HENRY VIII.
The history of Europe in the sixteenth century is peculiarly the
history of the wars of kings, and of their efforts to establish
themselves and their families on absolute thrones. The monotonous, and
almost exclusive, record of royal pleasures and pursuits shows in how
little consideration the people were held. They struggled, and toiled,
and murmured as they do now. They probably had the same joys and
sorrows as in our times. But, in these times, they have considerable
influence on the government, the religion, the literature, and the
social life of nations. In the sixteenth century, this influence was
not so apparent; but power of all kinds seemed to emanate from kings
and nobles; at least from wealthy and cultivated classes. When this is
the case, when kings give a law to society, history is not
unphilosophical which recognizes chiefly their enterprises and ideas.
[Sidenote: Rise of Absolute Monarchy.]
The rise of absolute monarchy on the ruins of feudal states is one of
the chief features of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There was
every where a strong tendency to centralization. Provinces, before
independent, were controlled by a central government. Standing armies
took the place of feudal armies. Kings took away from nobles the right
to coin money, administer justice, and impose taxes. The power of the
crown became supreme and unlimited.
But some monarchs were more independent than others, in proportion as
the power of nobles was suppressed, or, as the cities sided with the
central government, or, as provinces were connected and bound
together. The power of Charles V. was somewhat limited, in Spain, by
the free spirit of the Cortes, and, in Germany, by the independence of
the princes of the empire. But, in France and England, the king was
more absolute, although he did not rule over so great extent of
territory as did the emperor of Germany; and this is one reason why
Francis I. proved so strong an antagonist to his more powerful rival.
The history of France, during the reign of this monarch, is also the
history of Charles V., since they were both engaged in the same wars;
which wars have already been alluded to. Both of these monarchs failed
in the objects of their existence. If Charles did not realize his
dream of universal empire, neither did Francis leave his kingdom, at
his death, in a more prosperous state than he found it.
Francis I. was succeeded by his son Henry II., a warlike prince, but
destitute of prudence, and under the control of women. His policy,
however, was substantially that of his father, and he continued
hostilities against the emperor of Germany, till his resignation. He
was a bitter persecutor of the Protestants, and the seeds of
subsequent civil wars were sown by his zeal. He was removed from his
throne prematurely, being killed at a tournament, in 1559, soon after
the death of Charles V. Tournaments ceased with his death.
[Sidenote: Henry VIII.]
The reign of Henry VIII., the other great contemporary of Charles V.,
merits a larger notice, not only because his reign was the
commencement of a new era in England, but, also, because the affairs,
which engaged his attention, are not much connected with continental
history.
He ascended the throne in the year 1509, in his eighteenth year,
without opposition, and amid the universal joy of the nation; for his
manners were easy and frank, his disposition was cheerful, and his
person was handsome. He had made respectable literary attainments, and
he gave promise of considerable abilities. He was married, soon after
his accession, to Catharine, daughter of the King of Spain, and the
first years of his reign were happy, both to himself and to his
subjects. He had a well-filled treasury, which his father had amassed
with great care, a devoted people and an obedient parliament. All
circumstances seemed to conspire to strengthen his power, and to make
him the arbiter of Europe.
But this state did not last long. The young king was resolved to make
war on France, but was diverted from his aim by troubles in Scotland,
growing out of his own rapacity--a trait which ever peculiarly
distinguished him. These troubles resulted in a war with the Scots,
who were defeated at the memorable battle of Flodden Field, which Sir
Walter Scott, in his Marmion, has immortalized. The Scotch commanders,
Lenox and Argyle, both perished, as well as the valiant King James
himself. There is scarcely an illustrious Scotch family who had not an
ancestor slain on that fatal day, September 9, 1513. But the victory
was dearly bought, and Surrey, the English general, afterwards Duke of
Norfolk, was unable to pursue his advantages.
[Sidenote: Rise of Cardinal Wolsey.]
About this time, the celebrated Cardinal Wolsey began to act a
conspicuous part in English affairs. His father was a butcher of
Ipswich; but was able to give his son a good education. He studied at
Oxford, was soon distinguished for his attainments, and became tutor
to the sons of the Marquis of Dorset. The marquis gave him the rich
living of Limington; but the young parson, with his restless ambition,
and love of excitement and pleasure, was soon wearied of a country
life. He left his parish to become domestic chaplain to the treasurer
of Calais. This post introduced him to Fox, bishop of Winchester, who
shared with the Earl of Surrey the highest favors of royalty. The
minister and diplomatist, finding in the young man learning, tact,
vivacity, and talent for business, introduced him to the king, hoping
that he would prove an agreeable companion for Henry, and a useful
tool for himself. But those who are able to manage other people's
business, generally are able to manage their own. The tool of Fox
looked after his own interest chiefly. He supplanted his master in the
loyal favor, and soon acquired more favor and influence at court than
any of the ministers or favorites. Though twenty years older than
Henry, he adapted himself to all his tastes, flattered his vanity and
passions, and became his bosom friend. He gossiped with him about
Thomas Aquinas, the Indies, and affairs of gallantry. He was a great
refiner of sensual pleasures, had a passion for magnificence and
display, and a real genius for court entertainments. He could eat and
drink with the gayest courtiers, sing merry songs, and join in the
dance. He was blunt and frank in his manners; but these only concealed
craft and cunning. "It is art to conceal art," and Wolsey was a master
of all the tricks of dissimulation. He rose rapidly after he had once
gained the heart of the king. He became successively dean of York,
papal legate, cardinal, bishop of Lincoln, archbishop of York, and
lord chancellor. He also obtained the administration and the
temporalities of the rich abbey of St. Albans, and of the bishoprics
of Bath and Wells, Durham and Winchester. By these gifts, his revenues
almost equalled those of the crown; and he squandered them in a style
of unparalleled extravagance. He dressed in purple and gold, supported
a train of eight hundred persons, and built Hampton Court. He was the
channel through which the royal favors flowed. But he made a good
chancellor, dispensed justice, repressed the power of the nobles,
encouraged and rewarded literary men, and endowed colleges. He was the
most magnificent and the most powerful subject that England has ever
seen. Even nobles were proud to join his train of dependants. There
was nothing sordid or vulgar, however, in all his ostentation. Henry
took pleasure in his pomp, for it was a reflection of the greatness of
his own majesty.
[Sidenote: Magnificence of Henry VIII.]
The first years of the reign of Henry VIII., after the battle of
Flodden Field, were spent in pleasure, and in great public displays of
magnificence, which charmed the people, and made him a popular idol.
Among these, the interview of the king with Francis I. is the most
noted, on the 4th of June, 1520; the most gorgeous pageant of the
sixteenth century, designed by Wolsey, who had a genius for such
things. The monarchs met in a beautiful valley, where jousts and
tournaments were held, and where was exhibited all the magnificence
which the united resources of France and England could command. The
interview was sought by Francis to win, through Wolsey, the favor of
the king, and to counterbalance the advantages which it was supposed
Charles V. had gained on a previous visit to the king at Dover.
The getting up of the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" created some
murmurs among the English nobility, many of whom were injured by the
expensive tastes of Wolsey. Among these was the Duke of Buckingham,
hereditary high constable of England, and connected with the royal
house of the Plantagenets. Henry, from motives of jealousy, both on
account of his birth and fortune, had long singled him out as his
victim. He was, also, obnoxious to Wolsey, since he would not flatter
his pride, and he had, moreover, insulted him. It is very easy for a
king to find a pretence for committing a crime; and Buckingham was
arrested, tried, and executed, for making traitorous prophecies. His
real crime was in being more powerful than it suited the policy of the
king. With the death of Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, in 1521,
commenced the bloody cruelty of Henry VIII.
Soon after the death of Buckingham, the king made himself notorious
for his theological writings against Luther, whose doctrines he
detested. He ever had a taste for theological disputation, and a love
of the schoolmen. His tracts against Luther, very respectable for
talent and learning, though disgraced by coarse and vulgar
vituperation, secured for him the favor of the pope, who bestowed upon
him the title of "Defender of the Faith;" and a strong alliance
existed between them until the divorce of Queen Catharine.
The difficulties and delays, attending this act of cruelty and
injustice, constitute no small part of the domestic history of England
during the reign of Henry VIII. Any event, which furnishes subjects of
universal gossip and discussion, is ever worthy of historical notice,
inasmuch as it shows prevailing opinions and tastes.
Queen Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand, King of Spain, was eight years
older than her husband, whom she married in the first year of his
reign. She had been previously married to his brother Arthur, who died
of the plague in 1502. For several years after her marriage with
Henry VIII., her domestic happiness was a subject of remark; and the
emperor, Charles V., congratulated her on her brilliant fortune. She
was beautiful, sincere, accomplished; religious, and disinterested,
and every way calculated to secure, as she had won, the king's
affections.
[Sidenote: Anne Boleyn.]
But among her maids of honor there was one peculiarly accomplished and
fascinating, to whom the king transferred his affections with unwonted
vehemence. This was Anne Boleyn, daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who,
from his great wealth, married Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the first
duke of Norfolk. This noble alliance brought Sir Thomas Boleyn into
close connection with royalty, and led to the appointment of his
daughter to the high post which she held at the court of Queen
Catharine. It is probable that the king suppressed his passion for
some time; and it would have been longer concealed, even from its
object, had not his jealousy been excited by her attachment to Percy,
son of the Earl of Northumberland. The king at last made known his
passion; but the daughter of the Howards was too proud, or too
politic, or too high principled, to listen to his overtures. It was
only _as queen of England_, that she would return the passion of her
royal lover. Moreover, she resolved to be revenged on the all-powerful
cardinal, for assisting in her separation from Percy, whom she loved
with romantic attachment. The king waited four years, but Anne
remained inflexibly virtuous. He then meditated the divorce from
Catharine, as the only way to accomplish the object which now seemed
to animate his existence. He confided the matter to his favorite
minister; but Wolsey was thunderstruck at the disclosure, and remained
with him four hours on his knees, to dissuade him from a step which
he justly regarded as madness. Here Wolsey appears as an honest man
and a true friend; but royal infatuation knows neither wisdom,
justice, nor humanity. Wolsey, as a man of the world, here made a
blunder, and departed from the policy he had hitherto pursued--that of
flattering the humors of his absolute master. Wolsey, however,
recommended the king to consult the divines; for Henry pretended that,
after nearly twenty years of married life, he had conscientious
scruples about the lawfulness of his marriage. The learned English
doctors were afraid to pronounce their opinions, and suggested a
reference to the fathers. But the king was not content with their
authority; he appealed to the pope, and to the decisions of half of
the universities of Europe. It seems very singular that a sovereign so
unprincipled, unscrupulous, and passionate, and yet so absolute and
powerful as was Henry, should have wasted his time and money in
seeking countenance to an act on which he was fully determined, and
which countenance he never could reasonably hope to secure. But his
character was made up of contradictions. His caprice, violence, and
want of good faith, were strangely blended with superstition and
reverence for the authority of the church. His temper urged him to the
most rigorous measure of injustice; and his injustice produced no
shame, although he was restrained somewhat by the opinions of the very
men whom he did not hesitate to murder.
[Sidenote: Queen Catharine.]
Queen Catharine, besides being a virtuous and excellent woman, was
powerfully allied, and was a zealous Catholic. Her repudiation,
therefore, could not take place without offending the very persons
whose favor the king was most anxious to conciliate especially the
Emperor Charles, her nephew, and the pope, and all the high
dignitaries and adherents of the church. Even Wolsey could not in
honor favor the divorce, although it was his policy to do so. In
consequence of his intrigues, and the scandal and offence so
outrageous an act as the divorce of Catharine must necessarily produce
throughout the civilized world, Henry long delayed to bring the matter
to a crisis, being afraid of a war with Charles V., and of the
anathemas of the pope. Moreover, he hoped to gain him over, for the
pope had sent Cardinal Campeggio to London, to hold, with his legate
Wolsey, a court to hear the case. But it was the farthest from his
intention to grant the divorce, for the pope was more afraid of
Charles V. than he was of Henry VIII.
[Sidenote: Disgrace and Death of Wolsey.]
The court settled nothing, and the king's wrath now turned towards
Wolsey, whom he suspected of secretly thwarting his measures. The
accomplished courtier, so long accustomed to the smiles and favors of
royalty, could not bear his disgrace with dignity. The proudest man in
England became, all at once, the meanest. He wept, he cringed, he lost
his spirits; he surrendered his palace, his treasures, his honors, and
his offices, into the hands of him who gave them to him, without a
single expostulation: wrote most abject letters to "his most gracious,
most merciful, and most pious sovereign lord;" and died of a broken
heart on his way to a prison and the scaffold. "Had I but served my
God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given
me over in my gray hairs"--these were the words of the dying cardinal;
his sad confessions on experiencing the vanity of human life. But the
vindictive prince suffered no word of sorrow or regret to escape him,
when he heard of the death of his prime minister, and his intimate
friend for twenty years.
[Sidenote: More--Cranmer--Cromwell.]
Shortly after the disgrace of Wolsey, which happened nearly a year
before his death, (1529,) three remarkable men began to figure in
English politics and history. These were Sir Thomas More, Thomas
Cranmer, and Thomas Cromwell. More was the most accomplished, most
learned, and most enlightened of the three. He was a Catholic, but
very exemplary in his life, and charitable in his views. In moral
elevation of character, and beautiful serenity of soul, the annals of
the great men of his country furnish no superior. His extensive
erudition and moral integrity alone secured him the official station
which Wolsey held as lord chancellor. He was always the intimate
friend of the king, and his conversation, so enlivened by wit, and so
rich and varied in matter, caused his society to be universally
sought. He discharged his duties with singular conscientiousness and
ability; and no one ever had cause to complain that justice was not
rendered him.
Cranmer's elevation was owing to a fortunate circumstance,
notwithstanding his exalted merit. He happened to say, while tutor to
a gentleman of the name of Cressy, in the hearing of Dr. Gardiner,
then secretary to Henry, that the proper way to settle the difficulty
about the divorce was, to appeal to learned men, who would settle the
matter on the sole authority of the Bible, without reference to the
pope. This remark was reported to the king, and Cranmer was sent to
reside with the father of Anne Boleyn, and was employed in writing a
treatise to support his opinion. His ability led to further honors,
until, on the death of Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, he was
appointed to the vacant see, the first office in dignity and
importance in the kingdom, and from which no king, however absolute,
could eject him, except by the loss of life. We shall see that, in all
matters of religion, Cranmer was the ruling spirit in England until
the accession of Mary.
Cromwell's origin was even more obscure than that of Wolsey's; but he
received his education at one of the universities. We first hear of
him as a clerk in an English factory at Antwerp, then as a soldier in
the army of the Constable Bourbon when it sacked Rome, then as a clerk
in a mercantile house in Venice, and then again as a lawyer in
England, where he attracted the attention of Wolsey, who made him his
solicitor, and employed him in the dissolution of monasteries. He then
became a member of the house of commons, where his address and
business talents were conspicuous. He was well received at court, and
confirmed in the stewardship of the monasteries, after the disgrace of
his master. His office brought him often into personal conference with
the king; and, at one of these, he recommended him to deny the
authority of the pope altogether, and declare himself supreme head of
the church. The boldness of this advice was congenial to the temper of
the king, worried by the opposition of Rome to his intended divorce,
and Cromwell became a member of the privy council. His fortune was
thus made by his seasonable advice. All who opposed the king were sure
to fall, and all who favored him were sure to rise, as must ever be
the case in an absolute monarchy, where the king is the centre and the
fountain of all honor and dignity.
With such ministers as Cranmer and Cromwell, the measures of Henry
were now prompt and bold. Queen Catharine was soon disposed of; she
was divorced and disgraced, and Anne Boleyn was elevated to her
throne, (1533.) The anathemas of the pope and the outcry of all Europe
followed. Sir Thomas More resigned the seals, and retired to poverty
and solitude. But he was not permitted to enjoy his retirement long.
Refusing to take the oath of supremacy to Henry, as head of the church
as well as of the state, he was executed, with other illustrious
Catholics. The execution of More was the most cruel and uncalled-for
act of the whole reign, and entailed on its author the execrations of
all the learned and virtuous men in Europe, most of whom appreciated
the transcendent excellences of the murdered chancellor, the author of
the Utopia, and the Boethius of his age.
[Sidenote: Quarrel with the Pope.]
The fulminations of the pope only excited Henry to more decided
opposition. The parliament, controlled by Cromwell, acknowledged him
as the supreme head of the Church of England, and the separation from
Rome was final and irrevocable. The tenths were annexed to the crown,
and the bishops took a new oath of supremacy.
The independence of the Church of England, effected in 1535, was
followed by important consequences, and was the first step to the
reformation, afterwards perfected by Edward VI. But as the first acts
of the reformation were prompted by political considerations, the
reformers in England, during the reign of Henry VIII., should be
considered chiefly in a political point of view. The separation from
Rome, during the reign of this prince, was not followed by the
abolition of the Roman Catholic worship, nor any of the rites and
ceremonies of that church. Nor was religious toleration secured. Every
thing was subservient to the royal conscience, and a secular, instead
of an ecclesiastical pope, still reigned in England.
[Sidenote: Abolition of Monasteries.]
Henry soon found that his new position, as head of the English Church,
imposed new duties and cares: he therefore established a separate
department for the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs, over which he
placed the unscrupulous, but energetic Cromwell--a fit minister to
such a monarch. A layman, who hated the clergy, and who looked solely
to the pecuniary interests of his master, was thus placed over the
highest prelates of the church. But Cromwell, in consulting the
pecuniary interests of the king, also had an eye to the political
interests of the kingdom. He was a sagacious and practical man of the
world, and was disgusted with the vices of the clergy, and especially
with the custom of sending money to Rome, in the shape of annates and
taxes. This evil he remedied, which tended greatly to enrich the
country, for the popes at this time were peculiarly extortionate. He
then turned his attention to the reform of the whole monastic
institution, but with an eye also to its entire destruction. Cromwell
hated the monks. They were lazy, ignorant, and debauched. They were a
great burden on the people, and were as insolent and proud as they
were idle and profligate. The country swarmed with them. The roads,
taverns, and the houses of the credulous were infested with them.
Cranmer, who sympathized with the German reformers, hated them on
religious grounds, and readily coöperated with Cromwell; while the
king, whose extortion and rapacity knew no bounds, listened, with
glistening eye, to the suggestions of his two favorite ministers. The
nation was suddenly astounded with the intelligence that parliament
had passed a bill, giving to the king and his heirs all the monastic
establishments in the kingdom, which did not exceed two hundred pounds
a year. Three hundred and eighty thus fell at a blow, whereby the king
was enriched by thirty-two thousand pounds a year, and one hundred
thousand pounds ready money--an immense sum in that age. By this
spoliation, perhaps called for, but exceedingly unjust and harsh, and
in violation of all the rights of property, thousands were reduced to
beggary and misery, while there was scarcely an eminent man in the
kingdom who did not come in for a share of the plunder. Vast grants of
lands were bestowed by the king on his favorites and courtiers, in
order to appease the nation; and thus the foundations of many of the
great estates of the English nobility were laid. The spoliations,
however, led to many serious riots and insurrections, especially in
Lincolnshire. At one place there were forty thousand rebels under
arms; but they were easily suppressed.
[Sidenote: Suppression of Monasteries.]
The rapacious king was not satisfied with the plunder he had secured,
and, in 1539, the final suppression of all the monasteries in England
was decreed. Then followed the seizure of all the church property in
England connected with monasteries--shrines, relics, gold and silver
vessels of immense value and rarity, lands, and churches. Canterbury,
Bath, Merton, Stratford, Bury St. Edmonds, Glastonbury, and St.
Albans, suffered most, and many of those beautiful monuments of Gothic
architecture were levelled with the dust. Their destruction deprived
the people of many physical accommodations, for they had been
hospitals and caravansaries, as well as "cages of unclean birds."
Neither the church nor the universities profited much from the
confiscation of so much property, and only six new bishoprics were
formed, and only fourteen abbeys were converted into cathedrals and
collegiate churches. The king and the nobles were the only gainers by
the spoil; the people obtained no advantage in that age, although they
have in succeeding ages.
After renouncing the pope's supremacy, and suppressing the
monasteries, where were collected the treasures of the middle ages,
one would naturally suppose that the king would have gone farther, and
changed the religion of his people. But Henry hated Luther and his
doctrines, and did not hate the pope, or the religion of which he was
the sovereign pontiff. He loved gold and new wives better than the
interests of the Catholic church. Reform proceeded no farther in his
reign; while, on the other hand, he caused a decree to pass both
houses of his timid, complying parliament, by which the doctrines of
transubstantiation, the communion of one kind, the celibacy of the
clergy, masses, and auricular confession, were established; and any
departure from, or denial of, these subjected the offender to the
punishment of death.
[Sidenote: Execution of Anne Boleyn.]
But Henry had new domestic difficulties long before the suppression of
monasteries--the great political act of Thomas Cromwell. His new wife,
Anne Boleyn, was suspected of the crime of inconstancy, and at the
very time when she had reached the summit of power, and the
gratification of all worldly wishes. She had been very vain, and fond
of display and of ornaments; but the latter years of her life were
marked by her munificence, and attachment to the reform doctrines. But
her power ceased almost as soon as she became queen. She could win,
but she could not retain, the affections of her royal husband. His
passion subsided into languor, and ended in disgust. The beauty of
Anne Boleyn was soon forgotten when Jane Seymour, her maid of honor,
attracted the attention of Henry. To make this lady his wife now
became the object of his life, and this could only be effected by the
divorce of his queen, who gave occasion for scandal by the levity and
freedom of her manners. Henry believed every insinuation against her,
because he wished to believe her guilty. There was but a step between
the belief of guilt and the resolution to destroy her. She was
committed to the Tower, impeached, brought to trial, condemned without
evidence, and executed without remorse. Even Cranmer, whom she had
honored and befriended, dared not defend her, although he must have
believed in her innocence. He knew the temper of the master whom he
served too well to risk much in her defence. She was the first woman
who had been beheaded in the annals of England. Not one of the
Plantagenet kings ever murdered a woman. But the age of chivalry was
past, and the sentiments it encouraged found no response in the bosom
of such a sensual and vindictive monarch as was Henry VIII.
The very day after the execution of that accomplished lady, for whose
sake the king had squandered the treasures of his kingdom, and had
kept Christendom in a ferment, he married Jane Seymour, "the fairest,
discreetest, and most meritorious of all his wives," as the historians
say, yet a woman who did not hesitate to steal the affections of Henry
and receive his addresses, while his queen was devoted to her husband.
But Anne Boleyn had done so before her, and suffered a natural
retribution.
Jane Seymour lived only eighteen months after her marriage, and died
two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward VI. She was
one of those passive women who make neither friends nor enemies. She
indulged in no wit or repartee, like her brilliant but less beautiful
predecessor, and she passed her regal life without uttering a sentence
or a sentiment which has been deemed worthy of preservation.
[Sidenote: Anne of Cleves--Catharine Howard.]
She had been dead about a month, when the king looked round for
another wife, and besought Francis I. to send the most beautiful
ladies of his kingdom to Calais, that he might there inspect them, and
select one according to his taste. But this Oriental notion was not
indulged by the French king, who had more taste and delicacy; and
Henry remained without a wife for more than two years, the princesses
of Europe not being very eager to put themselves in the power of this
royal Bluebeard. At last, at the suggestion of Cromwell, he was
affianced to Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, whose home was on
the banks of the Rhine, in the city of Dusseldorf.
The king no sooner set his eyes on her than he was disappointed and
disgusted, and gave vent to his feelings before Cromwell, calling her
a "great Flanders mare." Nevertheless, he consummated his marriage,
although his disgust constantly increased. This mistake of Cromwell
was fatal to his ambitious hopes. The king vented on him all the
displeasure which had been gathering in his embittered soul.
Cromwell's doom was sealed. He had offended an absolute monarch. He
was accused of heresy and treason,--the common accusations in that age
against men devoted to destruction,--tried by a servile board of
judges, condemned, and judicially murdered, in 1540. In his
misfortunes, he showed no more fortitude than Wolsey. The atmosphere
of a court is fatal to all moral elevation.
But, before his execution, Anne of Cleves, a virtuous and worthy
woman, was divorced, and Catharine Howard, granddaughter of the victor
of Flodden Field, became queen of England. The king now fancied that
his domestic felicity was complete; but, soon after his marriage, it
was discovered that his wife had formerly led a dissolute life, and
had been unfaithful also to her royal master. When the proofs of her
incontinence were presented to him, he burst into a flood of tears;
but soon his natural ferocity returned, and his guilty wife expiated
her crime by death on the scaffold, in 1542.
Henry's sixth and last wife was Catharine Parr, relict of Lord
Latimer, a woman of great sagacity, prudence, and good sense. She
favored the reformers, but had sufficient address to keep her opinions
from the king, who would have executed her, had he suspected her real
views. She survived her husband, who died four years after her
marriage, in 1547.
[Sidenote: Last Days of Henry.]
The last years of any tyrant are always melancholy, and those of Henry
were embittered by jealousies and domestic troubles. His finances were
deranged, his treasury exhausted, and his subjects discontented. He
was often at war with the Scots, and different continental powers. He
added religious persecution to his other bad traits, and executed, for
their opinions, some of the best people in the kingdom. His father had
left him the richest sovereign of Europe, and he had seized the abbey
lands, and extorted heavy sums from his oppressed people; and yet he
was poor. All his wishes were apparently gratified; and yet he was the
most miserable man in his dominions. He exhausted all the sources of
pleasure, and nothing remained but satiety and disgust. His mind and
his body were alike diseased. His inordinate gluttony made him most
inconveniently corpulent, and produced ulcers and the gout. It was
dangerous to approach this "corrupt mass of dying tyranny." It was
impossible to please him, and the least contradiction drove him into
fits of madness and frenzy.
In his latter days, he ordered, in a fit of jealousy, the execution of
the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman of the kingdom, who had given
offence to the Earl of Hertford, uncle to the young prince of Wales,
and the founder of the greatness of the Seymours. But the tyrant died
before the sentence was carried into effect, much to the joy of the
good people of England, whom he had robbed and massacred. Several
thousands perished by the axe of the executioner during his
disgraceful reign, and some of them were the lights of the age, and
the glory of their country.
Tyrannical as was Henry VIII., still he ever ruled by the laws. He did
not abolish parliament, or retrench its privileges. The parliament
authorized all his taxes, and gave sanction to all his violent
measures. The parliament was his supple instrument; still, had the
parliament resisted his will, doubtless he would have dissolved it, as
did the Stuart princes. But it was not, in his reign, prepared for
resistance, and the king had every thing after his own way.
[Sidenote: Death of Henry VIII.]
By nature, he was amiable, generous, and munificent. But his temper
was spoiled by self-indulgence and incessant flattery. The moroseness
he exhibited in his latter days was partly the effect of physical
disease, brought about, indeed, by intemperance and gluttony. He was
faithful to his wives, so long as he lived with them; and, while he
doted on them, listened to their advice. But few of his advisers dared
tell him the truth; and Cranmer himself can never be exculpated from
flattering his perverted conscience. No one had the courage to tell
him he was dying but one of the nobles of the court. He died, in great
agony, June, 1547, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, and the
fifty-sixth of his age, and was buried, with great pomp, in St. George
Chapel, Windsor Castle.
* * * * *
REFERENCES.--The best English histories of the reign of
Henry VIII. are the standard ones of Hume and Lingard. The
Pictorial History, in spite of its pictures, is also
excellent. Burnet should be consulted in reference to
ecclesiastical matters, and Hallam, in reference to the
constitution. See also the lives of Wolsey, Sir Thomas More,
and Cranmer. The lives of Henry's queens have been best
narrated by Agnes Strickland.