# Cassell's Illustrated History of England/Volume 2/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X.
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH—(Concluded).
The discontent excited in the country amongst those attached to the Church of Rome, by the separation, and by the seizure of church property, with the fear of still greater spoliation, excited many murmurings; and the king, aware that his proceedings were regarded with disapprobation by a vast body of people both at home and abroad, became suspicious of every rumour, jealous and vindictive. Amongst the singular conspiracies against the royal transactions, one of the earliest arose out of the visions of a young woman of Aldington, in Kent, of the name of Elizabeth Barton, who was of a nervous and mesmeric temperament, and whose mind was greatly excited by the sufferings of Queen Catherine. The rector of the parish, struck by many of the words which fell from her in her mesmeric trances, regarded her as a religiously inspired person, and recommended her to quit the village, and enter the convent of St. Sepulchre, at Canterbury. There her ecstacies and revelations, probably strengthened by the atmosphere of the place, became more frequent and strong. The nuns regarded her declarations as prophecies, and the fame of her soon spread round the country, where she acquired the name of the "Holy Maid of Kent."
​Richard Maister, the Rector of Aldington, who first patronised her, seems to have continued his interest in her after she became an inmate of the convent, but Becking, a canon of Christchurch, Canterbury, who became her confessor, was her most enthusiastic abettor. Deering, a monk, collected a number of her declarations, visions, and prophecies. She had began these visions so early as 1526, but they had become every year more blown abroad: and it was observed that they had all a tendency to exalt the power of the Pope and the clergy, and to denounce the vengeance of Heaven on all who disobeyed or attempted to injure them.
Henry had had his attention drawn to this young woman and her visions and utterances in her early career; and he had shown Sir Thomas More her sayings, who replied that he saw nothing in them but what "a right simple woman might, in his mind, speak of her own wit well enough." But as the cause of Catherine more and more agitated the public mind, and the invasion of the monastic property embittered the religious orders, the vaticinations of the maid had risen also in intensity, and struck at higher personages. She asserted that God had shown her a root with three branches, and had declared that it never would be merry in England till both root and branches were destroyed. This was interpreted to mean Wolsey as the root, and the king, Norfolk, and Suffolk, as the three branches. Next she declared that she had seen the Almighty deliver to Wolsey three swords, signifying the threefold authority which he exercised as legate, chancellor, and minister, "in the great matter of the king's marriage;" and, besides, she had at the same time declared that, unless the cardinal made good use of these swords, "it would be laid sorely to his charge." In another vision she went farther, and prophesied that, if he repudiated Catherine, he would die within seven months, and be succeeded by his daughter Mary. Henry had already disproved her soothsaying by far outliving the time prescribed; but when, in 1533, the opponents of his measures had become greatly irritated, he considered that the words of the maid, which were sedulously taken down and circulated through the press, were a powerful means of stirring up the popular feeling against him, and he therefore ordered the arrest of herself and the chief of her accomplices.
In November they were brought into the Star Chamber, and carefully examined by Cranmer, the archbishop, Cromwell, and Hugh Latimer, who soon after was made Bishop of Worcester. This tribunal appears to have intimidated both the maid and her abettors into a confession of the imposture, and they were condemned to stand during the sermon on Sunday at St. Paul's Cross, and there confess the imposture. After that they were remanded to prison, and it was thought that, having disarmed these people by this exposure, he would be satisfied with the punishment they had received. But Henry was now become every day more and more addicted to blood, and ready to shed it for any infringement of those almost Divine rights which the supremacy of the Church seemed to have conferred on him in his own conceit. On the 21st of February, 1534, therefore, a bill of attainder was brought into the House of Lords against the maid, and against Maister, Becking, Deering, Gold, Rich, and Risley, as her abettors, on the plea that their conspiracy tended to bring into peril the king's life and crown. The bill, notwithstanding that it was regarded with horror by the public as a strange and cruel stretch of authority, was passed by the slavish Parliament; and on the 21st of April, 1534, the seven accused were drawn to Tyburn and hanged. At the gallows the poor maiden, Elizabeth Barton, made this confession:—"Hither am I come to die, and I have not only been the cause of mine own death, but am also the cause of the death of all those persons which at this time here suffer. And yet, to say the truth, I am not so much to be blamed, considering that it was well known unto those learned men that I was a poor wench without learning; but because the things which fell from me were profitable unto them, therefore they much praised me, and bare me in hand that it was the Holy Ghost which said them, and not I: and then I, being puffed up with their praises, fell into certain pride and foolish fantasy, which hath brought me to this."
The case of the poor girl is clear enough by the light of modern science. She was a mesmeric subject, whose mind was stimulated and played upon by those about her for their own purposes. With her, besides the persons who suffered immediately, there were also accused of corresponding with her, Edward Thwaites, gentleman, Thomas Lawrence, registrar to the Archdeacon of Canterbury, Fisher, the venerable Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More. Fisher was now old, and had passed a life of great honour for his learning, integrity, and accomplishments. He was an admired friend of the celebrated Erasmus. He was the last survivor of the counsellors of Henry VII., and the prelate to whose care the Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., had committed the education of her grandson, now Henry VIII. Henry had felt or professed great affection for his old tutor, and had boasted that no prince in Europe had a prelate equal in learning and virtue to the Bishop of Rochester. Fortunate would it have been for Henry had he been wise enough to follow the counsels of Fisher; and most unfortunate for the bishop that he lived under a prince who would either bend to his sensual will every mind about him, however great and dignified, or would destroy their possessors from his path. Nothing but the blood of those who thwarted him could satisfy Henry. He seized on this pretence to further his vengeance, and he soon discovered more plausible cause to consummate it.
Fisher, who was in his seventy-sixth year, confessed that he had seen and conversed with Elizabeth Barton; that he had heard her utter her prophecies concerning the king; and that he had not mentioned them to the sovereign, because her declarations did not refer to any violence against the king, but merely to a visitation of Providence; and because, also, he knew that the king had received the communication of the prophecies from the maid herself, who had had for that purpose a private audience with the king. He was, therefore, he said, guiltless of any conspiracy: and knew not, as he would answer it before the throne of Christ, of any malice or evil that was intended by her, or by any other earthly creature, unto the king's highness.
The name of Sir Thomas More was erased from this ​bill, though he could not be more innocent than Fisher, but not more than a fortnight passed before the bloodthirsty tyrant had contrived a more deadly snare for them both. He had them summoned, and commanded to take the new oath of allegiance. They were both of them ready to swear to the king's full temporal authority, and to the succession of his children, but they could not conscientiously take the oath which declared Henry the supreme head of the English Church, and the marriage with Anne Boleyn lawful. Cranmer, who on this occasion showed more mildness and liberality than he had shown honest principles in his elevation, would fain have admitted these illustrious men to take the oath so far as it applied to temporal, and to dispense with it as it regarded the spiritual matters. But he pleaded in vain, and they were both committed to the Tower.
Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. From the Original, by Holbein, in the collection of Sir Thomas Clifford, Bart.
Henry, having got the Acts of Parliament for the supremacy and the succession, was not of a temper to let them become a dead letter. Whether it were owing to the carelessness of Parliament or the carefulness of the crown, the oath of the succession had not been verbally defined, and Henry now availed himself of this omission to alter and add to it so as to please himself. From the clergy he took care to obtain an oath including the full recognition of his supremacy in the Church, omitting the qualifying clause in the former one; and an assertion that the Bishop of Rome had no more authority within the realm than any other bishop. He spent the summer in administering this oath to the monks, friars, and nuns, from all clergymen and clerical bodies whatever, and in obtaining decisions against the papal authority from the two convocations and the universities. The oath to the laity was administered to men and women alike. Remembering the mental reservation of Cranmer when he swore obedience to the Pope, he now demanded from every prelate an oath of renunciation of every protest previously or secretly made contrary to the oath of supremacy. He ordered that the very word Pope should be obliterated carefully out of all books used in public worship.
Margaret Roper taking leave of her Father, Sir Thomas More on the Tower Wharf. (See page 220.)
​cowardice of his predecessors. To bind the clergy and the schoolmasters to their duty, the sheriff of every county was ordered to keep a close eye upon them, and to report to the council all who not merely neglected this duty, but who were even lukewarm in discharging it. He also called upon the prelates to write as well as preach in support of his new power; and Sampson, Stokesley, Tunstall, and Gardiner obeyed the summons.
If Henry had been a zealous Reformer, a disciple of the new creed, we might have attributed his proceedings to an arbitrary and uncharitable earnestness for what he deemed the truth; but he was just as bigoted in the old faith as ever. His Bloody Statute, as it was called, the Statute of Six Articles, maintained that the actual presence was in the sacramental bread and wine; that priests were forbidden to marry; that vows of chastity were to be observed; and that mass and auricular confession were indispensable. Those who opposed any of these dogmas were to suffer death; no doctrine was to be believed contrary to the Six Articles; no persons were to sing or rhyme contrary to them; no book was to be possessed by any one against the Holy Sacrament; no annotations or preambles were to exist in Bibles or Testaments in English; and nothing was to be taught contrary to the king's command. In fact, the country had only got rid of an Italian Pope and got an English one—Pope Henry VIII.
The terrible example which Henry had made of Wolsey awed the clergy, for the most part, into obedience; and such was now the horrible influence of unlimited power upon him, that the tiger appetite for blood became every day developed, and soon led him on to a monstrous indulgence of cruelty and oppression, which made his name a terror through the whole world. He dealt out royal murders without stint; the highest, the noblest, the wisest, the best fell before him; and men, famed for genius and learning, were butchered one after another, as if they were the vilest malefactors. He attainted sixteen persons at once, at this time, and executed them without trial; and all opinions that were not his opinions, were alike fatal to men. He burnt six persons together, half Papists half Protestants, tying a Protestant and a Papist arm in arm. The Papists he killed because they did not go far enough, the Protestants because they would go too far; and he opened a stream of blood and kindled a destroying fire, which raged on through the succeeding reigns to such an extent, that 100,000 persons were calculated to have perished under the Royal determination of succeeding kings and queens to allow nobody but themselves to think, ere toleration was wrested from them.
The first-fruits of this awful concession, to a vain and selfish man, of the usurpation of God's own dominion in the soul, were an indiscriminating mass of Lollards, Lutherans, Anabaptists, and Roman Catholics committed to the flames. On the 22nd of July, during the prorogation of Parliament, a young man of singular learning, who had written a book against purgatory and transubstantiation and consubstantiation, was burnt in Smithfield; and a poor tailor, Andrew Hewett, who simply affirmed that he thought Firth was right, was burnt with him. Several Anabaptists underwent the same fate.
As that year closed in blood, so the next opened. Some of the monks, and especially the Carthusian, Franciscan, and Brigittin Observants, secluded from the world, and more obedient to their consciences than their fears, steadily refused to take the oath, or to proclaim in their churches and chapels that the Pope was Antichrist. All the Friar Observants were ejected from their monasteries, and dispersed. Some were thrust into prisons, others were confined in the houses of the Friars Conventuals. About fifty perished from the rigour of this treatment, and the rest were exiled to France and Scotland. Others of them were hanged, and were told that they were mildly treated, for the Lutherans and other Protestants were burned. The priors of the then Charter-houses of London, Axholm, and Belleval, waited on Cromwell to explain their conscientious scruples; but Cromwell, who was become the harsh and unhesitating instrument of Henry's despotism, instead of listening to them, committed them to the Tower on a charge of high treason, for refusing the king "the dignity, style, and name of his Royal estate." When he brought them to trial the jury shrunk from giving such a verdict against men of their acknowledged virtue and character. Cromwell hastened to the court in person, and threatened to hang them instead of the prisoners, if they did not without further delay pronounce them guilty. Five days later, these three dignitaries were executed at Tyburn, with Richard Reynolds, a doctor of divinity and monk of Sion, and John Hailes, Vicar of Thistleworth. They were all treated with savage barbarity, being hanged, cut down alive, embowelled, and dismembered. On the 18th of June, nearly a fortnight afterwards, Exmew, Middlemore, and Nudigate, three Carthusian monks from the Charter-house, were executed, with the same atrocities.
Whilst these horrors struck with consternation all at home, Henry proceeded to a deed which extended the feeling of abhorrence over all Europe. He shed the blood of Fisher and More. We have stated that Parliament had not enacted the precise oath for the refusal of which Fisher and More were arraigned. But this made no difference: the king willed it, and the submissive legislature passed a bill of attainder for misprision of treason against them both. On this they and their families were stripped of everything they had. The poor old bishop was left in a complete state of destitution, and had not even clothes to cover his nakedness. Sir Thomas More was dependent wholly for the support of his life on his married daughter, Margaret Roper. They were repeatedly called up after their attainder, and treacherously examined as to any act or word that they might have done or uttered contrary to the king's supremacy, as if to aggravate their crime and justify a more rigorous sentence. The Pope Clement was dead, and was succeeded by Paul III., who, hearing of the sad condition of the venerable Fisher, sent him a cardinal's hat, thinking it might make Henry less willing to proceed to extremities with him. But the effect on the tyrant was quite the contrary. On hearing of the Pope's intention, he exclaimed, "Ha! Paul may send him a hat, but I will take care that he have never a head to wear it on."
Accordingly, the aged prelate was brought out of the Tower, on the 22nd of June, beheaded, and his head stuck ​upon London Bridge, with his face turned towards the Kentish hills, amid which he had spent so many pleasant years. The body of the old bishop was stripped, and left naked on the spot till evening, when it was carried away by the guards, and buried in Allhallows churchyard at Barking. Such was the manner in which this supreme head of the Church treated his former tutor, and one of the most accomplished and pious men of Christendom.
More, the scholar, the wit, the genius, raised reluctantly to the chancellorship, had there so far been deteriorated from the noble mood in which he had written his "Utopia" as to have become, contrary to all its doctrines and spirit, a persecutor. He had even degraded his wit by exercising it, with a sad levity, on his victims, yet not so hopelessly but that the wit of others could awaken his old nature in him. A man of the name of Silver being brought before him for heresy, Sir Thomas said, "Silver, you must be tried by fire." "Yes, my lord," replied the prisoner, "but you know that quicksilver cannot abide the fire." The chancellor, who would have burned the heretic, at once set at liberty the undaunted punster. On the 14th of June he was visited in the Tower by Doctors Aldridge, Layton, Curwen, and Mr. Bedle, and there strictly interrogated in the presence of Pelstede, Whalley, and Rice, as to whether he had held any correspondence since he came into the Tower with Bishop Fisher, or others, and what had become of the letters he had received. He replied that George, the lieutenant's servant, had put them into the fire, contrary to his wish, saying there was no better keeper than the fire. He was then asked whether he would not acknowledge the lawfulness of the king's marriage, and his headship of the Church. He declined to give an answer.
But he had over and over said enough to satisfy any one but the king in his present mood. He had written a most touching letter, saying, "I am the king's true, faithful subject, and daily bedesman. I pray for his highness, and all his, and all the realm. I do nothing harm; I say no harm; I think no harm; and wish everybody good; and if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live. I am dying already, and since I came here have been divers times in the case that I thought to die within one hour. And, I thank our Lord, was never sorry for it, but rather sorry when I saw the pang past; and, therefore, my poor body is at the king's pleasure. Would to God my death might do him good!"
The stern monarch, however, so far from being sensible to the generous sentiments of such a man, equally celebrated for his talents and his virtues, only sought to make his confinement the more miserable. He sent Rich, the Solicitor-General, afterwards Lord Rich, to take away all More's books, papers, and writing materials. But, probably, by means of George, the good-hearted servant to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who dared more in his favour than any man of more account in the world's eye, he obtained a scrap of paper, and wrote upon it his last affecting letter to his daughter, who had in vain earnestly and repeatedly implored him to submit to the king, and take the oath. But More would not now pollute his conscience to save the wretched residue of his life. Though he had formerly so far forgotten himself as to force other men's consciences, he now stood firmly for his own.
At length, on the 1st of July, he was brought out of the Tower, and was conducted on foot through the streets of London to Westminster. He was wrapped only in a coarse woollen garment, his hair was become grey, his face was pale and emaciated, for he had been nearly a year a close prisoner. This was thought well calculated to teach a lesson of obedience to the people; when they saw how the king handled even ex-chancellors and cardinals. When he arrived, bowed with suffering, and supporting himself on a staff, in that hall where he had formerly presided with so much dignity, all who saw him were struck with astonishment. In order to confound him, and prevent the dreaded effect of his eloquence, his enemies had caused the indictment against him to be drawn out to an immense length, the charges grossly exaggerated, and enveloped in a world of words.
When this voluminous document had been read through, the Duke of Norfolk, the Chief Justice Fitzjames, and six other commissioners who presided at the trial, informed him that it was still in his power to submit his judgment to the king's, and to receive a full pardon. More declined to accept pardon on such conditions. He declared that though it was impossible for him to remember one-third of the indictment, he could conscientiously say that he had never violated the statute, nor done anything in opposition to the rule of his Sovereign. He acknowledged that he had never approved of the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, but then he had never expressed that disapprobation to any one but to the king himself, and that only when he had commanded him, on his allegiance, to inform him of his real sentiments. The indictment charged him with having traitorously endeavoured to deprive the king of his title of head of the Church. Where, he asked, were the proofs of that? On being committed to the Tower, he had said, when examined, that from the date of his attainder, he was politically dead, and incapable of giving an opinion on the merits of any law; that his only occupation would be to meditate on the passion of Christ, and to prepare for his own death. But in that answer, he had spoken no single word against the statute, he could only be charged with silence, and silence had never yet been declared treason. A second count of the indictment charged him with exhorting Bishop Fisher in letters, while confined in the Tower, to resist the king's supremacy. He denied the charge, and demanded the production of the letters. Again it was stated that Fisher had held the same language as himself, and that was treated as proof of a conspiracy. Whatever Fisher might have said, he contended, was wholly unknown to him; but this he did know, that he had never communicated his own opinion on the subject to any one—no, not to his dearest friends.
But the vile tools of the king were prepared to crush him by means of evidence foul and false. The infamous Rich deposed that in private conversation with More, in the Tower, he had said that "the Parliament cannot make the king the head of the Church, because Parliament is a civil tribunal, without any spiritual authority." On this, More, with a bold dignity, which evidently no longer feared anything that man could do to him, spoke out, and not only utterly denied the statement, but ​reminded the Court of the infamous character of Rich, which was such that no one who knew him would believe him upon oath. Rich, smarting under this well-merited castigation, thereupon called a couple of witnesses, but even they were ashamed to support such vile testimony against such a man, and declared that though they were in the room, they did not attend to the conversation. Foiled in the hope of direct proof of the charge, the slaves in the shape of judges decided that silence was treason, and the other slaves in the shape of jurymen, without even reading the indictment, gave a verdict against the prisoner. Sentence of death was then pronounced upon him, and he rose to address the Court finally. In the rudest manner, they attempted to silence him, and twice, by their clamour, they succeeded; but the firmness of the noble victim at length triumphed, and he told them that he could now openly avow what he had before concealed from every human being, that the oath of supremacy was contrary to all English law. He declared that he had no enmity against his judges. There would, he observed, have always been a scene of contention, and he prayed that as Paul had consented to the death of Stephen, and yet was afterwards called to tread in the same path, and ascend to the same heaven, so might he and they yet meet there. "And so," he added, in conclusion, "may God preserve you all, and especially my lord the king, and send him good counsel."
As he turned from the bar, his son rushed through the hall, fell upon his knees, and implored his blessing; and, on approaching the Tower Wharf, his daughter, Margaret Roper, forced her way through the guard which surrounded him, and, clasping him round the neck, wept and sobbed aloud. The noble man, now clothed with all the calm dignity of the Christian philosopher, summoned fortitude enough to take a loving and a final farewell of her; but as he was moved on, the distracted daughter turned back, and, flying once more through the crowd, hung on his neck in the abandonment of grief. This was too much for his stoicism; he shed tears, whilst with deep emotion he repeated his blessing, and uttered words of Christian consolation. The people and the guards were so deeply affected, that they too burst into tears, and it was some time before the officers could summon resolution to part the father and his child.
On the 6th of July he was summoned to execution, and informed that the king, as an especial favour, had commuted his punishment from hanging, drawing, and quartering. On this Sir Thomas, who had now taken his leave of the world, and met death with the cheerful humour of a man who is well assumed that he is on the threshold of a better, replied with his wonted promptitude of wit, "God preserve all my friends from such favour." As he was about to ascend the scaffold, some one expressed a fear lest it should break down, for it appeared weak. "Mr. Lieutenant," said More, smiling, "see me safe up, and for my coming down, let me shift for myself." The executioner then approached, and asked his forgiveness. More embraced him, and said, "Friend, thou wilt render me the greatest service in the power of any mortal: but," putting an angel into his hand, "my neck is so short, that I fear thou wilt gain little credit in the way of thy profession."
The same fear of the eloquence of the illustrious victim which had attempted to stop his mouth on the trial, now forbade him to address the multitude; he, therefore, contented himself with saying that he died a faithful subject to the king, and a true Catholic before God. He then prayed, and, laying his head upon the block, bade the executioner stay his hand a moment, while he put back his beard. For "that," said he, "has never committed any treason." His head was severed at a single blow, and was, like Fisher's, fixed on London Bridge.
The execution of these two illustrious men, who were celebrated all over Europe—especially Sir Thomas More, for his wit, his genius, his learning, and general character; Fisher being scarcely less so for the solid piety and integrity of his character—produced a sensation of horror throughout every civilised nation, and stamped the King of England as a cruel tyrant, even in that age of tyranny. The only crime of these martyrs' to freedom of opinion was, that they tacitly, not publicly, not daringly, not officiously, refused to believe any absurd or tyrannic doctrine that the Royal egotist pleased to assert. In Rome, where they were regarded as martyrs to the Papal supremacy, the ferment was excessive, and Paul III., the new Pope, was incited to prepare a bill of excommunication against Henry, though his prudence induced him to withhold its publication. The Emperor of Germany and the King of France were less reticent of their expressions of execration. Charles told Eliott, the English ambassador, "If we had been master of such a servant, of whose abilities we ourself have had these many years no small assurance, we would rather have lost the best city in our dominions, than so worthy a counsellor." Francis spoke with still greater asperity to the English ambassador at his Court of these executions, and said, "Why does not your master rather banish offenders than put them to death?"
Henry was highly incensed that even kings should venture to find fault with his arbitrary temper, and sent word that "they had died by due course of law, and were well worthy to have died ten times worse deaths, if they had a thousand lives." But the world took the liberty of judging for themselves, and it saw only in him what he was, a monster of self-will, and a murderer on a throne. The learned men joined the monarchs in a more lasting record of Henry's infamy. Cardinal Pole denounced him, in the most eloquent and vehement writings, as a disgrace to humanity; and Erasmus wrote to his friend Latomus, that the English were now living under such a reign of terror, that they dared not to write to foreigners, nor receive letters from them. Corvinus, in his epistles, says that he had seen the tears of many for the fate of More, who never saw him in their lives, nor were in any way affected by any of his actions.
A full measure of the indignation of the public, both at home and abroad, fell upon the queen, Anne Boleyn, for these measures, as she was deemed the chief cause of the breach with Rome, and this fatal power being conferred on a man so ill calculated to bear it. Though the English were obliged to speak their feelings in whispers, the populace abroad made very free with the Royal butcher of the wise and good, and with his new queen. In the Netherlands cloths were painted with the portraits of Henry, and were sold in the fairs, with "the picture of ​a wench, also painted on cloth, pinned upon it," the said wench holding a pair of scales in her hand, in which were, in one scale, a pair of hands united, and on the other a feather with a "scripture over the wench's head, 'Love is lighter than a feather,'" at which the people made great jeering and laughter, uttering the most opprobrious words against Queen Anne. Nor did Anne escape reproach even from her own savage lord. When the announcement of More's execution was brought to Henry, he was playing at tables with Anne, whereupon he cast his eyes reproachfully at her, and saying, "Thou art the cause of this man's death," he rose up, leaving his game unfinished, and shut himself up in his chamber, in great perturbation of spirit. Nor were there wanting already the prophetic declarations of the sorrowful reward she would reap for her encouragement of the fell tyrant. When the beloved daughter of More, Margaret Roper, visited her father in the Tower one day, he asked her how Queen Anne did. "In faith, father," she replied, "never better; there is nothing else in the Court but dancing and sporting." "Never better!" said he; "alas, Meg! alas! it pitieth me to think into what misery, poor soul, she will shortly come. These dances of hers will prove such dances, that she will spurn our heads off like footballs; but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance." Queen Catherine felt the same certain conviction of Anne's own troubles, for both she and More knew the fickle, unrestrainable nature of the man in whose hand her fate was. "At the time of her sorest troubles," says Dr. Harpfield, "one of her gentlewomen began to curse Anne Boleyn. The queen dried her streaming eyes, and said, earnestly, 'Hold your peace! Curse not—curse her not, but rather pray for her; for even now is the time fast coming when you shall have reason to pity her and lament her case.'" Yet how little could even they guess how near that day was!
But it was not merely in lopping the heads of honest statesmen and prelates that Henry VIII. now displayed the powers of supreme head over the Church. There was a more tempting prey which allured his avaricious soul, and promised to recruit his exhausted treasury. These were the monasteries, convents, and abbeys. These institutions had grown excessively corrupt through time. Without depending on the reports of Henry's commissioners, whoso business it was to make out a case for him against them, there is abundant evidence in contemporary writings that the monks, nuns, and friars were grown extremely sensual and corrupt. They had become wealthy, and wealth and indolence had produced their natural consequences—luxury, voluptuousness, and decay of real religious zeal. In the poets of still earlier days—in Chaucer of England, and Sir David Lindsay of Scotland—we have ample proof of this state of things. Possibly, by reducing their property and enforcing a strict discipline, a tolerable reform might have been introduced into these houses, but Henry was not dreaming of reform, but of confiscation. The clergy of every description were imprudent enough to irritate the lawless king, by denying his supremacy and attacking his conduct. Rage and cupidity alike urged him to imitate the Reformers of Germany, and seize the spoils of this affluent body. Cromwell—whom he had appointed Vicar-General, a strange office for a layman—went the whole length with him in those views; nay, he was the man who first turned his eyes on this great attractive mass of wealth, and hallooed him to the spoil. He had told him that, if once he was established by Parliament as head of the Church, all that opulence was his. There can be no doubt that it was to carry out this seizure that Cromwell was put into that very office of vicar-general, as the only man to do the business, and he went to work upon it with right good will.
The first thing was to appoint a commission, and to obtain such a report as should induce Parliament to pass an act of suppression of all the religious houses, and the forfeiture of all their property to the Crown. The Bishop of Paris, years before, had confidently affirmed, that whenever Wolsey should fall, the spoliation of the Church would quickly follow. To expedite this matter as much as possible, the whole kingdom was divided into districts, and to each district was appointed a couple of commissioners, who were armed with eighty-six questions to propound to the monastic orders. As the supremacy of the king, and approbation of his marriage, were made absolute requisites of compliance, there was little chance of escape for any monastery, be its morals what they might. With creatures selected by Cromwell, and who had the terror of that head-severing king before them, the result was pretty certain; and we have a proof, in a letter of Dr. Layton, one of those commissioners, with what eagerness this office was solicited. He writes to Cromwell:—"Pleaset yowe to understand, that whereas ye intende shortly to visite, and belike shall have many suitors unto yowe for the same, to be your commissioners, if hit might stand with yowr pleasure that Dr. Lee and I might have committed unto us the north contre, and to begyn in Lincoln dioces northwardo here from London, Chester dioces, Yorke, and so forth to the border of Scotlande, to rydo downe one side, and come up the other. Ye shall be well and faste assurrede that ye shall nother fyudo monke, chanone, etc., that shall do the king's highness so good servys, nother be so trusty, trewe, and faithful to yowe. There is nother monasterie, sell, priorie, nor any other religiouse howse in the northe, but other Dr. Lee or I have familiar acquaintance within X. or XII. mylls of hyt, so that no knaverie can be hyde from us. We knowe and have experience both of the fassion of the contre and rudeness of the pepul."
The visitors had secret instructions to seek, in the first place, the lesser houses, and to exhort the inmates voluntarily to surrender them to the king, and, where they did not succeed, to collect such a body of evidence as should warrant the suppression of those houses; but after zealously labouring at this object through the winter, they could only prevail on seven small houses to surrender. A report was then prepared, which considerably surprised the public, by stating that the lesser houses were abandoned to the most shameful sloth and immorality, but that the large and more opulent ones, contrary to all human experience, were more orderly. The secret of this representation was, that the abbots and priors of the great houses were lords of Parliament, and were, therefore, present to expose any false statement.
On the 4th of March, 1536, a bill was passed hastily through both Houses, transferring to the king and his heirs all monastic establishments the clear value of which ​did not exceed £200 per annum. It was calculated that this bill—which, however, did not pass the Commons till Henry had sent for them, and told them that he would apply his favourite remedy for stiff necks, cutting off the heads—would dissolve no less than 380 communities, and add £32,000 to the annual income of the Crown, besides the presents received of £100,000 in money, plate, and jewels. The cause of these presents was a clause in the Act of Parliament, which left it to the discretion of the king to found any of these houses anew; a clause which was actively worked by Cromwell and his commissioners, and, by the hopes they inspired, drew large sums from the menaced brethren, which lodged plentifully in the pockets of the minister and his agents, besides that which reached the Crown. Cromwell amassed a large fortune from such sources.
The visitors under this act were authorised to proceed to each house, to announce its dissolution to the superiors, to take an inventory of its effects, and to dispose of the dispossessed inhabitants according to their instructions.
Tomb of Catherine of Arragon, in Peterborough Cathedral.
By these the superior received a pension for life; the monks under the age of four-and-twenty were absolved from their vows, and turned adrift into the world; those who were older, were either quartered on the larger and yet untouched monasteries, or were told to apply to Cromwell or Cranmer, who could find them suitable employment. As for the nuns, they were turned out unceremoniously-with the gift of a single gown, and were left to secure a means of existence as they could—a most ruthless proceeding. The cruelty of these ejectments was greatly aggravated by the crowd of hungry courtiers to whom the improvident king—as improvident as he was grasping and inhuman—had already given or sold the possession of the greater part of the property of the monasteries.
The Parliament, which had now sat six years, and which was one of the most slavish and base bodies that ever were brought together—having yielded every popular right and privilege which the imperious monarch demanded, and augmented the Royal prerogative to a pitch of actual absolutism; having altered the succession, changed the system of ecclesiastical government, abolished a great number of the ancient religious houses without thereby much benefiting the Crown—was now dismissed, having done that for this worthless monarch which should cost some of his successors their thrones or their heads, and a braver and more honourable generation the blood of its best men to undo again.
Whilst the cormorants of the Court were busy seizing upon and gorging the whole property thus reft from its ancient owners, and which, duly administered, might at this day, have rendered taxation nearly unnecessary, the two queens of this English sultan died, but under very different circumstances.
The treatment of Catherine, after her repudiation, was as rigorous and disgraceful as a heartless king and a servile set of courtiers could make it. She had been driven from her house at Bugden, and required to betake herself to Fotheringay Castle, which she refused on account of its unhealthy situation. The Duke of Suffolk, in endeavouring to force her into compliance, behaved to her with such rude insolence that she abruptly quitted his presence. In the commencement of 1535 she was removed to Kimbolton Castle. Though she had a right to £5,000 per annum as the widow of Prince Arthur, she was kept so destitute of money, that Sir Edmund Bedingfield, the steward of her household, reported that she was suffering under a lingering malady, and had no means of obtaining the most ordinary comforts. Her servants were required to take an oath that they "would bear faith, troth, and obedience only to the king's grace, and to the heirs of his body by his most dear and entirely beloved lawful wife, Queen Anne," or they were dismissed. Her confessor, Father Forrest, was thrown into Newgate, and the one who succeeded him in that office, Dr. Abell, was also incarcerated, because they would not reveal anything communicated in confession which might criminate the queen. These two conscientious men were treated with the grossest indignity, and finally put to death in a most horrid manner, for their constancy in resisting these diabolical designs.
Arrest of Anne Boleyn.(See page 223)
In her last illness Catherine earnestly implored that she might be permitted to see her daughter, but it was refused her. Death was about, however, to release this much-abused woman from the power of this ruthless tyrant, and, perceiving its approach, she called one of her maids to her bed-side, and dictated the following letter to Henry:—
"My Lord and dear Husband,
"I commend me unto you. The hour of my death draweth fast on, and my case being such, the tender love I owe you forceth me with a few words to put you in remembrance of the health and safeguard of your soul, which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and tendering of your own cares. For my part, I do pardon you all; yea, I do wish and devoutly pray God that he will also pardon you.
"For the rest, I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father to her, as I heretofore desired. I entreat you also on behalf of my maids to give them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants I solicit a year's pay more than their due lest they should be unprovided for.
"Lastly, I do vow that mine eyes do desire you above all things."
On the receipt of this letter it is said that even the stony heart of Henry was touched, and that he shed a tear, and desired the ambassador of Spain, Eustace Capucius, to bear a kind message to her, but she died before receiving it, on the 8th of January, 1536, and was buried, by order of the king, in the Cathedral of Peterborough, though she had expressly desired by her will to be buried in a convent of Observant Friars. Thus died Catherine of Arragon, a woman who had suffered more afflictions and indignities than any princess, or perhaps any woman of her time, and who had borne them with a dignity, a firmness, a wisdom, and a gentleness, which won her universal respect and admiration.
Anne Boleyn, on hearing of Catherine's death, was so rejoiced that she could not help crying out, "Now I am indeed a queen!" She is said to have been in the act of washing her hands in a costly basin when Sir Richard Southwell brought her the news; and, in her joy, she presented him with the basin and its cover. She bade her parents rejoice with her, her face radiant with pleasure, saying now she felt the crown firm on her head. The king had ordered his servants to wear mourning on the day of Catherine's funeral, for he did not forget that she was a princess of Spain; but Anne refused to do so, and arrayed herself in bright yellow, and made her ladies do the same. The whole of Anne's conduct on this occasion speaks little either for her head or her heart. She said she was grieved, not that Catherine was dead, but for the vaunting there was of the good end she made; for numberless books and pamphlets were written in her praise, which were, therefore, so many severe censures on Henry and on Anne. Indeed, her open rejoicing on this occasion, and the haughty carriage which she now assumed, disgusted and offended every one.
And yet, in truth, never had she less cause for triumph. Already the lecherous eye of her worthless husband had fallen on one of her maids, as it had formerly fallen on one of Catherine's in her own person. This was Jane Seymour, a daughter of a knight of Wiltshire, who was not only of great beauty, but was distinguished for a gentle and sportive manner, equally removed from the Spanish gravity of Catherine and the French levity of Anne Boleyn. Before the death of Catherine, this fresh amour of Henry's was well-known in the palace to all but the reigning queen; and, according to Wyatt, Anne only became aware of it by entering a room one day, and beholding Jane Seymour seated on Henry's knee, in a manner the most familiar, and as if accustomed to that indulgence. She saw at once that not only was Henry ready to bestow his regards on another, but that other was still more willing to step into her place than she had been to usurp that of Catherine. Anne was far advanced in pregnancy, and was in great hopes of riveting the king's affections to her by the birth of a prince; but the shock which she now received threw her into such agitation that she was prematurely delivered—of a boy, indeed, but dead. Henry, the moment that he heard of this unlucky accident, rushed into the queen's chamber, and upbraided her savagely "with the loss of his boy." Anne, stung by this cruelty, replied that he had to thank himself and "that wench, Jane Seymour," for it. The fell tyrant retired, muttering his vengeance, and the die was now cast irrevocably for Anne Boleyn, if it were not before.
The unhappy queen recovered her health, but not her spirits. She now felt the hour of retribution for her dishonourable conduct to her mistress Catherine was come. Every step she took only the more forced upon her that conviction. She ordered the dismissal of her rival from the Court; a higher authority countermanded it. It is impossible to conceive a more awful and alarming situation than Anne's at this moment. From the hour that her enraged husband had quitted her chamber in wrath, he had abandoned her society. Her little daughter, Elizabeth, was kept apart from her, as Catherine's daughter had been from her. The gaieties of the Court went on as if there were no such person as this formerly flattered and worshipped woman. She was left alone, with a few servants, at the palace of Greenwich; and is said to have sat, gloomy and spiritless, for hours in the quadrangle of Greenwich Palace, or wandering solitary in the most secluded spots of the park. What an awful feeling of desertion—what a still more awful feeling of approaching fate—must have lain on her in those days, knowing so well the man she had to deal with her! Instead of having made friends, she had made enemies. Her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, was wholly alienated from her, and Brandon, Henry's chief favourite, was her mortal enemy.
It was a great misfortune for Anne that she had never been able to lay aside that levity of manner which she had acquired by spending her juvenile years at the French Court. After her elevation to the throne, she was too apt to forget, with those about her, the sober dignity which belonged to the queen, and to converse with the officers ​about her more in the familiar manner of the maid-of-honour which she had once been. This freedom and gaiety had been caught at by the Court gossips, and now scandals wore whispered abroad, and, as soon as the way was open by the anger and fresh love-affair of the king, carried to him. Such accusations were precisely what he wanted, as a means to rid himself of her. A plot was speedily concocted, in which she was to be charged with criminal conduct towards not only three officers of the Royal household—Brereton, Weston, and Norris—but also with Mark Smeaton, the king's musician, and, still more horrible, with her own brother, the Viscouut Rochford. Thus, from a woman caressed and loaded with honours, and certainly innocent of the crimes now brought against her, Anne Boleyn was suddenly converted into a monster, to gratify the inconstant king. A court of inquiry was at once appointed, in which presided Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, Anne's determined enemies. On the 28th of April they began with Brereton, and committed him to the Tower. On Sunday, the 31st, they examined Smeaton, and sent him also to the same prison. The following day, being the 1st of May, the Court was suspended to celebrate the gaieties usual on that day; and those were used for the purpose of obtaining a public cause of accusation against Sir Henry Norris. There was to be held a tournament at Greenwich that day, in which the Viscount Rochford was to be opposed by Norris as the principal defendant.
Thither it was concerted that Henry should go, and there he appeared in public with the queen, as if nothing were amiss betwixt them. Anne has been supposed to be unaware of the immediate storm which was brewing against her, but this is more than improbable. Isolated as she was at Greenwich from the Court, and left in melancholy desertion by the courtier tribe, she gave evidence of being sensible of the menacing crisis, by holding a long private conference with her chaplain, Matthew Parker, and giving him a solemn charge concerning her infant daughter, Elizabeth.
In the midst of the tournament, Henry, who, no doubt, was watching for some opportunity to entrap his victims, suddenly found one. The queen, leaning over the balcony, witnessing the tournament, accidentally let fall her handkerchief, which Norris took up, and, as it was said, presumptuously wiped his face with it, and then handed it to the queen on his spear. The thing is wholly improbable, the true version most likely being that the courtly Norris kissed the handkerchief on taking it up—an ordinary knightly usage—and that this was seized upon as a pretended charge against him. Henry, however, suddenly frowned, rose abruptly from his seat, and, black as a thunder-cloud, marched out of the gallery, followed by his six attendants. Every one was amazed; the queen appeared terror-stricken, and immediately retired. Norris, and not only Norris but Rochford, who had had nothing whatever to do with the handkerchief (showing, therefore, that the matter was preconcerted), was arrested, at the barriers, on a charge of high treason.
The diabolical treachery of Henry's character, and the utter insecurity in which every one about him stood, is strongly demonstrated by the fact that the whole of the six now accused of the most infamous crimes against him were his particular favourites, and so high did Norris stand, that he was the only person whom he had permitted to follow him into his bed-chamber. In a moment he was prepared to sacrifice them, just as he would sweep away so many flies, simply to accomplish a fresh act of his licentious life. On his way back to Whitehall, he took Norris apart, and earnestly entreated him to obtain his pardon by confessing his guilt. But Norris stoutly asserted his own innocence and that of the queen, and on arriving at London was committed to the Tower.
Queen Anne was struck with terror when the arrest of her brother and Norris was communicated to her, but the nature of the charge against them was yet a mystery. She sat down to dinner at the usual hour, but she was still more alarmed at perceiving a portentous silence amongst her attendants. Her ladies stood with downcast looks and tearful eyes, denoting some cause of profound grief, and her consternation was brought to a climax when, immediately on the drawing of the cloth, the Duke of Norfolk, Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor Audley, and other lords of the council, with solemn faces, and attended by Sir William Kingston, the Lieutenant of the Tower, walked in. She then started up in terror, and demanded why they came. They replied, "By command of the king, to conduct you to the Tower, there to abide during his highness's pleasure." Thereupon, she seemed to recover her composure, and replied, "If it be His Majesty's pleasure, I am ready to obey." "And so," says Heywood, "without change of habit, or anything necessary for her removal, she committed herself to them, and was conducted by them to her barge."
Scarcely were she and her attendants seated in the barge when Norfolk, who was a bigoted Catholic, and hated her for her leaning to the Reformers, with blunt rudeness, if not malice, told her that her "paramours had confessed their guilt." On this, she declared that it was impossible for any paramour of hers to have confessed any guilt with her, for she had none, but was perfectly innocent of any such offence; and passionately implored them to conduct her to the king, that she might plead her own cause to him. To all her protestations of innocence, the Duke of Norfolk replied with the most insulting expressions.
On approaching the gate of the Tower, the terror of her situation came so vividly upon her, that she fell on her knees, as she had already done in the boat, and exclaimed, "O Lord! help me, as I am guiltless of that whereof I am charged!" Then, turning to the Lieutenant of the Tower, she said, "Mr. Kingston, do I go into a dungeon?" Sir William replied, "No, madam, to your own lodging, where you lay at your coronation." On hearing this, the remembrance of that time, and the awful contrast of the present, overcame her; she burst into a passion of tears, exclaiming, "It is too good for me; Jesus have mercy on me!" When the lords had brought her to her chamber, again protesting her innocence, she said: "I entreat you to beseech the king in my behalf, that he will be a good lord unto me." The ministers then took their leave.
On being left alone with Sir William Kingston, she said, "Why am I here, Mr. Kingston? I am the king's true wedded wife—do you know why I am here?" He replied that he did not. Then she asked him when he ​saw the king, and he said not since he saw him in the tilt-yard. She next asked where Lord Rochford was, and Kingston evasively replied, he saw him last at Whitehall. "I dare say," continued the disconsolate woman, "that I shall be accused with these men, and I can say no more than nay, though you should open my body." "Oh, Norris!" she exclaimed, "hast thou accused me? Thou art in the Tower, and thou and I shall die together. And Mark, thou art here too! Oh, my mother! thou wilt die for sorrow." Then suddenly breaking off, she exclaimed, "Mr. Kingston, I shall die without justice!" "The poorest subject," replied Sir William, "the king hath, has that." At which poor Anne, knowing what sort of justice her Royal husband administered where his will was concerned, burst into a bitter hysterical laugh.
Left alone in her prison, her affliction seemed to actually disturb her intellect. She would sit for hours plunged in a stupor of melancholy, and shedding torrents of tears, and then she would abruptly burst into wild laughter. To her attendants she would say that she should be a saint in heaven; that no rain would fall on the earth till she was delivered from prison; and that the most grievous calamities would oppress the nation in punishment for her death. At other times she became calm and devotional, and requested that a consecrated host might be placed in her closet.
But the unhappy queen was not suffered to enjoy much retirement. It was necessary for Henry to establish a charge against her sufficiently strong to turn the feeling of the nation against her, and from him; and for this purpose, no means were neglected which tyranny and harshness of the intensest kind could suggest. Whilst the accused gentlemen were interrogated, threatened, cajoled, and even put to the torture in their cells, to force a confession of guilt from them, two women were set over Anne to watch her every word, look, and act, to draw from her in her unguarded conversation everything they could to implicate her, and, no doubt, to invent and colour where the facts did not sufficiently answer the purpose required. These were Lady Boleyn, the wife of Anne's uncle, Sir Edward Boleyn, a determined enemy of hers, and Mrs. Cosyns, the wife of Anne's master of the horse, a creature of the most unprincipled character.
These women never left her, day or night. They had a pallet laid at the foot of her bed, and they carefully hoarded up every word, every exclamation which fell from her, and repeated it to the king, no doubt giving their own colour to the communication. Their business was to entrap and villify, and for this purpose they put all sorts of ensnaring questions to her, and led her on to talk, whilst, on the other hand, they would tell her nothing comfortable of any of her friends or relations outside the walls. She was very apprehensive that her father might have fallen into disgrace or trouble on her account, but to all her inquiries of these women there was no reply. She implored that she might be attended by certain ladies of the privy chamber, but this, of course, was not allowed. Gossip absurd, but most fatal, like the following, was reported as her conversation.
Mrs. Cosyns asked her why Norris had told his almoner on the preceding Saturday "that he could swear the queen was a good woman?" "Marry," replied Anne, "I bade him do so, for I asked him why he did not go on with his marriage, and he made answer that he would tarry awhile. 'Then,' said I, 'you look for dead men's shoes. If aught but good should come to the king (who was then afflicted with a dangerous ulcer), you would look to have me.' He denied it, and I told him I could undo him if I would." Again, the queen expressed some apprehension of what Weston might say in his examination, for he had told her on Whit Monday last that Norris came more into her chamber for her sake than for Madge, one of her maids of honour. Of Weston, that she told him he did love her kinswoman, Mrs. Skelton, and that he loved not his wife; and he answered again that he loved one in his house better than them both. She asked him who, and he said, "yourself," on which she defied him.
Such was the stuff which Kingston gathered at the hands of these wretched spies, to be used against the queen, who was to be got rid of. To suppose that Anne talked in that manner to these women, who she knew were placed there to malign and betray her, is to suppose that she had lost her senses, or was a far more foolish woman than she was ever supposed to be. It is more than improbable that Anne should talk thus imprudently when we find her saying, "The king wist what he did when he put such women as Mrs. Cosyns and my Lady Boleyn about her." Her mind, indeed, seems to have been really affected by the intensity of her anguish and anxiety at times. "One hour," says Kingston, "she is determined to die, and the next hour much contrary to that. Yesterday I sent for my wife, and also for Mrs. Cosyns, to know how she had done that day; and they said that she had been very merry, and made a great dinner, and yet soon after called for her supper, having marvelled where I was all day. 'Where have you been all day?' she asked when I went in. I replied, 'I have been with the prisoners.' 'So,' she said, 'I thought I heard Mr. Treasurer' (this was her father). I assured her that he was not there. Then she began to talk, and said, 'I was cruelly handled at Greenwich by the king's council, with my Lord of Norfolk, who said, "Tut, tut, tut!" shaking his head three or four times.' As for my Lord Treasurer, he was in Windsor Forest all the time." At other times the situation into which she had fallen appeared so unaccountable, that she could not believe the king meant her any harm, and would say, "I think the king does it to try me;" and then she would burst into her strange laughter, and appear very merry.
She applied to have her almoner sent to her, but the king appointed Cranmer to that office; and when Anne implored him, as he knew her innocence, to intercede with the king, Cranmer wrote a letter to Henry in that creeping and courtier-like style which betrayed more fear of offending the impetuous monarch on his own account, than influencing his mind towards the queen, whom the time-serving reformer had represented as being the very bulwark of the Reformation in England. Never through his whole life did Cranmer show to less advantage than in this matter.
Anne exhorted Kingston to convey a letter from her to Cromwell, but he declined such a responsibility; she contrived, however, by some means, on the fourth day of her imprisonment, to forward the following letter, which bears a very different impress from the conversation ​reported by her female spies, through Cromwell to the king:—
"To The King, From the Ladie in the Tower.
"Sir,—Your grace's displeasure and my imprisonment are things so strange unto me, that what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you sent to me (willing to confess a truth and so obtain your favour) by such a one, whom you know to be mine ancient professed enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth, indeed, may procure my safety, I shall, with all willingness and duty, perform your command. But let not your grace ever imagine that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, where not so much as a thought ever proceeded. And to speak the truth, never had prince a wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Anne Bolen—with which name and place I could have willingly contented myself, if God and your grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship but that I always looked for such alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least alteration was fit and sufficient (I knew) to draw that fancy to some other object.
"You have chosen me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire; if then you found me worthy of such honour, good your grace, let not any light fancy or bad counsel of my enemies withdraw your princely favour from me; neither let that stain—that unworthy stain—of a disloyal heart towards your good grace ever cast so foul a blot on me, and on the infant princess, your daughter.
"Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and as my judges; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame. Then shall you see either mine innocency cleared, your suspicions and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. So that whatever God and you may determine of, your grace may be freed from an open censure; and mine offence being so well proved, your grace may be at liberty, both before God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an unfaithful wife, but to follow your affection already settled on that party, for whose sake I am now as I am; whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto,—your grace not being ignorant of my suspicion therein. 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 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 strict 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 innocency shall be openly known and sufficiently cleared.
"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 strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favour in your sight—if over the name of Anne Bolen 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, the 6th of May,
"Anne Bolen."
This letter, a copy of which was found amongst the papers of Cromwell, when his turn came to pay the penalty of serving that remorseless tyrant, is the letter of an innocent woman, and forms a strange contrast to the dubious language put into her mouth by those who reported her speech on the scaffold.
On the 10th of May an indictment for high treason was found by the grand jury of Westminster against Anne and the five gentlemen accused; and on the same day the four commoners were put upon their trial in Westminster Hall, for the alleged offences against the honour and life of their sovereign lord. A true bill was also found against them by the grand juries of Kent and Middlesex, some of the offences being laid in those counties, at Greenwich, Hampton Court, &c. Smeaton, the musician, was the only one who could be brought to confess his guilt; and it is declared by Constantyne, who was in attendance on the trials, and wrote an account of the proceedings, that he "had been grievously racked" to bring him to that confession. According to Grafton's chronicle, he was beguiled into signing the deposition, which criminated the queen as well as himself, by an offer of pardon like that so repeatedly made to Norris. The weak man fell into the snare; the rest of the accused stood firmly by their innocence, and neither threats nor promises could move them from it. Norris was a great favourite with the king, who still appeared anxious to save his life, and sent to him, offering him again full pardon if he would confess his guilt. But Norris nobly declared that he believed in his conscience that the queen was wholly innocent of the crimes charged upon her; but whether she were so or not, he could not accuse her of anything, and that he would rather die a thousand deaths than falsely accuse the innocent. On this being told to Henry, he exclaimed, "Let him hang then! hang him up then!" All the four were condemned to death.
On the 16th of May, Queen Anne and her brother. Lord Rochford, were brought to trial in the great hall in the Tower, a temporary court being erected within it for the purpose. The Duke of Norfolk, a known and notorious enemy of the accused, was created Lord High Steward for the occasion, and presided—a sufficient proof, if any was wanted, that no justice was intended. His son, the Earl of Surrey, sat as Deputy Earl-Marshal beneath him. Twenty-six peers, as "lords-triers," constituted the Court and amongst these appeared the Duke of Suffolk, a nobleman still more inveterate in his hatred of the queen than the chief judge himself. The Earl of Northumberland, Anne's old lover, was one of the lords-triers; but he was seized with such a disorder, no doubt resulting from his memory of the past, that he was obliged to quit the court before the arraignment of Lord Rochford, and did not live many months. Henry, by his tyranny, had ​forcibly rent asunder his engagement with Anne; had embittered his life; and tired of the treasure which would have made Northumberland happy, he now called upon that injured man to assist in destroying one whom he had already lost.
Lord Rochford defended himself with such courage and ability, that even in that packed court there were many who, by their sense of justice, were led to brave the vengeance of the terrible king, and voted for his acquittal. The chief witness against him was his own wife, who had hated Anne Boleyn from the moment that she became the king's favourite; and now, with a most monstrous violation of all nature and decency, strove to destroy her queen and her own husband together. Spite of the impression which the young viscount made on some of his judges, he was condemned, for Henry willed it, and that was enough.
Chapel on the Tower Green, where Anne Boleyn was buried.
When he was removed, Anne, Queen of England, was summoned into court, and appeared attended by her ladies and Lady Kingston, and was conducted to the bar by the Constable and Lieutenant of the Tower. She stood alone, without counsel or adviser; yet in that trying moment she displayed a dignified composure worthy of her station and of the character of an innocent woman. Crispin, Lord of Milherve, who was present, says that "she presented herself at the bar with the true dignity of a queen, and curtsied to her judges, looking round upon them all without any signs of fear." When the indictment against her, charging her with adultery and incest, had been read, she held up her hand, and pleaded not guilty.
Not only was the confession of Mark Smeaton produced against her, but the alleged dying confession of the Lady Wingfield, who had been in the queen's service, and on her death-bed made a deposition of which no record remains; for the evidence was carefully destroyed, no doubt in the following reign of her daughter, Elizabeth. The crimes charged on the queen were infidelity towards the king with the four persons named, and that she had said to each and every one of those persons that "she loved him better than any person in the world," and that the king never had her heart. The charge against her, as it regarded her own brother, amounted merely to Lady Rochford having seen him leaning on her bed. To these most improbable charges was added the utterly absurd one, that she had at various times conspired against the king's life. "As for the evidence," says Wyatt, "as I never could hear of any, small I believe it was. The accusers must have doubted whether their proofs would not prove their reproofs, when they dared not bring them to the light in an open place."
Anne seems to have shown great ability and address on the occasion. She is said to have spoken with extraordinary force, wit, and eloquence, and so completely scattered all the vile tissue of lies that was brought against her, that the spectators imagined that there was nothing for it but to acquit her. It was reported with-out doors," says Wyatt, "that she had cleared herself in a most wise and noble speech." But alas! it was neither wisdom, wit, truth, innocence, eloquence, nor all the powers and virtues which could be assembled in one soul, which could draw an acquittal from that assembly of slaves bound by selfish terror to the yoke of the remorseless despot who now disgraced the throne. "Had the peers given their verdict according to the expectation of the assembly," says Bishop Godwin, "she had been acquitted." But they knew they must give it according to the expectation of their implacable master, and she was condemned.
Henry VIII. at the Royal Hunt in Epping Forest, on the morning of the Execution of Anne Boleyn.(See page 233)
Of the few spectators who were present, the universal feeling was that Anne was perfectly innocent, but borne down by a predetermining power. The Lord Mayor, who was one of them, and who was accustomed to try prisoners and decide on evidence, declared that "he could not observe anything in the proceedings against her, but that they were resolved to make an occasion to get rid of her."
And, indeed, Henry lost no time in getting rid of the woman, to obtain whom he had moved heaven and earth for years—threatening the peace of kingdoms, and rending the ancient bonds of the Church. The very day on which she was condemned, he signed her death-warrant, and sent Cranmer to confess her. There is something rather hinted at than proved in this part of these strange proceedings. Anne, when she was conveyed from Greenwich to the Tower, told her enemies proudly that nothing could prevent her dying their queen; and now, when she had seen Cranmer, she was in high spirits, and said to her attendants that she believed she should be spared after all, and that she understood that she was to be sent to Antwerp. The meaning of this the event of the next day sufficiently explained. In the morning, on a summons from the Archbishop Cranmer, she was conveyed privately from the Tower to Lambeth, where she voluntarily submitted to a judgment that her marriage with the king had been invalid, and was, therefore, from the first null and void. Thus she consented to dethrone herself, to unwife herself, and to bastardise her only child. For what? Undoubtedly from the promise of life, and from fear of the horrid death by fire. As she had received the confident idea of escape with life from the visit of Cranmer, there can be no rational doubt that he had been employed by the king to tamper with her fears of death and the stake, to draw this concession from her. Does any one think this impossible or improbable in the great Reformer of the Church—Cranmer? Let him weigh his very next proceeding.
Cranmer had formerly examined the marriage of Henry and Anne carefully by the canon law, and had pronounced it good and valid. He now proceeded to contradict every one of his former arguments and decisions, and pronounced the same marriage null and void. A solemn mockery of everything true, serious, and Divine was now gone through. Henry appointed Dr. Sampson his proctor in the case; Anne had assigned her the Drs. Wotton and Barbour. The objections to the marriage were read over to them in the presence of the queen. The king's proctor could not dispute them; the queen's were, with pretended reluctance, obliged to admit them, and both united in demanding a judgment. Then the great archbishop and Reformer, "having previously invoked the name of Christ, and having God alone before his eyes," pronounced definitively that the marriage formally contracted, solemnised, and consummated betwixt Henry and Anne was from the first illegal, and, therefore, no marriage at all; and the poor woman, who had been induced to submit to this deed of shame and of shameful deception, was sent back, not to life—not to exile at Antwerp, but to the block!
Taking these facts as they stand, without reference to persons, parties, or countries, we must say that in no portion of the world's history, in no age however dark and degraded, do we find deeds more stamped with infamy. Here is a king who sets all laws of heaven or earth, of justice and honour, all sentiments of decorum, affection, and humanity, at defiance; who binds and unbinds, contracts the most sacred unions and breaks them; who plays with lives and souls, with all their rights and feelings, as he would with bowls. And here is a primate of England, a man professedly aiming to reform the Church, to restore corrupted religion, to break the power of the Pope, to establish independence of spirit and opinion, who crouches before this monster, this incarnation of cruelty, lust, and libertinism, and seems to lick the very dust of dishonour and dishonesty from beneath his feet. There is not a more revolting spectacle than that of Henry at this period—there is not a more humiliating and melancholy one than that of Cranmer.
And what strange consequences flowed directly from this judgment. If Anne never were legally married to Henry, then she could not have committed adultery against him. Then the sentence which condemned her for this was altogether an unrighteous sentence. If this judgment were valid, then all the treasons based upon the validity of the marriage were done away with; and the men now condemned, were condemned, even if guilty with Anne, yet without any guilt against the king or crown. But if the act of settlement remained good, spite of the judgment, then the judgment itself was a treason, for it had "slandered and impugned the marriage," a circumstance which the act of settlement pronounced to be most treasonable. But the law in this gloomy time was merely what the tyrant decreed, and all classes were alike paralysed by this terrific despotism. The ​convocation and the Parliament confirmed the judgment of Cranmer, for they knew it was the judgment of the king.
On the same day that Cranmer pronounced this judgment, the condemned courtiers were executed. Smeaton, on account of the inferiority of his rank, was hanged; the other four wore beheaded. Nothing was more remarkable in their deaths than that they all used an ambiguous sort of language in the few words which they addressed to the spectators, neither declaring themselves innocent nor guilty of the charge under which they suffered. The leaden weight of despotism weighed on their very souls till the rope strangled or the axe fell; and even the four who had so stoutly all through denied their guilt, seemed on the scaffold almost half to admit it. Was it that they had been only allowed to address the spectators on condition of saying nothing in prejudice of the king; or was the report of the officials, which was entered on the records, garbled by them to please their crowned master? Lord Rochford, indeed, spoke out more distinctly than the rest, for he declared that he had "never offended the king," which was, in fact, most fully asserting his innocence. Rochford was a very accomplished man, and an elegant poet, some of his poems being published along with those of his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt. He is said to have sung, on the evening before his death, a very popular lyric of his, which yet remains, and which was most applicable to his situation:—
   "Farewell, my lute, this is the last Labour that thou and I shall waste, For ended is that we began. Now is the song both sung and past: My lute, be still, for I have done."
Henry VIII. seemed to have a particular pleasure in destroying genius; and, if he had committed no other crimes, his murders of Sir Thomas More, Lord Rochford, and the Earl of Surrey would make his name execrable to all time.
Queen Anne had two more days allowed her, which she spent chiefly with her confessor in devotional preparation for her death. Amid her devotions, however, she was not insensible to her reputation, for she calculated strongly on Mark Smeaton doing her that justice on the scaffold for which the hope of life had made him too weak. But when she heard that he had not, she exclaimed indignantly, "Has he not, then, cleared me from the public shame he hath done me? Alas! I fear his soul will suffer from the false witness he hath borne. My brother and the rest are now, I doubt not, before the face of the greater King, and I shall follow to-morrow." Like her brother, she endeavoured to soothe her agitated spirit with poetry. The following stanzas, composed by her after her condemnation, show that she possessed talents too good to have been stifled in the Court of a sensual despot like Henry VIII.:—
   "Death, rock me asleep, Bring on my quiet rest; Let pass my very guiltless ghost Out of my careful breast. Ring out the doleful knell; Let its sound my death tell, For I must die. There's no remedy, For how I die!
   "My pains who can express? Alas! they are so strong, My dolour will not suffer strength, My life for to prolong! Alone, in prison strange, I wan my destiny. Woe worth this cruel hap, that Should taste this misery!
   "Farewell, my pleasures past; Welcome, my present pain: I feel my torments so increase That life cannot remain. Sound now the passing-bell, Rung is my doleful knell, For its sound my death doth tell Death doth draw nigh, Sound the knell dolefully, For now I die!"
Two stanzas, also said to have been written at the same time, express her sense of the infamy cast upon her, and her firm conviction that it would not endure:—
   "Defiled is my name full sore, Through cruel spite and false report, That I may say, for evermore, Farewell to joy; adieu, comfort.
   "For wrongfully ye judge of me. Unto my fame a mortal wound: Say what ye list, it may not be, Ye seek for that shall not be found."
With all the merits attributed to her as a Church reformer, Anne died a decided Roman Catholic. She not only made full use of confession, but also received the sacraments according to the doctrine of consubstantiation. One confession also she made, which showed that the memory of her rigorous treatment of the ill-used child of Catherine, the Princess Mary, lay heavily upon her in that hour. This is Speed's account of the circumstance:—"The day before she suffered death, being attended by six ladies in the Tower, she took the Lady Kingston into her presence-chamber, and there, locking the door upon them, willed her to sit down in the chair of state. Lady Kingston answered, that 'it was her duty to stand, and not to sit at all in her presence, much less upon the seat of state of her the queen.' 'Ah! madam,' replied Anne, 'that title is gone: I am a condemned person, and by law have no estate left me in this life; but for clearing of my conscience, I pray you sit down.' 'Well,' said Lady Kingston. 'I have often played the fool in my youth, and to fulfil your command, I will do it once more in mine age,' and thereupon sat down under the cloth of estate upon the throne. Then the queen most humbly fell on her knees before her, and, holding up her hands with tearful eyes, charged her, 'as in the presence of God and his angels, and as she would answer to her before them when all should appear to judgment, that she would so fall down before the Lady Mary's grace, her daughter-in-law, and in like manner ask her forgiveness for the wrongs she had done her; for till that was accomplished,' she said, 'her conscience could not be quiet.'"
Friday, the 19th of May, was the day fixed for her execution, and on that morning she rose at two o'clock and resumed her devotions with her almoner. She sent for Sir William Kingston to be witness to her last solemn protest of her innocence before taking the sacrament. As Henry had wantonly tantalised her with the hope of life after her condemnation, he now again put her on the rack of suspense by leaving the hour of her execution ​uncertain. Servilely submissive as were all about him, the tyrant had yet his fears of the effect of this execution, for it was a piece of brutality which no king before him had attempted. There had not yet existed in England a monarch so debased, so unmanly as to send his queen to the block under any circumstances, however aggravated. He therefore had apprehensions whether the public would tolerate such an outrage on the queen. To make all sure, he therefore not only ordered the execution to take place on the green, within the Tower walls, and all strangers to be excluded, but kept the hour unknown. The poor victim, worn out with suspense, sent for Kingston, and said, "Mr. Kingston, I hear that I shall not die before noon, and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time, and past my pain." Kingston assured her that "the pain would be little, it was so subtle." She then said, "I have heard say the executioner is very good, and I have a little neck," putting her hands about it, and laughing heartily. Kingston, in his report to Cromwell, said that he had seen both men and women executed, and they had been in great sorrow; but that the queen, to his knowledge, "had much joy and pleasure in death."
A few minutes before twelve o'clock she was led forth by the Lieutenant of the Tower to the scaffold. There she saw amongst the few spectators admitted, the Duke of Suffolk, one of her most spiteful enemies, come to feast his eyes on her blood, with the Duke of Richmond, Henry's natural son, and Cromwell, who, though he had risen chiefly by her means, was one of the most willing instruments of her death. Probably the consciousness that the manner in which she met her death would be carried by those courtiers to the king, might have given Anne additional power to go off the stage with the dignity becoming a queen. She had a rich colour in her cheeks, and a bright splendour of the eyes, which astonished the spectators. "Never," said a foreign gentleman present, "had the queen looked so beautiful before." Her composure was equal to her beauty. She removed her hat and collar herself, and put a small linen cap upon her head, saying, "Alas! poor head, in a very brief space thou wilt roll in the dust on the scaffold; and as in life thou didst not merit to wear a crown, so in death thou deserved not better doom than this." She then took a very affectionate farewell of her ladies. The speech which she is said to have addressed to the spectators is differently related, and probably was reported so as to suit the ears of the tyrant who was to hear it. In the shortest, she is made to say:—"Masters, I here humbly submit me to the law, as the law hath judged me; and as for my offences (I here accuse no man), God knoweth them. I remit them to God, beseeching him to I have mercy on my soul; and I beseech Jesu save my sovereign and master, the king, the most goodliest, noblest, and gentlest prince that is, and make him long to reign over you." The latter part of this speech was clearly got up by Cromwell, or some other of the sycophant spectators, or in Anne is a severe irony. It is certain that she sent the king a very cutting message before her death, for it was enclosed in her letter which we have given, by Cromwell, in whose possession it was found. "Commend me to His Majesty, and tell him he hath over been constant in his cause of advancing me. From a private gentlewoman he made me a marchioness, from a marchioness a queen; and now he hath left no higher degree of honour, he gives my innocency the crown of martyrdom."
Having given to Mary Wyatt, the sister of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who attended her through all her trouble, the little book of devotions which she held in her hand, and whispered to her some parting words, she laid her head on the block, one of the ladies covered her eyes with a bandage, and saying, "O Lord, have mercy on my soul," the executioner, who had been sent for from Calais, severed her head from her body at one stroke with a sword. Her body was thrust into a chest used for keeping arrows in, and buried in the same grave with that of her brother, Lord Rochford, no coffin being provided.
We have been necessarily led to observe the weak and defective side of Anne Boleyn's character, in tracing her progress. Her ambition, her levity, her little regard for the feelings and patience of her Royal mistress, her regardlessness of her good fame by living so openly with the king before their marriage, and her great culpability in marrying him whilst the real queen was not only still living, but undivorced, exhibit her but as a worldly woman of a conduct most censurable. But we should do violence to historic impartiality if we did not also bear witness that she had a better side to her character, better feelings in her heart. Though she never was a Protestant, however much a certain party may labour to represent her as such, but conformed to all the rites and maintained all the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church to the last, yet she was at the same time kindly disposed towards the Reformers, and was not only a reader of the Bible in Tyndal's translation, but is said to have recommended its perusal to the king—to very little purpose, it must be confessed. She rescued the good and simple Hugh Latimer from the persecuting clutches of Stokesley, the Bishop of London, received him, and listened to his preaching, made him her chaplain, and, it is said, became much more serious and considerate of others under his faithful guidance. She got him promoted to the see of Worcester, and showed the effect of his more enlightened Christian philosophy upon her, by setting aside a certain portion of privy-purse allowance to establish manufactures for the permanent support of the people, and for relieving those she could not employ in every parish in the kingdom. In alms alone, within the last nine months of her life, she distributed £14,000, and selected young men of talent, and sent them to college at her own expense, that they might become able ministers in the Church.
The Royal rank for which she sacrificed her conscience and her life she possessed but three years, for it was on the 28th of May, 1533, that Cranmer declared her marriage lawful, and on the 19th of May, 1536, she perished on the scaffold, being only thirty-six years of age. The scandalous haste with which Henry pushed on her final tragedy has been well expressed by Bishop Godwin. "The Court of England was now like a stage, whereon are represented the vicissitudes of ever-various fortune; for within one and the same month, it saw Queen Anne flourishing, accused, condemned, executed, and another assumed into her place, both of bed and ​honour. The 1st day of May, she was, it seems, informed against; the 2nd, imprisoned; the 15th, condemned; the 17th, deprived of her brother and friends, who suffered in her cause; and the 19th, executed. On the 20th the king married Jane Seymour, who, on the 29th, was publicly showed as queen."
But what marks how thoroughly Henry VIII. was by this time sunk from the grade and spirit of the man he was into a gross and ferocious animal, destitute it would seem of humanity, and even the consciousness of decency, was the manner in which he watched for and observed the solemnity of his wife's death. On the morning appointed for her execution, he clad himself in white, and went to hunt in Epping Forest. During breakfast, he was observed by his attendants to be silent, fidgety, and impatient. At length they heard the preconcerted signal, the report of a gun at the Tower—when he started up, crying, "Ha! it is done! The business is done! Uncouple the dogs, and let us follow the sport!" In the evening he returned gaily from the chase, and on the following morning he married Jane Seymour!
His conduct was quite uniform throughout. His daughter Mary, now a young lady of twenty years of age, thought the removal of Queen Anne, who had shown no liking to her, was a good opportunity to endeavour to escape from her confinement at Hunsdon, and obtain more indulgence from her father. Lady Kingston, as we have seen, was charged by Anne Boleyn with a sacred message to the princess, and, through her, she sent a letter to Cromwell, begging to be allowed to write to her father. This Cromwell permitted, on condition that the letter should be first submitted to him. The consequence was that a deputation from the council soon appeared at Hunsdon, who required her, as the price of the king's favour, to subscribe a paper admitting that the marriage of her mother with Henry had been unlawful and incestuous; and, moreover, that Henry was the head of the Church. The poor girl recoiled from so revolting a proposal with horror, but Cromwell wrote a most base and cruel letter on her refusal, telling her that "she was an obstinate and obdurate woman, deserving the reward of malice in the extremity of mischief," and that if she did not submit he would take his leave of her presence, "reputing her the most ungrateful, unnatural, and obstinate person living, both to God and her father." He told her by her disobedience she had rendered herself "unfit to live in a Christian congregation, of which he was so convinced, that he refused the mercy of Christ if it were not true."
We are amazed beyond expression in contemplating the moral condition of this Court; its hardness and insensibility to every honourable feeling. What a master and what a man! The poor confounded princess, overwhelmed by such terrible denunciations, submitted in affright, and signed the paper, branding her mother with disgrace, and herself with illegitimacy. But that did not satisfy this tender father—he demanded who they were who had advised her former obstinacy, and her present submission. This the princess, spite of her recent vow of obedience in everything, refused to disclose, declaring that she would sooner die than expose others to injury. Henry was obliged to be content, and gave her an establishment more suited to her years and rank. But he was in no degree disposed to do her or any one essential justice. He repealed the late act of settlement, and passed a new one through the compliant Parliament, entailing the crown on the issue by Jane Seymour. He obtained, moreover, a power to bequeath the succession by letters patent, or by his last will, in case of having no fresh issue of his own, on any person that he thought proper. In life and in death he demanded the absolute power over every principle of the constitution, and this Parliament, which would have granted him anything, conceded it. It was well understood that he meant to cut off his daughters, and to confer the crown on his illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond. But as if Providence would punish him in the very act, this son died before he could give his Royal assent to the bill.
But if Henry had found a very submissive body in the Parliament, there was much discontent amongst the people, who were encouraged in their murmurs by the monks who had been dispossessed of their monasteries, or who feared the approach of their fall, and the clergy, who were equally alarmed at the progress of the opinions of the Reformers in the nation. There were two great factions in the Church and the Government, the opposed members of which were denominated the men of the old and the new learning. At the head of the old or Romanist faction were Leo, Archbishop of York; Stokesley, Bishop of London; Tunstall, Bishop of Durham; Gardiner, of Winchester; Sherbourne, of Chichester; Nix, of Norwich; and Kite, of Carlisle. These received the countenance and support of the Duke of Norfolk and of Wriothesley, the premier secretary. The leaders of the reforming faction were Cranmer, the primate; Latimer, Bishop of Worcester; Shaxton, of Salisbury; Hilsey, of Rochester; Fox, of Hereford; and Barlow, of St. David's. These were especially patronised by Cromwell, whose power as Vicar-General was great, and who was now made Lord Cromwell by the king.
Each of these parties, supported by a great body in the nation, endeavoured to make their way by flattering the vanity or the love of power of the capricious king. The Papist party swayed him to their side, by his love of all the old doctrines and rites; and Reformers, by his pride in opposing the Pope, and the gratification of his love of power as the independent head of the Church. As they applied these different forces, so the king oscillated to one side or the other, but they were never sure of him. Some particular circumstance would make him start off at a tangent, and fill all those with terror who the moment before felt most secure. Each party was continually compelled to sacrifice its own opinions outwardly, and act the hypocrite. Gardiner and the Papal party submitted to renounce the Papal supremacy, and subscribe to every Royal innovation in the ancient Church; Cranmer and his adherents, on the other hand, submitted to teach the doctrines which they disapproved, to practice the rites and ceremonies that they deemed idolatrous, and to send men to the stake for the declaration of opinions which they themselves secretly entertained.
In this transition state of things, the doctrines of the English Church, as settled by the Convocation, exhibited ​a singular medley, and were liable at any moment to be disturbed by th momentary bias of the king, whose word was the only law of both Church and State. The Reformers succeeded in having the standard of faith recognised as existing in the Scriptures and the three creeds—the Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian; but then the Romanists had secured the retention of auricular confession and penance. As to marriage, extreme unction, confirmation, or holy orders, it was found that there could be no agreement in the belief in them as sacraments, and, therefore they remained unmentioned, every one following his own fancy. The real presence was admitted in the sacrament of the supper. The Roman Catholics asserted the warrant of Scripture for the use of images; but the Protestants denied this, and warned the people against idolatry in praying to them. The use of holy water, the ceremonies practised on Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and other festivals, were still maintained, but the Convocation, yielding to the Reformers, admitted that they had no power to remit sin.
Jane Seymour. From the Original Picture by Hans Holbein.
The same divided doctrine was held regarding purgatory. The article on this point is a fine specimen of the ambiguous jargon produced by this conflict of opinions:—"Since according to the due order of charity, and the book of Maccabeus, and divers ancient authors, it is a very good and charitable deed to pray for souls departed; and since such a practice has been maintained in the Church from the beginning, all bishops and teachers should instruct the people not to be grieved for the continuance of the same. But since the place where departed souls are retained before they reach paradise, as well as the nature of their pains, is left uncertain in Scripture, all such questions are to be submitted to God; to whose-mercy it is meet and convenient to commend the deceased, trusting that he accepteth our prayers for them."
The Church being in this divided state, each party pushed its own opinions and practice where it could, and the certain consequence was there was much feud and heart-burning, and the people were pulled hither and thither. In those places where the Reformers prevailed. ​they saw the images thrown down or removed, the ancient rites neglected or despised; and they felt themselves aggrieved, but more especially with the ordinances of Cromwell as Vicar-General, who retrenched many of their ancient holidays. He also incensed the clergy, by prohibiting the resort to places of pilgrimage, and the exhibition of relics. These greatly reduced the emoluments o£ the clergy, whom, he on the other hand compelled to lay aside a considerable portion of their revenues for the repairs of the churches, and the assistance of the poor. This caused them to foment the discontents of the people, and the thousands of monks now wandering over the country without a home and a subsistence, found out too ready listeners in the vast population which had been accustomed to draw their main support from the daily alms of the convents and monasteries.
The Pilgrimage of Grace.
The people, seeing all these ancient sources of a lazy support suddenly cut off by Government, grew furious; and their disaffection was strengthened by observing that many of the nobility and gentry were equally malcontent, whose ancestry had founded monasteries, and who, therefore, looked upon them with feelings of family pride, and, moreover, regarded them as a certain provision for some of their younger children. There were many of all classes who thought with horror of the souls of their ancestors and friends, who, they believed, would now remain for ages in all the torments of purgatory, for want of masses to relieve them.
All these causes operating together produced formidable insurrections, both in the north and south. The first rising was in Lincolnshire. It was headed by Dr. Mackrel, the Prior of Barlings, who was disguised like as mechanic, and by another man in disguise, calling himself Captain Cobbler. The first attack was occasioned by the demand of a subsidy for the king, but the public mind was already in a state of high excitement, and this was only the spark that produced the explosion. Twenty thousand men quickly rose in arms, and forced several lords and gentlemen to be their leaders. Such as refused, they either threw into prison or killed on the spot. Amongst the latter was the Chancellor of Longland, an ecclesiastic by no means popular. The king sent a force against them under the Duke of Suffolk, attended by the Earls of Shrewsbury, Kent, Rutland, and Huntingdon.
Suffolk found the insurgents in such force that he thought it best to temporise, and demanded of them what they had to complain of. Thereupon, the men of Lincolnshire drew up and presented to him a list of six articles of grievance. These consisted, first and foremost, of the suppression of the monasteries, by which they said such numbers of persons were put from their livings, and the poor of the realm were left unrelieved. Another complaint was of the fifteenth voted by Parliament, and of having to pay fourpence for a beast, and twelvepence for every twenty sheep. They affirmed that the king had taken into his councils personages of low birth and small reputation, who had got the forfeited lands into their hands, "most especial for their singular lucre and advantage." ​This was aimed by name, and with only too much justice, at Cromwell and Lord Rich, who had grown wealthy on the spoils of the abbeys. To these men they added the names of "the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Rochester, Salisbury, St. David's, and Dublin, whom they accused of haying perverted the faith of the realm; and they especially attributed the severe exactions on the people to the Bishop of Lincoln and the officers of Cromwell, of whom it was rumoured that they meant to take the plate, jewels, and ornaments of the parish churches, as they had taken those of the religious houses.
This story of grievances was forwarded by Suffolk to the king, who returned an answer thus: "First, we begin, and make answer to the fourth and sixth articles, because upon them dependeth much of the rest concerning choosing of counsellors. I never have read, heard, or known that princes, counsellors, and prelates should be appointed by rude and ignorant common people; nor that they were persons meet and of ability to discern and choose meet and sufficient counsellors for a prince. How presumptuous then are ye, the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm, and of least experience—to find fault with your prince for the electing of his counsellors and prelates, and to take upon you, contrary to God's law and man's law, to rule your prince, whom ye are bound by all laws to obey and serve, with both your lives, lands, and goods, and for no worldly cause to withstand; the contrary whereof you, like traitors and rebels, have attempted, and not like true subjects, as ye name yourselves. As to the suppression of religious houses and monasteries, we will that ye, and all our subjects, should well know that this is granted us by all the nobles spiritual and temporal of this our realm, and by all the commons of the same, by act of Parliament, and not set forth by any counsellor or counsellors upon their mere will and phantasy, as ye full falsely would persuade our realm to believe. And when ye alleged that the service of God is much thereby diminished, the truth thereof is contrary; for there be no houses suppressed where God was well served, but where most vice, mischief, and abomination of living was used; and that doth well appear by their own confessions, subscribed by their own hands, in the time of visitations. And yet were suffered a great many of them, more than are by the act needed, to stand; wherein, if they amend not their living, we fear we have more to answer for than for the suppression of all the rest."
He concludes by flatly refusing their petition, bidding them meddle no more in the affairs of their undoubted prince; but to deliver up their ringleaders, and leave governing to him and his counsellors and noblemen. This bluster appears to have frightened the simple clodhoppers of the Fens; and we have, a few days later, another letter from the same swelling hand, telling them that he has heard from the Earl of Shrewsbury that they have shown a fitting repentance and sorrow for their folly and their heinous crimes; and assuring them that in any other Christian country they, their wives and children, would have been exterminated with fire and sword. He orders them to pile their arms in the market-place of Lincoln, and got away to their proper habitations and business, or, if they remain a day longer in arms, he will execute on them, their wives and children, the most terrible judgments that the world had ever known. On the 30th of October, this frightened rabble, which seems to have been led on and then deserted by the clergy and gentry, dispersed, having first delivered up to the king's general fifteen of their ringleaders, amongst whom were Dr. Mackrel, this prior of Barlings, and Captain Cobbler, said to have been a man of the name of Melton. All these prisoners were afterwards executed as traitors-with all the barbarities of the age.
Whilst the Lincolnshire insurgents were in arms, a butcher of Windsor was reported to have said he wished the poor follows in Lincolnshire had the meat upon his stall, rather than he should sell it at the price offered; and that a priest standing by said he wished indeed they had it, for they had need of it. No sooner did this reach the ears of Henry than he had them seized and hanged, on the 9th of October; and Dr. Mallet, who had been chaplain to Queen Catherine, was hanged at Chelmsford, in Essex, for similar remarks.
Scarcely, however, was the disturbance in Lincolnshire suppressed, when a far more formidable ono broke out in the north. The people there were much more accustomed to arms, and their vicinity to the Scots created great alarm, lest they should take advantage to make an inroad into the country. The insurrection quickly spread over Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Westmoreland, and Lancashire. The Lord Darcy was conspicuous in it on the Borders, and there were calculated to be not less than 40,000 men in arms. Henry was this time greatly alarmed, and sent Cromwell to the Jewel-house in the Tower, to take as much plate as he thought could possibly be spared, and have it coined to pay troops, for he had no money in his coffers, notwithstanding all the monasteries he had seized. Wriothesley, the Secretary of State, wrote in haste from Windsor to Cromwell to expedite this business, superscribing his letter, "In haste—haste for thy life;" and telling him that the king appeared to fear much this matter, especially if he should want money, "for on the Lord Darcy his grace had no great trust."
As soon as money could be coined, a good sum was sent to the Duke of Suffolk, who was posted at Newark, and who made free use of it in buying over some of the ringleaders, and in sowing dissensions amongst the insurgents. Meantime, the Earl of Shrewsbury was made the king's Lord-Lieutenant north of the Trent, and the Duke of Norfolk was dispatched into Yorkshire, to command there with 5,000 men. Robert Aske, a gentleman of ability, was at the head of the rebel forces, and he had given a religious character to the movement by styling it "The Pilgrimage of Grace." Priests marched in the van, in the habits of their various orders, carrying crosses, and banners, on which were emblazoned the figure of Christ on the cross, the sacred chalice, and the five wounds of the Saviour. On their sleeves, too, were embroidered the five wounds, and the name of Christ on their centre. They had all sworn an oath that they had entered into the pilgrimage from no other motive than the love of God, the care of the king's person and issue, the desire of purifying the nobility, of driving base persons from the king, of restoring the Church, and suppressing heresy.
Wherever they came, they compelled the people to join ​their ranks, as they would answer it at the day of judgment, as they would bear the pulling down of their houses, and the loss of their goods and of their lives. They restored the monks and nuns to their houses, as they went along. The cities of York, Hull, and Pontefract had opened their gates, and taken the prescribed oaths. The Archbishop of York, the Lords Darcy, Lumley, Latimer, and Novill, with a vast number of knights and gentlemen, gathered to their standard, either by free will or compulsion, and the army presented a most formidable aspect. But, in reality, there were already disunion and controversy in the host. The money of the Duke of Suffolk was doing its work, and Wriothesley soon wrote that they were falling to talking amongst themselves, and, if that went on, a pair of Light heels would soon be worth five pair of hands to them. The Earl of Cumberland repulsed them from his castle of Skipton; Sir Ralph Evers defended Scarborough against them; Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, the Earls of Huntingdon, Derby, and Rutland, took the field against them; and they only managed to take Pomfret Castle, because the Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York, lying there, were supposed to be secretly in league with them, and only wanted a show of force, which they might plead in case of failure.
The passages of the Trent at Nottingham and Newark were secured against them, and when they moved upon Doncaster they were encountered by the united forces of the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had thrown up a strong battery in front of the town. The rebel army, nevertheless, determined to attack them in the morning; but, during the night, such heavy rains fell that the river was impassable, and Norfolk, who had received a fresh remittance of £10,000, took the opportunity to attempt to negotiate matters with them. He was instructed by the king to go artfully to work with them, offering to all the nobility and gentry who had joined them a free pardon, if they would quit the enterprise. With this purpose he sent a herald to Aske, who received him sitting in a chair of state, with the Archbishop of York on one hand, and Lord Darcy on the other. Aske presented a memorial, consisting of complaints similar to those in the petition of the men of Lincolnshire, and a number of others going still further. It demanded that the heresies of Wickliffe, Huss, Luther, Melanchthon, and others should be rooted out of the Church; that all heretical books should be destroyed; the supremacy of the Church should be restored to the Pope, who should enjoy the consecration of bishops, the tenths, and the first-fruits as formerly; that the Princess Mary should be declared legitimate, and all statutes to the contrary should be annulled; that the pains and penalties which had been decreed against such as kept hand-guns and cross-bows should be repealed, except as to their being used in the king's parks and forests against his deer; that the statute for treason in words spoken should be annulled, and the common law be restored as it was in the commencement of the king's reign; and that Parliament should be reinvested with its ancient privileges, and the election of the knights of shires and the members of boroughs should be reformed.
This was a most surprising attack upon all Henry's innovations, civil and ecclesiastical, and contained a most just but unavailing protest against his tyranny. It was decided that the insurgents should send this memorial to the king by Sir Ralph Elckers and Mr. Bowes, that the Duke of Norfolk should himself go up to second the petition, and that there should be a cessation of hostilities till the return of the messengers.
Nothing could be more advantageous to the Royal cause, or more fatal to that of the people, than this arrangement. The royalist troops had now plenty of pay and good quarters, whilst the insurgents were suffering the extremities of cold and hunger. Great numbers of them deserted; still more obtained leave of absence till they should be recalled. The people had great confidence in the mediation of the Duke of Norfolk, knowing that in all matters of faith he was wholly with them; and probably he thought it would be better to let the insurgents thus disperse, and so spare them, than to come to slaughter them. Be this as it may, the duke, on arriving in London, found Henry had summoned the nobility to meet him in arms at Northampton; but he convinced him that it was unnecessary, and that, by a little management, the insurgents would soon disperse of themselves.
But, of all men, Henry was the most unmanageable person. He wrote a reply to the memorial again, with his own hand, repeating all his assertions as to the justice and necessity of suppressing the monasteries; and as to the government of the Church, he told them bluntly it was no business of theirs; and as to the laws, he bade them remember that blind men were no judges of colours. That it was manifest that the laws never were so wholesome, commodious, and beneficial. It was a gross absurdity, he said, for them to tell him that he did not know what was good for the realm better than they, or even than himself when he first came to the throne, seeing he had been so long king. The men of his council, he said, were good men, just and true, and admirable administrators both of God's laws and his own. Some of them, it was true, were not of noble birth; neither had those been that his father left him, who, for the most part, were scarcely well-born gentlemen, of small estate, and the rest lawyers and priests. He would not concede an iota of their demands, but would freely pardon their rebellion on their delivering up to him six of their ringleaders, whom he named, and four whom he would proceed to name.
On hearing this answer the insurgents were greatly enraged, and summoned their forces back again; and Norfolk found that he had not an army strong enough to contend with them. He therefore once more tried to negotiate, and made them great promises, which Henry again refusing to fulfil, the insurgents became desperate, and compelled the Royal army to retreat to the south of the Don and the Trent. The Court became then really alarmed, lest the rebels should cross the Trent and advance upon the south, and Norfolk was empowered to offer a general pardon, without exceptions; and the weather operating with the Royal clemency, the bulk of the insurgents returned home. The king wrote gracious letters to "his trusty and well-loved" Captain Aske, Lord Darcy, and others, inviting them to come to London that he might converse with them; but these leaders were not to be taken by so shallow an artifice. Aske proffered ​to go, if a sufficient hostage were sent in exchange; and on this, Henry threw off the mask, and said he knew no gentleman nor other person of so little worth as to be put in pledge for such a villain.
The insurgents, quite aware that the Government was only waiting to seize and crush the leaders, again took the field in the very midst of winter. On the 23rd of January, 1537, bills were stuck on the church-doors by night, calling on the commoners to come forth and to be true to one another, for the gentlemen had deceived them, yet they should not want for captains. There was great distrust lest the gentlemen had been won over by the pardon and by money. The rebels, however, marched out under two leaders of the name of Musgrave and Tilby, and, 8,000 strong, they laid siege to Carlisle, where they were repulsed; and, being encountered in their retreat by Norfolk, they were defeated and put to flight. All their officers, except Musgrave, were taken and put to death, to the number of seventy. Sir Francis Bigot and one Halam attempted to surprise Hull, but failed; and other risings in the north proving equally abortive, the king now bade Norfolk spread his banner, march through the northern counties with martial law, and, regardless of the pardon he had issued, to punish the rebels without mercy. In his usual violence of passion, he was ready to destroy the innocent with the guilty. In his instructions to Norfolk he says:—"Our pleasure is, that before you shall close up our banner, you shall in any wise cause such dreadful execution to be done upon a good number of the inhabitants of every town, village, and hamlet as have offended in this rebellion, as well by the hanging them up in tens as by the quartering of them, and the setting of their heads and quarters in every town, great and small, and in all such other places, as they may be a fearful spectacle to all other hereafter that would practise any like matter; which we require you to do without pity or respect."
As the monks had obviously been greatly at the bottom of this commotion, Henry let loose his vengeance especially upon them. He ordered Norfolk to go to Sawley, Hexham, Newminster, Lannercost, St. Agatha, and all other places that had made resistance, and there seize certain priors and canons and send them up to him, and immediately to hang up "all monks and canons that be in any wise faulty, without further delay or ceremony." He ordered the Earl of Surrey and other officers in the north to charge all the monks there with grievous offences, to try their minds, and see whether they would not submit themselves gladly to his will. Under those sanguinary orders, the whole of England north of the Trent became a scene of horror and butchery, and ghastly heads and mangled bodies, or corpses swinging from the trees. Nor did this admirable reformer of religion neglect to look after the property of his victims. Their lands and goods were all to be forfeited and taken possession of; "for we are informed," he says, "that there were amongst them divers freeholders and rich men, whose lands and goods, well looked unto, will reward others that with their truth have deserved the same."
Besides Aske, Sir Thomas Constable, Sir John Bulmer, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Stephen Hamilton, Nicholas Tempest, William Lumley, and others, though they had taken the benefit of the pardon, were found guilty. and most of them were executed. Lord Hussey was found guilty of being an accomplice in the Lincolnshire rising, and was executed at Lincoln. Lord Darcy, though he pleaded compulsion, and a long life spent in the service of the Crown, was executed on Tower Hill. Lady Bulmer, the wife of Sir John Bulmer, was burnt in Smithfield; and Robert Aske was hung in chains on one of the towers of York. Having thus satiated his vengeance, and struck a profound terror into all the disaffected, Henry once more published a general pardon, to which he adhered; and even complied with one of the demands which the insurgents had made, that of erecting by patent a court of justice at York for deciding lawsuits in the northern counties.
But though Henry could crush his enemies in England, and command silence there, the world abroad which adhered to the Roman Catholic faith failed not to regard his sanguinary proceedings with horror, and to condemn him in no measured terms. There was one man, above all, whose stinging eloquence reached the ears and the heart of Henry, and made him writhe on his throne. This was Cardinal Pole, his own relative, whom we have seen him endeavouring, by offers of the highest ecclesiastical promotion, to bind to his cause, but in vain. Pole, a decided Romanist, could not bring his conscience to accept wealth and honours in lieu of what he regarded as the most sacred and most momentous truths. Pole had quitted England and taken up his abode in Rome in 1536, and there received the cardinal's hat. He had spread the infamy of the treatment of Queen Catherine, and the murder of the venerable Fisher and the illustrious More, over the whole of the civilised world. He had thrown all his great talents and learning into the composition of his work, "De Unione Ecclesiastica"—the Union of the Church—a work of singular erudition and eloquence, in which he had poured out his sarcasm and contempt on Henry with a terrible force. Henry burned with a deadly spirit of vengeance against this undaunted enemy, but could not reach him; yet Cromwell vowed that he would find means to make Pole eat his own heart with vexation.
Paul III., the great patron of Reginald Pole, though he saw the insurrection of the north thus quelled by Henry, imagined that it had, however, opened up to Henry such a view of the internal discontent of his kingdom with his breach with Rome, that he might now not be indisposed to enter into negotiation for a return to it. For this purpose, the talents and country of Pole seemed to point him out as the proper agent; though the slightest reflection might have shown that he had inflicted such severe wounds on the proud heart of Henry by his writings, that, of all men, he was the most exceptionable. To appoint Cardinal Pole to this office was inevitably to render it abortive. Yet the Pope did appoint him, and Pole was imprudent enough to accept it. Henry watched the proceedings with a sullen scowl of triumph, and Cromwell prepared to verify his promise that he would make the eloquent young English man "eat his own heart with vexation."
Pole was made legate beyond the Alps. He was instructed first to call on Charles and Francis to sheathe their swords, and to employ them no longer against each other, but in union against the Turks. He was ​to inform them that the Pope proposed to summon a general council, and to inform the King of England also of this. He was then to fix his residence in Flanders, to have quick communication with England, unless the way appeared to open for proceeding thither. No sooner did the cardinal enter France, than the English ambassador there, by virtue of a clause in the treaty betwixt the two crowns, demanded that he should be delivered up to him, and sent prisoner to England. Francis rejected the proposition with scorn; but he felt compelled to intimate to the cardinal that he had better pursue his journey to the Netherlands without visiting the French Court. Pole, therefore, went on and reached Cambray, where he found an order from the Court at Brussels, prohibiting his crossing the frontiers, that no offence might be given to England. Pole, thus chased, as it were, from place to place by the ire of the British monarch, went under escort to Liege in June, and solicited his recall to Rome, which was granted him; and in August he retraced his stops, pursued by the wrath of Henry, who proclaimed him a traitor, fixed a price of 50,000 crowns on his head, and offered the emperor an auxiliary force, for his campaign against France, of 4,000 men, for the delivery of his person. The cardinal had been most successfully driven from his mission by Henry and his minister Cromwell, and that was no trivial achievement: for Pole's business was to keep near England, and especially the northern counties, where he might encourage the ancient faith, and furnish its advocates with money, as well as to procure them, as much as possible, the countenance of the neighbouring continental princes. Henry could never forget either the lacerating writings of the English cardinal, nor his attempt to foment insurrection in his kingdom, and he would have made short work with him, had he fallen into his hands. We shall soon see that he did not over-look his relations who were within his power.
On the 12th of October, 1537, Jane Seymour gave birth to the long desired prince, so well known afterwards as King Edward VI. This great event took place at the palace of Hampton Court, and the infant was immediately proclaimed Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester. The joy on so greatly desired an occurrence may be imagined, though it was somewhat dashed by the death of the queen, which took place only twelve days afterwards. During the accouchement there was some question whether the life of the mother or the child should be sacrificed, and on the question being put to the king, which should be spared, he replied, most characteristically, "The child by all means, for other wives can be easily found." The queen's death, however, was occasioned by the absurd exposure which the pompous christening necessitated. Henry appeared to be grieved when her death really took place, and put on mourning, which he had never done for his wives before, and never did again. He wore it three months.
Queen Jane was laid in the Royal vault, in the midst of the choir, in St. George's Chapel, where her coffin was observed in 1813, close beside the gigantic skeleton of Henry VIII. which by some accident was exposed to view. Her reign, purchased by the destruction of her mistress, Queen Anne, had extended to less than fifteen months. Little, therefore, is recorded of her character or acts, except that she seemed to have the fear of the executioner—by whoso skill she had made her way to the throne—before her eyes, and was most submissive to her awful husband. Lord Herbert declared that "Jane Seymour was the fairest, the discreetest, and the most meritorious of all Henry VIII.'s wives." But Miss Strickland, the historian of our queens, with a woman's true feeling, has boldly called in question this verdict, which had been echoed mechanically by all subsequent historians. "Customs," she says truly, "may vary at various eras, but the laws of moral justice are unalterable: difficult would it be to reconcile them with the first actions known of this discreet lady. It has been shown in the preceding biography, that Jane Seymour's shameless conduct, in receiving the courtship of Henry VIII., was the commencement of the severe calamities that befell her mistress, Anne Boleyn. Scripture points out as an especial odium, the circumstance of a handmaid taking the place of her mistress. Odious enough was the case when Anne Boleyn supplanted the right royal Catherine of Arragon; but a sickening sensation of horror must pervade every right-feeling mind when the proceedings of the discreet Jane Seymour are considered. She received the addresses of her mistress's husband, knowing him to be such; she passively beheld the mental anguish of Anne Boleyn, when that unhappy queen was in a state which peculiarly demanded feminine sympathy; she knew the discovery of Henry's inconstancy had nearly destroyed her, whilst the shock actually destroyed her infant. She saw a series of murderous accusations got up against the queen, which finally brought her to the scaffold; yet she gave her hand to the regal rullian before his wife's corpse was cold. Yes, four-and-twenty hours had not elapsed since the sword was reddened with the blood of her mistress, when Jane Seymour became the wife of Henry VIII. And let it be remembered that a Royal marriage could not have been celebrated without previous preparation, which must have proceeded simultaneously with the heart-rending events of Anne Boleyn's last agonised hours. The wedding cakes must have been baking, the wedding dinner providing, the wedding clothes preparing, while the life-blood was yet running warm in the veins of the victim, whose place was to be rendered vacant by a violent death. The picture is repulsive enough, but it becomes tenfold more abhorrent when the woman who caused the whole tragedy is loaded with panegyric."
Miss Strickland also points out the fact that the dispensation which Cranmer gave for this foul wedding was dated on the very day of Anne Boleyn's death, and observes that "the abhorrent conduct of Henry, in wedding Jane so soon after the sacrifice of her hapless predecessor, has left its foul traces on a page where truly Christian reformers must have viewed it with grief and disgust;" that is, in the dedication of Coverdale's Bible, which, being printed, but not published, before Anne died, had the letter "J." for Jane, printed over the letters which composed the name of the unfortunate Anne.
By the accession of Queen Jane a new family, greedy and insatiable of advancement, was brought forward, whom we shall soon find figuring on the scene. The queen's brothers, sisters, uncles, and cousins presently filled every great and lucrative office at Court; closely ​imitating the unpopular precedent of the relations of Elizabeth Wydville. Her eldest brother, Edward Seymour, was immediately made Lord Beauchamp and Earl of Hertford; and, in the joy of having an heir, Henry created Sir William Paulet Lord St. John, and Sir John Russell Lord Russell. Sir William Fitzwilliam was made Earl of Southampton, and High-Admiral. Russell and Paulet were sworn of the Privy Council; and John Russell, now in high favour with the king, attended the wedding, flattered the bride, and became, in the next reign, Earl of Bedford. Queen Jane received all the rites of the Roman Catholic Church on her deathbed; thus clearly denoting that neither she nor her husband were of the Protestant faith.
Miles Coverdale.
Any grief which might have affected Henry for the death of his wife, did not prevent him prosecuting his favourite design of seizing rich monasteries and destroying heretics. The great amount of property which Henry had obtained from the dissolution of monastic houses, only stimulated him and his courtiers to invade the remainder. The insurrections laid the inmates of these houses open to a general charge that they had every-where fomented, and in many places taken public part in, these attempts to resist Government. Prosecutions for high treason and menaces of martial law induced many of the more timid abbots and priors to resign their trusts into the hands of the king and his heir's for ever. Others—like the prior of Henton, in Somersetshire—resisted declaring that it did not become them "to be light and hasty in giving up those things which were not theirs to give, being dedicated to Almighty God, for service to be done unto his honour continually, with many other good deeds of charity which be daily done in their houses to their Christian brethren."
To grapple the more effectually with these sturdy remonstrants, a new visitation was appointed of all the monasteries in England; and, as a pretence only was wanted for their suppression, it was not difficult to find one where so many great men were eager to share in the spoils. But, whilst the destruction of the monasteries found many advocates, there were not wanting those who recommended the retention of such convents for women who had maintained order and a good reputation. It was justly argued that for men it was much better that they ​should devote themselves to a life of industry, and of active service to the public; but that the case was often very different with women, who, failing of suitable marriages, or having lost their husbands and relatives, especially women of condition, find these retreats both desirable and honourable; being incapable of supporting themselves in the great struggle of the world, or being especially drawn to religious retirement and pious devotion.
Henry VIII. delivering the Translated Bible to his Lords.
But the king would hear of nothing but that all should be swept away together; and the better to prepare the public mind for so complete a revolution in social life, every means was employed to represent these establishments as abodes of infamy, and to expose the relics preserved in their shrines to ridicule, as impostures which deluded the ignorant people. There was much witty comment on the parings of St. Edward's toe-nails; of the coals that roasted St. Lawrence; the girdle of the Virgin, shown in eleven different places; two or three heads of St. Ursula; the felt of St. Thomas of Lancaster, an infallible cure for the headache; part of the shirt of St. Thomas of Canterbury, said to possess singular virtues; some relics, powerful to prevent rain, and others equally potent in preventing weeds in corn. That there were plenty of these we are quite satisfied, because they abound in Roman Catholic countries at the present day, and especially such machinery as the following; which may still be witnessed at Naples, in Austria, and in many other places.
At Hales, in the county of Gloucester, was shown what was asserted to be the blood of Christ, brought from ​Jerusalem, and had been showed there for many generations. What astonished the people most was, that it was invisible to any one still in mortal sin, and only revealed itself to the absolved penitent. This was eagerly shown to the people at the dissolution, and the secret explained. The phial had a thick and opaque side, and a transparent one. Into this, the fresh blood of a duck was introduced every week, and the dark side only shown to rich pilgrims till they had freely expended their money in masses and offerings, when the transparent side, showing the blood, was turned towards them, to their great joy and wonder.
At Boxley, in Kent, a miraculous crucifix had long been the wonder of the people, and was called the Rood of Grace. The lips, eyes, and head of the image moved on the approach of votaries. This image was brought by Hilsey, the Bishop of Rochester, to St. Paul's Cross, and there broken before all the people, and the wheels and springs by which it was moved exposed. A great wooden idol in Wales, called Darvel Gatheren, had been held in great veneration by the populace. There was a legend connected with it, that one day it would fire a whole forest. It was thought very witty, therefore, that Friar Forrest, the confessor of Queen Catherine, being condemned to be burnt for denying the king's supremacy—and still more, as we have already stated, for refusing to betray anything to the injury of his royal mistress—this image should be brought to town, and employed as fuel on the occasion; and the following rude verses were attached in large letters to the stake at which he was consumed:—
   "David Darvel Gatheren, As saith the Welshmen, Fetched outlaws out of hell: Now he is come with spear and shield, In harness to burn in Smithfield, For in Wales he may not dwell.
   And Forrest, the friar, That obstinate liar, That wilfully shall be dead, In his contumacy The Gospel doth deny, The king to be supreme head."
A finger of St. Andrew, covered with a thin plate of silver, had been pawned by a convent for a debt of forty pounds; but the king's commissioners refused to pay the debt, and the people were very merry over the pawnbroker and his worthless pledge.
By such means Henry struck a blow at the Catholic religion amongst the people, which soon went further than he intended, for his object was merely to get easy possession of the wealth of monasteries; but these exposures, showing the people that they had been so grossly deluded by their priests, threw them into the arms of the Reformers, and created a momentum in that direction which was soon beyond all Royal power to arrest.
There was one shrine which Henry especially coveted, for its enormous riches—that of Thomas à Becket. Though he had himself, in his youth, made pilgrimages to this saint, he now seemed to conceive a violent antipathy to him, as a shocking example of resistance to kingly power and dignity. He determined, therefore, to execute a signal punishment upon him, though his bones had been crumbling in the tomb for four hundred years. Perhaps no greater farce was ever solemnly acted in the public courts of law in any country, than was performed on this occasion. The tomb of à Becket was broken open by the king's officers, and a regular process was served upon him, summoning him to appear in court, and answer to the charges of rebellion, treason, and contumacy against his sovereign lord the king. Thirty days were allowed him to prepare his defence, and answer to the charges in Westminster Hall. No Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, appearing in person, Henry might have condemned him for contumacy, and confiscated his property; but, to make the matter more notorious, he granted the defaulter counsel to plead for him, and a regular trial was gone through, which, of course, ended in the sturdy belligerent saint being convicted of the charges, condemned as an arrant traitor and rebel, and the whole of his riches forfeited to the crown.
Cromwell, on this decision, sent down his commissioners in August to take possession of the property who stripped the shrine of the gold and jewels which had been the wonder of people of all ranks, and from all parts of the world, who had visited it. They filled two immense chests with these precious spoils, so heavy, that they required eight strong men each to lift them.
The blood of this turbulent saint had been exhibited at his tomb, as that of Christ and St. Januarius at other shrines; and Cranmer had particularly requested permission for his commissioners to examine and expose the deception. So complete was the vengeance now taken on the so long glorified St. Thomas, that Henry put forth an express proclamation against him, declaring that it had been clearly proved on the trial that Becket had been killed in a riot occasioned by his own insolence and disloyal resistance to his sovereign; and that the Bishop of Rome, himself a foreign and usurping power, had canonised the disturber, because he was a champion and partisan of his; and he bade all his subjects take notice, that Becket was no saint at all, but a rebel and traitor; and that, therefore, all images and pictures of him should be destroyed, and that his disgraceful name should be erased from all books and calenders, under penalty of His Majesty's high displeasure, and imprisonment at his will. A jewel of remarkable beauty and value, which had been offered at the shrine by Louis VII. of France, Henry appropriated to his personal use, and wore upon his thumb.
The work of dissolution of the monasteries and convents now went on briskly, for, says Bishop Godwin, "the king continued much prone to reformation, especially if anything might begotten by it." The Earl of Sussex and a body of commissioners were sent into the north, to inquire into the conduct of the religious houses there, and great stress was laid on the participation of the monks in the insurrection of the Pilgrimage of Grace. The abbeys of Furness and Whalley were particularly rich; and though little concern with the rebellion could be traced to the inmates, yet the commissioners never rested till, by persuasion and intimidation, they had induced the abbots to surrender their houses into the hands of the commissioners. The success of the Earl of Sussex and his associates led to similar commissions in the south, and for four years the process was going on without au Act of Parliament. The general system was this:—First, tempting offers of pensions were held out to the superiors and the monks or nuns, and in proportion to the obstinacy ​in complying was the smallness of the pension. The pensions to superiors varied according to the wealth and rank of their houses, from £266 to £6 per annum. The priors of cells received generally £13. A few, whose services merited the distinction, £20. The monks received from £2 to £6 per annum, with a small sum in hand for immediate need. Nuns got about £4.
That was the first and persuasive process; but, if this failed, intimidation was resorted to. The superior and his monks, tenants, servants, and neighbours, were subjected to a rigorous and vexatious examination. The accounts of the house were called for, and were scrutinised minutely, and all moneys, plate, and jewels ordered to be produced. There was a severe inquiry into the morals of the members, and one was encouraged to accuse another. Obstinate and refractory members were thrown into prison, and many died there—amongst them, the monks of the Charter House, London. One Bedyl, a commissioner, writing to Cromwell, speaks of these monks lying in Newgate in this heartless style:—"It shall please your lordship to understand that the monks of the Charter House here at London, committed to Newgate for their treacherous behaviour continued against the king's grace, be almost dispatched by the hand of God, as it may appear to you by this bill enclosed. Wherefore, considering their behaviour, and the whole matter, I am not sorry, but would that all such as love not the king's highness, and his worldly honour, were in the like case. There be departed. Greenwood, Davyo, Salte, Peerson, Greene. There be at the point of death, Scriven, Reading. There be sick, Jonson, Horne. One is whole, Bird." The abbots of Colchester, Reading, and Glastonbury, were executed as felons or traitors.
In 1539 a bill was brought into Parliament, vesting in the Crown all the property, movable and immovable, of the monastic establishments which were already, or which should be hereafter, suppressed, abolished, or surrendered; and, by 1510, the whole of this branch of the ecclesiastical property was in the hands of the king, or of the courtiers and parasites who surrounded him, like vultures, gorging themselves with the fallen carcass. The total amount of such establishments suppressed from first to last by Henry was, 655 monasteries, of which 28 had abbots enjoying a seat in Parliament, 90 colleges, 2,374 chantries and free chapels, 110 hospitals. The whole of the revenue of this property, as paid to superiors of these houses, was £161,000. The whole income of the kingdom at that period was rated at £4,000,000, so that the monastic property was apparently one-twentieth of the national estate; but as the monastic lands were let on long leases, and at very low rents, in the hands of the new proprietors it would prove of vastly higher value.
It is not to be supposed that so violent and wholesale a revolution could take place without much opposition and murmuring. The twenty-eight abbots and two priors of Coventry and of St. John of Jerusalem, who had seats in the House of Lords, were so awed by the brow-beating and execution of such superiors as made any resistance, that they did not dare to open their mouths; but there were not wanting great numbers amongst the people who declared that priors and monks were not the proprietors, but only trustees and tenants for life of this property, which had been bequeathed by pious people of substance for certain purposes, and that, therefore, they had no power to surrender voluntarily this property to the king. To silence these complaints, it was proclaimed everywhere that this property, becoming national, would henceforth put an end to pauperism and taxation; that the king would not have occasion to come to the people to demand any fresh supplies in case of war; that it would enable him to maintain earls, barons, and knights; and to found new institutions for the promotion of education, industry, and religion, more in keeping with the spirit of the age.
But so far was this from being the case, that Henry let the property go amongst his greedy courtiers as fast as it came, and never was so magnificent a property so speedily and astonishingly dissipated. What did not go amongst the Seymours, the Essexes, the Howards, the Russells, and the like, went in the most lavish manner on the king's pleasures and follies. He is said to have given a woman, who introduced a pudding to his liking, the revenue of a whole convent. Pauperism, instead of being extinguished, was increased in a manner which astonished every one. Such crowds had been supported by the monks and nuns, as the public had no adequate idea of, till they were thrown destitute and desperate into the streets and the highways. They had learned to dispense with labour. Such were the daily liberal alms of the monasteries, that they were neither supplied with employment nor anxious for it; and we shall find that they became such a national burden and nuisance as at length, in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, to cause the introduction of our present poor-law system. The aristocracy, in fact, usurped the fund for the support of the poor, and threw them on the nation at large.
Education received an equal shock. The schools supported by the monasteries fell with them. The new race of aristocrats who got the funds did nothing to continue them; and other schools, and even the universities, felt the spirit of the times, which was one of spoliation, but of little inquiry in those ranks which profited by the change. Religion suffered likewise, for the wealth which might have founded efficient incomes for good preachers, was gone into private hands, and the most miserable stipends were paid to the working clergy, and none but poor and unlettered men would accept the miserable pittances.
Those who were become the patrons of country livings, put into them their menials, gardeners, inn-keepers, ignorant monks and friars who had been turned adrift, and many of whom could not read a syllable: or they let the glebes and parsonages, so that the incumbents had neither a roof over their heads nor land to live on. So scandalous, according to Latimer, was the greedy embezzlement by the new aristocracy of the funds for the parochial ministry, that the parish priest was often obliged to keep an ale-house; and we have ourselves seen such an ale-house in Derbyshire, still remaining under the same roof with the church, with a hole in the wall, through which pots of beer could be served even into the church itself during service. The king himself set the example of this odious desecration of the ministry of the church. There is a letter in the "State Papers," from Fitzwilliam to Secretary Cromwell, which gives a striking proof of it. "My lord, one thing there is, that the king's highness willed me to speak unto your lordship in … His grace hath a priest that ​yearly maketh his hawks, and this year hath made him two which fly and kill their game very well, to his highness's singular pleasure and contentation. And for the pains which the said priest taketh about the same, His Majesty would that he should have one of Mr. Bedell's benefices, if there be any ungiven. And thus the blessed Trinity have your good lordship in his most blessed preservation!"
Such was the disgraceful seizure, and such the greedy grasp with which this fine public property was held by those who got it, that there was not left money enough to pay for the translation of Coverdale's Bible: Coverdale and his coadjutors in the translation were left in poverty and difficulty, and this grand work of the age, and the fountain of much of the knowledge of the Reformation, was checked in its circulation by the high price which the printers were obliged to put upon it.
Amongst the magnificent monastic buildings which were stripped and abandoned, were those of Canterbury, Battle Abbey, Merton in Surrey, Stratford in Essex, Lewes in Sussex, the Charter House, the Black, Grey, and White Friars in London, Furness and Whalley in Lancashire, Fountaines and Riveaux in Yorkshire, and many another noble pile, the ruins of which yet fill us with admiration. Many of the monastic houses had been the hospitals, dispensaries, and infirmaries of the poor, and not a penny of their proceeds was reserved by this strange royal reformer for the same purposes. Others, in wild and solitary districts, had supplied the want of inns and places of lodgings, and the doors being now closed by the inhospitable gentry who had been fortunate enough to get them from the improvident king, made the contrast severely felt by both rich and poor in their journeys. The Chancellor Audley who was as ready as any of the rest of the royal servants to have his share of this spoil, was so struck with the want of some such resorts in lonely and unhealthy districts, that he endeavoured to persuade Cromwell to leave two in Essex—the abbey of St. John's, near Colchester and St. Osyth's. He says there had been twenty houses, great and small, already dissolved in Essex, and that these stood in the end of the shire; St. John's, where water was very much wanted, and St. Osyth's, where it was so marshy that few would care to keep houses of entertainment. "These houses, like others in desolate and uncultivated neighbourhoods," says Blunt, "had been inns for the wayfaring man, who had heard from afar the sound of the vesper bell, at once inviting him to repose and devotion, and who might sing his matins with the morning star, and go on his way rejoicing." But Cromwell had an eye to St. Osyth's for himself, and would not listen to it.
But what every lover of literature and art must still lament over, was the ruthless destruction of so many superb specimens of the architecture and the paintings, the libraries and carved shrines, which were in them. The most beautiful and sublime specimens of architecture were stripped of their roofs, doors, and windows, and left exposed to the elements. Those glorious painted windows, of whose splendour and value we may form some idea by those of the same ages which remain on the Continent, were dashed to atoms by ignorant and brutal hands. The paintings were torn from the walls, or defaced where they could not be removed. The statues and carvings, many of them by great Italian masters, were demolished, thrown down, or mutilated. The mosaic pavements of the chapels were torn up. The bells were torn down, gambled for, and sold into Russia and other countries. The churches of the monasteries were turned into stables and cattle-stalls; horses were tethered to the high altar, and lewd vagabonds lodged in them as they tramped about the country. But most woful was it to see the noble libraries destroyed—those libraries in which the treasures of antiquity had been preserved through many ages. "Some books," says Spelman, in his "History of Sacrilege," "were reserved to scour their candlesticks, some to rub their boots, some sold to grocers and soap-boilers, and some sent over sea to bookbinders, not in small numbers, but at times whole ships full, to the wondering of foreign nations; a single merchant purchasing at forty shillings a-piece two noble libraries, to be used as grey paper, and such as having sufficed for ten years, were abundant enough for many years more."
It is only justice to Cranmer to say, that he saw this miserable waste of the public property with grief and concern, and would have had it appropriated to the promotion of education and religion, and a proper fund for the relief of the poor; but he was far too timid to dare to put the matter plainly before the Royal prodigal. Yet the murmurs of the public induced Henry to think of establishing a number of bishoprics, deaneries, and colleges, with a portion of the lands of the suppressed monasteries. He had an Act passed through Parliament for the establishment of eighteen bishoprics; but it was found that the property intended for those was cleverly grasped by some of his courtiers, and only six out of the eighteen could be erected, namely, Westminster, Oxford, Peterborough, Bristol, Chester, and Gloucester; and some of those were so meagrely endowed, that the new prelates had much ado for a considerable time to live. At the same time, Henry converted fourteen abbeys and priories into cathedral and collegiate churches, attaching to each a deanery and a certain number of prebendaries. These were Canterbury, Rochester, Westminster, Winchester, Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, Chester, Burton-upon-Trent, Carlisle, Durham, Thornton, Peterborough, and Ely. But he retained a good slice of the property belonging to them, and, at the same time, imposed on the chapters the obligations of paying a considerable sum to the repair of the highways, and another sum to the maintenance of the poor. Such was this wonderful revolution, produced, not by the love of a real reformation of religion, but by the selfish greediness of the king and his courtiers; yet most singularly, under the overruling hand of Providence, producing all the blessings for which these people took no care, establishing eventually the freedom of opinion, the diffusion of knowledge, and the recognition of the claims of the poor on the land.
At the same time that Henry had thus been squandering the monastic property, and had so falsified all his promises of making the crown independent of taxation, that within twelve months he was obliged to come to Parliament for a subsidy of two-tenths and two-fifteenths, he had all along been riveting the doctrines of the Church of Rome faster on the nation, and persecuting all those who dared to call them in question. At one time he had wished to unite with the Reformers of ​Germany, and so early as 1535 had sent over to the Protestant princes at Smalcald, the Bishop of Hereford, Archdeacon Heath, and Dr. Barnes, to negotiate a league; but the princes called upon him to subscribe their confession of faith, and to lend them 200,000 crowns. Gardiner, who was at heart as complete a Romanist as any in Spain or Italy, very soon prevented any such union, though Henry was to be proclaimed its head. This might please his vanity, but Gardiner knew how to tickle that still more. "Why," he asked, "was Henry to subscribe to their confession of faith? Was he not head of his own Church; authorised to make what alterations he pleased; and, having emancipated himself from the thraldom of the Pope, was he to put his neck under the yoke of the German divines? At all events, even before he thought of such a thing, he should insist that they should first sanction his divorce and the doctrine of his supremacy." This was enough: Henry dismissed all idea of the German Confederation.
The Lower House of Convocation, as if to deter Henry still farther from any schemes of German union of faith, drew up a list of fifty-nine propositions, which it denounced as heresies, extracted from the publications of different Reformers, and presented it to the Upper House. On this, Henry, who believed himself a greater theologian than any in either house of Convocation, drew up, with the aid of some of the prelate, a book of "Articles," which was presented by Cromwell to the Convocation, and there subscribed. This was then passed through Parliament, and became termed too justly the "Bloody Statute," for a more terrible engine of persecution never existed. To expound this still further, by his order, Convocation issued a little book called "The Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian Man." This was subscribed by the archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, and certain doctors of the canon and civil law, and pronounced by them "in all things the very true meaning of Scripture." This was the standard of Henry's orthodoxy, and any one daring to differ from this was to perish by fire or gallows. The Six Articles asserted the real presence in the eucharist, the communion in one kind, the perpetual obligation of vows of chastity, the utility of private masses, celibacy, and the necessity of auricular confession. The "Institution of the Christian Man" sternly refuses salvation to every one beyond the pale of the "Catholic Church," yet denies the supremacy of the pontiff, and inculcates passive obedience to the king. It declares that no cause whatever can authorise a subject to take up arms against the sovereign; that kings are only accountable to God; and that the only remedy against regal oppression is prayer to God to change the heart of a despot, and lead him to use justly his power. Such were the doctrines, religious and political, which this great Church Reformer now established; yet, at the same time, he inconsistently permitted Bibles to be chained in churches, and soon after to be used in private houses—a measure which was certain to generate opponents to his favourite creed. Accordingly, betwixt the king's permission to read the Bible, and thus to learn the truth, and his decree that they should only believe what he pleased to allow them, the fires of Smithfield were soon ablaze, and the most terrible scenes enacted.
No sooner had the statute of the Six Articles passed, than Latimer and Shaxton, the Bishops of Worcester and Salisbury, resigned their sees; and Cranmer, who had been living openly with his wife and children, seeing the king's determination to enforce the celibacy of the clergy, sent off his family to Germany, and made himself outwardly conformable to the law.
At the end of the year 1539, the king put to death, in Smithfield, three victims of his religious intolerance. The two first were a man and a woman who were Anabaptists. The third was John Lambert, formerly a priest, who had become a schoolmaster in London. He was a Reformer, and denied the doctrine which Henry was now enforcing under the penalty of death, that the real presence existed in the bread and wine. An information was laid against him to Cranmer, who summoned the offender to appear before him in his archiopiscopal court. What a pitiable idea does it give us of the cowardice and duplicity of Cranmer, knowing, as we do, that he hold this very opinion himself; and yet, rather than bring himself into danger, he compelled this far more honest man to stand upon his trial for it, at the certain risk of his life! Henry, however, who never let an opportunity of displaying his theology, determined to preside at the trial himself. Sampson, the Bishop of Chichester, opened the trial with a speech, in which he said that the king had cast off the yoke of the Pope, had sent away those drones, the monks, and permitted the reading of the Bible, but he was determined that no other change should take place in religion in his reign. Then the king, who was now grown not only corpulent, but much diseased in body, and as coarse in his speech as he was violent in his temper, started up and cried, "Ho, good fellow! what is thy name?" On being told that it was Nicholson, though he was commonly called Lambert, Henry exclaimed that ho would not believe a man with two names though he were his own brother; and continued, "Fellow! what sayest thou concerning the sacrament? Wilt thou deny that the eucharist is the real body of Christ?"
The prisoner stood firm to his denial, and when he had been severely questioned by Cranmer and eight other bishops for five hours, he was condemned to the flames. Not only did Cranmer concur in the sentence, but Cromwell, who professed so much zeal for the Reformation, did the same, and with a vile adulation, writing to Wyatt, praised the king for "the benign grace, excellent gravity and inestimable majesty" with which he endeavoured to convert the unhappy man! It is impossible to read of this degraded tyrant, and of the base slaves by whom he was surrounded, and believe that these things took place in England. Poor England! it was now reduced to the condition to which this Cromwell had vowed that he would bring it. "The Lord Cromwell," says Gardiner, in his letters, "had once put it in the king's head to take upon him to have his will and pleasure regarded for law; and therefore I was called for at Hampton Court. And, as he was very stout, 'Come in my Lord of Winchester,' quoth he, 'answer the king here, but speak plainly and directly, and shrink not, man. Is not that,' quoth he, 'that pleaseth the king a law? Have you not that in the civil laws, quod principi placuit, &c.?'" Gardiner was confounded; but after a while said, "that for the king to make the law his will, was more sure and quiet," on which the king turned his back and left the matter. But in the ​statute of the Six Articles, it was boldly declared that the King's proclamations had the authority of Acts of Parliament!
During the whole of the years 1538 and 1539, Henry was, nevertheless, not only grown suspicious of his subjects, but greatly alarmed at the rumours of a combination betwixt the Pope, the emperor, and the King of France against him. It was rumoured that Cardinal Pole was assisting in this scheme, and as Henry could not reach him, he determined to take vengeance on his relatives and friends in England. A truce for ten years was concluded, under the Papal mediation, betwixt Charles and Francis, at Nice, June, 1538. On the part of the two monarchs, they urged Paul to publish his bull of excommunication against Henry, which had been reserved so long, and Henry, whose spies soon conveyed to him these tidings, immediately ordered his fleet to be put in a state of activity, his harbours of defence strengthened, and the whole population to be called under arms, in expectation of a combined attack from these enemies.
Anne of Cleves. From the original Portrait by Holbein.
Henry VIII. granting Charter to the Worshipful Company of Barber-Surgeons.
​would have been had they existed. It was said that they had sent the cardinal money, which, from his own family, might have been the case, and yet with no treason. It was also charged on the Marquis of Exeter that he had said, "I like well the proceedings of Cardinal Pole. I like not the proceedings of this realm. I trust to see a change in this world. I trust once to have a fair day on the knaves that rule about the king. I trust to give them a buffet one day."
Now, had these words been fully proved, of which there is no evidence, where was the treason? Any honest man of the old persuasion might, and did, no doubt, say that he did not like the changes going, and might hope to see the ministers who recommended them removed. But the fact was, those noblemen where descended directly from the old Royal line of England: Courtenay was grandson to Edward IV., by his daughter Catherine, and the Poles were grandsons to George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward. All had a better title to the throne than Henry, and that, combined with their connection with the cardinal, was the cause of the tyrant's deadly enmity. If these prisoners had been inclined to treason, they had had the fairest opportunity of showing it during the northern insurrection, but they had taken no part whatever. But Henry had determined to wreak his vengeance, which could not reach the cardinal, on them; and the servile peers and courts condemned them. It was said that Sir Geoffrey Pole, to save his own life, consented to give evidence against the rest—secretly it must have been, for it was never produced. His life, therefore, was spared, but the rest were executed. Lord Montagu, the Marquis of Exeter, and Sir Edward Neville were beheaded on Tower Hill on the 9th of January, 1539, and Sir Nicholas Carew, master of the king's horse, was also beheaded on the 3rd of March, on a charge of being privy to the conspiracy. The two priests and the mariner were hanged and quartered at Tyburn. A commission was then sent down into Cornwall, which arraigned, condemned, and put to death two gentlemen of the names of Kendall and Quintrell, for having said, some years before, that Exeter was the heir apparent, and should be king, if Henry married Anne Boleyn, or it should cost a thousand lives.
The whole of these were just so many judicial murders, to glut the spite of this bloody despot. Lord Herbert, one of the best possibly informed writers of the age, declares that he could never discover any real proofs of the charges against these noblemen, and their destruction excited universal horror. Even at this advanced period of his tyranny and his crimes, Henry was not insensible to the odium occasioned, and ordered a book to be published containing the real proofs of their treason. The cardinal himself proclaimed to the world, that if his relations had entertained any treasonable designs, they would have shown them during the insurrection, and that he had carefully examined the king's book for those proofs, but in vain.
But the sanguinary fury of Henry was not yet sated. The cardinal was sent by the Pope to the Spanish and French courts to concert the carrying out of the scheme of policy against England agreed upon. Henry defeated this by means of his agents, and neither Charles nor Francis would move: but not the less did Henry determine further to punish the hostile cardinal. Judgment of treason was pronounced against him; the Continental sovereigns were called upon to deliver him up; and he was constantly surrounded by spies, and, as he believed, ruffians hired to assassinate him. Meantime it was said that a French vessel had been driven by stress of weather into South Shields, and in it had been taken three emissaries—an English priest of the name of Moore, and two Irishmen, a monk and a friar, who were said to be carrying treasonable letters to the Pope and to Pole. The Irish monks were sent up to London, and tortured in the Tower—a very unnecessary measure, if they really possessed the treasonable letters alleged.
On the 28th of April Parliament was called upon to pass bills of attainder against Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the mother of Cardinal Pole; Gertrude, the widow of the Marquis of Exeter; the son of Lord Montagu, a boy of tender years; Sir Adam Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley.
If the evidence taken from the captive monks had anything to do with these attainders, it must have been very vague and meagre indeed, for it was found on trial that no sufficient charge could be established against any of the accused. The Countess of Salisbury, the mother of the cardinal, was a lady seventy years of age, but of a powerful and undaunted mind. She was first privately examined by the Earl of Southampton, and Goodrich, Bishop of Ely. But she conducted herself with so much spirit, that they wrote to Cromwell that she was more like a strong and determined man than a woman; that she denied everything laid to her charge; and it seemed to them that her sons could not have made her privy to their treasons. They, in fact, had no evidence.
Cromwell next undertook her and the Marchioness of Exeter, but with no better success. He had got hold of some of the countess's servants, yet he could extract nothing from them; but as the king was resolved to put his victims to death, something must be done, and, therefore, Cromwell demanded of the judges whether persons accused of treason might not be attainted and condemned by Parliament without any trial! The judges, who, like every one else under this monster of a king, had lost all sense of honour and justice in the fears for their own safety, replied that it was a nice question, and one that no inferior tribunal could entertain, but that Parliament was supreme, and that an attainder by Parliament would be good in law! Such a bill was accordingly passed through the servile Parliament, condemning the whole to death without any form of trial whatever. To such a pass was England come—its whole constitution, its Magna Charta, its very right and privilege, thrown down before this cruel despot.
The two knights were beheaded on the 10th of July; the Marchioness of Exeter was kept in prison for six months, and then dismissed; the son of Lord Montagu, the grandson of the countess, was probably, too, allowed to escape, for no record of his death appears; but the venerable old lady herself, the near relative of the king, and the last direct descendant of the Plantagenets, after having been kept in prison for nearly two years, was brought out, probably on some fresh act of the cardinal's, and on the 27th of May, 1541, was condemned to the scaffold. There she still showed the determination of her ​character. Unlike many who had fallen there before her, so far from making any ambiguous speech, or giving any hypocritical professions of reverence for the king, she refused to do anything which appeared consenting to her own death. When told to lay her head on the block, she replied, "No, my head never committed treason; if you will have it, you must take it as you can." The executioner tried to seize her, but she moved swiftly round the scaffold, tossing her head from side to side. At last, covered with blood, for the guards struck her with their weapons, she was seized, and forcibly held down, and whilst exclaiming, "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness sake," the axe descended, and her head fell.
A more revolting tragedy, in defiance of all law and justice, a more frightful murder committed in open day, by brutal force, on a venerable, meritorious, and innocent woman, never took place, whether the murderer were called king or assassin. It proclaimed to all the world that the King of England was now demoralised to the grade of the hardened despot, no longer sensible to any feeling of honour or humanity, and obedient only to his brutal passions.
But the time of Cromwell himself was coming. The block was the pretty certain goal of Henry's ministers. The more he caressed and favoured them, the more certain was that result. As a cat plays with a mouse, so Henry played with his ministers and his wives. Cromwell had gone on long advocating the utmost stretches of despotism. He had done his best to level all the safe-guards of the constitution, and, therefore, of every man's life and safety. He had sprung from the lowest rank, and, therefore, was naturally beheld with hatred by the old nobility; but this hatred he had infinitely augmented in a large party by attacking their then most deeply rooted objects of veneration. He had destroyed the property of the Church without being able to eradicate from the mind of the king its doctrines, and these had now recoiled upon him with a fatal force. He had failed to prevent the passing of the Six Articles, which made Roman Catholicism still the unquestioned religion of the land; and he saw the Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner, the stanch champions of the old faith, steadily gaining the ascendancy at Court. Reflecting anxiously on the critical nature of his position, the deep and unprincipled minister came to the conclusion that the only mode of regaining his influence with the king was to promote a Protestant marriage. For a time at least Henry allowed himself to be governed by a new wife, and that time gained might prove everything to Cromwell. Circumstances seemed to favour him at this moment. The king was in constant alarm at the combination betwixt France and Spain; and a new alliance with the Protestant princes of Germany, if accomplished, would equally serve the purposes of the king and of Cromwell.
Henry had now been a widower for more than two years, but by no means a willing one. Immediately after the death of Jane Seymour, he had made an offer of his hand to the Duchess Dowager of Milan, the niece of the emperor; but the duchess was not at all flattered by the proposal. It was too well known all over Europe that he had already disposed of three wives; Catherine of Arragon, it was said, by poison, Anne Boleyn by the axe, and Jane Seymour by the want of proper care in childbed. His butcheries of numbers of other people, some of them of the highest rank and of near kindred to himself, made every one recoil from his alliance, especially as he was now become a huge and bloated mass of disease. The witty Dowager of Milan, therefore, sent him word that, as she had but one head, and could not very well do without it, she declined the honour. He then addressed himself to the Princess Mario of Guise, the Duchess-Dowager of Longueville, but she was already affianced to a young and much more desirable husband, James V. of Scotland. The accounts which he received of the beauty and accomplishments of the Duchess do Longueville made him unwilling to take a refusal. Chatillon, the French ambassador at London, wrote to Francis that Henry would hear of nothing else but the duchess. The ambassador reiterated that she was betrothed to his nephew, James of Scotland; but Henry said he would not believe it, and that he would do much greater things for her, and for the French king, too, than James could. In fact, Henry hated James, and this was an additional stimulus: he would have been delighted to mortify the King of Scots by snatching her away from him. Chatillon asked him if he would marry another man's wife—a very pointed question, for both Catherine and Anne had been got rid of by the plea that they had been previously affianced to other men. This was lost, however, on the gross, callous mind of Henry, and Francis was obliged to tell him plainly it could not be, but offered him Mary of Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Vendome. Henry refused Mademoiselle Vendome, because she had been formerly offered to James of Scotland, who preferred the Longueville, and Henry said he would not take the leavings of another king. In August, 1538, Madame do Montreuil, a lady who had accompanied Magdalen of France, the first wife of James V., to Scotland, was returning through England to France, and Henry thought that perhaps she might suit him; she was, therefore, detained at Dover some time, that the king might go and see her, but probably he soon learnt from others enough to withdraw him from the project, for he never went, but turned again to Francis I., who then offered him either of the sisters of the Queen of Scotland, the princesses of Guise. Henry listened to this, and proposed that Francis should come to Calais on pretence of a private conference, and bring these ladies with him, and others of the finest ladies of France, that he might look at them, and make a choice amongst them. Francis spurned this coarse proposal, saying he had too much regard for the fair sex to trot them out like horses at a fair, to be taken or refused at the humour of the purchaser.
Now was the time for Cromwell, while Henry was chagrined by these difficulties. He informed him that Anne, daughter of John III., Duke of Cleves, Count of Mark, and Lord of Ravenstein, was greatly extolled for her beauty and good sense; that her sister Sybilla, the wife of Frederick, Duke of Saxony, the head of the Protestant confederation of Germany, called the Smalcaldic League, was famed for her beauty, talents, and virtues, and universally regarded as one of the most distinguished ladies of the time. He pointed out to Henry the advantages of thus, by this alliance, acquiring the firm friendship of the princes of Germany, in counterpoise to the ​designs of France and Spain; and he assured him that he heard that the sisters of the Electress of Saxony, educated under the same wise mother, were equally attractive in person and in mind, and waited only a higher position to give them greater lustre, especially the Princess Anne.
Henry immediately caught at the idea, and desired to have the portraits of the two sisters sent over to him. Christopher Mount, who was employed to negotiate this matter, and who was probably a creature of Cromwell's, urged the Duke of Cleves to have the portraits done with all dispatch; but the duke, who, probably, had no faith in the result of the experiment, was in no hurry. He replied to Mount's importunities that Lucas, his painter, was sick; but he would see to it, and find some occasion to send it. This lukewarmness argued little hope or inclination in the Duke of Cleves; and, singularly enough, it appears that Anne, his daughter, was already engaged to the Duke of Lorraine. These pre-engagements, broken to oblige Henry, had always been used by him afterwards to get rid of the wife, and the duke might well pause upon it. Mount, however, who must have been no judge of beauty, or was destitute of judgment altogether, gave the business no rest. He reported that every man praised the beauty of the lady, as well for face as for the whole body, above all other ladies excellent, and that she as far excelled the duchess (of Milan?) as the golden sun excelleth the silver moon.
The Duke of Cleves died on the 6th of February, 1539, and Henry dispatched Hans Holbein to take the lady's portrait. Nicholas Wotton, Henry's envoy at the Court of Cleves, in a letter dated August 11th of the same year, reported both of the progress of the portrait and of the lady's character as follows:—"As for the education of my said ladye, she hath from her childhood been like as the Ladye Sybille, till she was married, and the Ladye Amelye hath been, and now is, brought up with the ladye duchess, her mother, and in manner never from her elbow—the ladye duchess being a very wise ladye, and one that straitly looketh to her children. All the gentlemen of the Court, and others that I have asked, report her to be of very lowly and gentle condition, by which she hath so much won her mother's favour, that she is very loth to suffer her to depart from her. She employeth her time much with her needle; she can read and write her own, but French and Latin, or other language, she knoweth not; nor yet can sing, or play on any instrument,—for they take it here in Germany for a rebuke and an occasion of lightness, that great ladies should be learned, or have any knowledge of music. Her wit is so good that, no doubt, she will in short space learn the English tongue, whenever she putteth her mind to it. I could never hear that she is inclined to the good cheer of this country; and marvel it were if she should, seeing that her brother, in whom it were somewhat more tolerable, doth well abstain from it. Your grace's servant, Hans Holbein, hath taken the effigies of my Ladye Anne and the Ladye Amelye, and hath expressed their images very lively."
This miniature of Anne of Cleves is still in existence, perfect as when it was executed, upwards of 300 years ago. Horace Walpole describes the box which enclosed it, as in the form of a white rose, delicately carved in ivory, and says that he saw it in the cabinet of Mr. Barrett, of Lee. I have myself seen it in the possession of my late friend Sir Samuel Meyrick, of Goodrich Court, where it yet remains, the property of his nephew. The box screws into three parts, and in each end is a miniature portrait, one of Anne of Cleves and the other of Henry VIII. The portrait of Anne certainly is that of a very comely lady. Unfortunately, it was more lively than the original; and this box became to Cromwell, who had thus succeeded in accomplishing the marriage, fatal as the box of Pandora herself.
Henry, being delighted with the portrait—which agreed so well with the many praises written of the lady by his agents—acceded to the match; and in the month of September the count palatine and ambassadors from Cleves arrived in London, where Cromwell received them with real delight, and the king bade them right welcome. The treaty was soon concluded; and Henry, impatient for the arrival of his wife, dispatched the Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, to receive her at Calais, and conduct her to England. Anne set out from her native city of Dusseldorf in the first week in October, 1539, attended by an escort of 400 horse, and the chief personages of the household of her brother, the Duke of Cleves. She arrived, on the 11th of December, on the English frontiers of Calais, and was received by the Lord Lisle, deputy of Calais, the lieutenant of the castle, the knight porter, and the marshal of Calais, and by the cavalry of the garrison, all freshly and gallantly appointed for the occasion, with the men-at-arms in velvet coats and chains of gold, and all the king's archers. About a mile from the town she was received by the lord admiral, the Lord William Howard, and many other lords and gentlemen. In the train which conducted Anne of Cleves into Calais there were kinsmen of five out of the six queens of Henry VIII.
Henry beguiled the tedium of his waiting for his expected bride by the executions of the venerable abbot of Glastonbury, the abbot of Tending, and others. It was not enough that he suppressed the monasteries, and took possession of them—he must quench his blood-thirst in the lives of the superiors. The abbot of Glastonbury, Richard Whiting, aged, and sinking under divers ailments, was executed on the charge of endeavouring to conceal the plate of the abbey, with John Thorne, his treasurer, and Roger James, his under-treasurer. Lord John Russell declares that the jury which condemned the abbot and his monks showed a wonderful devotion to the king's will; and that ferocious will was certainly carried out in a truly savage style. The venerable abbot and his two officers were conducted to the top of Tor Hill, and here, in full view of the grand old abbey, and the noble parks and farms over which he had so long presided, they were hanged and quartered. The abbot's head was stuck upon the gates of the abbey, and his four quarters were sent to be exposed on the gates of Wells, Bath, Rochester, and Bridgewater. About the same time, the abbot of Reading and the abbot of Colchester were executed, and exposed in the same barbarous manner.
Whilst these horrible atrocities were every day spreading wider over Europe the terrible fame of Henry VIII., he was impatiently awaiting his new wife. On the 27th of December, 1539, Anne landed at Deal, having been escorted across the Channel by a fleet of fifty ships. She ​was received with all the respect due to the Queen of England by Sir Thomas Cheney, lord warden of the port, and conducted to a castle newly built, supposed to have been Walmer Castle. There she was waited upon by the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, the Bishop of Chichester, and a great number of the nobility, gentry, and ladies of Kent. By them she was conducted to Dover, where she remained till Monday, and then, on a very stormy day, set out on her progress to Canterbury. On Barham Downs she was met by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Ely, St. Asaph, St. David's, and Dover, and a great company of gentlemen, who attended her to St. Augustine's, outside of Canterbury. On reaching Sittingbourne, the Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Dacre of the south, Lord Mountjoy, and a great company of knights and gentlemen of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the barons of the exchequer, all clad in coats of velvet, waited upon her, and conducted her to Rochester. So far all was grand and imposing; but it is impossible to suppose that any woman, going to meet such a Bluebeard of a husband, must not have inwardly trembled. And, in truth, she had great cause. She was a woman of the plainest education—scarcely of any education at all; totally destitute of these accomplishments so necessary to take the fancy of Henry, and to preside in the English Court; where, amid all its blood and savagery, music, dancing, and many courtly sports and practices prevailed. She was a thorough Protestant, going into the midst of as thoroughly Papist a faction, and to consort with a monarch the most fickle and dogmatic in the world. She could speak no language but German, and of that Henry did not understand a word. It would have required a world of charms to have reconciled all this to Henry, even for a time, and of these poor Anne of Cleves was destitute. That she was not ugly, many contemporaries testify; but she was at least plain in person, and still plainer in manners. Both she and her maidens, of whom she brought a great train, are said to have been as homely and as awkward a bevy as ever came to England in the cause of royal matrimony.
The impatient though unwieldy lover, accompanied by eight gentlemen of his privy chamber, rode to Rochester to meet the bride. They were all clad alike, in coats "of marble colour," whatever that was; for Henry, with a spice of his old romance, was going incognito, to get a peep at his queen without her being aware which was he, as if that huge and remarkable figure, and that lion's face, could be passed for a moment as belonging to any one else. He told Cromwell that "he intended to visit her privily, to nourish love." On his arrival, he sent Sir Anthony Browne, his master of the horse, to inform Anne that he had brought her a new year's gift, if she would please to accept it. Sir Anthony, on being introduced to the lady who was to occupy the place of the two most celebrated beauties of the day, the Boleyn and the Seymour, was, he afterwards confessed, "never so much dismayed in his life," but, of course, said nothing. So now the enamoured king, whose eyes were dazzled with the recollection of what his queens had been, and what Holbein and his ambassadors had promised him should again be, entered the presence of Anne of Cleves, and was thunderstruck at the first sight of the reality. Lord John Russell, who was present, declared "that he had never seen his highness so marvellously astonished and abashed as on that occasion."
He had made it a point that his present queen should be of largo and tall stature, as he was himself now become of ample proportions; and his bride was as tall and large as heart could wish, but her features, though, not irregular, wanted softness, her bearing was ungraceful, and her figure ill-proportioned. The wrathful monarch felt that he was taken in, and after a very cold reception, he hastened back to his lodgings, and, sending for the lords who had attended her, thus addressed Fitzwilliam, the lord admiral, who had received her at Calais: "How like you this woman? Do you find her so personable, fair, and beautiful, as report has been made unto me? I pray you tell me true." They dared not venture to praise her, now that he had seen her, and the chagrined tyrant exclaimed, "Alas! whom shall men trust? I promise you I see no such thing as hath been shown me of her by pictures or report. I am ashamed that men have praised her as they have done; and I love her not."
Instead of presenting himself the new year's gift which, he had brought—a muff and tippet of rich sables—he sent them to her with a very cold message, and rode back to Greenwich in great dudgeon. There, the moment that he saw Cromwell, he burst out upon him for being the means of bringing him, not a wife, but "a great Flanders mare." Cromwell excused himself by not having seen her, and threw the blame on Fitzwilliam, the lord admiral, who, he said, when he found the princess at Calais so different from the pictures and reports, should have detained her there till he knew the king's pleasure; but the admiral replied brusquely that he had not had the choosing of her, but had simply executed his commission; and if he had in his despatches spoken of her beauty, it was because she was reckoned beautiful, and it was not for him to judge of his queen.
City Watchmen of the time of Henry VIII.
None being found, orders were given for the lady to proceed from Dartford, and at Greenwich she was received outwardly with all the pomp and rejoicings the most welcome beauty could have elicited. But still the mind of the mortified king revolted at the completion of the wedding, and once more he summoned his council, and declared himself unsatisfied about the contract, and required that Anne should make a solemn protestation that she was free from all pre-contracts. Probably Henry hoped that, seeing that she was far from pleasing him, she might be willing to give him up, but deeply wounded as her just pride as a woman must have been by his treatment, and her fears excited by the recollection of the fates of Catherine and Anne Boleyn, the princess could be no free agent in the matter. The ambassadors would urge the impossibility of her going back, thus insulting all Protestant Germany, and her own pride would second their arguments on that side too. The ignominy of being sent back, rejected as unattractive and unwelcome, was not to be thought of. She made a most clear and positive declaration of her freedom from all pre-contracts. On hearing this, the surly monarch fell into such a humour that Cromwell got away from his presence as quickly as he could. Seeing no way out of it, the marriage was celebrated on the 6th of January, 1510, but nothing could reconcile Henry to his German queen. He loathed her person, he could not even talk with her without an interpreter; and he soon fell in love with Catherine Howard, niece to the Duke of Norfolk, a young lady who was much handsomer than Anne, as little educated, and more unprincipled. From the moment that Henry cast his eyes on this new favourite, the little remains of outward courtesy towards the queen vanished. He ceased to appear with her in public. He began to express scruples about having a Lutheran wife. He did not hesitate to propagate the most shameful calumnies against her, delaring that she had not been virtuous before her marriage. He openly avowed that he had never meant to keep her, and he dismissed, as a preparatory step, her German attendants, and placed about her English ladies of his own selection. Wriothesley, whom the fair historian of our queens justly styles "the most unprincipled of the low-born parasites who rose to greatness by truckling to the lawless passions of the sovereign," talked freely of the hardness of the king's case, bound to a woman that he could not love, and recommended a divorce.
The Block and Axe in the Tower of London.
The situation of Anne must now have been intolerable to a woman of any feeling and spirit: in a foreign court and country, deprived of the solace of the society of her own countrywomen—in the hands of a tyrant steeped in the blood of his wives and subjects, and surrounded by his creatures, who well knew how to make her life bitter to her. These circumstances seem to have stung her, at length, to speak with spirit. She told him that, if she had not been compelled to marry him, she could have had a younger and more amiable prince, whom she should have much preferred. That was enough—he resolved to be rid of her without delay; and he avenged himself on her freedom of speech by encouraging the ladies of the bed-chamber to ridicule her, and to mimic her for their amusement. Anne is said to have resented this so much, that she ceased to behave with the submissive complaisance which she had hitherto maintained, and returned these unmanly outrages with so much independence, that Henry complained to Cromwell, "that she waxed wilful and stubborn to him."
Anne, in need of counsel, could find none in those who ought to have stood by her. Cranmer, as the Reformer, and Cromwell, the advocate of Protestantism, and who ​had, in fact, brought about the marriage, kept aloof from her. She sent expressly to Cromwell, and repeatedly, but in vain; he refused to see her, for he know that he stood on the edge of a precipice already; that he had deeply offended the choleric monarch by promoting this match; and that he was surrounded by spies and enemies, who were watching for occasion for his ruin. There is no doubt whatever that his ruin was already determined, but Cromwell was an unhesitating tool of the quality which Henry needed; for it was just at this time that Henry executed the relatives of Cardinal Pole, and probably it was an object of his to load that minister with as much of the odium of that measure as he could before he cast him down. Cromwell still, then, apparently retained the full favour of the king, notwithstanding this unfortunate marriage, but the conduct of his friends precipitated his fate.
Bishop Gardiner, a bigoted Papist, and one who saw the signs of the times as quickly as any man living, did not hear Henry's scruples about a Lutheran wife with unheeding ears. On the 14th of February, 1540, he preached a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, in which he unsparingly denounced as a damnable doctrine the Lutheran tenet of justification by faith without works. Dr. Barnes, a dependant of Cromwell's, but clearly a most imprudent one, on the 28th of February, just a fortnight afterwards, mounted the same pulpit, and made a violent attack on Gardiner and his creed. Barnes could never have intimated to Cromwell his intention to make this assault on a creed which was as much the king's as Gardiner's, or he would have shown him the fatality of it. But Barnes, like a rash and un-reflecting zealot, not only attacked Gardiner's sermon, but got quite excited, and declared that he himself was a fighting-cock, and Gardiner was another fighting-cock, but that the garden-cock lacked good spurs. As was inevitable, Henry, who never let slip an opportunity to champion his own religious views, summoned Barnes forthwith before a commission of divines, compelled him to recant his opinion, and ordered him to preach another sermon, in the same place, on the first Sunday after Easter, and there to read his recantation, and beg pardon of Gardiner. Barnes obeyed. He read his recantation, publicly asked pardon of Gardiner, and then, getting warm in his sermon, reiterated in stronger terms than ever the very doctrine he had recanted.
Old Richmond Palace. (From a print in the British Museum.)
The man must have made up his mind to punishment for his religious faith, for no such daring conduct was ever tolerated for a moment by Henry. He threw the offender into the Tower, together with Garret and Jerome, two preachers of the same belief, who followed his example.
The enemies of Cromwell rejoiced in this event, believing that his connection with Barnes would not fail to influence the king. So confidently did they entertain this notion, that they already talked of the transfer of his two chief offices, those of vicar-general and keeper of the privy seal, to Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, and Clarke, Bishop of Bath. But the king had not yet come to his own point of action. Cromwell's opponents were, therefore, astonished to see him open Parliament on the 12th of April, as usual, when he announced the king's sorrow and displeasure at the religious dissensions which appeared in the nation, his subjects branding each other with the opprobrious epithets of Papists and heretics, and abusing ​the indulgence which the king had granted them of reading the Scriptures in their native tongue; that, to remedy these evils, his Majesty had appointed two committees of prelates and doctors—one to set forth a system of pure doctrine, and the other to decide what ceremonies and rites should be retained in the Church or abandoned; and, in the meantime, he called on both houses to assist him in enacting penalties against all those who treated with irreverence, or rashly and presumptuously explained, the Holy Scriptures.
Never did Cromwell appear so fully to possess the favour of his sovereign. He had obtained a grant of thirty manors belonging to suppressed monasteries; the title of Earl of Essex was revived in his favour, and the office of lord-chamberlain was added to his other appointments. He was the performer of all the great acts of the state. He brought in two bills, vesting the property of the knights hospitallers in the king, and settling a competent jointure on the queen. He obtained from the laity the enormous subsidy of four-tenths and fifteenths, besides ten per cent, from their income from lands, and five per cent, on their goods; and from the clergy two-tenths, and twenty per cent, on their incomes for two years. So little did there appear any prospect of the fall of Cromwell, that his own conduct augured that he never felt himself stronger in his monarch's esteem. He dealt about his blows on all who offended himself or the king, however high. He committed to the Tower the Bishop of Chichester and Dr. Wilson, for relieving prisoners confined for refusing to take the oath of supremacy; and menaced with the royal displeasure his chief opponents, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Bishops of Durham, Winchester, and Bath.
Yet all this time Henry had determined, and was preparing for his fall. He appointed Wriothesley and Ralph Sadler secretaries of state, and divided the business betwixt them. The king had met Catherine Howard, it is said, at dinner at Gardiner's, who was Bishop of Winchester. As she was a strict Papist, and niece to Norfolk, it was believed that this had been concerted by the Catholic party; and they were not mistaken. She at once caught the fancy of Henry. Every opportunity was afforded the king of meeting her at Gardiner's; and no sooner did that worldly prelate perceive the impression she had made, than he informed Henry that Barnes, whom neither Gardiner nor Henry could forget, had been Cromwell's agent in bringing about the marriage of Anne of Cleves; that Cromwell and Barnes had done this, without regard to the feelings of the king, merely to bring in a queen pledged to German Protestantism; and, instead of submitting to the king's religious views, they were bent on establishing in the country the detestable heresies of Luther.
Henry, whose jealousy was now excited, recollected that when he proposed to send Anne of Cleves back, Cromwell had strongly dissuaded him, and as Anne had now changed her insubordinate behaviour to him, he immediately suspected that it was by the suggestion of Cromwell. No sooner had this idea taken full possession, than down came the thunderbolt on the head of the great minister. The time was come, all was prepared, and, without a single note of warning—without the change of look or manner in the king—Cromwell was arrested at the council-board on a charge of high treason. In the morning, he was in his place in the House of Lords, with every evidence of power about him; in the evening, he was in the Tower.
In his career, from the shop of the fuller to the supreme power in the state, next to the king, Cromwell had totally forgotten the wise counsel of Wolsey. He had not avoided, but courted, ambition. He had leaned to the Reformed doctrines secretly, but he had taken care to enrich himself with the spoils of the suppressed monasteries, and many suspected that these spoils were the true incentives to his system of reformation. The wealth he had accumulated was, no doubt, a strong temptation to Henry, as it was in all such cases, and thus Cromwell's avarice brought its own punishment. In his treatment of the unfortunate Romanists whom he had to eject from their ancient houses and lands, his conduct had been harsh and unsparing; and by that party, now in power, he was consequently hated with an intense hatred; and this was a second means of self-punishment. But above all, in the days of his power, he had been perfectly reckless of the liberties and securities of the subject. He had broken down the bulwarks of the constitution, and advised the king to make his own will the sole law, carrying for him through Parliament the monstrous doctrine embodied in the enactment that the royal proclamation superseded Parliamentary decrees, and that the crown could put men to death without any form of trial. Under the monstrous despotism which he had thus erected, he now fell himself, and had no right whatever to complain. Yet he did complain most lamentably. The men who never feel for others, concentrate all their commiseration on themselves; and Cromwell, so ruthless and immovable to the pleadings of his own victims, now sent the most abject and imploring letters to Henry, crying "Mercy, mercy!"
His experience might have assured him that, when once Henry seized his victim, he never relented; and there was no one except Cranmer who dared to raise a voice in his favour, and Cranmer's interference was so much in his own timid style, that it availed nothing. His papers were seized, his servants interrogated, and out of their statements, whatever they were—for they were never produced in any court—the accusations were framed against him. These consist in the charges of his having, as minister, received bribes, encroached on the royal authority by issuing commissions, discharging prisoners, pardoning convicts, and granting licences for the exportation of prohibited merchandise. As vicar-general, he was charged with having not only held heretical opinions himself, but also with protecting heretical preachers, and promoting the circulation of heretical books. Lastly, there was added one of those absurd, gratuitous assertions, which Henry always threw in to make the charge amount to high treason, namely, that Cromwell had expressed his resolve to fight against the king himself, if necessary, in support of his religious opinions; and Mount was instructed to inform the German princes that Cromwell had threatened to strike a dagger into the heart of the man who should oppose the Reformation, which, he said, meant the king. He demanded a public trial, but was refused, being only allowed to face his accusers before the commissioners. Government then proceeded against him by bill of attainder, and ​thus, on the principle that he had himself established, he was condemned without trial, even Cranmer voting in favour of the attainder. His fate was delayed for more than a month, during which time he continued to protest his innocence, with a violence which stood in strong contrast to his callousness to the protestations of others, wishing that God might confound him, that the vengeance of God might light upon him, that all the devils in hell might confront him, if he were guilty. He drew the most lamentable picture of his forlorn and miserable condition, and offered to make any disclosures demanded of him; but though nothing would have saved him, unluckily for him, Henry discovered amongst his papers his secret correspondence with the princes of Germany. He gave the royal assent to the bill of attainder, and in five days, being the 28th of July, he was led to the scaffold, where he confessed that he had been in error, but had now returned to the truth, and died a good Catholic. He fell detested by every man of his own party, exulted over by the Papist section of the community, and unregretted by the people, who were just then smarting under the enormous subsidy he had imposed. As if to render his execution the more degrading, Lord Hungerford, a nobleman charged with revolting crimes, was beheaded with him.
Two days after Cromwell's execution, a most singular proof was given of the way in which Henry exorcised his dearly beloved prerogative of the supremacy of the Church, in the execution of six individuals, three Roman Catholics and three Reformers. The former were hanged as traitors, because, though they held all the doctrines of Henry himself, they denied that he was head of the Church; and the latter, because they denied his Six Articles. With him, to admit the Papal supremacy was treason; to deny the Papal creed was heresy. Henry was as bigoted a Papist as any that ever existed, except in one little particular—he thought himself the only man who ought to possess power. The six victims of his arbitrary will were drawn to the scaffold on the same hurdles, a Romanist and a Protestant bound together. Barnes and his companions, Garret and Jerome, were the three sent to the flames; Powell, Abel, and Featherstone were the deniers of the supremacy, and were hanged and quartered. A Frenchman witnessing this monstrous sight, exclaimed, "How do people manage to live here! where Papists are hanged, and anti-Papists are burnt!"
The death of Cromwell was quickly followed by the divorce of Anne of Cleves. The queen was ordered to retire to Richmond, on pretence that the plague was in London. Marillac, the French ambassador, writing to Francis I., said that the reason assigned was not the true one, for if there had been the slightest rumour of the plague, nothing would have induced Henry to remain; "for the king is the most timid person in the world in such cases." It was the preliminary step to the divorce, and as soon as she was gone, Henry put in motion all his established machinery for getting rid of wives. The lord chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Norfolk, and others of the king's ministers, procured a petition to be got up and presented to His Majesty, stating that the House had doubts of the validity of the king's marriage, and consequently were uneasy as to the succession, and prayed the king to submit the question to Convocation. Of course, Henry could refuse nothing to his faithful peers, and Convocation, accordingly, took the matter into consideration.
There the old stock arguments were again introduced, and the settlement of the question was referred by Convocation to a committee of the two archbishops, four bishops, and eight divines. It is clear that all the topics were prepared for them; for in the short space of two days they had decided the whole question on these grounds:—That there was no proof that the pre-contract between Anne and the Duke of Lorraine had been legally revoked: consequently, the marriage with Henry was null; that Henry, before marriage had demanded the removal of this difficulty—not being removed, that was another evidence that the subsequent marriage was void; that the king had been deceived by exaggerated representations of Anne's beauty, and, consequently, had only consented to the marriage from reasons of state; therefore, as his inward mind did not go with it, it was no legal marriage.
These were reasons which would not be listened to for a moment in any other court of sane men—except a court of the slaves of a despot. As to all the arguments about the pre-contract, the ambassadors of Cleves had offered to remain as hostages till the proofs of the abrogation of that contract were brought; but Henry did not avail himself of the offer, and therefore had no right to plead the non-production of such proofs now that Anne had solemnly sworn, as well as the ambassadors, that the contract was annulled; and as to the nonsense of his inward mind not going with it, and therefore its being no marriage, once admit that precious logic, and it would annul no trivial amount of marriages in general. "But the Convocation," says Lingard, "like the Lords and Commons, were the obsequious slaves of their master." The marriage was declared—like his two former ones with Catherine and Anne Boleyn—to be utterly null and void; and the same judgment of high treason was pronounced on any one who should say or write to the contrary. The queen, being a stranger to the English laws and customs, was not called upon to appear personally, or even by her advocates, before Convocation.
All this being settled, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Southampton, and Wriothesley proceeded to Richmond, to announce the decision to the queen. On the sight of these ministers, and on hearing their communication, that the marriage was annulled by Parliament, the poor woman, supposing that she was going to be treated like Anne Boleyn, fainted, and fell on the floor. On her return to consciousness, the messengers hastened to assure her that there was no cause of alarm; that the king had the kindest and best intentions towards her; that, if she would consent to resign the title of queen, he proposed to give her the title of his sister; to give her precedence of every lady, except the future queen and his daughters, and to endow her with estates to the value of £3,000 per annum.
On hearing all this, Anne's terrors vanished, and she consented with the utmost alacrity to all that the king wished; nay, such was her evident pleasure in it, that the vain king was astonished, and a good deal piqued at it. The tenacity with which Catherine had held him fast— ​the only woman who had ever really loved him—had impressed his egotistic mind with such a notion of the supreme preciousness of his person, that he expected a great struggle now with Anne in giving him up; and when he found that, so far from this, Anne surrendered him, not only freely, but with unmistakable satisfaction, he could scarcely believe his own ears.
He did not, however, neglect to take some revenge upon her, by compelling her to sign a declaration that the marriage had never been consummated, and to write a letter to her brother, expressing her entire consent to and satisfaction with the arrangement; and, moreover, in writing to the members of his privy council, who managed these matters betwixt himself and Anne, of her womanishness, and being a mere woman, and the like language, which he was very fond of applying to ladies. He had talked of Anne Boleyn being "only a woman;" and he now stated to these commissioners from the council that Anne's letter to her brother must be made stronger than she had first written it; for, unless this was the case, "all shall remain uncertain upon a woman's promise;" and care must be taken "that she will be no woman,—the accomplishment whereof on her behalf is as difficult in the refraining of a woman's will, upon occasion, as in changing her womanish nature, which is impossible."
All this was but to soothe his own mortified vanity, for Anne showed them that she was only too glad to escape from him without the loss of her head. On a present of £500 being sent to her, she not only signed a paper promising all this, but drew off her wedding-ring, and sent it back to him, with a complaisant letter in German, the substance of which the commissioners explained to him. Cranmer was then called upon to pronounce the divorce—the third which he had to pronounce in less than seven years, so that well might the French ambassador write to Francis, "The king is a marvellous man, and hath marvellous people about him." All this being done, the commissioners proceeded to Richmond, on the 17th of July, with the king's warrant, to break up Anne's household as queen, and to introduce the establishment prepared for her as the Lady Anne of Cleves, and the king's adopted sister.
Anne went through the whole with the best possible grace. She took a kind leave of her old servants, and pleasantly welcomed the new ones. She repeated her great obligations to the king, and, as if to give him back his phrases about "womanishness," she bade the commissioners assure him that "she would be found no woman by inconstancy and mutability, though all the world should move her to the contrary, neither her mother, brother, nor any other person living." There was, in fact, no fear of Anne changing, for she must have despised and loathed Henry's character as much as he could dislike her person, and her whole life after showed how entirely satisfied she was with the change. Anne's brother, however, the Duke of Cleves, was excessively incensed at the divorce, and seemed resolved to create for Henry trouble about it; but Anne wrote to induce him to take the matter calmly, saying she "was merry, and honourably treated, and had written him her mind in all things." But at the end of her letter, as if fearing that her brother might do something to raise the terrible ire of her amiable adopted brother, she added, "Only this I require of you, that you so conduct yourself as, for your untowardness in this matter, I fare not the worse, whereunto I trust you will have regard." That care was necessary she had at once a striking example, for, within a fortnight of her divorce, she saw both Cromwell and Dr. Barnes, who had been the principal agents in her marriage, sent, one to the block, and the other to the flames. Her brother, though he kept quiet, never would admit the invalidity of the marriage.
Anne received some of the spoils of the fallen Cromwell in different estates which were made over to her for life, including Denham Hall, in Essex. She resided principally at her palace of Richmond, and at Ham House; but we find her living at different times at Bletchingley, Hever Castle, Penshurst, and Dartford. Though she was queen only about six mouths, she continued to live in England for seventeen years—seeing two queens after her, and Edward VI. and Queen Mary on the throne—greatly honoured by all who knew her, and much beloved by both the princesses Mary and Elizabeth. Not in seventeen years, but in sixteen months, she saw the fall and tragedy of the queen who supplanted her, so that one of her maids of honour, Elizabeth Bassett, could not help exclaiming at the news, "What a man the king is! How many wives will he have?" For which very natural expression the poor girl was very near getting into trouble. As for Anne herself, she appeared quite a new woman when she had got clear of her terrible and coarse-minded tyrant, so that the French ambassador, Marillac, wrote to his master that "Madame of Cleves has a more joyous countenance than over. She wears a great variety of dresses, and passes all her time in sports and recreations." No sooner was she divorced than Henry paid her a visit, and was so delighted by her pleasant and respectful reception of him, that he supped with her merrily, and not only went often again to see her, but invited her to Hampton, whither she went, not at all troubling herself that another was acting the queen.
Anne's marriage was annulled by Parliament on the 9th of July, and on the 8th of August Catherine Howard appeared at Court as the acknowledged queen. For twelve months all went on well, and the king repeatedly declared that he had never been happy in love or matrimony till now; that the queen was the most perfect of women, and the most affectionate of wives. To gratify his new queen, and to accomplish some objects of importance, Henry this summer made a progress into the north, and took Catherine with him. One object was to judge for himself of the state of the northern counties where the late insurrections, in behalf of the old religion had broken out. He promised himself that his presence would intimidate the disaffected; that he should be able to punish those who remained troublesome, and make all quiet; but still more was he anxious for an interview with his nephew, James V. of Scotland. The principles of the Reformation had been making rapid progress in that country, and the fires of persecution had been lit up by the clergy. Patrick Hamilton, a young man of noble family, who had imbibed the new doctrines abroad, and Friar Forrest, a zealous preacher of the same, had suffered at the stake. But far more dangerous to the stability of the Catholic Church, there was the fact that the Scottish nobility, poor and ambitious, had learned a significant ​lesson from what had been going on in England. The seizure of the monastic estates there by the king, and their liberal distribution amongst the nobility, excited their cupidity, and they strongly urged James to follow the example of his royal uncle. In this counsel they found a staunch coadjutor in Henry, who never ceased exciting James to follow his example, and, to make sure of his doing so, invited him to an interview at York, to which he consented.
Henry set forward, with a splendid retinue, in July, and accompanied by the queen. They passed a short time at Grafton, and so travelled through Northampton and Lincolnshire to York. The approach of the ferocious king was beheld with terror by the people. They considered that money was the likeliest thing to appease his wrath, and at every town in Lincolnshire they offered him a heavy sum of money. On entering Yorkshire the royal party was met by 200 gentlemen in coats of velvet, with 4,000 tall yeomen and serving-men, who on their knees offered their humble submission, Sir Robert Bowes being their speaker, who also presented a peace-offering of £900. At Barnesdale, the Archbishop of York appeared also at the head of 300 of the clergy, with their attendants, who made a like submission—for the archbishop himself had been one of the chief leaders of the insurrection, and he offered £600. At York, Newcastle, and Hull, the mayors and corporations made similar submissions, and presented each £100. The young queen enjoyed during this progress all the pomp and pageantry of royalty. At her dower-manor of Shire she held a court, and everywhere Henry, who was in the hey-day of his intoxication with his young queen, took care to display her to the people, and showed himself a most doting husband.
Their pleasure received a considerable check at York, for, notwithstanding great preparations had been made, the King of Scots excused his coming. The very first announcement of such a project had struck the clergy of Scotland with consternation. They hastened to point out to James the dangers of innovation—the certain mischief of aggrandising the nobility, already too powerful, with the spoils of the Church—the jeopardy of putting himself into the hands of Henry and the English, and the loss of the friendship of all foreign powers, if he was induced by Henry to attack the Church, which would render him almost wholly dependent on England. They added force to these arguments by presenting him with a gratuity of £50,000; promised him a continuance of their liberality, and pointed out to him a certain source of income of at least £100,000 per annum in the confiscations of heretics. These representations and gifts had the desired effect. James sent an excuse to Henry for not being able to meet him at York; and the disappointed king turned homeward in great disgust. The fascinations of the young queen, however, soon restored his good humour, and they arrived at Windsor, on the 26th of October, in high spirits. So complete was the satisfaction of Henry, that at Hampton Court, on the 30th, in the quaint language of the letter of council, still preserved at the feast of All Saints there, "the king received his Maker"—that is, the sacrament—"and gave Him most hearty thanks for the good life he led, and trusted to lead, with his wife." The pious Henry, kneeling at the altar, raised his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed aloud, "I render thanks to thee, O Lord, that, after so many strange accidents that have befallen my marriages, thou hast been pleased to give me a wife so entirely conformed to my inclinations as her I now have." He then requested Longland, the Bishop of Lincoln, to prepare a public form of thanksgiving to Almighty God for having blessed him with so dutiful and virtuous a queen.
Little did the uxorious monarch dream that he was at this moment standing on a mine, that would blow all his imagined happiness into the air, and send his idolised wife to the block. But at the very time that he and Catherine had been showing themselves as so beautifully conjugal a couple to the good people of the north, the mine had been preparing. It was the misfortune of all the queens of Henry VIII., that they had not only to deal with one of the most vindictive and capricious tyrants that ever existed, but that they were invariably, and necessarily, the objects of the hatred of a powerful and merciless party, which was ready to destroy its antagonist, and, as the first and telling stroke in that progress, to pull down the queen. The Papist and Protestant parties wore now nearly balanced in England; and though the heads of each trembled before the sanguinary dictator on the throne, and temporised and concealed their true views and sentiments, they not the less watched every opportunity to damage each other, and to turn, by art or flattery, the thunderbolts of Henry's easily excited wrath against their opponents.
From the moment that Henry endeavoured to remove Catherine of Arragon, and to substitute Anne Boleyn, the contest became not merely a contest betwixt two women for the crown, but betwixt the Roman Church and the Reformers; and every queen was regarded as the head of one party, and became the deadly object of the antagonism, the stratagems, and the murderous intentions of the other. The Reformers had enjoyed a series of temporary triumphs, in the elevation of Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and still more of Anne of Cleves; and the opposite party had moved heaven and earth, and with fatal effect, for the destruction of the first Anne, and the divorce of the second. Catherine Howard was now the hope of the Romanists. She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, the most resolute lay-Papist in the kingdom, and the political head of that party. The public evidences of the growing influence of Catherine with the king on the northern progress, had been attentively marked by these with exultation, and by the Protestants with proportionate alarm. Both Rapin and Burnet assert, that Cranmer felt convinced, from what he saw passing, that unless some means were found to lessen the influence of the queen, and thus dash the hopes of the Catholics, he must soon follow Cromwell to the block. A most ominous circumstance which reached him was, that the royal party took up their quarters for a night at the house of Sir John Gorstwick, who, but in the preceding spring, had denounced Cranmer in open Parliament, as "the root of all heresies," and that at Gorstwick's there had been held a select meeting of the Privy Council, at which Gardiner, the unhesitating leader of the Romanists, presided. It was the signal for the Protestants to bring means of counteraction into play, and such means, unfortunately for the queen, were already stored up and at hand. ​The early life of Catherine Howard had been exposed to the worst and most malevolent influences. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, the brother of the present Duke of Norfolk, and son of the Conqueror of Flodden. At that battle, though but a young man, Lord Edmund won great distinction, but afterwards fell into pecuniary difficulties and neglect till Anne Boleyn, his niece, became queen, when he was appointed comptroller of Calais and the surrounding marches. Meantime, his wife, the mother of Catherine, was dead, and he had married again. Catherine at a very early age, therefore, was received into the house of her grandmother, Agnes, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, widow of the hero of Flodden.
Queen Catherine Howard. (From the original picture by Holbein.)
In the house of this old lady she was not only compelled to associate with the waiting-women, but to occupy the same common sleeping apartment. In this improper company she was subjected to the most corrupting influences, and had been led, when she had scarcely entered her teens, into degrading engagements with a musician belonging to the household, of the name of Henry Manx; and afterwards with a relative, of the name of Francis Derham. Of these amours there were plenty of witnesses among the women of the household, especially Mary Lassells, and three women of the names of Wilks, Baskerville, and Bulmer; and as soon as Catherine was raised to the throne, these creatures, knowing their power, did not fail to beset her with applications for favours and appointments, Catherine was compelled to concede their demands, and place them about her own person. Joan Bulmer and Catherine Tylney, who were familiar with these secrets, were received as bed-chamber women; the profligate Manx was made one of the royal musicians; and in the journey to York, Derham, who had disappeared some time, and was believed to be leading the life of a pirate, presented himself, and was admitted to the dangerous post of her private secretary. Her cousin, Thomas Culpepper, with whom she had spent a good deal of her girlhood, was already a gentleman of the privy-chamber of Henry VIII.
King Henry and his Parliament. (From an engraving of the period.)
eyes of her enemies, or the indiscretion of these confidants, might precipitate her to destruction. She did not possess sufficient courage to refuse to admit them to her presence, or drive them to a distance from the Court; and her grandmother, the Duchess Dowager, seems to have been a most foolish or malicious old ​woman, and was continually making indiscreet allusions to the past.
Within three weeks of her marriage with the king, reports were abroad to her discredit. A priest at Windsor, with some of his associates, was arrested for speaking scandalously of the queen. He was put into the custody of Wriothesley, the king's secretary, and his companions confined in the keep of Windsor Castle. Henry was contented—being then in the honeymoon of his fifth marriage—to menace the priest, and let him go; but such a clue could not have been put into the hands of the ruthless Wriothesley, who was attached to the Protestant party, without leaving serious results. From that moment, there is every reason to believe that that party worked unceasingly, till they had sufficient evidence to effect their purpose.
Accordingly, on the day following the king's remarkable public testimony of his joy in so good a wife, and before the form of public thanksgiving could be announced, Cranmer took the opportunity, whilst the king was at mass, and the queen was not present, of putting a paper into his hand, requesting him to peruse it when in entire privacy. This paper contained the story of Catherine's early failings by one John Lassells, the brother of the Mary Lassells already mentioned, from whom he had received it. At first Henry was inclined to believe it a calumny, got up for the ruin of the queen; but on Lassells and his sister being closely interrogated, and standing firm to their story, Henry appeared completely confounded, and burst into a passion of tears. He waited the result of the first examination, and then quitted Hampton Court, without taking any leave of Catherine, retiring to the neighbouring palace of Oatlands, whither the news of further proceedings could soon reach him. Derham, his friend Damport, and Thomas Culpepper, were forthwith arrested.
Derham confessed to the freedom of his intercourse with Catherine when they lived together in the house of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, and pleaded that they were engaged to be married, and were looked upon, and called each other husband and wife. He solemnly protested that no familiarity of any kind had ever passed between them since Catherine's marriage with the king. To this evidence he adhered, in spite of excruciating torture employed to wring more from him. But this was not enough for the king or his ministers; they were now resolved to convict the queen of adultery, so as to bring her to the block. Had she pleaded a pre-contract with Derham, it would suffice to annul the marriage, but Henry would never consent to let his late model of perfection off so lightly. Finding that they could not fix that crime upon her with Derham, they looked about for some other person to accuse; but so circumspect had the conduct of Catherine been, not only since her marriage, but for some years before, that they could only find one person, her cousin, Thomas Culpepper, to whom she had shown the smallest condescension.
To obtain evidence on this point, the queen's female attendants were strictly examined. There is strong suspicion that these women were also subjected to the torture to extract the requisite evidence, for Wriothesley and Rich were the chief agents in this examination, and they were notoriously men without feeling and without principle. We shall find them afterwards flinging off their coats and working the rack themselves, when they could not compel the beautiful and admirable martyr, Anne Askew, to criminate herself and friends. Catherine Tylney and Margaret Morton, attendants of the queen, were closely examined, but related only vague and gossiping facts, which proved nothing at all; though the brutal Wriothesley exults to Sadler on the prospect of "pyking out something that is likely to secure the purpose of our business"—that is, their business of condemning the queen, if possible. They talked of the queen having gone twice by night into Lady Rochford's chamber, and of her sending strange messages to Lady Rochford, and the like; but these were no crimes.
The old Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk was next brought into trouble. On hearing of the arrest of the queen, Derham, and Culpepper, the old lady taking alarm lost some boxes of Derham's, remaining in her house, should contain any papers which might implicate herself or the queen, instantly broke them open, and carried off and destroyed the contents. The Duke of Norfolk was dispatched by the king to the house of his step-mother, in Lambeth, to search for papers and effects belonging to Derham; and on arriving, and finding what the old duchess-dowager had done, he arrested her and all her servants, and brought them before the council. The evidence thus obtained amounted to this:—That the duchess had sent her confidential servant, Pewson, to Hampton Court, to learn what had taken place,—who returned, bringing word that the queen had played the king false with Derham, and that Catherine Tylney was privy to her guilt; that on hearing this the old lady said she could not believe it, but if it were true, they ought all to be hanged. She had also questioned Damport, the friend of Derham, expressing great alarm lest some mischief should befall the queen in consequence of evil reports, and gave him £10, as if to purchase his discretion.
The old lady confessed to having broken open the coffers, and taken away the papers in the presence of Ashby, her comptroller, and Dunn, the yeoman of her collar; and Ashby said that she had remarked, "That if there were no offence since the marriage, the queen ought not to die for what was done before;" and had asked whether the pardon—but what pardon is not explained—would not secure other persons who knew of her conduct before marriage.
On the 31st of November, Culpepper and Derham were arraigned for high treason in Guildhall, contrary to all previous form or usage of law. Probably the case was taken out of the boundaries of the court, and tried before the City magistrate, to give it an air of impartiality; but with the Lord Mayor sat, as judges, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, the Lord Privy Seal, the Earls of Sussex and Hertford, and others of the council. Some of these great officers of state had already examined the prisoners by torture, and they now condemned them, as guilty of high treason, to die with all the cruelties attached to the punishment of that crime. Instead of immediately suffering, however, they were preserved for fresh examinations by torture, in order, if possible, to criminate the queen. But no tortures, however terrible, could draw from these men any confession criminating the queen since her marriage. Damport, the friend of ​Derham, was also put to the torture, and had his teeth forced out by the brakes, an instrument supposed to be the same as "the Duke of Exeter's daughter." All that they could force from him was that a lady in the queen's chamber once, pointing to Derham, had said, "That is he who fled away to Ireland for the queen's sake." On such pretence of evidence these two gentlemen were executed at Tyburn, on the 10th of December; Culpepper being beheaded, and Derham hanged and quartered. Their heads were placed on London Bridge.
But Henry and his ministers were not satisfied with the death and confiscation of the property of the principals in this affair; they carried their intentions of confiscation and crimination as far as possible amongst the queen's relations. Not only the aged Duchess of Norfolk, but her son, the Lord William Howard, his wife, and Lady Bridgewater, Lord William's sister, were arrested on the charge of being aware of the amours of Derham and the queen. The Howard family had cause, indeed, to rue their too near proximity to this modern Nero of a king; for, besides all these arrested and imprisoned members of it, whose property was seized upon with infamous avidity. Lord Thomas Howard, another brother of Lord William, and uncle of the queen, was thrown into the Tower, and punished for the grievous offence of having dared to make love to Margaret Douglas, the king's niece, daughter of Margaret of Scotland; and before the king's death, he completed the tragedy by dipping his hands in the blood of the Earl of Surrey, the eldest brother of this nobleman, and a man whose poetic talents have made him one of the great names of England.
It is most revolting to contemplate the eager greed with which Henry and his bloodhounds, Wriothesley and Rich—whom a modern historian truly describes as "the two most unprincipled and sanguinary of the whole swarm of parvenus of whom Henry's cabinet was composed"—fell on the property of these noble victims; for Henry always had an eye to making his butchery profitable. The king's council expressed their fears, in a letter to the king, that, "as the Duchess of Norfolk is old and testy, she may die out of perversity, to defraud the king's highness of the confiscation of her goods; therefore, it will be most advisable that she, and all the other parties named in a former letter, may be indicted forthwith of misprision of treason, whereby the Parliament should have better grounds to confiscate their goods, than if any of them chanced to die before the bill of attainder passed."
Southampton, Wriothesley, and Sadler were sent to search the house of the old duchess; and, on the 11th of December, they wrote triumphantly to say that they had discovered 2,000 marks in money, and plate of the value of 600 or 700 marks. On the 21st they wrote again, to announce that the old duchess, who was very ill, had voluntarily confessed where she had hidden 800 marks more. Thinking now that they had discovered all they could, they told the old lady that the king had graciously consented to spare her life; for all this money these inquisitors had squeezed out of her under the fear of death. The poor tortured invalid, on hearing that, fell on her knees with uplifted hands, and fell into such a paroxysm of hysterical woeping, that these tender-hearted commissioners were "sorely troubled to raise her up again."
Meantime, Sir John Gorstwick and John Skinner were sent off to Ryegate, to the house of Lord William Howard, to make an inventory of all the money, jewels, goods, and chattels they could find there, and bring the same to the Council. Wriothesley, Mr. Pollard, and Mr. Attorney were dispatched to the Duchess of Norfolk's and Lord William's house in Lambeth, for the like purpose; Sir Richard Long and Sir Thomas Pope to the Lady Bridgewater's houses in Kent and Southwark, and the Countess of Rochford's house at Blickling, in Norfolk: the Duchess of Norfolk's house at Horsham had been already ransacked.
But how had it fared with the queen herself, whilst so many were undergoing imprisonment, torture, and loss of property on her account? When first informed of the change, Catherine, who had the fate of Anne Boleyn before her eyes, like Anne, endeavoured to get to the presence of the king and plead her own cause; but care was taken to prevent this. She was as effectually a prisoner in her own rooms at Hampton Court, as if she were already in the Tower. She is said to have called frantically and incessantly on Henry, and demanded to be allowed to go to him; and she made two desperate attempts to break away and reach him. The first time was at the hour when she knew that he was in the royal closet in the chapel. She rushed from her bedroom into the queen's entrance to the royal closet in the chapel, and was but just seized in time, and prevented bursting in and throwing herself at her husband's feet. She was forced, and even carried back, struggling violently, and screaming so wildly that her cries were heard all over the chapel. Another time she escaped through a low door in an alcove at the bed's head, and reached the foot of the private stairs, called "the maid of honour's stairs," before she was overtaken and secured. Though these demonstrations of excitement almost to madness did not move the king to see her, they probably occasioned him to make his precipitate retreat to Oatlands.
No sooner was he gone, than the council waited upon her in a body, and laid the charge against her specifically before her. She denied the truth of it with such vehemence, that no sooner were they gone than she fell into fits so terrible that her reason and her life were deemed to be in jeopardy. On hearing this, the king sent Cranmer to her in the morning, promising her that if she would confess her guilt he would spare her life, though it was forfeited by law. This was a favourite mode of proceeding with Henry—to promise his victims pardon if they would criminate themselves; the certain consequence of which, the unhappy parties must have felt, would, on the contrary, at once send them to death. He who did not spare the innocent, though they protested their innocence, was not likely to do it if they admitted that they were guilty. We have Cranmer's letter to the king in the "State Papers," detailing the mode which he pursued with the wretched queen on this occasion, and verily his management was that of a wily inquisitor. He states that he found her "in such lamentation and heaviness that he never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man's heart in the world to have looked upon her." On his second visit, the rage of her grief had been such, that he found her, "as he supposed, far entered towards a franzy" that is, she was on the verge of ​madness; and, therefore, before attempting to draw any confession from her, he was obliged first to give her, he says, the assurance of the king's mercy; whereupon she held up her hands and gave most humble thanks. But she soon relapsed into what Cranmer calls "a new rage much worse than before;" and he adds—"Now I do use her thus: when I do see her in any such extreme braids, I do travel with her to know the cause, and then, as much as I can, I do labour to take away, or at least to mitigate the cause, and so I did at that time. I told her there was some new fantasy come into her head, which I desired her to open unto me; and after a certain time, when she had recovered herself that she might speak, she cried and said, 'Alas! my lord, that I am alive! The fear of death did not grieve me so much as doth now the remembrance of the king's goodness,'" &c.
It must not be forgotten that it was this same Cranmer who had made this very charge against her; who had brought her, to save himself and party, into this awful predicament, and who was now wilily seeking to draw from her what should condemn her. In this softened state, therefore, she confessed her frailty before marriage—years before—with Derham, but protested her entire innocence since the marriage. It was—and that Cranmer full well knew—resolved to take the queen's life. The report of the Privy Council is express on that head. If a pre-contract of marriage betwixt Catherine and Derham were pleaded, then there could be no adultery—no high treason, the marriage would be null, and the queen could be properly divorced; but there could be no just ground to take her life. To avoid this, it was determined to steer clear of this pre-contract, though, according to the custom of the times, such contract, though a verbal one, clearly existed, and was provable by various witnesses. Knowing this, the privy council report states:
Henry VIII. delivering the translated Bible to his Lords. (From the engraved title-page to Cranmer's Bible.)
"It is the king's resolution to lay before the Parliament and judges the abominable behaviour of the queen, but without any mention of pre-contract to Derham which might serve for her defence, but only to open and make manifest the king's highness's just cause of indignation and displeasure. Therefore the king's majesty willeth, that whosoever among you know, not only the whole matter, but how it was first detected, by whom, and by what means it came to the king's majesty's knowledge, with the whole of the king's majesty's sorrowful behaviour and careful proceeding in it, should, upon the Sunday coming, assemble all the ladies and gentlewomen and gentlemen being in the queen's household, and declare unto them the whole process of the matter, except that ye make no mention of the pre-contract, but omitting that, set forth such matter as might confound their misdemeanour." This was the system now pursued; there was to be obtained every point to prove adultery with Derham, and all mention of a pre-contract was to be carefully suppressed. It was alleged as a crime, as it certainly was a gross imprudence, that Catherine had allowed Derham to return from Ireland, and enter the king's household; but as nothing could be brought to bear against Derham, the charge was shifted to Thomas Culpepper, the queen's cousin.
It was alleged that an intrigue was going on betwixt the queen and Culpepper on the northern progress, at Lincoln and York, and that one night Culpepper was in the same room with the queen and Lady Rochford for three hours. But when it was attempted to establish this fact on the evidence of women in attendance, Catherine Tylney and Margaret Morton, this evidence dwindled to mere surmise. Tylney deposed that on two nights at Lincoln, the queen went to the room of Lady Rochford, and stayed late, but affirmed "on her peril that she never saw who came unto the queen and my Lady Rochford, nor heard what was said between them." Morton's evidence amounted only to this, that, at Pontefract, Lady Rochford conveyed letters betwixt the queen and Culpepper, as was supposed; and one night when the king went to the queen's chamber, the door was bolted, and it was some time before he could be admitted. This circumstance must have been satisfactorily accounted for to ​Henry at the time, jealous person as he was, yet on such paltry grounds was it necessary to build the charge of criminal conduct in the queen.
In the midst of the proceedings against the queen, an extraordinary circumstance took place. The Duke of Cleves, thinking Catherine certain to be executed, made haste to propose the restoration of his sister Anne. He sent over an ambassador, giving him letters from Oslynger, his vice-chancellor, to Cranmer and the Earl of Southampton, entreating them to lay the matter before the king. But this was a hopeless business; Henry had never liked Anne from the first, and would never consent to take a woman who was disagreeable to him a second time. Cranmer, with his timid nature, fought shy of the affair, telling the ambassador curtly, that it was a matter of great importance, and that he must pardon him, but he would have nothing further to do with it but to lay it before the king, and give him his answer. Of course the answer came to nothing.
The condemnation of Catherine now made rapid progress. No man was more her enemy than her own uncle, the Duke of Norfolk. This nobleman displayed an especially mean and dastardly nature on this as on other occasions. He had assisted in dethroning and destroying his other niece, Anne Boleyn, insulting her in the midst of her misery, and presiding at her trial with a callous and revolting arrogance. He now turned with the same vile readiness against the whole of his immediate family who were involved in the queen's disgrace. His step-mother, the old duchess, his brother, Lord William, his sister, the Lady Bridgewater, and the queen, his niece, were all given up to destruction by him with a trembling anxiety to flatter the bloody and rapacious king, and save himself, which no honest mind can read without indignation and the profoundest contempt.
The day after his immediate blood relations were committed to the Tower, he wrote to the king, telling him that he had learned that "his ungracious mother-in-law, his unhappy brother and wife, and his kind sister of Bridgewater," were in the Tower; which, he said, from his long experience of his Majesty's equity and justice, made him certain that it was not done but for false and traitorous proceedings. He expresses his deep grief and shame at "the most abominable deeds done by his two nieces against his highness;" and he went on to say that his Majesty, having so often, and by so many of his kin, been thus falsely and traitorously handled, he feared that his heart would be turned against the whole Howard family, so that he should abhor to hear any member of it spoken of; and he then crawls in the dust before the despot in this language, demonstrating that he had himself been the very means of doing much of the mischief against the queen: "Wherefore, my most gracious sovereign lord, prostrate at your feet, most humbly I beseech your majesty to call to your remembrance that a great part of this matter is come to light by my declaration to your majesty, according to my bounden duty, of the words spoken to me by my mother-in-law, when your highness sent me to Lambeth to search Derham's coffers, without the which, I think, she had not been further examined, nor consequently her ungracious children." It is impossible to read the proceedings of these times without an awful sense of the deplorable degradation of character which the sovereign's tyranny had produced all around him. And still the councils went on endeavouring to find evidence against the queen from the prisoners in the Tower. It must be understood that there were now two councils—one that sat in London, and one that went with the king wherever he went. We have seen how they wheedled and menaced the sick old duchess-dowager till they discovered her money, and brought her to say that it was very sinful of her not to have told his Majesty before his marriage of the connection of Catherine with Derham. The treatment of Lord William Howard and his fellow-prisoners was equally infamous. They tried him, his wife, Malin Tilney, Elizabeth Tilney, and three other women, his servants, amongst whom was Margaret Burnet, a butter-woman, separately, as they did Bulmer, Ashby, and Damport, men-servants of the duchess, on a charge of misprision of treason, before juries submissive out of terror. In these trials all forms of law were set at defiance, and instead of real witnesses, the master of the rolls, the attorney-general, and solicitor-general, with three of the king's council, presented against them the forced matter they had obtained in the examinations. The result of it was that the prisoners were all condemned to perpetual imprisonment, forfeiture of their goods, and sequestration of their estates during life. All that was proved, or pretended to be proved against them was, that they had been cognisant of the love affairs of Catherine Howard and Derham, previous to her marriage. Of course Lord William and his family were quite overwhelmed by this severe sentence for no real crime whatever, so that the council reported to the king their opinion that, unless they were allowed some liberty within the Tower, and some intercourse with their friends, they could not live long; to which "this royal savage," as he has justly been styled, replied by a letter under the hands of Lord John Russell and Ralph Sadler, that "he thinketh it not meet that they should so hastily put the prisoners to any such comfort, or so soon restore them to any liberty within the Tower, for sundry great respects and considerations."
On the 21st of January, 1542, a bill of attainder of Catherine Howard, late Queen of England, and of Jane, Lady Rochford, for high treason; of Agnes, Duchess of Norfolk, Lord William Howard, the Lady Bridgewater, and four men and five women, including Derham and Culpepper, already executed, was read in the Lords. On the 28th, the Lord Chancellor, impressed with a laudable sense of justice, proposed that a deputation of Lords and Commons should be allowed to wait on the queen to hear what she had to say for herself. He said it was but just that a queen, who was no mean or private person, but a public and illustrious one, should be tried by equal laws like themselves, and thought it would be acceptable to the king himself, if his consort could thus clear herself. But that did not suit Henry: he was resolved to be rid of his lately beloved model queen; and as there was no evidence whatever of any crime on her part against him, he did not mean that she should have any opportunity of being heard in her defence. The bill was, therefore, passed through Parliament, passing the Lords in three, and the Commons in two days. On the 10th of February the queen was conveyed by water to the Tower, and the next day Henry gave his assent to the bill of attainder. ​The persons sent to receive the queen's confession were Suffolk, Cranmer, Southampton, Audley, and Thirlby. "How much she confessed to them," Burnet says, "is not very clear, neither by the journal nor the Act of Parliament, which only say she confessed." If she had confessed the crime alleged after marriage, that would have been made fully and officially known. In two days afterwards, February 13th, she was brought to the block.
Thus fell Catherine Howard in the bloom of her youth and beauty, being declared by an eye-witness to be the handsomest woman of her time, paying for youthful indiscretions the forfeit of her life to the king, whom she certainly had not sinned against. So conscious was Henry of this, that he made it high treason, in the Act of Attainder, for any one to conceal any such previous misconduct in a woman that the sovereign was about to marry.
Chained Bibles, set up in the Churches by the order of Henry VIII.
With Catherine fell the odious Lady Rochford, who had long deserved her fate, for her false and murderous evidence against her own husband and Anne Boleyn. On the scaffold conscience forced from her these words: "That she supposed God had permitted her to suffer this shameful doom, as a punishment for having contributed to her husband's death by her false accusation of Queen Anne Boleyn, but that she was guilty of no other crime."
Commenting on these atrocities of Henry VIII., Sir Walter Raleigh says, "If all the patterns of a merciless tyrant had been lost to the world, they might have been found in this prince;" and Miss Strickland adds, that "Henry VIII. was the first King of England who brought ladies to the block, and who caused the tender female form to be distorted with tortures, and committed, a living prey, to the flames. He was the only king who sought consolation for the imagined offences of his wives against his honour, by plundering their relatives of their plate and money. Shame, not humanity, prevented him from staining the scaffold with the blood of the aged Duchess of Norfolk; he released her after long imprisonment."
Instruments of Torture used in the Reign of Henry VIII., and still preserved in the Tower of London.
Having thus destroyed his fifth wife, Henry now turned his attention to the regulation of religious affairs and opinions. We have seen that he had attempted to set up a standard of orthodoxy by the publication of "The Institution of a Christian Man," or "the Bishops' Book," as it was called, because compiled by the bishops under his direction. After that he published his "Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man," which was called "the King's Book." In this it was observable that, instead of approaching nearer to the Protestant creed, he was going fast back into the strictest principles of Romanism. He had allowed the people to read the Bible, but he now declared that, though the reading of it was necessary to the teachers of religion, it was not so necessary for the learners; and he decreed, by Act of Parliament, that the Bible should not be read in public, or seen in any private families, but such as were of noble or gentle birth. It was not to be read privately by any but householders, or by women who were well-born. If any woman of the ordinary class, any artificer, apprentice, journeyman, servant, or labourer dared to read the Bible, he or she was to be imprisoned for one month.
Gardiner and the Papist party were more and more in the ascendant, and the timid Cranmer and the more liberal bishops were compelled not only to wink at these ​bigoted rules, but to order "the King's Book," containing all the dogmas which they held to be false and pernicious, to be published in every diocese, and to be the guide of every preacher. By this means it was hoped to quash the numerous new sects which were springing from the reading of the Bible, and the earnest discussions consequent upon it. Such a flood of new light poured suddenly into the human mind, that it was dazzled and intoxicated by it. Opinion becoming in some degree free, ran into strange forms, and there were Anabaptists, who held that every man ought to be guided by the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and that, consequently, there was no need of king, judge, magistrate, or civil law, or war, or capital punishment; there were Antinomians, who contended that all things were free and allowable to the saints without sin; there were Fifth-Monarchy men; members of the Family of Love, or Davidians, from one David George, their leader; Arians, Unitarians, Predestinarians, Libertines, and other denominations, whom we shall find abundant in the time of the Commonwealth. What was strangest of all was, to see King Henry, who would allow no man's opinion to be right but his own, and who burnt men for daring to differ from him, lecturing these contending sects on their animosities in his speech in Parliament, and bidding them "behold what love and charity there was amongst them, when one called another heretic and Anabaptist, and he called him again Papist, hypocrite, and pharisee;" and the royal peacemaker threatened to put an end to their quarrelliugs by punishing them all. During the four remaining years of his reign, he burnt or hanged twenty-four persons for religion—that is, six annually—fourteen them being Protestants. During these years "the King's Book" was the only authorised standard of English orthodoxy.
Domestic Architecture in the reign of Henry VIII.: Old Houses at Shrewsbury.
It is now necessary to take a brief glance at the proceedings of Henry's government in Ireland and Wales, and towards Scotland. In the Principality of Wales the measures of the king were marked by a far wiser spirit than those which predominated in religion. Being descended from the natives of that country, it was natural that it should claim his particular attention. Wales at this time might be divided into two parts, one of which had been subjected by the English monarchs, and divided into shires, the other which had been conquered by different knights and barons, thence called the lords-marchers. The shires were under the royal will, but the hundred and forty-one small districts or lordships which had been granted to the petty conquerors, excluded the officers and writs of the king altogether. The lords, like so many counts palatine, exercised all sovereign rights within their own districts, had their own courts, appointed their own judges, and punished or pardoned offenders at pleasure. This opened up a source of the grossest confusion and impunity from justice; for criminals perpetrating offences in one district, had only to move into another, and ​set the law at defiance. Henry, by enacting, in 1536, that the whole of Wales should thenceforth be incorporated with England, should obey the same laws and enjoy the same rights and privileges, did a great work. The Welsh shires, with one borough in each, were empowered to send members to Parliament, the judges were appointed solely by the Crown, and no lord was any longer allowed to pardon any treason, murder, or felony in his lordship, or to protect the perpetrators of such crimes. The same regulations were extended to the county palatine of Chester.
The proceedings of Henry in Ireland were equally energetic, if they were not always as just; and in the end they produced an equally improved condition of things there. Quiet and law came to prevail, though they prevailed with severity. On the accession of Henry to the throne, the portion of the island over which the English authority really extended was very limited indeed. It included merely the chief sea-ports, with the five counties of Louth, Westmeath, Dublin, Kildare, and Wexford. The rest of the country was almost independent of England, being in the hands of no less than ninety chieftains—thirty of English origin, and the rest native—who exercised a wild and lawless kind of sway, and made war on each other at will. Wolsey, in the height of his power, determined to reduce this Irish chaos to order. He saw that the main causes of the decay of the English authority lay in the perpetual feuds and jealousies of the families of Fitzgerald and Butler, at the head of which were the Earls of Kildare and of Ormond, or Ossory. The young Earl of Kildare, the chief of the Fitzgeralds, who succeeded his father in 1520, was replaced by the Earl of Surrey, afterwards the Duke of Norfolk, whom we have seen so disgracefully figuring in the affairs of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, his nieces. During the two years that he held the Irish government, he did himself great credit by the vigour of his administration, repressing the turbulence of the chiefs, and winning the esteem of the people by his hospitality and munificence.
Unfortunately for Ireland, Surrey had acquired great renown by his conduct under his father at Flodden, and when Henry, in 1522, declared war against France, he was deemed the only man fitted to take the command of the army. The government of Ireland, on his departure, was placed in the hands of Butler, Earl of Ossory. In the course of ten years it passed successively from Ossory again to Kildare, from Kildare to William Skeffington, and back for the third time to Kildare.
Kildare, relieved from the fear of Wolsey, who had now fallen, gave way to the exercise of such acts of extravagance, that his own friends attributed them to insanity. At the earnest recommendations, therefore, of his hereditary rivals, the Butlers, he was called to London in 1534, and sent to the Tower. Still, he had left his Irish government in the hands of his son, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald—a young man of only one-and-twenty, brave, generous, but with all the impetuosity of Irish blood. Hearing a false report that his father was beheaded in the Tower, the young Fitzgerald flew to arms. He appeared at the head of 140 followers before the council, resigned the sword of state, and demanded war against Henry of England.
Cromer, the Archbishop of Armagh, earnestly entreated him not to plunge himself into a quarrel so hopeless as that with England; but in vain. The strains of an Irish minstrel, uttered in his native tongue, had more influence with him, for they called on him to revenge his father, to free Ireland; and the incensed youth flew to arms. For a time success attended him. He overran the rich district of Fingal; the natives flocked to his standard; the Irish minstrels, in wild songs, stirred the people to frenzy; and surprising Allen, the Archbishop of Dublin, on the very point of escaping to England, and supposed to be one of the accusers of the Earl of Kildare, they murdered him in presence of the young chief and his brothers. He then sent a deputation to Rome, offering, on condition that the Pope should give him the support of his sanction, to defend Ireland against an apostate prince, and to pay a handsome annual tribute to the Holy See. He sent ambassadors also to the emperor, demanding assistance against the prince who had so grossly insulted him by divorcing his aunt, Queen Catherine. Five of his uncles joined him, but he was repulsed from the walls of Dublin. The strong castle of Maynooth was carried by assault by the new deputy, Sir William Skeffington; and in the month of October Lord Leonard Gray, the son of the Marquis of Dorset, arriving from England, at the head of fresh forces, chased him into the fastnesses of Munster and Connaught. On hearing of this ill-advised rebellion, the poor Earl of Kildare, already stricken with palsy, sickened and died in the Tower.
Lord Gray did not trust simply to his arms in the difficult country into which the Fitzgeralds had retired; he employed money freely to bribe the natives, who led him through the defiles of the mountains, and the passable tracks of the morasses, into the retreats of the enemy. He found the County of Kildare almost entirely desolated. Six out of the eight baronies were burnt; and where this was not the case, the people had fled, leaving the corn in the fields. Meath was equally ravaged; and the towns throughout the south of Ireland, added to the horrors of civil war, found the ravages of fever and pestilence prevailing; Dublin itself being more frightfully decimated than the provincial cities. The English Government sent very little money to the troops, and left them to subsist by plunder; and they first seized all the cattle, corn, and provisions, and then laid waste the country by fire. By March, 1535, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald was reduced to such extremity that he wrote to Lord Gray, begging him to become intercessor betwixt the king and himself. Lord Gray, there can be little doubt, promised Fitzgerald a full pardon, on which he surrendered. But Skeffington wrote to the king that Fitzgerald, finding that O'Connor, his principal supporter, had come in and yielded, "the young traitor, Thomas Fitzgerald, had done the same, without condition of pardon of life, lands, and goods."
But this assertion is clearly contradicted by the council in Dublin, who wrote entreating the king to be merciful to the said Thomas, to whom they had given comfortable promises. O'Connor had been too wise to put himself into the power of Henry on the strength of any promises: he delivered only certain hostages as security for his good behaviour; but Lord Thomas was carried over to England by Lord Gray, where he was committed to the Tower. Gray was immediately sent back to Ireland, with the full command of the army there, and he was instructed above all things to secure the persons of the five uncles of Lord ​Fitzgerald. Accordingly, on the 14th of February, 1536, the council of Ireland sent to Cromwell, then minister, an exulting message; that Lord Gray, the chief justice, and others, had captured the five brethren, which they pronounced to be "the first deed that ever was done for the weal of the king's poor subjects of that land." They added, "We assure your mastership that the said lord justice, the treasurer of the king's wars, and such others as his grace put in trust in this behalf, have highly deserved his most gracious thanks for the politic and secret conveying of the matter." But the truth was, that this politic and secret management was one of the most disgraceful pieces of treachery which ever was transacted—the Fitzgeralds being seized at a banquet to which both parties had proceeded under the most solemn pledges of mutual faith. They were conveyed at once to London, and, in February, 1537, the young earl and his five uncles were beheaded, after a long and cruel imprisonment in the Tower. Their unprincipled betrayer, however, did not long enjoy the fruits of his treachery. He was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland as a reward for his dishonourable service, but was soon removed on charges of misconduct, committed to one of the very cells which his victims had occupied, and was beheaded on Tower Hill, as a traitor, on the 28th of June, 1541, ending his life, according to Godwin, very quietly and godlily. Gray certainly deserved better treatment of Henry; for, though his conduct was infamous to the Fitzgeralds, it was most useful to the English king. The rival factions of Fitzgeralds and Butlers continuing to resist the English power, Gray contended against them till, by his brilliant victory at Bellahoe, he broke the power of O'Neil, the northern chieftain, and confirmed the power of England. Yet, being uncle, by his sister, to the last surviving male heir of the Fitzgeralds—Gerald, the youngest brother of the unfortunate Lord Thomas, a boy of only twelve years of age—he was accused of favouring his escape, and all his services were forgotten by his ungrateful sovereign. The young Gerald Fitzgerald escaped to the Continent by the aid of a sea captain of St. Malo, and ultimately to Italy, where he lived under the patronage and protection of his kinsman, Cardinal Pole, till he eventually recovered the honours and estates of his ancestors, in the reign of Queen Mary, at the suggestion of the cardinal.
After the recall of Lord Gray, O'Connor, O'Neil, M'Mordo, and the O'Tholes excited fresh insurrections, but they were speedily put down, and in 1541 Anthony St. Leger found both the Irish chiefs and the lords of the pale eagerly outstripping each other in professions of loyalty. In 1541 Henry raised Ireland from the rank of a lordship to that of a kingdom, and granted letters patent to the Irish chiefs, by the advice of Sir Thomas Cusake, though unwillingly. Thus, by securing them in possession of their lands, and raising them to new honours, he gained their devoted attachment. Henry gave them houses in Dublin, which they were to inhabit when summoned as peers of the Irish Parliament. Ulliac de Burg was made Earl of Clanricarde, Murroch O'Brien Earl of Thomond, and the great O'Neil became henceforth known by his new title of Earl of Tyrone. The Irish council was instructed to proceed with the suppression of the monasteries, though cautiously, not urging the monks too rigorously, lest they stirred up opposition, but desirably persuading them that "the lands of the Church were his proper inheritance." These matters were so well carried out, that the ascendancy of England had never appeared so firmly established since the first invasion of the island by Henry II.
Our last glance at Scotland was when Henry, having suddenly lost Jane Seymour, was endeavouring to persuade Francis I. to prevail upon Mary of Guise, the widow of the Duke de Longueville, to become his wife.Both Francis and Mary of Guise replied that the thing was impossible, the lady being already engaged to his nephew, James of Scotland. Henry in vain endeavoured to pluck the prize from his nephew. Mary of Guise proceeded to Scotland, and the marriage was celebrated in the cathedral of St. Andrews, in 1538. This marriage was undoubtedly intended by the Romanist party in Scotland to strengthen the attachment of the Government in that country to the old faith. The negotiation for a French princess had been entrusted to David Beaton, abbot of Arbroath, afterwards Bishop of Mirepoix, and next Cardinal of St. Andrews, accompanied by Lord Maxwell and the master of Glencairn. The princess was of a house attached to the Roman Catholic faith, and other circumstances tended to throw the weight into that scale. James of Scotland, on his visit to France in 1537, when he traversed the country from Dieppe to Provence, everywhere hoard the bitter terms of execration in which the cruelty and rapacity of his uncle, Henry of England, were spoken of. The Pilgrimage of Grace, which had just preceded his journey, had given him a warning of what he might expect from attacking the property of the Church. In England, the power of the aristocracy had been broken down before Henry VIII. came to the throne, and there was little to be feared from some increase of wealth amongst them; but in Scotland the case was different. There the aristocracy was still intact and strong, though many of them were poor, and still more would have gladly laid a greedy hand on the ecclesiastical property. But to increase the power of the nobles by destroying that of the Church, the only counterbalancing power, would have been an impolitic measure in James, and these reasons kept him back from listening to the invitations from Henry to follow his example. On the other hand, the emperor and Francis I. endeavoured to maintain his friendship as a check upon Henry, and the Pope naturally united with the clergy in giving all their influence to the Church in Scotland which was possible.
In 1539 David Beaton succeeded his uncle, James Beaton, in the primacy, and the Pope, to add additional honours to so devoted a servant, presented him with a cardinal's hat. It was at this crisis that the Pope, acting in concert with France and Spain, sent Cardinal Pole to co-operate with the Scotch in annoying Henry, and James being applied to by the Pontiff Paul, declared himself willing to unite with Francis I. and the emperor in the endeavour to convert or punish the heretical English king. As if to show Henry that there was no prospect of any co-operation of James with him, the fires of persecution were kindled by Beaton and his coadjutors against the Protestants in that kingdom, and this again drove the Reformers to make common cause with the Earl of Angus and other Scottish exiles in England. ​Henry, to encourage the Protestants, and to warn James if possible, sent to him his rising diplomatist, Sir Ralph Sadler, who represented to James that Henry was much nearer related to him than were any of the Continental sovereigns, and who endeavoured to prevent there the publication of the bill of excommunication.
But it became necessarily a pitched battle betwixt the Papist party in Scotland and Henry. They beheld with natural alarm his destruction of the Papal Church in England, an example of the most terrible kind to all other national churches of the same creed; and Henry, on the other hand, knew that so long as that faith was in the ascendant in Scotland, there would be no assured quiet in his own kingdom. It was the one proximate and exposed quarter through which the Pope and his abettors on the Continent could perpetually assail him. From this moment, therefore, Henry spared no money, no negotiation, no pains to break down the Roman Catholic ascendancy in Scotland.
In 1540 he again sent Sir Ralph Sadler to James, who took him a present of a dozen fine stallions. At the private interview which Sadler solicited, he read to James an intercepted letter of Beaton's to the Pope, from which the ambassador endeavoured to make it appear that the cardinal was aiming at subjecting the royal authority to that of the Pope. James rather disconcerted the minister by laughing when he had heard the letter, and telling him that the cardinal had long ago given him a copy of it. Sadler, who was too practised a statesman to be foiled by such a circumstance, returned to the charge, and added that Henry was ashamed of the meanness of his nephew, who kept large flocks of sheep, as if he were a husbandman and not a king. If he wanted money, he could enrich himself by shearing the ecclesiastical sheep; he need only make the experiment, and he would find that the dissolute lives of the monks would justify his sequestration of their property, as much as had been the case in England. But James was alike impassible to arguments founded either on horses or sheep. He replied that he had sufficient property of his own, without coveting that of others; and that the Church need not be destroyed to supply his wants, it was ready to aid him freely; that undoubtedly there were monks and clergymen who disgraced their profession, but it was not in accordance with his notions of justice to punish the innocent with the guilty.
Failing again, Sadler tried to awaken the ambition of James by representing how near he was to the English throne, and intimated that his uncle was seriously disposed to name him as his heir and successor in case of anything happening to his only son, Prince Edward. He invited James to meet his loving uncle at York, where they might discuss and settle these matters. James parried this proposal by making it an absolute condition that their mutual ally, Francis I., should be present; and Sadler was compelled to return, ascribing his failure to the firm hold that the clergy had on the Scottish monarch. And, indeed, these solicitations on the side of England only drove the Scottish hierarchy to severer measures, and led James to sanction it in cruelty and persecution. It was enacted in the next Parliament that it was a capital offence to question the supreme authority of the Pope; that no private meetings, conventicles, or societies for the discussion of religious questions should be allowed; informers were tempted by high rewards to betray them; and no good Catholic was to have intercourse with any one who had, at any time, been heretical in his or her opinions, however nearly allied in blood. It was declared a damnable offence to deface or throw down images of the Virgin and the saints; and, finally, all clergymen, of all ranks and kinds, were called upon to reform their lives, so as to give no ground of reproach or argument to the enemy.
In the spring of 1541 the Cardinal Beaton, and Panter, the Royal secretary, were dispatched to Rome with secret instructions. This alarmed Henry, and yet afforded him a hope of making an impression on his nephew whilst the cardinal was away. Once more, therefore, he invited James to meet him at York. Lord William Howard, who was his envoy on the occasion, induced James to promise to meet Henry there, and we have seen him on his way accompanied by his bride, Catherine Howard, to the place of rendezvous. But James came not; and Henry, enraged, vowed that he would compel James by force to do that which he would not concede to persuasion.
The Romanist party in Scotland were better pleased with a hostile than a pacific position, for they greatly dreaded that Henry might at length warp the king's mind towards his own views. The leaders on both sides were, in fact, never at peace. On the one side, the exiled Douglases were always on the watch to recover their estates by their swords, and the fugitives in Scotland, on account of the Pilgrimage of Grace, were equally ready to fight their way back to their homes and fortunes. In the August of 1542, accordingly, there were sharp forays, first from one side of the borders, and then from the other. Sir James Bowes, the warden of the east marches, accompanied by Sir George Douglas, the Earl of Angus, and other Scottish exiles, and 3,000 horsemen, rushed into Teviotdale, when they were met at Haddenrig by the Earl of Huntly and Lord Home, who defeated them, and took 600 prisoners.
Henry, having issued a proclamation declaring the Scots the aggressors, ordered a levy of 40,000 men, and appointed the Duke of Norfolk the commander of this army. He was attended by the Earls of Shrewsbury, Derby, Cumberland, Surrey, Hertford, Rutland, with many others of the nobility. This imposing force was joined by the Earl of Angus and the rest of the banished Douglases who had escaped the slaughter at Haddenrig. After some delay at York the royal army, issuing a fresh proclamation, in which Henry claimed the crown of Scotland, advanced to Berwick, where it crossed into Scotland, and, advancing along the northern bank of the Tweed as far as Kelso, burned two towns and twenty villages. Norfolk did not venture to advance farther into the country, as he heard that James had assembled a powerful force, whilst Huntly, Home, and Seaton were hovering on his flanks. He therefore contented himself with ravaging the neighbourhood, and then crossed again at Kelso into England.
James, indignant at the invasion and the injuries inflicted on his subjects, and encamped on the Burrow Muir, at the head of 30,000 men marched thence in ​pursuit of the English. But he soon found that different causes paralysed his intended chastisement. Many of the nobles were in favour of the Reformation, and held this martial movement as a direct attempt to maintain the Papal power and the influence of Beaton and his party. Others were in secret league with the banished Douglases, who were on the English side; and there were not wanting those who sincerely advised a merely defensive warfare, and pointed out the evils which had always followed the pursuit of the English into their own country. They represented the truth, that Norfolk and his army, destitute of provisions, and suffering from the inclemency of the weather, were already in full retreat homewards. But James would not listen to these arguments; he burned to take vengeance on the English, and after halting on Fala Muir, and reviewing his troops, he gave the order to march in pursuit of Norfolk; but, to his great consternation, he found that nearly every nobleman refused to cross the borders. They pleaded the lateness of the season, the want of provisions for the army, and the rashness of following the English into the midst of their own country, where another Flodden Field might await them.
James was highly exasperated at this defection, and denounced the leaders as traitors and cowards, pointing out to them their unpatriotic conduct, when they saw all around them the towns and villages burnt, the farms ravaged, and the people expelled or exterminated along the line of Norfolk's march. It was in vain that he exhorted or reproved them; they stole away from his standard, and the indignant king found himself abandoned by the chief body of his army. For himself, however, he disdained to give up the enterprise. He dispatched a force of 10,000 men under Lord Maxwell, to burst into the western marches, ordering him to remain in England laying waste the country as long as Norfolk had remained in Scotland. James himself awaited the event at Caerlaverock Castle; but, discontented with the movements of Lord Maxwell, whom he suspected of being infected by the spirit of the other insubordinate nobles, he dispatched his favourite, Oliver Sinclair, to supersede Lord Maxwell in the command.
This was an imprudent measure, calculated to excite fresh discontent, and it did do it effectually. The proud nobles who surrounded Maxwell threw down their arms, swearing that they would not serve under any such royal minion; the troops broke out into open mutiny; and in the midst of this confusion, a body of 500 English horse riding up under the Lords Dacre and Musgrave, the Scots believed it to be the vanguard of Norfolk's army, and fled in precipitate confusion. The English, charging furiously at this unexpected advantage, surrounded great numbers of the fugitives, and took 1,000 of them prisoners. Amongst them were the greater portion of the nobles. Maxwell himself was one of the number; the Earls of Cassilis and Glencairn; the Lords Somerville, Fleming, Oliphant, and Gray; the masters of Erskine and Rothes, Home of Ayton. All these were sent prisoners to London, and given into the custody of different English noblemen. Many of the prisoners were believed to give themselves up willingly, as disaffected men who were ready to sell their country to England; and others are said to have been seized by border freebooters, and sold to the enemy.
The king was so overwhelmed with grief and resentment at this disgraceful defeat, through the disloyalty of his nobility, that he returned to Edinburgh in deep dejection. From Edinburgh he proceeded to the palace of Falkirk, where he shut himself up, brooding on his misfortunes; and such hold did this take upon him, that he began to sink rapidly in health. He was in the prime of his life, being only in his thirty-first year; of a constitution hitherto vigorous, having scarcely known any sickness; but his agonised mind producing fever of body, he seemed hastening rapidly to the grave. At this crisis his wife was confined. She had already born him two sons, who had died in their infancy, and an heir might now have given a check to his melancholy; but it proved a daughter—the afterwards celebrated and unfortunate Queen of Scots. On hearing that it was a daughter, he turned himself in his bed, saying, "The crown came with a woman, and it will go with one. Many miseries await this poor kingdom. Henry will make it his own, either by force of arms or by marriage." On the seventh day after the birth of Mary, he expired, December 14th, 1542.
James V. of Scotland may be said to have died the victim of Henry's machinations. He was a monarch of many virtues and much talent. His carriage was lofty, and his sense of justice eminent; but he was led to support the Church against the nobility by what he saw going on in England, and from his suspicions of Henry's designs on his kingdom. In this persuasion he was led to support the Papal party even to persecution, and his death naturally hastened the very catastrophe which he feared. The relentless King of England, who might now be said to have destroyed by his ambition two successive Scottish kings—his brother-in-law and his nephew—so far from feeling any compunction, only set himself immediately to profit by the latter event. He called together the large body of captive nobles of Scotland, as well as Angus and Sir George Douglas, who had long been in his interest and service, and pretending to upbraid those who had been taken at the route of Solway Frith with their breach of treaty, he then altered his tone, and intimated that it was in their power to make up for the past, and to render the most essential service to both countries, by promoting a marriage betwixt his son, the heir of England, and Mary, the infant Queen of Scotland.
The Scottish nobles had, no doubt, been previously schooled for the purpose. They professed themselves anxious to assist in putting an end to the troubles of their native country, and entered into a treaty, not merely to promote this desirable marriage, but, what was more traitorous and inexcusable, to acknowledge Henry as the sovereign lord of Scotland, and do all in their power to deliver the kingdom, with all its fortresses and the infant queen, into his hand. Sir George Douglas, the brother of Angus, was made the chief agent in this notable scheme; and all the lords bound themselves to return to their captivity if they failed to effect this great object, leaving hostages for their good faith. The union of the kingdoms was now within the range of a fair possibility; but the impetuous and overbearing disposition of Henry was certain to ruin the project.
No sooner did Cardinal Beaton and his party learn that ​the king had expired than, guessing all that Henry and his party in Scotland would attempt, they took measures to secure the young queen and the sovereign power. Beaton produced a will as that of James, appointing him regent and guardian of the young queen, assisted by a council of the Earls of Argyll, Huntly, and Murray. The Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, on the other hand, declared this will to be a forgery, and being himself the nest heir to the throne, after the infant queen, he assumed the right to make himself her guardian, and to order the kingdom for her. By means of the Protestant nobles, as well as the vassals of his own house, and the prevailing opinion that Beaton had forged the will, Arran succeeded in establishing himself as regent on the 22nd of December, 1542, and the Protestant influence was in the ascendant. It was now conceded that Angus and the Douglases should be recalled from their exile, and they quitted England in the following January, the Earl of Arran giving them a safe conduct.
Queen Catherine Parr. From the Original Picture by Holbein.
It was a deadly warfare betwixt the Protestant and Papal parties. A list of 360 of the nobles and gentry was produced by Arran, which was said to have been found on the person of the king, all of whom were proscribed as heretics, and doomed to confiscation of their estates and other punishments. This list, which the Romanists in their turn denounced as forged, was vehemently charged on Beaton, who was said to have drawn it up when the heads of the army refused to march into England. The Earl of Arran himself stood at the head of the list. The cardinal, who saw the imminent danger of his cause and party, dispatched trusty agents to France to solicit instant aid in money and troops, to defend the interests and guard the persons of the queen-dowager, Mary of Guise, and the royal infant. To hasten the movements of the house of Guise, he represented the certain dependence of Scotland on England if the King of England succeeded in accomplishing the marriage of the infant queen with his son.
Marriage of Henry VIII. and Catherine Parr.
​then be sent to England to be educated; that six Scottish noblemen should be at once delivered to Henry as hostages for the fulfilment of the contract; and when the union of the two kingdoms should take place, Scotland should retain all its own laws and privileges.
But though Beaton was in prison, his spirit was abroad. The clergy had the highest faith in the talents and influence of the cardinal. They considered his liberation as necessary to avert the ruin of their party, and they put in motion all their machinery for rousing the people. They shut up the churches, and refused to administer the sacraments or bury the dead; and the priests and monks were thus set at liberty from all other duties to harangue and influence the passions of the people. Everywhere it was declared that Arran, the regent, had formed a league with Angus and the Douglases, who had been so long in England, to sell the country and the queen to England under the pretence of a marriage; that this was what the English monarchs had long been seeking; and that not only the Douglases but Arran himself, were pensioned by Henry for the purpose. That this was but too true, the "State Papers," which have now been published by Government, relative to Scotland, amply prove. Henry and his successors spared no money for this end; and the traitorous bargaining of a great number of the Scottish nobles with the English monarchs, stands too well evidenced under their own hands.
Henry, with his characteristic impatience, insisted that Cardinal Beaton should be delivered at once into his own hands, and that the Scottish fortresses should be made over to English garrisons. The traitor nobles entreated him to be patient, or he would ruin all; that if he waited awhile all would succeed to his wishes; but that if he precipitated such important measures, the spirit of the Scotch would be roused by their ancient jealousy of England, and the whole plan would be defeated. But they might just as well have talked to the winds as to Henry. He had long ceased to be politic, to use caution, or to regard anything but the immediate gratification of his pampered will. He insisted on immediate fulfilment of their pledges: would only grant till June for the accomplishment of those startling measures, and to enforce them he began to collect great numbers of troops in the northern counties. What the Earl of Angus and his associates had assured Henry directly took place. The alarm of the Scottish people at the threatened betrayal of their country became universal. The patriotic noblemen and clergy at once fanned the flame of apprehension, and used it to their advantage. The Earls of Huntly, Bothwell, and Murray demanded the release of the cardinal, offering to give bail for him in their own persons, and to answer the charges advanced against him. The Earl of Argyll joined them—an example quickly followed by a great concourse of bishops and abbots, barons and knights, who proceeded to Perth, where they drew up certain articles, demanding the liberation of the cardinal and the prohibition of the circulation of the New Testament in the national tongue.
These they sent to Arran and the council by the Bishop of Orkney and Sir John Campbell, of Caldour, uncle to the Earl of Argyll. There were other articles, demanding a share in the council, and that the ambassadors selected to proceed to England should be changed, and men of more certain patriotism should be substituted. Arran and the council refused to comply with these demands; and, on the return of the emissaries, the regent dispatched his herald-at-arms to the assembly at Perth, commanding them, under pain of treason, to break up their meeting, and proceed to Edinburgh to attend in Parliament. The assembled prelates, lords, and gentlemen obeyed without opposition, and went almost wholly to take their places in Parliament, which was summoned for the 12th of March, 1543. They felt their strength, for they had had an opportunity of coming to a perfect understanding with each other, and such was the state of the popular mind that they had little fear of any dangerous concessions from Parliament; in fact, such was the ferment of the people everywhere, that Sir George Douglas told Sadler, the English agent, that, for Henry to obtain the government of Scotland in the summary way that he sought to, and at this crisis, was utterly impossible; "for," said he, "there is not so little a boy but he will hurl stones against it; and the wives will handle their distaffs; and the commons universally will rather die in it; yea, and many noblemen, and all the clergy be fully against it." Sadler added in his despatch:—"The whole realm murmureth that they would rather die than break their old league with France."
Under these circumstances the Parliament assembled, and the traitors Angus and Sir George Douglas informed the English Court that it was "the most substantial Parliament that ever was seen in Scotland in any man's remembrance, and best furnished with all the three estates." When the Archbishop of Glasgow, as chancellor, introduced the English proposals of peace and marriage, not a voice was raised against the alliance; and could Henry have exercised ordinary patience and tact, never was there a fairer prospect of the union of the nations. But at the same time that the Scottish Parliament acceded to the marriage, it proposed that on no account should the young queen be allowed to go into England, and not a man dared to mention the additional demands which Henry made as indispensable to the contract.
On learning these facts Henry became transported with rage at the idea of any body of men presuming to have a will of their own. He upbraided Angus, Glencairn, and the rest of his late captives with the breach of their promises—as if they could work impossibilities, or work possibilities with so self-willed and impossible a person as himself destroying all their efforts. He assured them that he had no intention of waiving a single particle of his demands; that if the Scotch would not grant them freely he would force them from them by arms; and he told these nobles that if they did not accomplish his wishes for him, they must return to their imprisonment according to their contract. It was in vain that his experienced agent, Ralph Sadler, assured him, "In myn opinion, they had lever suffre extremytee than com to the obidiens and subjection of England. They wool have their own realm free, and live within themselves after their own laws and custumes."
At this juncture Cardinal Beaton managed to escape from his prison, from which he had never ceased to correspond with and inspirit his party. How he came to escape has been considered a mystery; but perhaps that ​mystery is not very deep when we reflect that the Lord Seaton, in whose custody he was, was a man, though related to the Hamiltons, yet of a most loyal temper, and a decided Romanist. Seaton negotiated with Beaton to give up his castle of St. Andrews; and, as if this could not be accomplished without the cardinal's presence on the spot, Seaton allowed him to accompany him, but with so small a force, that the moment the cardinal stood in his own castle, he declared himself at liberty, and Seaton had no power to say nay, had he wished it. As no punishment or even censure befell Lord Seaton on this account, it is most probable that Arran himself was cognisant of the scheme. What makes this more likely is that Hamilton, the abbot of Paisley, the natural brother of Arran, the regent, had returned just before from France; and that he was at the bottom of the plot it may not unreasonably be supposed, from the fact that he very soon exercised a powerful influence over the weaker mind of the regent. Through the means of the abbot, Beaton even attempted to accommodate matters with Henry. He declared that he was sincerely desirous of the union of the young queen and the Prince of Wales, so that there should be peace betwixt the countries, yet a peace preserving the independence of each. But this independence of Scotland was the very thing which Henry was determined to annihilate, and he pressed his desires for it with such violence, that all hopes of an amicable arrangement vanished.
The Scottish ambassadors—who, meantime, had arrived in London—found the king so impolitically and overbearingly determined on having his own way, regardless of the expressed sentiments of the Scotch, that the breach was only widened. Henry insisted on the immediate delivery of the infant queen; when he could not obtain that, he demanded that she should be given up to him on reaching two years of age, and told the ambassadors in a high and pompous strain that the realm of Scotland belonged of right to him, and that it ought to be resigned into his hands without question or delay. This absurd conduct excited a universal burst of indignation throughout Scotland, and completely levelled all the careful approaches to the same end which the Douglas faction had raised. Even Arran, whom Sir George Douglas represented to Sadler as a very gentle creature, resented the indignity with which his ambassadors and his proposals had been treated, and Beaton gained from the folly and violence of Henry a new accession of popularity.
This popularity the cardinal did not neglect to exercise. The Earl of Lennox, who had been engaged in the Italian wars of Francis I., was invited by the cardinal to return to Scotland, and was set up by him as a rival to Arran. Lennox was nearly related to the royal family; and whilst Beaton and his party propagated a rumour that Arran, through some informality in the divorce of his father and his second wife—Arran being issue of the third marriage—had no legitimate right to the title or the paternal property which he held, and none, therefore, to the office of regent, based upon them, it was circulated with equal assiduity that the late king, in the event of his dying without children, had selected Lennox for his successor.
Lennox did not at once fall into the cardinal's plans, but that bold and able churchman did not on that account pause in them. He held him up as the true opponent of Arran, proposed to marry him to the Queen Dowager, and entered into successful negotiations with Francis I., who sent over Lennox, as requested, and empowered him to furnish assistance to the Romanist party, both of arms and money, to check the designs of Henry.
Arran, alienated from the English Government by the imperious demands of Henry, and alarmed at the progress of the Papist faction, took care to proclaim his resolute resolve to oppose the aims of Henry, even to the extremity of war, and he dismissed his Protestant chaplains, friar Williams and John Rough; and such was the spirit of the people that Glencairn and Cassilis, the most devoted partisans of England, declared that they would sooner die than agree to the surrender of the French alliance. Such, in fact, was the popular exasperation that Sadler dared not appear in the streets; and the peers in the interest of Henry were equally the objects of the public resentment.
To induce Henry to pause in his fatal career, Sir George Douglas hastened to London, and prevailed on him to abate the extravagance of his demands. The immediate delivery of the infant queen, the surrender of the fortresses and of the Government into the hands of Henry, were waived, and Douglas returned to Scotland, bearing proposals of marriage of a more reasonable kind. Henry, however, did not abandon his schemes in secret. In the State Paper Office there is a memorandum in the hand of Wriothesley, saying that "the articles be so reasonable, that if the ambassadors of Scotland will not agree to them, then it shall be mete the king's majesty follow out his purpose by force." Sir George Douglas renewed the offer formerly made by Henry to Arran, of marrying the Princess Elizabeth and his eldest son, and Sir George and Glencairn were sent to London to assist the ambassadors in bringing the negotiation to a close.
But Arran was assailed as vehemently on the other side by the cardinal, and the queen-dowager, who was the real head of the party. They sent Lennox to endeavour to win him over to their side, so that all Scotland might unite against Henry. Lennox delivered a very flattering message from Francis I. to the regent, offering him both men and money to resist any attempt of invasion by the English, but this failing, the queen-dowager and Beaton prosecuted the negotiation with France, and it was agreed that 2,000 men, under Montgomerie, Sieur de Lorges, should be sent to Scotland. The queen and cardinal called on their partisans to assemble their followers and garrison their castles, whilst Grimani, the Pope's legate, was entreated to hasten to Scotland with a formidable store of anathemas and excommunications. The clergy assembled in convention at St. Andrews, and so ardent were they in the cause which they believed to be that of the very existence of the Church, that they pledged themselves to raise the sum necessary for the war against England, and, if necessary, not only to melt down the church plate, and to sacrifice their private fortunes, but to fight in person.
Whilst these belligerent proceedings, which were zealously supported by the people, and by a large majority of the nobility, justified the warning voice of Sir George ​Douglas, that skilful diplomatist returned from England with the more rational resolutions of Henry. They were accepted by the governor and a majority of the nobles in a convention held in Edinburgh in the beginning of June, and the treaties of peace and marriage were finally ratified at Greenwich on the 1st of July. By these treaties the young queen was to remain in Scotland till the commencement of her eleventh year; but an English nobleman, his wife, and attendants were to form a part of her establishment, and two earls and four barons were to be sent forthwith to England as hostages for the fulfilment of this condition. Care was taken to stipulate on the part of Scotland, that even should the queen have issue by the Prince Edward, that country should still retain its own name and laws.
Once more all was secured that a wise and just monarch could desire, and had Henry VIII. been such a monarch the union of England and Scotland might have been effected ages before it was, and much trouble and bloodshed prevented. But nothing could prevail on Henry to yield his arbitrary and selfish temper to sound and moderate counsels. Whilst he outwardly conceded the obnoxious articles of the negotiations, he bound the Douglas faction—Angus, Maxwell, Glencairn, and the rest—to assist him on the first opportunity in obtaining "all the things thus granted and covenanted, or at least the dominion on this side the Forth." This appears from a paper in the State Paper Office, dated July 1st, 1543, entitled "Copy of the Secret Devise."
The "Secret Devise," however, does not appear to have remained undiscovered by Beaton and the queen-dowager's party, and on the return of the commissioners to Scotland, they found that party in arms against the treaty, which they asserted was to hand over Scotland to the domination of England, and the Church to destruction at the hands of Henry. Filled with uncontrollable rage on receiving the news of this, Henry demanded through his ambassador, Sadler, that Arran should seize the person of Cardinal Beaton, as the author of all the opposition to the English alliance. Beaton, however, took care to place this out of the regent's power. In conjunction with the Earl of Huntly, he concentrated his forces in the north, Argyll and Lennox showed themselves in the west, and Home, Bothwell, and Buccleuch drew forth their feudal array upon the borders. They announced that they were compelled to this demonstration by the treachery of Arran, who, they declared, had sold the independence of the realm and the faith of Holy Church to Henry. They stigmatised Arran not only as a traitor, but as an Englishman, and in this they had some ground of justice. Arran, according to the assertion of Sadler, boasted of his English descent, and it is certain that he eagerly received Henry's money. He listened to, though he did not acquiesce in Henry's scheme of becoming King of Scotland as far as the Forth; and he proposed, in case the cardinal should become too powerful for him, that Henry should send to assist him and his friends. During these proceedings the young queen was living under the care of her mother, the queen-dowager, in the palace of Linlithgow, where she was strictly guarded by the regent and the Hamiltons. Beaton resolved to make a bold effort to secure the person of the sovereign, and for this purpose Lennox, Huntly, and Argyll marched towards Edinburgh, at the head of 10,000 men. At Leith they were joined by Bothwell with the Kers and Scotts, and the united army was now so strong, that the timid governor was terrified into the surrender of his royal charge, who, together with her mother, were conducted in triumph to Stirling.
Though thus successful, and acquiring in the possession of the person of the sovereign a vast accession of political strength, Beaton deemed Arran too formidable to be treated as an enemy, and he sought rather to detach him from the English interest, and at the same time, by winning him, to weaken the Protestant party of which he was the head. He therefore held out secret proposals to him of marrying his son to the young Queen Mary. Arran saw through the bait, and proceeded to ratify the treaty with England in a convention of the nobles held in the abbey church of Holyrood, on the 25th of August, which was done with great state and ceremony, Arran swearing to its observance at the altar. Beaton and his party not only stood aloof from this transaction, but they declared that it was carried by a mere faction, and was, therefore, not binding on the nation.
Whilst public opinion was in this state of fermentation, Henry VIII., irritated at the conduct of the cardinal and a large body of the nobles, committed one of those rash and foolish acts, into which the wild fury of his temper often precipitated him. After the proclamation of peace, a fleet of Scottish merchant vessels, driven by a storm, took refuge in an English port, where, under the recent treaty, they deemed themselves safe. But Henry had just proclaimed war on France, and making that a pretence, he accused them of carrying provisions to his enemies, and detained them. At this outrage the people of Edinburgh surrounded the house of Sadler, the English ambassador, and threatened to burn him in it, if the ships were not restored. Arran, the governor, came in for his share of the odium as the stanch ally of Henry; and the mutual friends of Arran and Henry, the traitorous faction of Angus, Cassilis, Glencairn, and the other barons under secret bond to England, proposed to call out their forces for immediate war. These base sons of a brave country asserted that the time was come for Henry to send a great army into Scotland, with which they would co-operate, "for the conquest of the realm."
Everything boded the immediate outbreak of a bloody war, when a new and surprising revolution took place. On the 3rd of September, Arran declared to Sir Ralph Sadler that he was most devotedly attached to the interests of Henry, and within a week afterwards he met the cardinal at Callender House, the seat of Lord Livingston, and entered into a complete reconciliation with him. Within a few days Beaton refused to hold any intercourse with him for fear of his life, and was seen riding amicably with him towards Stirling. This singular exhibition was quickly followed by Arran's renunciation of Protestantism; his return, with full absolution, into communion with the Roman Church; his surrender of the treaties with England, and the delivery of his son as a pledge of his sincerity. So marvellous a conversion must have had powerful causes, and they are only to be explained by the weakness of Arran's character, and the artful and alarming representations of his more able brother, the abbot of Paisley. This zealous partisan of both France and the ​cardinal is said to have persuaded him that by renouncing the Papal supremacy, and allying himself with the archenemy of Rome, Henry of England, he was running imminent danger of the total loss of his titles, estates, and claim to the regency, which could only be maintained by the Pope declaring valid the divorce of his father from his former wife.
Whatever were the causes of this abrupt change, they were successful, and the cardinal and his friends, thus far triumphant, planned another conversion, that of Angus and his adherents. It certainly' is greatly to the honour of Beaton and his friends, that instead of endeavouring to extirpate or ruin their opponents, they endeavoured on all occasions to win them over, and unite them in the great cause of the independence, and of what they believed to be the true religion of their country. But Angus and his party were not composed of the same yielding materials as Arran. They rejected the overture to attend the coronation of the young queen, and to assist, by their presence in Parliament, towards the restoration of the unity and peace of the country. Angus and his confederates spurned the pacific proposal, retired to Douglas castle, and there, in the midst of a strong force, drew up a covenant, pledging themselves to fulfil their engagements to Henry, and concerted measures for the destruction of their opponents. In proof of their sincerity they sent their covenant by Lord Somerville to the King of England. Meantime the regent summoned a new council, including the leaders of the Papist party, and swore to govern by their advice: the coronation took place at Stirling, and it was resolved that a convention should be summoned to meet at Edinburgh to settle all disputes with England relative to the non-performance of the treaty, in a calm and amicable manner.
Thus, once more there was an opportunity of Henry achieving the great object of the marriage of Prince Edward and the Scottish queen, but the violence of his temper again dashed down all hope of it. In his fury at these changes, he instantly dispatched a herald to Scotland, denouncing instant war if the treaties were not at once fulfilled. By him he sent a letter to the magistrates of Edinburgh, menacing them with a terrible retribution if they did not protect his ambassador from the wrath of the populace; and he ordered Sir Thomas Wharton to liberate certain chiefs of the Armstrongs, whom he had in prison, on condition that they should raise the borders, and make war on the estates of the lords who were opposed to him. At the same time he determined to muster his forces in the spring, and invade the country with an overwhelming power. Not all the experience of ages, in which the Edwards and the Henrys had endeavoured by the strong arm to force Scotland into subjection, availed to convince the haughty and unrestrainable spirit of Henry, that that country might be won by kindness, but could never be coerced by violence.
Cardinal Beaton, seduced by his success, relaxed something of his usual foresight, and thereby lost the adhesion of Lennox, who was guided entirely by personal considerations; and who, thinking himself not sufficiently regarded after his services to that party, went over to the side of England, thus immediately punishing Beaton for his neglect. It was Lennox who had arranged the negotiations with France, and by his advice the Sieur de la Brosse was sent to Scotland with a fleet bearing military stores, fifty pieces of artillery, and ten thousand crowns. Lennox, posted in the strong castle of Dumbarton, awaited the arrival of the ambassador, who presently cast anchor off the town. Lennox and Glencairn went on board the French fleet, and de la Brosse paid over the money, not knowing the change in the policy of Lennox, who secured the booty in the castle, and left the ambassador to discover the mistake at leisure.
But, though the money was lost, the presence of the French ambassador and of Grimani, the Papal legate, and. Patriarch of Aquileia, who accompanied him, wonderfully strengthened the Papal party, and revived the old predilection for France. The legate gave great entertainments during the winter; and Sadler informed Henry that such was the enthusiasm of the Scottish people for the French alliance, and their jealousy of England, that nothing but force would tell upon them. Henry waited with impatience the arrival of the time which should favour his vengeance on this refractory people; and, in the meantime, prosecuted, through his facile agent, Ralph Sadler, his usual attempts at corruption. Sadler entered into communication with the Scottish merchants whose vessels had been seized, and informed them that, if they would assist Henry in his designs on their native country, they should receive back their vessels and property. The base offer received an indignant reply; the honest merchants protesting that they would not only sacrifice their property, but their lives, rather than prove such traitors.
At the same time some of Henry's real traitors of a higher rank wore taken and exposed. The Lords Somerville and Maxwell, Angus's principal agents in his intrigues with England, were seized, and on them was discovered the bond signed at Douglas, pledging the disaffected nobles to assist Henry in the subjugation of their country, and letters disclosing the plans in agitation for the purpose. This roused the resentment of the regent and the cardinal. They summoned a Parliament to meet in December, in order to impeach Angus and his party of high treason. That chief immediately put himself in an attitude of war; his confederate barons assembled their forces, and Angus fortified himself in his strong castle of Tantallan, where Sadler took refuge, having forfeited every claim to the character of ambassador, and by the laws of every nation incurred the penalty of death for his practices while bearing that sacred office. But the Scottish Government did not allow the traitors time to strike any effectual blow. Arran seized Dalkeith and Pinkie, two of the chief strongholds of the Douglases, and summoned Angus to dismiss Sadler from Tantallan. Immediately on the meeting of Parliament, Angus and all his party were declared traitors, and the treaty with England was declared at an end, in consequence of these attempts of Henry to corrupt the subjects of the realm, and his seizure of the Scottish merchant-fleet, contrary to the faith of that treaty. The French ambassadors, De la Brosse and Mesnaige, were then introduced, who announced that Francis I. was anxious to sever the alliance betwixt the two countries, and offered immediate assistance to defend the kingdom and the queen against the usurpation of England— ​a country, it was truly said, which was always endeavouring to assert a superiority repugnant to every feeling of Scottish patriotism, whilst France desired nothing but the friendship of Scotland, and had on many occasions assisted it in its utmost need, to maintain its liberty and independence. The offer of Francis was accepted with enthusiasm, a select council was appointed to renew the treaty with France; Secretary Panter and Campbell of Lundy proceeded to the French Court; an envoy was dispatched to solicit the co-operation of Denmark, and others to the emperor and Duke of Bavaria, announcing the war with England, and requesting that on this ground, all molestation of the Scottish commerce should be abstained from. Hamilton, the abbot of Paisley, was appointed treasurer, in the place of Sir William Kirkaldy, of Grange, a partisan of England; and the cardinal was made chancellor of the kingdom, instead of the Archbishop of Glasgow.
Well would it have been for the fame and fortunes of the cardinal if these energetic measures had been the only ones; but, elated with the success of his plans, he gave a loose to his persecuting disposition, and lost his popularity with a large body of the people. It was now sixteen years since the burning of Hamilton, but since then Russell and Kennedy had suffered at the stake, and the memory of these things had made a deep impression on the public mind. Protestantism had grown and flourished on the ground fertilised by the ashes of martyrdom, and Beaton having now the power in his hands, and the opposition of Arran being removed by his conversion, the cardinal made a progress to Perth, to strike terror into the heretics. Four men, Lamb, Anderson, Ranald, and Hunter, were accused of heresy, one of them having interrupted a friar in his sermon, and others of having broken and ridiculed an image of St. Francis. They were hanged, Lamb at the gallows denouncing in strong terms not only the errors of Popery, but the well-known profligate life of the cardinal. But the fate of a poor woman, the wife of one of these martyrs, excited the deepest commiseration. She was charged with the heinous offence of refusing to pray to the Virgin during her confinement, declaring that she should direct her prayers to God alone. For this she was refused the poor satisfaction of hanging with her husband, but was drowned—the death of a witch. Taking the infant undauntedly from her breast, she cried out to her husband, "It matters not, dear partner; we have lived together many happy days, but this ought to be the most joyful of all, when we are about to have joy for ever. Therefore, I will not bid you good night, for ere the night shall close, we shall be united in the kingdom of heaven."
The year 1544 found Henry bent on war both with Scotland and France. Francis had deeply offended Henry by disapproving of his divorce and murder of Anne Boleyn, and by his refusal to follow his advice in repudiating his allegiance to the Pope. Francis had declared that he was Henry's friend, but only as far as the altar. Charles V., aggravated as had been the conduct of Henry towards him, by his divorce of his aunt Catherine, and the stigma of illegitimacy which he had cast on her daughter, the Princess Mary, was yet by no means displeased to observe the growing differences betwixt Henry and his rival Francis. He therefore, like a genuine politician, dropped his resentment on account of Catherine, and professed to believe that it was time to bury these remembrances in oblivion. The only obstacle to peace betwixt them was the declared illegitimacy and exclusion from the succession of Mary. Henry lost no time in getting over this point. He had no need to confess himself wrong; he had a stanch Parliament who would do anything he required. Parliament, therefore, passed an Act restoring both Mary and Elizabeth to their political rights. Nothing was said of their illegitimacy, but they were restored to their place in the succession. Thus the Parliament had gone backward and forward at Henry's bidding, to such an extent, that now it was treason to assert the legitimacy of the princesses, and it was treason to deny it; for if they were illegitimate they could not claim the throne. It was treason to be silent, according to the former Act on this head, and it was now treason to refuse to take an oath on it when required. To such infamy did honourable members of Parliament stoop under this extraordinary despot.
This sorry "amende" being made, and accepted by the necessities rather than the will of the emperor, Henry and he now made a treaty on these terms: 1st. That they should jointly require the French king to renounce his alliance with the Turks, and to make reparation to the Christians for all the losses which they had sustained in consequence of that alliance. 2nd. That Francis should be compelled to pay up to the King of England the arrears of his pension, and give security for a more punctual payment in future. 3rd. That if Francis did not comply with those terms within forty days, the emperor should seize the duchy of Burgundy, Henry all the territories of France that had belonged to his ancestors, and that both monarchs should be ready to enforce these claims at the head of a competent army.
As Francis refused to listen to these terms, and would not even permit the messengers of the newly allied sovereigns to cross his frontiers, the emperor, who was now desirous of recovering the towns which he had lost in Flanders, obtained from Henry a reinforcement of 6,000 men under Sir John Wallop, who laid siege to Landreci; whilst Charles himself, with a still greater force, overran the duchy of Cleves, and compelled the duke, the devoted partisan of France, to acknowledge the imperial allegiance. Charles then marched to the siege of Landreci, and Francis approached at the head of a large army. A great battle now appeared inevitable: but Francis, manœuvring as for a fight, contrived to throw provisions into the town and withdrew. Imperialists and English pursued the retiring army; and the English, by too much impetuosity, suffered considerable loss. Henry promised himself more decided advantage in the next campaign, which he intended to conduct in person. This he had not been able to make illustrious by his presence; for he had been busily engaged with his approaching marriage to a sixth wife.
The lady who had this time been elevated to this perilous eminence was the Lady Catherine Latimer, the widow of Lord Latimer, already mentioned for his concern in the Pilgrimage of Grace. She was born Catherine Parr, a daughter of Sir Thomas Parr, who claimed a long and honourable descent from Ivo de Tallebois, the Norman, of the time of the Conquest; and still more so from the ​Saxon wife of Tallebois, the sister of the renowned Earls Morcar and Edwin. His ancestors in after times included the great Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, the Beauforts, and, through the Lords de Roos, Alexander II. of Scotland. She was fourth cousin to Henry himself, but bad been twice married previous to his wedding her. She was the widow of Lord Borough, of Gainsborough, at fifteen, and was about thirty when Henry married her, only a few months alter the death of her second husband, Lord Latimer.
View of Portsmouth Harbour, as it appears at the present time.
Catherine Parr, as she still continues to be called, was educated under the care of her mother at Kendall Castle, and received a very learned education for a woman of those times. She read and wrote Latin fluently, had some knowledge of Greek, and was mistress of several modern languages. She is said to have been handsome, but of very small and delicate features. At all times she appears to have been of remarkable thoughtfulness and prudence, extremely amiable, and became thoroughly devoted to Protestantism; and she may, indeed, justly be styled the first Protestant Queen of England, for Anne of Cleves, though educated in the Protestant faith, became a decided Papist in this country. It was not till after the death of Lord Latimer that her Protestant tendencies, however, became known; yet then, she appears to have made no secret of them, for her house became the resort of Coverdale, Latimer, Packhurst, and other eminent Reformers, and sermons were frequently preached in her chamber of state, which it is surprising did not attract the attention of the king. But it seems that his senses were too much fascinated by the charms of the handsome wealthy widow, to perceive the atmosphere of heresy which surrounded her. The fair historian of our queens has happily compared the elevation of the Protestant Catherine Parr to the throne of the persecuting Henry, to that of the Queen Esther by Ahasuerus; Protestantism in the one case, as the Jews in the other, was destined to receive its ultimate ascendency by this event; for Catherine Parr became the step-mother of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth, and their active instructress, and thoroughly imbued their minds with her new opinions and the knowledge of the Bible, though she could not effect the same result in the older and more fixed bosom of Mary. The circumstance is joyfully alluded to in the metrical chronicle of her cousin, Sir Thomas Throckmorton:—
"But when the king's fifth wife had lost her head,
Yet he mislikes the life to live alone;
And once resolved the sixth time for to wed,
He sought outright to make his choice of one:
That choice was chance right happy for us all— It brewed our bliss, and rid us quite from thrall."
When Henry opened to Catherine Parr his intention to make her his wife, she is said to have been struck with consternation; and, though a matron of the highest virtue, she frankly told him that "it was better to be his mistress than his wife." Henry, however, was a suitor who listened to no scruples or objections; and even with the most prudent woman, a crown being ​concerned, these scruples soon vanished. Catherine was scarcely a widow when her hand had been sought by Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of the late Queen Jane, and uncle to the heir-apparent, who was considered the handsomest man of the Court. She is said to have listened willingly to his suit; but on the appearance of the great and terrible lover, who took off the heads of queens and rivals with as little ceremony as a cook would cut off the head of a goose, Seymour shrunk in affright aside, and Catherine became a queen. The marriage took place on the 12th of July, 1543, in the queen's closet at Hampton Court. The ceremony was performed by Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. The two princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, and the king's niece, Margaret Douglas, were present; and the queen was attended by her sister, Mrs. Herbert, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, the Duchess of Suffolk, Anne, Countess of Hertford, and Lady Jane Dudley. Soon after the marriage, her uncle, Lord Parr of Horton, was made Lord Chamberlain, and her brother was created Earl of Essex. Yet circumstances almost immediately showed the danger which surrounded her. Gardiner, the bigoted Bishop of Winchester, who had married her, saw, nevertheless, her elevation with the deepest inward hatred; and within a fortnight after her marriage, he was plotting her destruction, and commenced by an attack on those about the Court and its vicinity, who were known as holders of her views. A tool of his, one Dr. London, who had been amongst the busiest of Cromwell's agents in the spoliation of the abbeys, but who had now become as busy an agent of the Papist party, which was in the ascendant, commenced by giving information of a society of Reformers in Windsor, who were believed to receive countenance from members of the Royal household. London made a list of these persons, and stated the charges against them, which Gardiner laid before the king, praying that a search might be made for books of the new heresy. Henry granted the search so far as it regarded the town, but excepted the castle, being pretty well aware that the queen's closets would not bear too close a scrutiny. Marbeck, a chorister, was speedily arrested for having in his possession a Bible and a Latin concordance in progress. With him were arrested, as his accomplices, Anthony Pason, a priest, Robert Testwood, and Henry Filmer. Marbeck was saved by some influential interference, but the three others were burnt, after having been pressed closely, and with added assurances of pardon, to criminate personages within the palace, but in vain. This preliminary step having succeeded, higher game was aimed at. Dr. Haines, Dean of Exeter and Prebendary of Windsor, Sir Philip Hoby and his lady, Sir Thomas Garden, and other members of the Royal household, were denounced by London and his coadjutor Symonds. This evident approach towards her own person, seems to have roused Catherine Parr, who sent a bold and trusty servant into court, who exposed the collusion of Ockham, clerk of the court, and London. Ockham was arrested, and his papers seized, which at once revealed the foul plot betwixt himself, London, and Symonds. These miscreants were sent for and examined, and not knowing that their letters to Ockham were seized, they speedily proved their own villany, and were condemned to ride, with their faces to the horses' tails, to the pillory in Windsor. Such were the critical circumstances of Queen Catherine Parr, even in her honeymoon. In these plots the destruction of Cranmer was not lost sight of, but his time was not come; the favour of the king still defended him.
The spring of 1544 opened with active preparations for Henry's campaign in France. During the winter, Gonzaga, the viceroy of Sicily, was dispatched to London by Charles, to arrange the plan of operations. An admirable one was devised, had Henry been the man to assist in carrying it out. The emperor was to enter France by Champagne, and Henry by Picardy, and, instead of staying to besiege the towns on the route, they were to dash on to Paris, where, their forces uniting, they might consider themselves masters of the French capital, or in a position to dictate terms to Francis. In May the Imperialists were in the field, and Henry landed at Calais in June, and by the middle of July he was within the bounds of France at the head of 20,000 English and 15,000 Imperialists.
But neither of the invaders kept to their original plan. Charles stopped by the way to reduce Luxembourg, Ligne, and St. Didier. Had Henry, however, pushed on with his imposing army to Paris, Francis would have been at the mercy of the allies. But Henry, ambitious to rival the military successes of Charles, and take towns too, instead of making the capital his object, turned aside to besiege Boulogne and Montreuil. The imperial ambassador, sensible of the fatality of this proceeding, urged Henry with all his eloquence during eleven days to push on: and Charles, to take from him any farther excuse for delay, hastened forward along the right bank of the Marne, avoiding all the fortified towns. But when once Henry had undertaken an object, opposition only increased his resolution, and he lost all consciousness of everything but the one idea of asserting his mastery. In vain, therefore, did Charles send messengers imploring him to advance; for more than two months he continued besieging Boulogne, and the golden opportunity was lost.
Francis seized on the delay to make terms with Charles. He sent to him a Spanish monk of the name of Guzman, and a near relative of Charles's confessor, proposing offers of accommodation. Charles readily listened to them, and sent to Henry to learn his demands. These demands were something enormous, and whilst Francis demurred, Charles continued his march, and arrived at Château-Thierry, almost in the vicinity of Paris. The circumstances of both Francis and Charles now mutually inclined them to open separate negotiations. Francis saw a foreign army menacing his capital, but Charles, on the other hand, saw the French army constantly increasing betwixt him and his strange ally, whom nothing could induce to move from the walls of Boulogne. Under these circumstances Charles consented to offer Francis the terms which he had demanded before the war, and which he had refused; but now came the news that the English had taken Boulogne, and the French king at once accepted them. The Treaty of Crespi, as this was called, bound the two sovereigns to unite for the defence of Christendom against the Turks, and to unite their families by the marriage of the second son of Francis with a daughter of Charles. Henry, on his part, having placed ​a strong garrison in Boulogne, raised the siege of Montreuil, and returned to England like a great conqueror, as he always did, from his distant campaigns.
If Henry's campaign in France did him little hononr, that which had been going on in Scotland under his commanders and allies, did him still less. His trusty friends, Angus, Lennox, Cassilis, and Glencairn, who had sworn in their bond to remain faithful to him till they had reduced Scotland to his yoke, in January, 1544, entered into the same compact with Arran, in order to escape a forfeiture of their estates for their repeated treasons, solemnly binding themselves, and all other their complices and partakers, to remain true, faithful, and obedient to their sovereign lady and her authority; to assist the lord-governor for defence of the realms against their old enemies of England, to support the liberties of Holy Church, and to maintain the true Christian faith." As hostages for the faithful observance of this agreement, Sir George Douglas, the brother of Angus, and the eldest son of Glencairn, the Master of Kilmaurs, were surrendered to Arran. Yet within less than two months did these infamous and doubly-perjured traitors send an earnest entreaty to the King of England to hasten his preparations for the invasion of the country, and accompanied it by a plan of operations. These were, that a strong army should proceed by land, a numerous fleet, carrying an additional force, should go by sea, and it was added, that it would act as a most useful diversion, if ten or twelve ships were sent to the western coast to act on the Earl of Argyll's country—a suggestion, no doubt, thrown in by Glencairn, Argyll's bitter enemy. A stratagem of the same kind had been successfully employed before by Glencairn's advice; and the Highland chiefs imprisoned in the castles of Edinburgh and Dunbar were liberated on condition that they should harry the lands of Argyll. The disaffected barons urged Henry to put these plans in execution before the arrival of the French army; but this advice was followed in such a loose and desultory manner, that it failed of the overwhelming effect which it must have had, if ably executed.
Henry, fuming with rage against the cardinal and the Scotch generally, exerted himself, as fast as an empty exchequer would allow, to muster the necessary army of invasion; and during the time which this occupied, he busied himself with concerting a plot of the most diabolical kind—the seizure or assassination of Beaton. Such dark transactions as this, which were only too frequent in the reigns of both Henry and Elizabeth, would not now be believed, if they did not stand in the abundant handwriting of the parties engaged in them in the State Paper Office. On the 17th of April, Crighton of Brunston, a spy of Sadler's, dispatched to the Earl of Hertford, then at Newcastle, an emissary of the name of Wishart, who made him aware of a plot for this purpose. Kirkaldy of Grange, the Master of Rothes—eldest son to the Earl of Rothes—and one John Charteris, were, he said, prepared to capture or kill the cardinal, if assured of the necessary support from England. Hertford immediately dispatched Wishart to London express, where the king, having in a private interview heard the particulars from Wishart, entered into the scheme most heartily, promising the conspirators every protection in his power if they were successful. The cardinal, however, at this time became aware of the base design, and took precautions for his safety; only, however, to defer for a time the execution of this atrocious deed by the same hands, urged on by this detestable monarch.
By the end of April, Henry was prepared to pour on Scotland the vial of his murderous wrath. A fleet of a hundred sail appeared, under the command of Lord Lisle, the High Admiral of England, suddenly in the Forth. The Scotch seem to have by no means been dreaming of such a visitant, and its appearance threw the capital into the greatest consternation. In four days, such was the absence of preparation, such the public paralysis, that Hertford was permitted to land his troops and his artillery without the sight of a single soldier. He had advanced from Granton to Leith when Arran and the cardinal threw themselves in his way with a miserable handful of followers, who were instantly dispersed and Leith given up to plunder.
The citizens of Edinburgh, finding themselves deserted by the governor, flew to arms, under the command of Otterburn of Roidhall, the provost of the city. Otterburn proceeded to the English camp, and, obtaining an interview with Lord Hertford, complained of this unlooked-for invasion, and offered to accommodate all differences. But Hertford returned a haughty answer, that he was not come to negotiate, for which he had no power, but to lay waste town and country with fire and sword unless the young queen were delivered to him. The people of Edinburgh, on hearing this insolent message, vowed to perish to a man rather than condescend to such baseness. They set about to defend their walls and sustain the attack of the enemy; but they found that Otterburn, who had tampered secretly with the English before this, had stolen unobserved away. They appointed a new provost, and manned their walls so stoutly that they compelled Hertford to fetch up his battering ordnance from Leith. Seeing very soon that it was impossible to defend their gates from this heavy ordnance, they silently collected as much of their property as they could carry, and abandoned the town. Hertford took possession of it; and then sought to reduce the castle. But finding this useless, he set fire to the city; and, reinforced by 4,000 horse, under Lord Eure, he employed himself in laying waste the surrounding country with a savage ferocity, which no doubt had been commanded by the bitter malice of the English king.
On the 13th of May, Arran, having assembled a considerable force, and liberated Angus and his brother, Sir George Douglas, in the hope of winning them over by such clemency, marched rapidly towards Edinburgh. The English, however, did not wait for his arrival. Lord Lisle embarked a portion of the troops at Leith again, and Lord Hertford led away the remainder by land. Both by land and water the English commanders continued their buccaneering outrages, doing all the mischief and inflicting all the misery they could. Lord Lisle seized the two largest Scottish vessels in the harbour of Leith, and burnt the rest; he then sailed along the coast, plundering and destroying all the villages and country within reach. Lord Hertford, on his part, laid Seaton, Haddington, Renton, and Dunbar in ashes, and returned into England, leaving behind him a trail of desolation. Such was the insane and ridiculous manner in ​which Henry VIII. wooed the little Queen of Scotland for his son.
Lord Hertford, who conducted himself solely as the punctual agent of the monarch, confessed to those around him that Henry had done too little for a conqueror, and far too much for a suitor. He expressly refused to allow any sparing of the estates of his Scottish confederates, and this impolitic phrenzy soon produced its natural fruits in the desertion and bitter hostility of many of them. Angus, Sir George Douglas, and their numerous and powerful adherents, whose demesnes lay near the borders, and who had so long laboured with a most renegade zeal and ability for his advantage, abandoned his cause in disgust, and went over to the cardinal. The only nobles left to Henry were Lennox and Glencairn—Lennox, a man weak, treacherous and vacillating; Glencairn, a host in himself, a man of great ability and extensive influence, but of no patriotism. So little did the cruel ravages of his country by Henry affect him, that we find him and Lennox, on the 17th of May, entering into a most extraordinary treaty with the English king at Carlisle. By this Henry promised Glencairn and his son, the Master of Kilmaurs, ample pensions, and to Lennox, the government of Scotland, and the hand of Lady Margaret Douglas, the daughter of Margaret, the sister of Henry. For this these traitor barons promised to acknowledge Henry as the Protector of Scotland—sad irony!—to exert themselves to the utmost of their power to deliver over to him the young queen, and the chief fortresses of the country, the town and castle of Dumbarton, the isle and castle of Bute.
No sooner was the evil compact sealed, than the two renegade barons hastened to assemble their forces and earn their disgraceful pay. But the only fortune which they deserved attended them. Arran, acting under the counsel of the cardinal, met Glencairn near Glasgow, and after an obstinate battle defeated him. Glencairn escaped to Dumbarton, where Lennox lay, and that unprincipled nobleman resigned the castle into his hands, and set sail for England, where he received the promised hand of the Lady Margaret Douglas. Francis I. was so disgusted at this unnatural conduct of Lennox, that, suspecting his brother, Lord Aubigny, of some countenance of these proceedings, he deprived him of the high offices which he held in France, and threw him into prison.
In Scotland the cruel raid of Henry, and the traitorous league of Lennox and Glencairn with him, produced remarkable changes. A general council of the nobles met at Stirling, on the 3rd of June, where Lennox and Glencairn alone where absent. The conduct of Henry seemed to have united all hearts against him. There took place a coalition of the Romanist and Protestant parties; but Angus, who was now bound up with the Scottish policy, had the influence to obtain the removal of the feeble Arran from the regency, and the queen-mother, Mary of Guise, elected in his stead; Angus, the mover, being made Lieutenant-General of the kingdom.
But the cardinal was too clear-sighted to lend himself to any such heterogeneous coalition. He still adhered to Arran, and the country became torn by desperate factions, which exposed it the more to the attacks of the English king. In August, Lennox sailed from Bristol with a squadron of ten ships, and a number of soldiery, for the coast of Scotland, to fulfil his promise of putting the castles of Dumbarton and Bute into Henry's hand. He soon plundered the Isle of Arran, and, sailing to Bute, made himself master of it, and of its castle of Rothsay, and delivered them, according to agreement, to Sir Richard Mansell and Richard Broke, to hold for Henry. The castle of Dumbarton, the key of the west of Scotland, Lennox felt sure of, having left it in the hands of Glencairn. But Glencairn had in the meantime gone over to the opposite party, and the officer in command, Stirling of Glorat, scorning such treason, not only refused to yield it up, but made it necessary for Lennox and his associates to escape with all speed to their ships.
Scarcely had Lennox quitted Dumbarton, when Sir George Douglas entered it with 4,000 troops, and the Earl of Argyll, occupying the castle of Dunoon, fired on Lennox as he fell down the Clyde. Lennox, returning the fire, landed to avenge the attack, and speedily dispersed the Highlanders drawn out against him. He next ravaged the coasts of Kintyre, Kyle, and Carrick, and then returned laden with spoil to Bristol, whence he dispatched Sir Peter Mewtas to inform the king at Boulogne of the issue of the enterprise, who received the account of the conduct of Glencairn with his most hearty choler. Meantime, Henry's officers, Sir Ralph Eure, Sir Brian Layton, and Sir Richard Bowes, were ravaging the borders as mercilessly as Lennox did the shores of the Clyde. They were enabled to do almost whatever they pleased, owing to the unhappy dissensions betwixt the parties of the Governor Arran and the queen-dowager. The story of their burnings and spoliations has been preserved in an account called the "Bloody Ledger," in which are enumerated 192 towns, villages, farm-offices, towers, and churches as destroyed; 10,386 cattle driven off; 12,492 sheep, 1,496 horses, besides the account of other plunder and horrors.
In November this miserable warfare seems to have slackened, but not so the feuds betwixt the different factions. In the beginning of that month the regent called a Parliament in which he denounced Angus and his brother as traitors; and, on the other hand, Angus summoned the three estates to Stirling, in the queen's name, and there issued a proclamation discharging all the people from their allegiance to Arran as the pretended regent. Once more the cardinal attempted to unite the clashing factions; peace appeared restored, and Arran marched to the borders to avenge the late injuries of the English, and laid siege to Coldingham, then in their possession. Suspicion and disunion, however, speedily broke out again; and the English becoming aware of it, rushed out upon them and put them to flight, though the Scotch were three times their number. Angus, who had the command of the vanguard on this occasion, Glencairn, Cassilis, Lords Somerville and Bothwell, were all involved in the disgraceful rout. The defeat was universally attributed to the treason of the Douglases; yet, in the Parliament which was summoned in December at Edinburgh, they managed to clear themselves of the charge, but not from the belief of it in the minds of the people, which was soon sufficiently shown by both barons and commonalty refusing to serve under Angus when a muster was called in the Lothians.
The greater part of the south of Scotland now lay exposed to the inroads and devastations of the English. The ​border clans, ready to fight on that side where there was the best prospect of booty, entered into the service of England; others, who were more patriotic, were compelled to purchase protection; and the English wardens became so confident that all Scotland to the Forth might be subdued, almost without a struggle, that Sir Ralph Eure and Sir Brian Layton hastened to Court and laid their views before the king. Henry was only too ready to punish still further the stubborn Scots, and, as an incentive to Eure, he granted him all the lands he should conquer in the Morse, Teviotdale, and Lauderdale—districts which were the old hereditary property of the Douglases. Angus heard of this free grant of his patrimony with such indignation, that he vowed he would write his "sasine," or instrument of possession, on his skin with sharp pens and bloody ink, if he dared touch it. Sir Ralph Eure, however, recked little of his threat. He straightway crossed the borders with 5,000 men, consisting of foreign mercenaries, English archers, and 600 border Scots, who wore the red cross of England over their armour. They tracked their way in barbarities still more savage than before. They burnt the tower of Broomhouse, and in it a noble and aged matron, its mistress, with her whole family. They wrecked and desolated the celebrated abbey of Melrose, plundering it, and reducing it to ruins, ransacking and defacing the tombs of the Douglases.
Angus rushed on in the spirit of his vow to meet these marauders, and came up with them in the midst of their destruction of the tombs of his ancestors; but, so far from writing Euro's "sasine" on his back, he was repulsed with great slaughter; and with Arran, the governor, who accompanied him, saw the ruthless foe complete their sacrilegious havoc, and commence their march to Jedburgh, without any forces to prevent them. Angus and Arran, however, hung on the rear of the retreating army, heavy with plunder, and saw Eure, confident of his superior strength, encamp on a moor above the village of Ancram, on the Teviot. The Scotch posted themselves on a neighbouring eminence, and to their great joy beheld Norman Leslie, the Master of Rothes, arrive at the head of 1,200 lances, and directly after, Sir Walter Scott, the old Laird of Buccleuch, gallop up, announcing his followers to be within an hour's march.
Thus strengthened, they resolved to give battle; but, to deceive the enemy, Buccleuch advised Arran to quit the height where he was posted, and retire to a level plain in its rear, called Peniel Heugh, as if they were about to retreat. They then dismounted, and sent their horses in the cave of the camp-boys to a hill beyond the plain. The English commanders fell into the snare laid for them. Their successes had made them careless, and they galloped forward to pursue the flying enemy. On reaching the brow of the hill, however, they saw with astonishment, not an army in retreat, but drawn up for battle, almost face to face with them. They were thrown into some disorder by their rapid advance up the hill, and their horses were blown; but, relying on their superiority, they dashed forward, and charged the foe. The Scots, who had the sun and wind on their backs, and burned with the sense of a thousand injuries unavenged, stood the shock bravely, and the battle became furious. The superior length of the Scottish spears gave them a decided advantage. Bowes and Layton were pushed back on the main body, and threw it into confusion, and that again disordered the rear. The setting sun blinded the English, and the smoke from the arquebuses of their enemies was blown in their faces. They gave way; and, on the very first symptom of flight, the 600 Scottish borderers tore off their red crosses, joined their countrymen, and made a terrible carnage amongst their late comrades. The neighbouring peasantry soon joined in the chase, animated by the spirit of a natural revenge, and the cry of "Remember Broomhouse!" rang over the field, the women being the most frantic in the exclamation. Eure and Layton, who for six months had kept the whole border country in terror, and had perpetrated the most merciless atrocities, were, to the great exultation of the people, found dead upon the field. Many knights and gentlemen were taken prisoners; and Arran, seizing the camp equipage and the enormous booty, marched on Coldingham and Jedburgh, which surrendered; and he soon saw the whole southern district freed of the enemy.
The anger of Henry VIII. may be imagined on the receipt of this news. He vowed especial vengeance on Angus, who had so long been his obsequious tool; but that chief having now executed his vow not only on Eure but on Layton, exclaimed proudly, "What! does my royal brother-in-law feel offended, because, like a good Scotsman, I have avenged upon Ralph Eure the defaced tombs of my ancestors? They were better men than he, and I ought to have done no less; and will he take my life for that? Little knows King Henry the skirts of Kernetable; I can keep myself there against all his English host."
Francis I. could not rest satisfied so long as Boulogne was in the hands of the English, and he resolved, in 1545, to make a grand effort, to recover not only that town but Calais, which had been for centuries in the possession of England. Large galleys wore built at Rouen, and as many vessels were collected as possible from Marseilles and other ports in the Mediterranean for this enterprise. He hired soldiers from the Venetian and other Italian States, and he determined to send a body of troops to Scotland to assist in making a diversion in that country. But he was not contented with endeavouring to regain his own towns; his coasts had often been harassed by the English vessels, and he now ventured to carry the war to Henry's own shores. Henry, aware of his intentions, raised fortifications on the banks of the Thames, and along the shores of Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire. The French fleet, consisting of 130 sail, under the command of Annebaut, set sail on the I6th of July, and fell down the Channel. Francis flattered himself that he could seize the Isle of Wight, and perhaps maintain garrisons there, if he should not be able to get possession of Portsmouth. Henry had himself proceeded to Portsmouth, where he had sixty ships lying, under the command of Lord Lisle. The French fleet sailed into the Solent, and anchored at St. Helen's. The sea being very calm, the French admiral put out his flat-bottomed boats and galleys that drew little water, and sailed into the very mouth of Portsmouth Harbour, daring the English admiral to come out. But Henry commanded Lord Lisle to lie still, and Annebaut, firing into the port, sunk the Mary Rose with her commander, Sir George Carew, and 700 men. On ​the turn of the tide Lord Lisle bore down on the enemy, and sunk a galley with its men, and the French vessels then bore away to the main fleet.
As the French could not provoke the English to come out of harbour, though they burned the villages and farmhouses along the coast, they held a council of war, and resolved to attempt the conquest of the Isle of Wight. The invasion of the island was essayed in three places, but the inhabitants repulsed the soldiers as they landed, with great spirit; and, after committing some ravages, the French thought it best to retire. They then sailed along the coast of Sussex, making occasional descents, and finally anchored before Boulogne, to prevent the entrance of supplies for the army there. Another object was to prevent reinforcements of ships from the Thames reaching Portsmouth, but in both these endeavours the superior vigilance of the English prevailed; provisions were conveyed into Boulogne, and thirty sail of ships arrived at Portsmouth. At length Lord Lisle received orders from Henry to put to sea and attack the enemy; he expressed himself highly delighted, but nothing came of it, for the two fleets manœuvred for some time in the face of each other, exchanged a few shots, and then retired to their respective ports. And thus ended the boastful enterprise of Francis.
The Palace of Nonsuch, on London Bridge, erected in the reign of King Henry VIII.
If Francis had done little, Henry was still apprehensive that he might do more, and he was in no condition to raise adequate forces for defence. After all that his father had left him, and after the enormous receipts from the Church property, never was monarch in greater straits for money. Wriothesley, writing to the Council in September of this year, draws a woful picture of the finances. "As concerning the preparation of money, I shall do what is possible to be done; but, my lords, I trust your wisdoms do consider what is done and paid already. You see the king's majesty hath this year and the last spent £1,300,000, or thereabouts; and his subsidy and benevolence ministering scant £300,000 thereof, I muse sometime where the rest, being so great a sum, hath been gotten; so the lands being consumed, the plate of the realm molten and coined, whereof much hath risen, I sorrow and lament the danger of the time to come, wherein is also to be remembered the money that is to be paid in Flanders; and that is as much and more than all the rest, the great scarcity that we have of corn, wheat being in all places in manner, Norfolk excepted, at twenty shillings the quarter, and a marvellous small quantity to be gotten of it. And though the king's majesty should have a greater grant than the realm could bear at one time, it could do little to the continuance of these charges, which be so importable, that I see not almost how it is possible to bear the charges this winter till more may be gotten. Therefore, good my lords, though you write to me still, 'Pay! pay! prepare for this and that!' consider, it is your part to remember the state of things with me, and by your wisdom to ponder what may be done, and how things may be continued."
Death of Cardinal Beaton.
​the following year he brought the alloy to double the quantity of the silver. To such a despicable condition had he reduced the coinage of the realm, that the shilling fell in value to ninepence, then sixpence; and finally his successors were compelled to withdraw it entirely from circulation. He had, in fact, cheated the nation out of nine-tenths of the whole circulating medium, and had inflicted on the trade of the country the most serious embarrassments.
But whilst he was proceeding in this abandoned course with the coin, the three years for which his supplies had been granted had expired, and he called his most compliant Parliament together in November to grant him fresh aid. The clergy in Convocation voted him fifteen per cent, on their incomes for two years, and Parliament two-tenths and fifteenths. But that did not satisfy him, and the Parliament forthwith granted him all the charities, hospitals, and colleges in the kingdom, accompanied by the most fulsome language, averring that they had always acknowledged him, by the word of God, supreme head of the Church, &c. &c. This was the last grant made to this insatiate monarch. Even so early as the twenty-sixth year of his reign, his expenditure had been calculated from the official documents, and it was clearly shown that he had received more from his subjects than all the taxes imposed by all the previous monarchs of England put together amounted to! That sum, however, enormous as it was, must, before his death, by the receipt of all the monastic property, by fresh loans, benevolences, and the debasement of the coin, have been doubled, or even quadrupled. Perhaps no money was so disgracefully employed, as that which went to corrupt the Scottish nobility, and purchase the murder of those who opposed his designs in that country. In a single entry in 1543, we have the following payments:—To the Earl of Angus, £200; the Earl of Glencairn, 200 marks; the Earl of Cassilis, 200 marks; the Master of Maxwell, £100; Sheriff of Ayr, 100 marks; Laird of Drumlanrig, 100 marks; the Earl of Marshall, John Charters, the friends of Lord Gray in the North, 300 marks; Sir George Douglas and his friends in Lothian and Merse, £200.
Henry, having obtained money, lost no time in prosecuting his designs on Scotland. An army of 30,000 men, under the Earl of Hertford, was ordered to be levied in the border counties, and Sadler, who had made himself well acquainted with Scotland during his very questionable mission there, was appointed treasurer to it. Meantime, Henry was advised by his Scottish friends to try first the force of negotiation. Cassilis was employed to conduct this under the control of Sadler. A convention of the nobles was held at Edinburgh on the 17th of April, 1545; but the tone of Henry savoured too much of his wonted arrogance to weigh much with the Scottish Government, mindful of their recent injuries, expecting troops from France, and a fleet of merchantmen from Denmark, laden with provisions, and engaged in friendly relations with the emperor. Still less was the party of the cardinal disposed to listen to the haughty condescensions of Henry, for it was gaining every day in power, and the cardinal had just received the new dignity of legate à latéré in Scotland. The result was certain. The Convention declared the treaties of peace and marriage with England were at an end; and the offers of assistance from France were cordially accepted.
Cassilis communicated the entire failure of the negotiation to Henry, who, furious to have his proposals thus unceremoniously rejected, ordered instant preparations for war. His malice against Beaton became so rancorous that he encouraged Cassilis to organise a conspiracy for his murder, offering plenty of means of bribery to this diabolical deed. This foul plot, which remained unknown to the historians of the time, both Scotch and English, has, like a host of others equally iniquitous, come to light in our day in the State Paper Office, where the assassins had carefully laid the proofs of their own crimes. The particulars of this transaction are these:—Cassilis wrote to Sadler offering to have the cardinal taken off, "if his majesty would have it done, and promise, when it was done, a reward." Sadler communicated the offer to the Earl of Hertford and the Council of the North, who dispatched it to the king. It was proposed that one Forster, who had recently been a prisoner of war in Scotland, and who could, it was alleged, easily visit Scotland without suspicion, should be sent to consult with Cassilis and his confederates, Angus, Glencairn, Marshall, and Sir George Douglas, the old clique of hardened traitors. The reply received from the Privy Council in London is well worthy of note, for its easy entertainment of the project, and yet for the clear consciousness of its infamy, and the desire to shield the reputation of the king. "His majesty hath willed us to signify unto your lordship, that his highness reputing the fact not meant to be set forward expressly by his majesty, will not seem to have to do in it, and yet not misliking the offer, thinketh good that Mr. Sadler, to whom that letter was addressed, should write to the earl of the receipt of his letter containing such an offer, which he thinketh not convenient to be communicated to the king's majesty. Marry, to write to him what he thinketh of the matter; he shall say, that if he were in the Earl of Cassilis's place, and were as able to do his majesty good service there, as he knoweth him to be, and thinketh a right good will in him to do it, he would surely do what he could for the execution of it, believing verily to do thereby, not only an acceptable service to the king's majesty, but also a special benefit to the kingdom of Scotland, and would trust verily the king's majesty would consider his service in the same, as ye doubt not of his accustomed goodness to those which serve him but he would do the same to him."
Forster was accordingly sent on this business. He arrived at Dalkeith, and had an interview with Sir George Douglas, where he was to meet Angus and Cassilis. He encountered Angus on the way at Dumfries, hunting, who bade Forster welcome, and on pretence of keeping him to hunt, retained him all night, where they had a secret conference, in which Forster declared the precise object of his coming. Angus had sent for Cassilis, who rode all night to the meeting. As the two assassin earls found that Sadler had sent that evasive message, and had fixed no certain reward, they would not speak of the murder, but confined themselves solely to the projects for the planned invasion. On returning, Cassilis gave Forster a letter, written in cypher, to Sadler; and Douglas, ​betraying his impatience, said that he willed Forster to tell Sadler, "that if the king would have the cardinal dead, if his grace would promise a good reward for the doing thereof, so that the reward were knowne what it should be, the country being lawless as it is, he thinketh that the adventure would be proved; for, he saith, the common saying is, the cardinal is the only occasion of the war, and is smally beloved in Scotland; and then, if he be dead, by what means that reward should be paid." As the lords would not commit the murder without making sure beforehand of the reward, and as Henry was afraid of committing his reputation, such as it was, though he had no care about his conscience, the matter was deferred till fresh irritations and less scrupulous assassins accomplished the horrible business.
Whilst these dark conferences were proceeding, the Sieur Lorges de Montgomerie arrived off the west coast with a fleet containing 3,000 infantry and 500 horse. To avoid the trick played off on the Sieur de la Brosse by Lennox, at Dumbarton, the commander took the precaution before landing at that port to inquire into the state of parties; and finding all favourable, he landed, bringing with him not only the troops mentioned, but a body-guard of a 100 archers for the governor, the insignia of the Order of St. Michael for Angus, and a good military chest for the war. Elated at this auspicious event, the cardinal procured the summoning of a Convocation at Stirling, where a resolution was speedily passed to maintain the alliance of France and make immediate war on England.
On the 9th of August the Scottish host mustered 30,000 strong at Stirling, and, supported by the French force, it was calculated that something effectual would be achieved. But though all was promising outwardly, all was deceitful within; for the traitor lords were in conspicuous commands, and Angus had the vanguard itself Treason everywhere paralysed the otherwise vigorous body of the Scottish army. England was invaded, indeed, but to no purpose. The Earl of Hertford had been duly apprised of everything by his Scottish confederates, so that every possible measure had been adopted to defend the borders, whilst every movement of the Scottish army was rendered feeble and abortive by the false councils and traitorous proceedings of the disaffected lords and their followers. The Spanish and Italian troops in the pay of England repelled the Scots at all points; and after managing to capture a few border towns, and burn a few villages, the army returned, after the wonderful campaign of two days, to their own country, according to an old chronicle, "through the deceit of George Douglas and the vanguard."
Three days after this retreat, these traitor lords addressed a letter from Melrose to Henry VIII. boasting of having thus caused the total failure of the invasion, and telling him that now was the time to pour an army into the country. They recommended that Hertford should march, during the harvest, into the land, and proclaim, as a means of winning over the agricultural population, that he came not to injure any one who was ready to assist him in procuring the marriage, and thus establishing peace betwixt the two kingdoms. This advice was promptly followed. To assist the main invasion from England, a body of 8,000 islesmen and Highlanders were engaged under Donald, Lord of the Isles, and Earl of Ross, who repudiated any allegiance to the Crown of Scotland. 4,000, instead of 8,000, landed at Knockfergus, in Ireland, where they were to join 2,000 kerns and gallowglasses, and put themselves under the command of the Earl of Lennox, as commander-in-chief of the expedition. But the immediate co-operation of these wild forces with the English was suspended, by Hertford summoning Lennox to his camp, and were reserved for later action.
Hertford advanced to Alnwick on the 5th of September, and pushing across Northumberland, he passed the Tweed, and encamped before Kelso. As that town was not fortified, he occupied it with ease, but the abbey was not reduced without bombardment. Meantime, Angus, Glencairn, and the rest, who had advised this invasion, and had been invited to take part in it, excused themselves on the ground that they were not sufficiently acquainted with Hertford's plans. This conduct so incensed Hertford that he fell upon their estates, and devastated them with merciless fury. Melrose and Dryburgh abbeys, the glories of their demesnes, were burnt; villages, castles, farms, fell under universal havoc; Jedburgh was given to the flames, with fourteen villages round it. Hertford wrote an exulting letter to Henry, informing him of the signal vengeance which he had taken on these most contemptible men, who were traitors to every party, and not true even to themselves. He assured him, as a piece of news likely to gratify especially his malignant mind, that the border gentlemen declared that so much mischief had not been done in Scotland for the last hundred years. The vengeance was so complete that these border gentlemen were not over-well pleased with it, and to prevent any sparing of the country and people, Hertford appointed 100 Irish as an advanced guard to burn and destroy the villages in the most complete manner.
The party of the governor and the cardinal all this time was rendered inactive by the treason in their camp, and by the absence of Huntly and Argyll, whom the fear of the united army of islesmen and Irish making a descent upon their coasts, kept there for their defence. With difficulty 6,000 men were got together, to make an inroad into England, instead of driving the English out of their own territories; but it proved a failure, through the treacherous counsel of Angus. They entered England near Norham Castle; but, on the appearance of an enemy, immediately dispersed, and got away home.
Hertford was now compelled to think of a retreat—not from any enemy that Scotland brought against him, but from one which he had raised up himself. He had so utterly desolated the country, that there was no subsistence for his army. He therefore turned his face homewards; and, after reconnoitring Hume Castle, and leaving it as too strong for capture under the present circumstances, he proceeded through the Merse, burning and destroying all before him—towns, villages, farms, castles, and keeps; and, where they resisted the fire, razing them to the ground.
Some of the French soldiers, urged by their necessities, and by the miserable failure of their allies, went over to the English. Hertford wrote the king to learn whether he thought they might be received or trusted. Henry ​replied through his council that it was scarcely safe to put confidence in any men of that nation, with whom he was at war, unless they first proved their sincerity by some signal service. And what was this notable service required? His old design of murdering Cardinal Beaton, to which he now added others. "Advise the Frenchmen," he says, "first to do some notable damage or displeasure to the enemy. … Trapping or killing the cardinal, Lorges, or the governor, or some other man of estimation, whereby it can appear that they bear hearty goodwill to serve; which thing if they have done, your lordship may promise them not only to accept the service, but also to give to them such reward as they shall have good cause to be therewith right well contented."
When Hertford had quitted the country, Arran held a Parliament at Stirling, when Lennox and his brother, the Bishop of Caithness, were impeached and condemned for high treason, and their lands confiscated. The former meeting of the Three Estates had been very slackly attended; this was crowded by the nobles, who, it was too truly said, assembled for land, expecting a share of the great demesnes of Lennox. The Earl of Argyll, who had distinguished himself by adhering to the Government amid general disaffection, received the principal portion, and the Earl of Huntly, who had also been staunch in his support of the Crown, was likewise well rewarded with a share, and received the bishopric of Caithness for his brother.
It was agreed to maintain a body of 2,000 men for the defence of the country, especially the borders. One of these was to be kept at the expense of France; and the cardinal projected a journey to that country with the Commander Lorges, to endeavour to obtain the services of a much larger force. During his absence he proposed that the queen-mother should reside with the queen in his strong castle of St. Andrews, and he sought to gain over Arran to his views more completely by intimating his favour in procuring a marriage betwixt the young queen and his son.
This information was quickly conveyed to Henry by his secret and devoted correspondent, the Laird of Brunston, in a letter dated from Ormiston House, the 6th of October, who added a dark hint that this proposed journey of the cardinal's would be out short, assuring Henry that there never were more gentlemen anxious to do him service than at this moment—in plain English, that Henry's commissioner of murder on the borders, Sir Ralph Sadler, had now a trusty band of hired assassins waiting to take off his victim, the cardinal. We seem to be reading not English, but Venetian history. By other letters to Lord Hertford and the king at Berwick, Brunston entreated to have an interview with Sadler, and also with a member of the Council, but secret, as it might cost him his life and heritage; and stated that his friends were all ready, but that his majesty must state plainly what he wanted them to do, and what they were to have for it. As the king was requested to send his reply to Coldingham, the property of Sir George Douglas, it is pretty certain that Douglas, Angus, Cassilis, and the rest of that traitorous clique, were in this bloody secret.
Whether Brunston had the interview which he desired we are not informed; but the information which he communicated had the most exciting effect on Henry. Lord Maxwell, one of his prisoners, had three castles of singular strength, and of the utmost importance for getting a strong hold of Scotland—Caerlaverock, Lochmaben, and Thrave. Henry demanded the surrender of these as the price of Maxwell's liberty, and as a proof that he belonged to the king's party, which, as a weak and unstable person, he had professed, in order to obtain favour at the hands of his captor. Henry now, on his showing reluctance, threatened to send him to the Tower, and charge him with suspicious conduct. This menace from a man like Henry, whose words were as deadly as daggers, terrified him into the surrender of Caerlaverock, on condition that he should be allowed to return to Scotland. But the cardinal and governor, who seem to have had good and early information of what went on in Henry's Court, forestalled both Maxwell and the king. They attacked and took all the three castles; and Maxwell was taken, with some of his English confederates, and imprisoned at Dumfries.
Defeated in this attempt, Henry still set on foot others, and in particular one for securing the west of Scotland. Donald, Lord of the Isles, who had gone to Ireland to await the junction of Lennox, for a descent on Scotland, was now dead, but his possessions and his antipathy to Scotland had descended to his successor, James Maconnell, Lord of Dunyveg. Lennox now hastened to Ireland to proceed with the expedition in conjunction with Maconnell. He first dispatched his brother, the ex-Bishop of Caithness, to sound the Constable of Dumbarton Castle, Stirling of Glorat, and prepared to follow. On the 17th of November, Lennox and the Earl of Ormond set sail from Dublin with a formidable fleet, carrying 2,000 men, raised by Ormond. Meantime, however, the cardinal, again apprised of these proceedings, attacked the castle of Dumbarton, but not being able to take it, entered into negotiations with Stirling, the constable, and the ex-Bishop of Caithness, and by offering Lennox's brother the bishopric back again, and the constable suitable inducements, won them over, and took possession of the castle. Thus again was Henry's scheme defeated, and Lennox and Ormond directed their course elsewhere. Maconnell of the Isles, disappointed of his junction with this armament, wrote to Henry, proposing that Lennox should proceed to the Isle of Sanda, near Kintyre, where he would join him with all his kinsmen and allies, with his cousin Alane Maclane of Gigha, with the Clanranald, Clancameron, Clankayne, and all of his own clan, north and south. Before Henry had time to embrace this offer, his attention was absorbed by events of extraordinary interest which arose in Scotland.
Notwithstanding the endeavours of Cardinal Beaton, and the apostacy of Arran, the Reformation had now made great progress in Scotland, and it was whilst the struggle was going on betwixt the party of Angus and the party of the cardinal, backed by the money and the arms of England, that there came upon the scene the remarkable preacher, George Wishart. He arrived with the commissioners of Henry in July, 1543, who were sent to negotiate the marriage treaty, and soon made a great sensation. Wishart is supposed to have been the son of a James Wishart of Pitarro, justice-clerk to James V., and he was patronised by John Erskine, the Provost of Montrose. In Montrose he became master of a school, and was ​expelled for teaching Greek to his boys, avowedly as the original tongue of the New Testament. He fled to England, and in Bristol was condemned as a heretic for preaching against the offering of prayers to the Virgin. He then recanted to avoid death, but remained some years in England, returning to all and more than the opinions he had renounced in sight of the fagot. He boldly preached the insufficiency of outward ceremonies when the heart itself was not touched. He admitted only the sacraments recorded in the Scriptures; derided auricular confession; condemned the invocation of saints and the doctrine of purgatory, though he approved of fasting, and maintained that the Lord's Supper was a Divine and comfortable institution. The doctrines, conduct, and corruptions of his opponents he denounced with unsparing severity.
These traits had made him a welcome agent of opposition to the cardinal with the lords of the English party; and Beaton, at once hostile to his religious views and to him personally, as the ally of those who were seeking his life by the most abominable means, soon turned his resentment upon him. Twice he is said to have escaped from the emissaries of the cardinal lying in wait to seize him. How far he was aware of the plots and mercenary villany of those about him is uncertain; but living in the very midst of the traitor lords, and often under the very roof of the busy agent of Beaton's proposed murder, Brunston, he was so far cognisant of the preparations for the invasion of Scotland and the destruction of the cardinal's party, that he frequently announced in his sermons the approach of the horrors which at length arrived, and thus acquired the reputation of a prophet. Under the protection of the Angus party, he preached in the towns of Montrose, Dundee, Perth, and Ayr, and produced such a spirit of hostility to the old religion, that at Dundee the houses of the Black and Grey Friars were destroyed, and similar attempts were made in Edinburgh.
Whilst the friends of Wishart were seeking the life of Beaton, Beaton, aware of this, was seeking the life of Wishart, and Wishart in his addresses to the people repeatedly declared that he should perish a martyr to the cause of truth. At length Cassilis and the gentlemen of Kyle and Cunningham sent for him to meet them at Edinburgh, where they proposed that he should have an opportunity for public disputation with the bishop. Wishart proceeded to the capital, where, Cassilis and the confederates not having arrived, he soon began to preach to the people, under the protection of the barons of Lothian. At Leith, Sir George Douglas bore public testimony to the truth of his doctrine, and declared his resolution to protect the preacher. There, too, he converted John Knox, who was destined to establish the Reformation in Scotland.
In the midst of these proceedings arrived the cardinal and the governor in Edinburgh, and Beaton lost no time in endeavouring to secure the person of the popular apostle. Brunston and Ormiston removed Wishart to West Lothian to be out of the way till the arrival of Cassilis; but Wishart was not a man to lie concealed. He preached in the very face of danger, though a two-handed sword was constantly borne before him on these occasions; and at length, after a remarkable sermon at Haddington, where he prognosticated deep miseries about to fall upon the country, ho took leave affectionately of his audience, and set out for the house of Ormiston, accompanied by Brunston, Sandilands of Caldor, and Ormiston. That night the house of Ormiston was surrounded by a party of horse, under the command of the Earl of Bothwell. Wishart, Sandilands, and Cockburn were seized. Cockburn and Sandilands were conducted to the castle of Edinburgh, Wishart to Hailes, the house of Bothwell, who for some time refused to give him up to the cardinal, but at length did so under promise of a great reward. Brunston had managed to escape.
Beaton was anxious to have Wishart tried and condemned on a civil charge; but to this Arran would not consent, and the cardinal was therefore obliged to forego his vengeance, or arraign him as a heretic. He was sentenced to be burnt, and this sentence was carried into effect at St. Andrews, on the 28th of March, 1546. In this execution Beaton's malice far outran his usually sound policy. Nothing could be more mischievous to his own cause than the murder of Wishart. Till then, the people, whatever their religious opinions, regarded the political views of Beaton as patriotic, and they supported him as the great bulwark against the power and designs of England. But now they regarded him as a horrible persecutor, and they shrank from him, and his power fell. The meekness and patience with which the man, whom they now honoured with the name of martyr, bore his horrible fate, made a deep and lasting impression on the public mind.
Whilst the people thus unequivocally condemned this barbarous deed, and only the more eagerly inquired into the principles of the sufferer, the immediate confederates against the cardinal found in this event a grand warrant for carrying out their own murderous intentions. Cassilis, Glencairn, and the rest of the nobles had delayed the desperate deed, because they could not extract from Henry a distinct statement of the pay they were to receive for it. But now John Leslie, the brother to the Earl of Rothes, and Norman Leslie, his nephew, began to vow publicly that they would have the blood of Beaton as an atonement for that of the martyred Wishart. They opened anew an active correspondence with England, and associated themselves with a number of others who were exasperated at the cardinal's deed.
On the other hand, the partisans of Beaton lauded him to the skies as the saviour of the Church in Scotland, and strong in the alliance of France and the late ill-success of the English party, the cardinal appeared to enjoy a season of triumph; but it was a triumph quickly quenched in blood. Elated with his temporary success, the cardinal made a progress into Angus, and celebrated the marriage of one of his natural daughters, Margaret Bethune, to David Lindsay, Master of Crawford, at Finhaven Castle, bestowing upon her a dowry worthy of a princess. The cardinal was disturbed in his festivities by the news that Henry VIII. was pushing on his preparations for a new invasion, and he hastened to St. Andrews to put his castle into a perfect state of defence. On his arrival he summoned the barons of the neighbouring coast to consult on the best means of fortifying it against any attack of the enemy. But whilst thus busily engaged in warding off the assault of a foreign foe, a domestic and much ​nearer one was eagerly at work for his destruction. The Laird of Brunston was stimulating Henry to give the necessary assurance to those who were ready at a word to plunge the sword into the body of the cardinal. A quarrel arising betwixt Beaton and the Leslies brought the matter to a crisis. Norman Leslie, the Master of Rothes, had given up to Beaton the estate of Easter Wemyss, and, at a meeting of St. Andrews, had found the cardinal indisposed to make the promised equivalent for it. High words arose, and Leslie hastened to his uncle John; and both of them deeming that there was no longer any safety after the words Norman Leslie in his rage had let fall, they immediately summoned their confederates, and resolved to put the cardinal to death without delay.
Conduit in London Streets, with Stocks, Pillory, and Whipping Post.
On the evening of the 28th of May, Norman Leslie, attended by five followers, entered the city of St. Andrews, and rode, without exciting any suspicion, in his usual manner to his inn. Kirkaldy of Grange was awaiting him there, and after nightfall, John Leslie, whose enmity to Beaton was most notorious, stole quietly in and joined them. At daybreak the next morning, Norman Leslie and three of his attendants entered the gates of the castle court, the porter having lowered the drawbridge to admit the workmen who were employed on the cardinal's fresh fortifications. Norman inquired if the cardinal were yet up, as if he had business with him; and whilst he held the porter in conversation, Kirkaldy of Grange, James Melville, and their followers entered unobserved; but presently the porter, catching sight of John Leslie crossing the bridge, instantly suspected treason, and attempted to raise the drawbridge; but Leslie was too nimble for him, he leaped across the gap, and the conspirators, closing round the porter, dispatched him with their daggers, seized the keys, and threw the body into the fosse, without any noise or alarm. They then proceeded to dismiss the workmen as quietly from the castle, and Kirkaldy, who was well acquainted with the castle, stationed himself at the only postern through which an escape could be made. The conspirators then went to the apartments of the different gentlemen composing the household of the cardinal, awoke them, and, under menace of instant death if they made any noise, conducted them silently out of the castle, and dismissed them. Thus were 150 workmen and fifty household servants removed without any commotion by this little band of sixteen determined men, and, the portcullis being dropped, they remained masters of the castle.
The cardinal, who had slept through the greater part of this time, at length awoke by the unusual bustle, threw open his chamber window and demanded the cause of it. The reply was that Norman Leslie had taken the castle, on which the cardinal rushed to the postern to escape; but finding it in possession of Kirkaldy, he returned as rapidly to his chamber, and, assisted by a page, pushed the heaviest furniture against the door to defend the entrance till an alarm could be given. But the conspirators did not allow him time for that. They called for fire to burn down the door, and Beaton, finding resistance useless, threw open the door, when John Leslie and Carmichael rushed upon him, as he cried for mercy, and stabbed him in several places. Melville, however, with a mockery of justice, bade them desist, saying that though the deed was done in secret, it was an act of national justice, not that of mercenary assassins, and must be executed with all due decorum. Then, turning the point of the sword towards the wretched cardinal, he said, with formal gravity, "Repent thee, thou wicked cardinal, of all thy sins and iniquities, especially of the murder of Wishart, that instrument of God for ​the conversion of these lands. It is his death which now cries for vengeance on thee. We are sent by God to inflict the deserved punishment. For here, before the Almighty, I protest that it is neither hatred of thy person, nor love of thy riches, nor fear of thy power, which moves me to seek thy death; but only because thou hast been, and still remainest, an obstinate enemy to Christ Jesus and his holy Gospel." With that he plunged his sword repeatedly into his body, and laid him dead at his feet.
Henry VIII. and Catherine Parr.
By this time the workmen and attendants of the cardinal had spread the alarm through the town. The great bell was rung; the citizens rushed to the castle demanding the cardinal, but were told by Norman Leslie that they were a set of unreasonable fools to demand an audience of a dead man; and with that he hung the bleeding body on the wall, tied to a sheet and bade them go, every man about his business; having verified to the awe-struck multitude the words of Wishart at his execution, when seeing Beaton watching his approaching death from the castle, he said to the officer commanding the guard, "Captain, may God forgive yonder man who lies so proudly on the wall: within a few days he shall be seen lying there in as much shame as he now shows pomp and vanity." The conspirators having done their work, wrote to King Henry, in whose employ they were, informing him of the deed being accomplished, and offering to hold the castle for him.
In the whole round of history there is no transaction in which the evidence has been so clearly and fully preserved as this of the murder of Beaton, by the order of Henry VIII., through the agency of Sir Ralph Sadler, and by the hands of the men held in pay for this especial ​purpose by this Royal murderer. The whole of this strange evidence has now been published, and may be consulted by any one, in the State Papers published by Government, vol. v., part iv., and in Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. In these we have the whole bargaining for the murder, the refusal of the lords to do it without a distinct order from the king, and the reply of Sadler that the king's honour must be saved, but that they may rely upon him, and that the murder being done he will engage to pay the money, though he should do it out of his own pocket. The lords, however, were too cautious, and then the Laird of Brunston was employed. This man was originally a familiar and confidential servant of the cardinal's, and entrusted by him with his secret letters to Rome. It was, no doubt, on account of this knowledge of all the cardinal's most secret affairs, that he was selected. He was afterwards a secret agent of Arran, the governor, and after that was bought up by Sadler for Henry.
The death of Cardinal Beaton was at the same time the death-blow to the Papist Church in Scotland. Though he was a man of corrupt moral life, and of a persecuting disposition, he was one of the most able men of his time, and resisted the designs of Henry, for the subjugation of his native country, with a vigour and perseverance which made Henry feel that whilst he lived Scotland was independent. The death of Beaton, so ardently desired, and so highly paid for by Henry, did not, however, bring him nearer to the reduction of the country, or the accomplishment of his son's marriage with the queen. On the contrary, so intense was the hatred of him and of England, which his tyrannic and detestable conduct had created in every rank and class of the Scottish people, that these objects were now further off than ever. Henry's own embarrassments were, in consequence of his Scotch and French wars, become so intolerable, that he was compelled to make peace with France in the month of June, by a treaty called the Treaty of Campe, and to agree to deliver up Boulogne, on which he had spent vast sums in fortifications, on condition that Francis paid up the arrears of his pension, and to submit a claim of 500,000 crowns upon him to arbitration. Francis took care to have Scotland included in the peace, and Henry bound himself not to interfere with it except on receiving some fresh provocation.
The castle of St. Andrews, in which the murderers were enclosed, was besieged by Arran, the regent; and, supplied by England with money, engineers, and provisions, it held out for five mouths, when Francis sent over a fleet and army, with able engineers, who compelled the castle to surrender, and conveyed the murder-agents of Henry to France, where they were for some time employed as galley-slaves. The people of Scotland expressed their exultation over that event by a song, the burden of which was:—
"Priests content ye now,
And priests content ye now,
Since Norman and his company
Have filled the galleys fou."
Henry was now drawing to a close of that life which might have been so splendid, and which he had made so horrible. To the last moment he was employed in base endeavours to elude the peace which he had submitted to with Scotland; in the struggles betwixt the two great religious factions, and in still further shocking executions for treason and heresy. Henry himself was become in mind and person a most loathsome object. A life of vile pleasures, and furious and unrestrained passions, succeeded, as other appetites decayed, by a brutal habit of gormandising, had swollen him to an enormous size, and made his body one huge mass of corruption. The ulcer in his leg had become revoltingly offensive; his weight and helplessness were such that he could not pass through any ordinary door, nor be removed from one part of the house to another, except by the aid of machinery and by the help of numerous attendants. The constant irritation of his festering legs made his terrible temper still more terrible.
Of those about him, his queen, Catherine Parr, had the most miraculous escape. With wonderful patience, she had borne his whims, his rages, and his offensive person. She had shown an affectionate regard for his children, and had assisted with great wisdom in the progress of their education, living all the time as with a sword suspended over her head by a hair. She was devotedly attached to the reformed principles, and loved to converse with sincere Protestants. But two of the most bloody and relentless persecutors that the annals of the Church exhibit—Gardiner and Bonner, with their unprincipled confederate, Wriothesley—were always keeping strict watch over her with murderous eyes, and Cranmer, the head of the opposite party, was too timid for a moment's reliance upon him in the hour of danger. All the gaieties and fêtes which in earlier days enlivened the Court were now suspended, and a silence as gloomy as the spirit of the tyrant who created it lay over the palace. Catherine spent her days in a hopeless yet patient endeavour to soothe her irascible consort, and even ventured to enter with him upon the discussion of religious topics. This was a most ticklish subject; for Henry, vain in every region of his mind, was vainest of all of his polemical powers. The "defender of the faith" was not likely to bear the slightest contradiction in such matters, least of all from a mere woman, as he designated his wife. It was not long before he burst forth upon the astounded queen, who no doubt had by far the best of the argument; for Catherine had gone thoroughly into the study of the Scriptures, and had had about her all those most conversant with them. She had made Miles Coverdale her almoner, and rendered him every assistance in his translation of the Bible. She employed the learned Nicholas Udall, Master of Eton, to edit the translations of Erasmus's "Paraphrases on the Four Gospels," which, according to Strype, she published at her own cost. Stimulated by her example, many ladies of rank pursued the study of the learned languages and of Scriptural knowledge. "It was a common thing," Udall observes, "to see young virgins so nouzled and trained in the study of letters, that they willingly set all other pastimes at nought for learning's sake. It was now no news at all to see queens and ladies of most high estate and progeny, instead of courtly dalliance, to embrace virtuous exercises, reading, and writing, with most earnest study, early and late, to apply themselves to the acquirement of knowledge."
Of this school, and one of Catherine's own pupils, was ​Lady Jane Grey; and another lovely and noble victim, Anne Askew, whose turn it was to fall under the destroying hand of Henry VIII. at this moment, was highly esteemed and encouraged by her. Anne Askew was the second daughter of Sir William Askew, of Kelsey, in Lincolnshire. She was married at an early age, and, as it is said, against her will, to a Mr. Kyme, a wealthy neighbour, who had been engaged to her elder sister, but was prevented marrying her by her early death. After having two children by Kyme, she left him, or, as other accounts have it, was driven out of his house by him, on account of her Protestant opinions, went to London, resumed her maiden name, and devoted herself zealously to the diffusion of the Scripture doctrines. She soon became acquainted with the most distinguished ladies of the Court. Lady Herbert, the queen's sister, the Duchess of Suffolk, and other ladies, were greatly interested in her. She had given books to the queen in the presence of Lady Herbert, Lady Tyrwhitt, and the youthful Lady Jane Grey. These circumstances marked her out to Gardiner and Bonner as just the person to implicate the queen, if they laid hands on her.
Anne Askew was, therefore, soon summoned before Bonner, Bishop of London, who terrified her into a recantation, and an acknowledgment of her faith in the doctrines of the Romish Church; but no sooner was she discharged than, despising herself for her weakness, she resumed her exertions for the spread of Protestant ideas, and spoke boldly against transubstantiation and other Popish dogmas. This soon brought her into custody again. She was examined before the Privy Council, when she defended herself so stoutly, and quoted Scripture so ably, that they committed her to Newgate, and soon after, she and some others were sentenced to death at Guildhall.
Whilst lying under sentence of death, they sent Shaxton, formerly Bishop of Salisbury, to her, to persuade her to renounce her faith and save her life. Shaxton, who had manfully resisted the passing of the Six Articles, called the "Bloody Statute," and had resigned his see on their being passed, had endured many years' imprisonment, and at length was condemned to the flames. This reduced his courage—probably his spirit being enfeebled by long confinement and suffering—and he recanted. But his arguments, and far less his example, could not influence Anne. She told him to spare his labour, and that it had been better for him if he had never been born. Finding this attempt useless, her tormentors removed her to the Tower, and there she was questioned by Gardiner and Wriothesley as to her connection with the ladies of the Court. She refused to implicate them. They then told her that the king was aware of her intercourse with several of the Court ladies, and she had better confess; adding, that if she had not powerful friends, how had she lived in prison? She replied that her maid had lamented her case to the apprentices in the streets, and they had sent her money. She had also received money in the name of ladies of the Court, but she had no means of learning whether it really came from them.
They then put her to the torture, and when Sir Anthony Knevet, the Lieutenant of the Tower, endeavoured to check the ferocious cruelty of Wriothesley, that base man, and the equally base Rich, threw off their coats. and applied their hands to the rack, till, as Anne herself declared, they well-nigh plucked her joints asunder.
When Sir Anthony Knevet saw this infernal work going on, he got into his boat, and hastened to inform the king of the shameful scene he had just witnessed. Henry pretended to be incensed at it; but so far from taking any steps to prevent this dastardly treatment of a noble and beautiful young woman, he is asserted, on contemporary authority, to have ordered the racking himself, in punishment of her bringing heretical books amongst the ladies of his Court.
Whilst Anne Askew's dislocated frame was one universal agony, and totally disabled, she was carried to the flames in Smithfield. With her were burnt John Lascelles, a gentleman of a good family of Nottinghamshire, and belonging to the Royal household; Nicholas Belenian, a Shropshire clergyman; and John Adams, a poor tailor of London. Shaxton, the fallen ex-Bishop of Salisbury, preached a sermon on the occasion, and Wriothesley, John Russell, and others of the council, came to witness the execution, and offered Anne the king's pardon if she would recant. She treated their proposals with scorn, and bore, says a spectator, "an angel's countenance, and a smiling face."
Sir George Blagge, and a lady named Joan Bouchier, were also condemned to die. But Joan Bouchier escaped till the next reign; and Blagge, who was a great favourite of the king, and called by him, in his jocose moments, his pig, was rescued by Henry learning his situation in time, and sending an angry message to Wriothesley for his release. On Blagge hastening into the king's presence to thank him, Henry exclaimed, "Ah! my pig! are you here safe again!'" "Yes, sire," replied Blagge; "but if your majesty had not been better than your bishops, your pig had been roasted ere this time." Poor Anne Askew, not being able to act the pig, perished; and the sanguinary ministers of this sanguinary monarch now looked closer to the king's person for a fresh victim. "Gardiner," says a contemporary, "had bent his bow to bring down some of the head deer."
Around the dreaded tyrant the silence of terror reigned. No voice of truth had penetrated into his presence-chamber for many a long year. Catherine Parr, woman as she was, was the only one who dared to utter a noble sentiment, and it was impossible that she could long do that with impunity.
One day she ventured, in the presence of Gardiner, to expostulate with him on having forbidden the reading of the Scriptures, which he had formerly allowed. Henry showed unmistakable signs of vexation, and perceiving that she had gone too far, she turned the conversation with some pleasant observations, and soon after withdrew. No sooner had she disappeared than the king's wrath burst forth. "A good hearing it is," he said, "when women become such clerks, and much my comfort to come, in mine old age, to be taught by my wife."
The wily Gardiner jumped at the opportunity, and struck whilst the iron of Henry's temper was hot, to accomplish his long-desired ruin of the queen. He related to the king such things regarding the spread of heretical notions in the palace, and through the influence of the queen herself, as he thought would raise the vain ​man's jealousy. It was a bold stroke, "For," says Fox, "never handmaid sought to please her mistress more than she to please his humour. And she was of singular beauty, favour, and comely personage, wherein the king was greatly delighted. But Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, and others of the king's Privy Chamber, practised her death, that they might the better stop the passage of the Gospel; yet they durst not speak to the king touching her, because they saw he loved her too well."
The daring attempt of Gardiner succeeded for the moment. The vanity of the king being wounded, he was in an instant forgetful of all the gentleness and affectionate attention by which she had so long sought to mitigate his sufferings, and all her kind and motherly cares for his children. Gardiner flattered his enormous self-love to the utmost. He said that it was certainly great presumption in the queen to argue with him as she had done—a prince who, in genius and theological knowledge, surpassed the most famous men of the age, and that it was as dangerous as it was unseemly; for such example would soon produce similar arrogance in others. He added that he could make great discoveries were he not deterred by the queen's powerful faction.
This was enough to raise all the demon in Henry's soul. To imagine that any one in his palace should dare to think contrary to his will and order; that this was fostered by the queen, and was spread all around him, was intolerable to his pampered egotism. He gave Gardiner and Wriothesley commands to draw up articles against the queen, on these heads, touching her very life. The delighted miscreants went joyfully to work. "They first," says Fox, "began with such ladies as she most esteemed, and were privy to all her doings; as the Lady Herbert, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, her sister; the Lady Jane, who was her first cousin; and the Lady Tyrwhitt, all of her Privy Chamber. They accused them of the Six Articles, and searched their closets and coffers, that they might find somewhat to charge the queen; who, if that were the case, should be taken and carried by night in a barge to the Tower, of which advice the king was made privy by Gardiner. This purpose was so finely handled, that it grew within a few days of the time appointed, and the poor queen suspected nothing; but after her accustomed manner visited the king, still to deal with him touching religion as before."
Providence, however, revealed the murderous plot by an accident. Wriothesley, in passing through the gallery at Whitehall, dropped, unperceived, from his bosom the warrant for Catherine's arrest, having just obtained to it the king's signature. Fortunately, it was picked up by one of the queen's attendants, who, on discovering its deadly nature, at once hastened with it to her majesty. Catherine's feelings on perusing that fatal paper may be imagined. It was clear that the king had treacherously given his consent to her destruction: she was to be added to the long list of his victims. No charges could well be advanced against her virtue; but she had brought the king no issue, and she recollected the dread clause in the Act of Settlement, in which he secured the succession, in preference to his daughters, "to the children he might have by any other queen."
On comprehending the whole frightful truth, Catherine fell into violent hysterics; and, as her room adjoined that of the morose monarch, he inquired what was the matter. Dr. Wendy, the queen's physician, informed him that the queen was dangerously ill, and that distress of mind was apparently the cause. On this, Henry, who had been confined two days to his bed, and probably was in great need of his kind nurse's affectionate attentions, ordered his couch to be wheeled into the queen's chamber. On all former occasions he had hurried out of the hearing of his victim queens; but, being now bound to the spot, he was compelled to hear the wild laments of Catherine, and, as Dr. Lingard has hinted, perhaps they might incommode him. Finding that the queen was very ill, and apparently at the point of death, he appeared considerably mortified; and Catherine played her part so humbly, and yet adroitly, telling this terrible husband that the honour of his visit had greatly revived and rejoiced her, regretting her having seen so little of his majesty of late, and fearing that she might by some means have unwittingly offended him. So complete was the effect of her sagacious conduct, that the king privately revealed to the physician the plot against her; and that good man is said not only to have interceded admirably with Henry on the queen's behalf, but to have suggested to her the course which she next adopted with such complete success.
On the following evening, finding herself sufficiently recovered to wait on the king in his bed-chamber, she went, attended by Lady Herbert and the young Lady Jane Gray, who carried the candles before her majesty. Henry received her very well, but was not long in turning the conversation upon the old subject of religious controversy, on which, no doubt, his injured vanity still rested with chagrin. But Catherine mildly parried the dangerous topic, saying that "she was but a woman, accompanied by all the imperfections natural to the sex. Therefore," she continued, "in all matters of doubt and difficulty, I must refer myself to your majesty's better judgment, as to my lord and head; for so God hath appointed you, as the supreme head of us all, and of you, next unto God, will I ever learn." "Not so, by St. Mary!" exclaimed the king. "You are become a doctor, Kate, to instruct us, as oftentime we have seen." "Indeed," replied the queen, "if your majesty have so conceived, my meaning has been mistaken, for I have always held it preposterous for a woman to instruct her lord; and if I have ever presumed to differ with your highness on religion, it was partly to obtain information, for my own comfort, regarding certain nice points on which I stood in doubt, and sometimes because I perceived that in talking you were better able to pass away the pain and weariness of your present infirmity, which encouraged me to this boldness, in the hope of profiting withal by your majesty's learned discourse." "And is it so, sweetheart?" replied the king. "Then we are perfect friends again, and it doth me more good to hear these words of thine own mouth, than if a hundred thousand pounds had fallen unto me." He kissed her cordially, and allowed her to retire.
The day came for which her arrest was fixed. The king, better of his infirmities, walked in the garden, and sent for the queen to take the air with him. She came, attended, as usual, by her sister (Lady Herbert), Lady Jane Grey, ​and Lady Tyrwhitt. The king, who liked to keep his thunder to himself till it burst confoundingly on its object, had given the queen's enemies no intimation of his change of sentiment. Wriothesley appeared with forty guards, and approached. Then Henry, turning on him with a tempest of indignation, saluted his astonished ears with "beast! fool! knave!" and bade him avaunt from his presence. Catherine, seeing the chancellor amazed at this fierce reception, interceded for him, saying, "She would become a humble suitor for him, as she deemed his fault was occasioned by mistake." "Ah, poor soul!" said the king; "thou little knowest, Kate, how ill he deserveth this grace at thy hands. On my word, sweetheart, he hath been to thee a very knave."
This was one of the last scenes in which Henry VIII. displayed some redeeming touch of kindness and justice. He never forgave Gardiner for this attempt to deprive him of his true wife and unrivalled nurse. Catherine is said to have treated these her deadly enemies with great magnanimity; but she seems to have become quite aware that Gardiner's was the daring hand that was lifted to ruin her with the king, and it was probably this clear understanding betwixt the king and queen which destroyed Gardiner's influence with Henry for ever. It has been well observed that Gardiner's treason to Catherine was as complete a political blunder as it was a crime. Yet he was rather punished for speaking what he only thought and designed in common with his colleagues, than for being more malignant to the queen than they. He fell through being more officious; they escaped through their more cunning silence only. Henry struck Gardiner's name out of the list of his council, and on perceiving him one day on the terrace at Windsor, amongst the other courtiers, he turned fiercely on Wriothesley, and said, "Did I not command you that he should come no more amongst you?" "My Lord of Winchester," replied the chancellor, "has come to wait upon your highness with the offer of a benevolence from his clergy." That was a deeply politic stroke of Gardiner's; he knew that if anything could redeem the lost favour of Henry, it was a sacrifice to his avarice next to his vanity. Henry took the money, but turned away from the bishop without a word or a look, and immediately struck his name from amongst his executors, as well as that of Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster, who, he said, was schooled by Gardiner.
A deadly feud had grown up betwixt the house of Seymour and the house of Howard. The house of Howard was old, and proud, not only of its ancient lineage, but of its grand deeds. The glory of Flodden lay like a great splendour on their name. Two queens had been selected from this house during the present reign, and the Princess Elizabeth was a partaker of its blood. The Seymours, on the other hand, were of no great lineage; but the two heads of it, Sir Thomas Seymour, and Edward, who had been created Earl of Hertford, and whom we have seen executing the king's sanguinary pleasure more than once in Scotland—were the uncles to the heir apparent, Prince Edward. They had been lifted into greatness entirely through the marriage of their sister with Henry and the birth of the prince; they had no natural connection, therefore, amongst the old nobility, and were regarded by them with jealousy as fortunate upstarts. But there was a cause which gave them power besides the alliance with the crown and the heir to it, and this was the Protestant faith which they hold, and which, therefore, bound the Protestant party in England to their cause, and in hope, through their nephew, the future king. The Howards, on the other hand, held by the ancient faith, and were amongst its most positive assertors. Thus the feud betwixt these rival houses was not only the feud of the old and now aristocracy, but that of the old and new faith; and the rival factions looked up to them as their natural lords and leaders.
If we analyse the characters of the men themselves, we shall not find in them anything particularly noble or elevated, if we except the gifted and chivalric son of Norfolk—the poetical Earl of Surrey. The Norfolk family was singularly destitute of unity in itself—of warm natural affection. We have seen the old duke, with the utmost willingness, nay, even eagerness, and a cruel asperity, lending himself to the destruction of his nieces—Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. We shall now find both himself and other branches of his family testifying the same repulsive readiness to abandon or actively sacrifice their nearest blood relations. As for the Seymours, they were the most obsequious tools of Henry's domineering tyranny—greedy of power and wealth, for which they were ever ready to sacrifice others, and though holding the reformed opinions, carefully hiding them from the knowledge of the king.
The contest which was now going on betwixt these two houses was for the ascendency in the approaching reign. The king's health, though he was resolved not to perceive it, and was ready to slay any one who should whisper such a thing, was evidently failing. Not only was he grown so unwieldy and diseased, as we have described, but his strength was waning. Even the signing of the necessary documents was become too fatiguing for him, and he had now a stamp cut for the affixing his signature. But this duty even of stamping was too much for him, and three commissioners were appointed, two of whom stamped the paper with a dry stamp bearing the letters of his name, and the third drew a pen filled with ink over the blank impression.
The question, therefore, which of these families should become the guardians and ministers of the new king was every day acquiring a more intense interest. The Howards, from their old standing and their great employments under the Crown, naturally regarded themselves as entitled to that distinction, and in this view they were, of course, supported by the whole Papist party most anxiously. But the Seymours, as the uncles of the prince, were equally bent on securing the preference. They had little connection, as we have stated, amongst the aristocracy, but had the whole Protestant party in their interest. They therefore regarded the Howards with the deepest jealousy and alarm, and they lost no time or opportunity in securing their ruin during the present king's life. There were many things which they could so bring before Henry's mind, as to excite his most deadly fear and feelings. The Howards were the determined supporters of the Roman faith. What chance, therefore, under them, of the preservation of the supremacy? What chance that they would leave the ​young king to his own unbiassed choice in matters of religion, and especially of Church government? But, still more, the Howards had not escaped his secret dislike through the conduct of Catherine Howard, the queen. A little thing could stimulate this dislike into something fearful. Again, the Duke of Norfolk was rich, and never were the riches of a subject overlooked or unlonged for by Henry Tudor. We shall see that all these motives were brought into play, and succeeded. Bishop Gardiner was the man most to be feared in the Howard interest as it regarded the Church, and that had, unquestionably, much to do with his disgrace and banishment from Court.
Edward VI.
A few days after that event, namely, on the 12th of December, the Duke of Norfolk, and his son, the Earl of Surrey, were arrested on a charge of high treason, unknown to each other, and sent to the Tower, the one by water, and the other by land. Surrey had never forgiven the Earl of Hertford for having superseded him in command of the army at Boulogne; he had in his irritation spoken with biting contempt of the parvenu Seymour, and declared that after the king's death he would take his revenge. But Henry was soon persuaded that the designs of Surrey went further. His fears, in his morbid and sinking state, were easily excited, and he was made to believe that there was a conspiracy of the Howards to seize the reins of government during his illness, and make themselves masters of the person of the prince. Surrey, with all the rash and lofty spirit of the poet, denied every charge of disloyalty or treason with the utmost vehemence, and offered to fight his accuser in his shirt.
Edward VI. entering London.
​accusers. His gifted son, one of the finest poets of the age, and whose fame still makes part of England's glory, was brought to trial first, for he was young and full of talent, and, therefore, more dreaded than his father.
On the 13th of December he was arraigned for treason in Guildhall, before the lord chancellor, the lord mayor, and other commissioners, and a jury of commoners. The chief charge was that of having quartered the arms of Edward the Confessor, which belonged of right to the prince, and, therefore, argued a design upon the throne. To this Surrey, in a speech of great spirit and eloquence, replied that it was notorious that he had quartered those arms on his family shield for years, to the knowledge of the king, without so much as exciting a remark or giving the slightest umbrage. He showed the decision of the heralds which allowed him to do so. There were, however, other charges against him: one, that he had a design upon the Princess Mary, and, therefore, had refused the daughter of the Earl of Hertford and every other proposal of marriage—an absurdity, for Surrey was already married, and his wife expecting her confinement at the time of his arrest. He was accused, also, of having proposed to marry his beautiful sister, the Duchess of Richmond, the widow of the king's natural son, Henry, Duke of Richmond—or, more monstrous still, "to advise his sister to become his harlot, thinking thereby to rule both father and son;" and another charge, that he had said, "If the king die, who should have the rule of the prince but my father and I?"
These latter charges were not brought publicly against him, but were used privately, as appears by a document in the State Papers, in the handwriting of Wriothesley, and with interlineations by the king himself. He was, however, openly accused of keeping certain Italians in his house, who were suspected to be spies; and that he corresponded with Cardinal Pole, who was his relative. All the evidence which could be brought forward in substantiation of these flimsy charges was drawn from the women of the family, who were frightened into accusing their own nearest relatives, and showed themselves only too ready to do it. The exhibition of Howard cowardice, domestic malice, and want of natural affection on this occasion is very melancholy.
The Duchess of Norfolk had long been on the worst terms with her husband, and was living separate from him, whilst the beautiful, heartless Duchess of Richmond bore a deep hatred to her noble brother Surrey, because he had opposed her marriage to Sir Thomas Seymour, the brother of Lord Hertford. Immediately on the arrest of Norfolk and Surrey, Government agents were sent off to the houses of the Howards to scrape up at once all the evidence and the spoil that they could. Gate, Southwell, and Carew hurried off that very night to Kuming Hall, near Thetford. After securing all the accesses to the house, they announced their presence to the Duchess of Richmond and her sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Holland. It was early in the morning, and the ladies were scarcely risen. When they appeared they were in the utmost consternation, having had no intelligence of the arrest. The Duchess of Richmond on her knees declared that she would hide nothing that she knew from the king, and would write anything that she could recollect to the king and council, averring that her brother, the Earl of Surrey, was a rash man.
The commissioners reported a very poor account of money or jewels, but stated that they were making a catalogue, and had sent trusty servants to all the other houses of the duke in Norfolk and Suffolk, as well as that of Elizabeth Holland, which was new, and "thought to be well furnished with stuff." The duke's almoner promised them delivery of all the family plate, but money they could find none, unless the steward had it still in his hands. The greedy quest after property showed how deeply that entered into Henry's calculation in all such impeachments. The Duchess of Norfolk was arrested near London, and the three ladies were brought before the Privy Council and strictly examined. But there was little to draw out of them. They admitted what was well known—that both Norfolk and Surrey had quartered the arms of the Duke of Buckingham, a lineal descendant of Edward III., which they had a full right to do; the duke, who was executed in the early part of the reign, being the father of the Duchess of Norfolk. The Duchess of Richmond added that she had heard her brother Surrey speak bitterly against the Earl of Hertford. Two obscure men also, whom the council brought forward, declared that the Duke of Norfolk had expressed great dissatisfaction at the changes in the Church, had talked of the king's diseases, and spoken contemptuously of the new nobility.
On such paltry charges as these was the gallant Surrey condemned; and so, says Godwin, "The flower of English nobility was, on the 19th of January, beheaded, the king being then in his extremity, and breathing his last in blood.
If the son was legally murdered on such grounds as those, the father, who had done distinguished service through a long life, both in the cabinet and the field, was arraigned on still less ones. It was difficult indeed to make up a story against him; and, instead of bringing him before his peers to a fair trial, as he repeatedly demanded, they took the more safe and illegal mode of cutting him off by a bill of attainder without trial. It is true that Norfolk had the less right to complain, for he had been only too ready to deal out such treatment to others in his time. After many private examinations, he was induced, by promises held out to him, to write a confession, in which he acknowledged that during his long and difficult services, he had occasionally communicated to others the secrets of the Privy Council, contrary to his oath; that he had concealed the treasonable act of his son in assuming the arms of Edward the Confessor; and that he had treasonably borne on his shield the arms of England, with the difference of a label of silver, which of right only belonged to Prince Edward.
The two last facts were known to everybody, and were, therefore, not in the keeping of the duke, and the whole charge was too ridiculous to be entertained by any impartial tribunal; but the Seymours were impatient, not only for the death of Norfolk, but for the division of his vast property, of which they had got a promise from the king. They had, therefore, made the promises to the duke in order to induce him to make this confession, and they pronounced it sufficient to warrant his death. Seeing himself thus deceived, and knowing that if his property ​were divided amongst a number of people, there would be far more difficulty of its ever being recovered by his family than if it went to the Crown, he immediately petitioned the king that all his estate, which he represented as "good and stately gear," might be settled on Prince Edward. The idea was well adapted to the avaricious character of Henry, who, therefore, though on the point of having earth and all its possessions wrested by death from his reluctant hands, consented to the request, and promised the disappointed expectants some other equivalent.
This manœuvre of Norfolk's only rendered the Seymours the more eager for his death. The king was rapidly sinking, there was no time to lose; a bill of attainder was passed through the Peers on the 26th of January, 1547; on the 27th the Royal assent was given in due form, and an order was dispatched to the Tower to execute the duke at an early hour in the morning. Before that morning the soul of the tyrant was called to its dread account, and the life of the old nobleman was saved as by a miracle.
The closing scene of Henry VIII. was in perfect keeping with the latter years of his life. Whilst he was rapidly approaching his last hour no one dared to tell him so unpleasant a truth. He lay like the indomitable tyrant that he was, terrible to the latest moment. His attendants stood at a distance in silent fear. His queen was not present, for she was worn out with constant watching, and perhaps with terror and anxiety, for a contemporary writer asserts that the morose king had revived the idea of putting her to death for her heresy. Be that as it may, she was absent, and no one was found courageous enough to tell him the truth, till Sir Anthony Denny approached his bed, and leaning over it, said to him that "all human aid was now vain, and that it was meete for him to review his past life, and seek for God's mercy through Christ."
Henry, who was giving impatient vent to his pain in loud cries, suddenly stopped, turned a fierce look on the speaker, and asked, "What judge had sent him to pass this sentence upon him?" Denny replied, "Your physicians." The physicians then ventured to approach, and offered him some medicine to relieve his agony; but he repulsed them with these words, "After the judges have once passed sentence on a criminal, they have no more to do with him; therefore, begone." He was then asked whether he would not confer with some of his divines. He replied, "With none but Cranmer, and with him not yet. I will first repose myself a little, and as I find myself, so shall I determine."
Awaking in about an hour from his sleep and feeling himself going, he sent for Cranmer; but the primate, who had attended three successive days in the House of Lords to give his vote for the iniquitous bill of attainder, had retired to his house at Croydon, and when he arrived the king was unable to speak. Cranmer entreated him to give some sign of his hope in the saving mercy of Christ, and Henry, looking steadily at him for a moment, pressed his hand and expired. Thévet says that he manifested strong remorse for the murder of Anne Boleyn, and for his other crimes, and the terrors of awakening conscience seem to have peopled his presence with the victims of his injustice. He cast wild looks into a gloomy recess of his chamber, and exclaimed, "Monks! monks!" Another writer says, that, "warned of approaching dissolution, and consumed with the death-thirst, he called for a cup of white-wine, and turning to one of his attendants, cried, 'All is lost!' These were his last words."
For some time before his death he was constantly attended by his confessor, the Bishop of Rochester, heard mass daily in his chamber, and received the communion in one kind. He seemed anxious by some further benefactions to make amends for the destruction of the funds for religion and education; and about a month before his death, he endowed the magnificent establishment of Trinity College, Cambridge, for a master and sixty fellows and scholars; reopened the church of the Grey Friars, which, with St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and an ample revenue, he gave to the city of London.
Henry VIII. was fifty-five years and seven months old at his death, and had reigned thirty-seven years, nine months, and six days. His will was dated December 30th, 1546. He was authorised by Act of Parliament to settle the succession by his will, and he now named his son, Prince Edward, as his lawful successor, and, in default of heirs, then the Princess Mary, and her heirs; failing that, the Princess Elizabeth, and her heirs. After Elizabeth, was named the Lady Frances, the eldest daughter of his sister the Queen of France, and her heirs; and such failing, the Lady Eleanor, the youngest daughter of the late queen of France. On the failure of all these, then to his heirs-at-law; but no particular mention was made in the succession of his sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and of her issue. Yet he left to Margaret £3,000 in plate and jewels, and £1,000 in money, besides her jointure. To each of his daughters he gave £10,000 in plate, jewels, and furniture, as a marriage portion, and an annuity of £3,000 whilst remaining unmarried. Nor did he forget to leave large funds for masses to be said for his soul. He left £600 a year to the church at Windsor, for priests to say mass for his soul every day, and for four abiits a year, and sermons, and distribution of alms at every one of them, and for a maintenance of thirteen poor knights. Thus his will displayed the fact that, though he had renounced the Pope, he had not renounced the Pope's religion.
Of the great political, moral, and religious changes which took place or took root in this reign, we shall speak in our review of the century; we will here only say a few words on the character of this extraordinary monarch.
In his youth, the beauty of his person, the accomplishment of his mind, and the taste for gaiety and magnificence in his Court, prognosticated something very different from the fierce, gloomy, and bloody scene into which it rapidly degenerated. He was in his better days as active and exemplary in the discharge of the duties of his exalted station, as he was joyous, and disposed to pleasure and parade. He attended diligently at the council board, consulted with his ministers, who were selected for their great talents, read himself and directed despatches, corresponded with his various ambassadors and commanders, and would himself see into everything. He was not only a poet and musician of no mean order, but prided himself on his achievements as an author, and judge of faiths and ​systems. His regard for literature was evinced by his liberality to learned men both at home and abroad. But under all this shining surface lay qualities of the most extraordinary and dangerous character. His vanity was of that kind that it made him believe himself the greatest man and wisest king that ever lived. No flattery could overtop the height of his egotism. He drank in adulation as a whale sucks in whole seas, and the intense love of power combined with this egregious self-estimation, and based on an unparalleled strength of fiery passions, made him soon impatient of contradiction, and, like a tornado, ready to crush everything around him that dared to stand in his way. It is remarkable that the same man who commenced by an admiration of learning and literature, put to death the three most celebrated men of letters of his Court—Sir Thomas More, the Viscount Rochford, and Surrey. As he advanced in years, he waded deeper and deeper in the noblest blood of the kingdom, sparing neither learning, genius, age, piety, man nor woman.
The circumstances of the times favoured his exercise of arbitrary power, and there is no record of this or any other country which exhibits a prince so thoroughly trampling down every liberty of the subject, every safeguard of life, and even of self-respect in his most exalted subjects.
But the Wars of the Roses had laid the aristocracy at his feet; the breach with Rome laid the Church there too. The Protestants and Romanists became pretty equally divided, courted with abject jealousy his smiles, to give them the ascendency, and, holding the balance, he made this the means of his most marvellous dominance. Other monarchs sought to reign without Parliaments, but Henry, by the terror of the axe and the gibbet, awed his Parliament into such slavish obedience, that he was enabled to commit his worst actions under a show of constitution and law. If it be difficult for us now to realise such monstrous deeds of political murder, such wholesale scenes of national rapine, as perpetrated on English ground, it is equally so to conceive the scene of base adulation which the Court and Parliament then presented. Rich assured him that he was a Solomon in wisdom, a Samson in strength and courage, an Absalom in beauty and grace of manners; and Audeley, his chancellor, declared that God had anointed him with the oil of gladness above his fellows, and that he exceeded all kings in wisdom, all generals in victory, that he had prostrated the Roman Goliath, and given thirty years of peace and blessings to his realm, such as no country at any time had ever enjoyed. "Whenever, during this harangue, the words "Most Sacred Majesty" occurred, or any similar term of homage, the whole of the lords arose, and they and the entire assembly bowed profoundly towards the throned demigod. The clergy in Convocation echoed this disgusting hypocrisy, declaring that he was the image of God upon earth; that to disobey him was as heinous as to disobey God himself; to limit his authority was not merely an offence to him, but to God as well. The fumigated idol drank all in, and believed it so true that he treated his worshippers as they well deserved; took their money at will, trod upon them at pleasure, put them to death without jury and without form of law, like miserable reptiles as they made themselves, and left them to reap in coming years a rich harvest of humiliations and sufferings.