Bluebeardism which ultimately gave the most glaring colouring to Henry's
character. He had always been a little flighty and indiscriminate in his
attentions to the fair sex, but he had hitherto treated Catherine with
respect, until he met with Anne Boleyn, or Bullen, the daughter of Sir
Thomas Boleyn, who was descended from a former Lord Mayor of London, but
by a series of clever match-making--a talent for which was inherited by
Miss Anne--the family had succeeded in allying itself, by marriage, to
some of the proudest aristocracy in the land.
One of their earliest "dodges" had been to repair the plebeian word
Bullen, by omitting the U and substituting an O, which got it to
Bollen. In the course of time, having been allowed an inch in the way
of licence, they took an L, or at least one liquid absorbed another, and
the word now stood Bolen. Subsequently a Y, without a why or wherefore,
was dropped in, and the Bullens, who had probably acquired their name,
originally, from having been landlords, or perhaps potboys, at the
"Bull," had now assumed the comparatively elegant title of Boleyn, which
has since become so famous in history. Sir Thomas Boleyn, the father
of Nancy, had long lived about the Court, and had been employed as a
deliverer of messages, or ticket-porter, for Henry the Eighth, on some
important occasions. Anne, who was born in the year 1507, had in very
early life gone out to service as maid--of honour--to the king's sister,
Mary, who, when going over to be married to Louis the Twelfth, took
the girl abroad, where she picked up a few accomplishments. On Mary's
returning home, a widow, Anne Boleyn found another situation with
Claude, the wife of Francis the First, but after remaining in another
family or two for a short time in France, she returned to England, where
we find her, in 1527, engaged as maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon.
Henry having become deeply enamoured of Miss Boleyn, who had shown a
strong determination to stand no nonsense, was suddenly seized with
religious scruples as to his marriage with the queen; for he found
out, seventeen years after the event, that he had done wrong in allying
himself with his brother's widow. The fact of her being now an oldish
lady of forty-three added no doubt considerably to the pious horror of
the king at the step which he had taken. He accordingly began to think
seriously of a divorce; and when Wolsey was sounded on the subject, the
cardinal, for reasons of his own, yielded a prompt concurrence. He was
anxious to pay off Catherine on account of a quarrel he had had with
her nephew, the emperor; and thus, in the words of the poet of Dumbarton
Castle,
"He sought to consummate his fiendish part
By breaking a defenceless female's heart."
He was sent as an ambassador to Francis, ostensibly to arrange about the
marriage of Henry's only daughter Mary, but really, as it is believed,
to induce the French king to consent that Wolsey should be a sort of
acting pope during the investment of the castle of St. Angelo, where the
Spaniards and Germans had made the real pontiff a prisoner.
Poor Clement bore his ill fortune with patience, though, as long as the
investment of the castle lasted, he used to say it was one of the most
unprofitable investments in which he had ever been involved, and that
nothing but the excessive tightness prevented him from selling out, for
he was quite tired of the security.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH. HENRY THE EIGHTH (CONTINUED.)
The reign of Henry the Eighth would become tedious were it not for the
privilege we have assumed in dividing it into chapters; though we shall
not follow the example of the melodramatists who suppose fifteen years
to have elapsed between each of their acts, and thus carry on their
plots by means of the imagination of their audience. It is true that
many of the events of Henry's reign are dark enough to cause a wish
that we might be allowed to omit them; but we must not give up to
squeamishness what we owe to posterity.
We have not yet come to the catalogue of his various female victims,
and we have yet to describe those matrimonial freaks upon which we
would gladly have put a ban by forbidding the banns, had we lived three
centuries in advance of our present existence. We must, however, speak
the truth; and though we might imitate the author of the play called
_The Wife of Seven Husbands_, who requested the public to consider
that a husband had elapsed between each act, we will not call upon our
readers to imagine that a wife of Henry the Eighth has elapsed between
each chapter.
We will now resume our narrative, and in the first place look after
Wolsey, whom we left under orders to proceed to the French dominions;
and as the cardinal must by this time have commenced the passage across,
we will take him at once out of his unpleasant position, and land him at
Boulogne.
Wolsey's reception in France was like that of a royal personage, and had
all the inconveniences of such a compliment; for the firing of the guns
at Boulogne frightened his mule, who had not been trained to stand fire,
and who indulged in a kick-up of the most, extraordinary character.
[Illustration: 401]
This interview with Francis resulted in three treaties, which were
concluded on the 18th of August, 1527, * by the first of which it
was agreed that the Princess Mary should marry young Francis, Duke of
Orleans, instead of old Francis, his father, a point that had hitherto
been an open question; the second treaty concluded a peace, and the
third stipulated that nothing done by the pope during his captivity
should take effect, but that as long as Clement was in durance, which it
required all his fortitude to endure, Wolsey should have the management
of ecclesiastical affairs in England. The pope himself good-naturedly
sent over a bull to confirm the cardinal in his new powers; and "here
certainly," says Lord Herbert, "began the taste our king took of
governing, in chief, the clergy." His lordship might have added with
truth that Wolsey had performed the wonderful physical feat of biting
off his own nose to be revenged upon the rest of his face, for it is
certain that the taste Henry had been encouraged to take of power over
the church soon led him to be discontented with a mere snack, for his
appetite grew fearfully by what it fed upon. Like the modest dropper-in
at dinner-time, who sits down to take "just a mouthful," and is led on
to the consumption of a hearty meal, Henry, who at first simply intended
to pick a bit from the power of the pope, soon became a cormorant of
church influence. Henry's thoughts were seriously occupied with the
design of getting a divorce, and he therefore pretended to be in great
alarm as to the succession to the throne, in consequence of a "public
doubt" as to his marriage being lawful and the Princess Mary being
legitimate.
* Lord Herbert's "Life of Henry the Eighth," p. 160 of the
quarto edition, 1741.
There is no question that the wish was in this instance father to
the thought, and that, so far from Henry's desiring to silence all
discussion on the point, he was the first to encourage the criticism of
his wife's and his daughter's position. Notwithstanding his notorious
flirtation with Anne Boleyn, which the forward minx decidedly
encouraged, he pretended to be looking out for an eligible _parti_ in
the event of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon being officially
nullified. He had a picture sent over to him of the Duchess of Alanson,
sister to Francis, and used to pretend that he should probably set his
cap at that lady; but the picture was a mere blind, or probably in a
very short time it experienced a worse fate than that of a blind by
being turned into a fire-board or consigned to a lumber-room.
The love-making of Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn was a mixture of
mawkishness, childishness, hypocrisy, and scholastic pedantry, tinctured
with an affectation of religion that was not the least disgusting
feature of this disgraceful courtship. Henry used to write love-letters
full of extracts from Thomas Aquinas, complaints of headache, reference
to pious books, and sickly sentimentalism about "mine own sweet heart,"
while the good-for-nothing Nancy B. would reply by sending him pretty
little toys and pretty little words of encouragement. She had made good
use of her time in Wolsey's absence, for, when the cardinal came back,
the king, in answer to his own question, "Guess who's the gal of my
'art?" which his friend gave up, enthusiastically responded, "Anne
Boleyn."
The already corpulent monarch was stupidly and spoonily love-sick about
this "artful puss," as Catherine might have called her, and he used to
leave scraps of paper about the palace scribbled over with charades,
conundrums, ana anagrams to the object of his admiration. * Wolsey was
a good deal annoyed by this avowal, but, finding his opposition would
do no good, he changed his tack and fell in with the sovereign's fancy.
Henry ordered him to consult Sir Thomas More, who, not at all liking the
job, referred him politely to St. Jerome and St. Augustine, saying it
was more in their way than his own, and he felt any interference on
his part would be irregular and unprofessional. Wolsey next tried the
bishops, who shook their heads and said, "You had better ask the pope,"
to whom the king at last determined upon a reference.
* One of these has been preserved; it is to the following
effect:--"My first is the article indefinite (An); my second
is a very useful animal (Bull); my third is the abode of
hospitality (Inn); and my whole is the 'gal of my art '--
An(n) Buli-Inn (Anne Boleyn)."
The pope, whom we left locked up in the castle of St. Angelo, had been
obliged to "come out of that" for want of provisions, and had escaped in
the disguise of a gardener, in which a shovel hat may have been of some
use to him. He played his cards so well as the one of spades, that,
with the assistance of one or two true hearts who turned out trumps, he
reached in safety the town of Orvieto, where he expected reinforcement
from a French army. Long before the promised aid arrived, he received
a card inscribed "Dr. Knight," and he had scarcely time to say, "Doctor
Knight? Who is Doctor Knight? I don't know any Doctor Knight," when
the king of England's secretary, who bore that name, rushed into the
presence of the pontiff. The doctor, having briefly explained his object
in coming, which was to get the pope's consent to Henry's divorce,
succeeded in extracting the requisite authority from his holiness, who
was very unwilling, but he could not keep back his bull without finding
himself on the horns of a worse dilemma. He at all events wished the
matter to be kept secret for a short time; but a friend of Wolsey
stepped forward to stipulate that an Italian cardinal should be sent to
England with Dr. Knight, to prove that the document he took with him
was genuine. Poor Clement, being afraid to refuse compliance, pointed to
half-a-dozen cardinals standing in one corner, and hurriedly observed,
"There, there, Dr. Knight, take any one of those, for the whole six are
quite at your service." In conformity with this permission, Cardinal
Campeggio was selected to visit England, and he carried with him in his
pocket a decree, rendering final any judgment that he and Wolsey might
agree upon.
On the arrival of Campeggio a public entry into London was proposed:
but he excused himself on the score of gout, which had laid him by the
heels, or rather seized him by the great toe, and prevented him from
coming into the metropolis on the footing that he might have desired.
After spending a few days with his leg in a sling, he was introduced to
the king, whom he greatly irritated by advising that the business of the
divorce should not be proceeded with. Henry began declaring that he had
been deceived, and that the pope was an old humbug, which caused the
gouty leg of the legate to tremble in its shoe; and, taking the bull
from his pocket, he showed that the pontiff meant business, and had
given full authority for transacting it.
Henry's desire for a divorce got soon rumoured about the city, and
caused so much dissatisfaction that he called a meeting of the judges,
lord mayor, common council, and others, at which it was announced
that his majesty would attend to give explanations, and enter into a
justification of his conduct. He made an elaborate speech of the most
artful and hypocritical kind, in which he asserted that his religious
scruples alone made him agitate the question of a divorce, and that if
his marriage was valid, nothing would give him greater pleasure than
to finish his life in the society of the old lady who had been for many
years the partner of his existence. It is notorious that he had made
up his mind to desert Catherine for Anne Boleyn; and his speech is
therefore a disgusting specimen of low cunning, rendered doubly odious by
the religious cant with which it was accompanied.
The unhappy queen, when visited by Wolsey and Campeggio, exclaimed at
once, "I know what you have come about." She said she thought it hard
to have her marriage doubted after nearly twenty years; and spoke
pathetically of those early days when she was in the habit of going out
a-Maying with her royal husband.
[Illustration: 404]
"Ah, madam!" replied Wolsey, "if we could have May all the year round,
it would be pleasant enough; but the spring of the year, as well as the
spring-time of existence, is not perpetual." Catherine acknowledged she
was not so young as she had been, and the English cardinal ventured
to hint, that, even in those Maying days, she had the advantage of
Henry--at least, if there can be any advantage to a lady who is her
husband's senior. Finding pathos of no use, she proceeded to argument,
and endeavoured to show that Henry had almost lost his claim to a
divorce by mere _laches_, in having so long neglected to apply for one.
The two cardinals only shook their heads, as if they would say, "I can't
see much in that;" and she then ventured to take another ground for
opposing her husband's project. She complained that her husband had
paid for the licence and dispensation from the pope, but that the
dispensation might be dispensed with as valueless, if one could
supersede another at the instigation of the great and powerful against
the comparatively friendless and impotent. At length, losing all temper
and patience, she turned to Wolsey, taxing him with having "done it
all;" when the wily cardinal did nothing but bow and smile in general
terms, placing his hand upon his heart, muttering out, "Pon honour!"
"Nothing of the sort!" and giving other similar assurances that he had
in no way instigated the conduct pursued by Henry.
The preliminary meeting to which we have referred was held in the Hall
of the Black Friars, on the 31st of May, 1529; and an adjournment till
the 21st of June having taken place, Wolsey and Campeggio were at
their posts at the appointed hour. Henry and Catherine were both in
attendance; and the former, when his name was called, gave a terrific
shout of "Here!" which had a startling effect upon the whole assembly.
Catherine, though she might be considered upon her trial, was
accommodated with a seat on the left of the bench, and was attended by
four friendly bishops, who had come in the amiable capacity of moral
bottle-holders to this injured woman. When her name was called she
refused to answer, or to say a word; but the dignity of the queen soon
gave way to the volubility of the woman, and her tongue started off into
a gallop of the most touching eloquence. She commenced in the old style
of appeal, by throwing herself at the king's feet, presuming perhaps,
that if he had a tender point it might be upon his toes, and she should
thus make sure of touching it. She then implored his compassion, as a
woman and a stranger, concluding with a happy alliterative effect by
declaring herself "a friendless female foreigner."
At the conclusion of a very powerful speech she rose slowly, and when it
was expected she would return to her seat, she marched deliberately out
of the hall, to the great amazement of the quartette of bishops by
whom she had been accompanied. Henry was a little staggered by what had
occurred; but he nevertheless made a reply, which was partly inaudible
from the flurry of the king himself, and the consternation into which
the Court had been thrown by the queen's very telling speech, and highly
dramatic exit. He was understood to say, that he had a very high respect
for the distinguished lady who had just addressed them; that she was a
very good wife; that he had in fact no fault to find; but that really
his scruples as to the lawfulness of his marriage had made him very
uncomfortable. He remarked that his conscience was so exceedingly
delicate that it could not bear the slightest shock; and here indeed he
seems to have spoken the truth, for his conscience appears to have died
altogether within a very short time of the occurrence we have mentioned.
Catherine's departure from the Court turned out to be final, for nothing
could induce her to enter it again; and, being pronounced contumacious,
the proceedings were carried on in her absence. The two cardinals, out
of regard to her majesty's interests, requested Dr. Taylor--an aged
junior in the back rows--to hold a brief for the defendant, and examine
the witnesses: a proposition at which the learned gentleman jumped, for
he had previously been occupying his own mind and the official ink in
sketching the scene before him on the desk, or handing down his name
to posterity by cutting it out on the bench with a pocket penknife. Dr.
Taylor, if he had practised little before, had quite enough to do on the
occasion that brought him into notice, for Lord Herbert, in his "Life
and Reign of Henry the Eighth," gives a list of thirty-seven witnesses
for the plaintiff, all of whom our venerable junior had the task of
cross-examining. Some idea may be formed of the magnitude of this
achievement, when it is stated that several of the witnesses were
ladies, and that the evidence of the first of them--namely, Mary,
Countess of Essex--is summed up in the report as having amounted to
"little," though conveyed in "general terms."
There is something truly overwhelming in the idea which this slight
summary conveys; for it is impossible that the imagination can set
any limits to the "little" a lady can contrive to say when she avails
herself of "general terms" to give it utterance. Cardinal Campeggio
evinced a decided reluctance to bring the matter to a decision, though
Henry's case was undoubtedly well supported by evidence; and old Taylor
being, professionally speaking, a young hand, was able to do little for
his absent client. The king at length grew angry at Campeggio's delay,
and instructed counsel to move for judgment, which was accordingly
done on the 23rd of July in a somewhat peremptory manner. The Italian
cardinal refused the motion, and intimated that he would not be bullied
by any man, "be he king or any other potentate." He then went on to say,
that "he was an old man, sick, decayed, and daily looking for death:"
which certainly gave no reason for delay; and a whisper to that effect
went no doubt round the bar, and was caught up by Henry's counsel, who
"humbly submitted" that "if the Court expected to be soon defunct, there
must be the stronger reason for fixing an early day for its decision."
Cardinal Campeggio got up somewhat angrily, and intimated that the cause
must be made a "_remanet_;" that in fact it must stand over until next
term, as he was not disposed to continue his sittings. "Is your lordship
aware," asked Sampson, K.C., "that you will throw us over the long
vacation? for we are now only in July, and the next term begins in
October." The cardinal, who was half-way towards the robing-room, turned
sharply round to observe that "the Court was virtually up," and that
"he really wished gentlemen of the bar would observe more regularity in
their proceedings." Sampson, K.C., had nevertheless got as far as "Will
your lordship allow us?" in another attempt to be heard, when Campeggio,
growling out furiously, "I can hear nothing now, Mr. Sampson," retired
angrily to his private apartment.
* The King's leading counsel was Richard Sampson, with whom
was John Bell,--Lord Herbert's "Life of Henry the Eighth,"
p. 205,
[Illustration: 408]
The Court never met again, and Campeggio left England a few days
afterwards, having first taken leave of the king, who kept his temper
and behaved very decently. He even gave a few presents to the refractory
cardinal, but, as the latter lay at Dover previous to embarkation, his
bedroom door was burst open, his trunks were rummaged, and probably all
his presents were taken away again.
Wolsey, who had been associated in the hearing of the great cause,
Henry versus Catherine, or the Queen at the suit of the King, fell into
instant disgrace for the part he had taken, or, rather, for the part he
had omitted to take, upon this momentous occasion. Miss Anne Boleyn, who
had calculated on his keeping Campeggio up to the mark in pronouncing
for the divorce, was especially angry with Wolsey for his apathy. Even
the courtiers got up a joke upon the supineness of the English cardinal
by calling him the supine in(h)um, while Campeggio was compared to the
gerund in _do_, by reason of his active duplicity, through which he
was declared to have regularly done the English sovereign. Many of the
nobility attempted to excite the avarice of Henry by hinting to him that
Wolsey's overthrow would be a good speculation, if only for the sake of
obtaining the wealth he had managed to accumulate; and from this moment
the cardinal stood in the precarious position of a turkey that is only
crammed to await the favourable opportunity for sacrifice.
Soon after the trial of his cause, in which he thought proper to assume
that he was entitled to a verdict, Henry set off on a tour, accompanied
by Miss Anne Boleyn, who, in spite of Hume's panegyric on her "virtue
and modesty," appears to have been what is commonly called a very pretty
character. Wolsey was not invited to be of the party, but he rode after
the Court, for he was one of those hangers-on that are not to be
shaken off very easily. He came up with the king at Grafton, in
Northamptonshire, and was very kindly received, but the next morning he
was told distinctly that he was not wanted in the royal suite, and that
he might go back to London, after which he never saw his master's face
again. * Henry, being anxious to ruin his late favourite _selon les
règles_, took the very decisive method of going to law with him. Two
bills were filed against the cardinal in the King's Bench, but Wolsey,
nevertheless, proceeded to the Court of Chancery to take his seat, just
as if nothing had happened. None of the servants of the Court paid him
any respect, and it is probable that even the mace-bearer, the ushers,
and other officers omitted the customary ceremonies of preceding him
with the mace, and crying out, "Pray, silence!" upon his entrance. On
his expressing his readiness to take motions, he was responded to by one
general motion towards the door, in which the whole bar joined. Being
thus left quite alone, he amused himself by giving judgment in some old
suit which had lasted so long that the parties were all dead, and he
consoled himself by saying that this accounted for the fact of nobody
appearing on either side.
* Cavendish.
The king, hearing of the cardinal's proceedings, gave orders that he
should be forbidden the Court altogether, and when he went to take his
seat, as usual, he found the doors closed against him. When he got home
to York Place, where he resided, he was told that two gentlemen were
waiting to see him, and, on going upstairs, the Dukes of Suffolk and
Norfolk requested to have a few words with him. They told him that the
king intended to come and live at York Place, so that Wolsey must
"turn out," to which he made no objection; but when they insolently and
tauntingly demanded the Great Seal, he declared he would not trust it
in their possession without a written authority. "How do I know what you
are going to do with it?" cried the cardinal, holding it firmly in his
grasp, and returning it to the sealskin case in which he was in the
habit of keeping it. The two dukes, having exhausted their vocabulary
of abuse, retired for that day, but came back the next morning with an
order, signed by the king, for the delivery of the Great Seal, which
Wolsey gave up to them, together with an inventory of the furniture and
fixtures of the magnificent abode he was about to vacate in favour of
his sovereign.
[Illustration: 410]
The catalogue exhibited a long list of luxurious appointments, and
commencing with "a splendid set of curtains of cloth of gold," * went on
with--a ditto--a ditto--and a ditto, down to the end of the three first
pages. The neatness and variety of his table-covers cannot be conceived,
and his magnificent sideboard of gold and silver plate was in those days
unparalleled. He had got also a thousand pieces of fine Holland; but as
the chief use of Holland is, we believe, to make blinds, as must regard
the purchase of this material in so large a quantity, as one of those
blind bargains which are sometimes the result of excessive opulence.
Having made over all those articles to the king, Wolsey left his
sumptuous palace, and jumping into a barge, desired the bargeman to drop
him down with the tide towards Putney. The river was crowded with boats
to see him shove off, and he was assailed with the most savage yells
from the populace. As the bargeman gave Wolsey his hand and pulled him
on board, the poor cardinal stumbled over a block of Wallsend, when an
inhuman shout of "That's right, haul him over the coals," arose from one
unfeeling brute, and was echoed by countless multitudes.
* Herbert's "Life of Henry the Eighth," and Hume's "History
of England."
On reaching Putney, Wolsey gave the word to "pull her in shore," when he
disembarked, with his fool and one or two others who had agreed to share
his exile. They had not gone very far when they heard a cry of "Ho! hoi
hilly hilly hoi" and looking back, they perceived Sir John Norris coming
full pelt after them. The cardinal was mounted on a mule--hired probably
at Putney, or picked off the common--and though he endeavoured to put
the animal along by giving her first her own head, and then the head of
a thick stick, the rise of a hill brought Wolsey to a dead stand-still.
Here he was easily overtaken by Sir John Norris, who came, as it
turned out, with a present of a ring from the king's own finger, and
a "comfortable message." The abject cardinal went into the most
humiliating ecstasies, and actually grovelled in the very mud, to show
his humble sense of the kindness and condescension of his sovereign.
Thinking that Sir John Norris possibly expected something for his
trouble in bringing the grateful tidings, Wolsey shook his head
mournfully, saying, "I have nothing left except the clothes on my
back--but here, take this"--and he tore from his neck an old piece of
jewellery. "As for my sovereign," he cried, "I have nothing worthy of
his acceptance;" when suddenly his eyes lighted upon his faithful fool,
who had been such a thorough fool as to follow a fallen master. "Ha!"
exclaimed Wolsey, "I will send to his majesty my jester, who is worth a
thousand pounds to anybody who has never heard his jokes before; but
as I am familiar with the entire collection, I have no further use for
him." The faithful fool was exceedingly reluctant to go, and it took six
stout yeomen * to drag him away--a fact which, as he was full of wit,
proves the humour of the period to have been dreadfully ponderous. Some
of the jests of our own time are heavy enough, but we doubt whether
it would require half-a-dozen porters to carry a professed wag of the
present day--including the Durden of his entire stock-in-trade--into the
presence of royalty. It is not impossible that the obstinate resistance
of the fool to a transfer from the service of a disgraced subject to
that of a powerful king, may have been intended as a sample of his style
of joking; but we can only say that if this was a specimen of his wit,
the value set upon him by his old master was rather exorbitant.
* Lord Herbert, 293.
Wolsey now lodged at Esher, where his spirits soon fell--if we may be
allowed an engineering phrase--to a very dumpy level. Continual sighing
had fearfully reduced his size, and he fretted so much that a sort of
fret-work of tears seemed to be always hanging to his eye-lashes.
His face became wrinkled and pale, as if constant crying had not only
intersected his countenance with little channels, but had likewise
washed out all its colour. It is not unlikely that he sometimes
regretted having parted with his fool, whose dry humour might have
mitigated the moisture or subdued the soaking which naturally resulted
from the emptying of so many cups of sorrow over the dismal drooping and
dripping cardinal. Nothing seemed to rouse him from his despondency, and
the people about him could never succeed in stirring him up to a fit
of even temporary gaiety. After dinner they would sometimes ask him to
partake of a bowl of sack; but at the mere mention of the word sack
he would burst into tears, and sob out, that the sack he had already
received had been the cause of all his wretchedness. Upon this he would
leave the dinner table, and wander forth to enjoy his solitary whine in
the wood, among the thickly planted solitudes in the neighbourhood of
Esher. Sometimes he would sit pining for hours under a favourite
pine, or would go and indulge in a weeping match with one of the most
lachrymose he could find of weeping willows. All this crying brought on
a crisis at last, and Wolsey had so damped all his vital energies by the
incessant showers of tears he let fall, that he fell into a slow fever.
The king now seemed to take some compassion upon his former friend, and
sent down a medical man to see the prostrate cardinal; though we are
inclined to attribute this anxiety for his health to a desire to keep
him alive until the process was complete for depriving him of all his
property. At all events a Parliament was suddenly summoned, and a Bill
of impeachment promptly prepared against the fallen and feeble Wolsey.
There were no less than four-and-forty articles in this document, which
contained, among a variety of other ridiculous accusations, a charge of
having, when ill with fever, "come whispering daily in the king's
ear, and blowing upon his most noble grace with breath infective and
perilous." This would, indeed, have been convicting him out of his own
mouth; but though the Lords passed the bill, it was thrown out in the
Commons, through a speech of Thomas Cromwell, who had been secretary to
the unfortunate cardinal.
Wolsey had always felt that when he did fall, he should fall not only
as Shakespeare said, "like Lucifer," but like an entire box of lucifers,
"never to rise again." Directly the cardinal learned that the bill had
been defeated, his appetite returned, his cheeks resumed their colour,
the furrows began to fill out, for grief had been at sad work with its
plough all over his countenance. He had still a good deal of property
left, but the king began tearing it away by handfuls at a time, until
Wolsey had nothing left but the bishoprics of York and Winchester.
Even these were a good deal impoverished by Henry, who made a series
of snatches at the revenues, and divided the amount among Viscount
Rochford, the father of Anne Boleyn--who used to say, "I am sure papa
would like that," whenever there was a good thing to be had--the Duke of
Norfolk, and a few other lay cormorants. Wolsey was at length completely
beggared, by treatment that was of such an impoverishing nature as
really to beggar description. He had nothing left him but a free pardon,
a little plate--including two table-spoons, which his enemies said were
more than his desert,--a small van of furniture, comprising, among other
articles, an arm-chair, in which he was tauntingly told he might
set himself down comfortably for life, and a little cash for current
expenses. He was allowed also to move nearer town, and giving up his
lodgings at Esher he took an apartment at Richmond, where he was not
permitted to remain very long, for Anne and her party--including several
knights of the Star and Garter--persuaded Henry to order the cardinal
off to his own archbishopric.
The fallen prelate thought this forced journey so very hard that he
tried to soften it by easy stages, and he travelled at the slowest
possible pace, in the hope of being sent for back again. At every inn he
entered for refreshment on the road he always left a request in the bar,
that if anyone should ask for a gentleman of the name of Wolsey, the
enquirer should be shown straight up, without the delay of an instant.
Not a knock came to the door of his bedroom but he expected it was a
messenger from the king; and when he found, in many cases, it was "only
the boots," his disappointment would vent itself in terms of great
bitterness. Adopting the customary mode of showing grief in those
superstitious days, he took to wearing shirts made of horse-hair next
his shin, but donkey's-hair would certainly have been more appropriate.
He had, however, become so accustomed to hard rubs, that a little extra
scarification was scarcely perceptible. On his arrival at York, he
endeavoured to make himself neighbourly with the people about him, and
became a sort of gentleman farmer, expressing the utmost interest in
rural affairs. He made himself an universal favourite, and was the lion
of every evening party within twelve miles of his residence. He was,
however, scarcely a figure for these _réunions_, in his horse-hair
shirt; but he probably concealed the penitential part of his costume by
wearing a camel's-hair waistcoat immediately over it.
The clergy were always getting up little _fêtes_, of which he was the
hero; and he was invited to the the ceremony of installation in his
cathedral, which he promised to go through, on condition of the thing
being done as quietly as possible. It was understood that there should
be "no fuss," but several of the nobility and gentry sent contributions
of cold meat and wine, forming themselves in fact into a provisional
committee, so that the affair partook rather of the character of a
picnic than of a pageant. Three days before it was to take place Wolsey
was sitting at dinner, when there came a knock at the door, and it was
announced that the Earl of Northumberland--his friend and pupil--was
waiting in the courtyard. "Let him come up and do as we are doing,"
exclaimed the cardinal. "Dear me, I wish he had been a little earlier;
but he is just in pudding-time, at any rate." As Northumberland entered
the room Wolsey seized him by the hand, entreating him to sit down
and enjoy a social snack--or, in other words, go snacks in the humble
dinner. Northumberland seemed affected, when Wolsey, continuing his
meal, observed, "Well, you will not make yourself at home, and I
can't make you out, so I may as well finish my dinner." At length
Northumberland, with a tottering foot, a trembling hand, a quivering
lip, a faltering tongue, and a tearful eye, approached his friend
Wolsey, and threw himself with a heavy heart--adding at least a pound
to his weight--upon the old man's bosom. Wolsey had scarcely time to
exclaim, "Hold up!" when the earl, mournfully tapping the cardinal on
the shoulder, murmured, in a voice completely macadamised with sobs, "My
Lord--(oh, oh, oh!)--I arrest you" (here his voice became guttural from
a perfect gutter of tears) "for high treason." Poor Wolsey remained
rooted to the spot, but it was soon necessary to transplant him, and he
was speedily removed in custody. His old weakness again came over him,
for he began to leak again at both eyes, as if he carried the veritable
New River Head under the hat of a cardinal. He of course made himself
ill, and indeed he was frequently warned that if he continued much
longer in this liquid state, he would liquidate the debt of nature
altogether. The warning was verified very speedily, for on reaching
Leicester Abbey, when the monks came to the door with a candle to light
him to bed, he observed to the abbot, "Father, I am come to lay my bones
among you." He died on the 29th of November, 1530, in the sixtieth year
of his age, and was buried in Leicester Abbey.
News of his death was at once dispatched to Henry, who was having
a little archery practice at Hampton Court on the arrival of the
messenger. The king continued his sport for some time, until the straw
man, upon whom he was trying his skill, had become thoroughly trussed
with arrows, when his majesty turned round with an abrupt "Now then,
what is it?" to the bearer of the sad intelligence. At the tale
of Wolsey's death Henry pretended to be much affected, but he soon
recovered his spirits sufficiently to inquire whether a sum of £1500 had
not been left by the cardinal. The king expressed a desire to administer
to his lamented friend's effects, but when the discovery was made, that
instead of having £1500 to leave, Wolsey had just borrowed and spent
that amount, his royal master thought it as well to have nothing to do
with the business. Poor Wolsey had been the unfortunate goose who might
have continued laying golden eggs for a considerable time had not Henry
out him prematurely up for the sake of immediate profit.
We cannot part with Wolsey until we have dropped a few inky tears to
his memory. We have already seen that his talents were considerable, but
according to one of his biographers * he had a most elastic mind, or in
other words he could "pull out" amazingly when occasion required.
* Galt, p. 199, Rogue's European Library.
Some time before Wolsey's death a new ministry had been appointed, in
which the family and friends of Anne Boleyn got very snug berths; but
though in those days "any fool" could have a seat in the cabinet, it
was necessary to have a chancellor of good abilities. The woolsack was
literally in the market for a few days, until Henry thrust it on to the
shoulders of Sir Thomas More, who would have declined the profitable
burden, and who was somewhat averse to the Back of wool, because he
felt that much of the material was obtained by fleecing the suitors. He,
however, was persuaded to accept the dignity, or rather to undertake
the burden, and he was even heard to say--by a gentleman who wishes
to remain _incog._--that he wished there were porters' knots for moral
responsibilities as well as for actual weights, since it was exceedingly
difficult to preserve one's uprightness beneath a load of dignity.
Among the persons recently introduced to Court was Thomas Cranmer, who
happened to have met Dr. Gardiner, the king's secretary, and Dr. Fox at
a private dinner table. As the party sat over their wine, the divorce
of Henry was brought upon the _tapis_, and Cranmer made the sagacious
observation, that the proper way would be to have it looked into.
Gardiner and Fox exchanged glances, as much as to say "Shrewd fellow,
that;" and they both agreed that he was a wonderful man for his
age--which it will be remembered was the sixteenth century. They
endeavoured to bring him out, and upon a free circulation of the bottle,
Cranmer gave it as his opinion that there was "only one course to
pursue," that "the thing lay in a nutshell," that "it was as clear as
A, B, C;" a series of sentiments which, though more knowing than
conclusive, made a deep impression on Fox and Gardiner. "There's a great
deal in that fellow," said Fox after Cranmer had gone home, and indeed
there was a good deal in him, no doubt, for scarcely anything had been
got out of him. The two doctors hastened to the king to inform him of
the enormous catch they had got in Cranmer, whose winks, innuendos, and
occasional ejaculations of "I see it all;" "Plain as a pike-staff,"
etc., etc., had made such a deep impression upon the two doctors. Henry
was as much taken with their description of Cranmer as they had been
with the original, and the king exclaimed in a perfect rhapsody, "That
man has got the right sow by the ear;" * an expression which we are
sufficiently pig-headed not to appreciate. It was arranged that Cranmer
should be asked to dine at the palace; and after a good deal of
desultory conversation, in which "Exactly," "I see it," "No question
about it," were Cranmer's running fire of _ad captandum_ remarks, Henry
got so puzzled that he requested the gentleman to put his opinions in
writing at his earliest convenience.
* Todd's "Life of Cranmer," Tytller's "Life of Henry the
Eighth," etc., etc.
The individual who had thus received instructions to act as pamphleteer
in ordinary to the king, was sprung from an ancient family in
Nottinghamshire, but he was destined for higher things than dragging
out the thread of his existence in Notts, as we shall soon see when we
proceed to unravel his history. His early education had been somewhat
neglected, for his father was a sportsman, who took more delight in
going out to shoot than in teaching the young idea how to follow his
example. Young Cranmer's master was a severe priest, who ruled his
pupils with a rod of iron, and thrashed them with a rod of a different
material. He snapped many a whip over the young whipper-snappers, as he
was in the habit of calling his youthful charges, who, at all events,
became hardened by the salutary treatment they experienced.
Cranmer applied himself with diligence to his studies, and in turn took
pupils of his own at Cambridge, where he happened to meet one day at
dinner with Fox and Gardiner, who, as we have already seen, introduced
him to the sovereign. The pamphleteer elect to Henry the Eighth was
lodged in the house of the Earl of Wiltshire, the father of Anne Boleyn,
who used to lock the author up in a garret, with a pen and ink and
something to drink, upon which he received instructions to "fire away"
in support of the views of his master. Cranmer soon rattled off a
treatise in which he smashed the pope, demolished every objection to
Henry's divorce, and proved to the satisfaction of the king that he
could do as he liked as to contracting a second marriage. "Would you say
as much to the pope himself?" asked Henry of his literary man. "Ay, that
I would, as soon as look at him," was the reply; upon which Cranmer was
taken at his word, and sent off to Rome with old Boleyn, now the Earl of
Wiltshire. As they entered the papal presence, Clement held out his toe
to receive the usual homage, but the old earl positively declined to
perform the humiliating ceremony, and after the pontiff had stood upon
one leg for a considerable time, he found that he and his visitor
must meet upon an equal footing. Cranmer, though not allowed a public
disputation with the pope, took every opportunity of earwigging the
people about him, and got many of them to admit that the king's marriage
was illegal, though they would not acknowledge that his holiness had
no power to give it validity. Though Cranmer's pamphlet had proved
everything, it had done nothing, and Henry beginning to speak of his
exertions as "all talk," another tool was required to carry out the
royal project. This tool came originally from a blacksmith's shop in
Putney, in the shape of one Thomas Cromwell, of whom it has since been
said that he was a sharp file, who would cut right through a difficulty,
while Cranmer was active enough in hammering away at a point, but his
hitting the right nail upon the head was generally very dubious.
The father of Cromwell did smiths' work in general, but nothing at all
in particular, for he had amassed a decent fortune. His son was sent as
a clerk to a factory at Antwerp, where he kept the books; but he soon
abandoned accounts, in the hope of cutting a figure. He entered the
army, and was present when Rome was made a bed of ruins, by getting a
complete sacking. He next entered the counting-house of a merchant of
Venice, who dealt in Venetian blinds and Venetian carpeting, but young
Cromwell soon threw up the one and indignantly laid down the other. On
arriving in London, he commenced the study of the law, and took chambers
in Inner Temple Lane, which was, even at that early period, the grand
mart of legal ability. Wolsey, who had lodgings over the gate hard by,*
was in the habit of meeting Cromwell, who eventually became what is
professionally termed "the devil" of that ingenious advocate.
* These lodgings still exist as Honey and Skelton's, the
hair-dressers, who have preserved a series of interesting
historical documents, among which may be seen Wolsey's first
brief, and other curious relics.
On the fall of his senior, Cromwell contrived to keep just far
enough off to prevent himself from being crushed by the weight of
the unfortunate cardinal, and offering his services to the king, was
immediately retained in the great cause of Henry the Eighth versus
Catherine of Aragon, ex parte Anne Boleyn. By the advice of Cromwell the
authority of the pope was set at defiance, and in 1532 a law was passed
prohibiting the payment to him of first-fruits; "which do not mean,"
says Strype, "the earliest gooseberries, to enable his holiness to play
at gooseberry fool, but the first profits of a benefice."
Henry at last determined to cut the Gordian knot, by forming another
tie, and in January, 1533, he solved the question of the divorce
by marrying Anne Boleyn. The ceremony was performed in a garret at
Whitehall, in the presence of Norris and Heneage, who were a couple of
grooms, and of Mrs. Savage, the train-bearer of the bride, whose wedding
came off much in the style of those clandestine affairs, in which the
clerk gives the lady away, and the old pew-opener acts in the capacity
of bridesmaid. Cranmer, who had lately arrived in town for the season,
found a vacancy in the see of Canterbury, which he consented to fill
up, without scrupling to take the usual oaths to the pope, though openly
avowing himself a Protestant. Clement himself not only ratified the
election of the man he knew was committing perjury, but even consented
to make a reduction in the fees that were usual on similar occasions.
Thus did these two precious humbugs humbug each other and their
contemporaries; but the historian will not allow them any longer to
humbug posterity. Cromwell swore obedience against his conscience, and
intending to break his oath, but intent on obtaining the dignity which
he could purchase by perjury, and Clement took a reduced fee, on the
principle of half a loaf being better than no bread, from a man who, on
the slightest opposition being offered to him, might have snapped his
fingers at the papal chair as he did in his heart--if one can snap
one's fingers in one's heart--at the papal authority. Thus did the great
champions of Protestantism on one side, and Catholicism on the other,
agree in a disgraceful arrangement, by which one sold his sacred
authority for a pecuniary bribe, and the other bartered his conscience
for a temporary dignity.
It has been said by Cromwell's apologists, that he took his false oaths
with a mental reservation; but if this excuse were allowed to prevail,
the conscience would possess a salve as efficacious as that of the quack
which was warranted to cure every disease from apoplexy to chilblains,
and prevent the necessity of patients with delicate lungs from
exporting themselves abroad to avoid the danger of being left for home
consumption.
The contemplation of so much hypocrisy, in such high quarters, having
put us so thoroughly out of patience that we are unable to proceed, we
break off here with the remark, that tergiversation and treachery have
ever been common among even the highest in rank, and so we fear they
will continue to be until--ha! ha!--the end of the chapter.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH. HENRY THE EIGHTH (CONCLUDED).
[Illustration: 418]
THOUGH Henry the Eighth had already married Anne Boleyn, the little
affair of the divorce from Catherine had not been quite settled, and,
as it was just possible that his two wives might clash, he resolved
to hurry on his legal separation from her, whom we may call, by way of
distinction, the "old original." Cranmer, who was a very spaniel in
his sneaking subservience to his royal master, was instantly set on
to worry, as a cur worries a cat, the unhappy Catherine. A Court was
immediately constituted, under the presidentship of Cranmer, to decide
on the legality of her marriage, and the lady was cited to appear; but
she did not attend, and, though summoned by her judges fifteen times,
the more they kept on calling the more she kept on not coming. Difficult
as it is in general to anticipate what a judicial decision will be,
the judgment in the case of the King _ex parte_ Anne Boleyn _versus_
Catherine of Aragon might be foreseen very easily. The marriage was, of
course, pronounced illegal, and Cranmer wrote to Henry on the 12th of
May, 1533, to say that he had just had the pleasure of pronouncing the
"old lady" _vere et manifesté contumax_. The Court declared she had
never been married to Henry, but was the widow of the Prince of Wales,
to whose title she must in future restrict herself. When the news was
brought to her, she exclaimed indignantly, "Not married to the king?
Marry come up, indeed!" and the wretchedness of the pun speaks volumes
for the misery to which she had been reduced by her enemies.
Henry, wishing to make the work complete, and aware that _finis coronat
opus_, determined that a coronation should be the finishing touch of his
recent matrimonial manoeuvring. The ceremony was performed with great
pomp on the 1st of June, 1533, when, though the regular crown was used,
the weak head of Anne was too feeble to bear it, and it was replaced
by a smaller diadem, which had been purposely prepared as a substitute.
When Clement heard of what had been passing in England, he sent forth a
bull, expecting that Henry would be immediately cowed by it. The pontiff
ordered the monarch to take back his original wife, but the latter
refused to listen to any motion for returns, observing that those who
are at Rome may do as Rome does, but that he should entirely repudiate
the papal jurisdiction. A Parliament which was held soon after seconded
the sovereign's views, and, by way of paying off the pope, he was
deprived of all fees, rights, and privileges which he had hitherto
enjoyed as head of the Church of England. The ecclesiastical party in
England had been subservient to the whim of Henry, and had assisted in
nullifying its own supremacy over the State by cutting off its own head;
so that the experiment of amputating one's own nose to be revenged upon
one's face was somewhat more than realised.
[Illustration: 419]
On the 7th of September, 1533, Anne Boleyn became the mother of a little
girl, who was named Elizabeth, and the courtiers of the day already
offered to lay heavy bets on the future greatness of Betsy. The king,
who had buoyed himself up with the hopes of a boy, was a little angry at
the unfavourable issue, and he vented his ill-humour in further insults
towards the unfortunate Catherine. Everyone who continued, either by
design or accident, to call her queen was thrown into prison, and even
a slip of the tongue, occasioned by absence of mind, was followed by
absence of body, for the luckless offender was dragged off to gaol, from
the bosom or his family.
Henry having lopped off Catherine as a branch of the royal tree, and
grafted Anne Boleyn on the trunk, began to think about the successional
crops, in the treatment of which he was assisted by a servile
Parliament. Little Mary, Catherine's daughter, was rooted out like a
worthless marigold, and Elizabeth was declared to be the rising flower
of the royal family. Among the atrocities committed by Parliament on
account of its miserable subserviency to the will of the king, was
the bill of attainder of high treason, passed against a female fanatic
called the Maid of Kent, and some of her accomplices. This person, whose
name was Elizabeth Barton, and who resided at Aldington in Kent, was
subject to hysterical fits, as well as to talking like a fool, which in
those days--as in these--was often mistaken for a symptom of superior
sagacity. Extremes are said to meet, and the mental imbecility of Miss
E. Barton was thought by many to border on an amount of wisdom which
only inspiration could impart, and the semi-natural got credit for
the possession of supernatural attributes. Some of her idiotic and
incoherent talk having been heard by her ignorant companions, was
declared by them to be inspired, because it was something they did not
understand; and as knavery is always ready to turn to profit the idea
that folly sets on foot, persons were soon found willing to take the
Maid of Kent under their patronage for political purposes.
Richard Maister or Masters, the vicar of the place, whom Hume calls "a
designing fellow" behind his back, whatever the historian might have
said to the reverend gentleman's face, was the first to take an interest
in Elizabeth Barton, and introduced her to public notice as a sort of
mesmeric prodigy; in which capacity she brought out a bundle of Sybiline
leaves, with the intention, probably, of making a regular business
of telling fortunes. Anxious for the recommendation of being able to
announce herself as "Prophetess in Ordinary to the King," Miss Barton
began predicting all sorts of things with reference to Henry; but
unfortunately she had not the tact to make his majesty the subject of
happy auguries. She hoped, perhaps, that if she went to work boldly,
he would buy her off; for it has sometimes proved a good speculation to
establish a nuisance in a respectable neighbourhood, which will often
pay the annoyance to remove itself to some other locality. Miss Burton
did not, however, manage so well, for instead of getting literally
bought up, she was destined to be put down very speedily. Making a bold
bid for royal patronage, she prophesied that if Henry put away Catherine
he would die a violent death within seven months; and Elizabeth Barton
thus made sure that if the king declined treating with her for the
stoppage of her mouth, the ex-queen would at least make her some
compliment in return for her complimentary prophecy. Henry, who had no
objection to her dealing out death either wholesale, retail, or even for
exportation, to some of his popish enemies abroad, could not allow
such a liberty to be taken with his own name; and accordingly the
fortuneteller, who professed to hold consultation with the stars, was
brought up before the Star Chamber. She soon found in the president
a Great Bear more terrible than the Ursa Major to whom she had been
accustomed; and perceiving by the rough manner of the assembled stars of
the Star Chamber that theirs was anything but a Milky Way, she was glad
to own herself an impostor, for she saw that it would have been useless
to plead not guilty before judges who, according to her own conviction,
were resolved on convicting her. She was committed to prison on her own
confession; and as the seven months within which Henry would have become
due, according to her prediction of his death, had expired, it was to
be hoped that he, at least, would have been satisfied without subjecting
Miss Barton to further punishment. He however seemed to have become
positively irritated at the falsehood of her prophecy; and because
he had not died in the proper course, he subjected the maid and six
accomplices to a bill of attainder of treason, in pursuance of which
they were all executed on the 21st of April, 1534, at Tyburn.
We will not dwell on the disgusting subject of Henry's cruelties towards
such excellent men as Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More,
both of whom fell victims to the ferocity of their royal master. Their
conscientious refusal to recognise Henry as the head of the Church had
excited his rage, which increased to the height of savageness when the
pope offered to send to poor Fisher the hat of a cardinal. The king at
first attempted to put a prohibition on the importation of all hats; but
anticipating that the _chapeau_ intended for Fisher might be smuggled
into England, Henry contented himself with the barbarous joke, that
the hat would be useless without a head to wear it on. The monarch soon
carried out his threat, and then turned his fury upon the unfortunate
Sir Thomas More, who had retired into private life in the hope of
escaping Henry's tyranny. This, however, was impossible; for though
conscience must often have whispered "Can't you leave the man alone?"
some evil genius kept ever and anon murmuring the words, "At him again,"
into the ears of the despot.
Among the petty persecutions to which More was exposed, was the taking
away of all writing implements from the good old man, who, deprived of
pens and ink, took a coal as a substitute. He at length learned to write
with a piece of Wallsend as rapidly as he could use a pen, and, with a
coalscuttle for an inkstand, he never wanted the material to keep alive
the fire of his genius. Considering how famous he was for the use
of "words that burn," we do not see how he could have found a better
instrument than a piece of coal for transcribing his sentiments. A
pretext was soon found for taking the life of this excellent man,
whose facetious bearing at his own execution shall not mislead us into
unseemly levity in alluding to it. He made jokes upon the scaffold; but
we must admit that they are of so sad and melancholy a description, as
to be scarcely considered inappropriate to his very serious position.
So much has been said of the wit of More, that we may perhaps be excused
for hazarding a word or two concerning it. Judging by some of the _bon
mots_ that have been preserved, they seem to us hardly worth the expense
of their keep; for as horses are said to have eaten off their own heads,
so the witticisms of More appear in many instances to have consumed all
their own point, or, at all events, the rust of ages has a good deal
dimmed their brilliancy. His wife had but little respect for his
waggery, and would sometimes ask him "how he could play the fool in a
close, filthy prison?" and she evidently thought it was carrying a joke
a little too far, when she found her husband would not "drop it" even in
the Tower. His allusion to his being obliged to write with coals instead
of pens, which caused him to say that "he was but a wreck of his former
self, and had better be scuttled at once," seems to us equally deficient
in point and dignity. He was executed on the 6th of July, 1535, after a
quantity of badinage with the headsman, which makes us regret, for the
sake of More, that any reporters were allowed to be present.
Henry had now come to open war with the Church of Rome, and, under the
advice of Cromwell, he determined to make a profit as well as a pleasure
of the recent rupture.
[Illustration: 422]
While the pope let loose his bulls upon the king, the latter turned out
his bull-dogs, in the shape of emissaries, empowered to pillage the
rich monasteries in England. Cromwell acted as whipper-in to this cruel
sport, and hounded on the servile dogs at his command, in pursuit of
those monastic herds, which had been luxuriating in the rich pastures
the church had hitherto afforded.
It is true that many impositions on the public were discovered by the
emissaries of Henry; but one fault does not justify another, and the
frauds of the monks afforded no excuse for the robbery committed by
the monarch. We may feel indignant at the showman who exhibits on his
delusive canvas "more, much more," than his caravan can hold, but we
have no right to appropriate to ourselves the whole of his stock because
he has been guilty of trickery. Henry did not pocket the whole of the
proceeds thus unscrupulously obtained, but gave a few slices to the
church, by creating half-a-dozen new bishoprics and establishing a
professorship of two in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and he
threw them a few crumbs of the good things he had seized, more with the
hope of stopping the mouths than satisfying the appetites of the hungry
claimants.
Poor Catherine of Aragon died at Kimbolton on the 8th of January, 1536,
after writing a letter to the king, which it is said extracted one tear
from the sovereign's heart--a circumstance which must have raised hopes
at the time, that the process of extracting blood from a stone might not
be found impossible.
The year 1536 was marked by a voyage of discovery under the patronage
of the king, for the purpose of sending some emigrants on a wild-goose
chase to the north-west coast of America. Thirty of the adventurers
were gentlemen from the Temple and Chancery Lane, who, thinking anything
better than nothing, had probably dashed their wigs to the ground, and
thrown themselves on the mercy of that motion of course which the sea
was certain to supply them with. It is said, though we know not with how
much truth, that the learned wanderers being short of provisions, made
each other their prey--a result to be expected when clients were not
accessible. It is added that none of the party returned but a learned
gentleman of the name of Ruts, who was so changed that his father and
mother did not know him until he pointed to a wart which had not been
washed away by the water.
Henry continued his hostility to the pope, absurdly declaring that
he would not be bullied, and in defiance of the papal see caused Anne
Boleyn, who is said to have exulted over the death of Catherine, to
drain the cup of sorrow, or rather to lap it up: for she one day found
Jane Seymour, a maid of honour, sitting on the knee of Henry. It was
in vain that the monarch and his new favourite endeavoured to laugh the
matter off as a mere _lapsus_, for Anne declared that the king must have
begun to nurse a new passion.
[Illustration: 424]
As they who are convicted of a fault themselves are anxious to pick
holes in the conduct of others, Henry having been proved to see more
in Seymour than became him as a married man, commenced harbouring
suspicions against Anne Boleyn. On May-day, 1536, there had been a royal
party at Greenwich--in fact, a regular fair--when suddenly, in the midst
of the sports, Henry started up exceedingly indignant at something he
had witnessed. The queen did the same, and her husband pretended that
he had seen her either winking at one Norris, a groom, or clown to the
ring, in which the jousts were going forward, or making signals to Mark
Smeaton, a musician in the clerical orchestra. Several persons were
seized at once, and sent to the Tower, including poor Smeaton, the
member of the band who was accused of acting in concert with men of
higher note, to whom he was charged with playing second fiddle.
Poor Anne was taken to the Tower, where a number of scandalous old women
were sent about her to talk her into admissions against herself, and
to talk her out of anything that they could manage to extract from her
simplicity. She wrote what may justly be called "a very pretty letter"
to the king, dated the 6th of May, 1536; but if any answer was received
it must have come from Echo, who is the general respondent to all
communications which receive no attention from the parties to whom they
are directed. On the 12th of the same month Norris, Weston, Brereton,
and Smeaton were tried and executed, all denying their guilt but
the musician, who changed his key note a little before he died, and
modulated off from a _fortissimo_ declaration of innocence to a most
_pianissimo_ confession. There is every reason to believe that this
composition of Smeaton was a piece of thorough base, which is only to be
accounted for on the score of treachery.
On the 15th of May, a building as trumpery as the charge against her
having been knocked together in the Tower, Anne Boleyn was brought up
for trial before a court of twenty-six barons, one of whom was her own
father, while her uncle the Duke of Norfolk sat as president. It would
be imagined that a jury comprising two relatives would have given a
positive advantage to Anne; but her uncle being a rogue, and her father
a fool, the former was too venal, and the latter too timid, to be of
any use to her. She pleaded her own cause with such earnestness, that
everyone who heard how she had acquitted herself, thought that her
judges must have acquitted her. They, however, found her guilty, to the
intense bewilderment of the Lord Mayor, who had heard her defence, and
could only go about exclaiming, "Well, I never! did you ever?" for the
remainder of his existence.
It would seem that there was something in the mere prospect of the axe,
which imparted its sharpness to the intellects of those upon whose heads
the instrument was on the point of falling. We have already alluded to
the _mots_ of More when he was positively moribund, and the quips of the
queen became very numerous and sparkling as the prospect of the scaffold
opened out to her. She made a sad joke upon the little span of her own
neck--in reference, no doubt, to the small span of human existence--and
paid a compliment to foreign talent by requesting that she might have
the benefit of the services of that sharp blade that had just come from
Calais--alluding to the recent arrival of the French executioner.
Henry was on a hunting party in Epping Forest, and was breakfasting
on Epping sausages, when the execution took place, the announcement of
which he had ordered should be made to him by the firing of a gun as a
distant signal. During the _déjeûner_ Henry kept continually exclaiming
"hush," and entreating "silence," with all the energy of an usher in a
court of law, until a loud bang boomed over the breakfast-table. Henry
instantly started up, exclaiming, "Ha, ha! 'tis done!" and ordering the
dogs to be let slip while his breakfast-cup was still at his lip, he
resumed his sport with even more than his wonted gaiety. On the very
next day, he was married to Jane Seymour, there having been a very short
lapse of time since she was discovered on the lap of Henry.
A Parliament having been speedily assembled, that servile body passed
every act that Henry desired, and began by cancelling, in one batch, the
entire issue of his former marriages. The princesses Mary and Elizabeth
were declared illegitimate, while the condemnation of Anne Boleyn was
legalised by statute; a measure which was a little tardy, considering
that she had already lost her head in pursuance, or rather in
anticipation of the confirmation of her sentence.
The destruction of monasteries was now carried on with a most brutal
rapacity, and a mixture of barbarism and barbarity that disgusted a
great portion of the community. Not satisfied with robbing the inmates
of the monasteries, Henry's myrmidons destroyed the buildings themselves
with the most wanton violence, and it was remarked that they were never
contented with emptying a cellar of all its wine, but must always remain
to take shots at the bottles. This unprovoked and tasteless taste for
mere mischief roused the discontent of the people in many places, and
the Lincolnshire fens assumed the offensive with one Mackrel, an odd
fish, as the leader of the insurgents. This Mackrel soon got himself
into a sad pickle, for he was executed at a very early period of the
insurrectionary movement.
[Illustration: 426]
On the 12th of October, 1537, her majesty Queen Seymour gave birth to a
son, an event which made Henry as happy as a king, or at least as happy
as such a king, with such a conscience as Henry carried about with him,
could possibly make himself. He dandled the royal infant in his arms
with all a parent's pride, and sang snatches of nursery ballads in
the ear of the baby. The child was called Edward, which Henry fondly
translated into Teddy Peddy; and three little coronets--the size of
first caps--were instantly made for the Prince of Wales, the Duke of
Cornwall, and the Earl of Chester, for such was the _tria juncta in uno_
formed by the birth of the illustrious little stranger. The queen died
in twelve days after giving birth to an heir; but this circumstance did
not seem to affect the spirits of Henry, who perhaps felt that there was
one more wife out of the way, without the trouble and expense of getting
rid of her.
[Illustration: 428]
The arbitrary monarch now experienced a good deal of trouble from one
Pole, whom the tyrant made several attempts to bring to the scaffold.
This Pole was remarkable for standing erect, and for his firmness, after
once taking his ground, in keeping his position.
He was the son of Sir Richard Pole and Margaret Countess of Salisbury,
for the first Pole was a kind of leaping Pole, with a strong tendency
to raise not only himself, but all those that belonged to him. Reginald,
for such was the name of the Pole that had stirred up the rage of Henry,
had received from the pope a cardinal's hat, with the assurance that
such a Pole ought not to be bare, but deserved the most honourable
covering. Being himself resident abroad, he was as much out of the
English tyrant's power as if he had been the old original North Pole,
of whom we have all heard; but his brothers and relatives at home
were seized upon, and either executed or burnt like so much firewood.
Parliament aided the despotism of the king, by passing a suicidal act,
declaring that a royal proclamation should have the force of law; a
resolution equivalent to an act of self-destruction; for if the king
could do everything by himself, there was, of course, no occasion for
Lords and Commons to help him in the task of government.
Henry having become disembarrassed of no less than three wives, began to
think so little of the encumbrance of matrimony, that he contemplated
a fourth engagement. It was indeed natural enough that he should be
fearless of that which might make bolder men afraid, for he had given
evidence of a facility in making an escape, and he consequently risked
little by braving danger. He advertised, as it were, for a wife, in all
the markets of European royalty, and he continued popping a series of
questions; but his--to revive a _mot_ (we cannot call it a _bon mot_) of
the period--was of all pops the most unpopular. "Nobody will have me,
by Jingo," he would sometimes mutter to himself; and at length the wily
Cromwell proposed to act as matrimonial agent to his majesty.
The Duchess Dowager of Milan was treated with for her hand, but she
wrote back to say that if she had a couple of heads, she might listen
to Henry's proposal, for he would certainly cut off one, and it would be
awkward not having another head to fall back upon. He next sent an offer
to the Duchess of Guise, saying that wedlock, coming to him in such a
Guise, would be the height of happiness; but this lady politely excused
herself, on the ground of a "previous engagement." Somewhat hurt by
these repeated rebuffs, he requested Francis the king of France to
"trot out" his two sisters for Henry to take his choice; but Frank said
frankly that he would have nothing to do with the humiliating business.
We have it on the authority of a letter among Cromwell's correspondence,
that Henry was rather taken with Madame de Montreuil, a French lady,
who having come from France to Scotland in the suite of Magdalen, first
queen of James the Fifth of Scotland, was now on her way back again.
Henry appears to have gone to Dover for the purpose of meeting her
on the pier or the parade; but he must have found her _passé_ as he
surveyed her through his glass, for nothing came of their meeting. The
lady lingered in England to give him every chance, but Henry could
only shake his head, observing "No! by Jove it won't do;" and Madame de
Montreuil, pitying his want of taste, was compelled to return to her own
country.
At length Cromwell came running one morning to Henry, exclaiming, "I
think I've found something to suit your majesty at last," and placed
in the king's hand the card of "Anne, second daughter of John Duke of
Cleves, one of the princes of the Germanic Confederacy." Henry was not
possibly averse to the match, but was wavering, when Cromwell produced
a lovely portrait as that of the candidate for the hand of the
English sovereign. The king examined the picture with the eye of a
_connoisseur_, and being pleased with the sample, ordered the lot to be
sent over to him with as little delay as possible. The picture was by
Holbein, who had utterly concealed the plain fact, and bestowed upon the
German princess such handsome treatment, that he had imparted the lustre
of the brilliant to an object which was as inferior to the copy, as
German paste is worthless by the side of the diamond. Henry hastened,
on her arrival in England, to compare the original with the picture; and
having disguised himself, sent forward Sir Anthony Brown to say that
a gentleman was coming on to see her, with a new year's present. Poor
Brown was fearfully taken aback at seeing a lady so thoroughly _laide_
as Anne of Cleves, but gave no opinion to his royal master. * Henry went
tripping into the apartment with all the ardour of a youthful lover; but
the first glance was enough, and he shrunk back, muttering to himself,
that the princess instead of looking like the picture of Holbein,
reminded him rather of the picture of misery. He nevertheless summoned
up all his resolution to give her a kiss; but it was clear to all who
witnessed the scene, that Henry repented a bargain in which he found
himself mixed up with such a decidedly ugly customer. After a few
minutes passed in small-talk--the smallness of which limited it to
twenty words--Henry went away in deep dudgeon, but he made up his mind
to the marriage, lest he might be involved with any of the German powers
in an action for a breach of promise.
The evening before the nuptials were solemnised, Henry sat with
Cromwell, bewailing--probably over some nocturnal grog--the "alarming
sacrifice," that had become unavoidable. The statesman, who had
recommended the match, tried hard to soften down some of the most
repulsive features of Anne; but Henry coarsely described her as "a
great Flanders mare," and Holbein as a "humbug" for having so grossly
flattered such a coarse clumsy animal. "By my troth," he exclaimed--for
his indignation rose as the liquor in his glass became lower--"you got
me into this scrape and you must get me out of it. I shall expect you to
find some means of abating for me this frightful nuisance."
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, the head of the popish party in the
church, was, of course, an opponent of Cromwell, and took advantage
of the recent matrimonial mistake, to damage him still further in the
opinion of his royal master. Gardiner flattered himself that the train
had been already laid, and that the awfully bad match which Cromwell
himself had provided, would certainly hasten the explosion that there
was good reason to anticipate. The wily Bishop of Winchester introduced
Catherine Howard, the lovely niece of his friend the Duke of Norfolk, to
the king, who was instantly struck by her beauty, and said warmly, "Ha!
the man who has discovered this charming Kate knows how to cater for his
sovereign." *
* Strype--who certainly deserves a hundred stripes for
recording such an atrocity.
Cromwell's doom was now sealed, and the Duke of Norfolk, on the 10th
of June, 1540, had the luxury of taking into custody his political
antagonist. A charge of having one day pulled out a dagger, and declared
he would stick to the cause of the Reformation, even against the king,
was speedily got up, and, by the 28th of July, he was disposed of, at
Tower Hill, in the customary manner. While in prison, he wrote a pitiful
letter to Henry, with the word "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!" reiterated thrice
as a P.S.; the meanness and tautology of which evinced a poverty in the
spirit as well as in the letter.
The king had now determined to marry Catherine Howard, but the old
difficulty--another wife living--stood in the way of the desired
arrangement. Having consulted his attorney, it was proposed to search
for some previous marriage contract in which Anne of Cleves had
been concerned; and as everybody is engaged, on an average, at least
half-a-dozen times before being married once, there would have appeared
little difficulty in accomplishing Henry's wishes.
The excessive ugliness of Anne of Cleves, however, placed great
obstacles in the way, for she had clearly been a drug in the matrimonial
market, and neither by hook nor by crook could an old offer for her
be fished up until something of the kind from the young Prince of
Lorraine--entered into before he was old enough to know better--was
happily hit upon. A commission was at once issued, the matter tried, and
of course decided in Henry's favour. By way of strengthening the king's
case, it was urged by his learned counsel that he had married against
his will, and therefore ought to be released from his contract. The
Court, however, held that the establishment of such a principle would be
almost equivalent to the passing of a general divorce act for half the
couples in Christendom, and on that point at least the rule for a
new trial of Henry's luck was refused accordingly. His suit for a
nullification of his contract with Anne of Cleves succeeded on the other
point, and both parties were equally gratified by the result which
set them both at liberty. The lady felt she had much rather lose her
husband's hand than her own head, and Henry began to think he might be
wearing out the axe upon his wives before he had half done with it, and
if he could find any other means for severing the marriage tie he
much preferred doing so. He offered to make her his sister, with
three thousand a year, an arrangement with which she expressed herself
perfectly satisfied. Both parties were permitted to enter into wedlock
again, if they pleased, and the king of course availed himself of
the option with his accustomed celerity. The Bill was brought into
Parliament on the 12th of July, and the 8th of August found Catherine
Howard already publicly acknowledged as the fifth Mrs. Henry Tudor.
It had now become the boast of Henry that he held the balance with an
even hand between the Catholics and the Reformers; but his impartiality
was shown in a manner most inconvenient to both of them. He used to deal
out what he called equal justice to both, by submitting a few on each
side of the question to equal cruelty. He would forward three Catholics
at a time to Smithfield, to be hanged as traitors, and by the same
hurdle he would send three Lutherans to be burned as heretics.
As we are unwilling to turn our history into a Newgate Calendar, for the
sake of recording the atrocities of a sanguinary king, we shall, in our
account of the remainder of this odious reign, preserve the heads, and
avoid the executions. The murder of the Countess of Salisbury, an old
woman upwards of seventy, and the mother of Cardinal Pole, stands out
perhaps from some other sanguinary deeds by its peculiar atrocity. The
venerable lady, at the last moment, defied the executioner to come on,
and a combat of the fiercest character took place upon the scaffold.
Henry, who had frequently tried to inoculate his nephew, James the Fifth
of Scotland, with his own predatory propensities, became at length angry
that the latter declined turning thief in the name of religion, and
plundering the church under the pretext of simply reforming it. A
conference had been agreed upon between the English and the Scotch
kings; but the latter, at the instigation of Cardinal Beaton, whose
olfactory nerves had detected a rat, broke his appointment with his
imperious uncle. This ungentlemanly proceeding gave such offence to
the English tyrant, that he threatened, with an awful oath, to let
the weight of old Henry be felt in Scotland; and the expression that
So-and-So purposes "playing old Harry," no doubt took its rise from the
incident to whicn we have alluded.
The Duke of Norfolk was sent, as a low fellow of that period hath it,
"to take the shine out of that Jem," who was completely defeated at
Solway Moss, through his own troops turning their backs--not upon him,
as it is said by some, but upon the enemy. James was so overwhelmed
with shame and despair, that he drew his helmet over his eyes, assumed
a stoop--a sure sign that he was stupefied--and never raised his head
again, but fell a victim to that very vulgar malady, a low fever. He
left his kingdom to his daughter, then only eight days old, who came
to the throne on the ninth; but as she was not a nine days' wonder, she
evinced no miraculous aptitude for the task of government.
Henry had in the meantime been made very uncomfortable by the rumours
that his wife, familiarly known as Miss Kate Howard, had not been acting
properly. When the king heard the news, he was deeply affected, for he
was one of those persons who make up, in feeling for themselves, for
their deficiency of feeling with regard to others. He sat down and had
a good crocodilian cry, which irrigated his hands to such an extent
that he was compelled to wring them to get them dry again. Cranmer and
Norfolk were appointed to examine into the truth of the charges against
the queen, who, when her guilt was proved beyond doubt, made a virtue
of necessity--the only virtue of which she could boast--by boldly
confessing it.
This unfortunate young woman had been promised a pardon on condition of
her revealing the extent of her transgression; but when she had admitted
not only a great deal she had done, but had thrown into the bargain a
great deal she had never done at all, Henry, regardless of his pledge,
thought that the best way to get rid of an annoyance was to break the
neck of it. Catherine Howard was accordingly beheaded at the Tower, on
the 15th of February, 1542, and finding her confession had done her no
good, she retracted the greater part of it. "It was not to be supposed,"
says Mullins, "that a person who had shown himself so double as Henry,
could long remain single," and he accordingly threw himself once more
upon the matrimonial market. There he was of course no longer at a
premium, and he was pretty soon at Parr; and it is a strange fact that
he would have commanded a better price had it been certain that he could
be had without the _coupon_, which had distinguished the settling days
of two of the wives of this shocking bad sovereign. Catherine Parr was a
corpulent old lady, fortified by at least forty summers, but she readily
listened to the proposals of Henry. Henry entered her at once on his
share or _chère_ list, and in allusion to her bulk, placed opposite to
her name the words "commands a very heavy figure." She was the widow of
Neville, Lord Latimer; but, thought Henry, "What care I, if she has even
killed her man?--it will not be the first time that I shall have killed
my woman."
[Illustration: 434]
The English king courted her at once, and made much of her; but to
have made more of her than there really was, would have been rather
difficult. He married her on the 10th of July, 1543, and it is a curious
fact that she outlived him, which we can only attribute to the lady
partaking the longevity of her namesake old Parr, for there must have
been a vigorous adhesion to life in any one who could marry and survive
the wife-exterminating tyrant. For some time she humoured Henry, but
having a touch of Lutherism, she began meddling with matters of Church
and State, which embroiled her with a bishop or two, who ran and told
the king what she had been impudent enough to talk about. "Marry come
up!" roared Henry, in allusion to his having elevated Catherine Parr
by marrying her; "so you are a doctor, are you, Kate?" But having had
a hint that her mixing in politics was not agreeable, she only replied,
meekly, "No, no, your Kate is no caitiff." This speech had the effect of
diverting Henry's wrath, almost as much as it will divert posterity
by its delightful quaintness. Gardiner, who had justified his
name--allowing of course for the difference of spelling--by sowing the
seeds of dissension between the king and queen, had arranged with
the sovereign that her majesty was to be seized next morning by forty
guards, headed by Chancellor Wriothesley. This person was not a little
astonished at finding himself called "an arrant knave, a foole, and a
beastlie foole," * by the king, when he came to execute his mission. He
was, in fact, dismissed with an entire earful of fleas, of which Henry
had always an abundance on hand for unwelcome visitors.
* Lord Herbert.
Henry had now become, literally, the greatest monarch that ever sat upon
the throne, for he had increased awfully in size, and become irritable
at the same time, so that the task of getting round him was, in every
sense, extremely difficult. Had there been a prize monarch show, open to
the whole world, he must have carried off the palm, for he was too fat
to lie down, lest no power should be able to get him up again. It was
true he had been born to greatness, but he also had greatness thrust
upon him--some say by over-feeding--to such an extent that he was
obliged to be wheeled about, on account of his very unwieldiness. It
might haye been supposed that Henry would have begun to soften under
all these circumstances; but he exhibited no tendency to melt, for he
continued his cruelties in burning those whom he chose to denounce as
heretics. It is disgraceful to the ecclesiastical character of the
age, that the church party that happened to be in power sanctioned the
cruelties practised towards the party that happened to be out, and it
was said, at the time, that the fires at Smith-field were always being
stirred by some high clerical dignitary, who might be considered the
"holy poker" of the period.
The prospect of a speedy vacancy on the throne created a rush of
candidates, who commenced literally cutting each others' throats--a
desperate game, in which the Howards and Hertfords made themselves very
conspicuous. Young Howard, Earl of Surrey, used to sneer at Hertford,
who had been recently ennobled, as a "new man," and Hertford would
retort unfeelingly upon Howard's father, the Duke of Norfolk, by saying
"it was better to be a new man than an old sinner." The Norfolk family
got the worst of it, for Norfolk and Suffolk were taken to the Tower on
the 12th of December, 1546, on the frivolous charge of having quartered
with their own arms the arms of Edward the Confessor. Had they gone so
far as to use these arms upon a seal, it ought not to have sealed their
doom, nor stamped them as traitors; but the frivolousness of the charge
marks the tyrannical character of the period. Commissioners were sent to
their country seat at Kuming Hall, to ransack the drawers, pillage the
plate chest, and send the proceeds to the king; but the people intrusted
with the job either found or pretended to find scarcely anything. They
wrote to the king, telling him that the jewels were all either sold or
in pawn; but as the tickets never came to hand, it is possible that the
searchers were practising a sort of duplicate rascality. They forwarded
to the king a box of beads and buttons; but though every bead was glass,
Henry does not appear to have seen through it. Surrey was tried at
Guildhall for having quartered the royal arms with his own, and on his
defence he observed, "By my troth, mine enemies will not allow me any
quarter whatever." He was found guilty, of course, and beheaded on the
19th of January, 1547, and his father's execution had been set down
on the peremptory paper for the 28th of the same month, when the
proceedings were suddenly stayed just before execution, by the death of
Henry.
The tyrant, who had been getting physically as well as morally worse and
worse, clung to life with that desperate tenacity that is a sure sign of
there being good reason for dreading death in those among whom, after a
certain age, such a cowardly fear is manifest. He would often impiously
threaten that "he would outlive all the younger people about him yet;"
and though his time was evidently not far off, he would not bear to be
told of his true condition. Instead of repenting of his past life, he
devoted the wretched remnant of his existence to doing all the mischief
he could, and venting his malice to the fullest extent that his now
failing strength would admit of. Nobody dared muster resolution to tell
the unhappy old brute that he must very speedily die, until Sir Anthony
Denny, a knight who shared our friend Drummond's * aversion to humbug
of any description, boldly told old Harry that he was on the point of
visiting his redoubtable namesake.
* "Drummond is so averse to humbug of any description."--
_Vide_ Tijou.
Finding all chance of escape cut off, he began confessing his sins;
but it was rather too late, for, had his repentance been sincere, the
catalogue of his crimes was far too voluminous to allow of his getting
through one half of it before his dissolution. He had been in the habit
of adjourning that court of conscience existing in his as well as in
every man's breast, and he always postponed it _sine die_; but when the
time to die actually came, or the die was really cast, it was rather
late to move for a new trial. Henry died on the 29th of January, 1547,
in the fifty-sixth year of his age, the thirty-eighth of his reign, and
at least the forty-first of his selfishness, baseness and brutality.
He had been married six times, having divorced two of his wives,
beheaded two more, and left one a widow. This leaves one more--Jane
Seymour--still unaccounted for; and indeed her death was the most
wonderful of all, because it was natural. He left behind him three
children: but he did not care a pin's head, or even--to name an article
of smaller importance to him--a wife's head, for any one of them. Such
a very bad man was sure to be a very bad father, and he had declared two
of his children illegitimate, for it was the delight of this monster
to depreciate his own offspring in the eyes of the world as much as
possible. His religious reforms, however wholesome in their results,
were brutal in their execution and base in their origin. His insincerity
may be gathered from the fact that he appointed masses to be said for
his own soul, though he had burnt many persons for popery; and he seemed
to think that, by taking up two creeds at once on his death-bed, he
could make up for the utter irreligion of his last existence. He is said
to have contributed to the cause of enlightenment, and so perhaps he did
with all his blackness, as the coal contributes to the gas; and never
was a bit of Wallsend half so hard, or a tenth part so black, as the
heart of this despicable sovereign. He never had a friend; but he was
surrounded by sycophants, whom, one after the other, he atrociously
sacrificed.
Cranmer being a man of superior mind, exercised an influence over him,
and was sent for to his death-bed, when he pressed the prelate's hand;
but whether the pressure arose from cramp or conscience, rheumatism or
remorse, penitence or "pins and needles," must be considered a question
to which we will not hazard an answer. We regret that we have been
unable to adhere to the excellent motto, _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_, in
this case; but Henry was such a decided _malum in se_, that mischief was
bred in the bone, and the _nil nisi bonum_ becomes impossible.
Learning certainly advanced in this reign, and Henry himself affected
authorship; but every literary man, from the highest flyer in the realms
of fancy to the humblest historian of last night's fire or yesterday's
police, will be honestly ashamed of his royal fellow-craftsman.
Several colleges and schools were founded in this reign, among the
principal of which were Christ Church at Oxford, Trinity at Cambridge,
and St. Paul's in London. Here it was that the lowly Lily, of Lily's
grammar notoriety, first raised his humble head as the head master of
the school; and, though there is something lack-a-daisy-cal in Lily's
style, his grammar was at one time the first round of the ladder by
which every lad climed the heights of classical instruction.
It may be interesting to the gastronomic reader to be informed that
salads and turnips now first came into use, with other roots, towards
which the people had shown until then a rooted antipathy. They swallowed
spinach without any gammon, and even the carrot, that had formerly stuck
in their throat as if they feared it would injure the carotid artery,
was consumed with alacrity; and those who had disdained the most
delicious of green food, by courageously exclaiming, "Come, _let us_
try it," are supposed by some--though we disclaim the monstrous idea--to
have given its name to the lettuce. The cultivation of hops came as if
with a hop, skip, and jump across from Flanders, and the trade in wool
was brought, under the fostering patronage of Wolsey, to a state of some
prosperity.
With the exception of the burning of monasteries and the murder of his
wives, there was little to render the reign of Henry remarkable, beyond,
perhaps, the invention of beef-eaters. The word beef-eater is known to
be a corruption of _buffetier_, and indeed there was corruption, to a
certain extent, in everything connected with this detestable tyrant. It
is said they were called _buffetiers_ from attending at the _buffets_,
or sideboard of plate, but it is far more likely that they got the name
from the buffeting to which every servant of the royal ruffian must
have been occasionally liable. The neck was so often in danger, that any
menial of the malignant monarch might be expected to ruff it in the best
way he could, and hence the enormous ruffs, which are conspicuous to
this day, round the chins of the beef-eaters. The looseness of their
habits may be considered characteristic of the Court to which these
functionaries were attached, though it has been said by some authorities
that the beef-eaters were puffed and padded out to an enormous extent,
in order that the monster Henry might not appear conspicuous.
The reign of Henry was also remarkable for the invention of pins, to
which somebody had given his own head with intense earnestness. The
sharpness of the English had not yet reached so fine a point as to have
led to the discovery of the needle, which was doubtless suggested by the
pin, to some one who had an eye for improvement. The thimble is a still
later introduction, the merit of which is considerable; for though at
the present day every sempstress has the thimble at her finger ends,
there was a time when no one had thought of this very simple but
necessary appendage to the ladies' work-table. If the reign of Henry had
never been devoted to anything more objectionable than the discovery of
pins and needles we should have had little reason to complain, for a few
pricks of conscience, no matter whence they emanated, would have done
him good; but the scissors for cutting the thread of existence formed
the instruments chiefly in use during this cruel and most disastrous
reign.
[Illustration: 437]
CHAPTER THE SIXTH. EDWARD THE SIXTH.
[Illustration: 438]
AN enormous weight was taken off the whole country when the late lump of
obesity was removed from the throne; but shameful to relate, the first
use the nation made of the power of breathing freely was to give a few
puffs to the departed tyrant. The chancellor Wriothesley announced the
king's death to the House of Lords in tears, and there is said to have
been much weeping; but there are tears of joy as well as of sorrow, and
the former must have been the quality of the brine in which the memory
of Henry was preserved for a few days by his people. The lamentations,
whether sincere or hypocritical, were very soon exchanged for joy at the
accession of Edward the Sixth, who was only in his tenth year when
he woke one morning and found the crown of England over his ordinary
nightcap. To rub his eyes and ask "What's this?" were the work of an
instant, when, taking off the bauble, drawing aside his curtains, and
holding the article up to the light, he at once recognised the royal
diadem.
Young Edward was what we should call a little forward chit had he been
a common lad, but being a king we must at once accept him as an infant
prodigy. He had learnt several tongues from Mr. Cheke, and had been a
pupil of Sir Anthony Cook; but many of such cooks would have spoiled the
best "broth of a boy," for Sir Anthony was a pedant, "with five learned
daughters"--being equivalent to a couple of pair of blue stockings, and
an odd one over.
Henry, in his reluctance to leave to his son what he could no longer
hold himself, had fettered the monarchy as much as he could by his will,
which was, however, soon treated with the contempt it merited. He
had appointed sixteen executors and twelve councillors, but all to
no purpose; for all power was placed in the hands of the young king's
uncle, Hertford, who was created Duke of Somerset. The vaulting ambition
of this man, who turned Somersets over every obstacle that fell in his
way, rendered his new title very appropriate. He was invested with the
office of Protector, and he very soon set to work, but, still true to
the name of Somerset, he went head over heels into a war with Scotland.
The object of this proceeding was to demand the hand of Mary, Queen of
Scots, for the child Edward; but the idea of a person coming to make
love with a fleet of sixty sail and an army of eighteen thousand men,
was a little _trop fort_ to suit the taste of the Caledonians. They
placed a ban upon the marriage, which was equivalent to forbidding
the banns, and suggested, that if the young gentleman wanted to come
courting, he had better come by himself to pay his addresses. After a
little negotiation, which ended in nothing, a battle ensued, which is
famous as the battle of Pinkey, where the combatants pinked each other
off most cruelly with the points of their swords; and it is added by the
inveterate Strype--who deserves two thousand stripes, at least, for
this offence--that "on this field, which was within half a mile of
Musselburgh, the soldiers on both sides strained every muscle." The
English archers sent their arrows from their bows with destructive
effect; and looking, as they did, like so many Cupids in a valentine, it
must be confessed that that mode of warfare was, at least, appropriate
to a war undertaken in the cause of Hymen.
[Illustration: 439]
The Scotch were sadly defeated, but they still refused to give up
their little queen to the young fellow who sought her hand through his
subjects' arms, and she was accordingly sent to finish her education in
France; where, though only six years of age, she was betrothed to the
Dauphin.
Somerset, instead of following up his successes, made the best of his
way home; for he heard that his own brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, the
Lord High Admiral, who had been created also Baron Seymour of Sedley,
was making himself a great deal too agreeable to the royal ladies in
England. Old Kitty Parr, Henry's widow, was so much taken with Tom
Seymour's attentions, that she fell at once in his arms, and became his
wife; but poor Parr soon fell to a discount in the eyes of her husband,
who had become enamoured of the young Princess Elizabeth. The unhappy
old Parr swallowed many a bitter pill at this time, until death put an
end to her annoyances. Admiral Seymour was now free to pay his addresses
to Elizabeth, but it would seem that he was not more free than welcome,
for even during the life of her mother-in-law, that young lady had
afforded him every encouragement.
In order to stop his flirtations, which were now becoming serious, he
was clapped in the Tower, but his enemies were considerate enough to
send a bishop to him to preach patience, and as Ely was selected, who
prosed exceedingly, the preaching was accompanied by a practical lesson
in patience, with which it is to be hoped that Seymour was sufficiently
edified. He was accused of treason, and at a council the boy Edward,
who had no doubt been crammed for the occasion, delivered an elaborate
judgment, which his parasites puffed as extemporaneous. He regretted
being obliged to sacrifice his uncle Seymour to the common weal--a weal
that has brought woe to many, and to which the wheel of fortune bears,
except in its orthography, a wondrous similarity. Seymour was executed
on Wednesday, the 20th of March, 1549, and the last use he made of his
head before it was struck off was to shake it, and observe that "'pon
his honour, if he had been guilty of any treason against the king it was
quite unintentional."
The country was about this time agitated by one of those fits of general
discontent which prevail every now and then among the lower orders of
society. As usual there was a good deal of reason mixed with a large
amount of unreasonableness in their complaints, and the customary
feeling of "not knowing exactly what they really wanted," became
alarmingly general. Some cried for this, another for that, and another
for t'other, while an almost universal shout for the privilege of ruling
themselves was accompanied by a clear manifestation of an utter want of
self-control on the part of the people. Their self-styled friends were
of course busy in goading them on to acts of violence, and the
Protector himself, instead of repressing tumult first, and pardoning it
afterwards, pursued the opposite course, which only had the effect of
clearing off old scores, that new might be ran up with fresh alacrity.
One of the most prominent ringleaders in the revolt was a tanner of
Norfolk, named Robert Ket, of whom it was vulgarly said that such a bob
was as good as two tanners; "and hence, perhaps," says my Lord Herbert,
or someone else, "two tanners, or sixpences, came to be called in the
vernacular equivalent to one bob, or a shilling." Ket had been cruelly
provoked in having the mob set upon one of his inclosures by a gentleman
who had suffered from the destruction of one of his own hedges; but the
tanner retaliated by administering such a leathering to his assailants
as they would have remembered to this hour had any one of them been left
alive to indulge in such reminiscences. It was found necessary to
send over to Scotland for Warwick to go and settle Ket, which was very
speedily done, for, finding himself unable to keep upon his legs, he
laid down his arms, after having run for his life, and crept into a barn
among some corn to avoid an immediate thrashing. He was taken to Norwich
and lodged in the castle, whence he wrote to a friend, saying, "I shall
be hanging out for the present at the above address;" and his words were
soon verified, for he was hanged out on the top of the building a few
days afterwards.
Poor Somerset was now about to take the most formidable somerset in the
whole of his career--namely, a fall from the extreme of power to the
depths of disgrace, chiefly by the rivalry of Warwick. The Protector
found it high time to think about protecting himself, and tried to
muster his friends, to many of whom he wrote; but verbal answers of
"Not at home," "Mr. So-and-So will send," and similar evasive replies
convinced poor Somerset that there was very little hope for him. In the
meantime, Warwick and party were meeting daily at Ely Place, Holbom,
where they were settling, in that very legal neighbourhood, the draft
of a set of charges against the Protector, who was accused among other
things of having pulled down a church in the Strand to build Somerset
House, and having spent in bricks and mortar the money intrusted him
to keep up the wooden walls of old England, by paying the sailors and
soldiers their respective salaries. A bill of pains and penalties was
issued from Ely Place, which is to this day famous for its art in making
out bills, and twenty-eight charges were brought against Somerset, who
thought it better to confess every one of them, on a promise that he
should be leniently dealt with. This leniency consisted in taking away
almost everything he possessed, which caused him to remonstrate on the
heaviness of the fine; but, on being told snappishly he might consider
himself lucky in having got off with his life, he shrunk back in an
attitude of the utmost humility. He was set at liberty and pardoned,
but we shall have him at mischief and in trouble again before the end of
this chapter.