It appeared that the king had been deluded by the diplomatists, and
that after all the chance of a coalition against England was by no
means dissolved. Before the summer was fairly over, the politest of
overtures were passing between Francis and Charles; while the Duke of
Cleves, who had been to some degree holding off, again became urgent
for the marriage, being, like Henry, threatened with danger from the
restoration of amity between the two great rivals. Henry was beguiled
into believing that the lady of his minister’s choice would make him a
charming and attractive spouse; negotiations were pushed forward apace,
and in the last days of December, Anne of Cleves landed in England. On
January 6 the marriage was celebrated.
But fate was against Cromwell. In the first place, the king took a
violent antipathy to his bride: and though, for an adequate political
end, he would have accepted the situation, his soul was wroth with
the man who had brought him into it. Moreover, so far as concerned
domestic affairs, the minister had done all that Henry needed of
him. He had so handled the Church that she lay defenceless under the
king’s hand. He had brought to the block every one who could be made
a figure-head for insurrection, and had made organised rebellion an
impossibility. He had done all that there was to be done in the way of
despoiling the king’s subjects for the king’s benefit. Finally, he had
just placed in the king’s hand the last administrative instrument of
despotism in the Royal Proclamations Act, as he had before provided
an irresistible weapon in the Treasons Act. He was not required for
any further religious reforms, since his master had already gone as
far as he meant to travel in that direction. There was left only one
reason why the royal anger should be restrained--a demonstration that
his foreign policy was right; that he was needed as foreign minister.
And ere many weeks were passed, conclusive reasons appeared for judging
that the theory to which Henry had endeavoured to cling was right after
all, that a lasting coalition between Francis and Charles was a mere
bugbear, that there had never been any need for the Cleves marriage.
Moreover, the demonstration was effected by one of Cromwell’s two
most determined rivals, the Duke of Norfolk, who at any rate got the
credit for bringing about the open rupture which promptly succeeded
the fraternal embraces of the emperor and the French king. At last the
game was in the hands of Gardiner and Norfolk. On June 10 the bolt
fell. Absolutely without warning, Cromwell was arrested for treason
at the Council, and sent forthwith to the Tower. His own weapons
were turned against him, his own interpretation of treason, his own
favourite process of attainder. Like Wolsey, he had served his master
only too well; and his master rewarded him as pitilessly as he had
rewarded the Cardinal. The only man in England who dared to plead on
his behalf was--Cranmer. On July 28, Cromwell’s head was hacked from
his shoulders. With what measure he meted, it had been measured to him
again.
HENRY VIII
I
APPRECIATIONS
Of both More and Cromwell it has been observed that historians do not
greatly vary in their estimates, when a reasonable allowance is made
for Protestant and anti-Protestant bias. That remark does not hold good
of King Henry. The popular idea of him is more intimately associated
with that of Bluebeard than of any other hero of fiction or history.
Mr. Froude has created a legend of his own, wherein the only doubt
seems to be whether Henry quite passed the dividing line between the
mere hero and the demi-god. Most commonly, he appears as a brutal
tyrant. Among the best informed living authorities in England on the
sixteenth century, one distinguishes him as the most remarkable man
who ever sat on the English throne, and another has characterised him
as a weak-willed bully, always depending for support on some stronger
will than his own; yet neither the one nor the other shows signs of
having been led to his conclusion by any marked bias. The data for his
reign, in the form of documents calendared with exceptional skill,
are peculiarly ample; but the opportunities for drawing divergent
inferences therefrom are extensive. It would be too much to call them
unique, in a century which gave birth also to Elizabeth and to Mary
Queen of Scots.
[Illustration: _HENRY VIII._
_From a Portrait by_ JOST VAN CLEEF _in the Royal Collection at Hampton
Court Palace_]
About the fourth year of Henry’s reign, Thomas Wolsey came to the front
and remained there for sixteen years. For another ten years, Thomas
Cromwell was in the king’s service. During this period of something
exceeding a quarter of a century, did Henry or his ministers control
policy? Great events happened. Did he, in dealing with them, show
himself a great statesman? Or did he merely play the part of a selfish
and greedy libertine? One can only express a personal opinion. The
view which seems most consonant with the facts may be broadly stated
thus. Like his daughter Elizabeth, he had a keen eye for character and
ability; he could appreciate statesmanship in a servant, and he knew
how to get the utmost value out of the men he chose to trust. In the
main, he let them carry out their designs in their own way; but he
remained watchful, and saw to it that if he happened to want anything
not included in their programme, the programme should be altered. He
did not initiate, but he did adopt and make his own, the principles
of Wolsey’s foreign and Cromwell’s domestic policy. A time came when
he wanted from Wolsey something which his minister’s genius was not
adapted to provide; and Wolsey vanished. By slow degrees Cromwell
emerged. A time came when Cromwell had given him all that he could
give, and was seeking to draw his master into paths he did not choose
to tread. Cromwell went to the scaffold. In his remaining years,
the king showed no power of striking out for himself a strong policy
for good or for evil; he had no minister whom he trusted to pilot
the ship; his own pilotage proved crude, and left to the succeeding
government a crop of difficulties with which it was quite incompetent
to cope. His father’s policy had been his own creation; his ministers
had never been much more than clerks. The eighth Henry chose ministers
to create and carry out a policy for him, but always under his own
control. The peculiarity of the Tudor genius, which he shared with his
father and his daughter, lay in the unfailing skill with which they
judged men, and their intuitive appreciation of popular feeling, which
kept them from passing the bounds of acquiescence. Hence, whatever
we may think of their policy itself or of particular acts, whether
our moral judgment condemns or applauds, whether we account their
measures far-sighted or short-sighted, they stand out as great rulers,
accomplishing what they meant to accomplish, and displaying their
activities on a great scale.
II
THE CARDINAL RULES
Henry was his father’s second son. Tradition says that his sire,
ever thoughtful of economy, destined him for the Archbishopric of
Canterbury, and had him educated accordingly. As the boy, however,
became, through his elder brother’s death, heir apparent to the
throne at the age of eleven, the remarkable theological erudition
which he displayed in later years can hardly be attributed to his
early school-room studies--even if the tradition had any more basis
of fact than that it was at least _ben trovato_. Whatever career was
anticipated for him, the utmost pains were bestowed on his education,
and he learnt to take a keen interest in intellectual pursuits. Erasmus
gives an agreeable picture of him at the age of nine, and remarks
on the extraordinary intelligence of his letters a little later--an
intelligence which made the learned man believe that the boy’s tutor
wrote or revised them, till ocular demonstration convinced him of the
contrary. Intellectual pursuits, however, did not absorb the Prince of
Wales. His father was not endowed with any very striking physique, but
the boy rather took after his grandfather Edward IV., being decidedly
handsome, of very athletic frame, and excelling in the sports of
vigorous and healthy youth.
Two months before Henry completed his eighteenth year, his father’s
death placed him on the throne of England--successor to a king whose
later years had been conspicuously sordid and gloomy. Spring with its
pulsing, generous life, followed the sapless dreariness of winter. So
men dreamed, and so probably Henry reckoned, himself. Ugly things like
Empson and Dudley were to vanish into limbo; the king would celebrate
his marriage royally--and follow that up by some splendid martial
achievement. It was still permitted to dream mediæval dreams; might
not the Crescent be once more rolled back before the advancing Cross?
Still, at eighteen there was no great hurry about that, and meanwhile
life might be very much enjoyed. Kings have servants about them to take
the dull drudgery of politics off their hands.
A most excellent state of things, in the eyes of the veterans Ferdinand
and Maximilian. The old king’s martial ardour had resolved itself
into occasional campaigns on which no money was wasted, and in which
no blood was shed, but which somehow had a trick of resulting in the
transfer of hard cash from somebody’s pocket to that of the English
monarch. But surely this open-hearted boy could be persuaded that Henry
V. set a more attractive precedent than Henry VII., and that France
was a good deal nearer than Constantinople. To simplify matters he had
beside him a comely and capable wife, devoted to the Spanish interest,
and all the more likely to influence him, at his age, for being a
few years the elder: and no young prince could have an adviser half
so shrewd as his quite disinterested father-in-law of Aragon. So the
unsophisticated Henry was carefully manœuvred into war with France.
From which he learned two lessons: one that there was frequently a
very marked difference between the words of kings and their deeds; the
other, that military glory or political success cannot be achieved
without close attention to detail. Incidentally, the young king
made another discovery; namely that the comparatively insignificant
ecclesiastic whom old Bishop Fox had introduced into the Council was
as sharp-witted as Ferdinand himself, could do the work of ten ordinary
men, and always knew what he was about.
Before the end of 1514, Ferdinand and Maximilian were made painfully
aware that Henry was not going to be anybody’s tool, by the unexpected
alliance of England and France. The diplomatist who had beaten them
with their own weapons had won the English king’s entire confidence,
and there was only one possible rival to him, in the person of Henry’s
brother-in-arms, Charles Brandon, newly created Duke of Suffolk; nor
was it long before it became patent that the brother-in-arms, having
made himself brother-in-law into the bargain by marrying the princess
Mary, might remain the favourite companion in the hunting field, and
the favourite antagonist in the tournament, but would have very little
to say to the king’s politics. Wolsey had not only thoroughly impressed
his master by his immense administrative ability, his capacity for hard
work, and his astuteness; he had also succeeded in giving a new turn
to the king’s ambitions, making them political rather than martial.
The campaigns of 1513 had restored the prestige of English soldiers
at least in a respectable degree; the outwitting of the craftiest
prince in Europe next year showed that there was a worthy successor to
Henry VII.; that monarch was reputed to have left in the royal coffers
wealth so enormous as to be almost inexhaustible; Scotland had suffered
such a blow at Flodden that she could not, for the time at least,
hamper English action. Henry therefore could now hold the balance
between the potentates of Europe, and become the controlling factor in
international affairs. Such a position was much better worth working
for than reconquests of French soil, or even the recovery of the French
crown, which Henry V. had won but had not lived long enough to wear. As
for crusades, Henry was old enough now to know that in the eyes of a
practical politician they were out of date.
Schemes for dominating Europe were much affected by the fact that in
1514 many important changes in the personality of the rulers were
obviously impending. Henry, twenty-three years old, was the only young
man among them. But on the next New Year’s Day, France was to pass
from Louis XII. to young Francis of Angoulême, aged twenty. In 1516,
Ferdinand was to be succeeded by his grandson Charles, aged sixteen. In
1519, Maximilian was to disappear; and, inasmuch as the Empire was not
technically hereditary, much would depend on the Imperial election, in
which, however, the chances were that Ferdinand’s heir would prove to
be Maximilian’s heir also.
From 1514, the figure of Wolsey--very shortly to become a
Cardinal--completely dominated English politics. The king resigned
himself wholly to his guidance, and for many years there was no more
talk of Henry leading victorious armies over the Continent. The rival
ambitions of Francis, Maximilian, and others, chiefly concerned with
the annexation of Italian States by one potentate or another, the
playing off of rivals, the paying and withholding of subsidies, were
the main business in hand till the demise of the emperor, early in
1519, opened the great question, who was to wear the Imperial crown?
Young Charles was already king of all Spain, and lord of the Burgundian
heritage. He was also heir to the Austrian and other German possessions
of Maximilian, who, like Ferdinand, had been his grandfather. For some
time, Habsburg had followed Habsburg as emperor. There was no other of
the princes of Germany strong enough territorially to bear the weight
of empire, and Frederic of Saxony, _capax imperii_, had no mind for the
undertaking. If Charles were elected he would wield enormous powers.
The French king, ambitious, and dreading the further aggrandisement
of a rival whose dominions were already so great, came forward as a
candidate: his success would mean an accession of power to France even
more dangerous to the European balance than that of Charles. Under
these circumstances, it is not incredible that Henry really meant
business in taking steps with a view to obtaining the Imperial crown
for himself. At twenty-eight, he was quite young enough to believe
that the thing was really practicable: and if practicable, it would
be a magnificent fulfilment of his ambitions along the very lines on
which Wolsey had directed them. It is not, however, credible that the
Cardinal should have taken that view; whether the king was or was not
merely playing with the idea, his minister must have known that it was
chimerical. The agent, Richard Pace, very soon made it quite clear
that it would be sheer waste of energy and money for Henry to enter
seriously for the stakes, and Cuthbert Tunstal was careful to point
out that in burdening himself with the responsibilities of the Empire,
he would be losing for the sake of a shadow the solid substance of his
power as King of England. Henry’s candidature was withdrawn, and no one
was any the worse.
The episode, however, suggests certain conclusions. It is almost
impossible to doubt that the idea of the candidature was Henry’s own;
it is difficult to doubt that he did contemplate it seriously. It was
consistent--in intention--with the conception of political predominance
as a more substantial object of ambition than military laurels. It
was of a grandiosity which appealed to the imagination, but not to
the practical judgment of a far-sighted statesman. That Henry should
have taken it up is entirely consistent with his character as we have
conceived it. On the other hand, if he had been merely a monarch who
allowed himself to be habitually managed, but broke out in occasional
fits of obstinacy--as weak men do--he would have struggled to the last
for that election. In fact, he did interfere with Wolsey the moment he
thought he could better the minister’s plans, but when he saw he had
made a mistake, but could retire without loss of dignity, he did so
without losing his temper. Later in life he might have made himself
unpleasant to somebody, under like conditions. That would have depended
very much on how far he had set his heart on the particular object he
found himself called upon to surrender. In the present case, Wolsey
had ostensibly done everything possible to make the scheme succeed.
He may never have attempted dissuasion, relying on the inherent
impracticability of the whole thing to prevent any really awkward
consequences. At any rate, Henry’s confidence was in no way diminished.
There was indeed little enough reason to be dissatisfied. Western
Europe was in the hands of three young men, of whom the eldest, Henry,
was twenty-eight, and the youngest, Charles, was not twenty. If Charles
had the widest dominion, his task was also the most complicated. He
could only pass to his Teutonic from his Spanish territories by sea;
French territory was continuous. If Charles and Francis quarrelled,
each would want the friendship of England: for her enmity to Charles
would mean immense injury to the trade of Flanders, and her enmity to
France would mean serious military embarrassments in the direction
of Picardy. So for some time to come both were eagerly seeking an
English alliance, while Wolsey’s skill was sufficiently tasked, but
not _over_-tasked, to keep the pair of them in play; and to keep them
at peace, since if they once went to war it might prove exceedingly
difficult to avoid embroiling England.
In 1520 the competition between emperor and king for English
favour--which both took to mean the Cardinal’s favour--was particularly
lively, with the result that the great meeting at the Field of the
Cloth of Gold took place, designed to signalise the enthusiastic
amity of Henry and Francis. Wolsey, however, had manœuvred a less
magnificent meeting in England, only just before, between Henry and
the emperor; and no one could say that either of the rivals had really
won a lead over the other. But it became increasingly difficult to
prevent a collision between them, and a year later, when Wolsey was
ostensibly making a great effort at the Conference of Calais to effect
a reconciliation, he was in reality coming privately to terms with
Charles. If England was to be dragged into a war, she would be on the
Imperial side.
III
WAR
Why did England go to war with France, instead of resolutely holding
aloof? The Cardinal cannot have seriously thought of the war as a means
to the recovery of the French crown: nor can he have held it good for
England that France should be crippled, and the Emperor magnified. If
he went into the war of his own free will, if he urged it on Henry,
it can only have been with the purely personal object of so binding
Charles to him as to ensure his own election to the Papacy at the
next vacancy. Yet at the time of the Calais Conference there was no
immediate likelihood of the reigning Pope’s death; Wolsey was surely
the last man to count on the gratitude of princes for past favours
as an effective motive, and Charles had already shown a thorough
appreciation of the doctrine that promises are made to be evaded.
Moreover, so shrewd a man as the Cardinal would presumably have
felt extremely doubtful whether the Papacy--with Charles master of
Europe--would be much worth having. The only remaining suggestion is,
that Wolsey foresaw great domestic troubles, and took the time-honoured
course of trying to divert attention by plunging the country in war.
The obvious objection to that is that there were no pressing signs of
disturbance at all.
The mere fact that the war was a regular reversal of the methods
Wolsey had hitherto followed, points to its having been undertaken
against his judgment. But is it unreasonable to suppose that it was not
against the king’s judgment? That Henry for the second time indicated
the course which his minister was to follow, and the minister obeyed
rather than resign? In those days, ministers did not resign, unless
they were exceptional people with consciences, like Thomas More: and
for Wolsey--whose political existence, if not his life, depended
entirely on the king’s favour--to resign would have meant virtual
suicide. On the other hand, there were influences which would affect
Henry in favour of the war, intelligibly enough. To him, the conquest
of France with the help of Charles may not have seemed absurd, and he
was not ashamed to avow it as his object to Parliament, when asking
for money. Apart from that, there was always a military party headed
by men who felt themselves much more likely to achieve honour and fame
on the battlefield than in the Cardinal’s ante-room: and if there was
to be war at all, there was a sort of standing sentiment in favour
of fighting the French. Lastly, the king was still on good terms with
his wife, and his wife was a most determined advocate of her nephew’s
interests. Henry was even now only just thirty, and the glamour of
military achievement might still tempt him. It certainly seems the most
reasonable conclusion that it was not Wolsey who dragged the king into
war, but the king who forced war on Wolsey.
As a matter of fact, events proved that there was very little to be
made out of the war. After eight years, Wolsey found himself compelled
to call a Parliament again, in order to get money--whereas it had been
his consistent policy to dispense with Parliament altogether. The war
was at any rate not sufficiently unpopular to prevent the voting of a
substantial subsidy; but as time passed, such favour as it had found
with the public faded; the Cardinal did not venture, when more money
was needed, to ask Parliament for it again, and when he tried to raise
what was called an Amicable loan, the response was cold. The disaster
of Francis at Pavia, though it suggested more talk about recovering
the Crown of France, offered no opportunity for material advantage
to Henry, and it very soon became evident that Charles was so much
the master of Europe that his career would only be held in check by
an Anglo-French alliance, which it became the Cardinal’s business to
contract in 1527.
IV
THE “DIVORCE”
This was precisely the time at which there is no doubt that the
question of divorcing Katharine of Aragon was very much on the minds
both of king and Cardinal. In discussing that subject in the preceding
study of Wolsey, nothing was said of the theory most adverse to
Wolsey--that the idea originated with him, and that he suggested it
with the specific intention of breaking the alliance with Charles and
substituting a French marriage, a French alliance being now his object.
On this theory it is argued that the king’s intention of using the
divorce to marry Anne Boleyn was sprung on the Cardinal as something
quite new, on his return from the French embassy; his absence having
been turned to account by his enemies, with the simple object of
wrecking his policy and ruining him. The fact that Henry afterwards
publicly acquitted Wolsey of having instigated the divorce may not
count for much as evidence of his innocence; but there is another grave
objection to the theory. If Henry told him that the divorce must be
managed somehow, he would doubtless have considered that the least
injurious result would be a French marriage; but it is not easy to
imagine that he would himself have sought to bring about a step which
would have made so permanent a breach between Henry and Charles. His
own policy was to keep it always in the power of England to shift
from one side to the other--to trim the balance between Charles and
Francis. The theory is put forward to square with a particular view
of Henry’s character--that he was managed by any one who could get at
him. But it makes the Cardinal himself somewhat unintelligible--or
unintelligent.