1540.
He was therefore resolved, notwithstanding his aversion to her, to complete the marriage; and he told Cromwell, that, since matters had gone so far, he must put his neck into the yoke. Cromwell, who knew how much his own interests were concerned in this affair, was very anxious to learn from the king, next morning after the marriage, whether he now liked his spouse any better. The king told him, that he hated her worse than ever; and that her person was more disgusting on a near approach; he was resolved never to meddle with her: and even suspected her not to be a true maid: a point about which he entertained an extreme delicacy. He continued, however, to be civil to Anne; he even seemed to repose his usual confidence in Cromwell; but though he exerted this command over himself, a discontent lay lurking in his breast, and was ready to burst out on the first opportunity.
A session of parliament was held; and none of the abbots were now allowed a place in the house of peers. The king, by the mouth of the chancellor, complained to the parliament of the great diversity of religions which still prevailed among his subjects; a grievance, he affirmed, which ought the less to be endured, because the Scriptures were now published in English, and ought universally to be the standard of belief to all mankind. But he had appointed, he said, some bishops and divines to draw up a list of tenets to which his people were to assent; and he was determined, that Christ, the doctrine of Christ, and the truth, should have the victory. The king seems to have expected more effect in ascertaining truth from this new book of his doctors, than had ensued from the publication of the Scriptures. Cromwell, as vicar-general, made also in the king’s name a speech to the upper house; and the peers, in return, bestowed great flattery on him, and in particular said, that he was worthy, by his desert, to be vicar-general of the universe. That minister seemed to be no less in his master’s good graces: he received, soon after the sitting of the parliament, the title of earl of Essex, and was installed knight of the garter.
There remained only one religious order in England; the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the knights of Malta, as they are commonly called. This order, partly ecclesiastical, partly military, had by their valor done great service to Christendom; and had very much retarded, at Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, the rapid progress of the barbarians. During the general surrender of the religious houses in England, they had exerted their spirit, and had obstinately refused to yield up their revenues to the king; and Henry, who would endure no society that professed obedience to the pope, was obliged to have recourse to parliament for the dissolution of this order. Their revenues were large; and formed an addition nowise contemptible to the many acquisitions which the king had already made. But he had very ill husbanded the great revenue acquired by the plunder of the church: his profuse generosity dissipated faster than his rapacity could supply; and the parliament was surprised this session to find a demand made upon them of four tenths, and a subsidy of one shilling in the pound during two years: so ill were the public expectations answered, that the crown was never more to require any supply from the people. The commons, though lavish of their liberty, and of the blood of their fellow-subjects, were extremely frugal of their money; and it was not without difficulty so small a grant could be obtained by this absolute and dreaded monarch. The convocation gave the king four shillings in the pound to be levied in two years. The pretext for these grants was, the great expense which Henry had undergone for the defence of the realm, in building forts along the seacoast, and in equipping a navy. As he had at present no ally on the continent in whom he reposed much confidence, he relied only on his domestic strength, and was on that account obliged to be more expensive in his preparations against the danger of an invasion.
The king’s favor to Cromwell and his acquiescence in the marriage with Anne of Cleves, were both of them deceitful appearances: his aversion to the queen secretly increased every day; and having at last broken all restraint, it prompted him at once to seek the dissolution of a marriage so odious to him, and to involve his minister in ruin, who had been the innocent author of it. The fall of Cromwell was hastened by other causes. All the nobility hated a man who, being of such low extraction, had not only mounted above them by his station of vicar-general, but had engrossed many of the other considerable offices of the crown: besides enjoying that commission, which gave him a high and almost absolute authority over the clergy, and even over the laity, he was privy seal, chamberlain, and master of the wards: he had also obtained the order of the garter, a dignity which had ever been conferred only on men of illustrious families, and which seemed to be profaned by its being communicated to so mean a person. The people were averse to him, as the supposed author of the violence on the monasteries; establishments which were still revered and beloved by the commonalty. The Catholics regarded him as the concealed enemy of their religion: the Protestants, observing his exterior concurrence with all the persecutions exercised against them, were inclined to bear him as little favor; and reproached him with the timidity, if not treachery, of his conduct. And the king, who found that great clamors had on all hands arisen against the administration, was not displeased to throw on Cromwell the load of public hatred; and he hoped, by making so easy a sacrifice, to regain the affections of his subjects.
But there was another cause which suddenly set all these motives in action, and brought about an unexpected revolution in the ministry. The king had fixed his affection on Catharine Howard, niece to the duke of Norfolk; and being determined to gratify this new passion, he could find no expedient, but by procuring a divorce from his present consort, to raise Catharine to his bed and throne. The duke, who had long been engaged in enmity with Cromwell, made the same use of her insinuations to ruin this minister, that he had formerly done of Anne Boleyn’s against Wolsey; and when all engines were prepared, he obtained a commission from the king to arrest Cromwell at the council table, on an accusation of high treason, and to commit him to the Tower. Immediately after a bill of attainder was framed against him; and the house of peers thought proper, without trial, examination, or evidence, to condemn to death a man, whom a few days before they had declared worthy to be vicar-general of the universe. The house of commons passed the bill, though not without some opposition. Cromwell was accused of heresy and treason: but the proofs of his treasonable practices are utterly improbable, and even absolutely ridiculous.[*] The only circumstance of his conduct by which he seems to have merited this fate, was his being the instrument of the king’s tyranny in conducting like iniquitous bills, in the preceding session, against the countess of Salisbury and others.
Cromwell endeavored to soften the king by the most humble supplications; but all to no purpose: it was not the practice of that prince to ruin his ministers and favorites by halves; and though the unhappy prisoner once wrote to him in so moving a strain as even to draw tears from his eyes, he hardened himself against all movements of pity, and refused his pardon. The conclusion of Cromwell’s letter ran in these words: “I, a most woful prisoner, am ready to submit to death when it shall please God and your majesty; and yet the frail flesh incites me to call to your grace for mercy and pardon of mine offences. Written at the Tower, with the heavy heart and trembling hand of your highness’s most miserable prisoner and poor slave, Thomas Cromwell.” And a little below, “Most gracious prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy.”[**]
When brought to the place of execution, he avoided all earnest protestations of his innocence, and all complaints against the sentence pronounced upon him. He knew that Henry would resent on his son those symptoms of opposition to his will, and that his death alone would not terminate that monarch’s vengeance. He was a man of prudence, industry, and abilities; worthy of a better master and of a better fate. Though raised to the summit of power from a low origin, he betrayed no insolence or contempt towards his inferiors; and was careful to remember all the obligations which, during his more humble fortune, he had owed to any one. He had served as a private sentinel in the Italian wars; when he received some good offices from a Lucquese merchant, who had entirely forgotten his person, as well as the service which he had rendered him. Cromwell, in his grandeur, happened at London to cast his eye on his benefactor, now reduced to poverty by misfortunes. He immediately sent for him, reminded him of their ancient friendship, and by his grateful assistance reinstated him in his former prosperity and opulence.[*]
The measures for divorcing Henry from Anne of Cleves were carried on at the same time with the bill of attainder against Cromwell. The house of peers, in conjunction with the commons, applied to the king by petition, desiring that he would allow his marriage to be examined; and orders were immediately given to lay the matter before the convocation. Anne had formerly been contracted by her father to the duke of Lorraine, but she, as well as the duke, were at that time under age, and the contract had been afterwards annulled by consent of both parties.
The king, however, pleaded this precontract as a ground of divorce; and he added two reasons more, which may seem a little extraordinary; that, when he espoused Anne he had not inwardly given his consent, and that he had not thought proper to consummate the marriage. The convocation was satisfied with these reasons, and solemnly annulled the marriage between the king and queen: the parliament ratified the decision of the clergy;[**] 16 and the sentence was soon after notified to the princess.
Anne was blest with a happy insensibility of temper, ever in the points which the most nearly affect her sex; and the king’s aversion towards her, as well as his prosecution of the divorce, had never given her the least uneasiness. She willingly hearkened to terms of accommodation with him; and when he offered to adopt her as his sister, to give her place next the queen and his own daughter, and to make a settlement of three thousand pounds a year upon her; she accepted of the conditions, and gave her consent to the divorce.[***] She even wrote to her brother, (for her father was now dead,) that she had been very well used in England, and desired him to live on good terms with the king. The only instance of pride which she betrayed was, that she refused to return to her own country after the affront which she had received; and she lived and died in England.
Notwithstanding Anne’s moderation, this incident produced a great coldness between the king and the German princes; but as the situation of Europe was now much altered, Henry was the more indifferent about their resentment. The close intimacy which had taken place between Francis and Charles had subsisted during a very short time: the dissimilarity of their characters soon renewed, with greater violence than ever, their former jealousy and hatred. While Charles remained at Paris, Francis had been imprudently engaged, by his open temper, and by that satisfaction which a noble mind naturally feels in performing generous actions, to make in confidence some dangerous discoveries to that interested monarch; and having now lost all suspicion of his rival, he hoped that the emperor and he, supporting each other, might neglect every other alliance. He not only communicated to his guest the state of his negotiations with Sultan Solyman and the Venetians; he also laid open the solicitations which he had received from the court of England to enter into a confederacy against him.[*] Charles had no sooner reached his own dominions, than he showed himself unworthy of the friendly reception which he had met with. He absolutely refused to fulfil his promise, and put the duke of Orleans in possession of the Milanese; he informed Solyman and the senate of Venice of the treatment which they had received from their ally; and he took care that Henry should not be ignorant how readily Francis had abandoned his ancient friend, to whom he owed such important obligations, and had sacrificed him to a new confederate: he even poisoned and misrepresented many things which the unsuspecting heart of the French monarch had disclosed to him. Had Henry possessed true judgment and generosity, this incident alone had been sufficient to guide him in the choice of his ally. But his domineering pride carried him immediately to renounce the friendship of Francis, who had so unexpectedly given the preference to the emperor; and as Charles invited him to a renewal of ancient amity, he willingly accepted of the offer; and thinking himself secure in this alliance, he neglected the friendship both of France and of the German princes.
The new turn which Henry had taken with regard to foreign affairs was extremely agreeable to his Catholic subjects; and as it had perhaps contributed, among other reasons, to the ruin of Cromwell, it made them entertain hopes of a final prevalence over their antagonists. The marriage of the king with Catharine Howard, which followed soon after his divorce from Anne of Cleves, was also regarded as a favorable incident to their party; and the subsequent events corresponded to their expectations. The king’s councils being now directed by Norfolk and Gardiner, a furious persecution commenced against the Protestants; and the law of the six articles was executed with rigor. Dr. Barnes, who had been the cause of Lambert’s execution, felt, in his turn, the severity of the persecuting spirit; and, by a bill which passed in parliament, he was, without trial, condemned to the flames, together with Jerome and Gerrard. He discussed theological questions even at the stake; and as the dispute between him and the sheriff turned upon the invocation of saints, he said, that he doubted whether the saints could pray for us; but if they could, he hoped in half an hour to be praying for the sheriff and all the spectators. He next entreated the sheriff to carry to the king his dying request, which he fondly imagined would have authority with that monarch who had sent him to the stake. The purport of his request was, that Henry, besides repressing superstitious ceremonies, should be extremely vigilant in preventing fornication and common swearing.[*]
While Henry was exerting this violence against the Protestants, he spared not the Catholics who denied his supremacy; and a foreigner, at that time in England, had reason to say, that those who were against the pope were burned, and those who were for him were hanged.[**] The king even displayed in an ostentatious manner this tyrannical impartiality, which reduced both parties to subjection, and infused terror into every breast. Barnes, Gerrard, and Jerome had been carried to the place of execution on three hurdles; and along with them there was placed on each hurdle a Catholic, who was also executed for his religion. These Catholics were Abel, Fetherstone, and Powel, who declared, that the most grievous part of their punishment was the being coupled to such heretical miscreants as suffered with them.[***]
Though the spirit of the English seemed to be totally sunk under the despotic power of Henry, there appeared some symptoms of discontent. An inconsiderable rebellion broke out in Yorkshire, headed by Sir John Nevil; but it was soon suppressed, and Nevil, with other ringleaders, was executed.
The rebels were supposed to have been instigated by the intrigues of Cardinal Pole; and the king was instantly determined to make the countess of Salisbury, who already lay under sentence of death, suffer for her son’s offences. He ordered her to be carried to execution; and this venerable matron maintained still, in these distressful circumstances, the spirit of that long race of monarchs from whom she was descended.[*] She refused to lay her head on the block, or submit to a sentence where she had received no trial. She told the executioner, that if he would have her head, he must win it the best way he could: and thus, shaking her venerable gray locks, she ran about the scaffold: and the executioner followed with his axe, aiming many fruitless blows at her neck, before he was able to give the fatal stroke. Thus perished the last of the line of Plantagenet, which, with great glory, but still greater crimes and misfortunes, had governed England for the space of three hundred years. Lord Leonard Grey, a man who had formerly rendered service to the crown, was also beheaded for treason, soon after the countess of Salisbury. We know little concerning the grounds of his prosecution.
1541.
The insurrection in the north engaged Henry to make a progress thither, in order to quiet the minds of his people, to reconcile them to his government, and to abolish the ancient superstitions, to which those parts were much addicted. He had also another motive for this journey: he purposed to have a conference at York with his nephew the king of Scotland, and, if possible, to cement a close and indissoluble union with that kingdom.
The same spirit of religious innovation which had seized other parts of Europe had made its way into Scotland, and had begun, before this period, to excite the same jealousies fears, and persecutions. About the year 1527, Patrick Hamilton, a young man of a noble family, having been created abbot of Fene, was sent abroad for his education, but had fallen into company with some reformers; and he returned into his own country very ill disposed towards that church, on which his birth and his merit entitled him to attain the highest dignities, The fervor of youth and his zeal for novelty made it impossible for him to conceal his sentiments and Campbell, prior of the Dominicans, who, under color of friendship, and a sympathy in opinion, had insinuated himself into his confidence, accused him before Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews. Hamilton was invited to St. Andrews, in order to maintain with some of the clergy a dispute concerning the controverted points; and after much reasoning with regard to justification, free will, original sin, and other topics of that nature, the conference ended with their condemning Hamilton to be burned for his errors. The young man, who had been deaf to the insinuations of ambition, was less likely to be shaken with the fears of death; while he proposed to himself, both the glory of bearing testimony to the truth, and the immediate reward attending his martyrdom. The people, who compassionated his youth, his virtue, and his noble birth, were much moved at the constancy of his end; and an incident which soon followed still more confirmed them in their favorable sentiments towards him. He had cited Campbell, who still insulted him at the stake, to answer before the judgment seat of Christ; and as that persecutor, either astonished with these events, or overcome with remorse, or perhaps seized casually with a distemper, soon after lost his senses, and fell into a fever, of which he died; the people regarded Hamilton as a prophet as well as a martyr.[*]
Among the disciples converted by Hamilton, was one friar Forrest, who became a zealous preacher; and who, though he did not openly discover his sentiments, was suspected to lean towards the new opinions. His diocesan, the bishop of Dunkel, enjoined him, when he met with a good epistle or good gospel, which favored the liberties of holy church, to preach on it, and let the rest alone. Forrest replied, that he had read both Old and New Testament, and had not found an ill epistle or ill gospel in any part of them. The extreme attachment to the Scriptures was regarded, in those days, as a sure characteristic of heresy; and Forrest was soon after brought to trial, and condemned to the flames. While the priests were deliberating on the place of his execution, a bystander advised them to burn him in a cellar; for that the smoke of Mr. Patrick Hamilton had infected all those on whom it blew.[**]
The clergy were at that time reduced to great difficulties, not only in Scotland, but all over Europe. As the reformers aimed at a total subversion of ancient establishments, which they represented as idolatrous, impious, detestable; the priests, who found both their honors and properties at stake, thought that they had a right to resist, by every expedient, these dangerous invaders, and that the same simple principles of equity which justified a man in killing a pirate or a robber, would acquit them for the execution of such heretics. A toleration, though it is never acceptable to ecclesiastics, might, they said, be admitted in other cases; but seemed an absurdity where fundamentals were shaken, and where the possessions and even the existence of the established clergy were brought in danger. But though the church was thus carried by policy, as well as inclination, to kindle the fires of persecution, they found the success of this remedy very precarious; and observed, that the enthusiastic zeal of the reformers, inflamed by punishment, was apt to prove contagious on the compassionate minds of the spectators. The new doctrine, amidst all the dangers to which it was exposed, secretly spread itself every where; and the minds of men were gradually disposed to a revolution in religion.
But the most dangerous symptom for the clergy in Scotland was, that the nobility, from the example of England, had cast a wishful eye on the church revenues, and hoped, if a reformation took place, to enrich themselves by the plunder of the ecclesiastics. James himself, who was very poor, and was somewhat inclined to magnificence, particularly in building, had been swayed by like motives; and began to threaten the clergy with the same fate that had attended them in the neighboring country. Henry also never ceased exhorting his nephew to imitate his example; and being moved, both by the pride of making proselytes, and the prospect of security, should Scotland embrace a close union with him, he solicited the king of Scots to meet him at York; and he obtained a promise to that purpose.
The ecclesiastics were alarmed at this resolution of James, and they employed every expedient in order to prevent the execution of it. They represented the danger of innovation; the pernicious consequences of aggrandizing the nobility, already too powerful; the hazard of putting himself into the hands of the English, his hereditary enemies; the dependence on them which must ensue upon his losing the friendship of France, and of all foreign powers. To those considerations they added the prospect of immediate interest, by which they found the king to be much governed: they offered him a present gratuity of fifty thousand pounds: they promised him that the church should always be ready to contribute to his supply: and they pointed out to him the confiscation of heretics, as the means of filling his exchequer, and of adding a hundred thousand pounds a year to the crown revenues.[*] The insinuations of his new queen, to whom youth, beauty, and address had given a powerful influence over him, seconded all these reasons; and James was at last engaged, first to delay his journey, then to send excuses to the king of England, who had already come to York in order to be present at the interview.[**]
Henry, vexed with the disappointment, and enraged at the affront, vowed vengeance against his nephew; and he began, by permitting piracies at sea and incursions at land, to put his threats in execution. But he received soon after, in his own family, an affront to which he was much more sensible, and which touched him in a point where he always showed an extreme delicacy. He had thought himself very happy in his new marriage: the agreeable person and disposition of Catharine had entirely captivated his affections; and he made no secret of his devoted attachment to her. He had even publicly, in his chapel, returned solemn thanks to Heaven for the felicity which the conjugal state afforded him; and he directed the bishop of Lincoln to compose a form of prayer for that purpose. But the queen’s conduct very little merited this tenderness: one Lascelles brought intelligence of her dissolute life to Cranmer; and told him that his sister, formerly a servant in the family of the old duchess of Norfolk, with whom Catharine was educated, had given him a particular account of her licentious manners. Derham and Mannoc, both of them servants to the duchess, had been admitted to her bed; and she had even taken little care to conceal her shame from the other servants of the family. The primate, struck with this intelligence, which it was equally dangerous to conceal or to discover, communicated the matter to the earl of Hertford and to the chancellor. They agreed, that the matter should by no means be buried in silence; and the archbishop himself seemed the most proper person to disclose it to the king. Cranmer, unwilling to speak on so delicate a subject, wrote a narrative of the whole, and conveyed it to Henry, who was infinitely astonished at the intelligence. So confident was he of the fidelity of his consort, that at first he gave no credit to the information; and he said to the privy-seal, to Lord Russel, high admiral, Sir Anthony Brown, and Wriothesley, that he regarded the whole as a falsehood. Cranmer was now in a very perilous situation; and had not full proof been found, certain and inevitable destruction hung over him. The king’s impatience, however, and jealousy prompted him to search the matter to the bottom; the privy-seal was ordered to examine Lascelles, who persisted in the information he had given; and still appealed to his sister’s testimony. That nobleman next made a journey, under pretence of hunting, and went to Sussex, where the woman at that time resided: he found her both constant in her former intelligence, and particular as to the facts; and the whole bore but too much the face of probability. Mannoc and Derham, who were arrested at the same time, and examined by the chancellor, made the queen’s guilt entirely certain by their confession; and discovered other particulars, which redounded still more to her dishonor. Three maids of the family were admitted into her secrets; and some of them had even passed the night in bed with her and her lovers. All the examinations were laid before the king, who was so deeply affected, that he remained a long time speechless, and at last burst into tears. He found to his surprise, that his great skill in distinguishing a true maid, of which he boasted in the case of Anne of Cleves, had failed him in that of his present consort. The queen, being next questioned, denied her guilt; but when informed that a full discovery was made, she confessed that she had been criminal before marriage; and only insisted that she had never been false to the king’s bed. But as there was evidence that one Colepepper had passed the night with her alone since her marriage; and as it appeared that she had taken Derham, her old paramour, into her service, she seemed to deserve little credit in this asseveration; and the king, besides, was not of a humor to make any difference between these degrees of guilt.
1542.
Henry found that he could not by any means so fully or expeditiously satiate his vengeance on all these criminals as by assembling a parliament, the usual instrument of his tyranny. The two houses, having received the queen’s confession, made an address to the king. They entreated him not to be vexed with this untoward accident, to which all men were subject; but to consider the frailty of human nature, and the mutability of human affairs; and from these views to derive a subject of consolation. They desired leave to pass a bill of attainder against the queen and her accomplices; and they begged him to give his assent to this bill, not in person, which would renew his vexation, and might endanger his health, but by commissioners appointed for that purpose. And as there was a law in force making it treason to speak ill of the queen as well as of the king, they craved his royal pardon if any of them should, on the present occasion, have transgressed any part of the statute.
Having obtained a gracious answer to these requests, the parliament proceeded to vote a bill of attainder for treason against the queen, and the viscountess of Rocheford, who had conducted her secret amours; and in this bill Colepepper and Derham were also comprehended. At the same time they passed a bill of attainder for misprision of treason against the old duchess of Norfolk, Catharine’s grandmother; her uncle, Lord William Howard, and his lady, together with the countess of Bridgewater, and nine persons more; because they knew the queen’s vicious course of life before her marriage, and had concealed it. This was an effect of Henry’s usual extravagance, to expect that parents should so far forget the ties of natural affection, and the sentiments of shame and decency, as to reveal to him the most secret disorders of their family. He himself seems to have been sensible of the cruelty of this proceeding; for he pardoned the duchess of Norfolk and most of the others condemned for misprision of treason.
However, to secure himself for the future, as well as his successors, from this fatal accident, he engaged the parliament to pass a law somewhat extraordinary. It was enacted, that any one who knew, or vehemently suspected, any guilt in the queen, might, within twenty days, disclose it to the king or council, without incurring the penalty of any former law against defaming the queen; but prohibiting every one at the same time, from spreading the matter abroad, or even privately whispering it to others. It was also enacted, that if the king married any woman who had been incontinent, taking her for a true maid, she should be guilty of treason, if she did not previously reveal her guilt to him. The people made merry with this singular clause, and said that the king must henceforth look out for a widow; for no reputed maid would ever be persuaded to incur the penalty of the statute.[*] After all these laws were passed, the queen was beheaded on Tower Hill, together with Lady Rocheford. They behaved in a manner suitable to their dissolute life; and as Lady Rocheford was known to be the chief instrument in bringing Anne Boleyn to her end, she died unpitied; and men were further confirmed, by the discovery of this woman’s guilt, in the favorable sentiments which they had entertained of that unfortunate queen.
The king made no demand of any subsidy from this parliament; but he found means of enriching his exchequer from another quarter: he took further steps towards the dissolution of colleges, hospitals, and other foundations of that nature. The courtiers had been practising on the presidents and governors to make a surrender of their revenues to the king, and they had been successful with eight of them. But there was an obstacle to their further progress: it had been provided by the local statutes of most of these foundations, that no president, or any number of fellows, could consent to such a deed without the unanimous vote of all the fellows; and this vote was not easily obtained. All such statutes were annulled by parliament; and the revenues of these houses were now exposed to the rapacity of the king and his favorites.[**] 17 The Church had been so long their prey, that nobody was surprised at any new inroads made upon her. From the regular, Henry now proceeded to make devastations on the secular clergy. He extorted from many of the bishops a surrender of chapter lands; and by this device he pillaged the sees of Canterbury, York, and London, and enriched his greedy parasites and flatterers with their spoils.
The clergy have been commonly so fortunate as to make a concern for their temporal interests go hand in hand with a jealousy for orthodoxy; and both these passions be regarded by the people, ignorant and superstitious, as proofs of zeal for religion: but the violent and headstrong character of Henry now disjoined these objects. His rapacity was gratified by plundering the church, his bigotry and arrogance by persecuting heretics. Though he engaged the parliament to mitigate the penalties of the six articles, so far as regards the marriage of priests, which was now only subjected to a forfeiture of goods, chattels, and lands during life, he was still equally bent on maintaining a rigid purity in speculative principles. He had appointed a commission, consisting of the two archbishops and several bishops of both provinces, together with a considerable number of doctors of divinity; and by virtue of his ecclesiastical supremacy, he had given them in charge to choose a religion for his people. Before the commissioners had made any progress in this arduous undertaking, the parliament, in 1541, had passed a law by which they ratified all the tenets which these divines should thereafter establish with the king’s consent: and they were not ashamed of thus expressly declaring that they took their religion upon trust, and had no other rule, in spiritual as well as temporal concerns, than the arbitrary will of their master. There is only one clause of the statute which may seem at first sight to savor somewhat of the spirit of liberty: it was enacted, that the ecclesiastical commissioners should establish nothing repugnant to the laws and statutes of the realm. But in reality this proviso was inserted by the king to serve his own purposes. By introducing a confusion and contradiction into the laws, he became more master of every one’s life and property. And as the ancient independence of the church still gave him jealousy, he was well pleased, undercover of such a clause, to introduce appeals from the spiritual to the civil courts. It was for a like reason that he would never promulgate a body of canon law; and he encouraged the judges on all occasions to interpose in ecclesiastical causes, wherever they thought the law of royal prerogative concerned; a happy innovation, though at first invented for arbitrary purposes.
The king, armed by the authority of parliament, or rather by their acknowledgment of that spiritual supremacy which he believed inherent in him, employed his commissioners to select a system of tenets for the assent and belief of the nation. A small volume was soon after published, called the Institution of a Christian Man, which was received by the convocation, and voted to be the standard of orthodoxy. All the delicate points of justification, faith, free will, good works, and grace, are there defined, with a leaning towards the opinion of the reformers: the sacraments, which a few years before were only allowed to be three, were now increased to the number of seven, conformable to the sentiments of the Catholics. The king’s caprice is discernible throughout the whole; and the book is in reality to be regarded as his composition. For Henry while he made his opinion a rule for the nation, would tie his own hands by no canon or authority, not even by any which he himself had formerly established.
The people had occasion soon after to see a further instance of the king’s inconstancy. He was not long satisfied with his Institution of a Christian Man: he ordered a new book to be composed, called the Erudition of a Christian Man; and without asking the assent of the convocation, he published, by his own authority and that of the parliament, this new model of orthodoxy. It differs from the Institution;[*] but the king was no less positive in his new creed than he had been in the old; and he required the belief of the nation to veer about at his signal. In both these compositions, he was particularly careful to inculcate the doctrine of passive obedience; and he was equally careful to retain the nation in the practice.
While the king was spreading his own books among the people, he seems to have been extremely perplexed, as were also the clergy, what course to take with the Scriptures. A review had been made by the synod of the new translation of the Bible; and Gardiner had proposed that, instead of employing English expressions throughout, several Latin words should still be preserved; because they contained, as he pretended, such peculiar energy and significance, that they had no correspondent terms in the vulgar tongue.[**] Among these were “ecclesia, poenitentia, pontifex, contritus, holocausta, sacramentum, elementa, ceremonia, mysterium, presbyter, sacrificium, humilitas, satisfactio, peccatum, gratia, hostia, charitos,” etc. But as this mixture would have appeared extremely barbarous, and was plainly calculated for no other purpose than to retain the people in their ancient ignorance, the proposal was rejected. The knowledge of the people, however, at least their disputative turn, seemed to be an inconvenience still more dangerous; and the king and parliament,[***] soon after the publication of the Scriptures retracted the concession which they had formerly made; and prohibited all but gentlemen and merchants from perusing them[****].
Even that liberty was not granted without an apparent hesitation, and a dread of the consequences: these persons were allowed to read, “so it be done quietly and with good order.” And the preamble to the act sets forth “that many seditious and ignorant persons had abused the liberty granted them of reading the Bible, and that great diversity of opinion, animosities, tumults, and schisms had been occasioned by perverting the sense of the Scriptures.” It seemed very difficult to reconcile the king’s model for uniformity with the permission of free inquiry.
The mass book also passed under the king’s revisal; and little alteration was as yet made in it: some doubtful or fictious saints only were struck out; and the name of the pope was erased. This latter precaution was likewise used with regard to every new book that was printed, or even old book that was sold. The word “pope” was carefully omitted or blotted out;[*] as if that precaution could abolish the term from the language, or as if such a persecution of it did not rather imprint it more strongly in the memory of the people.
The king took care about this time to clear the churches from another abuse which had crept into them. Plays, interludes, and farces were there often acted in derision of the former superstitions; and the reverence of the multitude for ancient principles and modes of worship was thereby gradually effaced.[**] We do not hear that the Catholics attempted to retaliate by employing this powerful engine against their adversaries, or endeavored by like arts to expose that fanatical spirit by which it appears the reformers were frequently actuated. Perhaps the people were not disposed to relish a jest on that side: perhaps the greater simplicity and the more spiritual abstract worship of the Protestants gave less hold to ridicule, which is commonly founded on sensible representations. It was, therefore, a very agreeable concession which the king made to the Catholic party, to suppress entirely these religious comedies.
Thus Henry labored incessantly by arguments, creeds, and penal statutes, to bring his subjects to a uniformity in their religious sentiments: but as he entered himself with the greatest earnestness into all those scholastic disputes, he encouraged the people by his example to apply themselves to the study of theology; and it was in vain afterwards to expect, however present fear might restrain their tongues or pens, that they would cordially agree in any set of tenets or opinions prescribed to them.
1542.
Henry, being determined to avenge himself on the king of Scots for slighting the advances which he had made him, would gladly have obtained a supply from parliament, in order to prosecute that enterprise; but as he did not think it prudent to discover his intentions, that assembly, conformably to their frugal maxims, would understand no hints; and the king was disappointed in his expectations. He continued, however, to make preparations for war; and as soon as he thought himself in a condition to invade Scotland, he published a manifesto, by which he endeavored to justify hostilities. He complained of James’s breach of word in declining the promised interview, which was the real ground of the quarrel;[*] but in order to give a more specious coloring to the enterprise, he mentioned other injuries; namely, that his nephew had granted protection to some English rebels and fugitives, and had detained some territory which, Henry pretended, belonged to England. He even revived the old claim to the vassalage of Scotland, and he summoned James to do homage to him as his liege lord and superior. He employed the duke of Norfolk, whom he called the scourge of the Scots, to command in the war: and though James sent the bishop of Aberdeen, and Sir James Learmont of Darsay, to appease his uncle, he would hearken to no terms of accommodation.
While Norfolk was assembling his army at Newcastle, Sir Robert Bowes, attended by Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Ralph Evers, Sir Brian Latoun, and others, made an incursion into Scotland, and advanced towards Jedburgh, with an intention of pillaging and destroying that town. The earl of Angus, and George Douglas, his brother, who had been many years banished their country, and had subsisted by Henry’s bounty, joined the English army in this incursion, and the forces commanded by Bowes exceeded four thousand men. James had not been negligent in his preparations for defence, and had posted a considerable body, under the command of the earl of Huntley, for the protection of the borders. Lord Hume, at the head of his vassals, was hastening to join Huntley, when he met with the English army; and an action immediately ensued. During the engagement, the forces under Huntley began to appear; and the English, afraid of being surrounded and overpowered, took to flight, and were pursued by the enemy. Evers, Latoun, and some other persons of distinction, were taken prisoners. A few only of small note fell in the skirmish.[*]
The duke of Norfolk, meanwhile, began to move from his camp at Newcastle; and being attended by the earls of Shrewsbury, Derby, Cumberland, Surrey, Hertford, Rutland, with many others of the nobility, he advanced to the borders. His forces amounted to above twenty thousand men; and it required the utmost efforts of Scotland to resist such a formidable armament. James had assembled his whole military force at Fala and Sautrey, and was ready to advance as soon as he should be informed of Norfolk’s invading his kingdom. The English passed the Tweed at Berwick, and marched along the banks of the river as far as Kelso; but hearing that James had collected near thirty thousand men, they repassed the river at that village, and retreated into their own country.[**] The king of Scots, inflamed with a desire of military glory, and of revenge on his invaders, gave the signal for pursuing them, and carrying the war into England. He was surprised to find that his nobility, who were in general disaffected on account of the preference which he had given to the clergy, opposed this resolution, and refused to attend him in his projected enterprise. Enraged at this mutiny, he reproached them with cowardice, and threatened vengeance; but still resolved, with the forces which adhered to him, to make an impression on the enemy. He sent ten thousand men to the western borders, who entered England at Solway Frith; and he himself followed them at a small distance, ready to join them upon occasion. Disgusted, however, at the refractory disposition of his nobles, he sent a message to the army depriving Lord Maxwel, their general, of his commission, and conferring the command on Oliver Sinclair, a private gentleman, who was his favorite. The army was extremely disgusted with this alteration, and was ready to disband, when a small body of English appeared, not exceeding five hundred men, under the command of Dacres and Musgrave. A panic seized the Scots, who immediately took to flight, and were pursued by the enemy. Few were killed in this rout; for it was no action; but a great many were taken prisoners, and some of the principal nobility: among these, the earls of Cassilis and Glencairn, the lords Maxwel, Fleming, Somerville, Oliphant, Grey, who were all sent to London, and given in custody to different noblemen.
The king of Scots, hearing of this disaster, was astonished; and being naturally of a melancholic disposition, as well as endowed with a high spirit, he lost all command of his temper on this dismal occasion. Rage against his nobility, who, he believed, had betrayed him; shame for a defeat by such unequal numbers; regret for the past, fear of the future; all these passions so wrought upon him, that he would admit of no consolation, but abandoned himself wholly to despair. His body was wasted by sympathy with his anxious mind; and even his life began to be thought in danger. He had no issue living; and hearing that his queen was safely delivered, he asked whether she had brought him a male or a female child. Being told the latter, he turned himself in his bed: “The crown came with a woman,” said he, “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.” A few days after, he expired, in the flower of his age: a prince of considerable virtues and talents; well fitted, by his vigilance and personal courage, for repressing those disorders to which his kingdom, during that age, was so much exposed. He executed justice with impartiality and rigor; but as he supported the commonalty and the church against the rapine of the nobility, he escaped not the hatred of that order. The Protestants also, whom he opposed, have endeavored to throw many stains on his memory; but have not been able to fix any considerable imputation upon him.[*]
1543.
Henry was no sooner informed of his victory and of the death of his nephew, than he projected, as James had foreseen, the scheme of uniting Scotland to his own dominions by marrying his son Edward to the heiress of that kingdom.[**] 18