The Press. — London, England, 1856-04-26 00:00:00

APRIL 26, 1856. Nittraturr. History of England from the Fall of TV°bey to the Death of Elizabeth. By James Anthony Froude, M.A. Two Vols. Lon don : J. W. Parker and Son. Ir appears to be the principal object of Mr. Fronde to give in this work a full and complete hi s tory of the Reformation, founded upon the State Records of the time. Thus far his hero is Henry VIII. What William 111. is to Mr. Macaulay, that " bluff King Hal" is to Mr. Froude; he is the central figure of the narra tive; the person in whom the great principle of the Reformation was embodied and found expression ; and whose merits for that reason are to be emblazoned in light, while his faults and crimes are to be kept in the shade. Mr. Froude writes in the spirit of an advocate, but we are not sure that his history will prove to be the less valuable on that account. It will, from its opposition to received opinions, force the reader to inquire more narrowly than he has yet done into the actual facts of the period. In this day we are inclined to think that historical advocacy in a writer must to a great extent supersede historical judgment. The public desire to judge for themselves; and they are in the best posi tion to judge truly when both sides of a case are presented to them with zeal on either part. We doubt if that even balancing of evidence, and pretence to perfect impartiality, which at one time were thought necessary to the his torian, would be acceptable now. Philosophic indifference must always want the warmth and colour of earliest advocacy, and without the advocacy, and apart from the evidence it pro duces, how can we know that the calmness of the philosophic historians is real and their im partiality perfect? The limits within which the historical advo cate should be confined are obvious. He must state facts truly ; we must be able to feel that we can depend on his statements as far as they go. His evidence should always be at hand in support of his assertions, and his narration should avoid vagueness, and be clear, definite, and precise. Let him present his case in as one-sided a manner as he pleases, but let that one side be plain and correct. Let him strive to make himself an unimpeachable authority as to that view, and by comparing it with the case on the other side the historical student will be in a better position for coming to a correct conclusion than if he had half a dozen of the philosophic and impartial histories before him. As to the question of the guilt or innocence of Anne Boleyn, for example, we would rather have the ease of Mr. Froude before us on one side, and that of the best advocate of Anne Boleyn on the other, than trust to Hume or Hallam. We shall be certain to gather from the advo cates a fuller statement of facts, to be more interested in them from the earnestness with which they are pressed, and to have the mind —a great point—stimulated to original thought and inquiry. Gibbon said he never read an ex parte statement without perceiving a bias in his mind the other way. Most persons must be conscious of a similar operation in their intellect to whatever cause it may bo referred, and hence we may account in all free communities for that continual and healthy action and reaction of thought which is observable in literature as well as in politics. It was a profound remark of Lord George Bentinck that the history of political opinion in this country is a history of reaction. Who could have anticipated little more than twenty years ago, when Protestant feeling was at its ebb, and the Irish Church was threatened with extinction, that, without any apparent move ment, Protestanti sm wou ld now b e d ec id e dly in the ascendant, not only in the country, but in both branches of the Legislature? There is a natural balance in the mind. By its consti tution it is inclined to truth ; and when that balance is strained too far on ono side, we may be sure that no long period will elapse before reaction will set in, and it will incline the other way. We cannot better set forth k the principle of Ur- Fronde's history than by turning to the THE PRESS. last chapter of that portion of his work before us which describes the fate of Anne Boleyn. He has published many documents never given to the world before, and we hope he will not object to our designating him as Attorney- General for the Prosecution. A better speci men of historical advocacy we never met with. He begins his narrative of the Queen's fall with some admirable reflections such as a skilful and intellectual advocate would natu rally introduce to bespeak favour for his case : First I have to say that, as with all the great events of Henry's reign, so especially with this, we must trust to no evidence which is not strictly contemporary. During periods of revolution, years do the work of centuries in colouring actions and disturbing forms; and events are transferred swiftly from the deliberation of the judgment to the precipitate arrogance of party spirit The Anne Boleyn as she appeared in contemporary letters is not the Anne Boleyn of Fox or Wyatt, or the other cham pions of Protestantism who saw in her the counterpart of her child. These writers, though living so near to the events which they describe, yet were divided from the pre ceding generation by an impas4able gulf. They were sur rounded with the heat and flame of a controversy, in which public and private questions were wrapped insepar ably together; and the more closely we scrutinise their narratives, the graver occasion there appears for doing so. After this exordium he proceeds with his statement, taking care to mark all circum stances unfavorable to the Queen, as : Her education had been in the worst school in Europe. On her return from the French Court to England we have seen her entangled in an unintelligible connection with Lord l'ercy, and in a second which amounted to an en gagement with some other person There had been circumstances in her conduct, as by her own after confessions was amply evident, which justified Sir Thomas More in foretelling a stormy end to her splendour. The facts follow: In February, 1536, she miscarried with a dead boy. . . . . Towards the middle of April, IMO, certain members of the Privy Council were engaged secretly in receiving evidence which implicated the Queen in adultery. Nothing is known of the quarter from which the informa tion came which led to the inquiry. Something, however, there was to call for inquiry, or something there was thought to be, and on the 24th of April the case was con sidered sufficiently complete to make necessary a public trial. On that day an order was issued for a special com mission. The members of the tribunal were selected with a care proportioned to the solemnity of the occasion. It was composed of the Lord Chancellor, the first noblemen of the realm, and of the judges. The investigation had, however, been conducted so far with profound secrecy, and the object for which it was to assemble was unknown even to Cranmer himself, a member of the Privy Council. With the same mysterious silence on the cause of so un expected a measure, the writs were issued for a general election, and Parliament was required to assemble as soon as possible. On Thursday, the 27th, the first arrest was made. Sir William Brereton, a gentleman of the King's household, was sent suddenly to the Tower ; and on the Sunday after Mark Smeton, of whom we know only that he was a musician high in favour at the Court, apparently a spoilt favorite of royal bounty. Then follows an account of the royal tilting on the Ist May at Greenwich; of the King's disturbance, and sudden► return to London ; and of the arrest of Lord Rochford (the Queen's brother), of Sir Henry Norris and Sir Francis Weston, two young courtiers who had been favored by the King, and of the Queen herself. Smeton, Weston, and Norris were examined at Greenwich : On being first questioned, these three made general ad missions, but denied resolutely that any actual offence had been committed. On being pressed further, and cross examined, Smeton confessed to actual adultery. Norris hesitated ; being pressed, however, by Sir William Fitz william to speak the truth, he also made a similar acknow ledgment, although he afterwards withdrew from what he had said. Weston persisted in declaring himself innocent. The result was unsatisfactory; and it was thought that it would " much touch the King's honour " if.the guilt of the accused was not proved more clearly. In a note to this passage, there is quoted from Constantyne (•' Arelueologia," vol. xxiii. p. 63) an assertiou:— That the King took Norris with him to London, and, u he beard say, urged him all the way to confess, with promises of pardon if be would be honest with him. He persisted in his denial, however, and was committed to the Tower. Afterwards, before the Council, he confessed. On his trial his confession was read to him, and he said he was deceived into making it by Sir William Fitz william, an accusation against this gentleman very difficult to believe. As Mr Fronde proceeds, his advocacy becomes more evident. Of Cranmcr, it is The fortunes of the Reformation had been so closely linked to those of the Queen that he trembled for the con- sequences to the Church of the King's too just in dignation. Three days after the arrest of the Queen Henry wrote to her, "holding out hopes of for- 399 " giveness if she would be honest and open "with him." Can it be doubted that this letter wag a snare? Is it likely that, if the Queen had been weak enough to confess, she would have been forgiven ? Mr. Fronde appears to think so, and supposes that Henry's offer may be explained as " the result of natural feeling." The affecting letter of the Queen, " from my " doleful prison in the Tower, this 6th of May," though it is admitted to "tell powerfully in " her favour," is yet described as " unwise in "point of worldly prudence," and " unbecom " ing in a wife who (by her own showing) was "so gravely to blame." Her " own showing" being the admission that expressions of homage had been addressed to her by her courtiers. The author writes Young men do not speak of love to young and beautiful married women, still less to ladies of so high rank, unless something more than levity has encouraged them. He overlooks the fashion of the time, which, in whatever light we may be disposed to view it, allowed the humblest gentlemen to profess themselves the devoted servants of the highest ladies, and to express their " service " in lan guage of passionate adoration. The Queen implores her husband : Try me, good King, but let me bays a lawful trial ; and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and my judges ; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame. Had she such a trial? Mr. Fronde thinks she had. He gives complete lists of the grand. jurors and commissioners to show that they were fairly selected, and he prints the indict ment against the Queen at full. Certainly a want of precision cannot he urged against it. The times and places are expressly set down when the Queen had guilty intercourse with Norris, Brereton, Weston, Smeton, and with her own brother, Lord Rochford. Furthermore she was charged with compassing the King's death, and that the King had in consequence been so grieved, thg.t " certain harms and " dangers had happened to his royal body." On the 12th May, eleven days after the dis turbance of the King at Greenwich, the four commoners were tried at Westminster. Mark Smeton pleaded guilty of adultery with the Queen, the others not guilty. A verdict of guilty was returned, and judgment passed as usual in cases of high treason : This is all which the record contains ; the nature of the evidence is not mentioned. But again there was a jury ; and if we have not the evittence which convinced that jury, we have the evidence that they were, or professed to be, convinced. On the 15th the Queen and her brother were tried. The names of the peers who were sum moned are given —" twenty-seven in all ; "men hitherto of unblemished honour—the " noblest blood in the realm." The record of the trial only states that the accused were arraigned, found guilty, and sentenced :- We can form no estimate of the evidence, for we do not know what it was. We cannot especially excuse the form of trial, for it was the form which was always observed. But the fact remains to us, that these twenty-seven peers, who were not ignorant as we are, but were folly acquainted with the grounds of the prosecution, did deliberately, after hearing the Queen's defence, pronounce against her a unanimous verdict. If there was foul play, they had ad vantages infinitely greater than any to which we can pre tend for detecting it. They were not blinded with political passion, for men of all parties united in the sentence. The five gentlemen were executed on the 15th May. Mr. Froude says that on the scaffold Smeton and Brereton acknowledged the justice of their sentence, and " none denied the " clime for which they suffered." He supports his assertion by the testimony of Constantyne, " In a manner all confessed but Mr. Norris, " who said almost nothing at all." Previous to her execution the Queen was induced to make an extraordinary avowal either that she had been married or contracted in early life, or had been entangled in some con nection which invalidated her marriage with the King..... Perhaps the confession itself was only a vague effort which she made to save her life. But whatever she said, and whe ther she spoke truth or falsehood, she was pronounced di vorced, and the divorce did not save her. Friday, the 19th, was fixed for her death, and when she found that there was no hope she recovered her spirits. The last scene was to be on the green inside the Tower. The public were to be ad mitted; but Kingston suggested that to avoid a crowd it was desirable not to fix the hour, since it was clear that she would make no further confession. " This morning she sent for me," he added, " that I might be with her at such a time as she received the good Lord, to the intent that I should hear her speak as touching her innocency always to be clear. ' Mr. Kingston,' she said, ' I hear say 1 shall not die afore noun, and I am very sorry therefore, for I • • Ism -