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Cardinal Wolsey

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HISTORY Of ENGLAND - By - H. W. DULCKEN P.H.D.

Published By - Ward Lock & Co Limited - 1903

HENRY VIII

THE crown of England now passed, to the great joy of the nation into the possession of a king who promised a very different state of things just eighteen years old, a gallant young prince, a great joy to the nation, coming to the throne Henry VIII. was skilled in knightly accomplishments and athletic exercises apparently open and frank in disposition, and a man rather likely to scatter with a liberal hand the treasures his father had amassed, than to increase the hoard his father had amassed . He was proclaimed king on the, 22nd of April 1509; on the 3rd. of June he married Catherine of Aragon, and on the 24th of June he was crowned with great magnificence with his queen in Westminster Abbey.

Henry retained around him the counsellors of his father. Empson and Dudley and their chief agents were promptly arrested ; nothing short of the lives of the chief offenders would satisfy the nation. Empson made a strong and eloquent defence. Accordingly an absurd charge was brought forward against them, of having conspired to keep the present king out of his rights, and they were executed for treason against King Henry VIII. The question of restitution was allowed to drop.

At the time of Henry's accession a great and important contest was proceeding on the continent of Europe. Charles VIII.of France and Ferdinand of Aragon each set up a claim to the possession of Naples ; and Louis XII., Charles's successor, took possession of the duchy of Milan. The Emperor Maximilian, on the other hand, had certain feudal rights in Italy which he endeavoured to enforce, while the warlike Pope Julius II. was anxious to oust all strangers from Italy, and to humble the pride of the Venetian republic; and thus in the league of Cambrai, the Emperor, the King of France, and Ferdinand of Spain united their arms against Venice. Soon afterwards two of the confederates were at odds with each other. A quarrel arose between the Pope and the King of France, in which Maximilian and Ferdinand took the side of Pope Julius, and the crafty Ferdinand persuaded the young English king to join his arms with theirs. Ferdinand persuaded Henry that it would be advantageous to occupy Guienne. The Marquis of Dorset was accordingly despatcled with Howard, the Earl of Surrey, and other brave leaders to the South. Ferdinand played so skilfully upon the fears of the court of Navarre, that after a time the little kingdom submitted, and was annexed to the throne of Spain. The Marquis of Dorset, who had repeatedly and impatiently desired to advance, was now told that the march must be to Bearn, and not to Guienne, upon which he angrily refused to move. A herald was sent to Dorset, enjoining him to be guided by the directions of the Spanish court. But by this time his troops had become mutinous. They insisted on being sent home, and Christmas, 1512, saw them back in England, having effected nothing. Henry had now determined to lead an army into France in person. Sir Edward Howard, the admiral, a man daring to a fault, had made several attacks on the coast of Brittany; and on the 12th of August, 1512, an action had been fought, in which the Cordelier and the Regent, the largest ships of the French and English fleets respectively, were burnt. In 1513 the command was then taken by Sir Thomas Howard, who cleared the Channel of the enemy.

Henry brought together an army of 25,000 men in the spring of 1513. In May he sent the advanced division to Calais ; he himself followed on the 30th of June, leaving Catherine of Aragon regent in his absence. King Henry lingered at Calais for a week or two. At the end of July he proceeded to Terouenne, which had already been invested by Lord Herbert, and where he was joined by the Emperor Maximilian. Meanwhile, the French king was advancing to the relief of Terouenne. On the 6th of August, the main body of the French army advanced to Plagni in two bodies, on the banks of the river Lis. The army of Henry and Maximilian's horsemen went forth to oppose them and then was fought the battle of Guinegate, more generally known as the "Battle of the Spurs," from the sudden panic that seized the French cavalry, and induced them to put their horses to their utmost speed, in flight, when scarcely a blow had been struck. Henry wasted another week before Terouenne, which then capitulated, the garrison being allowed to march out with the honours of war. On the advice of Maximilian, the town was dismantled. Henry now laid siege to Tournay, a French town which, by its position with regard to Flanders, might give Maximilian much annoyance. Here again Henry was playing the game of the Austrian monarch, as he had before played that of Ferdinand of Aragon. But he was at this time already much under the influence of his almoner, Thomas Wolsey, who played so important a part in the politics of his reign ; and Maximilian had enlisted Wolsey's co-operation in his schemes by the promise, which he honestly fulfilled, of the rich bishopric of Tournay. Henry entered Tournay in triumph on the 22nd of September, and Henry presently returned to England, after a campaign which had cost enormous sums of money and effected little

Several causes of quarrel had arisen between Henry and his brother in-law, James IV. of Scotland. Certain jewels left by will to Queen Margaret by Henry VII. had not been delivered up. Robert Ker warden of the Marches, had been slain by Sir Hugh the Heron, of Ford nor had the satisfaction been given which the Scottish king somewhat unreasonably demanded for the death of a plundering sea-captain, Sir Andrew Barton. James found his alliance warmly sought by Louis XII., and had accordingly despatched ships and men to co-operate with the French king. When Henry was besieging Terouenne, there came into his camp Scottish heralds bearing a defiance and a declaration of war. Henry entrusted the conduct of the Scottish war to the Earl of Surrey. On August 22nd James crossed the Tweed into England, with North. a numerous army. After taking Norham and several other border fortresses, James encamped on Flodden Hill, the last of the Cheviot range, near the valley of the Tweed, and awaited the attack of his enemy in a strong and well-chosen position.

Seeing that James would not abandon his strong position, Surrey moved towards Scotland, the English army marching up the right bank of the river Till, which they crossed at Twisel Bridge early next morning, the 9th of September. The English advanced to give battle, and the Scots marched down from the higher ground to meet them.

At first the Scottish spear men , under Lord Home, obtained an advantage over the right wing of the English vanguard, but the position was retrieved by the advance of the right wing, the centre being protected by a valiant charge of Lord Dacre with the English cavalry. The followers of Home and Huntley, who consisted of borderers, fell to plunder, and dispersed themselves over the field; but the Scottish left wing made a long and gallant defence with spears against the furious cavalry charges. Huntley and Home were driven back; but the fortune of the field was for a time retrieved in that quarter by the Earls of Crawford and Montrose, who in turn threw the right wing of the English into confusion. The Earl of Surrey advanced with the whole English centre. King James on his side came forward with the Scottish centre. And when Lord Bothwell brought the Scottish reserve into action, for a while victory inclined to the ruddy lion of Scotland. But the wild Highlanders of the right wing insisted on quitting their ranks, as if the struggle could be decided by the headlong valour of a fierce charge; and all the efforts of their leaders were powerless to remedy the confusion they caused by utterly breaking the line, and rendering maneuvering impossible. The English stood firm in their ranks, which their wild antagonists endeavoured in vain to break. Lord Stanley now swooped down upon the right flank and centre of the king's host, taking it in the rear; and a combined attack by Surrey in front, and Admiral Howard and Lord Dacre on the left, decided the fortunes of the day. James himself fell, pierced with an arrow, and his head cloven by a battle-axe , within a spear's length of the Earl of Surrey. The battle had begun at four in the afternoon, and was maintained until night closed in upon the corpse-strewn field, and hid the combatants from one another.

The loss on the Scottish side was tremendous. "Scarce a Scottish family of eminence but has an ancestor killed at Flodden ," says Sir Walter Scott. Wild rumours were afterwards rife with regard to the fate of the king, some accounts insisting that he had escaped the carnage of that fatal day, and had been seen alive at Kelso after the fight. But there is no doubt that the body, fully identified in spite of many wounds, and conveyed successively to Berwick, Newcastle, and Sheen, in Surrey, was that of the unfortunate king. In consequence of this victory, the Earl of Surrey was made Duke of Norfolk, Charles Brandon, Lord Lisle, became Earl of Suffolk, and Sir Edward Stanley was raised to the peerage as Lord Mounteagle.

Lord Surrey abstained from following up his victory by an advance into Scotland; he entered Berwick, strengthened the garrisons in that and in other places, and then dismissed the greater part of his army. The widowed Queen Margaret was appointed regent. for her infant son, and was left undisturbed by Henry, who, moreover, was fully employed on the Continent at the time. Friendly relations were re-established, and continued to be maintained between the Scottish and English courts.

Louis XII. skilfully contrived to make peace with the German Empire, with the court of Rome, and with Ferdinand of Spain. He proposed a marriage between Charles, the grand-son of Maximilian, and his second daughter, the Princess Renee, to whom he offered to transfer his claims to Milan. When Henry VIII. heard of the proposed union, he was greatly enraged against Maximilian, for Charles had been affianced, by Philip the Handsome, to Mary, Henry's sister. At this time Anne of Brittany, the wife of the French king, died, and Louis, thus left free, though he was fifty-three years of age, and Mary only sixteen, proposed himself as a husband for the beautiful young princess. Henry eagerly listened to the proposal. The marriage was celebrated with much pomp, and the King of France seemed to look with doting fondness on his fair young wife. But in a few weeks afterwards Louis XII. died, and Mary was left a widow. As she had contracted her first marriage to please her brother, she seems to determined that in her second she would please herself, and accordingly informed her admirer, the handsome young Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, who was sent with other lords by Henry, to bring her home to England, that he must wed her at once or never. Brandon accordingly married Mary privately in Paris. Henry, after a decent interval of displeasure, received them both into favour again. It is said they were largely indebted for their reinstatement in the king's good graces to the famous Cardinal Wolsey.

This eminent Churchman and courtier was the son of a wealthy butcher of lpswich. He was intended for the Church, and received a good education he had the good fortune to be introduced to the notice of Bishop Fox. Recommended by Bishop Fox to Henry VII., Wolsey acquitted himself with such diligence and discretion in all matters in which he was employed by the king, that he completely won the astute monarch's confidence. Henry VIII. continued towards the talented Churchman the favour his predecessor had shown. Wolsey was made royal almoner, and showed himself as able to adapt himself to the humours of a gay young king as to the designs of a politic old one. No one surpassed him in ability to arrange a feast or a pageant. This sprightly demeanour highly pleased the king. At the same time the astute Churchman did not neglect business, and soon proved himself a ready and reliable counsellor.

Wolsey became successively Dean of York, Bishop of Lincoln, and Archbishop of York, in 1514. In the next year a cardinal's hat was sent to him by the pope, and three years afterwards he was made papal legate. His revenues were enormous, and were derived alike from ecclesiastical and mundane sources. He rode out with a train worthy of a sovereign prince. His retinue, consisting of eight hundred persons, appeared, like himself, in unusual splendour. Wolsey certainly did not hoard his wealth. His benefactions to the poor were princely in their number and amount. "They that lived in that age," writes a chronicler, "would not stick to say that this country never flourished more than when Wolsey did; to whose wisdom they attributed the wealth and safety they enjoyed, and the due administration of justice to all without exception." But in his dealing with foreign courts Wolsey appears to have been actuated by his desire to wear the papal crown.

King Louis XII, of France, was succeeded, on his death, by his cousin, Francis I. The new king made himself master of the Milanese territory; and when, in 1519, the Emperor Maximilian died, Francis became a candidate for the imperial throne. The choice of the elector princes, in fact, lay between him and the young Charles, the grandson of Maximilian. Each of them was anxious to secure the suffrage and assistance of the King of England. It was in 1520 that Francis summoned Henry, in pursuance of an article in their late treaty, to that conference known as the "Field of the Cloth of Gold." The place chosen for the meeting was between Guisnes and Ardres, not far from Calais, and within the pale of the English territories. On the 21st of May, Henry set out for the Continent, with his retinue ; but at Canterbury he received the news that the Emperor Charles V., being on his way from Spain to Flanders, had put into Hythe with his fleet, intending to pay his respects, in passing, to Queen Catherine of Aragon, his aunt, and to the King of England. He was received with all honour and when Charles departed, and the English court resumed its journey to the Continent, the wily and politic emperor, by attaching Wolsey to his own interests, had counteracted in advance any profit that the French monarch might obtain.

The Field of the Cloth of Gold is celebrated as an instance of the magnificent folly of two prodigal kings. At Guisnes a great temporary palace of wood had been erected, and gaily and lavishly decorated with tapestries and silken hanging; in a style of fantastic magnificence. Great fountains ran with red and white wines, and claret Cloth of gold and velvet and silken ropes were lavishly used in the adornment of this pavilion, and in the corresponding building erected at Ardres for the use of the French king. The serious business of the meeting began with, a treaty for the marriage of the Dauphin with Mary the daughter of Henry, and a large yearly sum was agreed upon, to be paid on the completion of the marriage. The two kings then appeared arm-in-arm, with ostentatious demonstrations of confidence and friendship ; and after a few days the joustings and tournaments began. Henry himself, with Charles Brandon and other courtiers, appeared as champions for England, while King Francis and his nobles entered the lists to maintain the honour of France tried to outdo the other in expense and magnificence; and many nobles half ruined themselves by the cost of their equipment and the gorgeousness of their trains.

All this expense and magnificence produced no lasting effect, so far as the two nations and their relation towards each other were concerned. After a fortnight of unexampled feastings and expense the meeting broke up ; and on his return, Henry and the cardinal visited, at Gravelines, the cautious emperor, who, with his court, had kept aloof from the pageants and revelry of the Field of the Cloth of Cold, and by promises and gifts to Wolsey, and the Emperor by flatteries skilfully administered to Henry, contrived to neutralize the effect the courtesy and magnificence of Francis had for a time produced. Charles escorted the English king back to Calais, and spent three days with him there. Within a short time England and France were again at war.

Prominent among the nobility for wealth and magnificence was Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, the son of that duke who, to gain the throne, had revolted against Richard III. and perished on the scaffold at Salisbury. Buckinghain traced his descent from Edward Ill., and was also related to John of Gaunt; thus he represented the Plantagenet family, a race always looked on with jealousy by the Tudors. The duke had, it is said incurred the enmity of the all-powerful Wolsey by outspoken words of blame on the useless expense of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Bishop Godwin tells us that Buckingham could by no means bear with the intolerable pride of the cardinal. The duke had certainly aroused Henry's jealousy by the splendour and number of the retinue he maintained, and by appearing too much like a sovereign prince in the eyes of the people at a time when the succession was in anything but an assured state; for the king had only one daughter, the Lady Mary. Suddenly the duke was arrested and conveyed to the Tower on a charge of high treason.

The accusations brought against him were vague and incomplete. The duke was declared to be meditating the putting forward of his own son as successor to the throne of England. The accusation set forth that he had hearkened to the prophecies of a Carthusian friar, one Nicholas Hopkins. Buckingham was stated to have uttered threats against the king's life. He defended himself with equal firmness and modesty, alleging that the accusations, even if proved, did not amount to high treason, as no overt act had been committed ; hut he was found guilty, and sentence of death was pronounced upon him. On the 17th of May, 1521, he was executed on Tower Hill, amid the groans and lamentations of a vast crowd, for the people loved the duke for his princely liberality; and many execrations were uttered against "the butchers son," to whose rancour and malice the ruin of the duke was attributed.

The principles of government in England had become more arbitrary. From 1516 to 1523 no parliament was called, the cardinal, acting for his imperious master, representing the government of England. Though Henry began his reign with and the great advantage of a treasury filled to overflowing, his sumptuous tastes and love of magnillcence had exhausted the fund, and recourse was frequently had to benevolences, forced loans, and other illegal means to supply the coffers of the State.
On the death of the magnificent Medicean pope, Leo X., in 1520, Wolsey had already announced himself as a candidate for the papal throne and King Henry, with whom he was in the highest favour seconded his pretensions. But, on the other hand, the French and Italian cardinals, and especially Julius de Medici, looked with jealousy on the efforts of an Englishman to secure the supreme position in the Church; and by the covert influence of Charles, who never was sincere in his attachment to Wolsey's interests, the Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht was chosen. In 1522 Charles visited England, and was received at Dover with great distinction, and with every appearance of friendship, alike by the cardinal and the king. Thus England was committed to the policy of warfare against France, and in the autumn of 1522 the Earl of Surrey invaded France with 16,000 men, reinforced by German and Spanish cavalry. Surrey effected nothing of importance in France. The season was far advanced, the weather tempestuous. and the army not very efficient. After a few weeks the English leader was to retire with his troops to Calais.

Francis had meanwhile endeavored, and not without success, to procure for himself an ally, by rousing up the old feeling of enmity in Scotland against the English; and a large army was raised for the invasion of England. But Scotland was torn by the quarrels of the Queen Margaret with the Duke of Albany, the regent. After numerous fluctuations of fortune, the Earl of Angus, Margaret's second husband, from whom she had become alienated chiefly through her own misconduct, assumed the regency, with the full consent of Henry, with whose plans a Scottish war at that juncture would have ill accorded.

The next year 1523, saw a parliament assembled, after an interval of seven years. In this parliament Sir Thomas More was chosen speaker. He had the patriotic courage to stand up for the privileges of parliament, when Wolsey, wishing to frighten the Commons into passing a bill for raising £80,000 by means of a property tax, came down to the House with a great retinue, to argue the matter personally with the House whereupon More told the cardinal courteously, but firmly, that the members were not bound to answer any questions put by Wolsey, and that he, as speaker, was bound to act only upon instructions received from the House. When the papal throne again became vacant, it was bestowed, not upon Wolsey, but on Julius de Medici, the nephew of Leo X., who was elected with the title of Clement VII. On this occasion Wolsev became convinced that the Emperor Charles was insincere. Accordingly, the policy of the king's government was completely changed; an alliance offensive and defensive was concluded between the French and English kings. The intended match between the Princess Mary of England and the Emperor Charles was broken off and a marriage with Francis, or with the Duke of Orleans, was proposed as a substitute. The two monarchs, however, did nothing to succour Clement VII. ; and a short time afterwards the pontiff was prisoner in his own capital, which was sacked by the soldiers of the Emperor.

Henry had treated his consort, Catherine of Arragon, with respect and all outward honour during many years. Wolsey, who was highly exasperated against the emperor, entered into the scheme his master now entertained of procuring a divorce from Catherine. The king was fascinated with the charms of Anne Boleyn, the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a member of a wealthy London family, and of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. Her beauty attracted the favourable notice of the king, and when Henry on declaring his passion, found that Anne would be his only on condition that he married her, he eagerly sought to obtain freedom from the bond that united him to Catherine.

It was difficult to procure the divorce that Wolsey was now ordered to obtain. The Pope Clement VII. was a prisoner in the hands of the Emperor Charles V. who looked upon the king's proceedings, in seeking a divorce from Catherine, Charles's aunt, as a deadly insult. Clement accordingly endeavoured to delay giving an answer to the king's application, but was at length induced to send Cardinal Campeggio to England with a commission to try the king's cause in conjunction with Wolsey. At the end of May a court was opened at the Blackfriars Convent, to try the case. henry answered in due form when his name was called; but Catherine made an eloquent appeal to the king, and thereupon retired hastily from the court, in which she never again appeared. Campeggio declared that he must consult the pope, and after taking leave of the English king, returned to Italy.The first result of the king's disappointment was the fall of Wolsey, who, on proceeding to join the court at Grafton, in Northamptonshire, during a progress of the king, was ordered back to London, after being received by his master for the last time. He was accused in the Court of King's Bench of having transgressed the law by acting as the pope's legate in England. A few days later, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk appeared at York Place, with a demand that he should deliver up the great seal. The disgraced courtier was ordered to betake himself to Esher House. Wolsey departed for Esher. He was afterwards allowed to remove from Esher to Richmond, thus coming nearer to the court; but his enemies procured a decree commanding him to proceed to his diocese of York. Thither, most reluctantly, the cardinal took his way. A parliament had been called; and though the House of Lords had declared a charge of forty-four articles proved against him, the Commons, moved by the eloquent appeal of Thomas Cromwell, who had been secretary to Wolsey, threw out the indictment. Henry's conduct towards him was marked by an amount of caprice that shows he must have been influenced by Wolsey's enemies. In the North the cardinal made himself exceedingly popular by his rigid discharge of his duties, and by his courteous and kindly bearing to all who approached him. But the final blow was now to fall upon him. While residing at Cawood, near York, the Earl of Northumberland came to arrest him on a charge of high treason. The fallen minister was carried off in custody, amid the tears and blessings of the peasantry. At Lord Shrewsbury's castle of Sheffield he was compelled to rest for a fortnight Thence he proceeded to Leicester ; but at the abbey he was compelled to alight with the words "Father Abbot, I am come to leave my bones among you." He took to his bed, from which he never rose again. The words, immortalized by Shakespeare, Death of at this time spoken by him to Kingston, the lieutenant of the Tower, are infinitely pathetic. "And, Master Kingston, this I will say, had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs. Howbeit, this is my just reward for my pains and diligence, not regarding my service to God, but only my duty to my prince." He died on the 29th of November, 1530, in his sixtieth year.

An embassy to the emperor, headed by Anne Boleyn's father, the Earl of Wiltshire, and an appeal to the pope, had failed to advance the matter of the divorce. Cranmer had advised the reference to learned doctors and foreign universities ; a bolder man now came forward with the advice that the king should disregard the authority of the pope altogether, and make himself the head of the Church in England. This was Thomas Cromwell, who, after he had served Wolsey with rare fidelity, had been taken into the service of the king. The proposal exactly suited the despotic temper of the king, who resolved to act on Cromwell's advice. Various laws for the abolition of the papal authority in England occupied the attention of parliament from that time. So seriously were the powers of the Church circumscribed by the enactments passed in 1532, that the chancellor, Sir Thomas More, a zealous Catholic, solicited and obtained permission to retire, whereupon the great seat was entrusted to Sir Thomas Audley. But while Henry thus arrogated to himself the power of a pope in England, he was Inexorable with regard to any heresy against the doctrines of the Church, and various persons were burnt for heretical opinions. Cranmer was at this time advanced to the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury, which office, we are told, he accepted most unwillingly, foreseeing the troublous times that were in store for the Church in England; but the king's will was not to be disputed. Cranmer had, moreover adopted the doctrines and practice of the Reformation in Germany, and had even gone so far, during his residence in Germany, as to marry . Meanwhile the Queen Catherine retired to Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, still maintaining her protest against the proceedings of the English court, and persevering in her appeal to the pope. But the kings impatience would brook no further delay. On the 25th of January, 1533, he was secretly married, by one of his chaplains, to Anne, who had been already raised to the dignity of Marchioness of Pembroke. A court, convened at Dunstable, summoned Catherine to appear; oil her refusal, the tribunal pronounced the marriage between her and the king null and void. Anne had already appeared in public as a queen, and on the 1st of June she was crowned. On the 7th of September she gave birth to a daughter, destined to rule in England as Queen Elizabeth.

During the next year various statutes were passed, all tending to free the Church in England from the papal authority, such as the forbidding of all monetary gifts to Rome; the transfer of the powers of licensing and dispensing from the pope to the Archbishop of Canterbury; the prohibition to publish in England any decree or bull of the pope; and an act which required all persons holding office to take an oath to the king as head of the Church. A law was also passed to regulate the succession, which was fixed in the issue of the king's second marriage, his union with Catherine of Arragon being declared null and void. Soon afterwards two of the worthiest men in England fell under the penalties of this bill - Fisher, the venerable Bishop of Rochester, and the ex-chancellor, Sir Thomas More, who would not acknowledge the nullity of the king's first marriage. They were both committed to the Tower.

The spirit of persecution was presently awakened and embittered by the events connected with Elizabeth Barton, known as the Holy Maid of Kent. This poor woman suffered from epileptic fits, and this fact was turned to account by a priest named Masters, and his confederates, who put into the mouth of the poor woman words that were afterwards spread abroad as prophecies and revelations. Elizabeth took up her parable strongly against the king's second marriage. She even went so far as to denounce speedy death on Henry in the event of his persisting in his sin. But as the proceedings of the Holy Maid of Kent and her confederates were becoming dangerous, they were arrested and brought before the Star Chamber. The nun and Masters, with four confederates, were soon after executed at Tyburn. Though in general the king's supremacy in the Church was acknowledged, there were some who questioned it; and foremost among these were the monks of the Chartreuse in London. Accordingly, the prior and three monks were indicted for high treason, condemned, and executed. Two priors other orders, and several Cistercians at York, suffered for the same cause. The fate of the venerable Bishop of Rochester was sealed by an act of Pope Paul III., who sent him a cardinal's hat as a token of honour. The king swore that the pope might send Fisher a hat, but that the bishop should have never a head to wear it on ; and gave orders for the immediate trial of the prelate, who died on the scaffold on the 22nd of June, 1535. The trial of More followed on the 1st of July. The accusation against him was that of having "imagined" to deprive the king of his title and dignity. As he was being conveyed back to the Tower, alter being sentenced to death, his daughter, Margaret Rope; who had been indefatigable in her affectionate solicitude towards him in his prison, burst through the ranks of the guards, on the Tower Wharf, and embraced him, imploring his blessing with a fervour that affected the bystanders to tears. To the last, More preserved the cheerful confidence of a good and honest man. Even at the scaffold the playful wit for which he had been famous did not desert him. The steps were somewhat unsafe, and he accordingly requested the lieutenant to see him safely up them, adding, that for the coining down he might be left to shift for himself. His judicial murder excited a feeling of detestation against the king and his advisers at every court in Europe. In spite of some faults, the chief of which was the intolerance which caused him to inveigh in extravagant terms against the translators of the Bible and the reformers of religion. More may be accounted as the most honest and virtuous man of that age - a patron of learning, moreover, and one who did honour to the high office he filled. According to the practice of the time, his head was set up on London Bridge; but Margaret Roper contrived to have it taken down, and kept it in her possession during the nine remaining years of her life; and it was buried with her.

The execution of Fisher and More was made the occasion for the issue of a threatening bull by the pope Paul. Henry's answer to this was a high-handed and arbitrary exercise of his new authority, in the suppression of the monasteries - beginning with the smaller houses, whose income was under £200 yearly. More than three hundred and fifty of these houses were suppressed, their property being seized by the king. It was valued at £100,000 Early in 1536 the divorced Queen Catherine, who had of late been called the Dowager Princess of Wales, died at Kimbolton Priory. While the king put on mourning for Catherine, Anne arrayed herself in yellow. Her triumph was short; the king had cast his eyes upon Jane Seymour, a maid of honour, whose beauty had caught his fancy; and when Anne was soon afterwards delivered of a still-born son, Henry expressed his disappointment in coarse and brutal words.

Frequent levity of manner, arising from vanity and love of admiration, furnished her enemies with a weapon against her On May-day, at a tilting at Greenwich Palace, Henry Norris, a groom of the stole, being one of the challengers, and the king and the queen both present, Henry suddenly rose, and departed for Westminster. It is said his anger was excited by the queen's dropping a handkerchief, which Norris picked up. The next day the queen was suddenly arrested and conveyed to the Tower on a charge of treason against the king, the said treason consisting in acts of adultery, alleged to have been committed with Norris, the groom of the stole William Brereton and Francis Weston, gentlemen of the king's privy chamber; Mark Smeaton, a musician; and with Anne's own brother, Viscount Rochford. All circumstances point to her innocence of the horrible charges brought against her; and it has been rightly observed that such constant and unblushing criminality as that of which she is accused would at once have awakened suspicion in a court where the queen was surrounded with watchful and malignant enemies. Cranmer, a timid and irresolute man, made a feeble effort with the king to save her life; but Henry was too impatient for his freedom to allow even a short respite. On the 19th of May, only four days after her trial in the hall of the Tower, the unhappy queen was brought out and beheaded on Tower Green, in front of St. Peter's Chapel, in which edifice her remains were afterwards interred, in an old elm chest, without any ceremony. The king married Jane Seymour on the next day, the 20th of May and on the 29th, Queen Jane Seymour appeared in public.

Various insurrectionary movements, arising out of discontent at the suppression of the monasteries and the turning adrift of many monks and nuns in destitute circumstances, occurred in the northern counties. The first of these, in Lincolnshire, was concluded without bloodshed by the judicious action of the Duke of Suffolk, who, by a timely proclamation of amnesty, induced the rebels to disperse. A far more formidable rising was the popular movement known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. This was an insurrection of the people in the northern counties, for the avowed purpose of expelling "all villain blood and evil councillors from the privy council," and restoring the Church to its old power and supremacy. The figure of the Saviour was displayed on their banners, and the emblem of the five wounds of Christ was worn by the insurgents as a badge on their sleeves. The ostensible leader was one Aske, a lawyer, but the Lords Darcy and Hussey, and various other nobles and high clergy, were among the supporters of the rebellion, which was at length put down with great slaughter. Aske was hanged, and Darcy and Hussey beheaded, the former at York, the latter at Lincoln, Six priors and many inferior persons also suffered death.

On the 12th of October, 1536, Queen Jane Seymour gave birth to a prince, afterwards Edward VI. ; a few days afterwards she died. The infant prince was created Prince of Wales, and his uncle, Sir William Seymour. became Earl of Hertford, while others of his mothers relatives were also advanced to the peerage. Henry gave his sanction and patronage to that great work the translation of the Bible by Tyndale and Coverdale, and gave licence that each man should read the Scriptures with his family, and modestly and under certain restrictions, expound them to his household A book was also compiled by the bishops, and published by royal authority, entitled "The Godly and Pious Institute of a Christian Man," and was intended as a general guide for the people. A very high-handed proceeding was the complete suppression of the monasteries. Many of the priors and superiors of convents, bowing to the storm, voluntarily surrendered their abodes and the Church's property into the hands of the king, receiving pensions and compensation for their personal losses in proportion to their position and wealth others, however, held out, and even suffered death for their opposition. The income derived by the king from houses suppressed within two years amounted to £130,000 The spoliation itself was carried out in the most ruthless fashion. It was also stated that the wealth which would accrue from the confiscation of Church property would enable the king to carry on the government almost without taxation ; but this last expectation was soon dissipated by a demand made by the king from parliament for a compensation for the expenses he had incurred in reforming the religion of the State. Among those who were most busy in the work of spoliation, and most eager to secure a share of the proceeds, was Thomas Cromwell. In Rome a bull was issued which put an end to all hope of accommodation between Henry and the Vatican.

While the breach between the king and the pope had become permanent, Henry by no means abjured all the doctrines of the Romish Church. Lambert, a London schoolmaster; had adopted some of the views of the German Reformers. The king condescended to come himself to Westminster Hall to the trial of the prisoner, with whom he argued in the presence of Gardiner, Cranmer, Stokesley, Tunstall, and other bishops; and when the unfortunate prisoner threw himself on the king's mercy, Henry sternly replied that he had no mercy for heretics, and ordered Cromwell to pronounce sentence of death. His determination to uphold the old forms was seen still more plainly in the "Act of Sir Articles," or "Act for abolishing diversity of opinions," passed by the parliament in 1539. The first of the six articles adjudges the punishment of death by burning as heretics to all who shall deny the presence of the natural body of Christ in the Eucharist. The five other articles declare respectively that communion in both kinds, for laymen, is not necessary that the marriage of priests is unlawful that vows of chastity are to be observed; that private masses are right and efficacious that auricular confession is expedient and necessary. All offences against these articles were punishable as felonies. Numbers of clergymen were imprisoned under these Acts, and the Bishops Latimer and Shaxton, who resigned their sees, were thrown into the Tower. Cranmer, always inclined to bow to the king's will, sent his wife and children to Germany; and the law, severe as it was, made the king once more popular with the numerous adherents of the old faith, who had been angry at the persecution and spoliation recently carried on.

After remaining a widower for two year; Henry married Anne, the sister of the Duke of Cleves, one of the Protestant princes of Germany. It was Thomas Cromwell who negotiated the business; and the king, betrayed by a flattering portrait by Holbein, came to meet her at Rochester, where he took an opportunity of seeing her, while he himself remained hidden. He was greatly disappointed at finding her plain-featured and ungraceful, and angrily commanded Cromwell to break off the match. For this, however, it was too late; and Henry determined to divorce his wife, and to ruin Cromwell. Anne of Cleves was prevailed on to consent to a divorce and a pension of £3,000, with the palace of Richmond for a residence.

The ruin of Cromwell had already taken place, before the divorce was accomplished. He had been recently nominated vicar-general for the King, Earl of Essex, Knight of the Garter, and Lord Great Chamberlain. But he was hateful to the Catholics, and to the Reformers. The nobility hated him as an upstart, like Wolsey; and the common people blamed him for excessive taxation. He was proceeded against by bill of attainder; he was not allowed to speak in his own defence, was found guilty, and beheaded on Tower Hill on the 28th of July. One reason for his swift fall was that the Catholic party was once more in high favour with the king. Henry had become enamoured of the beautiful Catherine Howard, the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, and to the duke the commission was given of arresting Cromwell at the council board In August the king married Catherine Howard; and for some months the married pair lived together in great apparent affection. But in November an extraordinary report was made to Cranmer, that charged the beautiful Catherine with almost incredible dissoluteness of life before her marriage, and with a renewal of criminality after it. The queen, on being interrogated, after a first vain denial, Death, made a full confession so far as her evil life before marriage was concerned. Bills of attainder were passed against the queen and the other persons implicated ; and in February, 1542, Catherine Howard was beheaded on Tower Green, where the head of Anne Boleyn had fallen a few short years before.

The suspicion and tyranny of the king increased with his years. Among those who, from their position, excited his profound distrust, was Reginald Pole, a son of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, who was herself the daughter of George, Duke of Clarence. Reginald Pole had entered the Church, and had studied at Padua. In the matter of the king's divorce from Catherine of Arragon he had boldly avowed an opinion adverse to Henry. He also wrote a book against the king, in defence of the unity of the Church. In December, 1537, he was elevated to the rank of a cardinal. From that time the English king looked upon Pole as an enemy. Various members of his family, who fell into the kings hands, were put to death on a charge of conspiring against the crown; and in 1541 Henry caused the cardinal's mother, the venerable Countess of Salisbury, who was more than seventy years old, to be executed for maintaining a correspondence with her son. The persecutions against Catholics who denied the king's supremacy, and against reformers, continued with merciless severity.

The close of Henry's reign was destined to see the renewal of war against France and Scotland, after many years of peace. But in neither case was any great action fought. The Duke of Norfolk led twenty thousand men into Scotland, but retired without effecting anything ; and, on the other hand, a Scottish army fled in panic before a few hundred Englishmen. James the Fifth of Scotland died at this juncture, a few days after the birth of an only daughter, afterwards known as the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, and the war came to an end. In matters of religion, the king showed a disposition to tolerate Reformed doctrines. In 1544, Cranmer obtained a considerable mitigation of the law of the Six Articles. The Romanist party detested the Archbishop, who was known to favour the Reformers, and an attempt was made to ruin him. Henry consented that Cranmer should be summoned before the council, and, if necessary, committed ; but he privately sent for the Archbishop, warned him of his danger, and gave him his ring as a token that he had permission to appeal to the king. Cranmer acted on the advice of the king, who, after rating Gardiner and his party soundly, effected a temporary reconciliation. But persecution was as rife as before, and in 1546, Anne Askew, the daughter of a Lincolnshire knight, John Lascelles, a gentleman of the king's household, Nicholas Belenian, a clergyman, and John Adams, a tailor, were burnt to death together in Smithfield, for offences against the Six Articles.

The king was once again married. On the 10th of July, 1543, he had espoused a sixth wife, Catherine Parr, the widow of Lord Latimer. The new queen favoured the reformed doctrines, and even presumed to argue with her lord on theological points. Wriothesley, the chancellor, and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, obtained instructions from the king, in a fit of spleen, to draw up articles of accusation against the queen for heretical opinions. Fortunately Catherine obtained intelligence of what was going on; and when Henry tried to draw her into theological argument, professed herself willing to be guided only by him, and declared that she had entered into the previous discussions merely to divert his mind from his bodily sufferings. "Is it so, sweetheart ?" cried the king, who perhaps already regretted the orders he had given, and was glad to have an opportunity of reversing the effect of his own precipitancy. When Wriothesley came, next day, with an armed guard, to take the queen into custody, the imperious king saluted him with the epithets, "knave, fool, and beast," and commanded him to be gone.

Between the Seymours and the Howards, the heads of the Reformed and of the Catholic party respectively, there was a standing rivalry and feud. The Earl of Surrey, eldest son of the Duke of Norfolk, was the chief man in the Howard faction. Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, the brother of Queen Jane Seymour, and uncle of the young Prince Edward, with his brother, the Admiral Seymour, stood at the head of the Reformed party. The Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey were suddenly apprehended and committed to the Tower, on the 12th of December, 1546. Surrey was declared to have assumed the arms of King Edward the Confessor on his shield, and this act was construed into an intention of aiming at the throne. He was said also to have spoken contemptuously of the newly ennobled Seymours, and to have kept spies in his service. On the 19th of January he was executed on Tower Hill. The accusation against his father, the duke, was of the same kind. He had assumed royal quarterings, in right of his wife, who was descended from Edward III. He also had spoken against the new nobility, and against the change in religion. Under a bill of attainder he was condemned to death, and to this bill, as the king was dying, the royal assent was given by commission on the 27th of January 1547. The order for his execution on the following morning was sent to the Tower; but in the night the king died and the duke was accordingly respited. Henry had indeed been sinking for some days. On being asked to give some token of his trust in the merits of the Saviour, he pressed the primate's hand, and quietly breathed his last. he was fifty-five years old, and had reigned thirty-four years

In spite of the endeavours made in our own time to rehabilitate the character of Henry VIII., his actions, through a series of years, exhibit him as a self-willed and cruel tyrant. In the earlier part of his career, the fortunate circumstances of his life in a great measure concealed the mighty vices that were latent in his nature for while he was in good humour, he had a frank, jovial way that took mightily with the common people. As Lord Macaulay justly observes, this monarch, while his hands were reeking with the blood of the nobles, could still be the popular king of the cobblers, the "good King Hal " and "bluff King Hal" of the national ballads. Circumstances had developed an imperious will to an extent unusual even among kings; for he had to deal with a subservient parliament, a nobility whose power had perished in the Wars of the Roses, and a Church the thunders of whose ex-communications and interdicts had no longer the terrors of former times. On the other hand, he had the merit especially belonging to this house - that of understanding the temper and spirit of the nation he governed, and of keeping touch with his times.