I have so many things to tell you about Henry the Eighth, that I dare say I shall fill three chapters.

When he first became king, everybody liked him. He was very handsome, and generous, and good-humoured. Besides all that, he was very clever, and very learned; he liked the company of wise men, and treated them all very kindly. One of his great amusements after dinner was to invite the greatest scholars and the cleverest men, such as clergymen, lawyers, physicians, and painters, to go and talk with him. And so he learned a great deal from hearing what they said.

But as Henry grew older, I am sorry to say that he changed very much, and became cruel and hard-hearted, as you will read by-and-by.

The wise old king, Henry the Seventh, had been very careful to keep peace with the French and Scotch all his life, but the young king liked the thoughts of gaining a little glory by fighting; so very soon after he became king, he had a war with France, and another with Scotland.

The war with Scotland ended sadly for the Scotch. The English army was commanded by a very brave and clever nobleman, named the Earl of Surrey, and he had with him several brave lords and knights. The Scotch army was almost all made up of the boldest and best men in Scotland, with their own king, James the Fourth, to command them. The two armies met at a place called Flodden Field. They fought all day; sometimes one side got the better and sometimes the other; so when night came, nobody knew which had beaten the other. But in the morning the Scots found that they had lost their king, whom they all loved very much, and that with him the best and bravest of the Scottish nobles had been killed.

After this there was peace between Scotland and England.

As to King Henry’s war in France, it did not last very long. I told you Henry was young, and wished for the kind of glory that princes gain by fighting. But he forgot that, besides the glory, there must be a great deal of fatigue and suffering; so, after one battle, he was persuaded to make peace. That one battle was called the BATTLE OF THE SPURS, because the French made more use of their spurs, to make their horses run away, than of their swords to fight with.

Not long after this battle, the old French king died. The new king was called Francis the First. He was almost as young as Henry the Eighth. He was handsome, too, and very fond of gaiety, and dancing, and riding, and feasting, and playing at fighting, which is called jousting. So the two young kings agreed that they would meet together, and have some merry days. And so they did.

They met near a place called Ardres, in France. The richest noblemen, both of France and England, and their wives and daughters, were there. The tents they feasted in were made of silk, with gold flowers; their dresses were covered over with gold and jewels; even their very horses were dressed up with silk and golden fringes; and there was feasting, and dancing, and jousting, and music every day.

The two kings amused themselves with dancing, and all sorts of games, till at last they found it was time to go home, and mind the affairs of their own kingdoms.

This meeting was called THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD, because there was so much gold in the dresses and tents, and the ornaments used by the kings and their lords and ladies.

Besides the two kings who were at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, there was a great man there, whom you must know something about. His name was Wolsey. He was a clergyman, and in the time of King Henry the Seventh he was known to be very clever indeed. But Henry the Eighth first made him a bishop, and then the Pope (who you know is the Bishop of Rome) gave him the rank of Cardinal.

In those days a cardinal was thought to be almost as great a man as a king. He dressed in long fine silk robes, trimmed with fur, and when he went out he wore a scarlet hat with a broad brim and fine red cords and tassels.

This Cardinal Wolsey was very clever, as I told you, and very learned; he was one of the scholars at Oxford when Thomas Linacre taught Greek there; and with a part of the great riches that he got from the king he built the great college, called Christ Church, at Oxford, and a school at Ipswich, the town where he was born. He also built the great palace of Hampton Court, and made a present of it to the king. And these you know were all useful things.

But Cardinal Wolsey was proud towards the nobles, and had to tax the people heavily to pay for the king’s wars; so he was greatly disliked. And some persons told the king that the cardinal spoke ill of him, and that he boasted of being richer and more powerful than the king. So Henry, who was very passionate, ordered all his riches to be taken away from him suddenly, and sent for him to London, where I am almost sure he intended to order his head to be cut off. But the cardinal fell ill and died on the road. His last words were—“If I had served God as diligently as I have served the king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.”

Now I must end this chapter. In the next I shall tell you about King Henry’s six wives.