DISORDER STILL THE POPULAR FAD: GENERAL ADMIXTURE OF PRETENDERS,
RELIGION, POLITICS, AND DISGRUNTLED MONARCHS.
As a result of the Bosworth victory, Henry Tudor obtained the use of the
throne from 1485 to 1509. He saw at once by means of an eagle eye that
with the house of York so popular among his people, nothing but a firm
hand and eternal vigilance could maintain his sovereignty. He kept the
young Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence, carefully indoors
with massive iron gewgaws attached to his legs, thus teaching him to be
backward about mingling in the false joys of society.
Henry Tudor is known to history as Henry VII., and caused some adverse
criticism by delaying his nuptials with the Princess Elizabeth, daughter
of Edward IV.
A pleasing practical joke at this time came near plunging the country
into a bloody war. A rumor having gone forth that the Earl of Warwick
had escaped from the Tower, a priest named Simon instructed a
good-looking young man-about-town named Lambert Simnel to play the
part, landed him in Ireland, and proceeded to call for troops. Strange
to say, in those days almost any pretender with courage stood a good
chance of winning renown or a hospitable grave in this way. But Lambert
was not made of the material generally used in the construction of great
men, and, though he secured quite an army, and the aid of the Earl of
Lincoln and many veteran troops, the first battle closed the comedy, and
the bogus sovereign, too contemptible even to occupy the valuable time
of the hangman, became a scullion in the royal kitchen, while Simon was
imprisoned.
[Illustration: SIMON, A PRIEST OF OXFORD, TAKES LAMBERT THE PRETENDER TO
IRELAND.]
For five years things were again dull, but at the end of that period an
understudy for Richard, Duke of York, arose and made pretensions. His
name was Perkin Warbeck, and though the son of a Flemish merchant, he
was a great favorite at social functions and straw rides. He went to
Ireland, where anything in the way of a riot was even then hailed with
delight, and soon the York family and others who cursed the reigning
dynasty flocked to his standard.
France endorsed him temporarily until Charles became reconciled to
Henry, and then he dropped Perkin like a heated potato. Perk, however,
had been well entertained in Paris as the coming English king, and while
there was not permitted to pay for a thing. He now visited the Duchess
of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV., and made a hit at once. She gave him
the title of The White Rose of England (1493), and he was pleased to
find himself so popular when he might have been measuring molasses in
the obscurity of his father's store.
Henry now felt quite mortified that he could not produce the evidence of
the murder of the two sons of Edward IV., so as to settle this gay
young pretender; but he did not succeed in finding the remains, though
they were afterwards discovered under the staircase of the White Tower,
and buried in Westminster Abbey, where the floor is now paved with
epitaphs, and where economy and grief are better combined, perhaps, than
elsewhere in the world, the floor and tombstone being happily united,
thus, as it were, killing two birds with one stone.
But how sad it is to-day to contemplate the situation occupied by Henry,
forced thus to rummage the kingdom for the dust of two murdered princes,
that he might, by unearthing a most wicked crime, prevent the success of
a young pretender, and yet fearing to do so lest he might call the
attention of the police to the royal record of homicide, regicide,
fratricide, and germicide!
Most cruel of all this sad history, perhaps, was the execution of
Stanley, the king's best friend in the past, who had saved his life in
battle and crowned him at Bosworth. In an unguarded moment he had said
that were he sure the young man was as he claimed, King Edward's son,
he--Stanley--would not fight against him. For this purely unpartisan
remark he yielded up his noble life in 1495.
Warbeck for some time went about trying to organize cheap insurrections,
with poor success until he reached Scotland, where James IV. endorsed
him, and told him to have his luggage sent up to the castle. James also
presented his sister Catherine as a spouse to the giddy young scion of
the Flemish calico counter. James also assisted Perkin, his new
brother-in-law, in an invasion of England, which failed, after which the
pretender gave himself up. He was hanged amid great applause at Tyburn,
and the Earl of Warwick, with whom he had planned to escape, was
beheaded at Tower Hill. Thus, in 1499, perished the last of the
Plantagenets of the male kind.
Henry hated war, not because of its cruelty and horrors, but because it
was expensive. He was one of the most parsimonious of kings, and often
averted war in order to prevent the wear and tear on the cannon. He
managed to acquire two million pounds sterling from the reluctant
tax-payer, yet no monarch ever received such a universal consent when he
desired to pass away. If any regret was felt anywhere, it was so deftly
concealed that his death, to all appearance, gave general and complete
satisfaction.
[Illustration: A RELUCTANT TAX-PAYER.]
After a reign of twenty-four years he was succeeded by his second son,
Henry, in 1509, the elder son, Arthur, having died previously.
It was during the reign of Henry VII. that John and Sebastian Cabot were
fitted out and discovered North America in 1497, which paved the way
for the subsequent depopulation of Africa, Italy, and Ireland. South
America had been discovered the year before by Columbus. Henry VII. was
also the father of the English navy.
The accession of Henry VIII. was now hailed with great rejoicing. He was
but eighteen years of age, but handsome and smart. He soon married
Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his brother Arthur. She was six years
his senior, and he had been betrothed to her under duress at his
eleventh year.
A very fine snap-shot reproduction of Henry VIII. and Catherine in
holiday attire, from an old daguerreotype in the author's possession,
will be found upon the following page.
[Illustration: HENRY VIII. AND CATHERINE.]
Henry VIII. ordered his father's old lawyers, Empson and Dudley, tried
and executed for being too diligent in business. He sent an army to
recover the lost English possessions in France, but in this was
unsuccessful. He then determined to organize a larger force, and so he
sent to Calais fifty thousand men, where they were joined by Maximilian.
In the battle which soon followed with the French cavalry, they lost
their habitual _sang-froid_ and most of their hand-baggage in a wild and
impetuous flight. It is still called the Battle of the Spurs. This was
in 1513.
In the report of the engagement sent to the king, nothing was said of
the German emperor for the reason, as was said by the commander, "that
he does not desire notice, and, in fact, Maximilian objections to the
use of his name." This remark still furnishes food for thought on rainy
days at Balmoral, and makes the leaden hours go gayly by.
During the year 1513 the Scots invaded England under James, but though
their numbers were superior, they were sadly defeated at Flodden Field,
and when the battle was over their king and the flower of their nobility
lay dead upon the scene.
[Illustration: WOLSEY OUTSHINES THE KING.]
Wolsey, who was made cardinal in 1515 by the Pope, held a tremendous
influence over the young king, and indirectly ruled the country. He
ostensibly presented a humble demeanor, but in his innermost soul he was
the haughtiest human being that ever concealed beneath the cloak of
humility an inflexible, tough, and durable heart.
On the death of Maximilian, Henry had some notion of preëmpting the
vacant throne, but soon discovered that Charles V. of Spain had a prior
lien to the same, and thus, in 1520, this new potentate became the
greatest power in the civilized world. It is hard to believe in the
nineteenth or twentieth century that Spain ever had any influence with
anybody of sound mind, but such the veracious historian tells us was
once the case.
Francis, the French king, was so grieved and mortified over the success
of his Spanish rival that he turned to Henry for comfort, and at
Calais the two disgruntled monarchs spent a fortnight jousting,
tourneying, in-falling, out-falling, merry-making, swashbuckling, and
general acute gastritis.
[Illustration: THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD.]
It was a magnificent meeting, however, Wolsey acting as costumer, and
was called "The Field of the Cloth of Gold." Large, portly men with
whiskers wore purple velvet opera-cloaks trimmed with fur, and
Gainsborough hats with ostrich feathers worth four pounds apiece
(sterling). These corpulent warriors, who at Calais shortly before had
run till overtaken by nervous prostration and general debility, now wore
more millinery and breastpins and slashed velvet and satin facings and
tinsel than the most successful and highly painted and decorated
courtesans of that period.
The treaty here made with so much pyrotechnical display and _éclat_ and
hand-embroidery was soon broken, Charles having caught the ear of Wolsey
with a promise of the papal throne upon the death of Leo X., which event
he joyfully anticipated.
Henry, in 1521, scored a triumph and earned the title of Defender of the
Faith by writing a defence of Catholicism in answer to an article
written by Martin Luther attacking it. Leo died soon after, and, much to
the chagrin of Wolsey, was succeeded by Adrian VI.
[Illustration: HENRY WRITES A TREATISE IN DEFENCE OF THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH.]
War was now waged with France by the new alliance of Spain and
England; but success waited not upon the English arms, while, worse than
all, the king was greatly embarrassed for want of more scudii. Nothing
can be more pitiful, perhaps, than a shabby king waiting till all his
retainers have gone away before he dare leave the throne, fearing that
his threadbare retreat may not be protected. Henry tried to wring
something from Parliament, but without success, even aided by that
practical apostle of external piety and internal intrigue, Wolsey. The
latter, too, had a second bitter disappointment in the election of
Clement VII. to succeed Adrian, and as this was easily traced to the
chicanery of the emperor, who had twice promised the portfolio of
pontiff to Wolsey, the latter determined to work up another union
between Henry and France in 1523.
War, however, continued for some time with Francis, till, in 1525, he
was defeated and taken prisoner. This gave Henry a chance to figure with
the queen regent, the mother of Francis, and a pleasant treaty was made
in 1526. The Pope, too, having been captured by the emperor, Henry and
Francis agreed to release and restore him or perish on the spot. Quite a
well-written and beguiling account of this alliance, together with the
Anne Boleyn affair, will be found in the succeeding chapter.
[Illustration: CHARLES II. CONCEALED IN THE "ROYAL OAK," WHILE HIS
PURSUERS PASSED UNDER HIM (1651).]
[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL IN DISSOLVING PARLIAMENT SEIZED THE MACE,
EXCLAIMING, "TAKE AWAY THIS BAUBLE!" (1653).]
[Illustration: A BOOK ENTITLED "KILLING NO MURDER", BOLDLY ADVISING THE
REMOVAL OF THE USURPER, CAUSED CROMWELL CEASELESS ANXIETY (1658).]
[Illustration: HENRY VIII. PLUNDERING THE CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES OF
THEIR POSSESSIONS.]
[Illustration: AFTER THE DEATH OF JANE SEYMOUR, HENRY VIII. TURNED HIS
ATTENTION TO THE SELECTION OF A NEW QUEEN, DECIDING ON ANNE OF CLEVES, A
PROTESTANT PRINCESS WITH WHOSE PORTRAIT HE HAD BEEN HIGHLY PLEASED. THE
ORIGINAL SO GREATLY DISAPPOINTED HIM THAT HE SOON DIVORCED HER.]
[Illustration: EDWARD VI., SUCCESSOR TO HENRY VIII., AETAT. TEN YEARS,
WHOSE ATTENTION TO HIS STUDIES AND THE GENTLENESS OF HIS DISPOSITION
MADE HIM MUCH BELOVED (1547-53).]
[Illustration: THE GREAT INFLUX OF GOLD AND SILVER FROM THE NEW WORLD
CAUSED AN INCREASE IN THE PRICE OF COMMODITIES (1549).]
[Illustration: THE CHERISHED OBJECT OF MARY WAS TO RESTORE THE CATHOLIC
RELIGION, AND HER CHIEF COUNSELLORS WERE BISHOPS GARDINER AND BONNER
(1554).]
[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH (1558-1603).]
[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]
[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH SIGNING THE DEATH-WARRANT OF MARY QUEEN
OF SCOTS, 1587.]
[Illustration: DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, MARCH 24, 1603. FOR TEN DAYS
PREVIOUS TO HER DEATH SHE LAY UPON THE FLOOR SUPPORTED BY CUSHIONS.]
[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF THE GUNPOWDER PLOT (1605).]
[Illustration: EFFIGY OF GUY FAWKES.]
[Illustration: THE SCOTCH COULD NOT ENDURE ARCHBISHOP LAUD'S RITUALISTIC
PRACTICES, AND JENNY GEDDES THREW A STOOL AT HIS HEAD.]
[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH, AT HIS EXECUTION, ASKED TO EXAMINE
THE AXE. HE POISED IT, AND RUNNING HIS THUMB ALONG THE EDGE, SAID, WITH
A SMILE, "THIS IS SHARP MEDICINE," ETC. (1618).]
[Illustration: PRINCE CHARLES AND BUCKINGHAM TRAVEL TO SPAIN IN
DISGUISE, SO THAT THE FORMER MIGHT PAY HIS ADDRESSES IN PERSON TO THE
INFANTA.]
[Illustration: CHARLES I. FORCED TO GIVE HIS ASSENT TO THE "PETITION OF
EIGHTS" (1628).]
[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL.]
[Illustration: EARL OF STRAFFORD RECEIVING LAUD'S BLESSING ON THE WAY
TO EXECUTION (1641).]
[Illustration: SAMPLE PAGE OF ROUNDHEADS (1642).]