in maintaining the independence of the English
Church, lest the Pope, if his jurisdiction were restored, should
insist on their disgorging their prey. Of that which fell into the
hands of the king, a small portion was spent on the foundation of
five new bishoprics, whilst part of the rest was employed on
shipbuilding and the erection of fortifications on the coast, part
in meeting the general expenditure of the Crown.
17. =Anne of Cleves and the Fall of Cromwell. 1539-1540.=--In all
that had been done Cromwell had been the leading spirit. It had been
his plan to erect an absolute despotism, and thereby to secure his
own high position and to enrich himself as well as his master. He
was naturally hated by the old nobility and by all who suffered from
his extortions and cruelty. In the summer of =1539= he was eager for
an alliance with the German Protestants against the Emperor Charles
V., and suggested to Henry a fourth marriage with a German princess,
Anne of Cleves. Holbein, a great German painter settled in England,
was sent to take a portrait of the lady, and Henry was so pleased
with it that he sent for her to make her his wife. When she arrived
he found her anything but good-looking. In =1540= he went through
the marriage ceremony with her, but he divorced her shortly
afterwards. Fortunately for herself, Anne made no objection, and was
allowed to live in England on a good allowance till her death. For a
time Cromwell seemed to be as high as ever in Henry's good opinion,
and was created Earl of Essex. Henry, however, was inwardly annoyed,
and he had always the habit of dropping ministers as soon as their
unpopularity brought discredit on himself. Cromwell was charged with
treason by the Duke of Norfolk. A Bill of attainder[6] was rapidly
passed, and Cromwell was sent to the scaffold without being even
heard in his own defence.
[Footnote 6: A Bill of attainder was brought into one or other of
the Houses of Parliament, and became law, like any other Act of
Parliament, after it had passed both Houses and received the Royal
assent. Its object was condemnation to death, and, as the
legislative powers of Parliament were unlimited, it need not be
supported by the production of evidence, unless Parliament chose to
ask for it. Henry VIII. preferred this mode of getting rid of
ministers with whom he was dissatisfied to the old way of
impeachment; as in an impeachment (see p. 262) there was at least
the semblance of a judicial proceeding, the Commons appearing as
accusers, and the Lords as judges.]
18. =Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. 1540-1543.=--In =1540=
Henry married a fifth wife, Catherine Howard. Norfolk, who was her
uncle, gained the upper hand at court, and was supported by Gardiner
(see p. 382), now Bishop of Winchester, who was strongly opposed to
all further ecclesiastical innovations. Those who denied the king's
supremacy were sent to the gallows, those who denied the doctrine of
transubstantiation to the stake. In =1541= the old Countess of
Salisbury, the mother of Cardinal Pole, and the daughter of the
brother of Edward IV., was executed in the belief that she had
favoured an abortive conspiracy. Before the end of =1540= Henry
discovered that his young wife had, before her marriage, been guilty
of incontinency, and in =1542= she was beheaded. In =1543= Henry
married a sixth wife, Catherine Parr, who actually survived him.
19. =Ireland. 1534.=--Henry's masterful rule had made him many
enemies abroad as well as at home, and he was therefore constantly
exposed to the risk of an attack from the Continent. In the face of
such danger he could no longer allow Ireland to remain as
disorganised as it had been in his father's reign and in the early
years of his own, lest Ireland should become the stepping-stone to
an invasion of England. In Ireland the Celtic chiefs maintained
their independence, carrying on destructive wars with one another,
both they and their followers being inspired with a high spirit of
tribal patriotism, but without the slightest idea of national union.
The Anglo-Norman lords ruling a Celtic population were quite as
quarrelsome and even more oppressive than the Celtic chiefs, whilst
the inhabitants of the English Pale (see p. 265), ruled over by what
was only in name a civilised government, were subjected alike to the
oppressive exactions of the authorities at Dublin and to the
plundering of the so-called 'Irish enemies,' from whom these
authorities were unable to protect them. The most powerful of the
Anglo-Norman lords was still the Earl of Kildare (see p. 347), who,
whenever he bore the title of Lord Deputy, unblushingly used the
king's name in wreaking vengeance on his private enemies.
20. =The Geraldine Rebellion. 1534-1535.=--In =1534= Henry summoned
Kildare to England and threw him into the Tower. On a rumour of
Kildare's death his son, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald--Silken Thomas, as
he was called in Ireland--rose against the king. The Geraldines, as
the Fitzgeralds were sometimes called, had often frightened kings by
rebelling, but this time they failed in their object. In =1535= the
Lord Deputy Skeffington brought heavy guns and battered down the
walls of the great Geraldine castle at Maynooth. One by one all the
males of Kildare's family, with the exception of two boys, were
captured and put to death.
[Illustration: King Henry VIII.: from a picture belonging to the
Earl of Warwick.]
21. =Lord Leonard Grey. 1536-1539.=--Lord Leonard Grey became Lord
Deputy in =1536=. The Irish Parliament which met in that year was
still only a Parliament of the English Pale, but its acts showed
that Henry intended, if possible, to rule all Ireland. On the one
hand the royal supremacy was declared. On the other hand an Act was
passed which showed how little was, in those days, understood of the
difficulties standing in the way of the assimilation of two peoples
at different stages of civilisation. The native Irish were ordered
to be exactly as the English. They were to use the English language,
to adopt the English dress, and to cut their hair after the English
fashion. It was to be in the Church as it was to be in the State. No
one was to receive any ecclesiastical preferment who did not speak
English. Such laws naturally could not be put in force, but they
served as indications of the spirit of the Government. Even more
obnoxious was the conduct of the Archbishop of Dublin, George
Browne, a mere creature of Henry and Cromwell. The assertion of the
royal supremacy, indeed, if it had stood alone, would have made
little difference in the church-life of Ireland. Browne, however,
persisted, in obedience to orders from England, in destroying
relics and images which were regarded by the whole population with
the deepest reverence. The doubting spirit of the Renascence found
no echo in Ireland, because that country was far behind England in
education and culture. It would have been of less consequence if
these unwise proceedings had been confined to the English Pale. Lord
Leonard Grey was, however, a stern warrior, and carried his arms
successfully amongst the Irish tribes. When he left Ireland in
=1539= a large part of the Celtic population had been compelled to
submit to Henry, and that population was even less prepared than
were the inhabitants of the Pale for violent alterations of
religious ceremonial.
22. =Henry VIII. King of Ireland. 1541.=--In =1541= a Parliament at
Dublin acknowledged Henry to be king of Ireland. Hitherto he had
been but Lord of Ireland. As that title had been granted by Pope
Adrian IV. to Henry II. (see p. 152), Henry VIII. wished to have a
new one which should mark his complete independence of Rome. This
Parliament was the first attended by the native chiefs, and the
assumption of the new title therefore indicated a new stage in Irish
history. Unfortunately Henry bent himself to conciliate the chiefs
rather than their tribes. He gave to the chiefs English titles--the
O'Neill, for instance, becoming Earl of Tyrone, and O'Brien, Earl of
Thomond--whilst he hoped to win their support by dissolving the
monasteries, and by giving them a share in the plunder. All this
Henry did in the hope that the chiefs would use their influence to
spread English habits and English law amongst a people who were
attached to their own ways. For the time he gained what he wanted.
As long as the plunder of the abbeys was to be had the chiefs kept
quiet. When that had been absorbed both chiefs and people would
revolt against a Government which wanted to bring about, in a few
years, a complete change in their mode of life. It is indeed useless
to regret that Henry did not content himself with forcing the tribes
to keep peace with one another, whilst allowing them gradually to
grow in civilisation in their own fashion. There are often things
which it would be well to do, but which no government can do. In the
first place Henry had not money enough to enforce peace, the whole
revenue of Ireland at that time being no more than 5,000_l._ a year.
In the second place he was roused to futile efforts to convert
Irishmen into Englishmen because he was in constant dread of the
intervention in Ireland of his Continental enemies.
23. =Solway Moss. 1542.=--Henry was probably the more distrustful of
a possibly independent Ireland because an actually independent
Scotland gave him so much trouble. In Scotland there had been no
Wars of the Roses, and the warlike nobility still resembled petty
kings in their own districts. James V., the son of Henry's sister
Margaret, strove to depress the nobles by allying himself with the
Church and the Commons. Scotland was always ready to come to blows
with England, and the clergy urged James to break with a king of
England who had broken with the Pope. From =1532= to =1534= there
had been actual war between the kingdoms. Even after peace was
restored James's attitude was constantly menacing. In =1542= war
broke out again, and the Duke of Norfolk crossed the Tweed and
wasted the border counties of Scotland. Then James launched an army
across the Border into Cumberland. His distrust of the nobles,
however, made him place at the head of it a mere court favourite,
Oliver Sinclair. The Scottish army was harassed by the horsemen of
the English border, and as night was drawing on was suddenly
assailed by a small English party. Having no confidence in Sinclair,
the whole multitude fled in a panic, to be slain or captured in
Solway Moss. James's health broke down under the evil tidings. As he
lay sick, news was brought to him that his wife had given birth to a
child. Hearing that the child was a girl, and remembering how the
heiress of the Bruces had brought the crown to the House of Stuart
(see p. 295), he was saddened by the thought that the Stuart name
also would come to an end. "It came with a lass," he murmured, "and
it will go with a lass." In a few days he died, and his infant
daughter, the Queen of Scots, received the name of Mary.[7]
[Footnote 7: James's foreboding was not realised, because Mary
married a Stuart.]
[Illustration: Angel of Henry VIII. 1543.]
[Illustration: Part of the encampment at Marquison, 1544, showing
military equipment in the time of Henry VIII.: from an engraving
made by Vertue for the Society of Antiquaries from the now destroyed
painting at Cowdray House.]
[Illustration: Part of the siege of Boulogne by Henry VIII., 1544,
showing military operations: from an engraving made by Vertue for
the Society of Antiquaries from the now destroyed painting at
Cowdray House.][2 Illustrations.]
24. =War with Scotland and France. 1542-1546.=--Henry, anxious to
disarm Scottish hostility, proposed a marriage between his son
Edward and the young queen. The proposal was rejected, and an
alliance formed between Scotland and France. In =1544= Henry, having
formed an alliance with Charles V., who was now at war with France,
invaded France and took Boulogne after a long siege--thus enlarging
the English possessions in the neighbourhood of Calais--whilst
Charles concluded a peace with Francis at Crêpy and left his ally in
the lurch. In the same year Henry sent Lord Hertford, Jane
Seymour's brother, to invade Scotland. Hertford burnt every house
and cottage between Berwick and Edinburgh, took Edinburgh itself,
and burnt the town. In =1546= peace was made between England and
France, in which Scotland was included. The war had been expensive,
and in =1544= Parliament had come to Henry's help by enacting that
he need not repay a loan which he had gathered, yet even then Henry
had had recourse to the desperate remedy of debasing the coinage.
[Illustration: Armour as worn in the reign of Henry VIII.: from the
brass of John Lymsey, 1545, in Hackney Church.]
[Illustration: Margaret, wife of John Lymsey: from her brass in
Hackney Church, showing the costume of a lady _circa_ 1545.]
25. =The Litany and the Primer. 1544-1545.=--In =1544=, when Henry
was besieging Boulogne, Cranmer ordered prayers to be offered for
his success. In the true spirit of the Renascence he wished these
prayers to be intelligible, and directed that they should be in
English. In the same year he composed the English Litany, intended
to be recited by priests and people going in procession. This
Litany was the foundation-stone of the future Book of Common Prayer.
It was issued in =1544= together with a Primer, or book of private
prayer, also in English. In the public services the Creed, the
Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments were to be in English, the
remainder being left in Latin as before.
[Illustration: Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, 1473(?)--1554:
from the picture by Holbein at Windsor Castle.]
26. =The Last Days of Henry VIII. 1545-1547.=--When once inquiring
intelligence is let loose on an antiquated system, it is hard to say
where the desire of making alterations will stop, and there are
reasons to believe that Henry was contemplating further changes.
There were two parties at court, the one anxious to resist further
change, headed, amongst the temporal lords, by the Duke of Norfolk
and his son, the Earl of Surrey, and amongst the bishops by
Gardiner; the other, desiring doctrinal innovations, especially if
money was to be got by them, headed by the Earl of Hertford. In
=1545= an Act had been passed for the dissolution of chantries,
hospitals, and free chapels. The chantries had been founded for the
maintenance of priests to say mass for the souls of the founders,
and it was convenient for those who sought to divert this
maintenance to their own use to believe that it was wrong to pray
for the dead. In the end of =1546= Henry was taken ill, and, feeling
himself to be dying, ordered the arrest of Norfolk and Surrey on
charges of treason. It is probable that Henry turned against Norfolk
and Surrey because he thought Hertford, as the uncle of the young
Prince of Wales, more likely to be faithful to the future king. On
January 27, =1547=, Surrey was executed. His father was to have
suffered on the 28th. Before he reached the scaffold, Henry died,
and he was conducted back to prison. Henry, before his death, had
done something to provide against the danger of a disputed
succession. An Act of Parliament, passed in =1544=, had given back
to Mary and Elizabeth the places in the line of inheritance to which
they would have been entitled if no doubt had ever been cast on the
legitimacy of their birth,[8] and had authorised Henry to provide by
will for the future occupancy of the throne in case of the failure
of his own descendants. In accordance with this Act he left the
crown, in case of such failure, to the descendants of his younger
sister Mary, leaving out those of his elder sister Margaret, with
whose son, James V., he had had so much reason to be displeased.
[Footnote 8: Genealogy of the children of Henry VIII.:--
(1) Catharine = HENRY VIII. =(2) Anne =(3) Jane Seymour =(4) Anne of
of Aragon | | Boleyn | Cleves
| | | =(5) Catherine
MARY ELIZABETH EDWARD VI. Howard
(1553-1558) (1558-1603) (1547-1553) =(6) Catherine
Parr]