CHAPTER XXVIII--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH
CHAPTER XXVIII--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH
PART THE SECOND
The Pope was thrown into a very angry state of mind when he heard of theKing's marriage, and fumed exceedingly. Many of the English monks andfriars, seeing that their order was in danger, did the same; some evendeclaimed against the King in church before his face, and were not to bestopped until he himself roared out 'Silence!' The King, not much theworse for this, took it pretty quietly; and was very glad when his Queengave birth to a daughter, who was christened ELIZABETH, and declaredPrincess of Wales as her sister Mary had already been.
One of the most atrocious features of this reign was that Henry theEighth was always trimming between the reformed religion and theunreformed one; so that the more he quarrelled with the Pope, the more ofhis own subjects he roasted alive for not holding the Pope's opinions.Thus, an unfortunate student named John Frith, and a poor simple tailornamed Andrew Hewet who loved him very much, and said that whatever JohnFrith believed _he_ believed, were burnt in Smithfield--to show what acapital Christian the King was.
But, these were speedily followed by two much greater victims, Sir ThomasMore, and John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester. The latter, who was agood and amiable old man, had committed no greater offence than believingin Elizabeth Barton, called the Maid of Kent--another of those ridiculouswomen who pretended to be inspired, and to make all sorts of heavenlyrevelations, though they indeed uttered nothing but evil nonsense. Forthis offence--as it was pretended, but really for denying the King to bethe supreme Head of the Church--he got into trouble, and was put inprison; but, even then, he might have been suffered to die naturally(short work having been made of executing the Kentish Maid and herprincipal followers), but that the Pope, to spite the King, resolved tomake him a cardinal. Upon that the King made a ferocious joke to theeffect that the Pope might send Fisher a red hat--which is the way theymake a cardinal--but he should have no head on which to wear it; and hewas tried with all unfairness and injustice, and sentenced to death. Hedied like a noble and virtuous old man, and left a worthy name behindhim. The King supposed, I dare say, that Sir Thomas More would befrightened by this example; but, as he was not to be easily terrified,and, thoroughly believing in the Pope, had made up his mind that the Kingwas not the rightful Head of the Church, he positively refused to saythat he was. For this crime he too was tried and sentenced, after havingbeen in prison a whole year. When he was doomed to death, and came awayfrom his trial with the edge of the executioner's axe turned towardshim--as was always done in those times when a state prisoner came to thathopeless pass--he bore it quite serenely, and gave his blessing to hisson, who pressed through the crowd in Westminster Hall and kneeled downto receive it. But, when he got to the Tower Wharf on his way back tohis prison, and his favourite daughter, MARGARET ROPER, a very goodwoman, rushed through the guards again and again, to kiss him and to weepupon his neck, he was overcome at last. He soon recovered, and nevermore showed any feeling but cheerfulness and courage. When he was goingup the steps of the scaffold to his death, he said jokingly to theLieutenant of the Tower, observing that they were weak and shook beneathhis tread, 'I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up; and, for mycoming down, I can shift for myself.' Also he said to the executioner,after he had laid his head upon the block, 'Let me put my beard out ofthe way; for that, at least, has never committed any treason.' Then hishead was struck off at a blow. These two executions were worthy of KingHenry the Eighth. Sir Thomas More was one of the most virtuous men inhis dominions, and the Bishop was one of his oldest and truest friends.But to be a friend of that fellow was almost as dangerous as to be hiswife.
When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the Pope raged againstthe murderer more than ever Pope raged since the world began, andprepared a Bull, ordering his subjects to take arms against him anddethrone him. The King took all possible precautions to keep thatdocument out of his dominions, and set to work in return to suppress agreat number of the English monasteries and abbeys.
This destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, of whom Cromwell(whom the King had taken into great favour) was the head; and was carriedon through some few years to its entire completion. There is no doubtthat many of these religious establishments were religious in nothing butin name, and were crammed with lazy, indolent, and sensual monks. Thereis no doubt that they imposed upon the people in every possible way; thatthey had images moved by wires, which they pretended were miraculouslymoved by Heaven; that they had among them a whole tun measure full ofteeth, all purporting to have come out of the head of one saint, who mustindeed have been a very extraordinary person with that enormous allowanceof grinders; that they had bits of coal which they said had fried SaintLawrence, and bits of toe-nails which they said belonged to other famoussaints; penknives, and boots, and girdles, which they said belonged toothers; and that all these bits of rubbish were called Relics, and adoredby the ignorant people. But, on the other hand, there is no doubteither, that the King's officers and men punished the good monks with thebad; did great injustice; demolished many beautiful things and manyvaluable libraries; destroyed numbers of paintings, stained glasswindows, fine pavements, and carvings; and that the whole court wereravenously greedy and rapacious for the division of this great spoilamong them. The King seems to have grown almost mad in the ardour ofthis pursuit; for he declared Thomas a Becket a traitor, though he hadbeen dead so many years, and had his body dug up out of his grave. Hemust have been as miraculous as the monks pretended, if they had told thetruth, for he was found with one head on his shoulders, and they hadshown another as his undoubted and genuine head ever since his death; ithad brought them vast sums of money, too. The gold and jewels on hisshrine filled two great chests, and eight men tottered as they carriedthem away. How rich the monasteries were you may infer from the factthat, when they were all suppressed, one hundred and thirty thousandpounds a year--in those days an immense sum--came to the Crown.
These things were not done without causing great discontent among thepeople. The monks had been good landlords and hospitable entertainers ofall travellers, and had been accustomed to give away a great deal ofcorn, and fruit, and meat, and other things. In those days it wasdifficult to change goods into money, in consequence of the roads beingvery few and very bad, and the carts, and waggons of the worstdescription; and they must either have given away some of the good thingsthey possessed in enormous quantities, or have suffered them to spoil andmoulder. So, many of the people missed what it was more agreeable to getidly than to work for; and the monks who were driven out of their homesand wandered about encouraged their discontent; and there were,consequently, great risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. These wereput down by terrific executions, from which the monks themselves did notescape, and the King went on grunting and growling in his own fat way,like a Royal pig.
I have told all this story of the religious houses at one time, to makeit plainer, and to get back to the King's domestic affairs.
The unfortunate Queen Catherine was by this time dead; and the King wasby this time as tired of his second Queen as he had been of his first. Ashe had fallen in love with Anne when she was in the service of Catherine,so he now fell in love with another lady in the service of Anne. See howwicked deeds are punished, and how bitterly and self-reproachfully theQueen must now have thought of her own rise to the throne! The new fancywas a LADY JANE SEYMOUR; and the King no sooner set his mind on her, thanhe resolved to have Anne Boleyn's head. So, he brought a number ofcharges against Anne, accusing her of dreadful crimes which she had nevercommitted, and implicating in them her own brother and certain gentlemenin her service: among whom one Norris, and Mark Smeaton a musician, arebest remembered. As the lords and councillors were as afraid of the Kingand as subservient to him as the meanest peasant in England was, theybrought in Anne Boleyn guilty, and the other unfortunate persons accusedwith her, guilty too. Those gentlemen died like men, with the exceptionof Smeaton, who had been tempted by the King into telling lies, which hecalled confessions, and who had expected to be pardoned; but who, I amvery glad to say, was not. There was then only the Queen to dispose of.She had been surrounded in the Tower with women spies; had beenmonstrously persecuted and foully slandered; and had received no justice.But her spirit rose with her afflictions; and, after having in vain triedto soften the King by writing an affecting letter to him which stillexists, 'from her doleful prison in the Tower,' she resigned herself todeath. She said to those about her, very cheerfully, that she had heardsay the executioner was a good one, and that she had a little neck (shelaughed and clasped it with her hands as she said that), and would soonbe out of her pain. And she _was_ soon out of her pain, poor creature,on the Green inside the Tower, and her body was flung into an old box andput away in the ground under the chapel.
There is a story that the King sat in his palace listening very anxiouslyfor the sound of the cannon which was to announce this new murder; andthat, when he heard it come booming on the air, he rose up in greatspirits and ordered out his dogs to go a-hunting. He was bad enough todo it; but whether he did it or not, it is certain that he married JaneSeymour the very next day.
I have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just long enough togive birth to a son who was christened EDWARD, and then to die of afever: for, I cannot but think that any woman who married such a ruffian,and knew what innocent blood was on his hands, deserved the axe thatwould assuredly have fallen on the neck of Jane Seymour, if she had livedmuch longer.
Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the Church property forpurposes of religion and education; but, the great families had been sohungry to get hold of it, that very little could be rescued for suchobjects. Even MILES COVERDALE, who did the people the inestimableservice of translating the Bible into English (which the unreformedreligion never permitted to be done), was left in poverty while the greatfamilies clutched the Church lands and money. The people had been toldthat when the Crown came into possession of these funds, it would not benecessary to tax them; but they were taxed afresh directly afterwards. Itwas fortunate for them, indeed, that so many nobles were so greedy forthis wealth; since, if it had remained with the Crown, there might havebeen no end to tyranny for hundreds of years. One of the most activewriters on the Church's side against the King was a member of his ownfamily--a sort of distant cousin, REGINALD POLE by name--who attacked himin the most violent manner (though he received a pension from him all thetime), and fought for the Church with his pen, day and night. As he wasbeyond the King's reach--being in Italy--the King politely invited himover to discuss the subject; but he, knowing better than to come, andwisely staying where he was, the King's rage fell upon his brother LordMontague, the Marquis of Exeter, and some other gentlemen: who were triedfor high treason in corresponding with him and aiding him--which theyprobably did--and were all executed. The Pope made Reginald Pole acardinal; but, so much against his will, that it is thought he evenaspired in his own mind to the vacant throne of England, and had hopes ofmarrying the Princess Mary. His being made a high priest, however, putan end to all that. His mother, the venerable Countess of Salisbury--whowas, unfortunately for herself, within the tyrant's reach--was the lastof his relatives on whom his wrath fell. When she was told to lay hergrey head upon the block, she answered the executioner, 'No! My headnever committed treason, and if you want it, you shall seize it.' So,she ran round and round the scaffold with the executioner striking ather, and her grey hair bedabbled with blood; and even when they held herdown upon the block she moved her head about to the last, resolved to beno party to her own barbarous murder. All this the people bore, as theyhad borne everything else.
Indeed they bore much more; for the slow fires of Smithfield werecontinually burning, and people were constantly being roasted todeath--still to show what a good Christian the King was. He defied thePope and his Bull, which was now issued, and had come into England; buthe burned innumerable people whose only offence was that they differedfrom the Pope's religious opinions. There was a wretched man namedLAMBERT, among others, who was tried for this before the King, and withwhom six bishops argued one after another. When he was quite exhausted(as well he might be, after six bishops), he threw himself on the King'smercy; but the King blustered out that he had no mercy for heretics. So,_he_ too fed the fire.
All this the people bore, and more than all this yet. The nationalspirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom at this time. Thevery people who were executed for treason, the very wives and friends ofthe 'bluff' King, spoke of him on the scaffold as a good prince, and agentle prince--just as serfs in similar circumstances have been known todo, under the Sultan and Bashaws of the East, or under the fierce oldtyrants of Russia, who poured boiling and freezing water on themalternately, until they died. The Parliament were as bad as the rest,and gave the King whatever he wanted; among other vile accommodations,they gave him new powers of murdering, at his will and pleasure, any onewhom he might choose to call a traitor. But the worst measure theypassed was an Act of Six Articles, commonly called at the time 'the whipwith six strings;' which punished offences against the Pope's opinions,without mercy, and enforced the very worst parts of the monkish religion.Cranmer would have modified it, if he could; but, being overborne by theRomish party, had not the power. As one of the articles declared thatpriests should not marry, and as he was married himself, he sent his wifeand children into Germany, and began to tremble at his danger; none theless because he was, and had long been, the King's friend. This whip ofsix strings was made under the King's own eye. It should never beforgotten of him how cruelly he supported the worst of the Popishdoctrines when there was nothing to be got by opposing them.
This amiable monarch now thought of taking another wife. He proposed tothe French King to have some of the ladies of the French Court exhibitedbefore him, that he might make his Royal choice; but the French Kinganswered that he would rather not have his ladies trotted out to be shownlike horses at a fair. He proposed to the Dowager Duchess of Milan, whoreplied that she might have thought of such a match if she had had twoheads; but, that only owning one, she must beg to keep it safe. At lastCromwell represented that there was a Protestant Princess inGermany--those who held the reformed religion were called Protestants,because their leaders had Protested against the abuses and impositions ofthe unreformed Church--named ANNE OF CLEVES, who was beautiful, and wouldanswer the purpose admirably. The King said was she a large woman,because he must have a fat wife? 'O yes,' said Cromwell; 'she was verylarge, just the thing.' On hearing this the King sent over his famouspainter, Hans Holbein, to take her portrait. Hans made her out to be sogood-looking that the King was satisfied, and the marriage was arranged.But, whether anybody had paid Hans to touch up the picture; or whetherHans, like one or two other painters, flattered a princess in theordinary way of business, I cannot say: all I know is, that when Annecame over and the King went to Rochester to meet her, and first saw herwithout her seeing him, he swore she was 'a great Flanders mare,' andsaid he would never marry her. Being obliged to do it now matters hadgone so far, he would not give her the presents he had prepared, andwould never notice her. He never forgave Cromwell his part in theaffair. His downfall dates from that time.
It was quickened by his enemies, in the interests of the unreformedreligion, putting in the King's way, at a state dinner, a niece of theDuke of Norfolk, CATHERINE HOWARD, a young lady of fascinating manners,though small in stature and not particularly beautiful. Falling in lovewith her on the spot, the King soon divorced Anne of Cleves after makingher the subject of much brutal talk, on pretence that she had beenpreviously betrothed to some one else--which would never do for one ofhis dignity--and married Catherine. It is probable that on his weddingday, of all days in the year, he sent his faithful Cromwell to thescaffold, and had his head struck off. He further celebrated theoccasion by burning at one time, and causing to be drawn to the fire onthe same hurdles, some Protestant prisoners for denying the Pope'sdoctrines, and some Roman Catholic prisoners for denying his ownsupremacy. Still the people bore it, and not a gentleman in Englandraised his hand.
But, by a just retribution, it soon came out that Catherine Howard,before her marriage, had been really guilty of such crimes as the Kinghad falsely attributed to his second wife Anne Boleyn; so, again thedreadful axe made the King a widower, and this Queen passed away as somany in that reign had passed away before her. As an appropriate pursuitunder the circumstances, Henry then applied himself to superintending thecomposition of a religious book called 'A necessary doctrine for anyChristian Man.' He must have been a little confused in his mind, Ithink, at about this period; for he was so false to himself as to be trueto some one: that some one being Cranmer, whom the Duke of Norfolk andothers of his enemies tried to ruin; but to whom the King was steadfast,and to whom he one night gave his ring, charging him when he should findhimself, next day, accused of treason, to show it to the council board.This Cranmer did to the confusion of his enemies. I suppose the Kingthought he might want him a little longer.
He married yet once more. Yes, strange to say, he found in Englandanother woman who would become his wife, and she was CATHERINE PARR,widow of Lord Latimer. She leaned towards the reformed religion; and itis some comfort to know, that she tormented the King considerably byarguing a variety of doctrinal points with him on all possible occasions.She had very nearly done this to her own destruction. After one of theseconversations the King in a very black mood actually instructed GARDINER,one of his Bishops who favoured the Popish opinions, to draw a bill ofaccusation against her, which would have inevitably brought her to thescaffold where her predecessors had died, but that one of her friendspicked up the paper of instructions which had been dropped in the palace,and gave her timely notice. She fell ill with terror; but managed theKing so well when he came to entrap her into further statements--bysaying that she had only spoken on such points to divert his mind and toget some information from his extraordinary wisdom--that he gave her akiss and called her his sweetheart. And, when the Chancellor came nextday actually to take her to the Tower, the King sent him about hisbusiness, and honoured him with the epithets of a beast, a knave, and afool. So near was Catherine Parr to the block, and so narrow was herescape!
There was war with Scotland in this reign, and a short clumsy war withFrance for favouring Scotland; but, the events at home were so dreadful,and leave such an enduring stain on the country, that I need say no moreof what happened abroad.
A few more horrors, and this reign is over. There was a lady, ANNEASKEW, in Lincolnshire, who inclined to the Protestant opinions, andwhose husband being a fierce Catholic, turned her out of his house. Shecame to London, and was considered as offending against the six articles,and was taken to the Tower, and put upon the rack--probably because itwas hoped that she might, in her agony, criminate some obnoxious persons;if falsely, so much the better. She was tortured without uttering a cry,until the Lieutenant of the Tower would suffer his men to torture her nomore; and then two priests who were present actually pulled off theirrobes, and turned the wheels of the rack with their own hands, so rendingand twisting and breaking her that she was afterwards carried to the firein a chair. She was burned with three others, a gentleman, a clergyman,and a tailor; and so the world went on.
Either the King became afraid of the power of the Duke of Norfolk, andhis son the Earl of Surrey, or they gave him some offence, but heresolved to pull _them_ down, to follow all the rest who were gone. Theson was tried first--of course for nothing--and defended himself bravely;but of course he was found guilty, and of course he was executed. Thenhis father was laid hold of, and left for death too.
But the King himself was left for death by a Greater King, and the earthwas to be rid of him at last. He was now a swollen, hideous spectacle,with a great hole in his leg, and so odious to every sense that it wasdreadful to approach him. When he was found to be dying, Cranmer wassent for from his palace at Croydon, and came with all speed, but foundhim speechless. Happily, in that hour he perished. He was in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the thirty-eighth of his reign.
Henry the Eighth has been favoured by some Protestant writers, becausethe Reformation was achieved in his time. But the mighty merit of itlies with other men and not with him; and it can be rendered none theworse by this monster's crimes, and none the better by any defence ofthem. The plain truth is, that he was a most intolerable ruffian, adisgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the Historyof England.