career, and be careful to remember it in interpreting his later actions.’
‘The true defect in his moral constitution, that “intense and imperious
will” common to all princes of the Plantagenet blood, had not yet been
tested.’ That he did, in his later years, act in many ways neither
wisely nor well, no one denies; that his conduct did not alienate the
hearts of his subjects is what needs explanation; and Mr. Froude’s
opinions on this matter, novel as they are, and utterly opposed to that
of the standard modern historians, require careful examination. Now I am
not inclined to debate Henry the Eighth’s character, or any other
subject, as between Mr. Froude and an author of the obscurantist or
pseudo-conservative school. Mr. Froude is Liberal; and so am I. I wish
to look at the question as between Mr. Froude and other Liberals; and
therefore, of course, first, as between Mr. Froude and Mr. Hallam.
Mr. Hallam’s name is so venerable and his work so Important, that to set
ourselves up as judges in this or in any matter between him and Mr.
Froude would be mere impertinence: but speaking merely as learners, we
have surely a right to inquire why Mr. Hallam has entered on the whole
question of Henry’s relations to his Parliament with a _præjudicium_
against them; for which Mr. Froude finds no ground whatsoever in fact.
Why are all acts both of Henry and his Parliament to be taken _in malam
partem_? They were not Whigs, certainly: neither were Socrates and
Plato, nor even St. Paul and St. John. They may have been honest men as
men go, or they may not: but why is there to be a feeling against them
rather than for them? Why is Henry always called a tyrant, and his
Parliament servile? The epithets have become so common and unquestioned
that our interrogation may seem startling. Still we make it. Why was
Henry a tyrant? That may be true, but must be proved by facts. Where
are they? Is the mere fact of a monarch’s asking for money a crime in
him and his ministers? The question would rather seem to be, Were the
moneys for which Henry asked needed or no; and, when granted, were they
rightly or wrongly applied? And on these subjects we want much more
information than we obtain from any epithets. The author of a
constitutional history should rise above epithets: or, if he uses them,
should corroborate them by facts. Why should not historians be as fair
and as cautious in accusing Henry and Wolsey as they would be in accusing
Queen Victoria and Lord Palmerston? What right, allow us to ask, has a
grave constitutional historian to say that ‘We cannot, indeed, doubt that
the unshackled and despotic condition of his friend, Francis I., afforded
a mortifying contrast to Henry? What document exists in which Henry is
represented as regretting that he is the king of a free people?—for such
Mr. Hallam confesses, just above, England was held to be, and was
actually in comparison with France. If the document does not exist, Mr.
Hallam has surely stepped out of the field of the historian into that of
the novelist, _à la_ Scott or Dumas. The Parliament sometimes grants
Henry’s demands: sometimes it refuses them, and he has to help himself by
other means. Why are both cases to be interpreted _in malam partem_?
Why is the Parliament’s granting to be always a proof of its
servility?—its refusing always a proof of Henry’s tyranny and rapacity?
Both views are mere _præjudicia_, reasonable perhaps, and possible: but
why is not a _præjudicium_ of the opposite kind as rational and as
possible? Why has not a historian a right to start, as Mr. Froude does,
by taking for granted that both parties may have been on the whole right;
that the Parliament granted certain sums because Henry was right in
asking for them; refused others because Henry was wrong; even that, in
some cases, Henry may have been right in asking, the Parliament wrong in
refusing; and that in such a case, under the pressure of critical times,
Henry was forced to get as he could the money which he saw that the
national cause required? Let it be as folks will. Let Henry be
sometimes right, and the Parliament sometimes likewise; or the Parliament
always right, or Henry always right; or anything else, save this strange
diseased theory that both must have been always wrong, and that, evidence
to that effect failing, motives must be insinuated, or openly asserted,
from the writer’s mere imagination. This may be a dream: but it is as
easy to imagine as the other, and more pleasant also. It will probably
be answered (though not by Mr. Hallam himself) by a sneer: ‘You do not
seem to know much of the world, sir.’ But so would Figaro and Gil Blas
have said, and on exactly the same grounds.
Let us examine a stock instance of Henry’s ‘rapacity’ and his
Parliament’s servility, namely, the exactions in 1524 and 1525, and the
subsequent ‘release of the King’s debts.’ What are the facts of the
case? France and Scotland had attacked England in 1514. The Scotch were
beaten at Flodden. The French lost Tournay and Thérouenne, and, when
peace was made, agreed to pay the expenses of the war. Times changed,
and the expenses were not paid.
A similar war arose in 1524, and cost England immense sums. A large army
was maintained on the Scotch Border, another army invaded France; and
Wolsey, not venturing to call a Parliament,—because he was, as Pope’s
legate, liable to a _præmunire_,—raised money by contributions and
benevolences, which were levied, it seems on the whole, uniformly and
equally (save that they weighed more heavily on the rich than on the
poor, if that be a fault), and differed from taxes only in not having
received the consent of Parliament. Doubtless, this was not the best way
of raising money: but what if, under the circumstances, it were the only
one? What if, too, on the whole, the money so raised was really given
willingly by the nation? The sequel alone could decide that.
The first contribution for which Wolsey asked was paid. The second was
resisted, and was not paid; proving thereby that the nation need not pay
unless it chose. The court gave way; and the war became defensive only
till 1525.
Then the tide turned. The danger, then, was not from Francis, but from
the Emperor. Francis was taken prisoner at Pavia; and shortly after Rome
was sacked by Bourbon.
The effect of all this in England is told at large in Mr. Froude’s second
chapter. Henry became bond for Francis’s ransom, to be paid to the
Emperor. He spent 500,000 crowns more in paying the French army; and in
the terms of peace made with France, a sum-total was agreed on for the
whole debt, old and new, to be paid as soon as possible; and an annual
pension of 500,000 crowns besides. The French exchequer, however, still
remained bankrupt, and again the money was not paid.
Parliament, when it met in 1529, reviewed the circumstances of the
expenditure, and finding it all such as the nation on the whole approved,
legalised the taxation by benevolences retrospectively: and this is the
whole mare’s nest of the first payment of Henry’s debts; if, at least,
any faith is to be put in the preamble of the Act for the release of the
King’s Debts, 21 Hen. VIII. c. 24. ‘The King’s loving subjects, the
Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament
assembled, calling to remembrance the inestimable costs, charges, and
expenses which the King’s Highness hath necessarily been compelled to
support and sustain since his assumption to his crown, estate, and
dignity royal, as well for the extinction of a right dangerous and
damnable schism, sprung in the Church, as for the modifying the
insatiable and inordinate ambition of them who, while aspiring to the
monarchy of Christendom, did put universal troubles and divisions in the
same, intending, if they might, not only to have subdued this realm, but
also all the rest, unto their power and subjection—for resistance whereof
the King’s Highness was compelled to marvellous charges—both for the
supportation of sundry armies by sea and land, and also for divers and
manifold contribution on hand, to save and keep his own subjects at home
in rest and repose—which hath been so politically handled that, when the
most part of all Christian lands have been infested with cruel wars, the
great Head and Prince of the world (the Pope) brought into captivity,
cities and towns taken, spoiled, burnt, and sacked—the King’s said
subjects in all this time, by the high providence and politic means of
his Grace, have been nevertheless preserved, defended, and maintained
from all these inconvenients, etc.
‘Considering, furthermore, that his Highness, in and about the premises,
hath been fain to employ not only all such sums of money as hath risen or
grown by contributions made unto his Grace by his loving subjects—but
also, over and above the same, sundry other notable and excellent sums of
his own treasure and yearly revenues, among which manifold great sums so
employed, his Highness also, as is notoriously known, and as doth
evidently appear by the ACCOUNTS OF THE SAME, hath to that use, and none
other, converted all such money as by any of his subjects hath been
advanced to his Grace by way of prest or loan, either particularly, or by
any taxation made of the same—being things so well collocate and
bestowed, seeing the said high and great fruits and effects thereof
insured to the surety and commodity and tranquillity of this realm—of our
mind and consent, do freely, absolutely, give and grant to the King’s
Highness all and every sum or sums of money,’ etc.
The second release of the King’s debts, in 1544, is very similar. The
King’s debts and necessities were really, when we come to examine them,
those of the nation: in 1538–40 England was put into a thorough state of
defence from end to end. Fortresses were built along the Scottish
Border, and all along the coast opposite France and Flanders. The people
were drilled and armed, the fleet equipped; and the nation, for the time,
became one great army. And nothing but this, as may be proved by an
overwhelming mass of evidence, saved the country from invasion. Here
were enormous necessary expenses which must be met.
In 1543 a million crowns were to have been paid by Francis the First as
part of his old debt. It was not paid: but, on the contrary, Henry had
to go to war for it. The nation again relinquished their claim, and
allowed Henry to raise another benevolence in 1545, concerning which Mr.
Hallam tells us a great deal, but not one word of the political
circumstances which led to it or to the release, keeping his sympathies
and his paper for the sorrows of refractory Alderman Reed, who, refusing
(alone of all the citizens) to contribute to the support of troops on the
Scotch Border or elsewhere, was sent down, by a sort of rough justice, to
serve on the Scotch Border himself, and judge of the ‘perils of the
nation’ with his own eyes; and being—one is pleased to hear—taken
prisoner by the Scots, had to pay a great deal more as ransom than he
would have paid as benevolence.
But to return. What proof is there, in all this, of that servility which
most historians, and Mr. Hallam among the rest, are wont to attribute to
Henry’s Parliaments? What feeling appears on the face of this document,
which we have given and quoted, but one honourable to the nation?
Through the falsehood of a foreign nation the King is unable to perform
his engagements to the people. Is not the just and generous course in
such a case to release him from those engagements? Does this preamble,
does a single fact of the case, justify historians in talking of these
‘king’s debts’ in just the same tone as that in which they would have
spoken if the King had squandered the money on private pleasures?
Perhaps most people who write small histories believe that this really
was the case. They certainly would gather no other impression from the
pages of Mr. Hallam. No doubt the act must have been burdensome on some
people. Many, we are told, had bequeathed their promissory notes to
their children, used their reversionary interest in the loan in many
ways; and these, of course, felt the change very heavily. No doubt: but
why have we not a right to suppose that the Parliament were aware of that
fact; but chose it as the less of the two evils? The King had spent the
money; he was unable to recover it from Francis; could only refund it by
raising some fresh tax or benevolence: and why may not the Parliament
have considered the release of old taxes likely to offend fewer people
than the imposition of new ones? It is certainly an ugly thing to break
public faith; but to prove that public faith was broken, we must prove
that Henry compelled the Parliament to release him; if the act was of
their own free will, no public faith was broken, for they were the
representatives of the nation, and through them the nation forgave its
own debt. And what evidence have we that they did not represent the
nation, and that, on the whole, we must suppose, as we should in the case
of any other men, that they best knew their own business? May we not
apply to this case, and to others, _mutatis mutandis_, the argument which
Mr. Froude uses so boldly and well in the case of Anne Boleyn’s
trial—‘The English nation also, as well as . . . deserves justice at our
hands?’
Certainly it does: but it is a disagreeable token of the method on which
we have been accustomed to write the history of our own forefathers, that
Mr. Froude should find it necessary to state formally so very simple a
truth.
What proof, we ask again, is there that this old Parliament was
‘servile’? Had that been so, Wolsey would not have been afraid to summon
it. The specific reason for not summoning a Parliament for six years
after that of 1524 was that they were not servile; that when (here we are
quoting Mr. Hallam, and not Mr. Froude) Wolsey entered the House of
Commons with a great train, seemingly for the purpose of intimidation,
they ‘made no other answer to his harangues than that it was their usage
to debate only among themselves.’ The debates on this occasion lasted
fifteen or sixteen days, during which, says an eye-witness, ‘there has
been the greatest and sorest hold in the Lower House,’ ‘the matter
debated and beaten’; ‘such hold that the House was like to have been
dissevered’; in a word, hard fighting—and why not honest
fighting?—between the court party and the Opposition, ‘which ended,’ says
Mr. Hallam, ‘in the court party obtaining, with the utmost difficulty, a
grant much inferior to the Cardinal’s original requisition.’ What token
of servility is here?
And is it reasonable to suppose that after Wolsey was conquered, and a
comparatively popular ministry had succeeded, and that memorable
Parliament of 1529 (which Mr. Froude, not unjustly, thinks more memorable
than the Long Parliament itself) began its great work with a high hand,
backed not merely by the King, but by the public opinion of the majority
of England, their decisions are likely to have been more servile than
before? If they resisted the King when they disagreed with him, are they
to be accused of servility because they worked with him when they agreed
with him? Is an Opposition always in the right; a ministerial party
always in the wrong? Is it an offence against the people to agree with
the monarch, even when he agrees with the people himself? Simple as
these questions are, one must really stop to ask them.
No doubt pains were often taken to secure elections favourable to the
Government. Are none taken now? Are not more taken now? Will any
historian show us the documents which prove the existence, in the
sixteenth century, of Reform Club, Carlton Club, whippers-in and
nominees, governmental and opposition, and all the rest of the beautiful
machinery which protects our Reformed Parliament from the evil influences
of bribery and corruption? Pah!—We have somewhat too much glass in our
modern House to afford to throw stones at our forefathers’ old St.
Stephen’s. At the worst, what was done then but that without which it is
said to be impossible to carry on a Government now? Take an instance
from the Parliament of 1539, one in which there is no doubt Government
influence was used in order to prevent as much as possible the return of
members favourable to the clergy—for the good reason that the clergy were
no doubt, on their own side, intimidating voters by all those terrors of
the unseen world which had so long been to them a source of boundless
profit and power.
Cromwell writes to the King to say that he has secured a seat for a
certain Sir Richard Morrison; but for what purpose? As one who no doubt
‘should be ready to answer and take up such as should crack or face with
literature of learning, if any such should be.’ There was, then, free
discussion; they expected clever and learned speakers in the Opposition,
and on subjects of the deepest import, not merely political, but
spiritual; and the Government needed men to answer such. What more
natural than that so close on the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace,’ and in the midst
of so great dangers at home and abroad, the Government should have done
their best to secure a well-disposed House (one would like to know when
they would not)? But surely the very effort (confessedly exceptional)
and the acknowledged difficulty prove that Parliament were no mere
‘registrars of edicts.’
But the strongest argument against the tyranny of the Tudors, and
especially of Henry VIII. in his ‘benevolences,’ is derived from the
state of the people themselves. If these benevolences had been really
unpopular, they would not have been paid. In one case we have seen, a
benevolence was not paid for that very reason. For the method of the
Tudor sovereigns, like that of their predecessors, was the very opposite
to that of tyrants in every age and country. The first act of a tyrant
has always been to disarm the people, and to surround himself with a
standing army. The Tudor method was, as Mr. Froude shows us by many
interesting facts, to keep the people armed and drilled, even to compel
them to learn the use of weapons. Throughout England spread one vast
military organisation, which made every adult a soldier, and enabled him
to find, at a day’s notice, his commanding officer, whether landlord,
sheriff, or lieutenant of the county; so that, as a foreign ambassador of
the time remarks with astonishment (we quote from memory), ‘England is
the strongest nation on earth, for though the King has not a single
mercenary soldier, he can raise in three days an army of two hundred
thousand men.’
And of what temper those men were it is well known enough. Mr. Froude
calls them—and we beg leave to endorse, without exception, Mr. Froude’s
opinion—‘A sturdy high-hearted race, sound in body and fierce in spirit,
and furnished with thews and sinews which, under the stimulus of those
“great shins of beef,” their common diet, were the wonder of the age.’
‘What comyn folke in all this world,’ says a State Paper in 1515, ‘may
compare with the comyns of England in riches, freedom, liberty, welfare,
and all prosperity? What comyn folk is so mighty, so strong in the
felde, as the comyns of England?’ In authentic stories of actions under
Henry VIII.—and, we will add, under Elizabeth likewise—where the accuracy
of the account is undeniable, no disparity of force made Englishmen
shrink from enemies whenever they could meet them. Again and again a few
thousands of them carried dismay into the heart of France. Four hundred
adventurers, vagabond apprentices of London, who formed a volunteer corps
in the Calais garrison, were for years, Hall says, the terror of
Normandy. In the very frolic of conscious power they fought and
plundered without pay, without reward, save what they could win for
themselves; and when they fell at last, they fell only when surrounded by
six times their number, and were cut to pieces in careless desperation.
Invariably, by friend and foe alike, the English are described as the
fiercest people in all Europe—English wild beasts Benvenuto Cellini calls
them; and this great physical power they owed to the profuse abundance in
which they lived, to the soldier’s training in which every one of them
was bred from childhood.
Mr. Froude’s novel assertion about profuse abundance must be weighed by
those who have read his invaluable introductory chapter. But we must ask
at once how it was possible to levy on such an armed populace a tax which
they were determined not to pay, and felt that they were not bound to
pay, either in law or justice? Conceive Lord Palmerston’s sending down
to demand a ‘benevolence’ from the army at Aldershot, beginning with the
general in command and descending to the privates . . . What would be the
consequences? Ugly enough: but gentle in comparison with those of any
attempt to exact a really unpopular tax from a nation of well-armed
Englishmen, unless they, on the whole, thought the tax fit to be paid.
They would grumble, of course, whether they intended to pay or not,—for
were they not Englishmen, our own flesh and blood?—and grumble all the
more in person, because they had no Press to grumble for them: but what
is there then in the M.P.’s letter to Lord Surrey, quoted by Mr. Hallam,
p. 25, or in the more pointed letter of Warham’s, two pages on, which we
do not see lying on our breakfast tables in half the newspapers every
week? Poor, pedantic, obstructive old Warham, himself very angry at so
much being asked of his brother clergymen, and at their being sworn as to
the value of their goods (so like are old times to new ones); and being,
on the whole, of opinion that the world (the Church included) is going to
the devil, says that as he has been ‘showed in a secret manner of his
friends, the people sore grudgeth and murmureth, and speaketh cursedly
among themselves, as far as they dare, saying they shall never have rest
of payments as long as some liveth, and that they had better die than
thus be continually handed, reckoning themselves, their wives and
children, as despoulit, and not greatly caring what they do, or what
becomes of them.’
Very dreadful—if true: which last point depends very much upon who Warham
was. Now, on reading Mr. Froude’s or any other good history, we shall
find that Warham was one of the leaders of that despondent party which
will always have its antitype in England. Have we, too, not heard within
the last seven years similar prophecies of desolation, mourning, and
woe—of the Church tottering on the verge of ruin, the peasantry starving
under the horrors of free trade, noble families reduced to the verge of
beggary by double income-tax? Even such a prophet seems Warham to have
been—of all people in that day, one of the last whom one would have asked
for an opinion.
Poor old Warham, however, was not so far wrong in this particular case;
for the ‘despoulit’ slaves of Suffolk, not content with grumbling, rose
up with sword and bow, and vowed that they would not pay. Whereon the
bloated tyrant sent his prætorians, and enforced payment by scourge and
thumbscrew? Not in the least. They would not pay; and therefore, being
free men, nobody could make them pay; and although in the neighbouring
county of Norfolk, from twenty pounds (_i.e._ £200 of our money)
upward—for the tax was not levied on men of less substance—there were not
twenty but what had consented; and though there was ‘great likelihood
that this grant should be much more than the loan was’ (the ‘salt tears’
shed by the gentlemen of Norfolk proceeding, says expressly the Duke of
Norfolk, ‘only from doubt how to find money to content the King’s
Highness’); yet the King and Wolsey gave way frankly and at once, and the
contribution was remitted, although the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk,
writing to Wolsey, treat the insurrection lightly, and seem to object to
the remission as needless.
From all which facts—they are Mr. Hallam’s, not Mr. Froude’s—we can
deduce not tyranny, but lenity, good sense, and the frank withdrawal from
a wrong position as soon as the unwillingness of the people proved it to
be a wrong one.