The Royal Reform.
Personal Government Of Henry VIII. (1529 — 1547).
The fall of Wolsey was mainly due to the ascendancy of Anne
Boleyn, the first victim, and the precursor of many other ruined
fortunes, that were to spring from the guilty passions of Henry
VIII. The new ministers that surrounded him were the great
noblemen who had overthrown the cardinal; the Dukes of Norfolk
and Suffolk and Sir Thomas Boleyn, now become Viscount Rochford,
and subsequently Earl of Wiltshire. Sir Thomas More had with
regret accepted the onerous duties of chancellor, perhaps in the
hope of serving the public welfare, perhaps through a weakness
which he was to pay dearly for. All questions then resolved
themselves into that of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon; all
politics turned upon this pivot. The king had consulted all the
universities of Europe, the theologians and lawyers; Oxford and
Cambridge had taken sides, and opinions were there keenly
discussed from each point of view; but the king had gained ground
among the prelates; his agents were skilful and numerous.
Cranmer, formerly a tutor in a wealthy family, now a chaplain to
Henry VIII., had recently published a learned treatise in favour
of the divorce, insisting that the word of God alone should
decide the question without any appeal to the Pope, and
maintaining that the Bible, interpreted by the Fathers of the
Church, interdicted marriage with the widow of a brother.
{211}
The opinion of the two English universities in favour of the
divorce was obtained. The Italian universities, Bologna, Padua,
Ferrara, declared themselves for King Henry; it was a question of
money. The Germans had still more fear of the Emperor than taste
for English gold; they were all opposed to the divorce--the
Protestant theologians were as outspoken as the Catholics. "It
were better that the King of England should have two wives than
be divorced from Catherine to marry another," said Luther. The
Pope published, in the month of March, 1530, a brief, which
formally forbade the King of England to conclude a second
marriage, under pain of excommunication. A few days later, the
Earl of Wiltshire presented himself at Bologna, where the Pope
and the Emperor were at that time; people were shocked to see the
father of Anne Boleyn employed in this mission. "Let your
colleagues speak, my lord," said Charles V. to him, "for you are
a party to this matter." The assurance of the earl, and his
offers of money, completed the exasperation of the Emperor. "I
will not sell the honour of my good aunt Catherine!" he exclaimed
angrily. The embassy retired without having obtained anything,
and the Earl of Wiltshire was compelled to confine his intrigues
to the French universities, from which he contrived to secure
several favourable opinions. But of what use were all the
decisions of the faculties when the Pope refused his assent?
This assent was of supreme importance, for the time had come when
the bonds which held the crown of England to Rome were about to
be broken abruptly for bad and shameful reasons, but not without
a certain assent from the mass of the people.
{212}
None among the prelates who surrounded the king had dared to
advise him to brave the will of the Pope; Cranmer himself, who
had secretly married the daughter of a German pastor, was too
timid to break his lance in the face of the court of Rome; it was
a servant of Wolsey, who had become a servant of the king, Thomas
Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith at Putney, a man as bold as he
was corrupt and skilful, who struck the great blow and opened up
to Henry VIII. the path in which he was henceforth to walk. The
king was troubled by the obstinate resistance of the Pope; he had
hoped to obtain the divorce without great difficulty; he
hesitated, and a rumour of the disgrace of Anne Boleyn was
already circulated among the courtiers, when Cromwell approached
his royal master. "The embarrassments of your Grace arise from
the timidity of your ministers," he said; and he explained that
with the favourable opinions of all the universities, and the
assent of the English Parliament, which it was not difficult, to
procure, it was easy to proceed without troubling the Pope. "The
king could even," he added, "follow the example of the German
princes, who had shaken off the yoke of the court of Rome, and
declare himself purely and simply the head of the Church of
England. The clergy thus depending solely upon the king, he would
become the absolute master of his kingdom, instead of being only
half king."
{213}
This bold conception was designed to please King Henry VIII.; his
vanity, his taste for power, and his avidity alike found
satisfaction in it. Neither his conscience (such as it was), nor
his convictions ever belonged to the new faith. Internally and by
doctrine he remained a Catholic, but his policy and interest,
like his passion impelled him in another direction; he
accomplished in his country a religious reform--governmental as
well as liberal, aristocratic and popular--the effects of which
were immense and profoundly advantageous to England; but he
accomplished all this without religious faith and without general
principles, for the sake of his personal desires and with selfish
aim. It was to God, through the hands of Henry VIII., that
England owed this great step in her history; she has no
obligation to be grateful to the despotic and corrupt monarch who
severed his connexion with Rome in order to repudiate his wife
and to dispose of the ecclesiastical benefices at his pleasure.
The door, however, had been opened, and Parliament, being at once
convoked, received a communication detailing all the proceedings
of the king for the purpose of surrounding himself with learned
authorities upon the question of the legitimacy of his marriage.
At the same time the clergy were assembled. Very uneasy at a
royal act which involved them all in a common disgrace as guilty
of having seconded and supported Cardinal Wolsey, by admitting
his authority as legate--an authority which had been confirmed by
Henry himself--the prelates, accustomed to the demands of the
king, immediately offered a hundred thousand pounds sterling in
order to appease his anger. Henry VIII. accepted the offering,
but announced that he would grant the pardon only on condition of
a vote of the ecclesiastical convention which should recognize
him as "the protector and supreme head of the Church and the
clergy of England."
{214}
Three days were occupied in discussion; the opposition was
powerful and numerous, but timidity gained the ascendant; there
was a disposition to admit the supremacy of the king, with this
reservation: _Quantum per legem Christi liceat_ (as much as
it is permitted by the law of Christ).
"I will have neither tantum nor quantam," replied the king, when
Cromwell came to tell him how matters stood; "return to them, and
let the vote be given without quantums or tantums." The
reservation was, however, maintained, and the king consoled
himself with his hundred thousand pounds sterling, augmented by a
small gift of the clergy of the north.
After the prorogation of Parliament Henry VIII. endeavoured to
intimidate Catherine, and to compel her to accept the decision of
four prelates and four lay peers. She steadily refused; being
transferred from Greenwich to Windsor, and from Windsor to
Hertfordshire, she was at length sent to Ampthill, where she
fixed her residence. "To whatever place I may be made to go, I
remain the legitimate wife of the king," she said. In the main
the nation was of her opinion, and no one was more convinced of
it than the chancellor. Sir Thomas More; weary of serving as an
instrument of a policy of which he disapproved, but which he
could not modify, he asked permission to retire, and on the 16th
of May, 1532, he returned peaceably to his mansion at Chelsea,
delivered of a burden which had weighed him down, and free to
devote himself to the learned studies which constituted the charm
of his life.
{215}
The Pope had made some overtures of reconciliation; but as the
first condition was the dismissal of Lady Anne, and the recall of
queen Catherine, they necessarily remained without result. The
brief which excommunicated at the same time the king and Anne
Boleyn, was signed on the 15th of November, but without being
immediately promulgated, Henry VIII. had drawn closer his
alliance with Francis I. during an interview which they had at
Calais, and the King of France had undertaken to intercede with
the Pope for his ally; but Anne Boleyn had not waited so long to
seal her victory. On the 25th of January, 1533, one of the
chaplains of the king, Dr. Lee, was summoned to celebrate mass in
a small chamber in Whitehall Palace; there he found the king,
Anne Boleyn, two noblemen, and a lady. Henry commanded the
astonished prelate to celebrate his marriage. It is related that
the chaplain hesitated; but the king asserted that he had in his
closet the authorization of the Pope. The ceremony being
completed, the party dispersed in silence; the court of France
alone was informed of the marriage, which Henry promised to keep
secret until the month of May, in order to give time to Francis
I. to use his influence with the Pope.
Meanwhile the Parliament, under the influence of Cromwell, had
suppressed the "annats" or first-fruits, a considerable portion
of the revenues paid to the Pope in Catholic countries; the
authority of the clergy in convocation had been abolished and
conferred upon the crown; Cranmer, with strange inconsistency,
had recently accepted the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, not
only of the king, but of the Pope, who had signed, on the 22nd of
February, 1533, the bull which confirmed his election, and had
sent him the pallium.
{216}
The prelate had therefore made an oath of obedience to the
pontiff which he counted upon violating, since he had been raised
to this dignity with another object. The question of the divorce
immediately took another flight; Parliament being assembled,
voted the "Statute of Appeals," forbidding all recourse and
appeal to Rome. At the same time, and by another act, the title
of Queen of England was withdrawn from Catherine, who henceforth
was to be called the Dowager Princess of Wales, in the character
of widow of Prince Arthur. A court of the bishops was convoked on
the 8th of May, at Dunstable, near Ampthill, where Catherine
resided; she was called upon to appear there; but it was
carefully concealed from her that the judgement was to be
definitive. The queen did not appear, and was declared
contumacious; during a fortnight the summons was repeated, then,
on the 23rd of May, Cranmer solemnly declared the nullity of the
marriage. On the 28th of May, he proclaimed the union already
contracted between King Henry VIII. and the Lady Anne Boleyn, who
was crowned at Westminster, with great pomp, on the 1st of June.
The task was accomplished and the king had secured his wishes; he
had worked unceasingly for this object during six years past.
{217}
The consequences were not long in manifesting themselves; on the
11th of June, the Pope annulled the sentence of Cranmer, and
published the excommunication of Henry and Anne, not without
contriving another possibility of reconciliation; the decree was
only to be definitive in the month of September; in the interval
an interview was being prepared between Clement VII. and Francis
I. at Marseilles. But the conduct of Henry VIII. was hesitating
and inconsistent; the English ambassadors admitted to the
conference at Marseilles, had no power to negotiate. Francis I.
demanded that the question of the divorce should be again laid
before a consistory, from which the Imperialist cardinals should
be excluded; but an emissary of the king of England, Bonner, who
arrived on the day upon which the term fixed by Clement expired,
solemnly appealed from the Pope to a general council. The
negotiations were interrupted, and the interview had no other
result than the fatal treaty of marriage between the Duke of
Orleans, the son of the King of France, and Catherine of Medicis,
the niece of the Pope. Being renewed for a moment at the instance
of Francis I., but by a new turn of the wishes of King Henry, the
relations were definitively broken off on the 23rd of May, 1534,
by the solemn declaration of the Sacred College assembled in
consistory, loudly affirming the validity of the marriage of
Henry VIII. with Catherine of Aragon. The king was requested to
recall to his court his legitimate wife. The daughter of Anne
Boleyn, she who was one day to be Queen Elizabeth, was already
six months old; she had been born on the 7th of September, to the
great disappointment of her father, who upon the prophecies of
all the astrologers had hoped for a son.
{218}
While the Pope was hurling from the Vatican his spiritual
thunders, and before the news could have arrived in London,
Parliament had completed the severing of the bonds which for so
long a time had connected England with the court of Rome. All
payments as well as all appeals to the Pope were interdicted; the
king was recognized as the Supreme Head of the Church, he alone
being entrusted to bestow the bishoprics or to decide
ecclesiastical questions. The royal assent was given on the 30th
of March to these acts, as well as to that which excluded from
the succession to the throne, the Princess Mary, the daughter of
Catharine of Aragon, as illegitimate, in favour of the children
of Queen Anne. All the subjects of the crown of the age of
discretion were to take the oath in favour of the new order of
things; every word, deed, or pamphlet against the second marriage
was placed among acts of high treason.
All these precautions and prohibitions did not prevent public
opinion from being favourable to the repudiated wife. Two monks
of the order of the Observants even dared to reprimand the king
publicly; the popular movement encouraged the revelations of a
young prophetess, Elizabeth Barton, who was called the "Holy maid
of Kent," and who had hitherto predicted future events without
danger to her person or her friends. She had numerous partisans,
dupes or intriguers, and her rhapsodies soon bore upon State
matters. She had been much opposed to the divorce, declaring that
if the king should repudiate Catharine, he would die within seven
months a shameful death, and would be replaced upon the throne by
the Princess Mary. The prophecies were printed and published;
Elizabeth Barton and a certain number of her partisans were
arrested and compelled to confess their imposture, on a Sunday in
November, 1533, at St. Paul's Cross.
{219}
Since then they had remained in prison: but on the 25th of April,
1534, by order of Parliament, the holy maid of Kent, her
confessor, and five other persons compromised in her cause, were
executed and quartered at Tyburn. "I was but a poor woman without
knowledge," said Elizabeth Barton while proceeding to execution,
"but people persuaded me that I spoke through the Holy Ghost,
which drew me into vanity and confusion of mind, for my ruin and
that of the persons who are going to suffer with me."
These obscure victims did not suffice for the absolute power and
despotic tyranny of Henry VIII. Everything had bent before his
will, and the isolated opposition which he encountered in two
illustrious persons astonished as much as it exasperated him. Sir
Thomas More, formerly chancellor of England, and Fisher, bishop
of Rochester, were called upon to take the oath of allegiance to
the children born and to be born of Queen Anne. Neither had any
objection to the political part of the oath; they willingly
recognized the Princess Elizabeth as heiress to the the throne,
to the exclusion of Mary; but neither one nor the other could
consent to declare unlawful the marriage of Catharine of Aragon,
nor to legitimatize that of Anne Boleyn. Both refused the oath,
explaining their reasons with more or less tact and humility, and
both were sent to the Tower. Fisher was seventy-five years of
age; he was ill; he was denied medical assistance and clothing.
Sir Thomas More was not alone in the world like the old prelate;
his daughter, mistress Margaret Roper, ministered to his wants,
while all classes of society, rich or poor, humble or great,
frightened at the fate which awaited the two prisoners,
unhesitatingly made the required oath, as modified by the king,
and rendered more than ever adverse to the previous instructions
of the clergy.
{220}
At the same time, and as though for compensation, Henry VIII.
caused the trial of "those people who are vulgarly called
heretics," sending to the stake with indifference the Lollards,
Lutherans, and Anabaptists, melancholy witnesses of the royal
orthodoxy. Some monks who had refused to take the oath of
supremacy were executed and quartered at Tyburn. Acts of
Parliament succeeded each other, tending to make the king a kind
of lay Pope, whose office it was to define and prosecute
heresies, and assigning to the crown all the revenues formally
collected by the court of Rome, while entrusting to the royal
wisdom the care of foundling and supporting the ecclesiastical
government which should seem suitable to him. Amidst the general
adulation, Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher were shortly to
suffer for their courageous resistance.
The old prelate was accused of having "maliciously and
treasonably affirmed that in spiritual matters the king could not
be the Head of the Church." The new Pope, Paul III., had recently
sent him a cardinal's hat. "Ah!" cried Henry, angrily, "I will
take care that he shall not have a head to wear it," and the
bishop, being condemned as a traitor, was beheaded on the 22nd of
June, 1535. His head was placed upon London Bridge, turned in the
direction of the diocese where he left so many to regret his
loss, and his body, being first exposed to the sight of the
people, was thrown without a coffin into an obscure grave.
{221}
The trial of Sir Thomas More, more prolonged, produced the same
result. Often timid, sometimes inconsistent in his conduct, More
had arrived at a point at which a man of honour, and a Christian
no longer listens to aught but to the voice of his conscience.
The long months of his captivity had ruined his health, whitened
his hair, and bent his form; but his soul remained firm, and his
eloquence before the servile tribunal appointed to try him still
caused the docile instrument of the king to shudder. More had
been deprived of all his books; the means of writing had been
taken from him; his farewell to his daughter was traced with a
piece of charcoal upon a paper which he had secretly procured;
but before losing his pen, he had written this touching proof of
gentle firmness: "I am the faithful subject of the king, and
every day his interceder. I pray for his Majesty, for his, and
for all the kingdom. I do no wrong, I say no wrong, I think no
wrong; if that is not sufficient to preserve the life of a man, I
have no wish to live. I have been dying since I came to this
place; I have several times been at the point of death; and
thanks be to our Lord, I did not regret it, but rather I grieved
to see my suffering abate. Thus my poor body is at the mercy of
the king. Might it please God that my death should do him some
good!" Before the council, More replied to offers of pardon by
the assurance that he had done nothing against the marriage with
Anne Boleyn. Although he disapproved of the step he had never
spoken of it but to the king himself; he had even contented
himself with preserving silence upon the new title of the king as
Supreme Head of the Church; now silence did not constitute
treason.
{222}
His accusers desired to produce witnesses to the contrary, but
they failed in their undertaking, and the judges were compelled
to declare silence to be treason. More, was condemned. He no
longer persevered in silence, and loudly declared that the new
oath of supremacy was unlawful. He was led from the hall with the
edge of the axe turned towards him; his son threw himself in his
path, to ask for his blessing. On approaching the Tower, he
perceived his well-beloved daughter, Margaret Roper; she opened
up a passage for herself between the guards, and threw herself
upon his neck, weeping. Twice she retraced her steps, and could
not possibly be driven from that loved father whose head she
afterwards carried away from the coffin. The bitterness of death
had passed for Sir Thomas More after this separation; upon the
scaffold he appeared to have regained something of that caustic
gaiety which had formerly placed him in favour with the king.
When he learnt that Henry VIII., had commuted the horrible
sentence of traitors into the penalty of decapitation, he smiled
sweetly. "May God preserve all my friends from royal favours," he
exclaimed. He tottered upon the steps of the scaffold. "Assist me
to ascend, Master Lieutenant," he said, "I shall easily descend
without aid." He was not permitted to speak to those present. "I
die a faithful subject and a true Catholic," he said simply; then
thrusting aside his beard, he said to the executioner, "My beard
has not committed any treason." His head fell on the 6th of July,
1535, to the indignation of all Europe.
{223}
"I learn that your master has put to death his faithful servant,
his good and wise councillor, Sir Thomas More," said the emperor
to Sir Thomas Elliot, the English ambassador. "I have not heard
it, sire," replied Elliot. "It is true, nevertheless," replied
Charles V., "and let me tell you that if we had been master of
such a servant, of whose merit we have had experience for so many
years past, we would rather have lost our best city than so
worthy a councillor."
The King of France was both grieved and shocked. The pens of the
greatest writers of the time celebrated the virtues of More;
Erasmus with whom he had been connected, has related the life and
death of his friend; but no one has more eloquently celebrated
the virtues of the former chancellor of England, no one has
better exposed to public contempt the cruelty of his persecutor
than a relative of Henry VIII. himself, Reginald Pole, grandson
of the Duke of Clarence, educated partly at the expense of the
crown, so much had the king been charmed by the intelligence and
talents of his cousin. But Pole had a conscience as intractable
as that of Sir Thomas More; he refused to support the cause of
the divorce, and thus voluntarily renounced the ecclesiastical
dignities which the king intended for him. He had retired into
the north of Italy, and it was from there that he made all Europe
familiar with the infamy of the murder of Sir Thomas More, while
at the same time he published his great work upon _The Union of
the Church_, in which he freely unveiled the base conduct and
ignoble motives of Henry VIII. No attack more profoundly
exasperated the tyrant, henceforth carried away by the dangerous
intoxication of absolute power.
{224}
Indignation was nowhere more violent than at Rome, and the
councillors of the Pope urged him to issue a bull summoning Henry
VIII. to appear at Rome within ninety days, in person or by
deputies. If he should fail to respond to this appeal, he was
declared to have forfeited his crown; his children by Anne
Boleyn, and the children of his children, were incapable of
succeeding; his subjects were relieved of their oaths of
allegiance, and were to take arms against him; all priests were
to quit his dominions: treaties of alliance with foreign princes
were dissolved, and all monarchs called upon to fight against
him, until he should have submitted to the Church. The bull being
drawn up, the Pope did not consider the time opportune for
sending it forth, and the thunderbolt still slept in the arsenal
of the Vatican; but its terms were known in England, which
increased the exasperation of the king. Henry VIII. opened up
negotiations with the Protestant princes of Germany, endeavouring
to draw the King of France and the young King of Scotland into
the same alliances. The functions of Supreme Head of the Church
involved Henry VIII., in so much business, that he created a
commission specially entrusted to provide for it; at the head of
this new council he placed the secretary of state, Cromwell, to
the secret indignation of the clergy, who were little accustomed
to see themselves governed by a layman; but the
_Vicar-General_, as he called himself, taking, in this
capacity, precedence of all the great noblemen of the kingdom,
including the Archbishop of Canterbury, did not falter in the
accomplishment of his duties, for the day had come for executing
his promises and for filling the coffers of the king.
{225}
No one knew better than Cromwell the needs of the royal treasury,
for he was Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as Vicar-General
in the Church. A great number of monks had refused the oath of
supremacy; this opportunity was seized upon in order to decide
upon the reform of all the monasteries. Complaints were made of
the morals of the monks, of their avidity; Cromwell organized a
series of domiciliary visits, intended, it was said, to discover
all abuses; servants, neighbours, and enemies of the religious
houses were interrogated; an absolute renunciation of the
authority of the Pope was demanded of the monks; finally, an
inventory of the riches of each house was made, and the
commissaries retired, carrying on their tablets the condemnation
of the monastery. Many abbots and priors, in alarm, offered
considerable sums in the hope of purchasing exemption from ruin;
the money was taken, but the names were not effaced from the
fatal list. The vicar-general had expected to see many monks
anxious to re-enter the world, but seven small monasteries alone
voluntarily opened their gates. The report prepared by Parliament
especially condemned the houses of little importance, and those
of which the abbots did not take rank among the peers of the
kingdom; it was there, it was said, that the disorder was
intolerable. The twenty-seven abbots of the great religious
houses, did not defend their brothers who were threatened. All
seemed smitten with stupor; some superiors prudently resigned
before the crash; the royal commissioners continued their work,
and when Parliament voted the bill proposed by Cromwell, three
hundred and eighty religious houses found themselves included in
the act which gave to the king and his descendants all the
monasteries of which the net revenue did not exceed two-hundred
pounds sterling, to dispose of them according to his good
pleasure, upon the one condition, that those he should endow,
should maintain an honest residence there, and cultivate every
year the extent of land tilled by the monks.
{226}
A revenue of thirty-two thousand pounds sterling was thus
assigned to the crown; the money and plate of the suppressed
monasteries were valued at more than a hundred thousand pounds
sterling. After this last proof of submission, Parliament, which
had modified the succession to the throne, voted the separation
of England from the Holy See, and doubled the prerogatives, found
itself dissolved at the end of six years of servile existence,
without having even secured the good graces of the king, for the
House of Commons had hesitated for some time to pronounce the
suppression of the monasteries. It is related that the king sent
for the principal leaders, warning them that he would have either
the law or their heads; the bill was then voted. Commissioners
were entrusted to proceed with the suppression of the
monasteries; a hundred obtained compromises, and, crippled and
impoverished, were founded afresh by letters patent of Henry
VIII.; the others were invaded by the royal commissioners; monks
under twenty-four years of age were sent into the world to earn
their livelihood: the others were divided into two classes; those
who elected for a monastic existence were dispersed in the great
monasteries; it was promised that occupation should be found for
the others.
{227}
The nuns were abandoned to their own resources; the royal charity
allowed only a secular gown when they were driven from their
retreats and cast into a world of which they were ignorant. The
first act of the drama had been played; the turn of the great
houses had yet to come.
While this violent and arbitrary work was being accomplished,
under a specious veil of reform, Queen Catherine was dying in her
retirement. She had obstinately refused to leave England,
notwithstanding the entreaties of the emperor; she would do
nothing which would be prejudicial to the interests of her
daughter, whose rehabilitation she still hoped for. She had also
refused, for the same reason, to accept the title of Princess of
Wales, which degraded her as a woman. She lived a sad and lonely
life, separated from her daughter, who might, it was said, become
imbued with her principles. Even the approach of death could not
obtain for her the favour of seeing her again. The last words of
the unhappy queen were, however, words of forgiveness to that
cruel husband who had afflicted her with so many evils. "I
forgive you all," she said, "and I ask God to do likewise; I
recommend our daughter Mary to you, begging you to be a good
father to her, as I have always desired. I vow to you that my
eyes long for you beyond all things." It is said that the king
shed a tear upon this touching message, and that he entrusted the
Spanish ambassador to assure the dying queen of his affection;
but Catherine had already breathed her last. She died on the 8th
of January, 1536, and was interred with honour, at Peterborough.
{228}
Her husband went into mourning, but Anne Boleyn appeared before
the court in a yellow silk gown. "Now I _am_ queen," she
said on learning the death of her whom she had outraged and
overcome.
The day of retribution, however, was approaching; the same
passions which had raised her to the throne in defiance of all
laws, human and divine, were about to hurl her from it. Henry had
already cast his eyes upon Jane Seymour, a maid of honour of Anne
Boleyn, as Anne had formerly been the maid of honour of
Catherine. She was the daughter of a Wiltshire gentleman; was
beautiful, amiable, and of great gentleness of character. It is
related that the queen perceived the great familiarity which
already existed between Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour and the
grief which she experienced therefrom was so violent that she
brought into the world, prematurely, a still-born child; it was a
son, and the vexation of the king was no less violent than his
disappointment. Anne now felt that she was ruined; the king left
her suddenly amidst a grand _fete_ which she gave in
Greenwich Park, and returned to London. On the morrow, the 2nd of
May, she was arrested at Greenwich as she was sailing down the
river; she was accused of adultery and immediately taken to the
Tower. At the first word of accusation against her Anne fell upon
her knees, exclaiming aloud, "Lord, my God, help me, as I am
innocent of this crime!" Her brother. Lord Rochford, three
noblemen of the king's household and a musician were imprisoned
at the same time.
{229}
Grief and anxiety appeared to have impaired the reason of the
unhappy Anne; at times she would appeal for Divine mercy, at
others, amidst outbursts of laughter, mingled with tears, she
would exclaim, "Why am I here? My mother will die of grief; I
shall perish without obtaining justice." The Lieutenant of the
Tower assured her that justice was administered to the poorest of
the subjects of the king; Anne laughed bitterly; she knew better
than any one else what royal justice was worth.
She had been conducted to the same apartment in which she had
formerly slept on the eve of her coronation, when the king and
his courtiers were equally eager to do her honour; women had been
placed around her, charged to listen to all her words; being
excited by the misfortune which had befallen her, Anne spoke a
great deal; all that she said was reported to the king, and that
contributed to her ruin. She was accused of the most degrading
corruption of morals and conduct; in vain did she defend herself;
the lightness of her manners, the familiar tone which she had
learnt, it was said, at the court of France, attested against her
more than all the depositions and interrogatories of the trial.
On the 6th of May, she wrote a touching letter to the king, the
authenticity of which has been contested, perhaps without reason,
reminding him of the affection which he had manifested towards
her, protesting her innocence, and demanding a lawful trial.
"But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my
death but an infamous slander must bring you the joying of your
desired happiness, then I desire of God that He will pardon
your great sin herein, and likewise my enemies the instruments
thereof; and that He will not call you to a straight account
for your unprincely and cruel usage of me at His general
judgment-seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear,
and in whose judgment, I doubt not (whatsoever the world may
think of me), mine innocence shall be openly known and
sufficiently cleared.
{230}
My last and only request shall be that myself may only bear the
burden of your grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch
the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen who, as I
understand, are likewise in straight imprisonment for my sake.
If ever I have found favour in your sight--if ever the name of
Anne Bullen have been pleasing in your ears--then let me obtain
this request; and so I will leave to trouble your grace any
further, with mine earnest prayer to the Trinity to have your
Grace in His good keeping and to direct you in all your
actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, your loyal and
faithful wife,
"Ann Bulen."
In vain did Anne demand justice for herself and mercy for her
companions in misfortune; she had been condemned beforehand, and
her dishonour was the price of her condemnation. Within four
months Henry had received the forgiveness of his two wives; one
the irreproachable victim of his guilty passions; the other, who
had been his accomplice, and who was suffering for her crime the
most terrible reverses. The documents of the proceedings are no
longer in existence, and it is now impossible to determine the
question of the guilt of the unhappy Anne; she was condemned and
died because the king her husband desired to marry Jane Seymour;
that is what appears clearly from the facts transmitted to us by
history.
{231}
On the 15th of May, the sentence upon the queen was pronounced;
her brother, Lord Rochford, and the four other accused persons,
had been condemned since the 13th of May. A crowning affliction
awaited Anne Boleyn before her supreme agony: Cranmer was
compelled to declare the nullity of the marriage which he himself
had formerly supported, and the Princess Elizabeth was
stigmatized with illegitimacy like her sister Mary. The day on
which the archbishop in agony of soul thus yielded tremblingly to
the royal will, the accomplices or companions of the unhappy
queen suffered their punishment on Tower Hill. The musician
Smeaton was hanged; Lord Rochford and the three noblemen were
beheaded; all had constantly protested their innocence, with the
exception of the musician, who failed however to purchase his
life by his confessions or falsehoods.
On the 19th of May, in the morning, less than three weeks after
the day on which she had reigned triumphant over the festivities
at Greenwich, Anne Boleyn was led out upon the Tower Green. The
spectators were crowded together in the narrow space. Anne had,
on the previous evening, entrusted one of the women among her
attendants to go on her behalf and kneel before the Princess
Mary, to beg her forgiveness. She walked courageously to her
death. "I have a little neck," she said to the Lieutenant of the
Tower; "it is said that the executioner is skillful; he will not
have much trouble." She said a few words to those who came to see
her die, without bitterness towards her judges, and full of
affection and respect for the king who sent her to the scaffold.
{232}
"Christ have mercy on my soul! Jesus receive my soul!" she
repeated on placing her beautiful head up on the block. Three
years had elapsed since Henry had married Anne Boleyn, moving
heaven and earth to place her upon the throne, when a blow from
the axe of the executioner ended her life on Tower Green. The
king waited impatiently for the signal which was to announce to
him the execution of the sentence. "It is done," he exclaimed, on
hearing the cannon; "that is an end of the matter. Unleash the
dogs, and let us follow the stag!" He returned gaily in the
evening from Epping Forest, and on the morrow morning married
Jane Seymour. He had not rendered to the unhappy Anne the honour
which his conscience had compelled him to pay to the virtuous
Catherine: no mourning garments saddened the court of the new
queen. Henry VIII. was clad in white on the day of his marriage,
and on the 29th of May, Jane appeared at the court decked with
the royal ornaments, but she did not obtain the favour of
solemnly receiving the crown; after Anne Boleyn, none of the
wives of King Henry was deemed worthy of that ceremony. The
Princess Mary had been received into favour by her father, not
without having reluctantly signed a humiliating letter; she
obtained a suitable establishment, and even appears to have been
entrusted with the care of her sister, the little Princess
Elizabeth. Not content with assuring the succession to the
children of Jane Seymour, the king caused an act to be passed by
Parliament which authorized him to dispose of his crown according
to his own good will and pleasure. This exorbitant measure was
destined to favour the Duke of Richmond, an illegitimate son of
the king, eighteen years of age, whom he passionately loved.
{233}
The young duke died before the act had received the royal
sanction, and the king to his great grief, found himself deprived
of male children, and with two daughters whom he had himself
branded with the stigma of illegitimacy.
Meanwhile the dissolution of the monasteries had inundated the
country with the poor people whom they had formerly relieved; the
disaffection was great, especially in the northern counties,
which were particularly attached to the old faith, from which the
king was separating himself more and more. The irritation,
however, was not exclusively concentrated in the lower classes;
the great noblemen and gentlemen, former patrons of the
monasteries, considered that the property of which they had been
deprived should be returned to the families which had formerly
bestowed it upon them, rather, than to the royal treasury; but it
was the people of Lincolnshire who first set the example of
insurrection. The king sent some forces against the insurgents,
under the orders of the Duke of Suffolk. The latter found the
insurrection so serious, that he determined to try negotiations.
_The Men of Lincoln_ presented six requests, complaining
particularly of the sudden destruction of the monasteries, so
prejudicial, they said, to the poor of the entire country; of the
excessive taxes, of the vesting of the annats and tithes in the
crown, and of the agitation which certain bishops, designated by
their names, had brought about in the Church of Christ by
altering the faith. Upon which they prayed the king to dismiss
the treacherous counsellors who thought of nothing but enriching
themselves at the expense of the poor people.
{234}
Time had been gained by listening to the grievances of the
insurgents. Discord began to penetrate into their ranks; the king
was enabled, without danger, to reply to them with the
haughtiness which was natural to him when his supreme will was
opposed. He rejected all the requests of the insurgents,
demanding that a hundred of the more important among them should
be delivered to him, in order that he might make an example of
them. No fighting had taken place; a sufficiently large number of
the insurgents still remained united; a second letter from the
king commanded them to lay down their arms in the market-place at
Lincoln, if they did not wish to bring down a terrible vengeance
upon their wives and children. Before the rebels of Lincolnshire
had returned home, about the 30th of October, a violent
insurrection had broken out on the other side of the Trent, and
this movement was spreading over the whole of Yorkshire, as well
as in Durham, Northumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire; while
the fifteen hostages of the insurgents of Lincolnshire were being
executed, as well as some inhabitants of the environs of London,
accused of having countenanced them, the rebels of the north
wanted but a chief in order to stir up a veritable civil war.
They marched in the name of God, they said, for the love of Jesus
Christ, of the faith and the Holy Church, to the destruction of
the heretics; they assumed the name of _Pilgrims of Grace_,
and carried a crucifix upon their standard; nearly all obeyed the
orders of a gentleman of Yorkshire, Robert Aske, who was wanting
neither in ability nor character.
{235}
The Duke of Norfolk was entrusted to march against him; the Duke
of Suffolk and the Earl of Shrewsbury watched over other
positions; the towns of Hull, York, and Pontefract had opened
their gates to the Pilgrims of Grace before the arrival of the
royal troops, and a certain number of gentlemen had joined them,
when the Duke of Norfolk checked their progress before Doncaster.
Negotiations were entered into at the outset as in Lincolnshire;
the demands of the insurgents were almost the same, though more
precise and detailed. They demanded the destruction of the
heresies of Wycliffe, Huss, Luther and Melancthon, the
restitution of the Pope to the religious supremacy, the
rehabilitation of the Princess Mary, and the re-establishment of
Parliament in all its ancient privileges. The king treated with
contempt such of these requests as he deigned to answer. "You are
very bold," he said, "to think that after having reigned so long
I do not know better than you what laws are agreeable to the
commoners. The affairs of the Church do not concern you, and it
is strange that you should prefer to see some few villains fatten
in the monasteries, rather than allow your prince to have them,
in discharge of all the expenses which he has undertaken in order
to defend you." Henry promised no other concession but the pardon
of the rebels, with the exception of the ten leaders, who were to
be delivered up to him immediately. The insurgents rejected
without hesitation the offers of the royal clemency, and the Duke
of Norfolk, who was not sufficiently powerful to fight, found
himself compelled to retreat to the southern bank of the Trent,
fortifying and defending all the passes in his rear. Time was
being lost; the winter was approaching, the temperature and the
suspension of agricultural labour were counted upon for
dispersing the insurgents.
{236}
At length the king authorized the Duke of Norfolk to make
overtures to the two principal chiefs of the rebels, Lord Darcy
and Robert Aske; he even expressed a desire to see them. They did
not respond to this gracious invitation, but the idea of
betraying their partisans began to enter their minds. The
soldiers perceived this; everywhere this proclamation was seen:
"Commons, be of good cheer and remain faithful to your cause; the
gentlemen betray you, but you will not want leaders, if there is
need of them." In the month of February the numbers assembled
were still very great, but the royal army had received
reinforcements, the insurgent forces collapsed before the castles
and towns which they were besieging; discouragement began to
creep into their ranks. Lord Darcy, Robert Aske, and the greater
number of the leaders were captured and sent to London, where
they were executed, notwithstanding the good disposition they had
manifested. The rebels now formed only scattered bodies, and
martial law was proclaimed in the northern counties. Upon the
express order of the king, a great number of the inhabitants of
each town, borough, and village that had taken part in the revolt
were hanged or quartered, in the public squares, and their bodies
affixed to trees, in order to terrify the remainder of the
population. The monks, who had ardently embraced the cause of the
insurrection, were treated with especial rigour; the insurgent
counties were everywhere strewn with bloody heads and disfigured
corpses.
{237}
When the amnesty was at length proclaimed and peace
re-established, visitations of the religious houses still
continued; nearly all the monasteries of the north were destined
to be closed, and to have their property confiscated, before the
royal vengeance and avidity could be satisfied. The anger of
Henry had increased when he had learnt that Reginald Pole,
installed a short time since in Rome upon the urgent
solicitations of Pope Paul III., and against the advice of his
relatives in England, had been nominated cardinal and legate
beyond the Alps. The aim of the Pope was, no doubt, to take
advantage of the insurrection of the Catholic counties in order
to influence the king and bring him back into the bosom of the
Church; but Francis I. and Charles V. deemed the moment
ill-chosen; the cardinal was unable to see the king of France
while crossing his kingdom, and the Emperor did not even allow
him to enter his dominions. Pole learnt at the same time that a
price had been placed upon his head by Henry; Cromwell asserted
that the cardinal would be brought thereby to break his heart
with grief. Pending this happy result, for the bringing about of
which the master and the minister were not to spare their
efforts, the legate was compelled to return to Rome, without
having been able to accomplish his mission of sending money and
encouragement to the rebels of England; the insurrection had been
stifled before Pole had set foot in Flanders.
{238}
Jane Seymour had, on the 12th of October, 1537, given birth to a
son, and had died shortly afterwards thus escaping the sad fate
of the wives of Henry VIII. Grief for his loss had scarcely
weighed in the scale against satisfaction at the birth of a male
heir to the throne; the little Edward immediately received the
title of Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester;
the national rejoicing was mingled with the lamentations of the
monks on all sides, driven from their refuges under the pretext
of complicity in the recent insurrection. When nothing remained
but the great abbeys, the king caused their destruction to be
voted by the Parliament, notwithstanding some feeble efforts of
the abbots who sat in the House of Lords. A few only escaped the
wreck, at the entreaty of the population, or were consigned to
the descendants of their founders. The work of spoliation was
accomplished; the rich chapels, the gothic monuments, the learned
libraries, the delicate sculptures, everything was delivered up
to the destructive hands of the royal agents; none dared to
intervene, and treasures of science, marvels of art, were for
ever lost to posterity. The lands were divided among the
courtiers; the valuables were nearly all reserved for the king,
who contrived to remain poor notwithstanding so great an
accession of riches. He was not content with plundering the
living, he even went so far as to plunder the dead. From a
singular animosity against the memory of Thomas Becket--of that
inflexible man who would have resisted him to the death, as he
had resisted Henry II.--Henry VIII. had conceived a violent
dislike to his shrine at Canterbury; but he did not rest here.
Becket was summoned to appear at Westminster to answer for his
rebellions, and the tomb of the martyr was broken for this
purpose, as though to open the prison which confined him.
{239}
In presence of the silent sepulchre, the king carried on his
ghastly comedy; the attorney-general spoke against the dead
saint, to whom an advocate had been granted. Becket, being judged
by default, was deprived of his riches and honours; two large
coffers, filled with jewels deposited upon his altar, were sent
to London; festivals and pilgrimages celebrated in his honour
were solemnly forbidden, the portraits of the saint were
destroyed, and a royal proclamation commanded the people to
believe henceforth that Thomas Becket had been killed in a
quarrel caused by his own obstinacy, that he had been canonized
by the Bishop of Rome as the champion of an usurped authority,
but that he was but a rebel and a traitor to his king, and that
the faithful servants of his Majesty were to guard themselves
against honouring him as a saint. Thomas Becket thus twice had
the notable honour of bringing down all the royal fury; even in
his tomb he was proclaimed defender of the liberties of the
Church for whose sake he had yielded up his life.
So vast an amount of wealth diverted from the pious objects to
which it had been originally consecrated troubled the conscience
of Cranmer, feeble and vacillating in his conduct, but honest and
sincere, notwithstanding his numerous backslidings. He
endeavoured to found in his diocese some pious establishments to
replace those which had been so abruptly destroyed; but the
diocese was poor, he had not profited by the spoils of St. Thomas
Becket, and the hospitals, the asylums for the poor and
travelers, the schools for children which were formerly afforded
by the convents, left a void from which the unfortunate suffered
painfully. The public cry reached the king.
{240}
The treasures of the monasteries had melted in his prodigal
hands; he addressed himself to Parliament, boldly demanding
subsidies to indemnify him for the expenses which he had incurred
for the Reformation. The two tenths and the two fifteenths which
were granted him did not suffice for his requirements, still less
for those of the new bishoprics, deaneries, and colleges which
Parliament had decreed. These establishments should have been
endowed with the ecclesiastical property, but there was no longer
any property. Six bishoprics were founded, so poorly provided for
that the prelates scarcely had sufficient to live upon. A certain
number of abbeys became cathedral churches; but the king was
careful before appointing the dean and chapter to confiscate a
portion of the lands, so that the new dignitaries of the Church
ran no risk of allowing themselves to be drawn into effeminacy by
the temptations of opulence. The plain parish priests, deprived
of their livings, led such a miserable existence that none would
any longer enter the Church. "We have ten thousand students less
in the universities than there were formerly," wrote Latimer,
when asking assistance for the university of Cambridge; and it
was found necessary to seek for a priest to preach from St.
Paul's Cross, an honour formerly sought after by the highest
dignitaries.
When the entire kingdom thus remained silent and was suffering,
Henry VIII. occupied his leisure in interrogating and judging a
poor schoolmaster, named John Lambert, who had adopted the views
of the German reformers upon the doctrine of the real presence.
All the arguments of the royal theologian, reinforced by those of
the bishops whom he had called to his aid, could not shake the
conviction of Lambert.
{241}
"Resign thy soul to God," said Henry angrily. "I resign my soul
to God," said the accused man, "and my body to the mercy of your
Grace." "Thou shalt die then," exclaimed the king, "for I am not
the patron of heretics," and Lambert was burned alive, on the
20th of November, 1538. Henry VIII. alone had found a means of
combining the twofold persecution of the Roman Catholics and the
reformers; he plundered and closed the convents while he burnt
the heretics. Cranmer shared in the main, the opinions of the
unhappy Lambert, but he dared not protest, and contented himself
with favouring the translation of the Bible into English, a task
which had just been accomplished by Miles Coverdale; the price of
the book was, unhappily, very high, and the circulation
consequently somewhat limited.
Henry meanwhile was uneasy; the Emperor and King Francis I. had
recently concluded at Nice, under the auspices of the Pope, a
truce for ten years; hence the alliance of England lost the value
which had often attracted the advances of the two great rivals;
Paul III. again threatened to promulgate the bull so long
prepared, and he sought to unite against King Henry the forces of
the empire and of France. Cardinal Pole had been employed in this
negotiation; it remained without result, but the distrust and
jealousy of the despot had been aroused, and the fate which the
family of the cardinal had so long dreaded at length overtook
them. In the month of December, 1538, Lord Montacute and Sir
Geoffrey Pole, brother of the cardinal, as well as the Marquis of
Exeter, grandson of King Edward IV., through his daughter
Catherine, were arrested and conducted to the Tower.
{242}
Some months later the Countess of Salisbury, mother of the
cardinal, the Marchioness of Exeter, and the son of Lord
Montacute were impeached in their turn. All were condemned, and
all perished, with the exception of Sir Geoffrey Pole, who
betrayed his kinsmen. The old countess remained for a long time
in Prison, as though to experience all the horrors of her
situation. When she was finally led to the scaffold, at the age
of seventy-two, she refused to place her head upon the block.
"No," she said; "my head has committed no treason; if you want
it, come and take it." It was found necessary to seize her by
force, and she resisted until the last moment.
While bathing his hands in blood. King Henry was much occupied in
instructing his people in sound doctrine; he had entered
seriously upon his duties as supreme head of the Church, and was
carefully preparing the articles of faith which were to form the
basis of the popular belief; woe to him who should not adhere to
the six articles which the king sent to the convocation of the
clergy. In the main, the doctrines expounded by the king were
those of the Roman Catholic Church, with the exception of the
supremacy of the Pope; the efforts which Cranmer made to bring
about, by discussion with the German theologians, some
modifications in the ideas of Henry, remained without result.
{243}
The emissaries of the reformed Churches in vain maintained the
doctrine of communion of the two kinds, the marriage of priests,
and other important points in doctrine and in practise; the king
thanked them for the trouble which they had taken in coming to
his kingdom; he assured them of the esteem in which he held their
erudition and virtues, but he sent to the Parliament of 1539 an
act recapitulating the obligatory articles of faith, entirely in
conformity with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, and
threatening the most severe penalties against whosoever should
reject these doctrines, or should fail to conform his life
thereto. The influence of Cranmer was once more defeated, and
that of Bishop Gardiner, who had constantly remained faithful to
the old Church, was again triumphant. The star of Cromwell was on
the wane; the first instigator of the religious rivalry of Henry
VIII. with the Pope, was about in his turn to succumb beneath the
jealous despotism which he had contributed to raise.
The two great parties which had been formed in the Church of
England after the reformation continued to share power under the
king. The bishops favourable to Protestantism had for a time
prevailed, when Henry alarmed by the alliance of the Catholic
powers, sent a mission to Germany to the Protestant princes, and
authorized the journey of the German theologians to England. The
prelates attached to the Catholic Church triumphed when Gardiner
was recalled from his retirement, and the king accepted his
revision of the religious edict submitted to Parliament. Several
of the reforming bishops had already resigned or had been
deprived of their dignities, when Cromwell, still favourable to
the new party, desired to furnish it with an important support by
uniting the king with a Protestant queen.
{244}
For several months past, Henry had in vain looked for a consort
among the European princesses; the Dowager Duchess of Milan
replied that if she had two heads, she might have thought of that
alliance, but that, having but one, she declined the honour which
his Majesty wished to do her. He solicited the hand of Mary of
Guise, Duchess of Longueville, but she was betrothed to his
nephew, James V., king of Scotland, who had lost his first wife,
Madeleine of France, a few months after their marriage. King
Francis I. had refused to send to Calais the two sisters of Mary
of Guise, whom Henry wished to see. Cromwell proposed the
Princess Anne of Cleves, sister of the reigning duke, whose
beauty, gentleness, and virtue were much extolled. Henry VIII.
despatched to Germany his favourite painter, Holbein, to bring
him back a portrait of the princess; it was contained in a rose
of ivory admirably carved; the casket and the contents pleased
the king; he asked for the hand of Anne of Cleves, to the great
joy of Cromwell. The unfortunate man had never seen the princess.
She arrived in England on the 31st of December, 1539;
notwithstanding his gout, and his inconvenient stoutness, the
king repaired to Rochester, in order to see secretly the princess
who came courageously to share with him the fatal throne. He
started back in dread and anger. Anne was tall and muscular, as
he had been informed, and as he wished; her features were
regular, but coarse; her complexion, which was fresh, bore traces
of small-pox; her figure was massive, her walk awkward, and,
above all, the worthy German lady was clad in the fashion of her
country, without elegance or grace.
{245}
The voluptuous and debilitated monarch experienced an indignation
that did not permit him to show himself at first. When at length
he consented to see the princess, he said but a few words to her:
Anne of Cleves spoke German, the king did not know that language.
He sent her a present of some furs, and returned to London to
convoke his council. On perceiving Cromwell, he reproached him,
in violent terms, for having married him to a great Flemish nag,
uncouth and awkward, ill-fitted to inspire her love; he then
commanded him to find some pretext for breaking off this odious
union. Cromwell was politic, he trembled for his favour and,
perhaps his life; he was compelled to remind the king that, in
the situation of his affairs in Germany, it would be dangerous to
displease the German princes. "There is no remedy then? I must
place my head in the halter?" exclaimed Henry piteously. He
yielded, and the marriage was celebrated at Greenwich on the 5th
of January. But the burden of this union became every day more
insupportable to the king; he was not accustomed to find himself
thwarted; the objections of Cromwell to the divorce rankled in
his breast. A theological quarrel of a dependent of the minister
with Bishop Gardiner completed the exasperation of the king
against his vicar-general; the heterodoxy of Barnes called in
question the orthodoxy of Cromwell, who had employed him in the
fatal negotiations for the marriage of Anne of Cleves. The king
still continued his resentment.
{246}
Cromwell opened Parliament as usual, entrusted with the royal
message, which related solely to the religious questions yet in
litigation; he obtained from the Houses enormous subsidies,
dispensed court favours, threatened with the royal displeasure
the chiefs of the Catholic party, the Duke of Norfolk, and the
Bishops of Durham, Winchester, and Bath; then, on the 10th of
June, 1540, he was arrested in the very council-chamber, for high
treason. Four days afterwards, he was condemned by a bill of
attainder, a process which he himself contributed to establish,
and on the 28th of June, he suffered his sentence as a traitor to
the Head of the Church and a pestilent heretic. The king was
compelled, in order to replace Cromwell, whose activity was
indefatigable, to summon to his side two secretaries of State, of
whom one, Wriothesley, afterwards became his chancellor.
The ill-starred marriage with Anne of Cleves and the theological
errors of Barnes were not the sole causes of the ruin of
Cromwell; the beautiful face of Lady Catherine Howard, niece of
the Duke of Norfolk, had played a part in the overthrow of the
condemned minister. Before Cromwell perished upon the scaffold,
Henry VIII. had married Catherine Howard. Anne of Sleeves had at
first swooned on learning the intentions of the king towards her,
but recovering her senses, she had no doubt, returned thanks to
God for having preserved her from the melancholy fate of the
wives of Henry VIII., and had accepted without a murmur the title
of "adopted sister" of the king, which was bestowed upon her by
that gracious sovereign. A suitable establishment was granted to
her in England, and the Duke of Suffolk, entrusted with the
letters of the princess for her brother, started for Cleves, in
order to explain to the duke the scruples concerning a former
contract of the princess with the Duke of Lorraine, which had led
the king to break off the marriage, while assuring him of the
happy condition and full consent of the dethroned queen.
[Image]
Anger of Henry VIII on his First View of Anne of Cleves.
{247}
By way of celebrating his fifth nuptials Henry sent to the stake
Dr. Barnes, the maladroit dependent of Cromwell, in company with
two or three other heretics, while certain Catholics were
quartered for having refused to take the oath of supremacy. The
punishment alone was different: Catholics and Protestants were
dragged to Smithfield upon the same hurdle, bound together, to
the common indignation of both parties. "How do folks manage to
live here?" exclaimed a Frenchman, "the Papists are hanged and
the Anti-Papists are burned." In the following month, the Prior
of Doncaster and six of his monks were hanged for having defended
monastic institutions; all crimes became equally grave in the
eyes of the despot, from the moment they thwarted his supreme
will.
The triumph of Catherine Howard was destined to be of short
duration, and to cost her dearly. The king was much attached to
her, and had taken her with him on a royal tour of inspection,
during the summer of 1541, but when he returned to London, in the
month of August, Cranmer revealed to him a grievous discovery,
made in his absence, by his servants, with regard to the conduct
of the queen before her marriage, during her sojourn with her
great aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. Jealous and
suspicious, Henry VIII. did not demand proofs before losing all
confidence in the virtue of his wife; but he wished nevertheless
to have the witnesses examined, and they were all arrested and
put to the torture.
{248}
The queen herself, it is said, confessed her transgressions, as
did the man accused of complicity with her--her cousin, Francis
Dereham. The guilt of Lady Catherine Howard did not suffice,
however, to ruin the queen; she positively affirmed her conjugal
fidelity, and the king, whose whole love appeared to have been
changed to aversion, set every means to work in order to assure
himself of her alleged offence towards him. The old Duchess of
Norfolk, her daughter, Lady Bridgewater, and her son, Lord
William Howard, were placed in the Tower charged with having
favoured the bad conduct of the queen; every species of
ill-treatment, every ruse, every falsehood was employed in order
to extract the truth, or at least to obtain avowals capable of
ruining Catherine Howard. All was in vain; "the mother and the
daughter are equally stubborn," say the records of the council,
and both rejected with indignation the idea of any complicity in
the crimes of which the queen was accused. The two gentlemen
accused, Dereham and Culpepper, were tried and condemned, and
were executed at Tyburn, on the 10th of December, while the Duke
of Cleves was hastening to send an ambassador to King Henry, in
order to induce him to take again the Princess Anne, his sister,
as his wife. The proposal was rejected by Cranmer, the emissary
not even being admitted into the presence of the king; Anne of
Cleves remained the _good sister_ of his Majesty, and the
trial of Catherine Howard continued, without any one protesting
in favour of the unhappy woman, deprived of all means of defence,
and delivered over, bound hand and foot, to her accusers.
{249}
Her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, had abandoned her, as he had
formerly done in the case of his other niece, Anne Boleyn,
protesting to his Majesty "the grief occasioned to him by the
abominable actions of two kinswomen towards his Grace, who might
in consequence hold even himself in abhorrence." Search was being
made meanwhile, in the coffers and hiding-places of all the
accused persons, and his Majesty had already collected in this
manner large sums, when the council condemned them all to
imprisonment for life, with the confiscation of all their
property, simply recommending that some consolations should be
accorded to them in their captivity, and that certain of their
friends should be admitted to them in the Tower. The king took
care to cut short this indulgence, and on the same evening he
caused a council to be assembled to forbid any modification in
the treatment inflicted upon the prisoners, "for great and
important reasons," added the conscientious monarch. The trial
had established nothing except that the old Duchess of Norfolk
and her children had been informed of the reciprocal love of
Francis Dereham and Catherine before the marriage of the latter.
The severity which was employed towards her relatives should have
enlightened the unhappy queen if she had been able for one moment
to believe the promise of her life which the king had transmitted
to her through Cranmer. Parliament on the 16th of January
addressed an humble petition to the sovereign, asking permission
to proceed against Lady Catherine Howard by a bill of attainder,
in order to spare his Majesty the grief of hearing the crimes of
his wife recapitulated.
{250}
Henry graciously consented to this delicate request, and on the
11th of February the queen was condemned by Parliament together
with Lady Rochford, sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn, who had
formerly given evidence against her husband and her sister. She
was accused of having been an accomplice in the crimes of
Catherine since her marriage. The queen and Lady Rochford were
executed on the 13th of February, within the precincts of the
Tower; Catherine protested even on the scaffold that she had
always been faithful to her spouse, "whatever might have been the
faults of her past life." The bill of attainder against Catherine
Howard made it incumbent on any woman whom the king might admit
to the honour of a union with his sacred person, to make a full
confession before marriage. "The king had better marry a widow,"
it was said among the people. Henry appeared for the moment
disgusted with marriage; he was absorbed in theology, that second
passion of his life, which he treated almost as despotically as
his spouses.
The death of Catherine Howard had not, as might have been
expected, thrown the king back upon the party of the Reformation;
in the month of April, 1542, he retracted the encouragements
which he had given to the reading of the Holy Scriptures; he
prohibited the use of the old version of Tyndal as heretical,
while ordering that the new and authorized translation, without
notes or commentary, should be used exclusively; above all, he
forbade the reading of the Bible in public even by the orthodox,
only permitting the use of the Holy Scriptures in families of the
nobility and gentry.
{251}
People of the inferior class were to be liable to a month's
imprisonment if they dared to open the sacred volume. At the same
time the revision of the _Institution of a Christian Man_,
formerly published by the bishops by order of the king, was
completed. The new work, which appeared in 1543, differed
essentially upon several points from the first one; it was
entitled _The necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any
Christian Man:_ the people named it the _King's Book_,
and the king imposed it in fact as a model of faith upon his
subjects, without troubling himself about the changes which his
own mind had undergone since he had caused the _Bishop's
Book_ to be drawn up. The _King's Book_ inclined more and
more towards the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Like the
first catechism, it insisted upon transubstantiation, oral
confession, and the celibacy of the clergy; it also maintained
the uselessness of communion in both kinds for the faithful, and
recommended masses for the dead. The new Symbol was adopted by
the two convocations of the clergy; all the books which were not
in conformity with it were forbidden, and the primate, Cranmer,
who saw the condemnation of his most cherished convictions, and
the affirmation of the dogmas which he rejected, was charged with
the duty of watching over the execution of the royal orders.
Henry VIII. was accustomed to be obeyed; Cranmer had sent his
wife and children away to Germany, since the celibacy of the
priests had become legally obligatory.
The servile obedience which the king exacted from his subjects in
England was not everywhere exacted with the same rigour; Henry
VIII. had furnished proof of skill and foresight by his
government of the almost independent principalities ranged under
his sceptre.
{252}
In 1536 he had definitively annexed Wales to England, subjecting
the whole territory to English laws, which hitherto had only
ruled in a portion of that country. The Welsh counties had been
admitted to the privilege of sending members to Parliament, as
well as the Palatinate of Chester, hitherto administered
according to local customs. But the most important reform which
King Henry VIII. effected in this respect was the elevation of
Ireland from the rank of a seigniory to that of a kingdom. From
generation to generation the hereditary struggle of the Butlers
under their chiefs, the Earls of Ormond and Ossory, with the
Fitzgeralds, at the head of whom was the Earl of Kildare, had
kept the country in a continual state of agitation; by dint of
political reverses, treasons, acts of perfidy, executions, and
murders, the great Irish Houses had wearied and destroyed each
other, and the government had never failed to interpose to
further the work. In 1541 the king, wishing to secure the
attachment of the more powerful of the Irish chiefs, elevated a
number of them to the honours of the peerage. The eagerness of
the chiefs was extreme: the great noblemen swore fidelity to the
king, undertook military service, and accepted houses at Dublin,
whither they were to repair to sit as members of the Parliament
of Ireland. The king had granted letters patent to them for their
property, which removed their former fears of seeing the English
sovereigns one day confiscate all their estates. The
appropriation of the ecclesiastical property to the crown was
accomplished with prudence; "Do not press them too vigorously,"
said the instructions of Henry VIII.; "but persuade them
discreetly that the Church lands are my legitimate inheritance."
{253}
The Catholic fervour of the Irish had some difficulty in
accepting this mode of succession, but the work proceeded, though
slowly, and did not prevent the progress of English authority in
Ireland from being real and important under the reign of Henry
VIII.
Scotland still remained in a body attached to the old faith. King
James distrusted the treacherous manœuvres of his uncle; he had
sought the hereditary alliances of his House, and his marriage
with Mary of Guise, and the influence which Cardinal David Beaton
exercised over him, had drawn closer the bonds which united him
to France, as well as to the Church of Rome. All the attempts of
the King of England to bring his nephew over to his opinions, and
to induce him to follow the English example by the destruction of
the monasteries, had completely failed. Cardinal Beaton set out
for Rome with secret instructions, a fact which troubled Henry.
Hostilities broke out in the month of August, 1542; an English
army crossed the frontier; they were vigorously repulsed; but the
Duke of Norfolk was advancing with considerable forces; he
received the reinforcements of the Earl of Angus, the
father-in-law of the young king, who had come with all the
members of his family, and who marched, like himself, under the
English banners. The duke had scarcely advanced a few steps into
Scotland when the king reassembled his forces in order to meet
him. But the great noblemen were nearly all disaffected; some
were secretly in favour of the Reformation; they wished to enrich
themselves at the expense of the monasteries; others were bound
by old friendship to the Douglases, and would not fight against
them; nearly all regretted the war with England, and wished to
remain upon the defensive.
{254}
Norfolk having been compelled to beat a retreat, in consequence
of the bad weather and the want of provisions, the king was
anxious to pursue him beyond the frontiers; but his troops
refused to follow him to a second battle of Flodden: one after
another the barons withdrew with their vassals; the king had now
no more than ten thousand men, whom he placed under the command
of Lord Maxwell. This faithful little army suddenly entered
England. As they were crossing the frontier, the favourite of the
king, Oliver Sinclair, produced a warrant which placed him at the
head of the troops. All the noblemen refused to obey his command;
disorder set in among the soldiers; the English fell upon the
Scottish army, made a great slaughter, captured many prisoners of
high rank, and put all the rest to flight. The troops, vanquished
without a struggle, rejoined the king at Carlaverock Castle,
where he awaited the result of the expedition. The blow struck
home; the monarch returned in sadness of heart to Edinburgh, and
took refuge in his castle of Falkland, where he spent long hours,
with his head in his hands, plunged in melancholy thoughts,
without uttering a word. He was thirty-one years of age, his
constitution had always been vigorous, but he was dying of a
broken heart. His wife, Mary of Guise, had borne him two sons,
who had both died in infancy; the birth of a daughter, the
celebrated and unfortunate Mary Stuart, was announced to James
V.; the sadness of the king only became greater.
{255}
"It came through a daughter," he said, remembering the daughter
of Bruce, who had brought the throne to his family, "and it will
return through a daughter." A week afterwards, on the 14th of
December, 1542, James V. expired, leaving his kingdom rent
asunder by political factions and religious dissensions, a prey
to all the evils of a long minority and the prospect of the reign
of a woman. If he had been able to foresee the future, the last
moments of the unhappy king would have been still more gloomy.
Scarcely had King Henry learned the death of his nephew, when he
conceived the project of uniting the little queen, who had just
opened her eyes to the light, with his son Edward, who was not
yet six years of age. The alliance might have been serviceable to
the two countries, but Henry claimed to take immediate possession
of Scotland in the name of the future sovereigns, and his greedy
selfishness caused all his designs to miscarry. He had enrolled
in his cause not only all the Douglases, but the Scottish
noblemen made prisoners at the rout of Solway Moss; they returned
to their country determined to betray its most cherished
interests. Cardinal Beaton had claimed the regency, according to
a presumed will of the king, but the Earl of Arran, the heir
presumptive to the throne and chief of the Protestant party, had
been powerful enough to dispossess the cardinal; he held him
imprisoned in Blackness Castle. The influence of the Catholic
clergy over the common people and a certain portion of the
nobility was considerable; the churches were closed, worship
suspended, and the clergy worked ardently against the regent, who
lent for support upon the Douglases and their friends, who had
come back into favour with him.
{256}
The public voice accused the noblemen of treason and perfidy; the
King of England urged them to perform their engagements. He
claimed the right to hold in his hands Cardinal Beaton, and
demanded the surrender of the fortresses. The truce was only to
last until the month of June, and the English troops were already
assembling in the northern counties; but public opinion in
Scotland was aroused, and Sir George Douglas, the most active of
the conspirators in the interest of England, assured King Henry
that it would be impossible to lay claim on his behalf to the
government of Scotland. "There would be no boys so little that
they would not throw stones," he said, "nor a woman who would not
raise her spindle. The commoners would willingly give their
lives; many noblemen and all the clergy would do likewise rather
than consent to it." The Catholic party, uniting the cause of
religious liberty with that of the State, opposed both the
reading of the New Testament by the common people and the
alliance with England. The restoration to liberty of the cardinal
was also claimed. All the noblemen repaired to Parliament, and
the question of the marriage was there proposed without any
opposition; but none dared to speak of the conditions attached by
the King of England to this union so much desired by all, and
Parliament, while approving of the project of marriage, strongly
recommended that care should be taken not to send the little
queen to England, at the same time taking the most jealous
precautions for the maintenance of the national independence.
{257}
The anger of King Henry equalled his aspirations; he heaped the
most violent reproaches upon his Scottish allies, at the same
time endeavouring to attach them once more to his service by new
promises. They protested their good will, but pleaded their
powerlessness. Cardinal Beaton had regained his liberty, and
opposed to the Earl of Arran the Earl of Lennox, an ally of the
royal family, who had served with Francis I. in the wars in
Italy. The treaties were renewed; the hand of the little queen
was promised to Prince Edward; she was to be left in Scotland,
until the age of ten years; an English nobleman and his family
were to form part of her household. But besides these open and
reasonable conditions there was "a secret understanding;" all the
conspirators engaged in the service of Henry promised in case of
need to take up arms in his interest and to fight for him until
he should have obtained "the things agreed upon," or at least
dominion over this side of the Firth, that is to say, over all
the southern portion of Scotland.
The treaty was scarcely concluded when Cardinal Beaton raised an
army in the north, and employed it from the first to carry off
the queen and her mother, in order to place them in safety in
Stirling Castle. After having signed the conditions with England,
he suddenly changed his party, became reconciled with Beaton,
abjured his errors, and returned to the bosom of the Catholic
Church. France had sent reinforcements, and notwithstanding the
assistance of Lennox, who had abandoned the patriots, the
conspirators found themselves once more baffled in their attempts
by the national movement brought about by Beaton.
{258}
The assistance rendered to the Scots by the King of France,
excited the anger of Henry VIII.; he nourished an old grievance
against that prince, for whom he had no liking, notwithstanding
their frequent alliances, and he resolved to throw himself once
more into the arms of the Emperor. Without effacing the stain of
illegitimacy which he himself had imprinted upon his daughters,
he caused both Mary and Elizabeth to be reinstated in their civil
rights by an act of Parliament, restoring to them also their
title to the throne. Charles V. contented himself with this
concession, and concluded an alliance with England. Emissaries
were sent to the King of France, with a mass of claims, to which
Francis I. would not even listen, and great preparations were
begun for the invasion of the French territory. Henry had
recently married for the sixth time: he had espoused Lady
Catharine Parr, the widow of Lord Latimer. She was beautiful,
intelligent and ardently devoted to the Protestant party; the
latter fact, however, did not prevent the execution, a fortnight
after the royal marriage, of three _sacramentarians_, burned
alive at Smithfield.
The first detachment sent to France under the command of Sir John
Wallop in 1540, had completely failed in their attempt, when the
king came in person at the head of an army of thirty thousand
men, to lay siege to Boulogne. The two allied monarchs had agreed
to march directly upon Paris, but sieges had an irresistible
attraction for Henry VIII., and he had not yet made his entry
into the town, which delayed him for two months, when the Emperor
entered into negotiations with Francis I. at Crespy-en-Valois.
{259}
Thus they left the King of England, who had scornfully rejected
the proposals of peace, free to return to his dominions after his
conquest of Boulogne, exhausted by the efforts which he had had
to make to raise his army and to maintain at the same time the
forces which were carrying on the war in Scotland.
Intrigue upon intrigue, treachery upon treachery succeeded each
other amongst the Scottish factions: sometimes the Catholics and
Protestants became reconciled through their hatred of England; at
others some deed of violence estranged them again. Beaton, more
bold and skilful than his rivals, nearly always preserved his
ascendancy, but his cruel persecution of the reformers incensed a
considerable part of the nation. The English had made several
irruptions into Scotland, under the orders of Lord Hertford and
his lieutenants; they committed great cruelties, and finally
found themselves shamefully repulsed in the environs of Ancrum.
The secret manœuvres of Henry VIII., the relations which he still
maintained with the nobility, and the perfidy of a certain number
of great barons prevented the Scots, however, from profiting by
their advantages and by the reinforcements sent by Francis I.;
the southern counties of Scotland were again ravaged by the Earl
of Hertford; a fatal manifestation of the fanaticism of Cardinal
Beaton occurred to add strength to the English arms and
intrigues. A reformed preacher, George Wishart, celebrated among
his party and passionately loved by the people, was pursued,
seized, and burned alive at St. Andrew's, amidst great public
indignation.
{260}
For a long time past the assassination of Cardinal Beaton, whom
Henry VIII. regarded as the principle obstacle to his projects
against Scotland, was meditated; the moment appeared favourable,
and, on the 28th of May, 1546, two gentlemen of the name of
Lesley, with whom the cardinal had had great personal quarrels,
accompanied by some friends, took Beaton by surprise in the
castle of St. Andrews, and stabbed him in his bed. Norman Lesley
hung the corpse on the wall, as the inhabitants of the town were
advancing to the help of the legate. "There is your God," he
said, "now you should be content; return to your homes." All the
assassins received pensions from abroad, and hastened to claim
the reward of their crime. King Henry had been mistaken in his
hopes; the Church of Rome in Scotland had received a fatal blow,
but the national independence remained erect. The embarrassments
of the finances were increasing in England; Boulogne was closely
pressed by the French. Henry VIII. was now suffering from
ill-health; he concluded a treaty at Campes with King Francis I.,
and the Scots were included therein, to the great vexation of
their implacable foe. Francis I. promised money; the sum once
paid, England was to surrender Boulogne, which town had been
fortified at great expense since its capture. It was the end of
the campaigns of King Henry VIII., which had almost uniformly
proved ruinous, and without any substantial results; and which
had rarely been otherwise when the monarch placed himself
personally at the head of his troops. The hostile armies did not
allow themselves to be conquered as easily as England allowed
itself to be oppressed.
{261}
So many checks abroad, together with the constant pecuniary
embarrassments entailed by his prodigalities at home, completed
the embitterment of the terrible character of the despot, who was
now slowly dying in his palace at Whitehall. Addicted from the
earliest time to the pleasures of the table, he had acquired an
enormous corpulence, which rendered the least movements difficult
to him. He had a difficulty in signing his name, and could not
take a step without the assistance of his attendants. He suffered
from an ulcer in the leg, and his morose disposition had
completely metamorphosed his court, formerly so brilliant. None
dared to raise his voice in favour of the most innocent victims.
A lady who had access to the court, Anne Askew, young, beautiful,
and learned, passionately attached to the doctrines of the
Reformation, had left her husband and children to come to London
to preach the Gospel; she was arrested and conducted before
Bishop Bonner, who caused her to sign a confession of faith in
conformity with the doctrines of the Catholic Church. But the
zeal of Anne did not abate; she continued to preach: being again
arrested, she was tried and condemned as a heretic. Her
prosecutors were anxious to make her avow the means which she had
made use of in order to spread the forbidden books amongst the
ladies of the queen, and they put her to the torture to compel
her to denounce her friends. "I have no friends at court," she
repeated; "I have never been supported by any member of the
council." The courage of Anne Askew remained firm at the stake as
under the torture of the "wooden horse;" she died praising God in
company with a gentleman of the King's household, named
Lascelles, and two others equally dangerous heretics, who would
not except [accept?] the doctrine of transubstantiation.
{262}
While he was ordering these executions, King Henry VIII. was
delivering his last discourse to Parliament, grieving at the lack
of brotherly love amongst his subjects: "Charity was never so
faint amongst you, and virtuous and godly living was never less
used, nor God Himself among Christians was never less reverenced,
honoured, or served. Therefore be in charity one with another,
like brother and brother; love, dread, and serve God; to the
which, as your supreme Head and Sovereign Lord, I exhort and
require you."
Perhaps Queen Catherine Parr suspected that the king needed upon
his own account those religious exhortations which he had always
so liberally bestowed upon his people, for she attempted, it is
said, to discuss with him certain points in theology which she
had studied in the heretical books, probably those very
publications which Anne Askew had caused to be introduced into
the royal household--a dangerous experiment which she had
occasion to repent. The king flew into a violent passion. "A good
hearing this," he exclaimed, "when women become such clerks, and
a thing much to my comfort, to come in my old age to be taught by
my wife!" The sword which had threatened Catherine so long was on
the point of falling. Gardiner and Wriothesley, the new
chancellor, ardent Roman Catholics, received the order to prepare
the impeachment of the queen. She was warned in time; she was
intelligent and skilful.
[Image]
Catherine Discussing Theology With The King.
{263}
When in the eventide the conversation turned again upon religious
questions, the king appeared to urge her to speak; she began to
laugh, "I am not so foolish as not to know what I can
understand," she said, "when I possess the favour of having for a
master and a spouse a prince so learned in holy matters." "By St.
Mary!" exclaimed the king, "it is not so, Kate; thou hast become
a doctor." The queen continued to laugh. "I thought I noticed,"
she said, "that that conversation diverted your Grace's attention
from your sufferings, and I ventured to discuss with you in the
hope of making you forget your present infirmity." "Is it so,
sweetheart?" replied the king, "then we are friends again, and it
doth me more good than if I had received a hundred thousand
pounds." The orders given to the chancellor had not been revoked;
he arrived on the morrow with forty men of his guard to arrest
Catherine, but the king sent him away angrily. Catherine Parr
henceforth left theology in peace.
A few more executions were wanting to light up the dismal valley
of death into which the king felt himself descending; the
jealousies of the political chiefs of the great factions which
divided the country were about to furnish matter for the last
deeds of violence of the dying monarch. The ancient and
illustrious house of the Howards and its chief, the Duke of
Norfolk, had observed with vexation the growing power and
influence of the Earl of Hertford and of the family of the
Seymours. The wealth, as well as the past renown of the Howards,
had nothing to fear from the new rival who had sprung up beside
them; but Lord Hertford was uncle to the heir to the throne,
which gave him much power in the future, he wished to secure
himself against any fatal mishap by striking his enemies
beforehand.
{264}
The distrust and jealousy of King Henry VIII. were easily
excited; the old Duke of Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey,
were arrested on the 12th of December, 1546, and taken to the
Tower. At the same time, in the presence of several witnesses,
the king erased their names from the list of his testamentary
executors. The precautions had been well taken. Advantage had
been taken of the bad terms which had for a long time existed
between the Duke of Norfolk and his wife, between the Earl of
Surrey and his sister, the Duchess of Richmond, to search the
papers and coffers of the family, in order to discover some
tokens of treason. The ladies had even been arrested, and had
been severely interrogated; but all that could be alleged in the
impeachment was that Lord Surrey had quartered with his own arms
the royal arms of Edward the Confessor. The old Duke of Norfolk
had, it was said, been guilty of seditious utterances regarding
the death of the king while manifesting his dissatisfaction at
the reforms of the Church. His trial had not commenced when Lord
Surrey was brought to Guildhall to reply to his accusers. He was
young, handsome, valiant; he was learned and cultivated; his
poems are still famous. He defended himself with as much
intelligence as courage, proving that he was authorized by the
decisions of the heralds-at-arms to bear the arms of Edward the
Confessor, which he had constantly displayed in the presence of
the king without his Majesty having discovered anything to find
fault with. The court declared, however, that this simple matter
of royal arms betrayed pretensions to the throne; Surrey was
condemned, and on the 19th of January the flower of English
chivalry perished upon the scaffold, while King Henry VIII. was
already at the point of death.
{265}
Norfolk had in vain demanded to be confronted with his accusers;
he had written to the king, and his letters had remained without
a reply. Henry VIII. when dying, had not forgotten the convenient
arm which he had wielded so long; the old duke, alarmed and
wearied, had even gone so far as to make a gift of all his
property to the sovereign, begging him to secure them for Prince
Edward. The experienced politician knew that it would be easier
for his posterity to regain some day the riches concentrated in
the hands of the sovereign, than to snatch them from the hands of
the greedy courtiers, who were already in expectation sharing
them amongst themselves; but this manœuvre was not successful in
saving him; the confession which preceded his donation served as
a basis for the bill of attainder, which was voted by the House
of Commons on the 20th of January, 1547. The king was no longer
able to sign. On the 27th the Chancellor Wriothesley informed the
two Houses that his Majesty had chosen delegates to ratify the
condemnation, and the order was despatched to the Lieutenant of
the Tower to execute the Duke of Norfolk on the 28th, early in
the morning. On the same night Henry VIII. expired, after a reign
of thirty-seven years. On the last day only had the bolder of his
courtiers dared to suggest to him the possibility of a near end,
and proposed to bring a priest to him. "No other than Archbishop
Cranmer," he said, "but not yet; when I shall have rested." When
the archbishop was at length asked for, the king could no longer
speak; Cranmer reminded him of the mercy of God through Jesus
Christ, and Henry grasped the hand of the prelate with his
remaining strength; a moment afterwards he was no more.
{266}
For some years past, endeavours have been made to place the
memory of King Henry VIII. in a more favourable light. No one has
laboured in this direction with more zeal and ability than Mr.
Froude; but no party passions can annihilate the facts of
history; the personal character of the king must still be
regarded as corrupt and cruel; relations with him were fatal to
all who approached him, wives and ministers. A despotic and
arbitrary, violent and unjust monarch, he was at the same time a
capricious and perfidious ally, a vain and harsh pedant. The
reform which he undertook in England was the work of his private
interest and his tyrannical pride, not of a settled and sincere
conviction. In his heart he still remained a Catholic and only
wished to rid himself of the supremacy of the Pope, who thwarted
him and of the monasteries, the spoliation of which enriched him.
Illegalities and abuses of all kinds were increasing with the
servility of Parliament, the long duration of the reign and the
development of the vices of the king. At the period of his death
no one in England dared any longer to raise his head.
Notwithstanding so many crimes, oppressions and errors, England
had grown under the reign of Henry VIII.; the king had
overwhelmed his people with taxes, but he had maintained public
order, and favoured the development of commerce; he had
persecuted Catholics and Protestants, but by separating violently
from the court of Rome, he had implanted in English soil the germ
of that religious liberty which was destined never to perish: he
had laboured to construct a strange structure, mingled with
strange contradictions and he had called it the Church of England
in order to place himself at its head as the supreme chief, but
he had imprinted upon English reform its peculiar character, at
once governmental and liberal, aristocratic and popular.
{267}
He infamously plundered the monasteries, but he thereby involved
in the party of reform the great noblemen enriched by the spoils;
he shed upon the scaffold the noblest blood of England, but he
followed the policy of his father, in elevating to the summit
obscure men drawn from that growing middle class which was one
day to constitute the greatness and strength of his country.
Without brilliant military genius, without great political
talents, he had contrived to maintain himself abroad as the
respected arbiter of the greatest sovereigns of Europe, causing
the scale to incline to the side to which his capricious vanity
impelled him. The royal coffers were full at the death of Henry
VII.; they were empty at the death of his son, notwithstanding
the enormous exactions which had filled them so many times; but
sixty years of comparative peace had enriched the nation, so long
crushed under the weight of civil and foreign wars; it had
regained its breath. In vain had Henry VIII. oppressed it; in
vain had he reduced Parliament to servile dependence; the new
spirit inspired by the reformation had done its work; in spite of
the stake, religious sects were already multiplying; the day of
the Puritans was about to dawn; the obstinate resistance of
weakness under a powerful oppression was already preparing.
Protestant England had sprung into existence.
{268}