The Press.
London, England, 1858-04-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS, APRIL 3, 1858.

religious or political prejudice, historians have
painted Henry VIII. in colours only a little
less favourable than Mr. Fronde. On the
points wherein he differs we do not think that
he has established his own views, even if ho
has shaken theirs. What were the motives
that principally actuated the King in the
Reformation ? Public policy, replies Mr.
Fronde. His jealousy of power, reply others.
But who shall say how often the two may or
may not have coincided? Then, again, was
the destruction of the monasteries caused by a
hatred of the monkish superstition, or by a
longing for the monkish revenues? Neither
perhaps would be a fair answer to the ques-
tion. Having alienated the ancient nobility
by his quarrel with the Pope, it became evi-
dent to Henry that a new order of nobility
must be created and endowed, attached to the
Throne at once by interest and by gratitude.
For this purpose the estates of the Church
formed a convenient resource. And we be-
lieve the historian who assigns neither a
higher nor a lower motive to the dissolution
of the religious houses will be the least liable to
error. It is certain to us that Henry had no
spiritual sympathy with the Reformation.
We doubt, indeed, whether he had any spi-
ritual sympathies at all. As much, indeed,
is virtually admitted by Mr. Fronde when
he says of him, referring to the Pilgrim-
age of Grace, that " he would yield
" liberally to the substantial interests of
" the people, but he would yield little to their
" imaginative sympathies." Enthusiasm, or
highwrought devotion, whether of a More or a
Wishart, was foreign to his nature, and he
could make no allowance for the susceptibili-
ties of either. His temperament was "high
and dry." Such a prince was admirably cal-
culated to be an executive instrument of the
Reformation—as those men often carry out
great movements with the most practical suc-
cess whose zeal is tempered by a wholesome
element of doubt. There is then some proba-
bility that the temporary overflow of enthu-
siasm will not be mistaken for the regular
stream of public opinion, and that the vessel
embarked upon the flood will not presently be
stranded when the waters have subsided into
the new channel forced out for them. We
conceive, therefore, that Henry VIII. may
have performed the work intrusted to him by
Providence in the most effective manner, and
yet be very far from being entitled to the cha-
racter of a warm Protestant on the one hand,
or a reckless despoiler on the other.
In his chequered career of matrimony the
King's worst error was the first. We can see
no legitimate excuse for his behaviour to Ca
therine of Arragon. But on subsequent occa-
sions we really think Henry was to be pitied
The only three cases with which we are con-
cerned are Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, and
Catherine Howard. Now, in the first instance,
if the lady was innocent, we cannot doubt
that Henry believed her to be guilty. In the
second he was manifestly imposed upon by in-
terested parties ; and his conduct to the Queen,
who seems to have acquiesced in his judgment
with some composure, was certainly not worse
than that of George IV. under similar circum-
stances. In the case of Catherine Howard
there was no doubt about her guilt; and as she
had lost her virtue before marriage, we need
not suppose any peculiar properties in the
King to account for her laxity afterwards. The
case of Anne Boleyn cannot of course be got
over quite so easily. If she was innocent, the n
Henry was culpably precipitate. If she was
guilty, then there is more ground for some of
Mr. Froude's suggestions than as yet wo arc
ready to allow.
On the third point—namely, Henry's alleged
cruelty—Mr. Fronde has laboured with less
success, perhaps, than on any other. Not
that Henry was really cruel in the proper
sense of the word. He could not have been
classed with butchers and surgeons, " which
" is cruel by law." Cruelty is not a charac-
teristic of the English race. But he was cal-
lous to the suffering of (Alit 1.8, and he was ex-
cessively irritable himself That same jealousy
of power which was inheleut in his family,
aggravated by the existence of rival preten-
ions to the crown, was latterly, under the
action of disease, increased to the mingled
ferocity and suspicion of an old Greek tyrant.

The executions of Lord Decree and Lady Salis-
bury were atrocious ; nor has Mr. Froude
made any way towards reconciling us to the
fate of Lord Surrey. Henry would not have
used the Brazen Bull ; but neither the
agony of relatives nor the claims of age or
sex were permitted to stand between him and
the effect of the most shadowy suspicions,
the most remote dangers, or the merest caprice
of justice.
In justice both to ourselves and Mr. Froude
we shall give the King's character in his own
words :

Henry had many faults. They have been exhibited in
the progress of the narrative : I need not return to them.
But his position was one of unexampled difficulty; and by
the work which he accomplished, and the conditions, in-
ternal and external, under which his task was allotted to
him, he, like every other man, ought to be judged. He
was inconsistent ; he can bear the reproach of it. He
ended by accepting and approving what he had commenced
with persecuting; yet it was with the honest inconsistency
which distinguishes the conduct of most men of practical
ability in times of change, and even by virtue of which they
obtain their success. if at the commencement of the
movement he had regarded the Eucharist as a "remem-
brance," he must either have concealed his convictions or
he would have forfeited his throne; if he had been a sta-
tionary bigot, the Reformation might have waited fur a
century, and would have been conquered only by an inter-
necine war.

But as the nation moved the King moved, leading it, but
not outrunning it ; checking those who went too fast,
dragging forward those who lagged behind. The Conser-
vatives, all that was sound and good among them, trusted
him because he so long continued to share their Conserva-
tism; and when he threw it aside he was not reproached
with breach of confidence, because his own advance had
accompanied theirs.
Protestants have exclaimed against the six Articles Bill;
Romanists against the Act of Supremacy. Philosophers
complain that the prejudices of the people were needlessly
violated, that opinions should have been allowed to be free,
and the reform of religion have been left to be accomplished
by reason. The Six Articles Bill was cruel ; yet the
governing classes even among the laity were unanimous in
its favour. The King was not converted by a sudden
miracle ; he believed the traditions in which he had been
trained; his eyes, like the eyes of others, opened but
slowly ; and unquestionably, bad he conquered for himself
in their fulness the modern principles of toleration, he
could not have governed by them a nation which was
itself intolerant. Perhaps, of all living Englishmen who
shared Henry's faith, there was not one so little desirous
in himself of enforcing it by violence. His personal exer-
tions were ever to mitigate the action of the law, while its
letter was sustained : and England at its worst was a har-
bour of refuge to the Protestants compared to the Nether.
lands, to France, to Spain, or even to Scotland.
That the Humanists should have regarded hint as a tyrant
is natural; and were it true that English subjects owed
fealty to the Pope, their feeling was just. But, however
desirable it may be to leave religious opinion unfettered, it
is certain that, if England was legitimately free, she could
tolerate no difference of opinion on a question of alle-
giance, so long as Europe was conspiring to bring her
back into slavery. So long as the Romanists refused to
admit without mental reservation that, if foreign enemies
invaded this country in the Pope's name, their place must
be at the side of their own sovereign, " religion " might
palliate the moral guilt of their treason, but it could not
exempt them from its punishment.
• • • •

Something, too, ought to be said of his individual exer-
tons in the detail's of State administration. In his earlier
life, though active and assiduous, he found leisure for
elegant accomplishments, for splendid amusements, for

relaxations careless, extravagant, sometimes questionable.
As his life drew onwards his lighter tastes disappeared,
and the whole energy of his intellect was pressed into the
business of the commonwealth. Those who have
eXamined the printed State papers may form some impres-
sion of his industry from the documents which are his own
composition, and the letters which he wrote anti received:
but only persons who have seen the original manuscripts,
who have observed the traces of his pen in aide-notes and
corrections, and the handwritings of his secretaries in
diplomatic commissions. in drafts of Acts of Parliament, in
expositions and formulsries, in articles of faith, in procla—
mations, in the countless multitude of documents of ell
sorts, secular or ecclesiastical, which contain the real his-
tory of this extraordinary reign, only they can realize the
extent of labour to which be sacrificed himself, and which
brought his life to a premature close. His personal faults
were great, and he shared, besides them, in the errors of
his age ; but far deeper blemishes would be hut as scars
upon the features of a sovereign who in trying times sus-
tained nobly the honour of the English name, anti carried
the commonwealth securely through the hardest crisis i n
its history.

Now really, after this, where is the affectation
of seeming "to be unconscious that the cha-
" racter of the King, as presented in these
" volumes, is something different from that
" which modern tradition hus described to
" him"? Different it is, no doubt. But the
difference is no greater than may he expected
between the operations of any two indepen-
dent minds. Our general estimate of his
position in English history is not altered.
There is but one sentence in the above

sage from which it is necessary to

above pas-
record 4 our

330

dissent —e His position, was one of unexampled
" difficulty." This is scarcely true. He found
the strength of the two parties into which the
kingdom was divided so evenly balanced, that
by playing them against one another, he would
remain superior to both. The position of
Charles I. was one of much greater difficulty,
when precedent and progress were impercep-
tibly coming into collision. The position of Wil-
liam M. was one of much greater difficulty,
when his subjects were distracted between their
religious dislike to James and their political
dislike to himself. He might play parties
against each other, but it was a much more
dangerous game than under Henry. Mr.
Froude's language on this point is unquestion-
ably exaggerated. The rest of the picture is
probably substantially correct, and confirms
many of the views we hays ourselves ex-
pressed.
The general contents of the fourth volume
consist of the wars and intrigues with Scot-
land and France with which Henry's reign
was so largely occupied. Wherever he has an
opportunity, Mr. Froude's narrative and de-
scriptive powers are conspicuous. The
character and death of Cardinal Beton, and of
James V., are able and graphic. The loss of
the Scotch army in Solway Moss, the despair
of James, his last actions and his end, are told
with great power and pathos, and with a
generous appreciation of the King's nobler
qualities. On the whole, however, the fourth
volume is not so interesting as the third,
nor do all sour quite answer to our idea
of what such a history should be. The eccle-
siastical element not only overshadows, but
devours, every other element of domestic
interest. Let us hope that when Mr. Fronde
reaches the reign of Queen Elizabeth he will
give wider scope to his pen, and contribute
his quota to the constitutional history of the
period.

The Most Holy Book of Rolm. Literally
Rendered into English Verse, according to
the Prayer-book Version. By Edgar Alfred
Bowring. London :J. W. Parker and Son.
" PERHAPS," says Mr. Bowring, "nothing more
" strikingly illustrates the reluctance of the
" English people to make any change in what
" they are accustomed to—an; iquated, common-
" place, and even barbarous though it may
" be—than the strong hold which this (old) ver-
" sion obtained and retained on the public mind,
" except indeed the similar popularity of the
" more recent and still received version by
" Tate and Brady'' In passing this unfavour-
able verdict upon the old metrical translations,
Mr. Bowring expresses not only our own
opinion but, we are sure, that of most people.
The faults of these versions are acknowledged
by all : it is singular that those who see them
so clearly should fall into them so easily. The
reason why these version& in spite of their
faults, are not entirely exploded, may be the
English aversion to novelties ; but Mr. Bow-
ring should consider that a new version must
be prepared before the old ones can be dis-
missed, and that any amottat of criticism upon
Sternhold or Brady will not of itself furnish
us with this new version. We are not con-
scious that we are influenced by any English
aversion to novelty when we declare that at
any rate we see no good reason why Sternhold
should be dismissed, to make way for Mr.
Bowrirg. Mr. Bowling has, no doubt, the
advantage of living three centuries after the
old versifier: he speaks a langaage no longer
rude and undeveloped, hot on the contrary
developed to the utmost by a succession of
great writers ; the Bible be reads is no longer
a new, half-studied book, but on the contrary
a book to the explanation of which many
generations of scholars have devoted their
powers ; lastly, the task he undertakes is no
longer new and untried, but one in the execu-
tion of which he may derive assistance from
every successful attempt and every mistake
which has been made by a series of labourers
in the same field.
Mr. Bowling has had all these advantages,
but he has not used them. His version is
constructed on just the same childish principle
which we may imagine the simple rhymer of
the sixteenth century working upon. He takes