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CABINET HISTORY

OF

ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND.

BY

THE RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, M. P.
SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. AND
THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.

ENGLAND.
VOL. II.

PHILADELPHIA.
CARET & LEA.— CHESTNUT STREET.
1S31

THE

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

BY

THE RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, M. P.

VOLUME n.

PHILADELPHIA.
CAREY & LEA.— CHESTNUT STREET..
1831.

" Masters," quoth the cardinal, " unless it be the manner of your
house, as of likelihood it is, by the mouth of your Speaker whom you
have chosen for trusty and wise (as indeed he is), in such cases to
utter your minds, here is without doubt a marvellous silence ;" and
thereupon he required answer of master Speaker. Who first rever
ently on his knees excusing the silence of the house, abashed at the
presence of so noble a personage able to amaze the wisest and best
learned in a realm, and after by many probable arguments proving
that for them to make answer was neither expedient nor agreeable
with the ancient liberty of the house ; in conclusion for himself
showed that though they had all with their voices trusted him, yet
except every one of them could put into his one head all their several
wits, he alone in so weighty a matter was unmeet to make his grace
answer. Whereupon the cardinal, displeased with Sir Thomas More,
that had not in this parliament in all things satisfied his desire, sud
denly arose and departed." Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More.

CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

CHAPTER I.
WAR OP THE ROSES, 1422—1483.
HENRY VI. (continued.)— EDWARD IV.
Dissensions of Gloucester and Beaufort. — Gloucester named Chief of the
Council. — Elinor Cobham. — Henry marries Margaret of Anjou. — Mur
der of Gloucester. — Proceedings against Suffolk. — Murder of Suffolk .—
Discontents of the people. — Jack Cade. — Execution of Lord Say.—
Birth of the Prince of Wales. — King's Incapacity. — Duke of York Pro
tector. —Margaret collects Forces in the North. — Battle of St. Alban's.
— Parliament assembled. — Dismissal of York. — Henry resumes his
Authority. — Resides at Coventry. — Yorkists defeated near Ludlow. —
Duke of York enters London. — Claims the Crown. — The Lords propose
a Compromise. — York obtains the regal Power. — His Defeat and Death.
— Edward Earl of March claims the Crown. — Is proclaimed by the Style
of Edward IV. —Battle of Towton. — Edward is crowned at London. —
Battie of Hexham. — Dispersion of the Lancastrians. — Concealment of
Henry. — His Capture. —Escape of Margaret. — Lady Elizabeth Wood -
ville. —Coalition of Margaret and Warwick. — Battle of Barnet. — Bat
tle of Tewkesbury. — War with France. —Treaty of Pecquigny. — The
Shepherd Lord Clifford. — Death of Edward IV  Page 11
CHAP. II.
TO THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH, 1483—1485.
EDWARD V.— RICHARD III.
Court Factions. — Richard Duke of Gloucester. — Accusation of Rivers and
Grey. — Flight of the Queen from Westminster. —Richard assumes the
Title of Protector. — The king and the Duke of York placed in the Tower.
— Murder of Lord Hastings. — Jane Shore- — Richard disputes the King's
Title. — Procures himself to be declared king. — Disappearance of Ed-
ward and the Duke of York. — Their probable Murder. — Buckingham
revolts. — Proclamation against Richmond. — Richard lands at Milford
Haven. — Battle ofBosworth. — Death of Richard. — Richmond proclaim
ed King by the Title of Henry VII  50
dHAP. III.
HENRY VII.
1485—1509.
Marriage of Henry and Elizabeth. — Imposture of Symnel. — Perkin War-
beck. — His History. —Execution of Sir William Stanley. — Warbeck
collects a Force in Flanders. — Is defeated at Deal. — Marries Lady Cath-
A2

VI CONTENTS.
arine Gordon. — Aided by the king of -Scotland. — Northern Invasion. —
Truce with Scotland. — Perkm lands in Cornwall. — Collects a Body of
Troops. — Insurgents defeated. — Audley, their Leader, defeated. — Perkin
takes sanctuary at Beaulieu. —Finally surrenders.— Is committed to the
Tower. — Meets Warwick. —Execution of Perkin and Warwick. — Real
Causes of the latter. — State of Europe. — Plot against the Scottish King.
— Philip the Fair driven on the English Coast. — Is received by Henry,
who insists on the surrender of John de la Pole. — Marriage of the Prince
of Wales with Catharine of Aragon. — Star Chamber instituted. —
Changes in the Laws. — The great Intercourse. — Enormous Wealth of
Henry.— His Death  *"
CHAP. rv.
TO THE REFORMATION.
HENRY VIII.
1506—1547.
Coronation of Henry. — His Character. — His formal Marriage with Catha
rine. — Attainder of Dudley and Empson. — Italian Wars. — Debates in
the Council respecting the War with France. — Return of English Troops
from Spain. — Defeat of the French in the Battle of the Spurs. — Battle
of Flodden Field — The rise of Wolsey. — His History and Character. —
The Tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. — Accusation and Ex
ecution of the Duke of Buckingham. — Wolsey resorts to illegal Expedients
to raise Money. — Sir Thomas More Speaker of the Commons. — Wolsey
enters the Commons, and is answered by More. — Death of Leo X. —
Wolsey aspires to the Popedom. — Battle of Pavia. — Francis I. a Prison
er. — Is liberated. — The Constable Bourbon attacks Rome. — Is killed. —
Sack of Rome  95
CHAP. V.
RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.
HENRY VIII. (continued.)
1527.
Freedom of Discussion. — Inconstancy of the Reformers. — Persecutions. —
Circumstances which led to the Reformation. — Writings of Erasmus.—
Character of Martin Luther. — His Preaching. — Appointed to the Pro
fessorship of Philosophy at Wittemberg.— Visits Rome. — Is shocked at
the Profligacy of the Clergy. — Bull for Indulgences. — Is abused in Ger
many. — Excites the Opposition of Luther. — Sublime Principles adopted
by Luther. — His ninety-five Theses. — Part of his Writings condemned
as heretical. — His personal Sufferings.— Ulric'Zuinglius. — John Calvin.
— Controversy respecting the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. — Conduct
of ErasmuB. — Excesses of the German Boors. — Death of Erasmus.—
Insurrection in Suabia. — Conduct of Luther  114

CONTENTS- Vll
CHAP. VI.
TO THE EXECUTION OF SIR THOMAS MORE.
HENRY VIII. (continued.)
1527—1535.
Henry raises Doubts of the Validity of his Marriage with Catharine. — Be
comes enamored of Anne Boleyn. — Seeks a Divorce. — Anne Boleyn
resists his Importunities. — Sir Thomas More declines to advocate the
Divorce. —Henry sends to Rome to obtain the support of the Pope.—
Clement temporizes. — Disputes on the Subject of the Divorce. — Henry
proposes Questions to the principal Universities of Europe respecting it.
— Receives favorable Answers, — The Pope sends a Commission to try
the Questions. — Expedients for delaying the suit. — Wolsey loses the
royal favor. — Is prosecuted. — Defence of Catharine before the Lega-
tine Court. — Anne Boleyn hostile to Wolsey. — Sentence pronounced
against him. — Is pardoned, and restored to the See of Winchester. —Is
apprehended for. High Treason. — Is carried to the Abbey of Leicester. —
His Death. — Henry determines to resist the Papal Authority. — Cranmer
Institutes an Investigation into the Validity of the Marriage with Cath
arine. — Pronounces that Marriage null. — The King marries the Lady
Anne. — The King addressed as Head of the- Church. — Thomas Crom
well. — His History. — Cranmer raised to the See of Canterbury. — Pro
ceeds against Papal Power. — The king declared by Act of Parliament
Supreme Head of the Church.— The holy Maid of Kent. —Her Execu
tion. — Execution of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. — Sir Thomas More,
his Writings and Character. — His Trial and Condemnation. — Circum
stances of his Execution. — Public Opinion respecting it. —Remonstrance
of Granmer  12S
CHAP. VII.
PROCEEDINGS AGAINST QUEEN ANNE BOLEYN, AND HER EXECUTION.
HENRY VIII. (continued.)
1535—1536.
Character of Anne Boleyn. — Her conduct before and after Marriage.—
The King's Inconstancy. — His pretended Jealousy. — Anne is committed
to the Tower. —Her Conduct. — Her Letter to the King. — Her Examina
tion before the Privy Council. — Her alleged Accomplices indicted and
executed. — Q-ueen Anne and her Brother tried and found guilty. — Her
Brother executed. —Brought to Lambeth. —Cranmer declares her Mar
riage null. — Her Execution  159
CHAP. VIII.
TO THE DEATH OF THE KING,
HENRY VIII. (continued.)
1536—1547.
Thomas Cromwell appointed the King's Vicegerent. — His unlimited Power.
— Suppression of religious Houses, and Seizure of their Estates. — Revolt
in Lincolnshire headed by Mackrel. —Suppression of Monasteries perse-

Vlll CONTENTS.
vered in. — Conduct of the Clergy. — Rights of Property considered.—
Creed imposed by Proclamation. — Reformers discouraged. — Anne of
Cleves.— Thomas Cromwell, his attainder. —His Execution.— Court
ney Marquess of Exeter. — Cardinal Pole. — King's Marriage with Lady
Catharine Howard. — Execution of Margaret Pole. — Lady Catharine
Howard executed. — King marries Catharine Parr. — War with France.
— Howard Earl of Surrey.— His Execution. —Attainder of the Duke of
Norfolk. — Death of the King.— His Will. — Parliamentary Reform in
this Reign. —Death. of Luther.— His Character. — Extent of Lulher-
anism  •  173
CHAP. IX.
EDWARD VI.
1547—1553.
Edward VI. proclaimed. —His Character. —Duke of Somerset Protector.
— Persecutions mitigated. — Progress of the Reformation. — Bishops
nominated by the King. — Sir Thomas Seymour. —Is condemned and ex
ecuted. — Insurrection in Cornwall. — Rising in Norfolk. — Insurgents
defeated by Warwick. — Ket, their leader, hanged. — The Protector Som
erset becomes unpopular. — Confederacy against him. — Is deposed. — His
Opponent, Warwick, appointed Lord High Admiral. — Somerset enlarged
on Payment of a Fine. — Is restored to the Council. — Is reconciled with
Warwick. — Again at variance. — Is committed to the Tower. —Tried
and executed. — Treatment of Bonner and Gardiner. — Severe Restric
tions on the Princess Mary. — Character of Edward. — Articles of the
Church. —Law of Divorce. —King's Illness. —Edward settles the Crown
on Jane Seymour. — The Death of Edward  206
CHAP. X.
LADY JANE SEYMOUR.
1553.
Proclamation of Queen Jane. — Opposition of Mary's Party. — Conduct of
the Lady Jane. — Her Remonstrances. — Apathy of the People. — Ridley
preaches in Support of Jane's Title. — Both Mary and Jane exercise the
Rights of Sovereigns. — Weakness of Jane's Party. — Mary proclaimed
Queen. —Her Party seize the Tower. — Resignation of Jane  237
CHAP. XI.
MARY.
1553—1558-
Mary arrives in London. — Liberates her Party from the Tower. —North
umberland and other Lords tried and executed. — Catholic Bishops re
stored. — Cranmer and Latimer committed to the Tower. — The Emperor
influences Mary. — Sessions of Parliament. —Approaches towards Re
union with the Church of Rome. — Coronation of Maiy. —Discontents
of the Protestants. —Negotiation for the Marriage of Mary with Philip
of Spain. — Communications with Rome. —Cardinal Pole appointed Le-

CONTENTS. IX
gate. — Opposition of the Commons to the Marriage. — Abortive Plan of
Revolt. — Mary's Speech at Guildhall. — Wyatt's Attack on London.—
His Defeat and Surrender. — Lady Jane Grey and Lord Dudley convicted
of Treason. — Executed. — The Princess Elizabeth at Ashridge. — Is
conducted to London. — Is imprisoned in the Tower. — Is removed to
Woodstock. — Philip lands at Southampton. — His Marriage with Mary
solemnized. — Parliament at Westminster. — Reconciliation with Rome.
— Cardinal Pole. — Mary Queen of Scots — Persecutions of the Protest
ants. — Bonner, Bishop of London. — English Ambassadors at Rome. —
Death of Ridley and Latimer. — Martyrdom of Cranmer. — Pole raised
to the See of Canterbury. — Extent of the Persecution of Protestants —
State of the Exiles. — Philip succeeds Charles V. — Embassy from Russia.
— Execution of Lord Stourton for Murder. — English Army sent to
Spain.— Battle of St Quentin. — Fall of Calais.- Death of Maiy. —Her
Character. — Death of Pole. — Religious Persecutions abroad. — The In
quisition. — Council of Trent. — Origin of the Jesuits. — Their Progress
and Influence. — Pascal  240

APPENDIX.
I. Proportion of different Troops in the Army of Henry VII.
II. Note on Lord Bacon.
III. Anne Boleyn's Letter to Henry VIII., from a Manuscript in the
British Museum.
IV. Extracts from State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. (hitherto
unpublished.)

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP. I.
WAR. OF THE KOSES.
HENRY VI.— EDWARD IV.
1422—1483.
The history of the expulsion of the English army from
France has been briefly related at the close of the former
volume. The civil wars between the partisans of the heredi
tary pretensions of the house of York and the adherents to
the parliamentary establishment of the house of Lancaster,
which followed this event, cannot be understood without some
review of the internal administration of the kingdom, the
state of the royal family, and the animosities among the coun
sellors of the king during the first thirty years of his nominal
rule. This state of affairs contributed to plunge the nation
into convulsions, and conduced also to clothe violent revolu
tions in the robes of law and of form ; thin disguises, indeed,
yet serving as some restraint on the rapacity, and as some
obstacle to the progress, of an otherwise boundless ambition.
The first parliament of Henry was convoked in November,
1422, when he was in the tenth month of his age, with all the
circumstances of grave mockery and solemn falsehood which
characterize the acts done in the name of minor kings.
This parliament was held in virtue of a commission to which
the great seal was affixed, as the commissioners gravely aver
red, by the command of an infant who had not yet uttered an
articulate sound. That assembly, however, thus resting its
authority solely on the pretended order of a child who had not
learned to speak, conferred the regency of both kingdoms,
with the administration of France, on the duke of Bedford,
and tire protectorship of England, in his absence, on his brother
the duke of Gloucester. By an act, the first, perhaps, drawn
in English, a language since so fertile in such measures, it
granted a subsidy to the crown. In the midst of apparent
humility and prostrate submission before a royal infant, they
nominated a council of regency, without whose consent no

12 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 1422.
considerable act of state was to be legal. This body was
composed of five prelates, six great lay lords, and five of the
minor nobility, who, after a course of ages, being gradually
amalgamated with the wealthier commoners, formed that
body, unknown in other countries, called among us the gen
try.* Bedford, whose title as regent gave him a higher au
thority than his brother, might at any time really supersede
the protector by returning to England ; and the powers of the
council of state reduced, on ordinary occasions, the protectoral
authority within narrow limits.
In the parliament of the succeeding year, the ransom and
marriage of the king of Scots, who for twenty years had been
detained a prisoner, — with all due honor and state, indeed, but
without a shadow of law or allegation of right, — were regu
lated by the advice and with the consent of both houses. At
this time, by the death of Edmund, last earl of March, the
hereditary pretensions of the house of Clarence became vested
in Richard Plantagenet duke of York, the son of Anne Mor
timer, heiress of that family : Richard, however, being then
only a boy of fourteen, a serious prosecution of his claim was
not to be apprehended.f So little, indeed, were his preten
sions feared, that long afterwards Bedford and Gloucester, the
king's uncles, as well as the duke of Somerset and cardinal
Beaufort, the sons of John of Gaunt by Catherine Swineford,
and thence the leaders of the Lancastrian party, thought it a
safe policy to unite all the branches of the royal family, by
granting to the duke of York in succession the lieutenancy
of Ireland and the regency of France. Dissensions early arose
between Humphrey duke of Gloucester and Thomas bishop
of Winchester, afterwards cardinal, whose shares in the gov
ernment at home were too equally poised for the ambition of
either. These feuds ran so high, that it became necessary for
the duke of Bedford to compel both parties in full parliament
to refer their differences to the arbitrement of certain peers
and prelates. An oblivion of past quarrels and a promise of
friendship in time to comej was awarded, and was confirmed
by professions and salutations on both sides, in the presence
of the estates in parliament assembled ; professions which, if
slightly sincere at the moment on either side, were so super
ficial that the impression was quickly effaced by rivalship.
Beaufort, whose private life was more that of a prince than
that of a prelate, was politic, martial, penurious, except on

* Rot. Pari. iv. pp. 169—174.
t Dugdale, i. 161. I
fanuary, 1425.
1 Rot. Pari. iv. 399.

t Dugdale, i. 161. Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, died on the 23d of
January, 1425.

1427. GLOUCESTER AND BEAUFORT. 13
occasions of parade, and combined the jarring passions of love
of power and of love of money. With his knowledge, which
for that age was not contemptible, his long observation, and
his expertness in affairs, he did not easily brook an inferiority
of place to a boy. The first subject of contest between the
two chiefs was the possession of the Tower of London, which
involved the custody of the infant king. The apparently
amicable settlement of this point was followed by disputes
whether the power of the council of regency, in which Beau
fort exercised a great ascendant, ought not to be enlarged at
the expense of the protector. Attempts were at the same
time made to exclude Beaufort from the council, on the ground
of his being a cardinal, and, in that high character, the coun
sellor of another potentate. The parliament, however, sanc
tioned his continuance in office,* notwithstanding this natural
jealousy, which has often prevailed in Catholic countries. In
the parliamentary rolls of 1427, there is a declaration of the
lords in parliament, composed in the English language, and
addressed to the duke of Gloucester, who had demanded that
they should accurately define the power and authority which
appertained unto him as "protector and defendour of this
land." The duke refused to come to parliament until such a
definition was made, as " he had formerly desired to have the
governance of this land, as well by birth as by the last will
of the late king." The answer of the lords was peremptory
and authoritative. They apprized the duke that the late king
" might not by his last will, nor otherwise, alter without the
consent of the estates, nor grant to any person the governance
of this land longer than he lived ; and that the desire of the
duke was not according to the laws of this land, but was
against the right and freedom of the estates of the same
land." They nevertheless for the sake of peace declared, by
the authority of the king and the three estates, that in the
absence of his brother, Bedford, he (Gloucester) should be
chief of the king's council, "not with the name of lieutenant-
governor, nor regent, nor any other that importeth authority
over the land, but with the name of protector and defender,
which importeth a personal duty of attendance to the actual
defence of the land ;" and, finally, referred him to the act of
parliament which named him as the sole measure of the power
of his office, f
So absolute was the supremacy of parliament, and so com
pletely did they assume to themselves the power of the minor
king, that they thus regulated the distribution of his preroga-
* Rot. Pari. iv. 338. t Ibid- 336-
Vol II. B

14 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1441.
tives and dominions among various officers, some of whom
were so unknown to former usage that it became necessary
to frame new and very indefinite names for them. At various
periods of the minority changes were made in persons, and m
the powers with which they were invested, as if to display
the authority of parliament, but which also indicated the secret
discord between the duke and the cardinal, discord of which
the embers were not yet extinguished. Gloucester sought the
united support of all the legitimate Plantagenets, more espe
cially of Richard duke of York, who, in his governments of
France and of Ireland, conducted himself with the fidelity
becoming his just and moderate character. The lay represent
ative of the domineering cardinal was his nephew, Henry
Beaufort, afterwards duke of Somerset. The two ministers
tried their strength in the question relating to the release of
the duke of Orleans, a prisoner since the battle of Agincourt,
whom the cardinal procured to be enlarged, with such dis
pleasure on the part of Gloucester that he protested against
the measure, and took to his barge to avoid sanctioning by
his presence the oaths of the enlarged prince not to turn his
liberty and his arms against England.*
In the ensuing year a more conspicuous blow was struck at
the protector's greatness. In that age the charge of sorcery
was irresistible. It blasted all whom it touched, raising such
a storm of indignation and abhorrence that no mind had calm
ness remaining to distinguish guilt from innocence, if such
terms can properly be applied to this imaginary crime. It was
the sharpest weapon of churchmen, who were thought most
capable of discriminating and subduing the confederates of
the infernal powers. An accusation of sorcery and treason
was brought against Elinor Cobham, the wife or concubine of
Gloucester. She was charged with having framed a waxen
statue of the king, whom she was slowly to torture, and finally
to destroy, by such applications to this image, as, according to
the first principles of necromancy, would become painful and
fatal inflictions on the royal person. An ecclesiastic named
Bolingbroke, her husband's secretary, Hum her chaplain, and
Southwell, a canon of St. Stephen's chapel in Westminster,
men of most repute for knowledge of any in their time, were
convicted with her of the same composition of necromancy
and treason. One suffered public execution ; two died secretly
and suddenly in prison. Elinor herself, on the 13th of Novem
ber, 1441, was brought from Westminster by water, and landed
at the Temple bridge, from whence, with a taper of wax of
* Fenu. or Paston Letters, i. 3. 1 Nov. 1440, 19 H. 6.

1445. MARGARET OF ANJOU. 15
two pounds weight in her hand, she went through Fleet-street,
"hoodless, save a kerchief, to St. Paul's, where she offered her
taper." At two other days in the same week she was landed
at Queenhithe and in Thames-street, whence she made the
like penitential procession to other shrines in the city; at
all which times the mayor, sheriffs, and crafts of London re
ceived her and accompanied her : the march, doubtless, pre
served the show of voluntary penitence ; and the exposure of
the king's aunt was softened by some tokens of her royal con
nexion. She was afterwards committed to the custody of Sir
John Stanley, comptroller of the household: a chronicler de
scribes her to have been sent by him " to dwell an outlaw in
the wilds of the Isle of Man." But by the more credible tes
timony of records it appears that she had been committed a
prisoner to his castle of Chester, whence she is traced to Ken-
ilworth, where she disappears from history.* The sorcerers
themselves doubtless trusted as much the potent malignity of
their own spells as other men dreaded them. They intended
to do evil, and believed that they had accomplished their fell
purposes. They might be thought as wicked as real demons,
if it were possible for mankind to contemplate with lasting
abhorrence intentions and designs which are known from
their nature to be for ever incapable of being carried into
execution ; yet their black attempts spread dismay and alarm
among mankind, and the general apprehension was as real aa
evil as if the means contemplated had been substantial and
efficacious. While the bulwarks of Gloucester's security as well as
dignity were thus loosened around him, and though he saw
his connexions crumbling on every side, Tie was obliged "to
take all patiently, and said little."-f Another transaction
occurred which speedily threw the whole current of authority
into new channels: this was the marriage of the imbecile
king with a French princess of great spirit and renown, Mar
garet, the daughter of Rene of Anjou, titular king of Sicily;
a woman with the allurements but without the virtues of her
sex, endowed with masculine faculties, trained in the sanguine
hopes and wild projects of adventurous exile, and who became
as fearless and merciless as any of the heroes of her time.
Thus the guidance of the most timid and effeminate of nton-
archs fell to the charge of the fiercest and one of the ablest
of females. The marriage was solemnized in May, 1445, with
a splendor more becoming the aetual state than suited to the
impending fortunes of the king. In a curious account of the
* Ellis's Royal Letters, second series, i, 107. Rymer, xi. 45. f Grafton

16 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1447.
nuptial pomp by a contemporary chronicler,* we are struck by
the show and bravery of the trading companies of London,
already mingling the display of their commercial wealth with
the gorgeous magnificence of princes and lords. One circum
stance brought unpopularity on the marriage, and on Suffolk
who had concluded the treaty. The territories of Maine and
Anjou had been ceded to Rene in the matrimonial treaty.
They were' the keys of Normandy; which, being placed in
the weak hands of Rene, enabled the French army to over
run that most English of the provinces situated in France.
The final attack on Gloucester was made in the year fol
lowing that of the marriage. It is a transaction buried in deep
obscurity ; of which a probable account may be hazarded, but
of which little, except the perpetration of an atrocious murder,
can be affirmed with certainty. General belief, and our most
ancient writers, trace it to the deep-rooted animosity between
the cardinal Beaufort and the duke of Gloucester. We find
them engaged in angry and fierce contest from the beginning,
without any appearance of their enmities having really ceased
to the last. Even in his most advanced age, there is no indi
cation that the cardinal renounced his inveterate habits of
ambitious intrigue, the last vice perhaps extinguished by gray
hairs. In the mean time, however, the chief administration
of public affairs had gradually slid into the hands of William
de la Pole, earl and afterwards duke of Suffolk, son of the
unfortunate favorite of Richard II. His grandfather, Sir Wil
liam de la Pole, a merchant at Hull, had, by loans and supplies
to Edward III. during the French wars, raised his family to
the threshold of nobility. After the cardinal's decay, and the
appearance of a domineering queen, Suffolk became like his
predecessor the enemy of Gloucester.
The minister felt a prince engaged in public affairs to be a
formidable rival. His jealousy was quickened by Gloucester's
popularity, and by the compassion of the multitude for the
ignominy heaped on his family and adherents. His condem
nation of the pacific policy adopted towards France (first
shown in his resistance to the duke of Orleans's enlargement),
and his affectation of zeal for the more heroic councils of Henry
V., contributed to offend the queen and to displease the minis
ter of a new system. De la Pole himself, who had risen under
the cardinal, can hardly be believed to have embarked in any
enterprise against his own, the prelate's, and the queen's
enemy, without perfect assurance that it would not be unac
ceptable either to, Beaufort or to.Margaret. The advanced

1447. MURDER OF GLOUCESTER. 17
years of the cardinal were likely to be more soothed than dis
pleased by one of those irregular blows against an enemy
which were considered as master-strokes of policy. It is ho
wonder, then, that the crime directly perpetrated by De la
Pole has always been thought not to have been disapproved
by the young queen ; and, to use the significant words of an
old chronicler, " to be not unprocured by the cardinal." In
February 1447, at a parliament holden at St. Edmund's Bury,
the lord viscount Beaumont, by the king's command, ar
rested Humphrey duke of Gloucester for divers acts of high
treason. If there were any parliamentary proceedings on the
subject, no part of them is to be found in the printed rolls of
parliament* Within two days of the committal the duke
was found dead in his prison. His body, which was exposed
to public view, had no outward marks of violence. No legal
inquiry into the circumstances of the death of the presump
tive heir to the throne seems to have been demanded. Some
of the most remarkable circumstances of the case are a grant
of the county of Pembroke, a part of his vast possessions (if
he should die without issue) to De la Pole, his accuser aisd
destroyer, executed some time before ; the mockery of suing
out administration for the king as next of kin to his uncle,
who died intestate ; and the seizure of the dower of the un
happy Eliner, which they alleged to be forfeited by her pre
tended crimes. Many were thrown into prison as Gloucester's
accomplices. Of these, five gentlemen of the duke's house
hold, Sir Roger Chamberlayne, Middleton, Herbert, Arthur,
and Needham, were condemned to be hanged, drawn, and
quartered ; on what proof and by what mode of trial, we know
not. Suffolk the prime minister was, it seems, present at their
trial, and more certainly on the day of execution. When the
culprits were cut down, and after their bodies were marked
for quartering, the duke of Suffolk took a paper out of his
pocket containing the king's pardon, which he read aloud to
the multitude,! assigning the reasons of the royal .mercy, one
of which was the indecency of a .public execution on Friday.
The duke of Gloucester had endeared himself to the people
in some measure, perhaps, by his zeal against the French
party, but more justly by his generosity, valor, and encourage
ment of letters, with which he was himself not untinctured.
He was long bewailed as the good duke of Gloucester.
He was followed to the grave within two months by his old
* The imperfect state of the rolls revives my envy of those historical in
quirers who will have the good fortune to begin their labors after Mr. Pal-
grave's edition shall be completed.
t Fabian, 013. 4to. London, 1812.
B2

18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1450.
rival the cardinal, who did not leave behind him so good a
name. The Lancastrian party was thus stripped of its chiefs.
No male Plantagenet of that lineage remained but the pageant
king ; and the execution of Somerset completed that naked
and defenceless position of the crown which had been caused
by the murder of Gloucester.
In the year 1450 the administration of Suffolk was closed,
in a manner of which the outward circumstances are charac
teristic of the time, though the secret springs of it are imper
fectly known to us. He had been impeached in 1447 for high
treason, in exciting the French to invade England, in order to
depose Henry, and to place on the throne De la Pole's son,
who was to wed Somerset's daughter, considered by the Lan
castrian party as the next in succession to the crown. He was
charged with the loss of Prance by his negotiations in that
country, and with having betrayed the secrets of the state to
the French ministers. Many other illegal and tyrannical acts
were thrown into the scale by the house of commons. Few
of these acts, if proved, would have amounted to treason ;
many of them were either frivolous, or supported only by
vague rumor ; and the remainder were composed of the ir
regularities which no man who had any power to do wrong
was at that time solicitous to avoid. The king, however,
stopped the impeachment.* He called the peers arid the ac
cused into a secret apartment of his palace, where the chan
cellor, by the king's command, acquainted the prisoner that
the king, having considered the charges of treason, held the
duke to be neither acquitted nor convicted : " that touching
the misprisions, the king, by force of your submission, by his
own advice, and not referring himself to the advice of the
lords, nor by way of judgment, — for he is not seated in a place
of judgment, — putteth you to his rule and governance ; and
commands that you shall absent yourself from the realms of
England and France for five years." Lord Beaumont, on
behalf of the lords, protested that they did not share in this
act ; and that it should never be cited in derogation of their
honor, nor to prejudice the privilege of peerage in all time
coming. As far as it is possible to liken so anomalous a proceeding
to legal regularity, the above entry lias some resemblance to
a conditional pardon of the impeachment, with a general un
derstanding, that by a breach of the conditions the prisoner
would expose himself to the king's displeasure. The public,
as we learn from a contemporary, considered the whole as a

* Rot. Pari. v. 182.

1450. MURDER OF SUFFOLK. 19
juggle ; and " it was believed that the duke of Suffolk was
right well at ease and merry, and in the king's good grace,
and in the good conceit of the lords as well as ever."* The
prevalence of such surmises renders the event Which followed
somewhat more unintelligible. The duke took shipping for
- Calais, in pursuance of the king's command. He was stopped
near the coast by one of the largest vessels of those times,
called the " Nicholas of the Tower," which carried 150 men.
The commander of that ship sent a party on board the duke's
bark to bring him to the Nicholas, and on his being brought
said to him, " Welcome, traitor ! as men say." He was al
lowed a confessor ; and on the next day, 2d May, 1450, the
duke, in sight of all his men, who looked on from their small
vessel, was drawn out of the great ship into the boat, where
there were an ax and a block, and one of the meanest of the
mariners bade him lay down his head and he should die by the
sword. The seaman then took a rusty sword, with which, in
half a dozen strokes,-)- he cut the head from the body,
It seems evident that the instrument of the downfall of De
la Pole was the hatred of the people, and of the house of com
mons, raised to the utmost pitch by the barbarous murder of
Gloucester, apparently the most popular Plantagenet since the
Black Prince. But the component portions of the party form
ed against him, their leader, and their motives are not to be
so easily understood. How the queen, then all-powerful,
looked calmly on his overthrow, seems incompatible with the
whole of her conduct since he had negotiated the marriage.
It is not more easy to conjecture the authority or the induce
ments which, after he had been released by the king and
sheltered from popular fury in mild banishment, caused him
to be dragged from the vessel which was bearing him to the
place of his appointed exile ; to be carried by force on board a
ship of the state; and, by order of her commander, to be
murdered in open day, with some butcherly mimicry of an
execution of public justice. Perhaps the ambitious queen,
and her late colleagues in administration, yielded to the fear
of those commotions which the swell of the sea and the black
ness of the clouds indicated not to be distant ; nor is it im
probable that Margaret, loaded by him with burdensome ben
efits, might have shown that she should not be inconsolable if
she were delivered from a man who had the power to bestow
so much good, and consequently to inflict so much evil. The
contemporary relater of this barbarous deed tells his corre-
* Fenn. i. 29.
f Ibid. i. 39. evidently from the words of an eye-witness.

20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1450.
spondenl, that, in writing it, " he had so washed his short let
ter with sorrowful tears, that it would be scarcely possible to
read it :" tears which, if they were those of humanity, do
honor to the memory of Suffolk, but which may only have
been the regret of a partisan at the loss of the leader of his
faction. Before the impeachment of Suffolk, some risings of the
people, who took the nickname of blue-beard, manifested the
gathering discontent. In the month of June, immediately after
the murder of that minister, a body of the peasantry of Kent
met on Blackheath in arms, under a leader of disputed de
scent, who has been transmitted to posterity with the nick
name of Jack Cade.* On him they bestowed the honorable
name of John Mortimer, with manifest allusion to the claims
of the house of Mortimer to the succession; which were,
however, now indisputably vested in Richard duke of York.
In the force assembled by the king were many not untainted
by the disaffection of the peasantry. After the defeat of a
part of the royal troops at Seven Oaks, the remainder refused
to fight. Lord Say was committed to the Tower to satisfy
the revolters. The king, driven from the field, took shelter
in London; and on occasion of a second revolt of the common
alty of Essex, he fled to Kenilworth, lest he and his court
should be surrounded. Cade now assumed the attire, orna
ments, and style of a knight; and, under the title of captain,
he professed to preserve the country by enforcing the rigorous
observance of discipline among his followers. The duke of
Buckingham and the archbishop of Canterbury, who had been
sent to negotiate with him, acknowledged that they found him
" right discrete in his answers ; howbeit they could not cause
him to lay down his people, and to submit him" (uncondition
ally) " unto the king's grace."
He made a triumphant entry into London, in the shining
armor and gilt spurs of a knight, and issued a proclamation
forbidding, under pain of death, his men from taking any
thing without payment ; an indulgence which, however, he
is said by his enemies, through whom alone we know him, to
have granted to himself. He rode in exultation through
divers streets ; and as he came by London stone, he struck it
with his sword, saying, " Now is Mortimer lord of the city ! "
Lord Say, the treasurer, was executed with a few others. A
battle or bloody scuffle was continued during the night on
London bridge, in which success seemed to incline to the in-
* Stowe alone represents this leader's name to have really been Cade. In
a contemporary record he is called Mr. John Aylmere, physician.— Ellis's
Letters, i. second series, I 12.

1452. BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. 21
surgents, until the archbishop of Canterbury sent to Cade
pardons for himself and his companions ; " by reason whereof
he and his company departed the same night out of South-
wark, and returned every man to his own home."* In the
subsequent attainder of Cade,f the treasons for which he was
attainted are, indeed, alleged to have been committed on the
8th and 9th of July, in order that he might not seem to have
suffered for any act pardoned by the general amnesty which
was granted on the 7th of July ; but his enemies had leisure
and opportunity, for more than twelve months after his death,
to adapt their forms and dates to their own purposes. The
two days which immediately followed the amnesty might
have been employed in reaching a place of safe and conve
nient dispersion : a certain military array and order, which
were technically treasonable, might have been necessary to
this inoffensive purpose ; insomuch that, according to all the
fair and honorable rules of construction, a march to a place
of dispersion might have justly b'een comprehended under the
protection of the amnesty. It seems also evident that all the
legal executions took place after the death of Cade ; and the
chroniclers hint at no distinction between the treasons before
and those after the general pardon.
The pretensions of the house of York, which seemed to
have been so long forgotten, were now revived by the popular
virtues of the duke of York contrasted with the insignificance
of Henry ; by the arrogance and violence of Margaret, who
bore prosperity so ill and adversity so well ; by the loss of
France ; by the long dishonor brought on the English arms ;
and by the general opinion that a bodily infirmity attended
the mental imbecility of Henry, which was likely to render
him the last descendant of John of Gaunt.
But the last and most promising expectation of a pacific
issue amidst jarring pretensions was disappointed by the un
expected pregnancy of the queen and the birth of her ill-
omened son, Edward prince of Wales ; which last event oc
curred on the 13th of October, 1453,| seven years after the
marriage. Till that birth it seemed possible to preserve the
public quiet and avert an armed contest for the crown, by
vesting the administration during Henry's life in Richard,
and leaving the succession to its natural course ; which, af
ter the death of* that prince, would place the crown on the
brow of Richard duke of York, the Plantagenet of undisputed
* Fabian, 625. t Hot. Pari. v. 229.
| " His noble mother sustained not a little disclaunder of the common
people saying, that he was not the natural son of king Henry." — Fabian,
028.

22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1453.
legitimacy nearest to the throne. A prince of less estimable
and unambitious character than Richard might have been
well satisfied with so ample a share of the power and dignity
of royalty, either in possession or in expectation ; but the
birth of Edward blocked up this single road to peace, and, by
opening a possible prospect of numerous issue, threatened the
whole kingdom with the odious dictatorship of Margaret,
continued through the imbecility of her husband, and the mi
nority of a series of perhaps equally suspected children.*
The duke of York impeached the duke of Somerset for the
loss of Normandy and Aquitaine ; but chiefly with an inten
tion to weaken his power as the Lancastrian leader. It was
not, however, till the birth of the prince that the claims of
York began to be seriously made. Though an unfriendly
correspondence between York and the king's prompters had
subsisted for some time, it seemed only to be one of the mili
tary impeachments, which had become a frequent though
lawless mode of removing evil counsellors, and which was
regarded as a baronial privilege. It is not, indeed, wonderful
that the mere principle of hereditary succession should have
been so long kept out of public view. Few pretensions can
be more glaringly absurd than that of the house of York, as
far as it barely rested on that supposed principle. The de
scendants of John of Gaunt had now filled the throne for
nearly sixty years : they were raised to it by a solemn par
liamentary establishment, confirmed by the general obedience
of the whole nation, and by manifold oaths of allegiance from
successive generations of the hereditary pretenders them
selves. To press the convenient rule of hereditary succes
sion to such an extremity, was to expose society to that disor
der and anarchy from wjiich monarchy was regarded as a
refuge. If an inquiry into titles could be thus retrospective,
what principle could limit its operation 1 Surely the heirs of
Edgar Atheling, if not those of king Arthur, ought to be pre
ferred to the descendants of Edward III. A restoration after
an establishment of sixty years is a revolution, and leads to an
endless series of revolutions. The revived establishment is
as untried by the existing generation as if it had not subsist
ed in past times ; it is as little known from experience whether
it will be suitable to their needs ; combined as it must be with
new and unknown agents, no man can foretell its future course
* " His mother sustained not a little slander and obloquy of the common
people, who had an opinion that the king was not able to get a child ; and
therefore slulked not to say that this was not his son ; with many slan
derous words to the queen's dishonor, much perhaps untruly." — Holinshed,
iii. 236.

1453. ANNALS OF THE CIVIL WAR OBSCURE. 23
from a remembrance of its former power in a simpler form or
in other combinations.
It seems, accordingly, to have been rather from the personal
merit of the duke of York, from the general proximity of his
family to the royal blood, from the habit of considering them
as presumptive heirs of the crown for the thirty years which
elapsed between the extinction of the Mortimers and the birth
of prince Edward, than from any strong sense or even distinct
conception of hereditary right, that the English nation, hum
bled abroad and agitated at home, began to turn their eyes to
the first prince of the blood, and to seek a refuge under his
sway from the passionate tyranny of Margaret, whether ex
ercised through an imbecile husband or a minor son.
The civil war between the red rose of Lancaster and the
white rose of York is, in every sense, the darkest period of
our history within the time in which its outlines are ascer
tained by documentary evidence. We are no longer enlight
ened, as in otherwise less advanced times, by such excellent
writers as Bede, Malmesbury, and Matthew Paris. A few
strokes of Comines throw a more clear and agreeable light
over our story than the scanty information of our own meager
and unskilful writers. This defect in historical materials
seems to depend in part on peculiar circumstances in the pro
gress of our literature and language. The war of the roses
fills an insulated space between the cessation of Latin annal
ists and the rise of English historians. Men of genius ceased
to write in a language of which the employment narrowed
their power over the opinions and applauses of their country
men. During the' period which we now contemplate, they
may be said to have paused before they turned their powers
of writing towards their native tongue, although it was daily
more fitted for their purpose by its successful employment in
the contests of the bar and the senate. The nature of the
civil war itself, which was merely personal ; the multiplicity
of its obscure and confused incidents ; the frequent instances
of success without ability, and of calamity befalling the un
known and uninteresting ; the monotonous cruelty of every
party, which robbed horror itself of its sway over the soul ;
together with the unsafe and unsteady position of most indi
viduals, which repressed the cultivation of every province of
literature, more especially repelled men of letters from re
lating the inglorious misfortunes of themselves and of their
country. More obvious causes contributed towards the same
effect. The general war often broke out in local eruptions
and provincial commotions, which no memory could follow.
The mind is often perplexed at the sudden changes in the

24 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1454.
political conduct of chiefs, which arise from momentary im
pulses of great danger, or of newer and stronger hatred,
which act with redoubled force in times of convulsion. The
inconstancy is made to appear greater than it really was, by
those alterations of name and title, which occasion some diffi
culties in our most orderly times.
Some of the preludes of civil confusion deserve notice, as
curious specimens of a laborious regard paid to the forms
and fictions of law amidst the dread of tumult and carnage.
Thomas Thorp, a baron of exchequer, and speaker of the
house of commons, who had been, by the duke of York's pro
curement, committed to prison to enforce payment of a fine,
sought his enlargement on the ground of parliamentary privi
lege. "The lords spiritual and temporal not intending to
empeche or hurt the liberties and privileges of theym that
were comen for the commune of this land, for this present
parliament, asked the judges whether the said Thomas ought
to be delivered from prison by privilege of parliament. The
chief justice, in the name of all the justices, answered and
said, that they ought not to answer to that question ; for it has
not been used aforetime that the. justices should in anywise
determine the privilege of this high court of parliament ; for
it is so high and so mighty in its nature, that it may make
law, and the determination and knowledge of that privilege
belongeth to the lords of the parliament, and not to the judges."
Thus did the independent power of the house of commons
flourish in the midst of storms, and the foundations of legal
liberty were laid by the violent contests of ambition merely
personal. In the same parliament, which was holden in the abbey of
Reading by John Tiptoft earl of Worcester, a statesman nei
ther merciful nor spotless, but distinguished as one of the
earliest patrons and even cultivators of letters among the
English nobility, another scene was exhibited, which lays
open to us the deplorable condition of the king. A committee
of three spiritual and eight temporal lords was appointed to
confer with the king on measures of state,* or, in plainer lan
guage, to ascertain Henry's capacity for government. " The
bishop of Chester read to him part of his instructions ; to this
statement they could get no answer nor sign for none of their
prayers or desires. After dinner they moved him again for
an answer; but they could have none. From that place they
willed the king to go into another chamber, and he was led
between two men to the chamber where he lieth ; and there they
* March 23, 1451. Rot. Pari. v. 241, 212.

1455. YORK CHOSEN PROTECTOR. 25
stirred him the third time, but they could have no answer,
word, nor sign, and therefore with sorrowful hearts came their
way." Having thus ascertained the total incapacity of the
king, the lords chose the duke of York to be protector and
defender of the kingdom, which he accepted ; protesting, how
ever, that he did not assume the title or authority of protector,
but was chosen by the parliament of themselves, and of then-
own free and mere disposition ; and that he should be ready to
resume his obedience to the- king's commands, as soon as it
was notified and declared unto him by the' parliament that
Henry was restored to his health of body and mind. Applying
precedents of infancy to a case apparently of temporary idiocy,
they then proceeded to a notable expedient, copied in modern
and very recent times— commanding the chancellor to frame
and seal a commission in "the king's name and by his authority,
as well as with the advice and consent of the lords and com
mons, nominating the infant prince of Wales, when he reaches
years of discretion, to be protector of the kingdom ; but ap
pointing Richard duke of York to exercise the office till that
infant prince should be of age : the whole to be in force during
the king's pleasure.
The duke of York gained the support of the potent earls of
Salisbury and Warwick, by his marriage with their sister, the
lady Cicely Neville. These lords led into the field the well-
tried borderers of Wales. Mowbray duke of Norfolk, and
Courtenay earl of Devon, were zealous Yorkists. London and
its neighborhood favored the pretensions of that party. All
who had suffered from or were indignant at the tyranny of
Margaret, all who earnestly sought to avenge the murder of
the good duke of Gloucester, or to punish the lawless execu
tion of Suffolk, flocked to the standard of redress, in hopes of
winning the possession of the kingly pageant, by whose hand
the queen still ruled the kingdom. Percy, in Northumber
land, and Clifford in Cumberland, led a border force to the aid
of Margaret. She was supported by the dukes of Somerset
and Buckingham, by Edmund of Hadham earl of Richmond,
and Jasper of Hatfield earl of Pembroke, the king's half-
brothers, the issue of the second marriage of his mother Cath
erine of France, with Owen ap Tudor, a Welsh gentleman,
who, as the house of Lancaster was thinned by violent deaths,
came gradually to be considered, if not as princes of that
family, at least as the chiefs of the Lancastrian party. The
court, fearful of the popularity of the Yorkists in the capital,
advanced towards the north, where they themselves had nu
merous partisans. The two parties first met at St. Alban's on
Thursday the 23d of May, 1455, to contend with small means
Vol. II. C

26 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1455.
for an immense prize ; the king being attended to the field by
only 2000 soldiers, and the duke by no more than 3000. The
duke, in the humblest language, assured the king of the loyal
attachment of himself and his friends to his majesty's sacred
person; but they added, "Please it your majesty royal to
deliver such as we will accuse, and they to have like as they
have deserved, you to be honorably worshipped as most right
ful king and our true governor."* The king sternly answered
these applications by commanding the rebels to disperse ; and
by declaring that " rather than they shall have any lord that
here is with me at this time, I shall this day, for their sake,
in this quarrel myself live or die." York considered this
refusal as a lawful cause of war. While the messages were
passing between the two camps, and when the vigilance of
the king's officers was somewhat lulled, the earl of Warwick,
rushing into the town at the head of his hardy marchmen,
threw the enemy into a confusion from which they were
unable to recover. The royalists were dispersed. Three of
their chiefs, the duke of Somerset, the earl of Northumber
land, and the lord Clifford, with less than 200 of the commoner
sort, fell in this engagement, which might rather be called a
scuffle than a battle. f
An extraordinary carnage among the commanders was ob
served by contemporaries to distinguish this fatal war. " In
my remembrance," says Philip de Comines,| " eighty princes
of the blood royal of England perished in these convulsions ;
seven or eight battles were fought in the course of thirty
years ; their own country was desolated by the English as
cruelly as the former generation had wasted France. Those
who were spared by the sword renewed their sufferings in
foreign lands. I myself saw the duke of Exeter, the king of
England's brother-in-law, walking barefoot after the duke of
Burgundy's train, and earning his bread by begging from door
to door." Every individual of two generations of the families
of Somerset and Warwick fell on the field, or on the scaffold,
a victim of these bloody contests. 5
Immediately after the battle of St. Alban's, York called a
parliament, or caused Henry to issue writs for that purpose,
in order to sanction his victory by the show of order and law.
At the opening of the session on Wednesday, the 9th of June,
1455, the king being seated on his throne, with all the display
of liberty and dignity,|| he declared the duke of York and the
* Holinshed. f Fenn, i. 100.
t Comines, liv. i. chap. vii. ; liv. iii. chap. iv. § Fenn's Letters.
|| " Ipso domino jege in camera depicta regali solio residente." Rot.
Pari. v. 278.

1456. HENRY RESUMES HIS AUTHORITY. 27
earls of Warwick and Salisbury to be innocent of the slaugh
ter caused at St. Alban's by the duke of Somerset's having
concealed their letter from the king ; and, with the consent
of parliament, he pronounced the Yorkist lords, and those who
aided them, to be " our true and faithful liegemen." A gene
ral pardon was granted; the parliament was prorogued till
the 12th of November, when it was opened by the duke of
York, under a commission from the king; the duke was
elected protector by the lords, on the repeated proposition of
the commons ; and the chancellor gave the royal assent on
behalf of a prince, whose want of capacity to assent or dissent
was the avowed occasion of all these extraordinary proceed
ings. At the next meeting of parliament, however, on the
23d of February, 1456, the king appearing personally, exon
erated the protector from the duties of his office : * for such
was the mild phrase by which he was deprived of its high
powers. Whatever degree of convalescence Henry had attained, the
only effect of his apparent resumption of authority was the
transfer of the custody of the royal person from the protector
to the queen. She it was who probably contrived the dismiss
al of York, by which she mainly profited ; yet the change was
so pacific, and the acquiescence in it so general, that the pro
tector and the parliament must have been considerably influ
enced by the appearances of sanity in the very perplexing
case of a man whose best health was scarcely more than a
shade above total disability. Few men appear to have fallen
into a more hopeless state of childishness and oblivion than
this unfortunate prince. " Blessed be God," says a contempo
rary in 1455, "the king is well amended: on Monday the
queen came to him, and brought my lord prince with her ; and
then he asked what the prince's name was, and the queen told
him Edward, and then he held up his hands, and thanked God
for it ; he said he never knew till that time, nor wist not what
was said to him, nor wist not where he had been since he was
sick."f The secret history of the election for the parliament
of 1455 affords some curious proofs of the solicitude of the
lords to acquire an ascendant in an assembly which was wax
ing stronger. The duke of York, and Mowbray duke of Nor
folk, had an interview at St. Edmund's Bury, to settle the
election.! The names of the candidates favored by these
lords were written on strips of paper, which were distributed
among their yeomanry. The duchess of Norfolk also desired
* Rymer, xi. 373. Rot. Pari. v. 321.
fFenn, i. 80. \ October, 1455. Fenn, i. 98.

28 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1458.
the votes of her friends for John Howard and Sir Roger
Chamberlain, to be knights of the shire, " it being thought
right necessary for divers causes that my lord have at this
time in the parliament such persons as belong unto him, and
be of his menial servants."* These practices are spoken of
familiarly, as if they were the old and general custom, of
which no man then living remembered the origin, or censured
the observance. Probably in very early times, when the com
mons were less independent, such interpositions were more
open and violent.
For three years after the removal of York, the parties
rested on their arms, angrily watching each other, and lying
in wait for specious pretexts or promising opportunities of
crushing their adversaries. It was during this period that the
whole people seems gradually to have arrayed themselves as
Yorkists or Lancastrians. The rancor of party was exaspe
rated by confinement to narrow circles and petty districts.
Feuds began to become hereditary ; and the heirs of the lords
slaughtered at St. Alban's regarded the pursuit of revenge as
essential to the honor of their families, and as a pious office
due to the memory of their ancestors. The delay in an ap
peal to arms was doubtless partly owing to the formal and
wary character of the duke of York, who was solicitous to
combine the substance of power with the appearance of law ;
and who, though a popular candidate for supreme authority,
was still withheld by prudence and principle from the bold
strokes which often place a more daring ambition between a
scaffold and a throne. York and the Nevilles, who were his
mainstay, unable to face the revolution at court, made their
escape to their domains and fastnesses in the north.
In the beginning of 1458, the queen required the attend
ance of the Yorkist lords in London to go through thevain
ceremony of an ostentatious reconciliation with the Lancas
trian chiefs. They entered the capital at the head of their
respective bands of military retainers, with which each of
them garrisoned his dwelling-house, and after an exchange of
professions of forgiveness and promises of kindness, by which
neither party was deceived, the disaffected Yorkists returned
to their castles. During their unwilling residence in London,
the trained bands of the city, amounting to 10,000, and the
active vigilance of Godfrey Boleyn the mayor, were unequal
to the task of restraining the undisciplined licentiousness of
the fierce soldiery, who were now encamped in the capital.
* i. e. bred in his service, which any gentleman might have been. Fenn.

1459. BATTLE OF BLORE HEATH. 29
Under pretence of tumults existing in London, and of the
importance of a journey for the restoration of her husband's
health, Margaret, who knew the attachment of the Londoners
to the house of York, led Henry with her to Coventry, where
they, or rather she, held their residence.
The queen, soon after having brought her husband to Coven
try in 1458, invited the duke of York and the Nevilles to join
in the king's sports of hawking and hunting in Warwickshire.
Either on their journey, or immediately after their arrival,
they received a seasonable warning of Margaret's project for
luring them into Coventry, where she purposed to destroy
them. They fled once more to the seats of their strength ;
but the detection of so foul a scheme of faithless murder
banished the little remains of faith and mercy from the sequel
of the war. The duke returned to his castle of Wigmore,
the ancient seat of the Mortimers. Salisbury went to Mid-
dleham in Yorkshire ; and Warwick to his government of
Calais, " then," says Comines, " considered as the most ad
vantageous appointment at the disposal of any Christian
prince, and that which placed the most considerable force at
the disposal of the governor." " But," says an ancient chron
icler,* " although the bodies of these noble persons were thus
separated asunder by artifice, yet their hearts were united and
coupled in one." They planned a junction. Salisbury began
his march to join York, and proceeded towards London, in
order to rouse the Yorkists of the capital, while the duke re
mained on the Welsh border to recruit his army. With a
force of only 5000 men, Salisbury, before he could effect the
junctions, encountered double that number under the com
mand of lord Audley, whom Margaret had dispatched to in
tercept his march. They met on the 23d of September, 1459,
at Blore Heath, about a mile from Drayton, on the confines of
Shropshire, where Audley was slain and his army defeated,
Salisbury joined York at Ludlow; and fortune seemed to
smile oh the ambition of the respectable pretender to the
throne. One of the most singular reverses of civil war, however,
soon ensued : the combined Yorkists now advanced to attack
the queen's camp, but with the strongest protestations of loy
alty, and " with the intent to remove from the king such per
sons as they thought enemies to the common weal of Eng
land." The earl, of Warwick had found means to join his
friends from Calais with a considerable body, commanded by
Sir Andrew Trollop, a soldier of reputation, but suspected of
*Hall
C2

30 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1460.
secret disaffection to the house of York. The onset was made
on the 12th of October, 1459, near Ludlow : the duke appears"
to have carried his language of loyalty and submission so far
as to dishearten his followers, who ascribed it to despondency.
The king, or rather the queen, made the largest offers of par
don and amnesty. Trollop, whether from loyalty or incon
stancy, or yielding to baser temptations, deserted with his de
tachment in the night; and Richard himself employed the
perilous stratagem of spreading a report that the king was
dead, which elated his troops for a moment, but, as soon as its
falsehood was known, so struck down their spirit, that they no
longer offered any resistance. The duke of York and his.
sons made their escape through Wales into Ireland, where
his influence was great. The Nevilles took refuge on the
continent. A parliament was holden in the abbey of St. Mary's at
Coventry, of which the principal business was to attaint the
duke of York and his adherents of treason.* The acts of this
parliament were afterwards determined to be void, on the
ground that the electors were unduly influenced, and many
nominated by the crown without any form of election ;f but
another sudden turn • of fortune was at hand. The duke of
York prepared to land with Irish auxiliaries, and was joined
by many Welsh. Warwick, who had preserved his important
government of Calais, landed in Kent, and entered London
amidst the acclamations of the people. He advanced to meet
the queen's army, which he encountered near Northampton,
and defeated with great slaughter, especially with that car
nage among the chiefs which was so constant in this war.
The king remained inactive in a tent during a contest which,
with respect to him, could determine nothing but which of
the factions were to possess themselves of his body, and to use
his name as the tool of their ambition. He was treated by the
victors, in all other respects, with the outward formalities of
obsequious politeness. A parliament which assembled at
Westminster on the 2d of October, 1460, annulled, at a blow,
all the proceedings of the late pretended parliament at Cov
entry.}; A few days after the meeting of parliament, Richard
duke of York made his entry into London, with a sword borne
naked before him, with trumpets sounding, and with a great
* Rot. Pari. v. 345.
t "A great part of the knights of shires, citizens, and burgesses, were
named and returned, some of them without due and free election, and some
of them without any election, against the course of your laws and the liber
ties of the communes of this your land." See also Statutes of the Realm,
ii. 378. Pari, holden at London, Oct. 7, 14C0; last statute of Hen. 6.
J Vide supra, p. 25. note.

1460. YORK CLAIMS THE CROWN. 31
train (or a small army) of men-at-arms. Having passed
through the great hall of the palace, he went to the upper
house, where the king and lords used to sit in parliament
time, and stepping forward to the royal throne, laid his hand
upon the cloth of estate, and seemed as if he were taking pos
session of that which was his right* It is needless to cite
the various narratives of the singular scene which followed,
as they are described by our ancient historians, who seldom
thought of searching the materials of their relation in original
and authentic documents. We now know with certainty from
the rolls of parliament,! the claim advanced by Richard, and
the remarkable manner in which a claim so unusual was dealt
with by the lords. On the 16th of October, 1460, the counsel
of Richard duke of York brought into the parliament-chamber
a writing containing his claim to the crown of England and
France, with the lordship of Ireland. The chancellor put the
question, whether such a paper could be read "i It was re
solved unanimously, " That inasmuch as every person, high
or low, suing to this high court of parliament, of right must
be heard, and his petition understood ; this writing must be
heard, though not answered without the king's commandment ;
for so much as the matter is so high, and of so great weight
and poise." The substance of the claim was, that Richard,
being the son of Anne Mortimer, daughter of Roger earl of
March, the son and heir of Philippa, daughter of Lionel duke
of Clarence, the third son of Edward IH., is entitled to the
crowns of England and France, before any of the progeny of
John of Gaunt, who was the fourth son of Edward III. On
the next day the lords waited on the king in a body. He
commanded them to search for all matters which furnished an
answer to this claim. They dutifully and courteously refer
red the question to the king's historical knowledge, whom
they represented as well read in the chronicles. On the 18th,
however, they directed the judges to attend, and required
their advice in devising arguments for the king. The wary
magistrates, in declining the hazardous honor, made answer,
that they had to determine, matters between party and party,
which come before them in the course of law, and in such
matters they cannot be counsel ; and as it has not been accus
tomed to call the justices to council in such matters, and es
pecially as the matter was so high, and touched the king's es
tate and regality, which is above the law and passes their learn
ing, therefore they durst not enter into any communication
relating to it. The king's sergeants and attorney being de-
* Holinshed. Hall. t Rot. Pari. v. 375.

32 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1460«
sired to give an opinion, answered that, since the matter was
so high that it passed the learning of the justices, it must
needs exceed their learning. The lords, however, directed
them, as counsel for the king, to draw up an answer to them.
They urged the oaths of allegiance to the king, the acts of
parliament which establish or suppose his will, and the entail
of the crown on the house of Lancaster ; to which it was an
swered, that unlawful oaths are not binding, and that the stat
utes themselves are of no force against him that is right in
heritor of the said crowns, as it accorded with God's law and
the law of nature.
The lords at length proposed a compromise, by which they
imagined that the hereditary right of the duke might be pre
served without breach of their own oaths of allegiance to the
king ; namely, that the king shall keep the crowns and digni
ty royal during his life, and that the duke and his heirs
should succeed to him in the same, which, as the duke's title
cannot be defeated, was the sole means of saving the oaths
made to Henry, and clearing the consciences of the lords who
had taken them.* The infant prince of Wales was passed
over in silence, and it was tacitly assumed that an oath of al
legiance does not in an hereditary monarchy imply the duty of
allegiance to the legal successor. These and other irregu
larities or subtleties were almost inseparable from the nature
of a political compromise, and were willingly and very rea
sonably sacrificed to the hope of establishing the public quiet.
Although it must be owned that the attachment of London to
the duke, and the force by which that prince maintained his
claims, contributed largely to the success of the treaty ; yet it
is equally indisputable that the submission, even apparent, of
the king and the duke to the judgment of parliament, con
cerning the claims of possession or of succession to the
throne, must have raised the authority and dignity of that as
sembly in the estimation of the public more than perhaps any
other occurrence. The powers of suppressing revolts, and of
resisting adversaries from France or Scotland; or, in other
words, the whole command over armed men, were vested in
the duke.f To resist his authority, or to compass his death,
was made treason ; and so full was the transfer of the exer
cise of regal powers to him, that it was deemed necessary to
declare, in express words, " that none of the lords or com
mons are bound to attend or assist him in any other form than
they are now bound by law to do to the king."}
The duke of York, knowing how ill Margaret's spirit would
* Rot. Pari. v. 377. t lb. 379. f Rot. Pari- *'¦ 383.

1460. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF YORK. 38
brook such concessions, procured the king's commands, re
quiring her attendance and that of her son in London : but
the warlike dame assembled a considerable army to rescue
the king, and marched to the northern provinces, where
Northumberland and Clifford joined her with their borderers.
The duke of York committed the custody of the king to the
duke of Norfolk and the earl of Warwick. He proceeded to
his castle, near Wakefield, where his wisest counsellors ad
vised him to remain till his son Edward earl of March should
arrive at the head of the powerful succor which that young
prince was leading to the help of his father. Whether York
was actuated solely by the pride of prowess, and the im
patience of inaction ; or whether he was ensnared by his ad
versaries, who with pretended chivalry had challenged him to
battle for one day, but attacked him on another, when many
of his followers were foraging on the faith of the challenge ;
or whether we adopt the conjecture of some moderns, that
the veteran commander was compelled to quit his strong hold
by want of provisions to hold out a siege, it is at least certain
that, on the last day of the year 1460, .he had no sooner
marched with his scanty force into Wakefield Green, where
he was exposed to attack on every point, than troops, placed
by Margaret in ambush around the green, burst upon him
from all sides, and threw his troops into such a state of con
fusion and panic, that, within half an hour of the onset, they
were totally defeated. Some writers tell us, that, being taken
prisoner, York was put to death with deliberate mockery.
Those who represented him as killed in fight, add to their re
lation, that his inanimate remains were treated with the most
brutal indignity ; that his head, crowned with a paper diadem,
and after the fierce Margaret had glutted her eyes with the
sight, was nailed to one of the gates of the city of York. In
the pursuit, Clifford, a furious Lancastrian, whose father had
perished in the slaughter at St. Alban's, overtook a handsome
stripling of twelve years old, clad in princely apparel, whom
his preceptor, a venerable priest, faithful to the last, was con
ducting from, the bloody field, in hopes of shelter in the town.
Clifford, surprised at the dress of the boy, loudly asked,
" Who is he 1 " The unconscious youth fell on his knees,
and implored mercy. "Save him," cried the aged tutor,;
" he is the son of a prince, and may peradventure do you
good hereafter." Clifford shouted, " The son of York ! thy
father slew mine, I will slay thee and all thy kin." He
plunged a dagger into the heart of the stripling. The earl
of Salisbury with twelve other Yorkist chiefs, was on the
next day, with some ceremony, executed at Pomfret ; a cir-

34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1461.
cumstance which somewhat confirms the relation of those
who describe York as being killed in the heat of action ; for,
had he survived it, it is probable that his execution would
have been reserved for the bloody ceremonial of Pomfret.
Almost all the historians who have transmitted accounts
of the duke of York, lived under the rule of his enemies ;
yet, through their narratives, we must see how faithfully and
how long he served his competitor. We discern his mild
and courteous demeanor to the king when vanquished; we are
obliged to consider the long life of that unhappy prince as
some proof of the conqueror's humanity, and we shall find it
hard to point out another ruler of the middle age, who, though
he fought his way to the throne, has left a name spotted with
fewer atrocities.
Edward earl of March, now duke of York, who inherited
all the rights and pretensions of his family, heard at Glouces
ter of the death of his father, of the revenge taken on his in
nocent brother, and of the more formal butchery of his most
important friends. Being supported by the Welsh borderers,
whose attachment to the house of Mortimer was unextin
guished, he was about to march against Margaret and the
murderers of his father, at the head of an army of 23,000
men ; but the earls of Pembroke and Ormond, with a formi
dable force of Welsh and Irish, hung on his rear. He turned
upon them, and brought them to battle at Mortimer's Cross, a
little eastward of Hereford, on the 2d of February, 1461,
where he defeated and dispersed them. They are said to
have left dead on the field 3800 men. The earls of Pembroke
and Ormond escaped ; but Sir Owen Tudor, the husband of
the queen-dowager of France, was with other Welsh chiefs
beheaded on the next day at Hereford. The queen marched
southward, at the head of an army which had been success
ful at Wakefield. The approach of these bands of rude and
lawless mountaineers was dreaded by the people of the capi
tal, who expected universal pillage, outrage, and destruction.
" Here, every one is willing to go with my lords : * and I hope
God shall help them ; for the people in the north rob and
steal, and be appointed to pillage this country."! Margaret
advanced towards London, having sharpened the appetite of
her borderers by promising that she would give them the
whole country south of Trent to be pillaged. Both parties
once more met in battle at St. Alban's, on the 17th of Feb
ruary, 1461 : the Yorkists, under the duke of Norfolk and the
* The earl of Warwick, &c.
f Fenn, i. 202. Clement Pastor to his brother John, Jan 23. 1461.

1461. EDWARD IV. PROCLAIMED. 35
earl of Warwick, brought with them the captive king ; as
dead an instrument in their hands as the royal standard,
which the possession of his body seemingly warranted them
to bear.
For a time the Yorkists or southern men seem to have
been successful ; but a confused scuffle in the streets of St.
Alban's, and a more serious engagement in the plain to the
northward, ended in the success of the Lancastrians. The
lords who surrounded the king, and, as his jailers, were
probably more odious than the rest, changed the discomfiture
into a defeat, by providing somewhat prematurely for their
own escape. Lord Bonville and Sir John Kyriell only stayed
to console the unhappy pageant, trusting to the king's word,
which had been pledged for their safety. They soon learned
the folly of trusting in kings ; for the first use of victory
made by Margaret was to command that both these gentle
men should be beheaded ; or, according to other narratives,
the execution of these generous men was her last act of
power when on the eve of her northern march. Henry ex
pressed, and perhaps felt, some gratification at once more em
bracing his wife and son after so long a separation. The
northerns began to plunder the suburbs of London ; but were
repulsed by the inhabitants, who hated more than they feared
the plunderers. A deputation of aldermen were ordered to
repair to Barnet to conduct the royal family to the metropolis;
but all these measures were broken by the march of Edward
of York to the aid of London, which was always devoted to
his family. " Little trusting Essex, and less Kent, but Lon
don least of all, she (the queen) departed from St. Alban's to
the north country, where the root of her power was."*
Meanwhile Edward and Warwick entered the metropolis
amid the applause of the people of the city and of the sur
rounding counties. Edward laid his claim before a council
of lords, on the 2d of March, 1461, charging Henry with
breaking the agreement which the lords had negotiated, by
his presence in the enemy's camp ; and alleging that he was
altogether incapable of performing the duties of sovereign
power. In the afternoon an immense multitude Were assem
bled in St. John's Fields, and, having heard the statement of
Edward's claim made by lord Falconbridge, were asked by
that nobleman " whether they would love and obey Edward
earl of March as their sovereign lord." They answered,
" Yea, yea," crying " King Edward ! " with shouts and clap
ping of hands. On the next day, being the 4th of March, he
* Hall, 253.

36 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1461
was proclaimed by the style of Edward IV. With such a
tumultuary imitation of the most extreme democracy, was
accomplished the choice or recognition of a monarch, whose
title could only be justified by the adoption of the most ex
travagant notions, not only of hereditary, but of indefeasible
and even of divine right. If speculative opinions ever exer
cise much influence over the conduct of men, it might be ex
pected that such influence would be greatest in the weightier
concerns of life, were it not that on these occasions the most
powerful of human passions are most strongly excited ; that
they impel the ambitious to choose the expedient most effectual
at the instant, however discordant with their opinions, and to
make any sacrifice of consistency, if the ruling passion be
thereby enabled to grasp its immediate object.
Edward, one of the few voluptuaries who never lost their
activity and vigilance, pursued his enemies into the north,
and deferred the vain ceremony of a coronation till after his
success and his return. On the 12th of March, 1461, he began
his march, having sent lord Fitzwalter before to secure the
pass of Ferrybridge, on the river Aire in Yorkshire. Somer
set, Northumberland, and Clifford, the commanders of the
Lancastrian' army, left Henry, Margaret, and the young
prince, at York : they themselves resolved to recover Ferry
bridge ; and Clifford, about the 27th of March, accomplished
that object. Such, say the annalists, were his deeds of savage
revenge, that no man shared his anger, or pitied his fall. On
the 29th (the eve of Palm Sunday), after proclamations had
been issued on both sides forbidding quarter, the two armies
came 'within view of each other near Towton, a village about
eight miles from York. Their numbers were greater than
had hitherto met in this civil war; the Lancastrian army
being computed to contain 60,000 men, and that of Edward to
consist of about 40,000.
Edward resolved to attempt the recovery of the pass on the
next day ; and, if we may believe some writers, he only pub
lished the proclamation against quarter because he deemed
his inferiority of numbers a justification of that barbarous
menace. Warwick, in despair at the loss of so good a posi
tion, rode up to Edward, and, dismounting, shooting his own
horse through the head as a signal for an attack which admit
ted no retreat, called aloud, " Sir, God have mercy on then-
souls who for love of you in the beginning of their enterprise
have lost their lives. Yet let him flee who will flee : by this
cross (kissing the hilt of his sword) I will stand by him who
will stand by me !" During a constant succession of irregular
skirmishes which made up this fierce battle, it was found im-

1461. BATTLE OF TOWTON. 37
possible to cross the river at Ferrybridge ; but a fresh body
of troops was brought to the aid of Edward- by the duke of
Norfolk, who found means to pass the river at Castleford
about three miles above, and thereby turned the flank of the
enemy, which was commanded by Clifford, memorable for the
ferocity with which he avenged his father's death. For ten
hours on Palm Sunday the battle was continued with valor
and rage : at length the northern army gave way, after hav
ing left dead the earl of Northumberland and lord Clifford,
with about 20,000 men.* On Monday, Edward entered York
triumphantly, but not until he had taken down from the gates
the head and limbs of his father, trophies worthy of cannibals.
The sight of them so incensed him, that he gave immediate
orders for beheading Courtenay earl of Devonshire, with three
of his fellow-commanders, that their heads might replace that
of his father. In the three days of the battle of Towton,
37,000 Englishmen are said to have fallen on both sides.
Margaret fled with Henry and the prince towards Scotland,
followed by several of her most important adherents. Henry
was left at Kircudbright, with four attendants; Margaret
went to Edinburgh with her son; and we still possess a
list of about twenty-five refugees of some distinction who
accompanied her. Among these were Sir John Fortescue, the
celebrated instructor of Henry's son, and Sir Edmund Hamp
den, whose name is now so inseparably connected with events
auspicious to liberty, that we naturally expect to find it among -
the champions of a parliamentary establishment against the
partisans of hereditary right. The important fortress of Ber
wick was Ceded by Henry to the king of Scots as the price of
succor. Margaret went to France to levy recruits and to
obtain allies ; but she found Louis XI. fully occupied with
preparations for the contest with his vassals and subjects,
known under the name of " the war of the public good."
On Edward's return to London after the victory of Towton,
he was crowned on the 22d of June, 1461. He called together
a parliament on the 4th of November in that year, which, by
confirming all the judicial acts, creations of nobility, and most
other public proceedings in the times of Henry IV., Henry V,
and Henry VI., " late in fact, but not of right, kings of Eng
land,"! branded an establishment of half a century with ille
gality, and first introduced into English law a dangerous dis
tinction, pregnant with those evils from a disputed title which
* Fenn, i. 219.
t Statutes of the Realm, ii. 380. 1 Edw. 4. c. 1. A.D. 1461.
Vol. II. D

39 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1464.
hereditary monarchy can only be justified by its tendency to
prevent. When parliaments at this time were at leisure from their
usual occupation of raising up or deposing sovereigns, they
applied themselves very diligently to regulate commerce. It
is- hard to say whether the regulations which they proposed
more betray their strong sense of the rising importance of
trade, or their gross ignorance of its true nature, and of the
only effectual means of promoting it. The importation of
foreign corn was prohibited, because it ruined the people by
making their food cheap ; and foreign manufactures were for
bidden whenever the like articles could be produced at home ;
a similar disregard being shown in both cases to the interest
of the body of the people who consumed food, and who wore
clothes. But the same astonishing errors still pervert the
judgment of perhaps the majority ; and we must not blame
the parliaments of the fifteenth century, for prejudices which
to this day taint the statutes of the nineteenth.
After passing two years in suits for aid in France, Margaret
returned to Scotland with only 500 French troops, which en
abled her to make an inroad into England at the head of Scot
tish borderers, always easily collected for such a purpose.
After several indecisive skirmishes, lord Montacute, the com
mander of Edward's forces, completely routed the Lancastri
ans near Hexham in Northumberland, on the 17th of May,
1464. The duke of Somerset, their commander, was beheaded
on the spot ; twenty-five gentlemen of his band, with little
more form of law, were executed at York. Henry escaped
by the speed of his horse : but some of his attendants were
recognized by the horses' trappings of blue velvet. One of
the prisoners bore the unhappy prince's helmet. His high cap
of estate, garnished with two rich crowns, was in a few days
presented to Edward at York, as being a part of the personal
spoils of his competitor. Henry, with a few chiefs, long hid
themselves in the caves which are to be found in the moun
tainous districts of Yorkshire, Westmoreland, and Cumber
land. The earl of Kent was taken in Redesdale, and lost his
head by the ax at Newcastle : Sir Humphrey Neville, who
lurked in a cave in Holderness, was beheaded at York. Ed
ward spilt the blood of his opponents with wanton prodigality,
while he squandered honors and estates with a lavish hand
among his adherents. France and Scotland, yielding to his
ascendant, made advances of reconciliation to him. Marcaret
found a refuge for herself and her son among the powerful
vassals of France ; but the condition of her wretched husband
in Scotland became more precarious: he feared the secret

1464. CAPTURE OF HENRY. 39
intercourse of Edward with the king of Scots. He secreted
himself in the borders, where the doubtful jurisdiction, the
wild life of the borderers, and their very precarious alle
giance, afforded him facilities for sudden and rapid escape.
Either misled by Edward's spies, and unacquainted with the
boundaries, or despairing of security in Scotland, or perhaps
in one of his fits of idiocy, Henry threw himself into England,
where, from authentic documents, it appears that while sitting
at one -of his few and troubled meals at Waddington Hall in
Lancashire, he was detected by Sir. James Harrington, the
testimony of whose infamy is perpetuated by the grant of
large estates, the bitter fruits of confiscation, which this man
of rank and wealth did not disdain to accept as the price of
his treachery to a helpless suppliant.*
After the battle of Hexham and the capture of Henry (25th
May, 1464), that prince was led prisoner, no longer with any
pretence of state or show of liberty ; for Edward's parliament
had attainted him, with the queen -and prince Edward, for no
other crime than that of asserting rights which the whole na
tion had long recognized. Neville earl of Warwick, a man
distinguished by all the good and bad qualities which shine
with most lustre in a barbarous age, who had been left in com
mand at London by Edward, made his late sovereign taste all
the bitterness of proscription. He placed the deposed king
on a horse, under whose belly his feet were fastened, and in
that condition led him through Cheapside to the Tower, where
he was now received and treated as a prisoner.
Margaret made her escape through Scotland into France
with her son and his famous preceptor, Sir John Fortescue.
During his exile, this learned person had an opportunity of mak
ing many of the remarks on the difference between a despotic
and a limited monarchy, as exemplified in France and England,
which demonstrate that these opposite systems had even then
made a visible and deep impression on the condition and char
acter of neighboring and kindred, though frequently adverse,
nations. In the mean time Edward applied himself to public affairs
with his characteristic vigor. According to the maxim of
Machiavel, he made a terrific slaughter of his enemies in the
first moment of victory ; and, in his subsequent administration,
treated the vanquished party with a politic parade of season
able clemency. He was well qualified by beauty and valor
to inspire love, and in its lower sense he was prone to feel it.
For a time he revelled in the licentious gratifications which
* Rymer, xi. 518.

40 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1465.
were open to a young, handsome, and victorious king. Prin
cesses of Castile, and of Scotland, had already, however,
been spoken of as likely to be wedded by him. The earl of
Warwick had been authorized to negotiate with Louis XI. for
the marriage of his sister-in-law, the princess Bonne of Savoy,
afterwards duchess of Milan, to the king of England.* An
incident occurred which disturbed these projects of high al
liance, and contributed to revive the troubles which seemed
ready to expire. In the year 1464, when Edward was hunt
ing in the forest of Grafton, near Stony Stratford, he casually
met a young lady, by whose attractions his susceptible temper
ament was instantly affected. She was the daughter of Jac-
quetta of Luxemburg, duchess-dowager of Bedford, by her
second husband Sir Richard Woodville, a private gentleman,
who, soon after this adventure, was created earl Rivers. The
young lady -herself, Elizabeth Woodville, youthful as she was,
had before been married to Sir Thomas Gray, who fell in the
Lancastrian army at the second battle of Barnet. Whether
these obstacles served to stimulate Edward's passion, or
whether he was charmed by her composed demeanor, her
graceful form, her " pregnant wit," and her " eloquent
tongue ;" for her countenance is said to have been not beau
tiful : certain it is, that when dame Elizabeth made an humble
suit to the king, she prevailed more rapidly than other suitors.
The manners of Edward were so dissolute as to countenance a
rumor that he tried every means of seduction before he offered
his hand and crown to her. Even though we should- without
just ground refuse the praise of unmingled virtue to her re
sistance, still it would not lose its right to be accounted virtue,
by calling to its aid the dictates of a commendable prudence
and of an honorable ambition. From whatever motive, or
mixture of motives, she acted, she was, in fact, steady in her
rejection of illicit union. The king at length consented to a
private marriage, which was solemnized at Grafton on the 1st
of May, 1464. The bride and bridegroom, a priest, a chanter,
two gentlemen, and the duchess of Bedford, were the only
persons present at the solemnity. The king, after remaining
a short time, returned to Stony Stratford, where lie went to
bed, affecting to have been occupied by the chase during the
night. He speedily imparted his secret to Sir Richard Wood
ville, but contented himself with secret and stolen visits to
his bride. She was acknowledged at Michaelmas, and crowned
with all due splendor on Ascension-day of the following year.
This union displeased the powerful and haughty Warwick,
* Rymer, xi. 523, &o April 24, 1461.

1469. DISCONTENT OF WARWICK. 41
who did not easily brook the rupture which it occasioned of
the negotiation for marriage with the princess Bonne in which
he had been employed. He blamed, with reason, the levity
with which Edward incurred the resentment of those power
ful princes by alliance with whose families he, in his wiser
moments, sought to strengthen himself. The sudden eleva
tion of the queen's family to office and honor awakened the
jealousy of the nobility, and especially of Warwick, who re
ceived the alarming name of the king-maker, and might be
impelled by his quick resentment and offended pride to prove
that he could pull down as weU as set up kings. His means
of good and harm were most extensive. To the earldoms of
Warwick and Salisbury, "with the lands of the Spencers, he
added the offices of great chamberlain and high-admiral, to
gether with the .government of Calais, and the lord-lieuten
ancy of Ireland. The income of his offices is said by Comines
to have amounted to eighty thousand crowns by the year, be
sides the immense revenue or advantage derived from his pat
rimony.* Not satisfied with these resources, he accepted a
secret pension and gratuities from Louis XI., of which the
exposure bares the mean heart that often lurked beneath
knightly armor.f Perhaps the report of this dishonorable
correspondence might have alarmed Edward; while War
wick}: might consider his patrimonial estate as in some dan
ger from the rapacity of the upstart Woodvilles. In the year
1469, Warwick gave no small token of estrangement by wed
ding his daughter to George duke of Clarence, Edward's
brother, without the permission, probably without the know
ledge, of that monarch. After several jars, followed by formal
and superficial reconciliations, Warwick broke out into open
revolt against Edward, which gave rise to two years of more
inconstancy and giddiness, more vicissitudes in the fortune
and connexion of individuals, and more unexpected revolutions
in government, than any other equal space of time in the
history of England. About the beginning of that time the
men of Yorkshire, under the command of Robin of Redesdale,
a hero among the moss-troopers of the border, took the field
to the amount of 60,000 men. Their manifesto complained
of the influence of evil counsellors over the king, and of other
matters more likely to be suggested by barons than by boors.
These insurgents were chec'ked by Neville earl of Northum-
* Comines, liv. iii. c. 4. : i. 148. edition de L'Englet Dufresnoy, 4to. 1747.
t Note on Comines, i. 149.
J He was sent minister to France, Burgundy, and Britany, immediately
after Edward's marriage, perhaps with the double purpose of soothing his
anger and abating his personal influence. — Rymer, xi. 541, 542.
D2

42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1469,
berland ; but they were dealt with so leniently by that noble
man as to strengthen the suspicion that the discontents of the
Nevilles had ripened into projects of rebellion.. Warwick,
too, was deeply suspected of being inactive only till he was
armed. It was about this time (26th of July, 1469), that the
revolters, after being defeated in an imprudent attack on the
royalists at Edgecote, were finally dispersed. It seems to have
been the last heave of the earth before the wide-spread earth
quake. The execution of two Woodvilles, father and son,
favorites of the king, yet put to death by the victorious army,
seemed to indicate that some of the leaders against the pea
sants were ill-affected to the court. The duke of Clarence
and the earl of Warwick returned from Calais, apparently
obeying the king's summons, and supporting his cause. It
appears from the records,* that between the 17th and the 27th
of August, 1469, several feigned reconciliations were effect
ed, which were terminated by a royal declaration against
Clarence and Warwick as rebels.. The remaining part of our
information does not flow from so pure a source, and is indeed
both scanty and perplexed. Clarence and Warwick were at
length compelled to quit England ; and under specious pre
tences, were refused permission to land at Calais by Vauclere
the lieutenant of that fortress, a wary officer, who was de
sirous to retain the liberty of finally adhering to the success
ful.! Louis XI. now openly espoused the cause of these
malcontent barons. Under his mediation, Margaret and
Warwick, so long mortal enemies, were really reconciled to
each other by their common hatred of the king of England,
and concluded a treaty, by which it was stipulated that prince
Edward should espouse Anne Neville, Warwick's daughter ;
that they should join their forces to restore Henry ; and that,
in failure of issue by the prince, the crown should devolve on
Clarence. Meanwhile, Edward seems to have been seized
with an unwonted fit of supineness. He lingered while he
was beset with revolts.}: His only exertion, that of going to
Northumberland, where the borderers now favored their new
masters, the Nevilles, more than their ancient lords of the
house of Percy, was more pernicious than inaction, by placing
him so far from the capital that the fate of the kingdom must
be determined before he learned the existence of the danger.
The approach of Warwick ' shook the fidelity of the troops ;
and Edward was compelled to make his escape to Holland.
Warwick, by the aid of Clarence, and under the name of
"Rymer, xi. 447—461. t Monstrelet. Comines, iii. 4.
}Fifnn, i. 49.

1471. BATTLE OF TEWKESBURY. 43
Henry, resumed the supreme power.* Edward, by the con
nivance of the duke of Burgundy, collected a body of Flemings
and Dutchmen, with whom he landed at the mouth of the
Humber, on the 14th of March, 1471. . His advance towards
London obliged Henry's army, commanded by Warwick, to
take a position at Barnet ; where, on the 14th of April, a
battle was fought, which proved much more important in its
consequences than could have been conjectured from the
small number of the slain, which on both sides is estimated,
by an eye-witness, at no more than 1000. On Edward's side
were killed the lords Cromwell and Say, with some gentle
men of the neighboring country. The great event of the day
was that Warwick, and his brother, Montague, were left dead
on the field. By their death the greatness of the house of
Neville was destroyed. Warwick is the most conspicuous
personage of this disturbed reign; and the name of king-ma
ker, given to him by the people, well expresses his love of
turbulence for its own sake ; his preference of the pleasures
of displaying power to that of attaining specific objects of am
bition ; and his almost equal readiness to make or unmake
any king, according to the capricious inclination or repug
nancy of the moment.
Another contest still remained. The undaunted and un
wearied Margaret had levied troops in France, at the head of
which she landed at Weymouth on the very day of the battle
of Barnet.! The first event of which she received tidings
was the fatal battle. Her spirits were for an instant depress
ed. She sought sanctuary for herself and her son in the
monastery of Beaulieu. But the bolder counsels of the Lan
castrian lords who had escaped from Barnet resumed their
wonted ascendant over her masculine mind. Pembroke had
collected a considerable force in support of her cause n
Wales. If she had been able to pass the Severn, and form a
junction with him, there was still a probability of success ;
but the inhabitants of Gloucester had already fortified their
bridge, and Edward had taken a position which commanded
the pass of Tewkesbury.
On Saturday, the 14th of May, 1471, the battle of Tewkes
bury concluded this sanguinary war. The defeat of the Lan
castrians was complete. Courtenay earl of Devonshire, Sij
* A parliament was as usual called, of which eome of the proceedings
are to be found in Rymer, xi. 0G1 — 707. It confirmed the engagement be
tween the prince and Warwick. .
f " Margaret is verily landed and her son in the west country, and I trou
that tomorrow or the next day King Edward will depart from hence to
norwards to drive her out again."— Letter of J. Paston to his mother, with
an account of the battle of Barnet.— Fenn, ii. 67.

44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1471.
Edmund Hampden, and about 3000 soldiers, were killed. On
the next day, the duke of Somerset and the prior of St. John
were beheaded, after a summary trial before the constable"and
the marshal. Search was made, and reward offered, for
]5rince Edward : he was taken prisoner, and brought before
the king by Sir Richard Crofts. The king said to him, " How
dare you presumptuously enter into my realm with banner
displayed V Whereunto the prince answered, " To recover
my father's kingdom and heritage, from his father and grand
father to him, and from him to me, lineally descended. At
these words, Edward said nothing, but thrust the youth from
him, or, as some say, " struck him with his gauntlet, when he
was instantly put to death by the dukes of Clarence and
Gloucester, lord Dorset and lord Hastings ;"* a display of bar
barous manners among persons of the highest dignity, which
it would be hard to match among the most embruted savages.
It must not, however, be forgotten, that it passed in the first
heat and irritation of battle ; that the nearest observers might
have overlooked some circumstances, and confounded the
order of others ; and that the omission of a provoking look or
gesture (to say nothing of words or deeds) might give a dif
ferent color to the event. Margaret and her son having been
declared rebels by the king a few days! before the battle of
Tewkesbury, the barbarous chiefs might have deemed the as
sassination of the prince as little differing from the execution
of a sentence ; and instead of remorse for that deed, they per
haps thought that by sparing Margaret they had earned the
praise of knightly generosity.
Shortly after Edward's victorious return, Henry VI. breath
ed his last in the Tower, where much of his life had been
passed as a pageant of state, and another large portion of it
as a prisoner of war. He is generally stated by historians to
have died by violence ; and the odium of the bloody deed has
chiefly fallen upon Richard duke of Gloucester. The proof
of the fact, however, is disproportioned to the atrocity of the
accusation. Many temptations and provocations to destroy
him had occurred in a secret imprisonment of nearly ten
years. It is rather improbable that those who through so many
scenes of blood had spared " the meek usurper's hoary head,"
should, at last, with so small advantage, incur the odium of
destroying a prince who seems to have been dear to the peo
ple for no other quality but the regular observance of petty
superstitions. He was as void of manly as of kingly virtues.
No station can be named for which he was fitted but that of a
* Holinshed, iii. 320. t Rymer, xi. 709.

1475. WAR AND TREATY WITH FRANCE. 45
weak and ignorant lay brother in a monastery. Our compas
sion for the misfortunes of such a person woukfhardly go beyond
the boundary of instinctive pity, if an extraordinary provision
had not been made by nature to strengthen the social affec
tions. We are so framed to feel as if all harmlessness arose
from a pure and gentle mind ; and something of the beauty of
intentional goodness is lent to those who only want the power
of doing ill. The term innocence is ambiguously employed
for impotence' and abstinence. A man in a station such as
that of a king, which is generally surrounded with power and
dignity, is apt to be considered as deliberately abstaining from
evil when he inflicts none, although he be really withheld, as
in the case of Henry, by an incapacity to do either good or
harm. Nature, by an illusion more _ general and more mo
mentous, benevolently beguiles us into a tenderness for the
beings who most need it, inspiring us with the fond imagina
tion that the innocence of children is the beautiful result of
mature reason and virtue; — a sentiment partaking of the
same nature with the feelings which dispose the good man to
be merciful to his beast.
The war with France which followed the civil wars was
attended with no memorable events, and it was closed by the
treaty of Pecquigny, in 1475, by which provision was made
for large payments of money to Edward, and for the marriage
of the dauphin with his eldest daughter. Margaret of Anjou
was set at liberty, on payment of 50,000 crowns by Louis.
She survived her deliverance about seven years, during which,
having no longer any instruments or objects of ambition, she
lived quietly in France. The earl of Richmond the grandson,
and the earl of Pembroke the second son, of Catherine of
France %y Owen Tudor, took refuge from the persecution of
the Yorkists at the court of Britany. By the marriage of Ed
mund Tudor earl of Richmond with Margaret Beaufort, the
last legitimate descendant of John of Gaunt's union with
Catherine Swinford, Henry earl of Richmond, the surviving
son of that marriage, was the only Lancastrian pretender to
the crown.
The quarrel of Edward with his brother the duke of Clar
ence ; the share of the latter in Warwick's defection ; and
the levity which led him to atone for his desertion of Edward
by another desertion from Warwick, have already been re
lated summarily. The reconciliation, probably superficial
from the first, gave way to collisions of the interests and
passions of the princes of the royal race, at a period when
the order of inheritance was so often interrupted. The final
rupture is said to have been produced by a singular incident.

46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1478.
Thomas Burdett, a man of ancient family in the county of
Warwick, one of the gentlemen of Clarence's bed-chamber,
is said to have had a favorite buck in his park at Harrow,
which the king, when sporting there, chanced to kill. Bur
dett, as we are told, in the first transports of his rage, declared
that he " wished the horns in the belly of him who killed it."
It is not known whether this was more than a hasty expres
sion, or even whether Burdett then knew the king to be the
killer. He was, however, immediately imprisoned, and very
summarily put to death. Clarence, who had spoken angrily
of the execution of his friend, was attainted of treason for
his hasty language, and of sorcery to give to Burdett's expres
sion the dire character of necromantic imprecation. The
commons importuned the king to give orders for his brother's
execution ; an act of baseness not easily surpassed. The
king had some repugnance to the public execution of a prince.
Clarence was accordingly privately put to death; and the
prevalent rumor was, that he was drowned in a butt of malm
sey ; a sort of murder not indeed substantiated by proof,* but
very characteristic of that frolicksome and festive cruelty
which Edward practised in common with other young and
victorious tyrants.
Some incidents in the lives of individuals open a more
clear view into the state of England during this calamitous
period, than public documents or general history can supply :
among these may be numbered the romantic tale of the shep
herd lord .Clifford. The reader already knows that the Clif
fords, a martial and potent race of the northern borders, af
terwards earls of Cumberland, had embraced the Lancastrian
cause with all the rancor of hereditary feud. John lord Clif
ford was killed at the battle of St. Alban's by Richc#d duke
of York. At the battle of Wakefield, another John lord Clif
ford revenged the death of his father by the destruction of the
young earl of Rutland, that duke's eldest son ; to say nothing
of the slaughter which procured for him in that action the
name of " the butcher." At the battle of Towton this inter
change of barbarous revenge was closed by the death of lord
Clifford and the disappearance of his children. Henry his
eldest son was then only seven years of age. But lady Clif
ford, the. mother, eluded the rigorous inquiry which was made
for the children. She then resided at. Lonesborough in York
shire, where she placed her eldest son under the care of a
shepherd who had married his nurse. The boy was trained
* " Factum est id, qualecunque erat, genus supplicii." — Hist.of Crayland,
562. : a passage which, by mysterious allusion to an unusual sort of death,
seems favorable to the common narrative.

1478. THE SHEPHERD LORD CLIFFORD. 47
in a .shepherd's clothing and habits. Some time after, how
ever, on a rumor prevailing that he was still alive, the court
renewed the jealous search, and his mother removed the faith
ful shepherd with his family to Cumberland, where he dwelt
sometimes on the debateable ground, at other times at Threl-
kield, near the seat of her second husband. At that place
she privately visited her beloved child. On the accession of
Henry VII., at the age of thirty-one, he was restored to the
honors and estates of his family. Every part of his life was
so well fitted to his outward station, that he was not taught
to read, and only learnt to write his name. He built the
tower of Barden, which he made his residence by reason of
its neighborhood to the priory of Bolton ; that he might con
verse with some of the canons of that house who were skilled
in astronomy, for- which his life as a lonely shepherd had in
spired him with a singular affection. Amidst the beautiful
scenery of Bolton, or in his tower of Barden, he is said to
have passed the remainder of his days. His death occurred
when he had reached his seventy-second year, after a life the
greater part of which was spent in the calm occupations of
science and piety. He distinguished himself as a commander
on the field of Flodden ; and he was allied by marriage to
the royal blood. It is hard to conceive any struggle more
interesting than that of a jealous tyrant searching for infants
whom, had he made them captives, he would have Won the
power of destroying, against the perseverance and ingenuity
of a mother's affection employed in guarding her progeny
from the vulture.*
Many of the long concealments and narrow escapes of
Henry and his consort attest, like the story of lord Clifford,
the condition of the borders, thinly peopled by predatory
tribes, mixed with a few priests, and fugitives from justice,
who had so little amicable intercourse with their neighbors,
that kings and barons might long lie hidden among them un
discovered by their enemies.
The remainder of Edward's reign was chiefly employed in
apparent preparations for renewing the pretensions of his
predecessors to the crown of France, with no serious inten
tion, as it should seem, to execute his threat ; but in order to
obtain money in various modes from Louis XL, from the house
* " In him the savage virtue of his race,
Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts, were dead ;
Nor did he change ; but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred."
Wordsworth, ii. 155.
Dugdale, Whitaker's Craven, &c.

48 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1478.
of commons, and by prerogative from the body of the nation.
The senseless pursuit of aggrandizement in France was still
popular in England. Parliament granted no subsidy so gladly
as one for conquering France. The practice of raising money
by what was called benevolences was rendered almost accept
able when it was to be applied for this national purpose.
They had originally been voluntary contributions, for which
the king applied to the wealthier of his subjects. The odium
of refusal was so great, that they were gradually growing
into a usage which would shortly have ranked with positive
law. The most dangerous of his objects in threatening France
with war, was that of obtaining pensions from Louis XI. for
himself and his ministers. That wily monarch thought the
most .effectual means of attaining his ends, whatever they
might be, were to be always chosen, without regard to any
other consideration. In the year 1475, a treaty had been
concluded,* by which a present gratification of seventy-five
thousand crowns, with an annuity of fifty thousand more,
were to be paid by Louis to Edward ; and by which it was
stipulated that the union was to be further cemented by the
marriage of the dauphin with Edward's eldest daughter. It
was impossible 'that this example should not be followed.
Lord Hastings and the chancellor accepted pensions of two
thousand crowns each. Twelve thousand more were distrib
uted among the marquis of Dorset, the queen's son, the lords
Howard and Cheyne, and other favorites. This perniciou
expedient opened to the needy and prodigal prince immense
means of supply, independent of grants from parliament, and
which might even be easily concealed from that assembly.
The territories of the crown might thus be alienated ; the
strong holds of the kingdom placed in the hands of foreigners ;
a door opened. by which foreign armies might enter the king
dom to enslave it. To the pensions were added occasional
gratuities to an amount scarcely credible. Lord Howard,
within two years, received 24,000 crowns ; lord Hastings,
at the treaty of Pecquigny, received twelve dozen of gilt
silver bowls, and twelve dozen not gilt ; each of which weighed
seventeen nobles. The receipts of the English politicians
for these dangerous gifts were preserved in the public offices
at Paris. At first, the permission of the crown was probably
obtained: the ministers then might flatter themselves that,
though they accepted the money, it was only to obey the
commands and promote the policy of their master ; but during
* See page 45.

1483. DEATH OF EDWARD. 49
an intercourse in which both parties must have learned to
despise each other, it is impossible that the ministers should
not be tempted to deal clandestinely with the foreign govern
ment, and finally, with however slow steps) that they should
not slide into the miserable condition of its hireling agents.
Lord Hastings, in these corrupt transactions, showed some
glimmering of a sense of perverted and paradoxical honor.
Cleret, the pay-master of the English ministers, after one of
his payments, softly insinuated the propriety of a written ac
knowledgment. Hastings, without disputing Cleret's demand,
answered, " Sir, this gift cometh from the liberal pleasure of
the king your master, and not from my request : if it be his
determinate will that I should have it, put it into my sleeve ;
if not, return it : for neither he nor you shall have it to brag
that the lord chamberlain of England has been his pen
sioner."* Louis postponed the marriage of the dauphin, with a view
to an union with some heiress, whose territory might be
united to the crown. Edward discovered at last that Louis was
amusing him with vain promises : his death (9th April, 1483),
is ascribed by some to mortified ambition ; by others, to one
of those fits of debauchery which now succeeded the vices.of
youth, and which had already converted his elegant form and
fine countenance into the bloated corpulence of depraved and
premature age. Either cause of death suited his character,
und might naturally have closed such a life : for the shortest
and yet fullest account of his character is, that he yielded to
the impulse of every passion. His ambition was as boundless
as his revenge was fierce. Both these furious passions made
him cruel, faithless, merciless, and lawless. Nothing restrained
him in the pursuit of sensual gratification. He squandered
on his mistresses the foreign bribes which were the price of
his own dishonor. To fear and its abject train he was a stran
ger; but it can scarcely be said with truth that he was exempt
from any other species of vice ; unless we except avarice,
which would have bridled him more than his impetuous appe
tites could have brooked. Sir Thomas More tells us, that his
licentious amours rather raised than lowered his popularity,
by inuring him to familiar intercourse with women of the
middle class. The year before his death, he entertained the
lord mayor and aldermen at Windsor, and distributed his pres
ents of venison so liberally among them, " that nothing won
more the hearts ef the common people, who oftentimes esteem
a little courtesy more than a great benefit"!
* Holinshed, iii. 342. t Ibid-
Vol. II. E

50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1483.
CHAP. n.
TO THE BATTLE OF BOSWOK.TH.
EDWARD V— RICHARD IH.
1483—1485.
Edward V. nominally reigned over England for two months
and thirteen days. His imaginary rule began and ended in
his fourteenth year. In that brief space revolutions of gov
ernment occurred of which not one was unstained by faithless,
deliberate, and cruel murder ; and it was closed by a dark and
bloody scene, which has become the subject of historical con
troversy rather as an exercise of paradoxical ingenuity, than
on account of any uncertainty respecting the events which
occurred in the blood-stained summer of 1483.
Scarcely had the wars of the Roses been extinguished when
new factions sprung up from the jealousy always felt towards
court favorites by the ancient nobility. Such factions charac
terize the Plantagenet reigns, and more especially those of
the princes of York, who, having long been subjects, continued
their habits of intermarriage with subjects. Perhaps these
dispositions gained some accession from the temperament and
propensities of the amorous Edward, who, long after he had
been notoriously unfaithful to the queen, continued to load her
kindred with honors and wealth. Among the court or queen's
party, the principal persons were, her accomplished brother
earl Rivers, her sons by the first marriage, the marquess of
Dorset and lord Richard Grey, and her brother-in-law lord
Lyle. The noblemen who were the personal friends of the
late king as well as the ancient adherents of the house of
York, such as the lords Hastings, Stanley, and Howard, were
jealous of the Woodvilles, and waited with impatience the
appearance of two princes, who might balance that family of
favorites ; — Richard duke of Gloucester, who commanded in
the war against Scotland, and Henry duke of Buckingham,
the descendant of Thomas of Woodstock, the sixth son of
Edward the third, who was then at his castle. Edward was
at the time of his accession at Ludlow castle, in the hands of
his mother's family. As soon as Richard learnt the tidings
of his brother's death, he marched towards the south with all
speed, in pursuance, as afterwards appeared, of a secret under
standing with Hastings, who remained at court, and with
Buckingham, who hastened with a body of adherents, pro
fessedly to join the king. Lord Rivers, lulled into security
by the assurances and professions of the illustrious dukes.

1483. RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. 51
made haste to meet them with his royal charge. On the 29th
of April, Edward V., accompanied by the Woodvilles, had
reached Stony Stratford, and on the same day the duke of
Gloucester arrived at Northampton, ten miles distant. Lord
Rivers immediately went to pay a compliment to the duke of
Gloucester, and to receive his orders. They, together with
Buckingham, who appears to have arrived the same day, re
mained at the latter town till next morning ; and though the
suspicions of lord Rivers were excited by the outlets of North
ampton being guarded during the night, he professed to be
satisfied with the explanation given of that circumstance. He
and his brother rode in attendance on Gloucester and Buck
ingham, with every appearance of intimate friendship, to the
entrance of Stony Stratford, where Gloucester accused Rivers
and Grey of having taught the young monarch to distrust the
protector. Rivers, who, as the historian tells us, was a well-
spoken man, defended himself with his accustomed abilities;
but as he could not prove that he was no obstacle to Richard's
ambition, his defence was vain. " They took him and put him
in ward." On being ushered into the presence of the king
at Stony Stratford, they assured him that " the marquess his
brother and Rivers his uncle had compassed to rule the king
and the realm, and to subdue and destroy its noble blood."
The unfortunate boy answered, with touching simplicity,
" What my lord marquess may have done in London I cannot
say ; but I dare answer for my uncle Rivers and my brother
here, that they be innocent of any such matter." The Wood
villes were instantly ordered to be conveyed to Pomfret cas
tle. " Gloucester and Buckingham sent away from the king
whom it pleased them, and set new servants about him, such
as liked better them than him ; at which dealing he wept,
and was nothing content ; but it booted not." On the advance
to London, their purposes were evident to those whom they
most concerned. The queen fled from her palace at West
minster at midnight, to take sanctuary in the adjoining abbey.
The confusion and hurry with which her furniture was scat
tered over the floor by her affrighted attendants afford the best
proof of the extent of their fears. " The queen herself," we
are told, " sat alone on the rushes all desolate and dismayed."
On the 4th of May, the day originally destined for the coro
nation, which from the evident influence of new purposes was
now postponed to the 22d of June, the young prince was led
by his uncle with due state into his capital.
Richard assumed the title of protector of the king and
kingdom ; a station for which the analogy of the constitution
in an hereditary monarchy seemed to designate him. It seemed

52 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1483.
probable that Hastings and Stanley, the friends of Edward
IV, began to show misgivings at the designs of Richard, es
pecially after he had compelled the queen to surrender the
duke of York to him, under the specious color of lodging him
with his elder brother in the royal palace of the Tower. On
the 13th of June, a. council was held in the Tower to regulate
the approaching coronation ; at which were present the lords
Hastings and Stanley, together with several prelates. Rich
ard, affecting an unwonted gaiety, desired the bishop of Ely
to send for a dish of strawberries for breakfast. Retiring
from council for almost an hour, he returned with his looks
and gestures entirely altered, and with a sour and angry
countenance, knitting his brows and gnawing his lips. After
a short time he broke his sullen silence, by crying out, " Of
what are they worthy who have compassed the death of me,
the king's protector by nature as well as by law V " To be
punished," said Hastings, " as heinous traitors." " That is,"
replied the protector, still dissembling, " that sorceress my
brother's wife, and her. kindred." This reply was not un
grateful to Hastings, the mortal enemy of the Woodvilles,
who said,. " Heinous, indeed, if true." The protector, weary
of dissimulation, cried aloud, " Yes ! I will make good your
answer upon your body, traitor, in spite of your ifs and ands."
Then he clapped his fist on the board with a great rap, at
which token a man who stood without the door cried out,
Treason ! Men in armor, as many as the apartment could
contain, entered into it. Richard said to Hastings, " I arrest
thee, traitor ! " Stanley and the other obnoxious lords were
committed to various dungeons. The protector bade Hastings
" to shrive (confess) himself apace ; for by St. Paul I will
not dine till I see thy head off!" "It booted him not to ask
why 1 He took a priest at a venture, and made a short shrift ;
for the protector made haste to dinner, which he might not go
to until they were done, for saving of his oath." He was
brought down to the green by the chapel, and being laid on a
long log of timber, which happened to be near, his head was
struck off, without any form of trial or even specification of
his pretended offence. Those who, after such deeds, could
have doubted the dire designs of the merciless protector,
must surely have relinquished their opinion, when they learn
ed shortly after, that, on the very 13th of June which wit
nessed the murder of lord Hastings, a like scene was exhibited
near the northern frontier of the kingdom. On that day,
Radcliffe, one of Richard's emissaries, entering the castle of
Pomfret at the head of a body of armed men, put Rivers and
his friends to death, before a crowd of bystanders, with as

1483. MURDER OF THE PRINCES. 63
little semblance of judicial proceeding as was vouchsafed to
Hastings. These horrible transactions, which in their general out
lines are disputed by no writer, have been here related almost
in the words of Sir Thomas More, one of the few historians
who had an opportunity of proving their abhorrence of false
hood, by choosing to suffer a death which the vulgar account
ed ignominious, rather than to utter a lie. Had Richard per
petrated so many crimes for a less temptation than a crown ;
had he shrunk from the only deed of blood which was to ren
der his former guilt profitable, he would have disappointed all
reasonable expectation, by stopping short under such a load
of criminality, when, by wading one step farther in blood,
he might seat himself on the throne. His uncontested acts
compel us to believe that he could not be withheld, by scruples
of conscience or visitings of nature, from seizing a sceptre
which seemed within his grasp. An unbiassed reader, who
has perused the narrative of his avowed deeds, will therefore
learn with little surprise, but rather regard as the natural
sequel of his previous policy, that Edward V. and Richard
duke of York soon after silently disappeared from the Tower,
and were generally believed to be murdered ; that no inquest
was made for their blood, or no show of public inquiry into
the mysterious circumstances of their disappearance attempt
ed. The mind of such a reader, without exacting further
evidence, would gradually prepare him for the belief, that
such a tale told of royal infants sufficiently proved their death
to be a murder, and that the murder was commanded by those
who reaped its fruit. None of the circumstances immedi
ately following could tend to shake such a belief. On Mon
day, June 16th, three days after the murder of Hastings and
the Woodvilles, the consent of the queen to the removal of
Richard, her second son, to the Tower, from the sanctuary at
Westminster, was extorted by the archbishop of Canterbury,
under the pretext that he should not be in sanctuary among
thieves and murderers, at the moment of so august and sacred
a ceremony as his brother's coronation ; although it be un
questionably certain that such a solemnity was, then at least,
no longer intended. On the next day, the 17th of June, the
last exercise of regal authority in the name of Edward V.
appears, in the form of a commission to supply the royal
household with provisions for six months.*
Meanwhile Richard, probably for the purpose of reviving
the recollection of his brother's licentious manners, caused
* Rymer.
E2

54 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1483.
his subservient ecclesiastics to inflict penance on Jane Shore,
the wife of an opulent citizen of London, who had been the
beloved mistress of the late king. "Proper she was and
fair," says Sir Thomas More ; " yet delighted not men so
much in her beauty as in her pleasant behavior ; for a proper
wit had she, and could both read well and write ; ready and
quick of answer; neither mute nor babbling. Many mis
tresses the king had, but her he loved ; whose favor, to say
the truth, she never abused to any man's hurt, but often em
ployed to many a man's relief."* The cruel selection of such
a person for ignominious punishment arose, probably, in part
from her plebeian condition, and in part from her having be
come the paramour of Hastings, who, though enamored of
her in Edward's lifetime, had then so much respect for the
taste of his master, as to abstain from nearer approaches to
her. Having thus insulted the memory of his brother, and
removed the friends of his nephews, Richard began openly to
attack the title of the late king's children to the throne. The
narrative of his conduct is full of confusion, and not exempt
from inconsistency. If we measure his acts by a modern
standard, some of them appear incredible ; but where the
more conspicuous facts are certain, however atrocious, we
must not withhold our belief from the recital of particulars,
because it partakes of the disorder and precipitation which
are the natural companions of dark and bloody undertakings.
The first expedient employed by Richard to undermine the
general belief in the legitimacy of his nephews was singu
larly at variance with modern, manners and opinions. On
Sunday, the 15th of June, 1483, he caused- Shaw, a noted
preacher, to deliver a sermon against the lawfulness of their
birth, at Paul's Cross, a place of more than ordinary resort,
in an age when preaching was chiefly confined to high festi
vals or peculiar solemn occasions. This extraordinary attack
on the title of the reigning prince, whose coronation had been
appointed to be on that very day, is not preserved, and our
accounts of its tenor do not perfectly agree. It appears,
however, that the preacher's main argument was, that Ed
ward IV. had contracted to wed, or had secretly wedded, lady
Elinor Butler, before the marriage solemnized between that
prince and Elizabeth Woodville ; that the second marriage
was void, and the issue of it illegitimate, on account of the
alleged precontract or previous wedlock. Stillington, bishop
of Bath, a profligate creature of the protector, declared that
he had officiated at the former nuptials or espousals. To this
* Sir T. More, in Holin. 384.

1483. RICHARD DECLARED KING. 55
was added, an odious and unjust imputation of infidelity
against the duchess-dowager of York, and of bastardy of her
children, unless the sycophant chose expressly to except
Richard. But if this aspersion was then thrown out, it per
haps flowed from the redundant zeal of the calumniator him
self; for in the subsequent and more formal proceedings we
find it dropped. The multiplicity of Edward's amours gave
some credit to these rumors; and it was certainly possible
that Stillington, a man very capable of being the minister of
a prince's vices, may have been privy to intrigues, in which
promises of marriage may have been employed as means of
seduction.* Two days afterwards the duke of Buckingham
harangued the citizens in the same strain with Shaw ; and
on the 25th of June that nobleman presented to Richard, in
his mother's house at Baynard's Castle, a parchment, purport
ing to be a declaration of the three estates in favor of Rich
ard, as the only legitimate prince of the house of York. But
as the three estates who presented this scroll to the king were
not then assembled in form of parliament,! it was deemed
necessary at the next meeting of that assembly}; to declare
the marriage of Edward with Elizabeth to be void, on ac
count of his precontract with lady Elinor ; and therefore to
pronounce that Richard " was and is veray and undoubted
king of the realm of England ; and that the inheritance of it,
after his decease, shall rest in the heirs of his body." The
infidelity of the duchess of York was deemed too gross, or the
allegation of it by her son too monstrous, to be adverted to
in the statute. On the 26th of June, Richard seated himself
in the royal chair in the palace of Westminster ; and was re
ceived with outward reverence by the clergy, when he came
to the cathedral church of St. Paul to return thanks to God
for his exaltation to the throne. " After his accession," says
a simple chronicler, " the prince, or rather of right the king,
Edward V., with his brother, the duke of York, were under
sure keeping within the Tower, in such wyse that they never
came abroad after."} That the circumstances alleged by
Richard in support of the illegitimacy of these unhappy
princes should be true, is a supposition so improbable as
* " Cet Gveque mit en avant au Due de Gloucester, que le roi Edouard,
etant fort amoureux d'une dame d'Angleterre, lui promit de l'epouser,
pourvu qu'il eouchat avec elle. Elle y consentjt ; et cet eveque, qui les
avoit 6pous6s; et ii n'y avoit que lui et deux autres, il etoit homme de
cour, et ne le decouvrit pas et aida a faire taire la dame. Cet eveque en-
fin decouvrit cette matigre au Due de Gloucester, et lui aida a executer son
mauvais vouloir." — Comines, lib. v. c. 20.
t Rot. Pail. vi. 240. J Jan. 23. 1483-4. Rot. Pari. vi. 271.
j Fabyan, 6«9.

56 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1483.
scarcely to require further examination. Had Edward IV.
been really married to lady Elinor Butler, the spiritual court
must have decreed, on credible evidence of such an union,
that his pretended marriage with Elizabeth was a nullity.
Had any faith been placed in the testimony of the bishop of
Bath, such an avoidance of the first marriage by a competent
court, in the ordinary course of law, is very unlikely to be
overlooked in a matter relating to the succession to the
crown ; but the testimony of a man made so infamous by
his own story can be of no other importance than as a speci
men of the chancellors and prelates of the fifteenth century.
It is unanimously agreed that, after the accession of Rich
ard, no man (unless the jailers and the assassins) saw young
Edward. We have no intimation of the escape of him or his
brother; and it is certain that they had been murdered, or
made their escape, before the battle of Bosworth. It may be
observed that, in the statute declaring the legitimacy of Rich
ard, no mention is made of the two princes as beirrg then dead
or alive.* Is that silence reconcilable with the fact of their
being then alive "! In Richard's negotiations for a marriage
with his niece the princess Elizabeth, there is no evidence of
any attempt made by Edward's widow to save her sons. Was
there ever a mother who would, in such a case, be silent and
inactive, if she had not perfectly known their death ? The
total absence of all pretence to information respecting the
subsequent fate of Edward, or the particulars of the escape
of his brother Richard, seems to afford the most decisive evi
dence that neither was alive at the battle of Bosworth ; espe
cially as these boys were not of an age to forget their royal
condition, and must have been particularly known to many of
the English exiles who crowded the Courts of France, Bur
gundy, and Britany. There is no sufficient reason for distrust
ing the main circumstances of the murder of the princes, as
they are commonly related. It is said, that in the month of
August, 1483, while engaged in a progress through the north,
Richard commanded Brackenbury, the lieutenant of the
Tower, to put them to death with speed and secrecy. This
officer rejected the proposal, but acceded to another equally
infamous, — to place the keys and the custody of the Tower in
the hands of Sir James Tyrrell, a less hypocritical assassin,
who on the night of his arrival caused the subordinate mur
derers, Dighton and Forest,! to smother the princes in their
* Rot. Pari. vi. 240. Jan. 1483-4.
t " Miles Forest, a fellow flesh-bred in murder beforetime." — Grafton, ii.
118. " Dighton lived at Calais long after, no less disdained and hated than
pointed at."— Ibid.

1483. MURDER OF THE PRINCES. 57
dungeon at midnight. Brackenbury was richly rewarded for
his connivance, by grants of manors and pensions. Greene,
Brackenbury's messenger, appears to have been promoted
beyond his natural expectation. Forest, whom Sir Thomas
More calls " a noted ruffian" was made keeper of the wardrobe
at the duchess of York's house at Baynard's Castle. Tyrrell
himself was made steward of the duchy of Cornwall, and gov
ernor of Glamorganshire, with the gift of many manors in
South Wales. It is surely no mean corroboration of the nar
rative of Sir Thomas More, that we find the price of blood
thus largely paid to all the persons whom he mentions as
parties to the murder or privy to its perpetration.* Tyrrell is
said by More to have confessed his guilt when he was exe
cuted, twenty years after, for concealing the treason of the
earl of Suffolk.! The most specious objection to More's nar
rative is, that the dates of several of Richard's signatures, at
Westminster, on the 31st of July, do not leave sufficient time
before his coronation at York, on the 8th of August, for the
instructions, for the murder, the execution of it, and the
news of its completion ; all which, according to the received
accounts, occurred in that time. That the king, to expedite
affairs, might leave behind him many documents subscribed by
himself, when about to set out on a long journey, is so very
natural a solution of this difficulty, that it is singular it should
not have immediately presented itself. It would probably not
be difficult to ascertain the sort of writings in which the sig
nature of the king on the day of their dates might be required,
and in what cases it might be dispensed with. But English
history is indebted to Dr. Lingard for a more specific and
satisfactory answer. He has produced, in answer to this par
ticular objection, thirty-three instances of writs bearing date
at Westminster, by Edward V. himself, eleven days before the
day on which we know that he actually entered that city after
his accession. Comines, a writer of remarkable veracity, and
without English prejudices, who knew the chief lords of Eng
land as well as those of France and Burgundy, relates the
murder of the princes by their barbarous uncle as a fact not
requiring any proof.
No sooner had Richard, by thus spilling the blood of his
brother's children, completed his usurpation, than he found an
enemy, where he least expected it, in the duke of Bucking
ham, the accomplice of his blackest crimes ; undoubtedly the
chief instrument of the usurpation, and very probably privy
to the murder. The particular causes of Buckingham's revolt
* Turner, iii. 480. t Rot. Pari. vi. 545. A. D. 1503.

58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1483.
cannot now be ascertained. He was perhaps prompted by
anger that such a share in guilt should be followed by no
share in the spoils: Richard may have waded farther into
blood than was warranted by their original contract ; or, as a
descendant of Edward III., he might have hoped to hurl Rich
ard from a throne stained with the innocent blood of his
brother's children. It is possible that the Lancastrians may
have tempted him with such hopes, and that they professed to
believe his disavowal of previous knowledge of the murder
of the princes.
Whether Richard perpetrated the murder from fears of an
insurrection to release the princes, or published the accomit
of their death to confound the councils of the disaffected, the
insurrection of Buckingham broke out on the 18th of Octo
ber, 1483. He is generally related to have concerted mea
sures for raising Henry earl of Richmond to the throne, as the
chief of the Lancastrian party, on condition of his wedding
the princess Elizabeth, the heiress of the house of York.
This expedient for closing the gates of civil war is said to
have been suggested by Morton, bishop of Ely, and approved
by the queen-dowager and her sons of the first marriage, and
by the countess of Richmond, on behalf of her son in Britany,
to whom she dispatched tidings of the treaty and of the day
fixed for a general revolt. Storms, however, interrupted the
voyage of Henry. The Welsh retainers of Buckingham,
dispirited by broken bridges and impassable fords, in the forest
of Deane, disbanded themselves with a precipitation more
suitable to the mutinous habits than to the gallant spirit of
their nation.
Richard, who justified his cruelty to Jane Shore by affec
tation of zeal for austere morality, at this time, used the like
pretext to crush the remaining adherents of Buckingham. On
the 23d .of October, 1483, he issued a proclamation, with re
wards for the apprehension of Dorset and his followers, whose
escape was then either not effected or not known. That no-
bleman is charged by this proclamation with " having deflour-
ed many maids, wives, and widows ;"* with " holding the mis
chievous woman called Shore's wife in open adultery ; with
having not only rebelled against the king, and intended to
destroy his person, but also contributed to the damnable main
tenance of vice and sin, to the displeasure of God, and the
evil example of all Christian people." Buckingham's head
was struck off, without form of trial, in the market-place of
Salisbury. Morton effected his escape to Flanders ; the mar-
* Rymer, xii. 204.

1485. UNPOPULARITY OF RICHARD. 59
quess of Dorset and the bishop of Exeter to Britany. These,
with 500 English exiles, did homage to Henry of Richmond
as their sovereign, on condition of his swearing to observe the
terms of their agreement. Richard felt that he had suppressed,
but not extinguished, the revolt. He made a bold effort to
break the concert of the exiles and malcontents, by marrying
the young princess, his niece, whose hand was to be the bond
of union between the Roses. It seems obvious that the im
portance ascribed by all parties to the marriage of this prin
cess can only have sprung from their unanimous belief that by
the murder of her brothers she was become the heiress of the
house of York. The queen-dowager, in spite of her treaty
with Richmond, was shaken in her fidelity by the hope of
placing her daughter on the throne. Lady Anne Neville,
Richard's queen, was in infirm health. The princess showed
too great an eagerness for an unnatural marriage, and even
betrayed the most indecent impatience of the life of Anne,
who, she was assured by Richard, was to die in February.*
He was, however, dissuaded from these purposes of mar
riage, which were so unpopular that he was obliged to disavow
them. It affords no small presumption of the unpopularity as well
as illegality of bis government, that he did not venture to
recur to the practice of the two preceding reigns, by procuring
the sanction of parliament for his power, until it appeared to
be sufficiently strengthened by the failure of Richmond's at
tempt to invade England. It was only in the beginning of
1485! that Richard obtained statutes to establish his own
title, and to attaint his enemies ; for abolishing the grievance
of " forced benevolences;" and for reformations of law, which
rendered him popular, and clothed him with that show of se
cure dominion which delivered him from anxiety for the sta
bility of his throne, and enabled him to turn his thoughts to
the paternal duties of a just and impartial sovereign.
In the summer of 1485 he directed writs to be issued to all
sheriffs,}: informing them that Jasper and Henry Tudor, with
John earl of Oxford, Sir Edward Woodville and others, had
conspired with the duke of Britany to invade England ; that,
failing in this attempt, they fled to the king's ancient enemy
Charles, styling himself king of France, whose aid they pro
cured by a promise to cede to him the territories of France
which of right pertained to the crown of England. With an
* Her letter in Buck. t Rot. Pari.
t A copy of the writ to the sheriff of Kent is to be found in Fenn, ii. 319.
The instructions to the chancellor to prepare this proclamation are in
Ellis's Royal Letters, i. 162. second series.

60 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1485.
absurdity as remarkable as its hypocrisy, this proclamation
informed the subjects that the greater part of those rebels
were "open murderers, adulterers, and extortioners." The
most pertinent intelligence which it communicated was, that
the exiles had already chosen one Henry Tudor to be their
chief, who already usurped the royal estate of England,
" whereunto he had no interest, title, or color, being descended
of bastard blood on both sides ; for Owen Tudor his grand
father was a bastard,* and his mother was daughter unto John
duke of Somerset, son unto John earl of Somerset, son unto
dame Catherine Swinford by John of Gaunt, and the issue of
their double adultery."
But these reasonings were no longer seasonable. The
greater part of the York party, alienated by the crimes of
Richard, whose impartial tyranny destroyed Hastings with as
little scruple as Woodville, had acquiesced in Morton's project
for preserving their own connexion with the regal dignity by
seating Elizabeth of York on the throne.'
A compromise between the various interests, opinions, and
prejudices of a community would lose its nature and its use
fulness if it were invulnerable by arguments derived from
any one of the principles which it labors to reconcile. A per
fect logical consistency is incompatible with such pacifica
tions ; every party must sacrifice a portion of their opinions,
as well as a share of their interests. A compromise between
conflicting factions was effected on the ground that each party
should be, as it were, represented on the throne by a queen
whom Richard's unnatural deeds and projects pronounced to
be the heiress of York ; and by a king who, though he could
not indeed succeed under the title of the house of Lancaster,
was the only remaining leader of the Lancastrian party.
A few of the most eminent Yorkists adhered to the princi
ple of an inheritable crown, clouded as it was by the crimes
of Richard. They probably reconciled themselves to a devia
tion from it, in the preference of him to his niece, by the same
obvious necessity for a vigorous chief in the approaching
struggle which silenced the prejudices of the other Yorkists
against the succession of » Tudor. Among the eminent per
sons who adhered to Richard as a king of the house of York,
was Sir John Howard, created duke of Norfolk in consequence
of the marriage of his father with the coheiress of the Mow-
* A statement, whether true or false, perfectly immaterial. The latter
assertion is true, and, as far as mere hereditary right is concerned, appears
to be conclusive. The clause excepta digiiiiatc rcgali, in the letters patent
of Richard II. to John of Gaunt, it is altogether impossible to reconcile to
Henry's title derived from the Beaufort branch.

1485. BATTLE OF BOSWORTH. 61
brays ; a family who inherited the estates and dignities of
Norfolk from Thomas of Brotherton, fifth son of Edward I.
Another was lord Stanley ; who, though an original Yorkist,
became suspected by Richard on account of his friendship
with Hastings, and his marriage with the countess-dowager
of Richmond, the mother of Henry Tudor.* The difficulties
of Stanley's position were increased by his son George lord
Strange being in the hands of Richard, treated as a faithful
adherent ; but who might be dealt with as a hostage, in case
of the defection of the father. He , temporized ; seemed to
fluctuate ; and, though probably a party to the agreement for
the marriage of Henry and Elizabeth, preserved a show of
neutrality longer than could be conceived, if the extent and
remoteness of his domains were not considered.
Early in the month of August, 1485, Henry earl of Rich
mond embarked from Harfleur, and landed at Milford-Haven
on the 6th of that month ; a place chosen partly, perhaps,
from some reliance on the partiality of the Britons to their
native race, but more probably from the facility of undisturbed
disembarkation, and from the opportunity afforded to the rising
of the malcontents by the distance of his point of attack. The
situation of Stanley's domains on his left was probably also not
an unimportant circumstance in directing his choice of a land
ing-place. Richard, as active and vigilant in war as his brother Ed
ward, marched from London on the 16th of August;! and be
ing perhaps doubtful of his competitor's line of advance,
moved to the central provinces, that he might more easily
turn his attack wherever the appearance of the enemy re
quired. Both armies met at Bosworth in Leicestershire, on
Monday the 22d of August, 1485, in a battle memorable for
having'composed the long disorders of the kingdom, and re
stored it, after the lapse of nearly a thousand years, to a race
of native princes. Stanley continued to march slowly, and
hung aloof on the skirts of the hostile armies till the" morning
of the day of battle : but he had quieted Richmond's anxieties
in a secret interview during the preceding night. Richard
took advantage of a marsh which covered his right flank, and
commanded his bowmen to assail the enemy, whom the dis
charge of arrows threw into confusion. A close fight with
swords followed for a short time ; but lord Stanley, who still
hovered on the edge of the field, at this critical moment join
ed the earl of Richmond, and determined the fortune of the
day. For a moment the earl of Oxford, who commanded
* Dugdale. t Fenn, ii, 335.
Vol. II. F

62 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1485.
Henry's army, suspected the new auxiliaries; but Oxford
soon recovering his confidence, the battle was resumed. Rich
ard saw Henry approaching, and hastened to meet his com
petitor man to man. The last day of the monarch was dis
tinguished by his accustomed prowess : he slew with his own
hand Sir Charles Brandon ; and, while engaged in the hottest
contest, he fell by a death too honorable for his crimes, but
becoming the martial virtues of his life. After his death, re
sistance became vain: a thousand men of Richard's army
were slain in the action, which lasted two hours. The duke
of Norfolk, lords Ferrers, Radcliffe, and Brackenbury, were
among the slain. The killed of the earl of Richmond's army
amounted only to one hundred, of whom Sir Charles Brandon
was the only man of note. Lord Stanley, who by his timely
interference substantially transferred the crown to Henry,
was also the person who formally, when it was found among
the spoils of Richard, placed it on his head, exclaiming,
" Long live king Henry !" which was repeated with military
acclamation by the victorious army. In five days afterwards
the king acknowledged his signal services by conferring on
him the dignity of earl of Derby.
When the civil war was approaching, we first clearly dis
cern, from the private and confidential correspondence of the
Pastons, a family of note in Norfolk, the frequent interposition
of the grandees in the elections of commoners, or rather their
general influence over the choice. In the year 1455, we find
a circular letter from the duchess of Norfolk, to her husband's
adherents in that county, apprizing them of the necessity
" that my lord should have at this time in the parliament such
persons as belong unto him, and be of his menial servants,"
and therefore entreating them to apply their voice unto John
Howard and Roger Chamberlayne, to be knights of the shire.
On this passage, it is only necessary to observe, that " menial"
at that period was a word which had scarcely any portion of
its modern sense, and might be applied with propriety to any
gentleman • bred within the walls of the duke's castle. By
another short dispatch from lord Oxford, in the autumn of the
same year, it appears that Sir William Chamberlayne and
Henry Grey were to be supported by the two dukes as candi
dates for the county of Norfolk.* In 1472, also, the dukes of
Norfolk and Suffolk, after a conference on the subject, agreed
to have Sir Richard Harcourt and Sir Robert Wyngefield to
represent the county, and to recommend Sir John Paston to
be elected for the borough of Maldon, and obtained from the
* Fenn's Letters, vol. i. pp. 97. 99.

1485. ARISTOCRACY INFLUENCES ELECTIONS. 63
burgesses of Yarmouth a promise to support their candidates
for that borough, who were Dr. Alleyne and John Russe.*
In the next instance, after the duke of Norfolk found it im
practicable to return his son-in-law, Mr. Howard, for the coun
ty, an intimation is thrown out, of means by which an indefi
nite extension of influence in the elections of other towns,
and in the revivals of disused franchises, might be obtained.
" If ye miss to be burgess of Maldon, and my lord Chamber
layne will, ye may be in another place ; there be a dozen
towns in England that choose no burgess, which ought to do
it ; ye may set in for one of those towns, and ye be friend
ed."! A curious illustration of the habitual exercise of the influ
ence of the crown, as well as of the nobility, in elections,
may be seen in a familiar letter contained in the same collec
tion. " Sir Robert Corners dined with me this day, and showed
me a letter that came from the king to him,- desiring him that
he should wait upon his well-beloved brother, the duke of Suf
folk, at Norwich, on Monday next coming, for to be at the
election of knights of the shire ; and he told me that every
gentleman in Norfolk and Suffolk, that are of any reputation,
hath writing from the king in likewise as he had."}
It was in this period of civil war, that two writers of sa
gacity describe England as superior to her neighbors, in a
mild and equitable government, of which the habitual influ
ence had abated the ravages of a contest between incensed
factions, and deprived intestine commotions of a great part of
their horrors. 5 "In England," says Philip de Comines, a sol
dier and a traveller, " the evil of war falls on those only who
make it." Sir John Fortescue, an English lawyer, long resi
dent in France, contrasts the operation of absolute monarchy,
in impoverishing and depressing the people of that kingdom,
with that more free government which raised up the race of
English yeomen, qualified by their intelligence, and by their
independent situation, as well as spirit, to take an important
part in dispensing justice as jurors ;|| — an accession to popular
power, which spread more widely over ordinary life, than per-
* Fenn's Letters, vol. ii. p. 103.
f John Paston to his brother, Ibid. vol. ii. p. 103.
| Margaret Paston to her husband, Ibid. vol. iv. p. 103.
§ " Selon mon advis entre toutes Ies seigneuriez du monde dont j'aye con-
noissance, ou la chose publique est mieux traitee et on regne moins de vio
lence sur de peuple et on il y a nuls edificis, abatlus ni demolis pour la guerre
c'est l'Angleterre, et tombent le sortet le malheur sur eux qui font la guer
re."— Comines, liv. v. c. 19.
y3ir John Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Anglo, c. 36. See also on the
renoe between an absolute and a limited monarchy.

64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1485.
haps any other; and while it fostered the independence of the
people, contributed, by a happy peculiarity, to interest their
pride, in duly executing the law, and taught them to place
their personal importance in enforcing the observance of
justice. Nothing can be more decisive than the testimony of this
eminent lawyer. He lays it down as a first principle, " that
a king is appointed to protect his subjects in their lives, prop
erties, and laws ; for this end he has the delegation of power
from the people, and. he has no just claim to any other
power."* " In France, although well supplied with all the
fruits of the earth, yet they are so much oppressed by the
king's troops, that you could scarce be accommodated even in
the great towns. The king cannot, in England, lay taxes : he
cannot alter the laws or make new laws, without the consent
of the whole kingdom in parliament assembled." These ex
tracts may be properly closed by the short maxim following,
after the perusal of which no man will be at a loss to under
stand the main cause of the happiest of all revolutions — the
manumission of bondsmen. " The laws of England in all cases
declare in favor of liberty."!
Thus early was the example of England in entering on the
progress towards liberty (the highest benefit which a single
people could confer on mankind) discovered by the wisest
men of an age which may be regarded as the worst in the
history of this country : the two governments were thus esti
mated according to their experienced effects,- by men whose
origin and fortune were not favorable to a prejudice on the
side of England ; the one a foreigner, who saw the venality
of the court and council of Edward IV. ; the other an Eng
lishman, indeed, but with the more bitter feelings of unjust
exile and undeserved proscription. Fortescue, even in his
own banishment, and amidst the tragical circumstances of his
country, considers its government as the best model of legal
liberty, and holds out France as an example of the evil prin
ciple of absolute power.
* De Laudibus, c. xiii. Professor Amos's edition, with his most learned
and instructive notes, p. 38. In c. xxix. the opulence of the yeomanry is the
reason assigned for juries.
t C. xii. Id. 157.

1485. HENRY THE SEVENTH. 65
CHAP. III.
HENRY VII.
1485—1509.
The reign of Henry VII. may be characterized as the
restoration of the Lancastrian party to power. It was so in a
great measure, necessarily ; nor can it be denied that policy
required from the king that he should strengthen his most
devoted adherents : but he had too long been the leader of a
party not to be carried by his habits and passions beyond the
limits of necessity, or of prudence. To this vice, which might
be owned not to be without excuse, the chief disorders of
England under his administration are doubtless to be ascribed;
had he labored more heartily to be the impartial ruler of all
his subjects, a nation weary of civil war would have more
uniformly submitted to a government which, although jealous
and stern, maintained peace and justice.
Henry, at the opening of his reign, was perplexed by the
various and jarring grounds on which his title to the crown
rested : first, his marriage with Elizabeth ; second, his descent
from the house of Lancaster ; and, third, the right of conquest.
The las£ was too odious to be openly advanced. The second
could not be singly relied on in the event of a breach between
himself and his Yorkist adherents : and the first gave security
only in the case of his having issue by his marriage with
Elizabeth. " He rested on the title of Lancaster in the main,
using the marriage and the victory as supporters."* He
immediately assumed the title of king, without mention of the
intended marriage ; and though, on his arrival in London, he
renewed his promise in that respect to his council, he was
nevertheless crowned separately, and he excluded the name
of Elizabeth from the parliamentary settlement, in order to
banish her pretension to a participation of right. He did not
exact such a recognition of his title as would have been in
volved in a declaratory act, nor did he, on the other hand,
accept the crown as a grant from parliament, but was content
with the ambiguous language! " that the inheritance of the
crown should rest, remain, and abide in the king." Yet it
was entailed only on " the heirs of his body ;" a limited and
* Bacon.
t These particulars rest on the credit of Bacon, and savor somewhat of
subtlety, in which it must be owned that, in his history, he has unseason
ably indulged.-'for the words here applied to Henry are almost the same
with those used in tho case of Richard III. two years before.— Rot. Pari.
vi. 240.
F2

66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1486.
conditional gift. All his titles, however, by descent, by mar
riage, by victory, or by parliamentary establishment, were
recited and confirmed in the next year by a papal bull.*
Many of these measures savor more of Lancastrian preju
dices struggling for a time with prudence, to which it reluc
tantly and ungraciously yields, than of the refinements of
policy, which the most famous of his historians is perhaps too
prone to attribute to a prince whom he evidently aimed at
representing as an ideal model of kingcraft.!
It is certain that none of the titles relied on by Henry made
the slightest approach to validity. Even if his descent from
John of Gaunt had been legitimate, he was not the nearest
descendant of that prince's children ; for princes and princesses
of undisputed legitimacy, the descendants of John of Gaunt's
first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, and of his second wife, Con-
stantia of Castile, were then living in the Spanish peninsula;
but their distance and their want of the means of interposi
tion, precluded all hope of enforcing their claims. Had the
doctrine of the indefeasible succession of the house of York
been likely at that crisis to obtain the national concurrence,
there were two unfortunate claimants in England, Edward
Plantagenet earl of Warwick, eldest son of George duke of
Clarence, and Margaret the daughter of that prince, and the
spouse of Sir Richard Pole.
On the 14th of January, I486, the king espoused the princess
Elizabeth of York, agreeably to the compromise of parties
formed between cardinal Morton and queen Elizabeth Wood
ville, which was the foundation of the subsisting government
The king then began a military progress through the north.
He defeated his opponents at Stoke, near Lincoln, and inflicted
on them severe punishments. This victory tempted him to
give the reins to his partiality. The stipulations of the ori
ginal agreement favorable to the York party were performed,
indeed, but sullenly. Whatever severities were compatible
with its letter were eagerly and fiercely inflicted on them.
The gracious part of the contract was postponed to the last,
while every blow from the hand of an enemy, however just,
seemed, to the disordered minds of the vanquished faction, a
wrong to their whole body.
* The second and most ample of the bulls of Innocent VIII. is extant in
Rymer, xii. 296. It is dated at Rome, in March, 1486.
t A curious grant for life, which occurs soon after the accession, is pre
served in Rymer, xii. 275., " of a building contained in the palace of West-
minster, together with the custody of the paradise and hell under that palace,
and of the contiguous buildings which formed the purgatory of our aforesaid
palace." It should seem from these names thax the praises of Chaucer had
oarly rendered Dante popular in England.

1486. THE IMPOSTOR SYMNEL. 67
In February, 1486, " there followed an accident of state ;
whereof the relations are so naked, that they leave it unintel
ligible, and scarcely credible — not on account of the nature
of it, for events of the like sort either often occurred, or were
liberally feigned, in the fifteenth century, but on account of
the manner of it, especially at the beginning. The kino- was
green in his estate, and contrary to his opinion, — perhaps to
his desert, — was not without much hatred throughout the
kingdom. The root of all was, the discountenancing of the
house of York."* At the time of the fermentation of various
and even jarring factions, agreeing scarcely in any common
ingredient but that of hatred against the king, Edward Plan
tagenet, the only surviving male of Clarence's family, was
committed to the Tower, where he lingered through the re
mainder of his wretched life.
In the same year the first mention is made of a youth,
named Sulford or Symnel, the son of an Oxford tradesman.
This youth, who had been trained, both in knowledge and
manners, by a subtle priest, called Richard Symmonds, was
then about fifteen years of age, a comely boy, not without
some dignity and grace, which were the more agreeable,
because unexpected in so humble a station. But the general
project of setting out, under a false name and pretensions, as
a candidate for the crown, might have occurred to many in
an age of revolutions, when, in the midst of the almost gene
ral massacre of the royal family, it was not improbable that
some of that house, then merely children, might have been
withdrawn from the doom of their kindred, by the attachment
or common humanity of some of their adherents ; and if any
outward excitement had been wanting to the ambition of
Symnel, it might have been supplied by rumors and other in
centives, proceeding from the court of Margaret, duchess-
dowager of Burgundy, the third sister of Edward IV. " This
princess," says Bacon, " having the spirit of a man, and the
malice (the personal resentment and desire of revenge) of a
woman, abounding in treasure, by her dower and her frugali
ty, made it the chief end of her life to see the majesty royal
of England once more replaced in her house ; and had set up
king Henry as a wall, at whose overthrow all her actions
should aim and shoot, insomuch that all the counsels of his
succeeding troubles came chiefly out of that quiver ; and she
bare such a deadly hatred to the house of Lancaster, that she
was nowise mollified by the conjunction of the two houses in
her niece's marriage, but rather hated her niece as the means
* Bacon, iii. 125.

68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1487/
of the king's accession to the crown"* It is therefore proba
ble, as our ancient writers tell us, that Symmonds and Lambert
had been stirred up, partly by these inventions of the court of
Brussels, to harbor vague and vast hopes of bettering and ad
vancing themselves, at first without stretching their serious
expectations beyond ecclesiastical preferment, but afterwards
swelling with the rumors spread by the duchess of Burgundy,
until their aims at length reached the royal dignity. Hitherto,
their ambitious schemes, however apparently impracticable,
were at least intelligible, and not without parallel in history ;
but the choice of the prince to be personated, bids defiance to all
attempts at explanation. It had been industriously rumored, and
it was perhaps believed by the priest of .Oxford and his pupil,
that Richard duke of York had escaped from the assassins of
his elder brother, and had found a secure asylum against the
tyrant Richard and the usurper Henry. In the beginning, it
seemed to be intended to select Symnel, to personate this
young prince ; but for some reason which we can no longer
ascertain, nor even probably conjecture, the prompters caused
their puppet to assume the character of Edward Plantagenet,
son of the duke of Clarence, and in that character to claim
the crown. For the selection of this plan of imposture it is
hardly possible to see any plausible reasons. Had Symnel
been really what he pretended to be, he had no pretension to
the crown during the lives of his uncle Edward's daughters.
The true earl of Warwick was then a prisoner in the Tower,
at the mercy of his most deadly foe. Henry ordered Warwick
to be led on horseback through the streets of London, in order
that the most ignorant of the multitude might see the gross-
ness of the imposture. During the procession, many courtiers
of Edward IV., who were unfriendly to a Lancastrian govern
ment, were allowed and encouraged to determine for them
selves the identity of the prisoner, by conversation with him, on
the occurrences of his infancy and childhood. Every attempt
to explain these circumstances, by the supposition that the
overthrow of the false Warwick was necessary to the success
of the true, is liable to the seemingly insurmountable objec
tion, that as the Yorkist chiefs were not masters of events, it
must have been impossible to foresee whether those who were
chosen to act as tools might not at last snatch victory out of
the hands of their employers. These hypotheses also assumed,
that the appearance and suppression of a pretender is favora
ble to a like revolt in support of the just claimant in the same
* Bacon's Works, iit. 188. Montague's edition.

1487. SYMNEL DEFEATED. 69
character, which appears to be the reverse of the ordinary re
sults of experience.
In February, 1487, the earl of Kildare, lord deputy of Ire
land, who, with the greater part of the English settled in that
country, was a zealous adherent of the house of York, receiv
ed the pretended Warwick with the utmost friendship, and
allowed his claim without discussion. The public exhibition
of Warwick had disabused many in the capital ; but the little
colony in Ireland called the English Pale, long ruled by the
York party, retained their ancient attachments, little moved
by mummeries in London, of which they had probably slow,
imperfect, and scanty information. The Irish chiefs took lit
tle part in the broils of the foreign tyrants. In the earlier
part of these designs and movements, John earl of Lincoln,
the nephew of Edward IV, had continued to take his share in
the councils of the reigning monarch; but before Symnel's
declaration and coronation, he had contributed by his example
and advice to these solemn acts of national recognition, sup
ported and spirited by the duchess of Burgundy. He, with
the lord deputy, the earl of Kildare, in May, 1487, took the
bold measure of disembarking in Lancashire, with an Irish
force, to seat the pretender on the throne of England. They
were aided by a band of 2000 mercenaries of Burgundy and
Germany, and were led into the -field by the earls of Lincoln
and Kildare, lord Lovel, Schwartz the leader of the foreign
soldiers, and Sir Thomas Broughton, an opulent landholder of
the north. On the 22d of June, 1487, the Irish army had
penetrated into the heart of the kingdom. Though they do
not appear to have gained any conspicuous accession on their
march, an advance so unmolested indicates the absence of a
very decisive preponderance on either side. " Both the ar
mies joined and fought earnestly and sharply."* The insur
gents, about 8000 in number, began the attack ; one half of
them were left dead, among whom were Lincoln, Kildare,
Broughton, and Schwartz. Lovel was seen in the. flight, but
never after heard of Symmonds the priest, and his pupil
Symnel, were spared, and afterwards treated with a sort of
contemptuous eompassion, which is so much at variance with
the common treatment of daring and formidable rebels in that
age, that it may be considered as another strange fact in this
singular transaction. Symnel was made a turnspit in the
king's kitchen, and after a due trial of his merit, promoted to
the honorable office of one of the king's falconers. Thus
ended a revolt, absurd in its plan, unintelligible in some of its
* Hall, 434.

70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1493.
circumstances, suffered to keep up a sort of faint existence
for a longer period than its vital powers seemed to be capable
of preserving it, and at last closed in a manner which neither
valor nor clemency could prevent from being somewhat ludi
crous. Another attempt of the same general nature, though cer
tainly very different in tone and temper, may be related in
this place, though it did not occur until six years after (in 1493),
in order to keep the attempts pointed against Henry's throne
separated from the less important events of his reign, with
which they have, indeed, little natural or direct connexion.
A pretender to the regal dignity appeared in Ireland, under
the name of Perkin Warbeck, but asserting himself to be
Richard duke of York, the second son of Edward IV. No
proof remains of his having offered an account on this or any
other occasion of the circumstances of the murder of his elder
brother, of his own preservation, or of any of those facts,
without a knowledge of which it was impossible to bear effec
tive testimony to his filiation and legitimacy. It is nowhere
intimated that he even attempted to explain the cause of his
own total ignorance of facts inseparable from the very founda
tion of his own claim. Till the death of his brother, for ex
ample, he could have no title. But the death of that prince
resting on the same general belief with that of his younger
brother could hardly have been proved by those who were ig
norant of the circumstances of the murder; or at least a satis
factory account must be required of the causes which enabled
a witness to be sure that there was a murder, and yet to be
wholly unacquainted with every other particular relating to it.
He seems to have been first heard of at the court of Margaret of
York, his supposed aunt. Henry's ambassadors, archbishop
Warham and Sir Edward Poynings, required that the auda
cious impostor should be surrendered to them, or that he
should be compelled to quit the territories of the duke of Bur
gundy, where he had been sheltered since Charles VIII., then
solicitous for the favor of Henry, expelled him from France,
though on the first arrival there the adventurer had been re
ceived with princely honors. The duke made all the profes
sions usual on such occasions ; he alleged the confessed neu
trality of the provinces directly subject to him, and his want
of authority over the vassals of the duchess-dowager. That
princess sent Perkin into Portugal. When he returned his
reception was more honorable, and his political importance
had grown greater, without effort or consciousness on his own
part From the moment that war against France began to
be probable, every pretender to the English crown became an

1494. PERKIN WARBECK. 71
instrument of the utmost consequence to that powerful state.
Perkin was received with open arms in Ireland, where the
people were as prone to believe a wonder, as if they had not
just escaped from the like fraud. In the case of Symnel,
they, as well as the duchess of Burgundy, forfeited all title to
belief in their testimony for Perkin by their credulity or
falsehood; in a case of such flagrant imposture as that of Sym
nel. The fanatical attachment of the Irish to the house of
York was vainly combated by papal bulls, condemnatory of
the archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, and of the bishops of
Meath and Deny, for their share in the coronation of Symnel.*
Sir R. Clifford, and some of his friends, in 1494, went to
Flanders to ascertain the history of Warbeck. They were
deputed by the leading Yorkists ; but, as all seem to agree,
corrupted by Henry before their arrival at the court of Bur
gundy ; and they furnished the king with important informa
tion relating to the correspondence of the discontented nobil
ity with the pretender and his counsellors. • The difficulties
produced by the irregularity of the judicial proceeding of our
ancestors, and the scantiness of the narratives now possessed
by us, are still more increased by an incident of frequent
occurrence, in the employment of the dishonorable, however
legal, or even sometimes necessary, means of detecting and
punishing conspiracies. In some manner, though it is not
certain how, these secret emissaries took bribes from those on
whom they were to act as spies, and began to be spies on their
original employers, without ceasing to be spies for them. In
such an embroiled political comedy it is very difficult, or
rather impossible, to trace the mazes of the intrigue, the in
constancy, and the faithlessness of the double spy, who seldom
fails to earn the wages of .his iniquity from one, if not more,
of the parties with whom circumstances have brought him
into contact, in situations the most tempting to human infirm
ity. The jealous and suspicious tyrants, who most usually
employ dishonest and infamous agents, cannot fail to suspect
those with the full extent of whose villany and wickedness
they alone are acquainted. In time the intrigue is perplexed
by using one gang of spies to watch over another detestable
band of the same miscreants ; all of them are traitors to each
other, to their native master who teaches them treachery by
the very act of their appointment, and to the foreign, seducer
to whom they cannot be much better disposed than to their
liege lord. They are sold to all ; and though strictly faithful
to none, yet have some fear of losing a hold on any party, and
* Rymer, xii. 332. dated at Rome, Jan. 1487.

72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1494.
aim at preserving some ties, either of fear or of gratitude,
some secret benefits or threats, by which they may be ran
somed in the hour of extreme need.
At Clifford's return, however, some of the most eminent
among the malcontent Yorkists were, on his secret communi
cations, put to death. The fate of some of them was very
mysterious. Sir W. Stanley, lord chamberlain, was charged
by Clifford with the treason of abetting the rebels abroad by
a treasonable correspondence with them. He is said to have
confessed the crime ; and whatever were the grounds of ac
cusation, the restorer of Henry was executed on the 15th of
February, 1494. It would have been wonderful if, under the
reign of a miser and an extortioners one principal motive to the
execution were not generally believed to be the confiscation
of the property of the most affluent of English noblemen.
Indeed, the causes of Stanley's monstrous execution assigned
by Bacon, an historian sufficiently favorable to the king, are
such as to warrant very odious suspicions. They are his in
vidious deserts, which were too high for reward ; the alarm
ing power of him who as he had set up a king might pull him
down, "with a glimmering of a confiscation of the property
of the richest subject in the kingdom ;" to which the historian
fairly or speciously adds fears for his own safety in times so
dangerous.* He was accused of declaring that if a legitimate
son of Edward IV. were alive, Sir William would not bear
arms against him ; which amounted, at most, to a decision in
favor of the title of the house of York, -and which, even if so
interpreted, was not necessarily an overt act of treason, be
cause it was not uttered in furtherance of a treasonable pur
pose, and might probably be understood as meaning no more
than attachment to the memory of Edward, and of gratitude
for his friendship.
The executions which followed the information of Sir
Robert Clifford, especially that of Sir William Stanley, spread
dismay among that commonly numerous body who, in times
of commotion and conspiracy, expose themselves to suspicion
by the discovery of their compliances with every successive
conqueror. Sir Robert Clifford had been the confidential
minister of the Yorkists in the Netherlands. Stanley was
the personal friend of Edward IV. A charge of treason from
such an informer, and aimed at such a victim, seemed to dis
solve all ties of confidence between the Yorkists and the ex
iled malcontents, and to be a fatal blow struck at the only
point of communication by which the exiles might concert
?Bacon, iii. 297. Montague's edition.

1496. PERKIN WARBECK. 73
their measures with the discontented at home. " Still," says
the wise historian, " they rather made the king more absolute
than more safe."*
Perkin Warbeck began to feel that he stood on shifting
sands ; that longer procrastination might now seem to be a
renunciation of his claim, and that the competitor for a crown
must show his fortitude and prowess if he expect that many
will intrust him with their lives and fortunes. In May, 1496,
he collected a small force in Flanders, with which he attempt
ed to land near Deal, but was defeated by the people of the
country, who took 150 prisoners ; these prisoners Sir John
Peachy, sheriff of Kent, brought to London, "railed with
ropes like horses drawing in a cart"! The opportunity which
occasioned this attempt was the distant visit which the king
then was paying to his mother the countess of Richmond, for
whom he professed much honor and affection, though she
was then the widow of Sir William Stanley, for whose death
he thought that he was making some amends by his visit
to her.
Perkin, disappointed in Ireland, and worsted in England,
turned his hopes to Scotland, where rapacity and national
antipathy always rendered an irruption into England palata
ble. In the latter part of 1496 the young king of Scotland,
affecting pity for the misfortunes of Perkin, and professing
a conviction of the justice of his title, gave the hand of
lady Catherine Gordon, a young lady celebrated for beauty,
and near akin to the royal family, to the pretender in the mo
ment of his sinking fortunes. James entered Northumber
land ; but the Scots as usual dispersed as soon as they were
satiated by pillage and laden with booty. No native sword
was drawn for Perkin while he was in England under the
protection of a foreign army. It is said that during the inroad,
" when Perkin saw that the Scotch fell to waste, seeing no
support given to their cause in the country, he came to the
king and said, with loud lamentation, that this might not be
the manner of making the war." Whereupon the king an
swered in sport, " that he doubted much whether Perkin was
not too careful for what was none of his."} Henry was im
patient of the state of disquiet and irritation kept up by revolts
and conspiracy at home, but fomented by the frequent and
destructive inroads of the Scotch. Ayala, the Spanish ambas
sador in London, at the king's desire repaired to the court of
Scotland, and labored for almost a year to persuade James to
* Bacon, iii. 322. t Holinshed, iii. 54. Hall, 472.
t Bacon, ut sup. 324.
Vol. II. G

'ii HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 14"97~
accede to an amicable arrangement, to which the pledged1;
faith of the Scottish prince never to desert Warbeck was an-
obstacle so formidable, that it was at last thought fit to evade-
it by omitting all mention of Warbeck by name, on James's
promise that he should be persuaded to leave Scotland. A
long truce supplied in other respects the place of a treaty of
peace. Nothing was accounted essential to James's honor
but that the adventurer should not seem to be driven from his
refuge by force. He accordingly went away with six score
of adherents, in four vessels : he touched at Cork, but vainly
labored to rekindle the zeal of the earl of Desmond, and landed
his handful of followers on the 7th of September at Whitsand
Bay, in Cornwall, whence he advanced to Bodmin, and there
was proclaimed with the royal standard of Richard IV. un
furled before him.
He now found, for the first time, a considerably body of
native Englishmen in arms, who were ready to espouse his
cause. In 1496 parliament had granted a subsidy equal- to
two tenths and two fifteenths, on the conditions that it should
be expended for the purposes of the Scottish war, and that its
payments should be suspended if active hostilities were dis
continued. A singular provision was added, that the farmers-
might retain from their next payment a sum equivalent to
any distress levied on them for non-payment of these contin
gents till there should be time to hear and determine by the
course of law the legality of the assessment.* Commissioners
were named to carry this grant into effect in all the counties
and great towns. They were vested with full power to ap
portion the assessment and to levy the payments ; and though
every impost laid on a man by an estimate or conjecture re
specting his wealth is liable to be oppressive, yet it is hard to
discover any unusual traces of severity on this occasion. On
the imposition of a like tax in 1497, the discontents of the
people broke out into revolts, signalized in one instance by
the assassination of the earl of Northumberland. In the
present year the same spirit throughout Cornwall manifested
itself with more strength and system. A remote and almost
insular county, speaking a distinct language, among whom
the introduction of extraordinary aids to the king was in all
likelihood later than in nearer and more thriving districts, and
whose hardy and licentious occupations were the natural nur
series of a mutinous spirit, presented a scene of action very
favorable to the invader.
The insurgents of Cornwall had marched to Wells, under
* Rot. Pari. vi. 513. 519.

1497. PERKIN WARBECK. 75
Hamock, " a gentleman learned in the law," and Joseph the
blacksmith, when lord Audley was chosen by them, gladly
and gratefully, to be their commander. They marched
through Wiltshire and Hampshire into Kent, with no dis
cernible object, unless they were encouraged by the tra
ditional fame of the men of Kent, as unconquered lovers of
liberty. Audley, seemingly with no aid from the turbulence
of London, but entertaining vague hopes from the populace
of a great city, took his position at Blackheath, and waited
till the movements of the royal aTmy should determine
whether he must either give -them battle, or attack the capital
himself; Henry having planted troops at the most convenient
avenues and passages on Blackheath, to cut off the retreat -of
the Cornish men, encamped on St. George's Fields. The
Cornish army was depressed by so long a march, without any
appearance of support. Assailed on all sides, rashness was
followed by its frequent attendants, sudden apprehension and
general panic. The men of Cornwall did not struggle against
difficulties with their wonted manhood. In the action, which
occurred on the 23d of June, 1497, they were totally defeated.
The loss of the king amounted to three hundred : two thou
sand were left dead by the revolters. Audley was beheaded
on the next day. " Hamock and Joseph were hanged, drawn,
and quartered, after the manner of traitors. Their heads
and quarters were pitched upon stakes. ¦ The king meant to
¦send them to Cornwall for a terror to others ; but fearing
that the Cornish men would be the more irritated and pro
voked, he changed his purpose."*
The remains of the Cornish army retreated to their own
-provinces, and soon after received the pretender in his regal
style and character. They were treated with a lenity which
perhaps proceeded from the policy of suffering the inflamma
tion of men's minds to subside spontaneously, rather than
from the clemency or the contempt to which it has been va
riously ascribed by historians. Exeter was the only town in
the west which preserved its Lancastrian loyalty. Perkin
was compelled to raise the siege of that city, which had been
blockaded, and sometimes assaulted, during a siege of three
weeks. He was at this time deserted by Prion, a discarded
secretary of Henry, who, from the seasonableness of his de
fection, may be suspected at all times to have been more a
spy on Perkin than a traitor to Henry. His three remaining
-counsellors in his last faint struggle, are thus sarcastically
enumerated by Bacon, — " Sterne a bankrupt mercer, Skeltoa
*HolinRhed, iii. 514.

76 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1499.
a tailor, and Astley a scrivener." After the siege of Exeter,
he was still at the head of ten thousand men, and made a
show of preparations for battle at Taunton, in September,
1497 ; but while he amused his followers by the hope of a
victory, he, escaped from them by night, with fourscore fol
lowers, and registered himself in the sanctuary of the abbey
of Beaulieu, in Hampshire.
On the 20th of January, 1498, the sanctuary was, by
Henry's command, surrounded by soldiers, who were required
to keep their captive constantly within view. In this situa
tion, when he was beset by spies, weary of confinement, irri
tated by all the countless annoyances which that word may
involve in it, and probably doubtful whether Henry's respect
for sanctuary would long continue a match for his policy or
revenge, he was advised by the royal emissaries, " on his
having pardon and remission of his heinous offences, of his
own will frankly and freely to depart from sanctuary, and
commit himself to the king's pleasure." " Perkin, being
now destitute of all hope, lacking comfort, aid, and refuge,
when he knew not to what country to fly for succor, having
now his pardon offered to him, and trusting to the open prom
ise of men,"* yielded to, perhaps, honest advice. The strong
language in which the chronicle describes the forlorn and
desperate condition of Perkin, justly despairing of aid from
any prince, or of asylum in any other country, manifestly in
dicates the cause of his temporary importance, and of the
utter ruin which now fell upon him. He was important as
long as it was the interest of neighboring princes to throw,
when they pleased, a firebrand into the English dominions.
Political circumstances had varied, and, with the change, the
importance of Warbeck disappeared.
He at first experienced somewhat of that scornful pity,
which it was thought safe to squander on the notorious Sym
nel. He was allowed to walk about London, where he ex
cited the wonder of the populace, and was the object of their
base sports. He next made his escape, and took refuge in
the priory of Bethlehem at Richmond, now called Shene,
where he prevailed on the prior to intercede with the king
for his life. The king, anxious to escape the odium of a vio
lation of sanctuary, agreed to spare Perkin's life, and com
manded that he should stand in the stocks, once at West
minster, and once in Cheapside ; at both which places he read
a confession of his imposture, on the 14th and 15th of June,
1499. * Grafton, ii. 215.

1499. PERKIN AND WARWICK. 77
In the Tower of London he met a singular companion.
Edward Plantagenet earl of Warwick, son of George duke
¦of Clarence, the undisputed successor to the crown, according
to the principles of the house of York, who had been confined
-a prisoner in that fortress for the period of fourteen years.
The earliest fact which the unfortunate youth could recollect
was the murder of his father, with the aggravation that it
was perpetrated by an unnatural brother, in a manner which
bore the appearance of turning fratricide into a jest. For
three years he was imprisoned at Sheriff-Hutton in Yorkshire,
whence, after the battle of Bosworth, he was conveyed to the
Tower. He passed his life in captivity, for no other offence
than that he was the sole survivor of the male descendants
¦of Edward III. This unhappy youth listened with eager
credulity to projects suggested by Perkin for their joint de
liverance. They were charged with a conspiracy to set
themselves free, by seducing some of their guards, and dis
abling or destroying the rest. Whether Perkin was himself
the contriver of this plot, or was excited by the government
to inveigle Warwick into acts which might give a color of
law to his destruction, is a question which cannot now be
satisfactorily answered. The latter supposition seems to cor
respond best with the events which followed. That Henry
should once, if not twice, have spared the life of Perkin, is
an inexplicable occurrence, which leads to no certain conclu
sion, but that the adventurer was not the son of Edward IV.,
and that he was not then believed to be a person so formi
dable. It is true that the situation of Henry exposed him to some
'fluctuations in his counsels, otherwise unlikely in a sagacious
and inflexible prince. But the time was approaching when
the death of Elizabeth of York, which actually took place in
1503, was about to divest him of one of his irregular titles to
regal authority. He was then to be no more than an illegiti
mate descendant of the house of Lancaster, who were them-
¦selves usurpers in the eye of all the zealous of hereditary
light. His son Henry, who had probably betrayed a character
not disposed to yield his pretensions, would then become the
'legitimate sovereign, according to the maxims of the Yorkists.
As there is, perhaps, nothing in human affairs so hard to be
foreseen as the effect of punishment it is natural to a prince,
however free from the infirmity of compassion, to fluctuate
between pardon and rigor, as he may, sometimes, be most
fearful of offending one party, and sometimes more apprehen
sive of strengthening another.
However this may be, it is not probable that, after pardon-
G2

78 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1499.
ing Perkin for so many rebellions, the king should have
brought him to trial for a plot which, even if true, amounted
only to the comparatively venial offence of an attempt, by
prisoners, to escape from their prison. The fact is intelligible,
if we adopt the narrative of those who represent Perkin as
being instructed or tempted to decoy Warwick into the ap
pearance of a plot; by whom we are told, that when the
destruction of that prince was resolved on, the criminal pro
ceedings against the adventurer were deemed necessary, to
bestow the exterior of reality and importance on the con
spiracy. Whatever the secret motives may have been of the
change from contempt to rigor, Warbeck was tried and con
victed, on the 16th of November, 1499, of treasons, says Lord
Bacon, done by him after he landed ; though it does not
appear what these could be, which were not comprehended
in the pardon.
At his execution he repeated his confession that he was an
impostor. It was not treason to attempt his own escape ; and
it could not have been treason to aid the like attempt of lord
Warwick, for whose confinement there does not appear to
have been a legal warrant. Perhaps, the subservient judges
held the conspiracy to effect his own deliverance by the aid
of some military retainers of the lieutenant of the Tower to
be an overt act of conspiring to rebel, which might be then,
for it is now, held to be an overt act of compassing the king's
death. The only interesting circumstance in the true story of
Warbeck is, that he retained to the last the faithful attach
ment of lady Catharine, "the pale rose of England;" an
appellation originally usurped by her husband, but transferred
by the people to her, as emblematical of her drooping beauty
and unsullied purity. Warbeck, when he advanced towards
the east, had placed her in St Michael's Mount, in Cornwall,
where she was found by Henry's troops, after her husband had
taken sanctuary at Beaulieu. Henry feared that she might
be pregnant, and thus prolong the race of impostors. The
beauty of the faithful and afflicted lady is, however, said to
have touched his cold heart He sent her to the queen, who
placed lady Catharine in an honorable station in the royal
household. She ended her days, long after, as the wife of
Sir Matthew Caradoc, or Craddock, beside whose remains she
was interred in the church of Swansea.
On the 21st of November, 1499, two days before the exe
cution of the pretender, the earl of Warwick was brought to
trial for treason, in conspiring with some servants of the lieu
tenant of the Tower to slay their master, and to seize that

1499. EXECUTION OF WARWICK. 79
opportunity of escaping; to which it was added by some, that
he was charged with a design to raise Warbeck to the throne.
Fifteen years of lonely imprisonment, chequered by the per
nicious indulgence of one warder and the dark severity of
another, had produced one of their most natural effects on this
unhappy boy, deprived almost from infancy of light and air,
sport and exercise, separated from companions and from kin
dred, without instruction or occupation. Our ancient histo
rians describe him in pithy though homely terms, as reduced
to the most abject condition of idiocy. " He was," says Holins-
hed, " a very innocent"* Another contemporary writer says,
" Being kept for fifteen years without company of men or sight
of beasts, he could not discern a goose from a capon."! In
this state of utter incapacity to commit a crime, or to defend
himself against an accusation, he was convicted by a jury of
peers, before the earl of Oxford, the lord high steward, of high
treason, and immediately after put to death for an offence
whieh his faculties did not enable him to comprehend. Thus
perished the last male of the Plantagenets, counts of Anjou,
who had reigned over England for near four hundred years,
with a general character of originality and boldness; but
who, as Bacon owns, were a race often dipped in their own
blood. |
The extinction of such a harmless and joyless life, in defi
ance of justice, and in the face of mankind, is a deed which
should seem to be incapable of aggravation ; but the motives
of this merciless murder, the base interests to which the vic
tim was sacrificed, and the horrible coolness of the two vete
ran tyrants who devised the crime, are aggravations perhaps
without parallel. Henry had been for some time engaged in
a negotiation for the marriage of Arthur, his eldest son, with
Catherine, infanta of Spain. In the course of the personal
correspondence between the two monarchs, " these two kings
understanding each other at half a word, there were letters
shown out of Spain, whereby, in the passages concerning the
treaty of marriage, Ferdinand had written to Henry in plain
terms, that he saw no assurance of the succession as long as
the earl of Warwick lived, and that he was loth to send his
daughter to troubles and dangers."^
It was not till the murder of Warwick might have been
foreseen, that the ill-omened nuptials between Arthur and
Catherine were celebrated by proxy in Spain,]| of which the
* Holinshed, iii. 529. f Hall, 491. J Bacon, iii. 365. § Ibid.
|| Rymer, xii. 658, 666. Tract, inter Reges Hisp. et Angl. The first formal
authority to conclude the treaty of marriage seems to be a commission to the
bishop of London, S2d of September, 1496.— Rymer, xii. 636.— May 14, 1499.

-80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1500.
remembrance caused that princess, deeply imbued by the reli
gion or superstition of her country, to exclaim long after, in
the most melancholy moments of her life — " The divorce is a
judgment -of God, for that my former marriage was made in
blood-!" The length of the proceedings preliminary to the
matrimonial negotiation suggests a suspicion that hard condi
tions were secretly sought by one of the parties. How came the
espousal by proxy to occur only six months before the execu
tion of Warwick, when it was easy to see that the disorders
and revolts of the kingdom would afford a pretext for involv
ing him in a charge of treason 1 The personal union was
delayed till 1501. Will it be thought an over-refinement to
discover, in these dates, a delay till the removal, of Warwick
could be made sure, without bringing the marriage so near
to the murder as still further to shock the feelings, and to
strengthen the unfavorable judgment of mankind'! Lord
Bacon, a witness against Henry, above exception, positively
affirms, that the flagitious correspondence had been seen in
England, and that it was shown by the king to excuse his
assent to a deed of blood.
Letters of such murderous import allow very little interval
between a breach of the intercourse and an acquiescence in
its proposals ; but when it terminates in the success of the
negotiation, and the opportune removal of the only obstacle
known to us which stood in its way, there seems little reason
for doubting either the correspondence which Bacon expressly
.attributes to his hero, or the criminal agreement which is
imputed to him, in language as clear, though not so directly
expressed.* The prevalent opinion that there was a secret correspond
ence with Spain relating to the removal of Warwick, singu
larly corresponds with the intrinsic probability of such a de
sign; both are corroborated by the otherwise inexplicable
-change of the king's dealing with the hitherto despised im
postor ; and they all concur in leading to the conclusion that
¦the offences of the unhappy Warwick, if not altogether
imaginary, were the result of a snare laid by Henry for the
inoffensive simpleton.
The extinction of the male descendants of the reigning
house of Burgundy and Britany was attended with considera
ble disturbance of that part of the European system to which
* " This marriage was almost seven years in treaty, which was, in part,
caused by the tender years of the marriage couple, especially of the prince ;
hut the true reason was, that these two princes, being princes of great policy
and profound judgment, stood a great time looking one upon another's for
tunes how they would go."— Bacon, iii. 374. Mont. edit.

1500. STATE OF EUROPE. 81
England was particularly attached* Maximilian archduke
of Austria, emperor of the Romans, had obtained the Burgun-
dian dominions by marriage with Mary, the heiress of these
fine provinces, which were inferior to few monarchies in Eu
rope. Louis XI. might have united the Low Countries to
Fiance amicably, by the marriage of Mary to a prince of
French blood, if the impolitic rapacity with which he seized
Burgundy and part of Picardy had not offended the princess
and the people. Anne, heiress of Britany, had many suitors
for her hand, before, by her marriage with Charles VIII., she
united that great fief to the crown of France. In this case,
Henry was influenced by various and dissimilar motives to
profess an interest, if not to take a share, in the contests be
tween France and Britany which preceded the union. When
earl of Richmond, he had been long sheltered in Britany.
There he formed the coalition with the Yorkists which placed
the crown on his head. But the duke of Britany was induced,
either by a simplicity scarcely credible, or by the bribes of
Edward IV., to surrender Richmond to that formidable prince.
Henry made his escape, and found a safe asylum in France,
where the government supplied him with the men and money
which enabled him to undertake a successful invasion of Eng
land. He was outwitted by the French in the affairs of Brit
any, where he considered conquest and marriage as improba
ble. Influenced in some degree by this error, he long confined
himself to speeches and memorials, which filled his coffers
with parliamentary grants, and kept up a certain disposition
to resistance both in England and Britany. He was easily
satisfied with any political reasoning which gave him a pre
tence for the indulgence of his wary and penurious disposi
tion. He was more lukewarm than insincere in his regard
for the independence of his neighbors, but was too sagacious
not to perceive its connexion with his own. Being at length
induced to make a tardy effort for the balance of power, he
landed in France in 1492, and laid siege to Boulogne. The
situation of all Europe threw a considerable weight into his
scale. Maximilian, sovereign of the Low Countries, courted
?The negotiations with the duchess of Britany, Rymer, xii. 355. 372. ;
Maximilian, 393.397.; with Ferdinand and Isabella, 411. ; with the duke
of Milan, 429; with the grandees of Britany, 433; alliance with Spain
against France, 462; preparations against that kingdom, 446—464 ; the
indentures for the French war, 477. ; are sufficient examples of the activity
and watchfulness of Henry between the defeat of Symnel in 1487., and the
diversion of French policy towards Italy in 1493, to show the English
monarch's ambitiouB neighbors that, if they desired to prosecute their
schemes of aggrandizement without disturbance, they would do well, by
supporting a pretender to his crown, to provide such a neighbor with occu-
nation at home.

82 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1500.
the alliance of England, — a power more interested than any
other in the independence of the Belgic territory. Charles
VIII. was now engrossed by his designs against Naples, — the
first attempt, since the Suabian emperors, to reduce a large
portion of Italy under a foreign yoke. Though Naples was
as speedily lost as won, though the French incursions into
Italy proved to be only brilliant inroads where victory was its
own sole reward ; yet the stream of French policy long flow
ed towards Lombardy and Naples in spite of the mountain
barrier, of the climate, unfriendly to northern soldiers, and of
the national aversion to the yoke of the transalpine barba
rians. By these wars, however, the Alps were divested of
their defensive terrors ; the road to the most beautiful regions
of Europe was laid open ; and the Italians were taught, that
the nations beyond the mountains had acquired the rudiments
of the art of war, and had increased in territory and numbers,
so much that the attempt of the feeble states of Italy to cope
with them in the field became vain.
Spain had now reached the highest point in her fortunes,
and had prospects more bright than any other country could
boast. The fall of Grenada established the Christian author
ity in every province of the peninsula ; and the discovery of
a new world seemed to open boundless hopes of splendor,
wealth, and power. The connexion of John of Gaunt and
his children with the royal families of Spain and Portugal
facilitated, perhaps, that union between Spain and England,
to which both were attracted by common interest. This union
appeared to be cemented by the marriage of Arthur prince
of Wales to Catherine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isa
bella; and if a human victim was sacrificed at the celebration
of these unhappy nuptials, it does not appear, from the temper
of those who have related that horrible crime, that it either
excited the indignation of contemporaries or the remorse of
the assassins.
In the treaties of peace with France, and of alliance with
Burgundy, a stipulation of no small importance to Henry's
quiet was obtained by him, — that no rebel subjects of either
power should be harbored or aided by the other. It is observ
able that the treaty of Etaples with France was ratified by
the three estates of Aquitain, Normandy, and Languedoc, and
probably of all the considerable provinces of France ;* and
that in a few months after, the same treaty, from which hopes
were doubtless entertained of lasting quiet, was confirmed
and ratified by the three estates of the parliament of England,
* Rymer, xii. 592. &c.

1503. PLOT AGAINST THE SCOTTISH KING. 83
represented on that occasion in a manner unusual if not
unexampled, by deputations from the three estates in each
bishopric in the kingdom* It may be added, that the king
did not conclude the peace of Staples till more than twenty
of the highest class of his subjects had addressed him as fol
lows : — " We all and every of us humbly beseech and require
(request) the king's grace tenderly to take to his gracious
consideration the jeopardies likely to ensue ; and for the con
servation of his royal person, of us his subjects, and also of
his realm of England, to accept the said peace."!
Peace was also concluded with Scotland ; and Margaret
Tudor, the king's eldest daughter, then given in marriage to
the Scottish king, became the stock from whom sprung all
the sovereigns who have since reigned in Great Britain. This
princess had been solemnly wedded on behalf of king James,
by his proxy, Patrick Hepburn earl of Bothwell, in the palace
of Richmond, on the 27th of January, 1503. She did not
begin her journey to Scotland till the following summer,
where, on the 8th of August, the marriage was completed,
and the queen was crowned with the usual parade. This
union gave quiet to the borders, and established friendship
between the monarchs, which a little while before was foreign
to the minds of both. In the year 1491, a very singular inci
dent occurred, which has received less notice than it deserves
from historians, either as a specimen of the sentiments of
good will, of good faith, or of international law which were
then almost openly avowed by European princes.}: On the
16th of April in that year, a secret agreement was entered
into by Henry at Westminster, with John lord Bothwell^ and
Sir Thomas Toddie, Scottish knights, by which it was stipu
lated " that the right honorable lord James earl of Boughan
(probably Buchan), and the said Sir Thomas, should take,
bring, and deliver into the said king of England's hands the
king of Scots now reigning, and his brother the duke of Roos
(Ross), or at least the said king of Scotland : the king of Eng
land, for the achieving of their said purpose, having lent and
delivered unto them (Boughan and Todd) the sum of 2661.
13s. 4rf., to be by them repaid to him." Of this extraordinary
conspiracy we have no information but that which this docu-
* Rymer, xii. 710. Commoners or persons not knighted ar called " Quam-
plures alii."
f Id. 490. Request and supplication of the captains of England for a
peace, November, 1492.
t Rymer, xii. 440.
§ The signature in Rymer is Bothvaile, though in the body of the agree
ment the usual manner of writing Bothwell is adopted by the English
clerk.

84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1503.
ment contains. We know, however, that John Ramsay of
Balmain, created lord Bothwell in 1486, was one of the favor
ites whose invidious ascendant over James III. brought defeat
and death on that prince in 1488 at Stirling ; and there can
be no doubt that he and Todd had been driven to take shelter
in England by the violence of the victorious factions, for their
adherence to the cause of that obnoxious prince. Whether
they were influenced by indigence, or actuated by a desire of
revenging the death of their master ; whether they were se
duced by Henry, or courted his aid ; are questions which no
historical evidence known to be extant will enable us to an
swer. Other parts of Bothwell's life warrant the worst in
terpretation of his actions. Though he was pardoned by James
IV., we find him, within two years of his pardon, acting as a
spy for Henry VII. at the court of Edinburgh.*
The conduct of Henry, however, which is more important,
can occasion no difference of opinion or hesitation of judg
ment. James IV., for whose abduction this plot was formed,
was then in the nineteenth year of his age, and already rank
ed as the most accomplished of the royal youth of Europe.
One of the truces which had served for nearly a century as
substitutes for treaties of peace between the two British na
tions was now recognized as in force by both parties. It was
concluded on the 20th of February, 1491, and was to be in
force to the 20th of November, 1492. The ink with which
the articles of the truce were written was scarcely dry, when
a new agreement was executed by the king of England to
tear James from his palace, and to drag him to a foreign
prison. That young prince naturally, but it seems vainly,
trusted, that if neighborhood and consanguinity, and the dig
nity of crowns, did not secure him against these perfidious
machinations, at least he might repose under the faith of a
treaty of armistice which was the latest solemn transaction
between the two nations. Death, accidentally or intentionally,
was so natural a consequence of the projected outrage, that
a statesman so sagacious as Henry must have been prepared
for its probable occurrence. To reduce this murderous pur
pose to paper is a contempt of shame and infamy rarely ex
hibited by assassins. To clothe it with all the formalities of
a treaty, to bestow on it the solemnities intended for the pre
servation of peace and justice, is not only to bid defiance to
all principles of morality, but to trample under foot the last
fragments of a show of duty between nations. It might be
alleged, indeed, that as there is no evidence of any attempt
* Pinkerton, i. 47. Douglas's Peerage.

1506. PHILIP THE FAIR IN ENGLAND. 85
being made to carry this agreement into execution, the offer
may have been finally rejected by the English monarch. But,
in answer, we may ask how the wages of the assassins were
paid beforehand. A mind must be little susceptible of honor
able scruples, which has steadily contemplated such a project,
and taken measures so serious to realize it.
The king, on another occasion, showed symptoms of dispo
sitions of the same nature. Philip the Fair, the son of the
emperor Maximilian, being on a voyage to Spain, was driven
by storms into Weymouth, in January, 1506. Wearied by
sea-sickness, he ventured to trust himself on shore, against
the advice of his more wary counsellors. Trenchard and
Carey, two gentlemen of the west, understanding it to be
the maxim of their master to consider strangers as enemies,
immediately brought together an armed force. They appear
ed before Weymouth, and invited Philip to remain with them
until they should apprize their sovereign of the arrival of this
illustrious guest. Henry dispatched the earl of Arundel with
directions to offer an immediate visit from the king to Philip.
The latter prince felt that he was no longer master of his own
movements, and, anticipating the king's visit, repaired to
Windsor, to pay his court to his royal kinsman, who received
him with every mark of friendship and honor, but soon began
to turn to account the involuntary residence of Philip in the
English dominions. Occasion was now taken to obtain a re
newal of the treaties of commerce and alliance, which if they
contained no amendment unduly favorable to England, owed
their freedom from actual wrong more to the unskilfulness
than to the honesty of the more powerful party.*
But the persecution of a Yorkist was still the favorite pur
suit of the English monarch. He chose a moment of cour
teous and kind intercourse to sound Philip on the means of re
moving the jealousy, or satisfying the revenge, of which one
of the most unhappy of these exiles was the object. " Sir,"
said Henry to Philip, " you have been saved upon my coast ;
I hope you will not suffer me to be wrecked on yours." ' The
latter asked what he meant. " I mean," said the king, " that
hare-brained wild fellow, the earl of Suffolk, who is protected
in your dominions." — "I thought," replied Philip, "your fe
licity had been above such thoughts ; but if it trouble you, I
will banish him." — " These hornets," said the king, " are best
in their nest and worst when they fly abroad. Let him be
delivered to me." — " That," said Philip, " can I not do with
* The Flemings, however, thought otherwise ; for they called the treaty
Tntercursus mains, as the great commercial treaty was called Intercursus
magnus. These treaties are in Dumont, Corp3 Diplom. ii. 30. 76. 83.
Vol. II. II

86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 1506.
my honor, and less with yours ; for you will be thought to
have used me as a prisoner." — " Then," said the king, with
ready shrewdness and craft, " the matter is at an end ; for I
will take that dishonor upon. me, and so your honor is saved."
Philip closed the conversation with equal quickness and more
honorable address : — " Sir, you give law to me ; so will I to
you. You shall have him ; but upon your honor you shall not
take his life."* The very ill-fated man in question was John
de la Pole, the nephew of Edward IV. He was committed to
the Tower on his arrival in England. The king kept the
word of promise during the short sequel of his own reign,
but left directions for perpetrating the perfidious murder
among the dying injunctions to his son. The command was
not executed till the 30th of April, 1515, when Henry VIII.
was about to invade France. It being said, that " the people
were so well affected to the house of York as that they might
take Edmund de la Pole out of the Tower and set him up, it
was thought fit that he should be dispatched out of the way ;
whereupon they cut off his head."!
The object of Philip's winter voyage to Spain suggested
thoughts not likely to calm the apprehensions by which Henry
was haunted after the deaths of the queen and of Arthur prince
of Wales. Ferdinand king of Aragon, by his marriage with
Isabella queen of Castile, had united all the Christian territo
ries of the peninsula except Portugal. But as Isabella retain
ed her independent sovereignty over Castile, the continuance
of the union of the two crowns depended on the lives of the
two sovereigns. When Isabella died, on the 25th of Novem
ber, 1504, Castile and its dependencies were inherited by Jo
anna her eldest daughter, the wife of Philip the Fair. That
unfortunate princess, surrounded as she was with all the ma
jesty and magnificence of the world, was not only sunk be
low the duties of royalty, but unable to taste its amusements
and gratifications. She was early reduced to a state of men
tal disorder, which fluctuated between a sluggish melancholy
and the illusions of insanity. Her fond passion for her hus
band, ill requited from the commencement of the union, was
rendered fulsome and lothesome by her malady ; and it was
not till his decease, when she herself was in the sixth month
of her pregnancy, that she had a full scope for her wild but
harmless fancies, which indulged themselves by arraying him
in his royal ornaments, and watching by the bed of state for
his restoration from death.
In consequence of her total incapacity, Ferdinand, though
• * Bacon, iii. 397 f Dugdale, ii. 190.

1506. MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. 87
he proclaimed Joanna and Philip king and queen, at the same
time declared himself regent of that kingdom, in virtue of
Isabella's will, of the assent of the Cortez, and of a real or
supposed ancient custom of the monarchy.* Philip, who car
ried everywhere the poor lunatic with whose name he cov
ered his power, was, at the time of his visit to England, on
his voyage for the recovery of the regency of Castile ; which
attempt, being seconded by the dislike of the Castilians for
Ferdinand and the Aragoriese, very speedily succeeded. But
his success was almost immediately followed by his death,
while his wretched wife was doomed to bear the burden of life
for nearly fifty years longer.!
These occurrences seemed to foreshow the danger to which
Henry might be exposed by circumstances in the condition
of his own family not wholly dissimilar. The death of Eliza
beth has already been mentioned. Arthur prince of Wales
espoused Catherine of Spain, en the 14th of November, 1501 :
he died on the 2d of April following. A treaty was signed
in June by Henry, and in September by Ferdinand and Isa
bella, for the marriage of Henry, then prince of Wales (af
terwards Henry VIII.), to his brother's widow.} This union
was sanctioned by a bull of pope Julius II., certainly indi
cating no doubts of the extent of his authority, and no mis
givings of the validity of his dispensation, in which, after re
citing the previous marriage,^ he proceeds to pronounce that
even if the union with Arthur were perhaps consummated,
yet he, by the present dispensation, relieves both parties from
all censure which might be otherwise incurred by such an al
liance, dispenses with the impediment to their nuptials which
the affinity had caused, authorizes them to solemnize their
marriage, and to remain conjoined in lawful wedlock ; and,
lastly, as a necessary consequence, decrees that the children
who may be the progeny of their union shall be held and
deemed to be legitimate. The prince of Wales was then in
his thirteenth year, and his aspiring and domineering charac
ter probably even then betrayed a determination to assert all
his plausible pretensions.
None of the sayings recorded of Henry VII., though he
was called the Solomon of England, show so much sagacity
as his answer to the counsellors who objected to the Scottish
* Bacon, iii. 302.
t She died in 1555, only three years before the death of her son Charles,
called the Fifth in Germany, and the Second in Spain.
I Rymer, xiii. 76. Sep. Kal. Jan. 1503, which I understand to be the 26th
of December of that year. Nicholas Calendar, 58.
§ Ibid. 89.

88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1506.
marriage, that the kingdom might by that connexion fall to
the king of Scotland. " Scotland would then," said he, " be
come an accession to England, not England to Scotland ; the
greater would draw the less : it is a safer union for England
than one with France."*
An examination of the laws of this reign would neither
suit the purpose nor the limits of this undertaking. Several
reforms in private legislation, principally founded, however,
on practice introduced by the judges, honorably distinguish it
from many others.! The statute-book attests the universal
distempers of the community during the civil wars, and bears
frequent marks of the vigorous arm of a severe reformer,
employed in extirpating the evils of long license. Of these,
not the least remarkable is the act commonly entitled The
Act for the Authority of the Star Chamber,} of which the
first object seems to have been the suppression of the unlaw
ful combinations which endanger the public quiet, or disturb
the ordinary dispensation of law. No words in the statute
expressly comprehend libels or other political misdemeanors,
in which the court of the star chamber became deservedly
odious. Neither does it appear from the statute that the
name of Star Chamber was then bestowed upon it, or that it
was regularly composed of the king's council, either ordinary
or privy. The early history of these councils is obscure ; but
they appear to have derived jurisdiction sometimes from acts
of parliament and oftener, perhaps, to have assumed it by an
usurpation, which usage in due time legitimated. The court
established by this statute was composed of the chancellor,
the treasurer, the privy-seal, " calling to themselves a bishop
and a temporal lord of the king's most honorable council,"
and the two chief justices; and they appear early to have ap
propriated to themselves many fragments of the authority an
ciently exercised by the council, as well as to have stretched
their jurisdiction beyond the boundaries prescribed to it by the
statute. A tribunal composed of five of the king's servants,
removable by him at pleasure, invested with a right of select
ing two other members on whose subserviency they could
best rely, would have had resistless temptations to incessant
encroachment on the rights of the subject, even if the judges
had not been so powerful as to defy all ordinary consequences,
and if the very letter of the law had not quickened their
passion for discretionary powers, by alleging the disturbance
* Bacon, iii. 379.
f Mr. Hallam, Constitutional History. Reeves's History of Eoglish Law.
J 2 Hen. VII. c. 1.

1506. STAR CHAMBER. 89
and failure of justice in its ordinary course through juries, as
the reason for the establishment of the new tribunal. Their
jurisdiction over juries, in effect, subjected the laws to their
will. When they animadverted on a verdict, they had an op
portunity of re-trying the cause in which it was given, and
thus of taking cognizance of almost all misdemeanors, es
pecially those of apolitical nature, which they might plausibly
represent as offering most obstacles to the course and order
of the common law. From these and the like causes sprang
that rapid growth of the arbitrary power of this court, which
if the constitution had not overthrown, must have worked the
downfall of the constitution.*
Lord Bacon, indeed, tells us, that " this court is one of the
sagest and noblest institutions of this kingdom." " There
was always a high and pre-eminent power in causes which
might concern the commonwealth; which, if they were
criminal, were tried in the star chamber." " As the chancery
had the praetorian power for equity, so the star chamber had
the censorian power in offences under the degree of capital."!
Such opinions, expressed by a man whose fall from public
life had released him from its restraints, in a book rather
addressed to the king than to the people, are a pregnant
proof how little the secret doctrines of eminent statesmen
concerning the comparative value .of various institutions may
sometimes correspond to the language with which the plau
sibilities of political life may compel them to amuse the mul
titude. In the year 1494 a law was passed, which provided that
those who serve a king for the time being shall in no wise be
convicted or attainted of high treason, nor of other offences,
for that cause.} " The spirit of this law," says lord Bacon,
" was wonderfully pious and noble,"§ with much more justice,
doubtless, than when he applied the like terms of honor to
the eourt of star chamber. But we are left without the
means of ascertaining what were the inducements of Henry
to pass a law against which the historian insinuates some
censure, as " being rather just than legal, and more magnani
mous than provident" Monarchs and ministers seldom change
the laws spontaneously on general grounds of policy. The
greater part of them can seldom be roused by any stimulant
weaker than a present and urgent interest to undertake inno
vation, from which they too much dread unforeseen evils. In
* See Mr. Hallam's Constitutional History, chap, i., a work from which I
seldom differ, and never without distrust of my own judgment.
t Bacon, iii, 224. J 2 Hen. VII c. i. § Bacon, iii. 310.
H2

90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1506.
this case the popularity of the measure among the nobility
for saving their estates from forfeiture, was probably one of
the motives of its adoption. There can hardly be any doubt
that the apprehension of danger to the king himself, if he
survived the queen, from the prince of Wales, or from any
one of the numerous body who, being legitimate descendants
of the Plantagenets, had better claims than he to inherit the
crown, was another and probably a very prevalent motive for
passing the law.
After all, perhaps, it was chiefly owing to the ruling pas
sion of the king's public life, a furious zeal against the parti
sans of the house of York. This act of parliament tacitly
condemned their distinction between actual and legitimate
kings, and satisfied bis revenge for the insult which had been
offered to all the Lancastrian princes by branding them as
usurpers. It might, perhaps, be plausibly stated by the advocates of
Perkin, that this act, passed in 1494, is a testimony to the
importance of the pretender, and affords a proof that Henry
entertained fears from him, which can only be explained rea
sonably by a suspicion, if not a conviction, of his legitimacy.
The other causes, however, seem to be adequate ; and it
appears to be a more natural inference, to consider as proofs
of Henry's contempt for the title of the pretender, that such
a law was then passed, and that not long after Perkin was
pardoned, and might have probably lived as long as Symnel,
if it had not been convenient to use his death as one of the
means of bringing Warwick to destruction.
Henry, prompted by the marvellous tales of gold and silver
in America, which the Spanish adventurers had spread over
Europe, commissioned a Venetian mariner, Sebastian Cabot,
who was settled in Bristol, to fit out a small squadron for
the discovery, conquest, and occupation of the lands beyond
the western ocean, inhabited by heathens and infidels, and till
these times unknown to Christians.*
Unaided as he was by the niggardly king, it was not until
1497 that Cabot succeeded in fitting out one ship from Bristol,
and three small vessels from London, fraught with some gross
and slight wares adapted for commerce with barbarians.! He
related on his return that he had sailed to the north-westward
as far as the coast of Labrador, in the sixty-eighth degree of
north latitude, and that he had coasted the vast territories to
the southward of the gulf of Florida. Whether Cabot, or
* Rymer, xii. 595. 5th March, HP6.
t Bacon, iii. Macpherson's Hi^t. of Commerce, ii. 2.

1506. TREATY OF COMMERCE. 91
Columbus himself, or Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine, was
the first European who saw the continent since called Amer
ica, has been disputed with a zeal which often burns most
fiercely in questions seemingly the least adapted to kindle
passionate controversy.
The commercial treaty between England and Burgundy, in
1496, called " the great intercourse," is not only an important
event in the history of the most industrious and opulent of the
Transalpine states, but deserves attention, as foreboding those
revolutions in the state of society both in Europe and America,
with which the great importance ascribed to such negotiations
now shows that the world was pregnant. A reciprocal liberty
of trading in all commodities to each other's ports without
passport or license, and of fishing on the coasts of either party,
was stipulated. They agreed to protect each other from wrong
by pirates. All ship-masters were required to find security
that they shall not commit piracy against the contracting
parties. The ships of one party, driven by storm or enemies
into the havens of the other, were entitled to protection
during their stay, and may freely depart when they please.
The licentious practice of pillaging ships wrecked on their
¦coast was restrained till a year shall elapse from the time of
the wreck. The privileges of the traders of one nation on the
land of the other were secured. The arrest of foreign debtors
was regulated. The importation into either country of the
goods of its enemy was forbidden. An attempt was even
made to abolish one branch of that species of private war
which civilized nations even at this day carry on. It was
stipulated that no letters of marque or reprisal should be
granted to individuals, till after due warning to the sovereign
of the wrong-doer, and " that all such letters shall be now
recalled, unless it be otherwise determined by a congress of
both parties."*
Some of the articles of this treaty, which mitigate the
excesses of war, indicate, if not a sense of justice, which
must be equal and universal, at least a sense of common in
terest, which is the road to the higher principle. No other
transaction had before so strongly evinced that Europe began
to recognize a reciprocity of rights and duties between states,
and to reverence a code of rules and usages as much morally
obligatory on nations as the ordinary maxims of private duty
are on the conscience of individuals.
The vast importance of a free and active exchange of all
* Dumont, Corps Diplom. iv. 3a 83. Rymer, xiii. 6, 132. Macpherson'je
Annals of Commerce, ii. 8.

92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1506.
the products of human industry manifestly appears, from this
treaty, to have become an article in the political belief of
some, in the states which had been taught the value of traffic
by experience. When we now read such national transac
tions, we feel our approach to those mighty but then unob
served changes which were about to raise the middle classes
of men to more influence than they had ever before enjoyed ;
to restore personal property to that equality with real, of
which the feudal institutions had robbed it; in due time to
extend political importance to the lowest limits of liberal edu
cation ; and at length to diffuse that education so widely as
to alter the seat of power, and to bring into question many
opinions hitherto prevalent among statesmen.
That the rise of the pacific and industrious classes should
coincide with the discoyeries of a new continent and of eastern
commerce, can only be thought accidental by shallow observ
ers of human affairs. When we consider the previous dis
coveries, the coincidence of the voyages of Columbus with
that of Gama, and with the conclusion of the treaty now under
consideration, it appears evident that the growing wealth of
the trading body was the parent of the passion for discovery,
and the most important ¦ agent in the expeditions against the
new world. The attractions of romantic adventure, the im
pulse of the fancy to explore unknown lands, doubtless, added
dignity to such enterprises, and some of the higher classes
engaged in them with a portion of the warlike and proselytiz
ing spirit of crusaders. But the hope of new produce, and
of exchanges more profitable, were the impelling motives of
the discovery. The commercial classes were the first movers.
The voyages first enriched them, and contributed in the course
of three centuries to raise them to a power of which no man
can now either limit the extent or foretell the remote conse
quences. As America was discovered by the same spirit
which began to render all communities in their structure
more popular, it is not singular that she should herself most
widen the basis of government, and become the most demo-
cratical of states. That vast continent was first settled for
her rich commodities. She is now contemplated at a higher
stage of her progress, — for her prospects, her men, and her
laws, to which the wisest men will not be the most forward to
apply the commonplace arguments and opinions founded on
the ancient systems of Europe.
The hoard amassed by Henry, and " most of it under his
own key and keeping in secret places at Richmond," is said
to have amounted to near 1,800,000/. which, according to our
former conjecture, would be equivalent to about 16,000,000/. ;

1506. THE KING'S WEALTH. 93
an amount of specie so immense as to warrant a suspicion of
exaggeration, in an age when there was no control from pub
lic documents on a matter of which the writers of history
were ignorant Our doubts of the amount amassed by Henry
are considerably warranted by the computation of Sir W. Petty,
who, a century and a half later, calculated the whole specie
of England at only 6,000,000/. This hoard, whatever may
have been its precise extent, was too great to be formed by
frugality, even under the penurious and niggardly Henry. A
system of extortion was employed, which " the people, into
whom there is infused for the preservation of monarchies, a
natural desire to discharge their princes, though it be with
the unjust charge of their counsellors, did impute unto cardi
nal Morton and Sir Reginald Bray, who, as it after appeared,
as counsellors of ancient authority with him, did so second
his humors as nevertheless they did temper them. Whereas
Empson and Dudley, that followed, being persons that had no
reputation with him, otherwise than by the servile following
of his bent, did not give way only as the first did, but shaped
his way to those extremities for which himself was touched
with remorse at his death."* The means of exaction chiefly
consisted in the fines incurred by slumbering laws, in com
muting for money other penalties which fell on unknowing
offenders, and in the sale of pardons and amnesties. Every
revolt was a fruitful source of profit. When the great confis
cations had ceased, much remained to be gleaned by true or
false imputations of participation in treason. To be a dweller
in a disaffected district was, for the purposes of the king's
treasure, to be a rebel. No man could be sure that he had
not incurred mulcts, or other grievous penalties, by some of
those numerous laws which had so fallen into disuse by their
frivolous and vexatious nature as to strike before they warned.
It was often more prudent to compound by money, even in
false accusations, than to brave the rapacity and resentment
of the king and his tools. Of his chief instruments, " Dudley
was a man of good family, eloquent,' and one that could put
hateful business into good language. Empson, the son of
a sieve-maker of Towcester, triumphed in his deeds, putting
off all other respects. They were privy-counsellors and law
yers, who turned law and justice into wormwood and rapine."!
They threw into prison every man whom they could indict,
and confined him, without any intention to prosecute, till he
ransomed himself. They prosecuted the mayors and other
magistrates of the city of London for pretended or trivial ne-
* Bacon, iii. 409. t Ibid. iii. 380.

94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1509.
gleets of duty, long after the time of the alleged offences ;
subservient judges imposed enormous fines, and the king im
prisoned during his own life some of the contumacious offend
ers. Alderman Hawes is said to have died heart-broken by
the terror and anguish of these proceedings.* They imprison
ed and fined juries who hesitated to lend their aid when it
was deemed convenient to seek it. To these, lord Bacon tells
us, were added " other courses fitter to be buried than repeat
ed."! Emboldened by long success, they at last disdained to
observe " the half face of justice,"\ but summoning the
wealthy and timid before them in private houses, " shuffled
up" a summary examination without a jury, and levied such
exactions as were measured only by the fears and fortunes of
their victims.
Henry, who had enjoyed sound health during his life, was,
at the age of fifty-two, attacked by a consumption, which,
early in the distemper, he deemed likely to prove fatal. He
died on the 22d day of April,- 1509, in the twenty-fourth year
of a troublous but prosperous reign, in his palace at Rich
mond, which he had himself built. He was interred in that
beautiful chapel at Westminster, which bears his name, and
which is a noble monument of the architectural genius of his
age. He was pacific though valiant, and magnificent in pub
lic works, though penurious to an unkingly excess in ordinary
expenditure. The commendation bestowed on him, that " he
was not cruel when seCure,"§ cannot be justified otherwise
than as the general color of his character, nor without excep
tions, which would allow a dangerous latitude to the care of
personal safety. His sagacity and fortitude were conspicu
ous, but his penetrating mind was narrow, and in his wary
temper firmness did not approach the borders of magnanimity.
Though skilled in arms, he had no spirit of enterprise.
No generosity lent lustre to his purposes ; no tenderness
softened his rigid nature. We hear nothing of any appear
ance of affection, but that towards his mother, which it would
be unnatural to treat as deserving praise, and which in him
savored more of austere duty than of an easy, delightful, and
almost universal sentiment. His good qualities were useful,
but low ; his vices were mean ; and no personage in history
of so much understanding and courage is so near being des
pised. He was a man of shrewd discernment, but of a mean
spirit and a contracted mind. His love of peace, if it flowed
from a purer source, would' justly merit the highest praise, as
* See examples in Bacon, iii. 404. f Bacon, iii. 382.
I Ibid. 3=1. § Ibid.

1509. HENRY Villi 95
one of the most important virtues of a ruler ; but in Henry it
is deeply tinged by the mere preference of craft to force,
which characterizes his whole policy. In a word, he had no
dispositions for which he could be admired or loved as a man.
But he was not without some of the most essential of those
qualities which preserve a ruler from contempt, and, in gene
ral, best secure him against peril : activity, perseverance,
foresight, vigilance, boldness, both martial and civil, conjoined
with a wariness seldom blended with the more active quali
ties, eminently distinguished his unamiable but commanding
character. His religion, as far as we are informed, never calmed an
angry passion, nor withheld him from a profitable wrong. He
seems to have shown it chiefly in the superstitious fears
which haunted his death-bed, when he made a feeble at
tempt to make amends for irreparable rapine by restoring
what he could no longer enjoy, and struggled to hurry through
the formalities of a compromise with the justice of Heaven
for his misdeeds.

CHAP. IV
HENRY VIII.
TO THE REFORMATION.
1509—1547.
Henry VIII. ascended the throne of England on the 20th
day of April, 1509. He was the first prince for more than a
century who had ruled that kingdom with an undisputed title.
Every other monarch since the deposition of Richard II. had
been accounted a usurper by a portion of the people. Henry
united in himself the titles of York and Lancaster ; he had no
visible competitor for the crown, nor was he disquieted by the
shadow of a pretender; for the descendants of John of Gaunt
through the royal families of the Spanish peninsula, never
having disturbed England by setting up pretensions, cannot
with propriety be called pretenders. Their claims, forgotten
perhaps by themselves, and obstructed by the formidable im
pediments of distance and language, were scarcely legible by
the keen eye of the most peering genealogist*
* Sandford's Genealogical History of the Kings of England, 248. 256. 260.
John of Gaunt's eldest daughter Philippa was queen of Portugal. His third

96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1509.
He was crowned at the age of eighteen ; a period of life
which a bystander naturally regards with indulgence, with
hope, with a warm fellow-feeling in its joys. The cure of
youthful disorders was intrusted to experience ; and though
his youth unfitted him for the arduous duties of royalty, such
considerations cannot consistently be allowed to have much
weight in an hereditary government The prospect of the
length of his reign was enough to deter the timid and the
selfish from incurring his displeasure, and disposed the greater
number of courtiers and statesmen to vie with each other in
eagerness for the favor of a master whom few of them coulc'
hope to survive. The description of him, ten years after his ac
cession, by a Venetian minister in London, shows the lively im
pression made on grave personages by the gifts and graces
with which nature had loaded the fortunate and not unac
complished youth. " His majesty is about twenty-nine years
of age,* as handsome as nature could form him, above every
other Christian prince ; handsomer by far than the king of
France (Francis I., then in the flower of youth), he is exceed
ing fair, and as well proportioned in every part as possible.
He is an excellent musician and composer, an admirable
horseman and wrestler, and possesses a good knowledge of
the French, Latin, and Spanish languages. On the days on
which he goes to the chase he hears mass three times, on
other days he goes as often as five times. He has daily ser
vice at vespers in the queen's chamber. He is uncommonly
fond of the chase, and never engages in it without tiring
eight or ten horses. He takes great delight in bowling ; and
it is the pleasantest sight in the world to see him engaged in
this exercise, with his fair skin covered with a beautifully fine
shirt. Affable and benign, he offends none. He often said to
the ambassador, ' I wish every one was content with his con
dition ; we are content with our islands.' He is very desirous
of preserving peace, and possesses great wealth." Yet even
in his golden age, closer and keener observers had remarked,
that " he is a prince of royal courage, and hath, a princely
heart, and rather than he will miss or want any part of his
will or appetite, he will put the one-half of his reign in dan
ger. I warn you to be well advised what matter ye put in
his head, for ye shall never put it out again."!
daughter Catherine was queen of Castile. Her granddaughter Isabella was
the wife of Ferdinand of Aragon. The heirs of these princesses may, per
haps, be found in the houses of Braganza and Austria. Their blood flows
in the veins of most of the reigning families of Europe.
* More exactly, twenty-eight.
f Cavendish's Life of Wolsey. Ellis.

1509. henry's council. 97
No historian has failed to relate what was originally told by
Paolo Sarpi, that Henry VII. educated his second son for the
church, in order to provide for him amply without charge to
the crown, " to leave a passage open to ambition,"* (of which
a father more shrewd than fond already perhaps descried the
seeds), which, with safety to the quiet of England, might be
thus turned towards the papal tiara. A writer,! who did not
allow his matchless acuteness as a metaphysician to disturb
the sense and prudence which are more valuable qualities in
an historian, has deplored the time wasted by the royal youth
on the writings of Aquinas ; rightly, if the acquirement of
applicable knowledge be the sole purpose of education ; but
not so, certainly, if it rests on the supposition that any other
study could have more strengthened and sharpened his rea
soning powers.
His council was composed, by the advice of the countess
of Richmond, his only surviving parent, from a judicious se
lection of his father's least obnoxious ministers. Archbishop
Morton, chancellor ; bishop Fox, secretary ; Surrey, the trea
surer; Shrewsbury, the high-steward; Somerset, the cham
berlain ; Lovel, Poynings, Marney, and Darcy, with Ruthall,
a doctor of civil law. It is remarked as a singularity by
lord Herbert, that his council contained no common lawyers;
perhaps from the odium brought upon the profession by Dudley
and Empson, which alienated the king from them during the
early part of his reign, though he was always glad to find a
pretext, if he could not discover a ground, for his measures in
the common law.
The solemnities of his father's funeral being completed, he
was to determine, before his coronation, whether he should
fulfil the nuptial engagement with his brother's wife, against
which he had secretly protested, in order to reserve to him
self the liberty of a more active dissent in due season. It is
hard to suppose that any serious deliberation should arise on
the question of fulfilling sacred engagements to a blameless
princess, the richly portioned daughter of a powerful monarch,
then probably the most natural and useful ally of England. If
any doubt then occurred of the validity of the marriage, the
last moment for trying the question was at that time come.
Faith and honor, if not law, required that actual acquiescence
in its legality at that moment should be deemed to silence all
such objections to it for ever. Ample time had been indeed
allowed for a more thorough and speedy examination of scru-
* Lord Herbert. t Hume.
Vol. II. I

98 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1509.
pies, for the dispensation of pope Julius II. had been in Eng
land six years.
Henry and Catharine were finally joined in wedlock on
the 6th of June, 1509, about six weeks after his father's
demise. They were crowned on the 24th of the same month,
with a splendor which those who are curious about the shows
and manners of that age will find painted by the chroniclers.*
When Dudley and Empson were brought before the coun
cil, the latter is reported to have delivered a speech abounding
in the ingenious turns of a rhetorician, but glaringly defective
in whatever constitutes an effective defence, and even with
out that resemblance to it which dramatic propriety would
require in the mouth of a man earnestly contending for his
life. The substance of his speech consisted in a complaint
that he was now prosecuted for obeying and causing others to
obey the laws ; to which it was answered, " that he should
be brought to trial only for passing the bounds of his commis
sion, and for stretching laws in themselves very severe."!
From these charges, however, it was discovered that no inge
nuity could extract a capital accusation ; and perhaps the
ministers were ashamed of bringing men to the scaffold for
acts at which they had themselves connived, if they did not
share them with their late colleagues. To obviate these in
conveniences, it was thought fit to indict them for a conspira
cy, during the last illness of Henry, to seize on London with
an armed force, and to assume the powers of government as
soon as his demise was known. Of the conspiracy, which, if
it were true, would certainly amount to treason, Dudley was
convicted at London, on the 16th of July, 1509, and Empson
at Northampton, on the 1st of October. They were attainted
in the next parliament} The bill- of attainder passed the
house of peers in two days, 5 without the appearance of dis
sent from one man, in an assembly composed of thirty-six
temporaljl and forty-seven spiritual lords, under circumstances
when it is hard to suppose that the majority did not consider
the charge as incredible. It was, perhaps, intended to secure
the delinquents by the excessive severity of the punishment.
They were suffered to remain in jail till August ; but the peo
ple raised a loud and honest, but fierce cry against the real
crimes. There are none who are held in such just contempt
by an arbitrary government as their own tools. The minis-
*Hall. Holinshed. t Lord Herbert, in Kennet, iii. 3— 5.
j January 21, 1509—1510. J Lords' Journals, Feb. 21. 1510.
|| There were only about twenty-seven temporal lords present at the first
parliament of Henry VIII.

1509. ITALIAN WARS. 99
ters, regarding the lives of the extortioners as formally for
feited, thought the sacrifice of their heads a cheap mode of
appeasing the multitude, who in reality demanded justice
only, but being ignorant of what was or ought to be law,
gave occasion to the infliction of an unjust death for an ima
ginary crime on these great delinquents. The speedy rever
sal of the attainders, on the petitions of their sons, seems to
show the general belief of the groundlessness of the charge
of conspiracy.*
Louis XII., otherwise a good prince, though his character
has been injured by undue praise, was, like his predecessor,
allured by visions of conquest in Italy, which was then called
" the grave of the French."! A regard to the principle of
preventing a state from unjustly aggrandizing herself so as
to endanger her neighbors both by the example and by the
fruits of triumphant iniquity, had been in some degree prac
tised among the subtle politicians of Italy before it attracted
much attention from the great transalpine monarchs, who
were too powerful, turbulent, and improvident, to think much
of distant and uncertain danger. The petty usurpers and
declining commonwealths of Italy, like those of ancient Greece,
whose contracted territory daily exposed them to a surprise
of their capital and the loss of their independence, were under
the necessity of jealously watching the slightest vibration in
the scales o^.the balance. Their existence might be hazarded
by a moment's slumber. Among them, therefore, the bal
ancing policy became the cause of some wars, and the pretext
of others. Under this color, Julian de la Rovere, a politic
and ambitious pontiff, found it easy to rouse the envy of the
European sovereigns against Venice for her riches and gran
deur, on which they looked with all the passions kindled in
the minds of freebooters by a view of the booty which glitters
among the magnificent works of industry.}: The code of
Venetian policy was, indeed, as faithless and merciless as th
administration of the transalpine monarchs ;§ but the council
of the republic were more considerate and circumspect ; they
checked all needless cruelty, confined their tyranny to those
who intermeddled with the affairs of government and pro
tected from wanton oppression those whose well-being was
the basis of their own grandeur. Such was the terror and
* Billa restitut. pro heredibus Edmundi Dudley. Lords' Journals, i. 16.
Empson's Petition. Id. 14.
t" Comines." — Few of La Tremouille's flourishing army returned to
France in 1505, though a very small number perished by the sword. Gu-
iccard. vi.
f Sismondi, Rep. Ital. xvii. 427. §Daru, Histoire de Venise.

100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1511.
hatred inspired by the power of that renowned republic, that
there were allied against her the pope and the emperor, the
kings of France and Spain, with the Burgundian govern
ment. The avowed object of the league of Cambray, — the first
treaty which was the joint act of the representatives of all
Christian princes, — was to require the republic to restore all
her conquests, without any suggestion of the same restitution
on the part of the allied powers.* Venice, thus attacked by
all Christendom, made a manful stand, confident that, if she
could bear the first shock, a coalition composed of discordant
elements would of itself crumble to pieces. The Venetians,
whose best army was routed,! suddenly recalled their garri
sons from the fortresses on the main land, and released their
continental subjects from the ties of allegiance ; limiting
themselves to the dominion of the sea, the possession of the
colonies, and the defence of the native marshes which had
been the ancient shelter of their infant independence. It is
uncertain whether this measure, solely arose from panic; or
from a generous despair, which might see a glimpse of hope
in this species of appeal to the people ; or from the shrewd
ness and forecast of the craftiest of those whom they called
" sages," who are likely to have foreseen that the desertion
of the continent might excite the animosities incident to the
division of rich ' spoils, and inspire some of the allies with
apprehensions of the accession of too much power to others.
The people of the Venetian provinces actually manifested
an unexpected attachment to the republic, especially after
experience of the effects of invasion ; and the allies became
daily more fearful that some of themselves might be danger
ously aggrandized. Louis XII., the master of the Milanese,
had a strong temptation to strengthen his territory by seizing
on the neighboring part of the Venetian dominions. Neither
Ferdinand nor Henry had any interest in the destruction of
the republic. The emperor had at one time collected a vast
army, and threatened to reconquer Italy, of which he held
himself to be the legitimate sovereign. But poverty dispersed
his troops, and exposed his pretensions to ridicule. Julius II.
gradually caught those more natural and generous sentiments,
which disposed him to promote a league for the expulsion of
the barbarians from Italy. With this view he sought the aid
of the Swiss, a brave and hardy people, who, though weak in
men-at-arms, hitherto the main strength of armies, were cele
brated for their excellent infantry, a species of force of which
* Dumont, iv. p. i. 113. t May 14, 1509. Sismondi, xvii. 454.

1511. DEBATES IN THE COUNCIL. 101
the growing importance indicated the progressive improve
ment of the art of war. The wars which sprung from the
league of Cambray languished under various forms till 1516,
when they were closed by treaties which restored nearly all
the territories of Venice : but from that moment her greatness
declined. A blow was struck at her fame, which fatally
affected her vigor. The cost of such a defence emptied her
hoards; and the opening of the maritime trade with India
dried up the sources from which they were wont to be re
plenished. These Italian wars were the first events in which all the
nations of Europe were engaged since the crusades. The
civil wars of England had ceased ; the great feudatories of
France had become subjects ; the nations of the Spanjsh
peninsula were released, by the reduction of Grenada, from
their natural task of watching over Mussulman ambition. At
the same time, the contests of the house of Aragon and
Anjou for Naples, led Spanish and French armies into Italy,
where hostilities were afterwards kept up by the pretensions
of the royal families of Valois and Orleans to the succession
of the duchy of Milan. The jealousy, if not the arms, of
England was excited by schemes of conquest on the part of
her ancient ally, which proved in themselves sufficiently inju
rious to successive kings of France. Maximilian shone at
the head of German and Burgundian hosts ; but his lustre
was momentary, and his victories were barren. The nations
of Europe were thus, however, mingled, and the mass of
Christendom began to form more remote and complicated ties
with each other than in any former age. The period which
followed would have been remarkable, if it had been chiefly
distinguished by rulers so memorable, in various respects, as
Leo X., Charles V., Francis I., and Henry VIII. The barbaric
greatness of Solyman deserves notice ; and it may surprise
some readers to learn, that in the same period Hindostan was
conquered by Babar, a sovereign who employed the pen and
the sword with equal success.*
The counsels of Henry VIII. were divided, if we may
believe lord Herbert, by a diversity of opinions concerning
the fitness of the time for an attack on France. But, accord
ing to that historian's own account of the debate of the council,
the arguments against the pursuit of this disastrous chimera
preponderated so much as to render it doubtful whether the
question could have been the subject of grave discussion
* Babar's Commentaries, translated partly by Dr. Leyden, completed and
illustrated by Mr. W. Erskine; one of the most instructive, and, to well
prepared minds, one of the most interesting publications of the present age.
I 2

102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1511.
among experienced statesmen. The blessing of the pope;
the aid of Ferdinand ; the possibility of succor from Maxi
milian; and the occupation of Louis XII. in Italy, are the
only reasons assigned for the renewal of a war for the con
quest of France, — a project still more visionary than the
French schemes of aggrandizement beyond the Alps. On
the other hand, it was unanswerably urged* — " if, when Gas-
cony and Normandy were ours, when the duke of Britany
was our friend, and the house of Burgundy our assured ally,
we could not advance our designs in that kingdom, what hope
is there now to attain them 1 What though with 12,000 or
15,000 we have defeated their 50,000 or 60,000 menl stands
it with reason of war to expect the like success still, especially
since the use of arms is changed, and for the bow (proper for
men of our strength) the caliver! begins to be used 1 a more
costly weapon, requiring longer practice, and capable of being
used by the weakest. If we must enlarge ourselves, let it
be by the road which Providence seems to have appointed for
us — by sea. The Indies are discovered, and vast treasures
brought from thence ; let us bend our endeavors thitherward.
If the Spaniard and Portuguese suffer us not to join them,
there will yet be region enough for all to enjoy." This was
probably the earliest debate in an English council, on the
often-discussed question, whether Great Britain should aim at
continental dominion, or confine her ambition to maritime
greatness and colonial empire. The boyish vanity of Henry
was, however, moved by the title of " most christian," held
out by the pope, which tempted this young prince to send
Young, the master of the rolls, with a message demanding his
inheritance of Gascony, and in case of refusal denouncing
war. The league against France received from the pope the
title of the holy alliance ; and Ferdinand prevailed on the
English monarch to send his troops to Biscay, in order that,
with the aid of a Spanish army, they might immediately re
cover Gascony, a splendid and legitimate dependency of the
crown of England. The marquess of Dorset landed in Biscay
with 10,000 troops, of whom 5000, though archers, carried
also halberds, which they pitched on the ground till their
arrows were shot, and then took up again, to do execution on
the enemy. They were to be joined, in June, 1511, by a
Spanish army of 1000 men-at-arms, 1500 light horse, and 6000
infantry, commanded by the duke of Alva. Ferdinand then
alleged that it was impossible to cross the Pyrenees into Gas
cony till Navarre was secured ; which exposed the invaders
"' Herbert, 8. t A hand-gun, or arquebuse.

1512. TROOPS RETURN FROM SPAIN. 103
to have their communications cut off, and their retreat depend
ent on the faith of Jean d'Albret, the sovereign of that small
kingdom, who had been excommunicated by the pope as an
¦abettor of Louis against the holy alliance. Louis XII. required
this border prince to declare for France, under pain of the
confiscation of the province of Beam, a fief of the French
crown on the northern side of the Pyrenees. Ferdinand
required the like declaration in his favor, with a threat that
if it were refused he must secure himself by the seizure of
Navarre. For several months he amused lord Dorset with
promises of the immediate advance of the duke of Alva and
the Spanish forces. In the mean time he took .possession of
Navarre, which is still subject to his successors. The Eng
lish army, unused to discipline, worn down by intemper
ance* and disease, weary of the arts of Spanish procrastina
tion, and negligently supplied with arms and provisions,
exclaimed against the treachery of their allies, and with loud
cries required their leaders to reconduct them to England.
They had made their own condition worse, by burning and
destroying the country. Discord broke out among their chiefs,
some of whom went to England to represent the necessity -of
recalling the army. The king in vain sent a herald to -com
mand the army to remain in Spain ; the discontents swelled
into mutiny; and the reluctant leaders were compelled to
land with their troops at Portsmouth, in December, 1512-!
Ferdinand professed his resolution to adhere to the treaties,
=and to prosecute the invasion of Gascony. Henry affected
satisfaction with his assurances, but was really displeased by
the mutinous embarkation of his troops. The English minis
ter sent with the army expressed the general sentiment con
cerning Ferdinand in a few significant words : " The king of
Aragon is determined always against a good conscience."}:
In the ensuing year, Sir Edward Howard, the admiral, who
thought no man fit to command at sea who was not almost
mad, after ravaging the coasts of Britany, fought an action
with a French squadron, of which the most remarkable result
was the explosion of one of the English ships, which was
accounted the largest vessel then in Europe.
Henry pursued his warfare with more success on the north
western frontier of France. He defeated the French army
in an engagement on the 4th of August, 1513, afterwards
* "The Englishmen, for the most part, were victualled with garlick, and
drank hot wines and ate hot fruits, whereby they fell sick, and more than
weight hundred died." — Stowe.
t Knight's Letters'to "Wolsey: second series of Ellis's Letters, i. 188 210.
} Ibid. 207

104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1513,
called the Battle of the Spurs, in mockery of the vanquished,
who were said on that day to have trusted more to their speed
than to their valor. Terouenne and Tournay surrendered.
But the event most alarming to him strictly belongs to Scot
tish history. James IV. king of Scotland was, like his fore
fathers, easily tempted by French counsels to an irruption
into England, which Henry seemed to desert for continental
aggrandizement. The earl of Surrey, commander of the
English army on the borders, brought the Scots to action at
Flodden Field on the 7th of September, 1513, where they
were defeated with extraordinary slaughter. Among those
who fell on that disastrous day were, the king, a prince of
more than usual value to his army and people ; his natural
son, Alexander Stewart the primate, a favorite pupil of Eras
mus; with twelve earls, thirteen lords, and four hundred
knights and gentlemen ; in which number we find, in thai
age without surprise, the bishop of the Isles, and the abbots
of Kilwinning and Inchefray. So great a loss among the
more conspicuous class seems to denote a carnage from which
a narrow and disordered country could not soon recover.
Margaret Tudor was ill qualified, at the age of twenty-four,
to supply her husband's place. Her subsequent life was dis
solute and agitated. She early displeased her brother by a
marriage with the earl of Angus, the head of the potent house
of Douglas ; and her grandchildren, by two husbands, Mary
Stuart and lord Darnley, were afterwards doomed to a fatal
union. The fate of James, together with the exhausted and lan
guid state of all Europe, disposed Henry and Louis to peace.
It was facilitated by the death of Anne of Britany, which
enabled Louis to cement the treaty by marriage, in his fifty-
third year, with Mary Tudor, one of the most beautiful young
women of the two courts, at the immature and unbecoming
age of fourteen. She was conducted to the court of France
by Charles Brandon, a favorite of the king, who created him
duke of Suffolk ; a handsome youth, audacious enough to pay
court to the princess. Louis received her with a doting fond
ness.* He died in a few weeks after marriage.! Brandon
openly renewed his court to her. Henry intimated to Mary,
that, if she must wed Brandon, the best expedient was to
offend first, and beg forgiveness afterwards. By this mar
riage she became the stock of a body of claimants to the
crown, who, notwithstanding the momentary occupation of
* Ellis's Letters, second series. t Herbert. Kennet, iii. 22.

1513. WOLSEY. 105
the throne by lady Jane Grey, are not usually numbered
among pretenders.
Thomas Wolsey had risen to trust and employment under
Henry VII. After the return of Henry VIII. from his French
campaign, in 1513, the administration of Wolsey began,
which rapidly grew to be a dictatorship. It was overthrown
only by the first shock of the religious revolution which has
rendered this reign memorable. It is peculiarly difficult to
form a calm estimate of a man to whose memory the writers
of the two ecclesiastical factions are alike unfriendly ; the
Catholics, for some sacrifices by a minister to the favorite ob
jects of an imperious sovereign ; the Protestants, for the un
willingness of a cardinal to renounce the church, and to
break altogether with the pope. Yet it was natural for Wol
sey to confine his exertions for the king's service to quiet
means, without assailing a church of which he was a digni
tary of the highest class, whose authority he probably deemed
useful, and whose doctrines it is not likely that he had ever
regarded with positive disbelief.
Wolsey was of humble parentage, but not below the bene
fits of education. In that age the church was, what the law
has been in modern times, the ladder by which able men of
the lowest classes to which the opportunities of liberal edu
cation reached, climbed to the highest stations which a subject
can fill. The rank attained by friars of the begging orders
seems indeed to warrant us in ascribing a wider extension to
this democratical principle of the middle age than to those
which have succeeded it in modern times. He had many
of the faculties which usually lead to sudden elevation, and
most of the vices which often tarnish it. Pliant and supple
towards the powerful, he freely indulged his insolence towards
the multitude, though he was often kind and generous to
faithful followers and useful dependants. The celibacy of his
order stood in the way of accumulation of fortune. He was
rapacious, but it was in order to be prodigal in his household,
in his dress, in his retinue, in his palaces, and, it must be
added in justice to him, ia the magnificence of his literary
and religious foundations. The circumstances of his time
were propitious to his passion of acquiring money. The
pope, the emperor, the kings of France and Spain, desirous
of his sovereign's allianee, outbade each other at the sales of
a minister's influence, which change of circumstances, and
inconsistency of connexion, rendered during that period more
frequent than in most other times. His preferment was too
enormous and too rapid to be forgiven by an envious world.
Born in 1471, he became bishop of Tournay in 1513, of Lin-

106 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1517.
coin, 1514, and archbishop of York in the same year. In 1515
he received a cardinal's hat, and in the same year succeeded
archbishop Warham in the office of chancellor. In 1519 he
was made papal legate, with the extraordinary power of sus
pending the laws and canons of the church. His expectations
of the papacy itself did not appear extravagant. His pas
sion for shows and festivities, not an uncommon infirmity in
men intoxicated by sudden wealth, perhaps served him with
a master, whose ruling folly long seemed to be of the same
harmless and ridiculous nature. He encouraged and cultivated
the learning of his age ; and his conversations with Henry on
the doctrines of their great master Aquinas are represented
as one of his means of pleasing a monarch so various in his
capricious tastes. He was considered as learned ; his man
ners had acquired the polish of the society to which he was
raised ; his elocution was fluent and agreeable ; his air and
gesture were not without dignity. He was careful, as well
as magnificent, in apparel.
His administration of justice as chancellor has been cele
brated by those who forget how simple the functions of that
office probably then were ; and his rigid enforcement of crim
inal justice appears only to have been a part of that harsh
but perhaps needful process by which the Tudor princes rather
extirpated than punished criminals, in order to reclaim the
people from the long license of civil wars. As he was chiefly
occupied in enriching and aggrandizing himself, or in display
ing his power and wealth, — objects which are to be promoted
either by foreign connexions or by favor at court, it is impos
sible to determine what share of the merit or demerit of
internal legislation ought to be allotted to him. His part in
the death of the duke of Buckingham was his most conspicu
ous crime ; yet, after all, it is probable that he was no worse
than his contemporary statesmen. The circumstance most
favorable to him is the attachment of dependants.
In April, 1517, the lower laborers of London, being offend
ed that their chief customers were won from them by the
diligence and industry of strangers ;* instigated by Bell, a
preacher, and led by Lincolne, a broker, rose in revolt for the
destruction of foreigners ; some of whom they killed, while
they burnt the houses of others. They were subdued after
some resistance. Of nearly three hundred prisoners, five
ringleaders were hanged, drawn, and quartered ; ten were
hanged ; the rest, in white shirts, and with halters round their
necks, were led before the king at Westminster, surrounded
* Herbert.

1520. henry's friendship courted. 107
by his principal nobles, where, on their knees, they craved
mercy, and received it. Henry graciously permitted the
gibbets, which much scandalized the citizens, to be taken
down. The interview of Henry with Francis I, between Ardres
and Guines, in 1520, has been so frequently described, and is
so well known as a characteristic specimen of the pomps and
sports of the age, that it would be perhaps unnecessary to
mention it in this place, if it were not an example of the as
siduous address with which the continental princes ingratiated
themselves with Henry, by a skilful management of his per
sonal foibles, after they had discovered that he was the crea
ture of impulse, who sacrificed policy to temper, and acted
more from passion than interest. Influenced by these motives,
Charles V. paid his personal court to Henry at Dover, when
that monarch was on his journey to the tournament on the
Field of the Cloth of Gold. The kings of France, England,
and Spain were candidates for the imperial throne on the
death of Maximilian in the end of 1519. Henry was amused
by his competitors with expectations and excuses ; but not se
riously considered as a competitor by any of them. Charles
V, who was elected emperor in June, 1520, made his visit' of
parade to Dover, partly to soothe the wounded vanity of the
English king. The emperor, was, however, not enabled by
this courtesy to prevail on Henry to abandon the jousts which
were to be celebrated at his meeting with Francis.
About the same time with these festivities and amusements,
a crime was perpetrated, which might be considered as the
first of the king's offences, if it be not rather to be ascribed to
the revenge of Wolsey, according to the account of historians
of respectable authority.*
Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, was the fifth in
descent from Anne Plantagenet, daughter and heiress of
Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of king Edward III.
The line of his pedigree is marked in civil blood. His father
was beheaded by Richard III. ; his grandfather was killed at
the battle of St Alban's ; his great-grandfather at the battle
of Northampton ; and the father of this last at the battle of
Shrewsbury. More than a century had elapsed since any
chief of this great family had fallen by a natural death, — a
pedigree which may be sufficient to characterize an age.
Edward was doomed to no milder fate than his forefathers.
Knivett, a discarded officer of Buckingham's household, fur
nished information to Wolsey, which led to the apprehension
* Herbert,

108 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1521.
of his late master. As those who are perfidious must submit
to the suspicion that they may likewise be false, it may be
safely assumed that Knivett gave the darkest color to what
ever unguarded language might have fallen from his ill-fated
lord. The most serious charges against that nobleman* were,
that he had consulted a monk about future events ; that he
had declared all the acts of Henry VII. to be wrongfully-
done ; that he had told Knivett, that if he had been sent to
the Tower when he was in danger of being committed, he
would have played the part which his father had intended to
perform at Salisbury; where, if he could have obtained an
audience, he would have stabbed Richard III. with a knife ;
and that he had told lord Abergavenny, if the king died he
would have the rule of the land.! All these supposed offences
if they could be blended together, did not amount to an
overt act of high treason ; even if we suppose the consulta
tion of the soothsayer to relate to the time of the king's
death. The only serious imputation on his prudence rests on
the testimony of the spy. Buckingham confessed the real
amount of his absurd inquiries from the friar. He defended
himself with eloquence. He was tried in the court of the
lord high steward, by a jury of peers, consisting of one duke,
one marquess, seven earls, and twelve barons, who convicted
him ; although the facts, if true, amounted to no more than
proofs of indiscretion and symptoms of discontent. The duke
of Norfolk, lord steward for the occasion, shed tears on pro
nouncing sentence. The prisoner said, " May the eternal God
forgive you my death, as I do!" The only favor which he
could obtain was, that the ignominious part of a traitor's death
should be remitted. He was accordingly beheaded on the
17th of May, 1521; while the surrounding people vented
their indignation against Wolsey by loud cries of "The
butcher's son !" -
The events which occurred in England from the death of
Buckingham in 1521 to the first public measures taken by
Henry for a divorce, were not very numerous or important.
The history of Europe during that period teems, indeed, with
memorable occurrences, but their connexion with the affairs
of England is secondary, and their effects on the countries
where they occurred are generally more brilliant than lasting.
A brief summary will, therefore, suffice to conduct us to the
dawn of those revolutions of religious opinion, which are so
remote from the common path of the statesman that he gene
rally disregards or misjudges them, till he is otherwise taught
* Herbert, 41- t Id. ibid.

1523. A PARLIAMENT. 109
by fatal experience ; which almost alike concern all nations,
and of which the influence, as far as our dim foresight reaches,
never will cease to be felt by the whole race of man.
The administration of Wolsey continued, seemingly with
unabated sway, till 1527. That minister, who delighted as
much in displaying as in exercising power, became at last un
popular from the haughtiness of his demeanor, rather than
from his public measures. The principles, however, of his
government gave just alarm. From 1516 to 1523 no parlia
ment was assembled. While the assembly which held the
public purse was thus interrupted, an attempt was made to
raise money by the expedients of forced loans and pretended
benevolences, which had already been condemned by the
legislature. But these attempts produced more discontent
than supply : the parliament which met in 1523 manifested a
displeasure, which shows the distrust and apprehension of
Wolsey entertained by these assemblies. We have an ac
count of their temper and deportment from an eye-witness,
which is not a little remarkable :* — " There has been the
greatest and sorest hold in the lower house for the payment
of the subsidy that was seen in any parliament. It has been
debated sixteen days together ; the resistance was so great
that the house was like to have been dissevered.! The king's
knights and servants being of one party, it may fortune con
trary to their heart, will, and conscience. Thus hanging the
matter yesterday, the more part being for the king, his de
mand was granted to be paid in two years. Never was one
half given to any former at once : I beseech the Almighty it
may be peaceably levied, without losing the good will and
true hearts of the king's subjects, which I reckon a far
greater treasure than gold and silver."} This instance of a
grant of money so obstinately contested, and the example of a
party of placemen and courtiers, who are represented as its
sole supporters, shows clearly enough that the spirit of the
house of commons was not abated, nor its importance lessen
ed, by Tudor rule, at least on those matters which were justly
considered as most exclusively within their province. Sir
Thomas More, the first Englishman known to history as a
public speaker, who had distinguished himself by opposition to
former grants, was now speaker of the house of commons,
and supported the measures of the court. Neither his elo-
* Ellis's Letters, i. 220. Strype. Hallam. This report of the debates is, in
substance, confirmed by that of lord Herbert, 59 : — " Letter from a Member
of the House of Commons to the Duke of Norfolk."
t Probably this means, come to a division, then a very rare occurrence.
t Ellis. Herbert.
Vol. II. K

110 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1523.
quence nor his virtue could gain more than a temporary ad
vantage. Wolsey is said to have gone into the house of com
mons with a train of retainers, and to have expressed his won
der at the profound silence that followed his entrance. The
speaker, whatever might be his coalition with the court, did1
not forget the duty and dignity of his office, but "protested
that, according to the ancient liberties of the house, they were
not bound to make an answer, and that he, as speaker, could
make no reply till he had received their instructions;" an an
swer which was perhaps the pattern of that made by a succes
sor to the chair at one of the most critical moments of Eng
lish history.
As France was now bounded on either side by the Spanish
and Burgundian dominions of Charles V., the occasion of en
mity and pleas for war were necessarily multiplied between
that young monarch and Francis I. The pope easily prevailed
upon the emperor to turn his arms to the expulsion of the
French from Italy. Henry also supported the imperial cause,
but hesitated for a time about an open rupture with Francis.
The death of Leo X. in 1520, after a short but most memora
ble pontificate, in which a mortal blow was struck at the
greatness of the Roman see, displayed the bold ambition of
Wolsey, who then declared himself a candidate for the papa
cy; rather, probably, to strengthen his pretensions on the
next vacancy, than with hopes of immediate success. This
faint attempt yielded to the influence of the emperor, who be
stowed the triple crown on his preceptor Adrian ; a man in
almost all points the opposite of his celebrated predecessor.
Leo, a patron of art and a lover of literature, ignorant of
theology and indifferent to it, was little qualified to foresee
the danger to which his throne was about to be exposed by
the controversies of obscure monks in the northern- provinces
of Germany : a man of the world, a man of taste, and a man
of pleasure, — he had the manners and accomplishments then
only to be learnt in the Italian capitals. Adrian, a native of
Utrecht was a learned and conscientious schoolman, of sin
cere zeal for his religion, and desirous of reforming the man
ners of the clergy according to the model of his own austere
life ; but as intolerant as any of his contemporaries, ignorant
of mankind, and not sharing that taste for polite literature
which now shed a lustre over Italy. At Adrian's death, in
1523, Wolsey renewed his canvass, to promote the success of
which seems to have been the main-spring of his policy dur
ing the eight years before, which guided him in disposing of
the influence of England to Francis or to Charles. Several
cardinals voted for him ; but neither of the continental princes

1525. THE WAR IN ITALY. Ill
could seriously intend to make an English minister their mas
ter, or indeed to throw the scarcely shaken power of the papa
cy into the hands of a turbulent and ambitious man. Henry
himself, who in his moments of facility or impetuosity had
promoted his minister's project was too acute not to perceive,
in his calmer moods, the peril of placing such a spiritual
sovereign over his head. Had Wolsey been successful, we
now see how vainly he must have struggled against the cur
rent of human affairs : he would have withstood it manfully,
but he must have fallen after more bloodshed than that un
availing struggle actually cost : for he was bolder than roost
men ; he held the necessity of general ignorance to good
government ; and he doubtless would have punished heretics
with more satisfaction, in defence of his own authority, than
he had done in defending that of others.*
During this period, the war was waged between Charles
and Francis, in Italy, with various fortune. Clement VII. es
poused the French interest; but the desertion of the national
cause by Charles of Bourbon, a prince of the royal blood, and
his conspiracy with England and Austria against his ,own
country, proved to Francis the forerunner of calamities sel
dom experienced by princes. At the battle of Pavia, on the
24th of February, 1525, the French army was totally routed,
and Francis I. was himself made prisoner. Bourbon, feeling,
perhaps, a momentary shame at the misfortunes which he
helped to bring on his native country, with tears in his eyes
addressed the captive monarch, ,saying, " Had you followed my
counsel, you should not have needed to be in this -estate."
The king answered by turning up his eyes to heaven, and ex
claiming "Patience ! since fortune has failed me," in the na
tive language of a man who regarded the pity, of a traitor as
the last of insults. Henry VIH. affected joy at the victory
of his ally, but demanded the aid of Charles to recover his in
heritance in France, and in return offered to complete the
nuptials of the emperor with his daughter Mary, which had
been stipulated long before.! The English government, how
ever, dreaded the success of the emperor, and in August con
cluded a treaty of peace and alliance with France, in which
the states of Italy which still retained their political exist
ence concurred. Charles V., feeling this jealousy throughout
Europe, consented to open a negotiation at Madrid for the re
lease of Francis ; to which the chief impediment was the re
luctance of the latter to restore to Charles the duchy of Bur
gundy, the wrongful acquisition of Louis XL The French
* Herbert, 61. t Ibid. 7.

112 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
monarch at last yielded ; a peace seemed to be made by the
treaty of Madrid in 1526, which restored Francis to his do
minion, after a captivity of more than a year. When his
horse sprung on the French territory, he joyfully exclaimed,
" I am again a king !" When pressed to perform the treaty
by swearing to observe which he earned his release from
prison, he answered by declaring, that " he had no right to
dismember the kingdom, which at his coronation he had sworn
to preserve entire ; that the states of Burgundy refused to
concur in the cession ; that the parliament of Paris, the sen
ate of the monarchy, had pronounced the stipulation to that
effect to be void ; and that the pope had dispensed with the
oath, which his holiness treated as null, because it was a
promise to do a wrong. He even carried his solicitude to
multiply pretexts so far as to allege, that, in consequence of
Henry's rights as duke of Normandy, the cession of Burgun
dy could not be valid without his consent. To all these eva
sions it was a sufficient answer, that he was bound to know
the extent of his powers when he had signed the treaty ; that
if he had, however, discovered that he had exceeded his au
thority, he ought to surrender himself again a prisoner ; that
the resistance of the states of Burgundy, and of the parliament
of Paris, were obviously and notoriously prompted by himself:
and that Clement VII. had dishonored his authority by a scan
dalous approbation of the perjury of a prince whose ally he
was about to become. It is remarkable that neither party ap
pealed to the people of Burgundy, who were seized as lawful
booty by Louis XL, and agreed to be restored as stolen goods
by Francis I. In the league against the emperor, under the
auspices of the pope, and thence called most clement and most
holy, Henry Vni. was declared protector of the holy league,
with an estate in Naples of 30,000 crowns a year for himself,
and of 10,000 crowns a year to the cardinal. The bribes were
afterwards increased to much larger sums. In the course of
1526 the disturbances in Italy were somewhat composed. In
1527 an event occurred, unparalleled perhaps in all its cir
cumstances, and considered in that age as the most extraor
dinary which the chances and changes of war could have pro
duced. On the 6th of May, the constable of Bourbon, at the
head of an imperial army of 30,000 men, marched to the sack
of the city of Rome. He was at the head of the army with a
ladder in his hand, with which he meant to scale the walls.
At the moment when he was lifting his foot to place it on the
first step of the ladder, he was shot dead.
* Herbert, 7.

1527. SACK OF ROME. 113
Though the taking a great city is always one of the most
horrible scenes of human guilt and misery, we are assured
by all writers that the storming of Rome surpassed every
other in horror. More exasperated than disp'irited by the fall
of their leader, the soldiers entered the city with cries of re
venge. On their first rushing into the streets, they butchered
some of the defenceless prelates, who were flying from de
struction. They had permission to pillage for five or six days,
winch includes the impunity for that tirEe of every form of
human criminality which men greedy of plunder, smarting
with wounds, intoxicated by .liquor, or tempted by other lures,
can imagine or perpetrate. Five thousand men are said to
have perished ; the number .of women and children, on whom
.such assaults often fell with most severity, it would be horri
ble to conjecture ; but war in most of its horrors raged in the
unhappy city for several months during the siege of the castle
of St Angelo, where the pope and the college of cardinals
had taken refuge. Some peculiar circumstances render it
.probable that the horrors of this assault, however heightened
by rhetorical amplification, are in the chief particulars conso
nant to historical truth. The death of Bourbon left his army
uncurbed by a leader ; and the scenes which followed were
peculiarly unfitted for attempts to restore discipline. The
army was composed of a mercenary soldiery, called together
from every country by the sole lure of pay and plunder ;
without national character; without habits of co-operation-;
without favorite chiefs ; often without that acquaintance with
each other's language, by means of which some of them
might be reclaimed ; to all which it may be added, that some
of the assailants, otherwise the most likely to be merciful,
were impelled by religious zeal not to spare the altars, the
temples, or even the priests, of idols. Many German soldiers
might have imbibed, from the preaching of Luther, that ab
horrence of popery which they had now the means of in
dulging, in the great city where that religion had triumphed
for a thousand years.
Such was the hypocrisy of Charles V., that, on learning
the misfortunes of the pope, he gave orders for a general
mourning, suspended the rejoicings for the birth of his son,
and commanded prayers to be offered throughout Spain for
the deliverance of the pontiff, whom the emperor himself had
commanded his generals to imprison.
K2

114 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
CHAP. V.
HENRY VIII  CONTINUED.
RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.
1527.
The reformation of religion in the sixteenth century, when
regarded only from a civil point of view, is doubtless one of
the most memorable transactions in the history of the civi
lized and Christian world. For a century and a half almost
all the important wars of Europe originated in the mutual
animosity of the Christian parties.
All the inventions and discoveries of man are only various
exertions of his mental powers ; they depend solely upon the
improvement of his reason. With the vigor of reason must
keep pace the probability of adding new discoveries to our
stock of truth, and of applying some of them to the enjoyment
and ornament as well as to the more serious and exalted
uses of human life. By a parity of reasoning we perceive,
that those who remove impediments on the road to truth as
certainly contribute to advance its general progress, as if they
were directly employing the same degree of sagacity in the
pursuit of a particular discovery. The contrary may be af
firmed of all those who oppose hindrances to free, fearless,
calm, unprejudiced, and dispassionate inquiry : they lessen the
stores of knowledge ; they relax the vigor of every intellec
tual effort ; they abate the chances of future discovery.
Every impediment to the utmost liberty of inquiry or dis
cussion, whether it consists in the fear of punishment, in
bodily restraint, in dread of the mischievous effects of new
truth, or in the submission of reason to beings of the like
frailties with ourselves, always, in proportion to its magni
tude, robs a man of some share of his rational and moral
nature. Truth is not often dug up with ease : when it is a general
object of aversion, — when it is represented as an immoral or
even impious search, — the difficulties that impede our labors
are increased; the most irresistible passions of our nature,
and the most lasting interests of society, conspire against im
provement of mind ; and it is thought a crime to ascertain
what is generally advantageous, though thereby only can be
learned the arduous art of doing good with the least alloy of
evil.* * Whoever is desirous of estimating the value of knowledge, will find
tlw noblest observations or) that grand subject, which have been made

1527. THE REFORMATION. 115
The reformation of 1517 was the first successful example
of resistance to human authority. The reformers discovered
the free use of reason ; the principle came forth with the
Lutheran revolution, but it was so confused and obscured by
prejudice, by habit, by sophistry, by inhuman hatred, and by
slavish prostration of mind, to say nothing of the capricious
singularities and fantastic conceits which spring up so plenti
fully in ages of reformation, that its chiefs were long uncon
scious of the potent spirit which they had set free. It is not
yet wholly extricated from the impurities which followed it
into the world. Every reformer has erected, all his followers
have labored to support, a little papacy in their own commu
nity. The founders of each sect owned, indeed, that they
had themselves revolted against the most ancient and univer
sal authorities of the world ; but they, happy men ! had learnt
all truth, they therefore forbad all attempts to enlarge her
stores, and drew the line beyond which human reason must
no longer be allowed to cast a glance.
The popish authority claimed by Lutherans and Calvinists
was indeed more odious and more unreasonable, because more
self-contradictory, than that which the ancient church in
herited through a long line of ages ; inasmuch as the reform
ers did not pretend to infallibility, perhaps the only advan
tage, if it were real, which might in some degree compensate
for the blessings of an independent mind, and they now pun
ished with death those dissenters who had only followed the
examples of the most renowned of Protestant reformers, by a
rebellion against authority for the sake of maintaining the
paramount sovereignty of reason.
The flagrant inconsistency of all Protestant intolerance is
a poison in its veins which must destroy it. The clerical des
potism was directly applicable only to works on theology ; but,
as religion is the standard of morality, and politics are only a
portion of morality, all great subjects were interdicted, and
the human mind, enfeebled and degraded by this interdict,
was left with its cramped and palsied faculties to deal with
inferior questions, on condition, even then, of keeping out of
view every truth capable of being represented as dangerous to
any dogma of the established system. The sufferings of the
Wicklrffites, the Vaudois, and the Bohemians, seemed indeed
to have fully proved the impossibility of extinguishing opinion
since Bacon, in Mr. Herschell's " Discourse on Natural Philosophy;" the
finest work of philosophical genius which this age has seen. In reading it,
a momentary regret may sometimes pass through the fancy, that the author
of the "Novum Organum" could not see the wonderful fruits of his labor
in two centuries.

116 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
by any persecution in which a large body of men can long
concur. But the two centuries which followed the preaching
of Luther, taught us, by one of the most sanguinary and ter
rific lessons of human experience, that in the case of assaults
on mental liberty, providence has guarded that paramount
privilege of intelligent beings, by confining the crimes of
mankind, as it has seen fit for a season to allow that their vir
tues should be circumscribed. Extirpation is the only perse
cution which can be successful, or even not destructive -of its
own object. Extirpation is conceivable ; but the extirpation
of a numerous sect is not the work of a moment. The per
severance of great bodies in such a process, for a sufficient
time, and with the necessary fierceness, is happily impracti
cable. Rulers are mortal : shades of difference in capacity,
character, opinion, arise among their successors. Aristocra
cies themselves, the steadiest adherents to established maxims
and revered principles of rule, are exposed to the contagion
of the times. Julius aimed at Italian conquest ; Leo thought
only of art and pleasure ; Adrian burned alike with zeal for
reforming the clergy and for maintaining the faith. Higher
causes are in action for the same purpose. If pity could be
utterly rooted out, and conscience struck dumb; if mercy were
banished, and fellow-feeling with our brethren were extin
guished ; if religion could be transformed into bigotry, and
justice had relapsed into barbarous revenge, even in that dire
ful state, the infirmities, nay, the viees, of men, indolence,
vanity, weariness, inconstancy, distrust, suspicion, fear, anger,
mutual hatred, and hostile contest, would do some part of the
work of the exiled virtues, and dissolve the league of persecu
tion long before they could exterminate the conscientious.
Many causes had combined to prepare the soil for the re
formation. Even the subtleties of the schools, and their appeal
to the authority of a pagan reasoner, raised up against the
papacy and the priests a rivalry, which was followed, in the
first instance, by the masters of the Roman law, and after
wards by the revivers of ancient literature. The council of
Constance, though cruel persecutors of those who outran their
own dissent, yet asserted the jurisdiction of councils over
popes, even so far as to maintain not only their power to con
demn the errors of pontiffs, but even their authority to depose,
elect, or otherwise chastise the sovereign pontiffs. A predis
position against the ecclesiastical claims had prevailed so gen
erally and reached so high, that the emperor Maximilian him
self was not indisposed to the new opinions* The kindness
* Sleidan. de Stat. Relig. et Imper. Car. V. Cresare, i. 21. edit, lGes.

1527. THE REFORMATION. 117
and patronage immediately granted to the great heresiarch by
the excellent elector of Saxony, seems either to indicate some
previous concert, or to evince so extensive an alienation from
the clergy, that express words were not needful.
The letters of Erasmus, the prince of the restorers of lite
rature, who gave too much proof of preferring peace to truth,
bear the weightiest testimony to the joy and thanks of Euro
pean scholars at the hopes of deliverance held out by the Saxon
reformation, during its earliest and most pacific period. At
the same time, with an excess of wariness not suited to the
temperament of his correspondent, he exhorts Luther to ob
serve more moderate and temperate language, and to attack
the papal agents more than the holy see itself* In the first
negotiations of the papal agents with the heretical chiefs, it
was insinuated by the former, that their opponents might
maintain their doctrines in the private disputations of the
learned, if they would only desist from the mischievous prac
tice of inflaming the ignorant by preaching or writing on such
subjects. These suggestions were natural to the statesmen,
the courtiers, and the semi-pagan scholars of the court of Leo,
at a time when a double doctrine and a system of secret opinions
had rendered the well-educated among the Italians unbeliev
ers, who regarded the ignorant as doomed to be their dupes,
and thought the art of deluding the multitude beneficial to
most men, as well as easy and agreeable to their rulers.
But Martin Luther was of a character thoroughly exempt
from falsehood, duplicity, and hypocrisy. Educated in the
subtleties of schools, and the severities of cloisters, he annexed
an undue importance to his own controversies, and was too
little acquainted with the affairs of the world, to see the man
ner in which they might be disturbed by such disputes. It is
very probable, that, if he had perceived it, his logical obstinacy
would unwillingly, if at all, have sacrificed a syllogism to a
public interest. Two extraordinary circumstances appeared
a little before this time„so opportunely, that they might be
said to be presented to him as instruments for the accomplish
ment of his purpose : these were, the invention of the art of
printing, and the use of the German tongue in addresses to
the people. His ordinary duties led him to make weekly
addresses to all classes. The use of the vernacular language
rendered him as easily understood by the low as by. the high ;
and printing had so lessened the cost of copying, that the
poorest man, or club, or society, could buy a copy of his ser
mons and tracts, which were written with clearness and
* March 29, 1519. London. Erasm. Epist. lib. vi. p. 4. Sleidan, i. 85,

118 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
brevity, as well as with such a mastery over his language, as
to have raised the spoken dialect of his own province into the
literary language of Germany, and to rank him as the first of
the writers who have disclosed the treasures of that copious
and nervous tongue. These distinctions he doubtless owed
partly to the veneration entertained for his translation of the
Scriptures, and partly to popular tracts, which were not only
most skilfully adapted to the capacity of the multitude, but
perhaps too much accommodated to their taste by a plentiful
seasoning of those personalities and scurrilities, which, though
they promoted his purpose for the time, cannot be perused
without displeasure by his warmest admirers in succeeding
ages. This great reformer of mankind was born at Eisleben, in
the county of Mansfeldt, in the year 1483, about thirty years
after the invention of printing, and about twelve before the
discoveries of America and of a maritime road to India ; a
time when the papacy had not recovered the blow struck
against it by the council of Constanee ; and sufficiently late
to draw help from the revival of ancient literature, which the
writings of Erasmus show to have been spread beyond the
Alps, and even beyond the Rhine. The ardor of his mind, the
elevation of his genius, and the meditative character of his
country, early led him to that contemplation of the vast and
the invisible, to that aspiring pursuit of the perfect and the
boundless, which lift the soul of man above the vulgar objects
of sense and appetite, of fear and ambition.
The fate of a comrade, who was struck dead by lightning
while walking in the fields with Luther, alarmed and agitated
him ; and in 1505 he devoted himself to a religious life, as a
monk of the order of St. Augustin. It is a characteristic fact,
that he had been two years in the monastery before he had
seen a Latin bible,* which he embraced with delight; so
human and traditional had Christianity then become.
He was speedily regarded as the most learned member of
his order in the empire.! The elector of Saxony, who had
just founded an university at Wittemberg, appointed the
young monk to a professorship of philosophy, and at the same
time made him one of the ministers of the town. Such a
policy has often induced the absolute princes of small states,
whose limited revenues are insufficient for the support of an
* Milner, Christ. Church, iv. 424.
t " Polichius often declared that there was a strength of intellect in this
man which, he plainly foresaw, would produce a revolution in the popular
and scholastic religion of the times."— Melancthon, quoted by Milner
Church History, iv 326.

1527. THE REFORMATION. 119
university, to select men of reputation for their academical
offices, who may attract multitudes to the seminary. They
are often content to connive at the eccentricities and to screen
the errors of men of genius, provided their halls are crowded
with admiring hearers and pupils.
In 1510 he visited Rome on the affairs of his monastery,
where he was shocked by finding that the sincerity and fervor
of his own devotion were looked at with wonder and with
derision by his Italian brethren, who hurried and muttered
over their liturgy. It was not however, till the year 1517
that he made any public opposition to practices directed or
allowed by the church. The occasion of this resistance was
the issue and sale of indulgences, to raise a sum of money
adequate to the cost of completing St. Peter's church at Rome.
These indulgences appear to have been granted in early
times : their original purpose, and the only efficacy ascribed
to them by the church, was grounded on the acceptance of
sums of money instead of the often very severe penances
which the ecclesiastical law imposed on. penitents as the tem
poral punishment of the offences. No pope or council taught
that indulgences were a permission for future offences, still
less that they had any relation to those punishments which
supreme justice may finally employ in the administration of
the moral world. With some apparent inconsistency, how
ever, and with much additional danger to the community, they
stretched their authority into the unseen world, by teaching
that indulgences extended to a part, or to the whole, of the
purification of minds of imperfect excellence in purgatory.
The produce of the indulgences was, in general, avowedly
destined for purposes which were accounted pious : they were
at first rare, being granted with apparent consideration, and
in cases which might be deemed favorable. But in a series
of ages caution and decorum disappeared. The practice of
the distributors of indulgences widely deviated from the pro
fessed principle of such grants, and they threw off all the re
straints by which the pious prudence of former time had
labored to render such a practice safe, or indeed tolerable.
The execution of the bull for indulgences in Germany was
intrusted to men who rendered all the abuses to which they
were liable most offensively conspicuous. Tetzel, a Dominic-,
an, one of the chief distributors, vended his infallible specific
with the exaggeration and fiction of the coarsest empiric.
Wittemberg was one of the towns which he visited on his
journey. A scene here opened for the learning, the integrity,
the piety, the ardor and impetuosity of Luther. A great
practical abuse was brought to his dwelling, with all the ag-

120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
gravations which it could receive from the peculiar circum
stances of a country remote, undisturbed, and unawakened by
controversy, and from the character of the shameless collect
ors, who extolled the sovereign efficacy of their specific in
language disclaimed by all the authorities and by all the schol
ars of the Roman Catholic church. That church must never
theless, bear the grave disapprobation due to her sanction of
a practice, the abuse of which was so inevitable, and so easily
foreseen, that on this account alone it must be regarded as
irreligious and immoral. A doctrine or a practice, however
guarded in the words that describe it, which has for centuries
produced a preponderance of evil, must in its nature be evil.
It was fortunate that it might be impugned without question
ing the authority of the church ; or of the supreme pontiff!
which the reformer, magnanimous as he was, might not have
yet dared to assail. It was fortunate, also, that the enormi
ties of Tetzel found Luther busied in the contemplation of
the principle which is the basis of all ethical judgment, and
by the power of which he struck a mortal blow at supersti
tion : " Men are not made truly righteous by performing cer
tain actions which are externally good ; but men must have
righteous principles in the first place, and then they will not
fail to perform virtuous actions."* Whether Luther rightly
understood the passages of the New Testament on which he
founded the peculiar doctrines for the sake of which he ad
vanced this comprehensive principle, is a question of pure
theology, not in the province of history to answer. But the
general terms which are here used enunciate a proposition
equally certain and sublime ; the basis of all pure ethics, the
cement of the eternal alliance between morality and religion,
and the badge of the independence of both on the low mo
tives and dim insight of human laws. Luther, in a more spe
cific application of his principle, used it to convey his doctrine
of justification by faith ; but the very generality of his own
terms prove the applicability of the principle to be far more
extensive. He saw the pure moral principle in its religious form ; but
his words enounce it as it exists in itself, independent of all
application. He did not perceive that this doctrine rendered
the use of fear and force to make men more virtuous and re
ligious, the most absurd of all impossible attempts ; since vir
tue and religion have their seats in an inviolable sanctuary,
which neither force nor fear can approach ; and that it placed
in the clearest light the natural unfitness of law, which seeks
*Epist. Luth. ad Spalat, Oct. 1516, in Milner, iv. 331.

1527. THE REFORMATION. 121
only to restrain outward acts, and which has, indeed, no means
of going farther, for a coalition with those purer and more
elevated principles which regard human actions as only valu
able when they are the outward and visible signs of inward
and mental excellence.
But it is evident that a mind engrossed by considerations of
this, nature was not in a mood to endure with patience the
monstrous language of Tetzel. Luther had not travelled in
search of grievances ; he had even buried in respectful silence
the result of his observation on the immorality and irreligion
of Rome. He was assailed at home by representations, which,
if our accounts be accurate, were little less than dissuasives
from the cultivation of virtuous dispositions. It is now no
longer contended that he was instigated by resentment at a
supposed transfer of the distribution of indulgences to the
Dominicans, from his own order the Augustinians, who, in
truth, had very seldom enjoyed that privilege. It had been
chiefly in the hands of the Dominicans for two hundred years,
and only bestowed on one Augustinian for more than half a
century before Luther.*
He published in 1517 ninety-five theses, in the usual form
of themes for disputation, in which he impugned the abuse of
indulgences, and denied the power extravagantly ascribed to
them, not without striking some blows at the doctrine itself,
thus ready to be turned to evil purposes, but concluding with
a solemn declaration, that he affirmed nothing, but submitted
the whole matter to the judgment of the church. Nor is
there any reason to question his sincerity ; he at that time,
doubtless, confined his views to the evil which awakened his
zeal. In after-times, the inflexible obstinacy with which the
church refused to reform abuse compelled him to explore the
foundations of her authority. This undistinguishing main
tenance of all established evils, together with the wrong done
to himself and his adherents, obliged him in self-defence to
examine the nature of ecclesiastical power; and the result
of a wider inquiry warranted him in carrying the war into
the enemy's country. No other means of effecting the most
temperate amendments were left in his possession ; his op
tion lay between an assault on Rome, and the destruction of
Protestantism. Fortunately for the success of his mission,
the great reformer, penetrating, inventive, sagacious, and
brave as he was, had little of the temerity of those intellect
ual adventurers who, often at the expense of truth, and almost
always at the cost of immediate usefulness, affect singularity
* Sleidan, i. 22 ; Seeker, Hist. Lutherenismi ; especially Mosheim, iv. 31.
Vol. II. I.

122 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
in all things, and are more solicitous to appear original, than
to make certain additions to the stock of knowledge and well-
being. In the gradual progress of dissent which thus natu
rally arose, the variations in his words and deeds at different
stages of it are no proof of levity, but rather, by being gradu
al, afford evidence that they were considerate ; and they still
less justify a suspicion of insincerity against one of the frankest
and boldest of men. Nothing can be a stronger proof of his
honesty, than the language in which he many years after
spoke of his own original theses : " I allow these propositions
still to stand, that by them it may appear how weak I was,
and in how fluctuating a state of mind I was when I began
this business. I was then a monk and a mad papist ; ready
to murder any person who denied obedience to the pope."
For about three years after the first publication of Luther's
themes, the court of Rome did not proceed to extremities
against him. Leo originally smiled at the little squabbles of
Saxony, and was wont to say, " Brother Martin has a very
fine genius ; but these are only the scuffles of friars !" He
despised this controversy so long, that he was too late either
for timely concession, or for immediately destroying the her
esy, which perhaps he might have strangled if -he had seized
it in the cradle. At last he was persuaded by the divines, or
probably by the politicians, of his court to crush a revolt, of
which the example might become dangerous.
On the 15th of June, 1520,. he issued the damnatory bull,
in which forty-five propositions, extracted from the writings
of Luther, were condemned as heretical ; and if he himself
did not recant within sixty days, he was pronounced to be an
obstinate heretic, was excommunicated, and delivered unto
Satan for the destruction of his flesh ; and all secular princes
were required, under pain of incurring the same penalties,
with the forfeiture of all their dignities, to seize his person,
that he might be punished as he deserved.
To follow Luther through the perils which he braved, and
the sufferings which he endured, would lead us too far from
our proper province ; but, in justice to him, the civil historian
should never omit the benefits which accrued to the moral
interests of society, from the principle on which, to the end,
he founded his doctrine, — that all rites and ceremonies, all
forms of worship, nay, all outward acts, however conformable
to morality, are only of value in the judgment of God, and in
the estimate of conscience, when they flow from a pure heart,
and manifest right dispositions of mind. Wherever the out
ward acts are considered as in themselves meritorious, it is
apparent that the performance of one outward act may be

1527. THE REFORMATION. 123
conceived to make amends for the disregard or omission of
other duties. Some notion may be formed of the possibility
that the justice of a superior may be satisfied for a theft or a
fraud, by a self-inflicted suffering, or by an outward act of
unusual benefit to mankind. But it is evident that no such
substitute can be conceived for a grateful and affectionate
heart, for piety or benevolence, for a compassionate and con
scientious frame of mind. Where these are wanting, outward
acts can make no compensation for their absence ; because
the mental qualities themselves are the sole objects of moral
approbation. When the whole moral value of outward acts
is ascribed to the dispositions and intentions, which, in the
case of our fellows, we can understand only from the lan
guage of their habitual conduct, it becomes impossible for any
reasonable being to harbor so vain a conceit, as that he can
compromise with his conscience for deficiency in one duty by
practising more of another. From the promulgation of this
principle, therefore, may be dated the downfall of superstition,
which is founded on commutations, compromises, exchanges,
substitutes for a pure mind, fatal to morality ; and upon the
exaggerated estimate of practices, more or less useful, but
never beneficial otherwise than as means.
It has been already observed, that Ulrich Zuinglius, a Swiss
priest, preached against indulgences about the same time
with Luther himself. He inculcated milder doctrines, and
was distinguished by a more charitahle spirit, than any other
reformer ; but though some of his opinions have been adopted
by many Protestants, his premature death prevented him from
establishing an ascendant even in his own country. The
sceptre of the reformation in Switzerland fell into the power
ful hands of John Calvin,* a native of Noyon in Picardy,
who, in 1534, established the Protestant religion and a demo-
cratical form of government in the city of Geneva. The
second of the German reformers was Melancthon,! one of the
restorers of ancient learning, who did much to recover Gre
cian philosophy from the mountainous masses under which it
lay buried among the schoolmen, but who would have been
of too gentle a spirit for an age of reformation, if that very
gentleness had not disposed him to seek steadiness in submis
sion to the commanding and energetic genius of Luther. After
the death of his master, he, like Zuinglius, rejected the stern
dogma of absolute predestination, in which he has been fol
lowed by the Lutheran body, leaving it to become, in after
* Jean Chauvin. t Schwarzerde.

124 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
ages, the distinction of the followers of Calvin, and still more
of his successor Beza.*
At a somewhat later moment, the whole body of dissenters
from the Roman Catholic church received the name of Pro
testants, from their common protest against an intolerant
edict of the imperial diet holden at Spire.
The Lutherans called themselves evangelical Christians,
from their profession of drawing their doctrines from the
scriptures alone. They were called followers of the confes
sion of Augsburg, from a confession of their faith delivered
to the diet in that city by Melancthon. The followers of
Calvin assumed the designation of the reformed church, per
haps with the intention of marking more strongly that they
had made more changes in church government than their
Protestant brethren. A Calvinist and a Presbyterian became
in England synonymous terms. The word Calvinist now de
notes all who, in any Protestant communion, embrace the
doctrine of absolute predestination. It is synonymous with
predestinarian. Many Episcopalians are now Calvinists;
many Presbyterians are anti-Calvinists.
The subject of fiercest controversy among Protestants was
the nature of the sacrament of the Lord's supper. A rejec
tion by all Protestants of the ancient doctrine or language,
which represented the bread and wine to be, in that sacred
rite, transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ, was,
of all Protestant deviations, that which rnost excited the
dread and horror of pious Catholics, who considered the here
tics as thus cutting asunder the closest ties which bound the
devout heart to the Deity. Yet Luther only substituted one
unintelligible term, ' consubstantiation,' for the more ancient
but equally unintelligible term, ' transubstantiation.' Even
Calvin paid so much regard to ancient dogmas, as to maintain
the real though not bodily presence of the body of Christ in
the sacrament ; and the church of England, in her solicitude
to avoid extreme opinions, and to reject no language asso
ciated with devotion, has not altogether avoided the same in
comprehensible and seemingly contradictory forms of speech.
Zuinglius, and some of the Lutherans, who openly declared
their conviction that this venerable rite was merely a com
memoration of the death of Christ, were the only reformers
who made a substantial alteration in the old creed, and ex
pressed themselves, on this subject at least, with perfect per
spicuity. Erasmus, the prince of European scholars, was in the fif-
* Theodore de Beze\ a Burgundian.

1527. THE REFORMATION. 125
tieth year of his age, and in the full maturity of his fame,
when Luther began to preach the reformation at Wittemberg.
No man had more severely lashed the superstitions which
were miscalled acts of piety, or scourged the frauds and de
baucheries of the priesthood with a more vigorous arm. The
ridicule which he so plentifully poured on the monks during
his residence in England doubtless contributed to their easy
overthrow in this country. He was pleased with Luther as
long as the reformer confined himself to the amendment of
faults, without impugning the authority, or assailing the con
stitution, of the church. Erasmus, however, as early as
1520, informed Luther that he did not court martyrdom, for
which he felt himself to be unfit ; that he would rather be
mistaken in some points, than fight for truth at the expense
of division and disturbance ; that he should not separate from
the church of Rome, though he was very desirous that her
errors should be amended by her own established authorities.
Nor was the demeanor of the Saxon reformer towards this
illustrious scholar, in the beginning, worthy of much censure.
Erasmus was not required to commit any absolute breach of
the neutrality which his age and character seemed to impose
on him. But, when all differences had been widened by the
excesses of the German boors and of the Dutch Anabaptists,
Erasmus recoiled more violently from approaches to the Lu
therans. Though the monks abated naught of their hatred,
the Roman politicians felt the necessity of courting the dic
tator of literature ; they appealed to former good offices; they
held out the hope of further favors. Their displeasure was
still formidable, and Erasmus, it must be owned with regret,
made too large sacrifices to his poverty and his fears. On
the other hand, every concession or approach to the ancient
church was treated as an act not only of insincerity, but an
example of apostasy and desertion ; charges which, as he
never enlisted in the Lutheran army, he did not strictly de
serve. He was incensed at their invectives ; yet even then
he deplored the dreadful bloodshed which attended the sup
pression of the boors' revolt, in which a hundred thousand
persons were put to death. In his latter years, a cardinal's
hat was offered to him : he declined it ; but it is not to be
denied that, if the convulsions of the age did not make him a
true papist, at least they rendered him a member of the papal
faction. Perhaps he did not dare to form decisive opinions
concerning fiercely controverted dogmas in theology. He was
accused, but without proof, of unbelief in the Trinity. The
creed which he had brought his mind to embrace distinctly
seems to have been short and simple ; and that of which he
L2

126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
would have desired a profession from others would probably
have comprehended the greater part of Christian communities.
He died in 1536 in the sixty-ninth year of his age — certainly
not reconciled to Luther by the cruel murder of his illustrious
friend Sir Thomas More, the last and most mournful event
of which he lived to be a witness. It may be said of him,
without the suspicions of exaggeration, that his learning, his
powers of reason, imagination, and wit, were in his own age
unmatched, that his attainments were stupendous, and that
if his lot had fallen on happier times, his faults and infirmities
would have been lost in the mild lustre of the neighboring
and kindred virtues.
The Calvinists adopted a democratic constitution for their
church, in which all the ministers were of equal rank and
power. The Lutherans retained bishops, but very limited in
jurisdiction, and much lowered in revenue. The church of
England, generally but prudently and moderately inclining to
an agreement with Calvin in doctrine, retained the same
ranks of secular clergy, and much of the same forms of pub
lic worship, which prevailed in the ancient church; while
she, in some respects, enlarged episcopal authority by releas
ing it from the supreme jurisdiction of the see of Rome.
It is unfit to continue these sketches of ecclesiastical his
tory, brief as they must needs be. It will, however, be neces
sary to return to them when their influence on the affairs of
England becomes more conspicuous. The civil history of
Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the preva
lent opinions of the eighteenth, and the revived activity of
principles of reformation in the nineteenth, are all of them
unintelligible without reference to the opinions and disputes
of religious parties.
A revolt of the boors of Suabia in the year 1525, spread
alarm through Germany, and was triumphantly appealed to
by the antagonists of the reformation as a decisive proof of the
fatal tendency of its anarchical principles. These unhappy
peasants were in a state of villanage ; the grievances from
which they prayed for deliverance were real and great.
Among the most conspicuous of their demands were, emanci
pation from personal bondage, the right of electing their re
ligious teachers, that of killing untamed animals without the
restraint of game-laws, and a participation of the people with
the clergy in tithes, which they desired to limit to corn alone.*
These demands were in themselves not unreasonable, though
urged by armed revolters. The conduct of Luther at this
* Sleidan, i. 285.

1527. THE REFORMATION. 127
trying moment was unexceptionable; he condemned alto
gether the insurgents, and earnestly exhorted their lords to
humanity and forbearance. If he departed somewhat from
" fair equality, fraternal law," it was in favor of the hard mas
ters ; to which extreme he was driven by his solicitude to res
cue the reformation from the charge of fomenting rebellion.
His policy, however, was vain ; his antagonists were not to
be conciliated. If he was silent or cool, he was said to con
nive at the rebellion ; if it continued to rage in spite of his
warmest censures, he was said to show that the principles of
anarchy inherent in revolt against religion rendered the Pro
testant boors ungovernable by their own favorite leaders. The
lords subdued the rebellion ; and, according to the usage in
like cases, disregarded the grievances, while they drowned
the revolt in a deluge of blood.
Such disorders are incident to the greatest and most bene
ficial movements of the human mind; because such move
ments awaken the strongest interests and excite the deepest
passions of multitudes ; and are often as much perverted by
the expectations and the violences of ignorant and impatient
supporters as they are by the systematical resistance of avow
ed enemies. It sometimes happens, that the very grievous-
ness of the evils unfits the sufferers for the perilous remedies
which are alone efficacious ; because, as in the case of the
German boors, it disables them from applying these ambigu
ous agents with the moderation and caution which are seldom
joined to the spirit of political enterprise. Poisons are often
efficacious remedies; but their powers of destruction are
quickly restored by a slight excess in their use.
While the enemies of the reformation were exulting over
the violence of the oppressed boors, the better and more natu
ral fruits of it sprung up in all those situations where the soil
was well prepared to receive it. The greatest of the imperial
cities, which, from Strasburgh and Cologne to Hamburgh,
preserved a republican constitution, adopted the Lutheran
protest against the papacy. The Low Countries, containing
the most industrious and opulent communities to the north
ward of the Alps, showed, like the German towns, that the
disposition to religious liberty, which began to steal unper-
ceived on the partisans of the reformation, was best received,
and most heartily welcomed, by the commercial interest ; that
new and rising portion of the community, the mere fact of
whose growth indicated the advances of civilization. Of the
two monarchies of the North, then among the most free gov
ernments of Europe, Denmark was the first to embrace the

128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
Lutheran doctrine ;* and in Sweden,! Gustavus Vasa, who de
livered his country from a foreign yoke, and bestowed on it
the blessings of civil liberty, paved the way for religious free
dom by the introduction of the Protestant religion.

CHAP. VI.
HENRY VIII  CONTINUED.
1527—1535.
TO THE EXECUTION OF SIR THOMAS MORE.
There is no doubt, from succeeding events, that the seed
sown by Wickliffe in England was never destroyed. Wolsey
paid his court to Rome by burning some obscure Lollards,
who were lured from their darkness by Luther's light. Sir
Thomas More, though a reformer of criminal law, deviated
so far from his principles, when he entered the world of ambi
tion and compliance, as to be present at the torture of here
tics. Henry, as a disciple of Aquinas, took up the pen against
the Lutheran heresy, and on that account received from Rome
the title of defender of the faith, which has been retained for
three centuries by sovereigns of whom some might be more
fitly called the chiefs of Protestant Europe. There was no
country on whose fidelity the papal see might seem entitled
to rely with more confidence than on that of England. A
single circumstance shook the apparently solid connexion, and
in the end detached Henry from communion with the Roman
church. Whether he really felt any scruples respecting the
validity of his marriage during the first eighteen years of his
reign, may be reasonably doubted. No trace of such doubts
can be discovered in his public conduct till the year 1527.
Catherine had then passed the middle age : personal infirmi
ties are mentioned which might have widened the alienation.
About the same time Anne Boleyn, a damsel of the court, at
the age of twenty-two, in the flower of youthful beauty, and
full of graces and accomplishments, touched the fierce but not
unsusceptible heart of the king. One of her ancestors had
been lord-mayor of London in the reign of Henry VI. ; her
family had since been connected with the noblest houses of the
kingdom ; her mother was the sister of the duke of Norfolk.
At the age of eight, she attended the princess Mary into
* 1522. J 1526.

1527. ANNE BOLEYN. 129
France as a maid of honor, during that lady's short-lived union
with Louis XII. On the death of that monarch, she was
taken into the household of Claude, queen of France, for her
girlish or childish attractions : and on the approach of the rup
ture between the two countries in 1522, Henry required her
being returned to England before he declared war ; because,
being a lady of the royal household, she could not with pro
priety quit France without the king's permission. That her
eldest sister, and even her mother, preceded her in the favor
of her royal lover, are assertions made by her enemies with a
boldness equal to the total absence of every proof of their
truth.* There is nothing in the known conduct of Henry
himself which warrants the imputation of so ostentatious a
dissolution of manners, even to him. Anne appears to have
entered into a precontract, or given some promise of marriage
to one of the sons of the earl of Northumberland ; but whe
ther serious or frivolous, and how far binding in honor or in
law, are questions which we are unable to answer. The terms
used in that age to describe such engagements are so loose,
that it is unsafe to make any important inference from them ;
but as this supposed precontract was afterwards considered as
a sufficient ground for the sentence which declared the mar
riage of Henry and Anne to be null, it may be regarded as
some presumption that a family, with whom one of the noblest
houses in England negotiated a matrimonial union, was at
least exempt from notorious and disgraceful profligacy. The
antagonists of her memory load her with the inconsistent
charges of yielding to the king's licentious passions, and of
having affected austere purity to reduce him to the necessity
of marriage ; but the peculiar character of Henry rendered
him often a scrupulous observer of rules without much regard
to their principles. The forms of law stood higher in his eye
than the substance of justice : this peculiarity affords the best
key to his proceedings relating to the divorce of which he was
desirous. A legal divorce, however cruel, and even substan
tially unjust, satisfied his coarse and shallow morality. Catha
rine was then in her forty-sixth year ; Anne Boleyn, as has
been already said, was in her twenty-second : Henry was in
his thirty-eighth. Sir Godfrey Boleyn, lord-mayor of London
in 1458, married the daughter of lord Hastings, by whom he
had one son, the husband of lady Margaret Butler, co-heiress
* The angry addresses of cardinal Pole to Henry have been lately quoted
in evidence against the Boleyn family; — as if a cruelly proscribed man, ex-
iled in a distant land, and glowing with just resentment, were not likely or
sure to believe any evil of his barbarous enemy. The virtues of cardinal
Pole destroy on this occasion the weight of his testimony.

130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
of the earl of Ormond ; and the issue of this alliance was Sir
Thomas Boleyn, created lord Rochfbrt, who served the king
with distinction in some diplomatic missions, and especially
in the important embassy to Paris.
The light which shone from Anne Boleyn's eyes might
have awakened or revived Henry's doubts of the legitimacy
of his long union with the faithful and blameless Catharine.
His licentious passions, by a singular operation, recalled his
mind to his theological studies, and especially to the question
relating to the papal power of dispensing with the Levitical
law, which must have been the subject of conversation at the
time of his unusual, if not unprecedented, espousal of his
brother's widow. Scruples, at which he had once cursorily
glanced as themes of discussion, now borrowed life and
warmth from his passions. In the course of examining the
question, his assent was likely at last to be allured into the
service of desire. The question was, in itself, easily dis
putable : it was one on which honest and skilful men differed ;
and it presented, to say the least, ample scope for self-delusion.
His nature was more depraved than lawless (if that word may
be so used) ; and it is possible that his passion might have
yielded to other obstacles, if he had not at length persuaded
himself that by the means of a divorce his gratification might
be reconciled with the letter of the law. His conduct has the
marks of that union of confidence and formality often observed
in men whose immorality receives treacherous aid from a mis
taken conscience.
It was about this period, that on occasion of a project for
the marriage of the princess Mary Tudor, now in her eleventh
year, to Francis I, a hint is said to have been thrown out by
the bishop of Tarbes, the French ambassador in London, that
the young princess might be illegitimate, being the issue of a
marriage of doubtful validity.* If we believe this fact, it
affords some ground for a conjecture, that a suggestion, which
must^ave been shunned as offensive, if it had not been known
to be acceptable, was procured from the ambassador by Henry
or by Wolsey. But such an anecdote, reported by no impar
tial writer, without any account of the preceding or conse
quent facts, is hardly admissible, except as a proof of the sus
picion of the experienced negotiator, that doubts of the validity
of the king's marriage would not be regarded at court as an
unpardonable offence. The king now treated his scruples as
at least specious enough to make a favorable impression on a
* Cavendish, Life of Wolsey.

1527. HENRY SEEKS DIVORCE. 131
pope to whom he had just rendered the most momentous
services. He might, indeed, reasonably expect any favor from Rome
which that court could justly bestow. To the armaments and
negotiations of Henry, Clement VII. owed his release from
prison ; but the pope had felt the power of the emperor, and
dreaded a resentment which could not fail to be awakened by
the degradation of an Austrian princess. Clement, an Italian
priest of the sixteenth century, was more strongly influenced
by fear of the future than by gratitude for the past. Henry
VIII. was distant, Charles V. was at his gates ; the benefit
from English interposition was never likely to be repeated,
the injury and outrage might easily be again inflicted by the
master of Naples and of Lombardy. The wary pontiff, however,
spared no pains to gratify one great prince without displeasing
another ; or, at worst,- to postpone his determination so long,
that time or accident might relieve him from the painful
necessity of pronouncing it. Perhaps these considerations
might be excusable in a pontiff, who was also a feeble tempo
ral sovereign; -but they were as worldly as the motives
ascribed to Henry were blended with the suggestion of the
senses. The one, under pretences of religion, consulted his
own interest; while the other abused the same venerable
name to cover the gratification of his passion. If any degree
of sincerity belonged to the religious professions of either (and
it is not improbable that some portion did mingle with stronger
motives), the excuse was as admissible- in the case of Henry
as in that of Clement.
The French embassy, of whom Grammont, bishop of Tarbes
was one, appears to have arrived in England in March, 1527.
In May, Henry gave a magnificent entertainment at Green
wich, at which Anne was his partner in the dance. In July
of the same year, Knight, then a secretary of state, was dis
patched to Rome to obtain the divorce ; and, on the 1st of
August, Wolsey informed Henry, in a dispatch from France
addressed to that prince, that his project of seeking a divorce
from Catharine was already rumored at Madrid. Whether
Anne Boleyn made any visits to England while her residence
was in Paris ; whether her final return to England took place
on the death of Claude, queen of France, in 1522, or on that
of Margaret, duchess of Alencon, to whose household she is
said by some to have been transferred, after the two remaining
years of that princess's life ; or, finally, whether she was de
tained in France till the return of her father from his last
embassy to Paris, in 1527; are questions of fact on which our
knowledge is hitherto incomplete.

132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1527.
During the early part of these transactions, the situation of
Wolsey induced him to play a perilous game. On the one
hand, he is said to have disengaged Anne from Percy, and
appears through his agent Pace to have secretly procured aid
to the king's suit from the venal pen of Wakefield, Hebrew
professor at Oxford, who had before declared for the validity
of the marriage with Catharine.* But, on the other hand, he
was really desirous of wedding his master to a French princess,
to forward his own designs on the papacy, and to cover by the
popularity of a valuable and illustrious alliance the odium
which he must have foreseen to be a consequence of a justly
obnoxious divorce. It is probable, also, that Wolsey was
apprehensive of the power which the Boleyns and their con
nexions would acquire by the elevation of their young and
beautiful relation. He threw himself, we are told, on his
knees before the king, and earnestly entreated him to desist
from a purpose unworthy of his birth.! It need scarcely be
added, that the minister who made up by pliancy to an im
petuous master for his insufferable arrogance towards herds
of dependants, made haste to atone for the indiscreet zeal
which, on this single occasion, he presumed to oppose to the
royal desires. He redoubled his activity and apparent zeal to
promote the marriage with Anne Boleyn, so as to draw from
that lady a letter to him overflowing with gratitude.
Sir Thomas More, the most illustrious Englishman of his
time, not being convinced by the king's reasons, declined the
support of his divorce. Fisher, bishop of Rochester, acted
with the like hazardous integrity. No name is preserved of
any other divine or lawyer who gave the same pledge of
courageous honesty. The people, ignorant of law, but moved
by generous feeling, saw nothing in the transaction but the
sacrifice of an innocent woman to the passions of a dissolute
monarch, which was in truth its most important and essential
character. On the arrival of Cassalis, an Italian agent from, Henry at
Rome, in September, 1527, to sue or to sound Clement on the
divorce, he found that pontiff in a situation not favorable to
the success of the application. Pie had surrendered, on the
7th of June, to the imperialists, on condition of paying a hun
dred thousand ducats of gold in two months ; and, being unable
to make the payment, was so closely watched in his rigorous
imprisonment which ensued, that he durst not give a public
audience to Knight, who was sent as an extraordinary ambas-
* Knight's Erasm. App. 25—29. The date is 1527.
t Cavendish, Life of Wolsey.

1527. QUESTION OF THE DIVORCE. 133
sador, nor venture to communicate with him, but secretly
through cardinal Pisani .* After the pope made his escape to
Orvieto, in December, access to him was somewhat more free.
English emissaries, well furnished with money, repaired to
Italy ; among whom was Stephen Gardiner, who afterwards
reached a place in English history more conspicuous than
honorable. Various expedients were suggested to deliver the
pope from his painful responsibility. Hopes were entertained
of prevailing on the queen to retire into a monastery, but she
generously rejected all projects which involved in them a
suspicion of the illegitimacy of her daughter. Clement
yielded so far to the English ministers at Viterbo as to grant
a commission to legates to hear and determine the validity of
the marriage, and a pollicitation (or written and solemn prom
ise) not to recall the commission, or to do any act which
should annul the judgment or prevent the progress of the
trial. Gardiner and Fox found the pope lodged in an old and
ruinous monastery, with his antechamber altogether unfur
nished, and a bed which, with the hanging, did not amount to
more than the value of twenty nobles,! which were equiva
lent to five pounds of that age. In executing these docu
ments, he earnestly and pathetically implored the king not
to put them in execution till the evacuation of Italy by the
German and Spanish armies should restore him to real liberty.
A very brief statement of the points in dispute may find a
fit place here. The advocates of Henry observed that, by the
law of Moses, a man was forbidden to marry the sister of his
deceased wife ;} a prohibition to which, being of divine au
thority, the dispensing power could not extend ; but it was
contended on his part also, that even if this were not granted
or proved, the bull of Julius II. was, at all events, void, be
cause it was obtained under the false pretences (recited in the
bull as its ground) that the marriage was sought by the par
ties for the sake of peace between England and Spain, though
such peace then actually subsisted ; and, also, that such dis
pensation was sought at the desire of both parties, although
Henry, being then only twelve years of age, was not compe
tent to express any wish on the subject, which ought to be
regarded as a valid ground of the proceeding. But undoubt
edly the desire of consolidating and securing peace might
well be comprehended' in the words of the bull ; and it is
equally obvious, that the desires of a boy might be faithfully
conveyed, or sufficiently represented, by those of his father
* Knight to Henry, 13th Sept. 1527, in lord Herbert. Kennet, ii. 100.
t Herbert. J Leviticus, xv. 3. ib. xx. 21. Deuteronomy, xxv. 5.
Vol. II. M

134 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1529.
and sovereign. Another preliminary objection was urged
against Henry, that the nuptials of Arthur and Catharine
were never consummated, in other words, that there was no
marriage in fact, and, consequently, that the espousal of
Catharine by Henry was perfectly lawful, even if it were not
protected by a valid dispensation from the pope; but the
evidence of the completion of the nuptials was considerably
stronger than is usual in the case of a childless matron.
The advocates of the king did not question the dispensing
power farther than in its application to a divine, and gene
rally binding, prohibition. The court of Rome did not dare
distinctly to lay claim to such a power in the case of prohibi
tions acknowledged to be of divine authority, which no decree
of the Catholic church had ever sanctioned : but they were
loth to renounce it, from a desire not to narrow a great pre
rogative of the popedom. Neither did they choose to rest their
cause upon its most rational foundation, lest they might be
charged with rashly lowering the obvious and literal sense of
a divine law.
For, surely, the law in Leviticus may be understood as di
vine, and yet prescribed only to the Jewish people. It seems,
indeed, to be a part of their purely national code ; yet there
would be no inconsistency in holding that the Catholic church
had by long usage, and by its written canons, extended to
Christians the Mosaic prohibitions. Though such prohibitions
are undoubtedly not so necessary to the domestic morality of
youth in the case of connexion through marriage as they are
generally and justly held to be in the relation of blood, yet
they promote the same most momentous purpose in some de
gree, however inferior. The law forbidding marriage between
a brother and sister, owned to be indispensable, might by no
very strained analogy be stretched to that of a man to his
brother's widow, a view of the subject which borrows a delu
sive speciousness from the employment of very similar words
to express relations, which have but a slight resemblance to
each other. It might be added, that the sovereigns of all
Christian countries had in effect transplanted the prohibitions
into their respective codes, and sanctioned them by long
usage and frequent recognition. It was a natural though not
a necessary consequence, that the highest authority of the
church might dispense with a regulation to which the church
had probably first subjected its members. This reasonable
construction would have been fatal to Henry's pretensions :
but, on the other hand, it would be a presumptuous attempt to
give a new sense, and a more limited authority, to the Le-
vitical law.

1529. QUESTION OF THE DIVORCE. 135
It was not, however, either by legal or theological argument
that the passions of the monarch were to be controlled, or the
fears of the pontiff were to be removed. Francis I., the most
decisive opponent of the emperor, befriended Henry, and
seconded his suit at Rome. A French army under Lautrec
threatened to reduce Naples. As long as success promised to
attend that commander, Clement adopted the measures already
mentioned favorable to the projects of the English monarch.
But it was not even then without the hesitation and well-dis
guised reservations With which he thought it necessary to
tread warily amidst the shock of combatants equally potent
and merciless. In June, 1529, however, he concluded a treaty
of alliance* with the emperor, in which, among warm pro
fessions of friendship, and some cessions or guarantees of ter
ritory, it was stipulated that Charles should restore the house
of Medici, the pope's family, to their former station at Flor
ence, which they had governed by overruling influence ; and
that Clement, after being received with all due homage and
reverence by Charles, should, when that monarch came to
Italy, solemnize his coronation, which was necessary to com
plete the dignity of the emperor of the Romans, for want of
which all his successors designated themselves, not as empe
rors, but as emperors elect. The temper as well as terms of
this alliance denote that close connexion which, in parties of
very unequal strength, naturally degenerates into the depend
ence of the weaker ally. Clement accordingly now resolved
to provide for the repose of his age by a submission to the
emperor, the only potentate who could shield him from all
other foes. Henceforward we must consider Clement as having
taken his final part against the degradation of the queen of
England, an Austrian princess. But though his fluctuations
really ceased during the short remainder of his life, it was
still desirable to amuse so powerful a prince by ingenious de
lays and plausible formalities.
Already impatient of forensic artifices, Henry had been ad
vised to adopt a very specious expedient for obtaining the
object of his desires, which, if it did not alarm the court of
Rome into concession, might almost render its sanction need
less. The bold proceedings of the council of Constance in
deposing and electing popes (to say nothing of their decrees)
had deeply rooted and widely spread the belief, that whatever
might be the power of popes when there was no council, the
* Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, iv., part ii. p. 1. The marriage of Alex
ander de Medici to Margaret of Austria, the emperor's natural daughter,
was a badge of the friendship between his holiness and his imperial ma
jesty. Treaty, art. iv. Corps Diplom. supra, 3.

136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1529.
Catholic church assembled in a general council had an au
thority paramount to that of the supreme pontiff; but a gene
ral council could not be now assembled without the consent
of the emperor, who would certainly withstand every project
for facilitating the divorce. In this perplexity a species of
irregular appeal to the church in its dispersed state appeared
to be the best substitute for a favorable council or pope. Ques
tions were, therefore, framed by Henry's command, addressed
to the universities of Europe, to obtain their opinion on the
validity of the king's marriage with his brother's widow.
These learned bodies, at the head of whom were theologians,
canonists, and jurists, did seem, indeed, to be the virtual re
presentatives of the church in its state of compulsory inac
tivity, since they were certainly the men who would exercise
the greatest share of moral influence over the determinations
of a general council. The cases submitted to their judgment
were clear, and the points in dispute were fairly stated ;* the
questions were, whether marriage with a brother's widow was
prohibited by the divine law, and if it were, whether a papal
dispensation could release the parties from its obligation. The
most moderate of them answered, that such a marriage could
not be attempted without a breach of the divine law, even
with a dispensation or permission from the supreme pontiff.
The French universities of Orleans, Angers, Bourges, and
Toulouse, and the Italian universities of Ferrara, Padua, and
Pavia, concurring with Bologna and Paris, the two most fa
mous schools of civil and canon law on the Continent, decreed
that the marriage with Catharine was so mere a nullity as to
be incurable even by a papal dispensation. The doctors of
Bologna! deviated somewhat in their language from the calm
ness of a recluse and studious character ; for they pronounced
the marriage to be not only horrible and detestable to a Chris
tian, but utterly abominable among infidels ; that the most
holy father, to whom were intrusted the keys of heaven, and
who could do almost all other acts, could not release a man
from a prohibition fenced round by all laws human and divine.
Bologna, a recent and imperfect acquisition of the holy see,
which had surrendered only twenty years before to Julius IL
* Rymer, xiv. 290, &c. 1529.
t Rymer, xiv. 393 ; and the disclaimer of influence by force or fear. lb.
395. by the Bolognese doctors on oath. An acute writer of the present age
has referred his readers for proof to Rymer, xiv. 393. 397., which, to me,
seems to prove nothing but the anxiety of the doctors to conceal their de
cree from the pope's governor of Bologna, who must have been adverse to
it. This sort of secrecy brings no discredit on the instrument which pur
ports to be the act of all the doctors of theology in the university. " Omnes
doctores theotegi convenimus." Rymer, ut supra.

1529. QUESTION OF THE DIVORCE. 137
on conditions, which, if fairly executed, left the external ad
ministration in the hands of the people, affected, perhaps,
while the pope was a prisoner, to display somewhat wantonly
the remains of ancient independence. Still the university of
that city, and the two universities of the Venetian states,
were placed in circumstances favorable to impartiality. All
the universities of France can hardly be suspected of dread
ing so much the displeasure of Francis for unfavorable an
swers to his ally, as to have disgraced themselves by false
hood. That money was plentifully distributed, seems to be
certain; but that the apparent consent of all the learned
Catholics, who gave an opinion relating to this affair, was
chiefly purchased by the distribution of bribes, is an assertion
improbable in itself, and which would redound more to the
dishonor of the established church than most of the charges
made against her by the hottest zealots of reformation.
Some of the universities are said by the Catholics to have
been obtained by packed meetings, some by minorities usurp
ing the character of majorities. These are the too frequent
faults of public bodies, and the constant imputation thrown on
their decisions by defeated parties ; and they are too general
to deserve much attention until new and more successful at
tempts shall be made to support specific charges by reasonable
proof. The doubt, be it remembered, entirely relates to the
share which undue practices had in influencing the English
and foreign universities. Those transactions of better times
which have affected the interests of statesmen, or the pas
sions of princes, have not been untainted by the like evil mo
tives and impure means. The English universities were
thought at first to be unfriendly to the king's cause, and came
over to him slowly, not from undue influence alone, but prob
ably also by a fellow-feeling with the people, who, after hav
ing listened only to pity for an illustrious lady, gradually al
lowed their generous zeal to be damped by time. The Ger
man Protestants refused to purchase the good-will of Henry
"by sanctioning the divorce.* No answer was made by the
Catholic universities of Germany, because they were under
the domineering power of the emperor, whose universities in
Italy and Spain were also totally silent. That monarch must
have prevented the English agents from access to professors ;
or he must have commanded these last to make no answer to
the questions on which they would otherwise have been con
sulted. In either case the undue influence used by Charles
* " All Lutherans be utterly against your highness in this cause." Croke
from Venice, July 1, 1530. Burnet's Hist. Reform. Appendix to Rec. of
book ii. number 33.
M2

138 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1529.
seems to be as certain in Catholic Germany, in Lombardy,
Naples, and the Spanish peninsula, as that of Henry in Eng
land, or of his ally Francis in France.
Dr. Thomas Cranmer, a divine of note at Cambridge, who,
though born in the dark period of 1483, began to cultivate
the more polite and humane literature introduced by Erasmus
into northern Europe, early caught some sparks of that gene
rous zeal for liberty of writing, which the humanists (so the
followers of that great scholar were called) were accused of
carrying to excess. His preference of the new learning did
not arise from ignorance of the old : he was eminent both as
a theologian and canonist ; and was regarded as one of the
ornaments of the university. His nature was amiable, and
his conduct hitherto spotless. He suggested the appeal to the
universities in a conversation with Fox and Gardiner, the
king's confidential counsellors and subservient agents. It was
relished and adopted : Cranmer was sent on missions, origin
ating in that question, to France and Italy ; and it appears
from his private marriage with the niece of Osiander, a Pro
testant divine of Nurernburg, that during his more important
mission to Germany, he on some points approached, if he did
not overpass, the threshold of Lutheranism. On the death
of Warham on the 30th of March, 1533, he was raised to the
archiepiscopal see of Canterbury ; a station for which he was
fitted by his abilities and virtues, but which was, in fact, the
unsuitable reward of diplomatic activity for a very ambiguous
purpose. The history of public events in this and the two following
reigns, will, better than any general description, display the
excellent qualities of his nature, and the undeniable faults of
his conduct.
At Viterbo, on the 8th of June, 1528,* a commission issued
to cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio, conjointly, or to either
separately, to hear and determine the matrimonial suit, and
to do all acts that are necessary for the execution of their sen
tence. On the arrival of Campeggio, in October, 1528, he
made an attempt to smooth the way, by persuading Catharine
to embrace a religious life, as he had endeavored previously
to dissuade Henry from farther pursuing the divorce. Both
these attempts were unsuccessful. Catharine once more
spurned the unmotherly proposal. The popular feeling, which
was favorable to her, obliged her husband to remove Anne
Boleyn for a while from court, and to assure a great council
of peers, prelates, and judges, whom he convoked on Sunday
* Rymer, xiv. 295.

1529. WOLSEY PERSECUTED. 139
the 8th of November, in the great hall of his palace of Bride
well, that he was moved in his late proceedings, solely by a
desire to know whether his marriage was void, and conse
quently whether his daughter Mary was the right&l -heir of
the crown ; whether, " he begot her on his brother's wife,
which is against God's law. Think you, my lords," added he,
"that these words touch not my body and soul? For this only
"Cause I protest before God, and on the word of a prince, I
have asked counsel of the greatest clerks in Christendom, and
sent for the legate as a man indifferent between the parties."*
The countenances of the hearers formed a strangely diversi
fied sight : some sighed and were silent, some showed tender
ness to the king's scruples : the qiieen's most sagacious friends
were sorry that the matter was now so far published as to cut
off retreat or reconciliation. These perplexities afforded a
plausible pretext to Campeggio to desire time for new instruc
tions from Rome, in order to obtain delay, of which he knew
the pope to be desirous. The dangerous illness of the pope
dn the spring of 1529 retarded the answer, and is said to have
once more turned the ambition of Wolsey towards the tiara,
now more than ever inaccessible to him.
Among other expedients for prolonging the suit before the
legate's court, Campeggio suggested one drawn from the
storehouse of Roman chicane. The courts of Rome having
a long vacation, from July to October (the period of greatest
danger to health from the Roman atmosphere), the legate
¦maintained that all courts deriving authority from the pope
were bound to suspend their sittings during that time. Wol
sey consented, and the king began to consider him as a min
ister of too much refinement and duplicity, who, as he aimed
at doing equally well with the papal and royal courts, was to
be no longer suitable to the impatience prevalent at the latter.
¦Catharine, who had secret friends at court, excited the sus
picions of the king against her enemy the cardinal, without
perhaps knowing that her rival Anne Boleyn was already em
ployed as one of the instruments of his overthrow. The
man who had been so long a domineering favorite all parties
openly or privily joined to destroy. The attorney-general, on
the 9th of October, 1529, commenced a prosecution against
fhim for procuring bulls from Rome without the king's license.
On the 17th of the same month the great seal was taken
from him. The charge was doubtless the consummation of
injustice, since Wolsey had obtained these bulls with the
knowledge and for the. service of the king, and had executed

140 HISTORY OE ENGLAND. 152&1.
them for years under the eye of his ungrateful master. On
the 1st of December, 1529, the lords, with Sir Thomas' More,
the new chancellor, at their head, presented an address to the
king, enumerating various articles of accusation against the
tottering cardinal, and praying that he might no more have
any power, jurisdiction, or authority within the realm : this
address was sent to the commons for their concurrence ; but
the more serious parts of it were confuted with such ability
as well as fidelity by the cardinal's grateful servant Thomas
Cromwell, that it was found impossible to prosecute the accu
sation of treason.
The dilatory proceedings of the legatine court had much
contributed to widen the breach between the king and his
minister. They seem indeed to have been spun out to a length
which an impatient prince was not likely much longer to en
dure. The only memorable circumstance in the progress of
the suit was the calm dignity with which the queen asserted
her own wronged innocence, and displayed the superiority of
plain sense and natural feeling over those legal formalities
which are so hateful when they are abused. Kneeling before
her husband, she is said to have addressed him in words to
the following effect : — " I am a poor woman, and a stranger
in your dominions, where I can neither expect good counsel
nor indifferent judges. But, sir, I have long been your wife,
and I desire to know wherein I have offended you. I have
been your spouse twenty years and more. I have borne you
several children. I have ever studied to please you, and I
appeal to your conscience whether in the earliest moments
of our union you were not satisfied that my marriage with
your brother was not complete. Our parents were accounted
the wisest princes of their age, and they were surrounded by
prudent counsellors and learned canonists. I must presume
their advice to have been right. I cannot therefore submit to
the court, nor can my advocates,* who are your subjects,
speak freely for me."
In the progress of this trial the unwonted humility of Wol
sey in yielding the precedence to Campeggio awakened sus
picions of his cordiality, which were countenanced by his ac
quiescence in his colleague's procrastination.
A remarkable coincidence of circumstances now occurred
which might have alarmed a less jealous monarch. On the
15th of July, Clement, in spite of promises, removed the suit
from the legatine court to be heard before himself at Rome.
* The bishops of Rochester and St. Asaph, with Dr. Ridley. The first
soon after fell for his religion. The last, at the distance of twenly years,
displayed equal virtue.

1530. INTRIGUES AT ROME. 141
The bull of avocation was in three days after dispatched to
England, where the messenger found the legatine court ad
journed for two months, under the pretence of the necessary
conformity of all papal courts to the usages of the Roman
tribunals. This unreasonable suggestion originated indeed
with Campeggio, but was connived at by Wolsey. It is not
easy to believe that it was not concerted with Clement to af
ford ample time for his avocation before the legates could
again assemble, and thereby to silence the most effective
species of legal resistance. Campeggio, in obedience to the
instructions of Clement, quitted England, and the pope sum
moned the English monarch to appear before him at Rome iu
forty days, — an insult which, though in some measure repair
ed, was never forgiven.
To the other circumstances of suspicion against the cardi
nal must be added that Sir Francis Bryan was said to have
obtained possession of a secret letter from Wolsey to the
pope, which gave reasonable grounds for apprehending that
the cardinal covered an illicit and clandestine intercourse un
der his official correspondence with the holy see. Anne
Boleyn is said by her enemies to have stolen this letter from
Bryan, and to have showed it to the king.* These practices
were not peculiar to one of the parties. The emperor did
not fail to' communicate to his aunt, the queen of England,
the intrigues carried on at Rome, and her remaining friends
at court conveyed the intelligence from her to the king.
Wolsey confessed his offence against the statute of pre-
munire,! of which he was technically guilty, inasmuch as he
had received the bulls without a formal license. The court
necessarily pronounced by their sentence, " that he was out
of the protection of the law ; that his lands, goods, and chat
tels were forfeited, and that his person was at the mercy of
the king." The cardinal, with his vast possessions, fell by
this sentence into the king's hands. That prince sent presents
and kind messages to the discarded minister, and suffered him
to remain at Esher, in Surrey, a country-house of his bishop
ric of Winchester. Here, however, Henry, with character
istic caprice, left him with some relaxation of apparent rigor;
but without provision for his table, or furniture for his apart
ments. The sequel of his residence near London was mark
ed by the same fluctuation on the part of Henry, whose in
consistencies probably resulted from his proneness to be
* Herbert, 123, 124.
t 25 Ed. 3. 1., especially 16 R. 2. c. 5, called by Pope Martin V. " execra-
bite statutum quad omni divina et humante rationi contrarium est." Dod, Ch.
Hist. i. 26Z

142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1530.
moved to action by every impulse of a present passion. In
February, 1530, Wolsey was pardoned and restored to his see
of Winchester, and to the abbey of St. Alban's,* with a grant
of 6000/., and of all other rents not parcel of the archbishop
ric of York. Even that great diocese was afterwards re
stored. He arrived at Cawood Castle about the end of Sep
tember, 1530, where he employed himself in magnificent
preparations for his installation on the archiepiscopal throne.
At that moment his final ruin seems to have been resolved on.
The earl of Northumberland, the former suitor or betrothed
spouse of Anne Boleyn, was chosen to apprehend him for
high treason. He was carried first to lord Shrewsbury's cas
tle of Sheffield, where he was compelled by his distempers to
rest, and afterwards to the abbey of Leicester. He breathed
his last at that place, on the 30th of November, 1530. A
journey from York to Leicester on horseback so near to mid
winter rendered a disorder in his bowels, under which he
labored, mortal. His dying words were, " If I had served
God as diligently as I have done the king, he would not have
given me over in my gray hairs. This is the just reward
that I must receive for the pains I have taken to do him ser
vice, not regarding my service to God."! Had such feelings
pervaded his life, instead of shining at the moment of death,
his life would have been pure, especially if his conception of
duty had been as exact as his sense of its obligation was
strong. "If he had been more humble, or less wealthy,"
says lord Herbert, " he was capable of the king's mercy."}
The sudden and violent fall of a man from the pinnacle of
greatness to an unexpected grave is one of the tragic scenes
in human affairs, which has a power over the heart, even
when unaided by esteem ; and often reflects back on his life
an unmerited interest, which though inspired by the downfall
is in some degree transferred to the fallen individual^
It is manifest that as Henry approached a final determina
tion to set at naught the papal authority, he must have per
ceived that Wolsey was an unsuitable instrument for that
high strain of daring policy. The church and court of Rome
had too many holds on the cardinal. As their political
schemes diverged, the ties of habit and friendship were grad
ually loosened between the king and the cardinal ; perhaps at
last a touch from the hand of Anne Boleyn brought him to the
* 17th Feb. 1530. Rymer, xiv.
t Holinshed, iii. 755. } Herbert, 125.
§ Of chance and change and fate in human life,
High actions and high passions best describing. Paradise Regained.

1533. LETTER TO THE POPE. 143
ground, to clear the field for counsellors more irreconcilable
to the supreme pontiff
A strong symptom of the king's growing determination
appeared in June, 1530, in a letter to the pope from two arch
bishops, two dukes, two marquesses, thirteen earls, five bish
ops, twenty-five barons, twenty-two mitred abbots, and eleven
knights and doctors, beseeching his holiness to bring the
king's suit to a speedy determination ; and at the same time
intimating, in very intelligible and significant language, that
if he should delay to do justice he would find that desperate
remedies may at length be tried in desperate distempers.*
On the 27th of September an answer to this alarming address
was dispatched, containing specious explanations and fair
promises. But a few days before, Gregory Casallis, the Eng
lish agent at Rome, acquainted his master that the pope had
secretly proposed to allow Henry to wed a second wife during
the life of the first! Casallis suspected this suggestion to be
an artifice of the imperial party, perhaps to bring odium on
Henry if he accepted it, but it was more probably intended to
save the house of Austria from seeing one of her daughters
repudiated.} This expedient was naturally more acceptable
to the pope, because it implied no charge of usurpation on his
predecessor, and perhaps, also, because polygamy was not pro
hibited by the letter of the Mosaic law. Had the proposal
been made at an earlier period, Casallis might have welcomed
a suggestion which would gratify the passion of his master,
protect the dignity of an Austrian princess, and preserve con
sistency between the acts of successive pontiffs. But the
Roman court with all its boasted state-craft was unpractised
in the policy of concession, and had lingered till after the
return of a spring-tide had rendered retreat no longer prac
ticable. The king and people of England were prepared by several
circumstances for resistance to the papacy, though not, per
haps, for separation from the church. The ancient statutes
for punishing unlicensed intercourse with the popedom, which
were passed when the residence of the popes at Avignon
threw them into the hands of France, had familiarized the
English nation to the lawfulness of curbing papal encroach
ments. The long schism which had divided the western
church into separate and adverse bodies, the adherents of
various pretenders to the triple crown, had inured all Europe
* Rymer, xiv. Herbert, 141. Wolsey is the first subscriber to this letter.
t Herbert, 141.
J Casallis gives no such hint, and considers the proposal hostile.

144 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1533.
to the perilous opinion, that a pope might usurp, and that a
revolt against him might become a duty. The council of
Constance closed the schism, but struck a more fatal blow at
the pontifical power, by subjecting the papal crown to the
representative assemblies of the church. The remains of the
English Lollards were roused from their places of refuge by
the noise of a more mighty revolt on the neighboring conti
nent against the mystical Babylon. The prevalence of the
Lutherans along the line ef coast which stretches from the
mouth of the Meuse to that of the Oder, gave the utmost
facility to the importation of dreaded opinions from Germany
and the Netherlands, with which England had her chief traffic.
They were gladly received by the traders of the southern sea
ports, the most intelligent and prosperous body of men in the
kingdom. The martyrdom of Bilney and of others, who laid
down their lives for Protestantism, served rather to signalize
the growing strength of the revolters than to damp the spirit
of reformation.
But it may well be doubted whether the bulk of the people
were not yet as unprepared as their sovereign for a total revo
lution in doctrine and worship. There was no previous exam
ple of success in an attempt so extensive. Henry and his
subjects seemed at the period of the divorce to be ready only
to reform ecclesiastical abuses, and to confine the pontifical
authority within due limits. "
In the spring of 1533, the queen resided at the royal honor
of Ampthill in Bedfordshire.* Cranmer came to the neigh
boring priory of St. Peter, at Dunstable, where, by virtue of
Ms duties as primate and legate, he instituted a judicial in
vestigation into the validity of the alleged marriage. The
evidence for the king was laid before the court. Catharine,
with the firmness of a royal matron, maintained her own dig
nity and the rights of her daughter. After being summoned
for fifteen successive days, she was pronounced to be contu
macious. On the 23d day of May, 1533, Cranmer pronounced
his final judgment, declaring the alleged marriage between
the king and the lady Catharine of Castile to have been null
and void, and enjoining the parties no longer to cohabit. On
his return to Lambeth, by another judgment, of which he did
not assign the grounds, bearing date on the 28th of May, 1533,
he confirmed the marriage of the king with the lady Anne,
which had been privately solemnized by Dr. Lee, afterwards
bishop of Lichfield, about St Paul's day. She was crowned
* In days of old here Ampthill towers were seen.
The mournful refuge of an injured queen.

1533. PENALTIES AGAINST THE CLERGY. 145
on the 1st of June. As the archbishop had long before pub
licly avowed . his conviction of the invalidity of Catharine's
marriage, there was no greater fault -than indecorum in his
share of these proceedings ; for the sentence of nullity only
declared the invalidity of a contract which had from the
beginning been void. But it must be owned that Cranmer,
who knew of the private marriage about a fortnight after it
was solemnized, is exposed to a just imputation of insincerity,
throughout his subsequent judicial trial of the question, on
which the legitimacy of that ceremony depended. Several
preparations had been made for these bold measures. Wolsey
had exercised the legatine power so long, that the greater
part of the clergy had done acts which subjected them to the
same heavy penalties, under the ancient statutes, which had
crushed the cardinal. No clergyman was secure. The attor
ney-general appears to have proceeded against the bishops in
the court of king's bench, and the conviction of the prelates
would determine the fate of their clergy. After this demon
stration of authority, the convocation agreed to petition the
king to pardon.their fault. The province of Canterbury bought
this mercy at the price of a grant of 100,000/. : that of York
contributed only 18,000/. Occasion was then taken to intro
duce a new title among those by which the petitioners ad
dressed the king, who was petitioned as " Protector of the
Clergy, and supreme Head of the Church of England ;" a
mode of expression which seemed suitable to the prayer of
their petition, rather than intended to be a legal designation.
Archbishop Warham supported the designation. Even Fisher
consented, on condition of the insertion of the words, " as far
as the law of Christ allows." This amendment was, indeed,
large enough to comprehend every variety of opinion. But
thus amended it answered the purpose of the court, which
was to take this unsuspected opportunity of insinuating an
appellation, pregnant with pretension, amidst the ancient
formularies and solemn phraseology consecrated by the laws,
and used by the high assemblies of the commonwealth. The
new title, full of undefined but vast claims, soon crept from
the petitions of the convocation into the heart of acts of par
liament. A bill against ecclesiastical abuses was (fatally for
themselves) with success combated by the bishops and abbots.
In the following session more attacks were made against the
established church, which seem to have supplied lord Herbert
with a pretext for the ingenious speech on this subject which
he puts into the mouth of an anonymous and probably imagi-

» Herbert, 137, 138.
Vol. II. N

U& HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1533,
The principal members of the administration which suc
ceeded Wolsey were the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, andJ
the lord-chancellor More. They were friendly to a reforma
tion of abuses in the church, though not prepared for a revolu
tion in her doctrine and constitution. The pure and illus
trious name of More seemed to suffice as a pledge for a reform
ation which should be effectual without being subversive of
the rights and interests of the church. To this government
was not long after added Thomas Cromwell, a man whose
life was a specimen of the variety of adventures and vicissi
tudes of fortune incident to the leading actors of a revolu
tionary age. The son of a fuller near London, he had served
as a trooper in the wars of Italy, and as a clerk at the desk of
a merchant of Venice. On his return to England he studied
the law, but was soon taken into the service of Wolsey, whom
he defended in adversity, not only with great ability,- but with
a fidelity still more respectable. His various experience, his
shrewdness and boldness, recommended him to Henry, who
required a minister more remarkable for the vigor of his mind
than for the delicacy of his scruples. He had, perhaps, heard
the preaching of Luther, he might have taken an active part
in the sack of Rome. He tempted his master with the spoils
of the church : he hinted at the success which had attended
the daring policy of the German princes. No practical mea
sure had hitherto been adopted against the Roman see, but
the stoppage of the annates, a first year's income of vacant
bishoprics, from which the revenue of the cardinals resident
at Rome was derived. This statute provides every softening
compatible with an effective prohibition, and makes ample pro
vision for private adjustment ; becoming coercive only on the
failure of all spontaneous compromise.* But it touched the con
nexion with Rome at the critical point of money, and gave it
to be understood that still larger sources of revenue might be
turned to- another channel. The convocation had been obliged
to undertake that they should make no canons without the
king's license ; and, though this measure was softened by
limitations, it nevertheless served to throw light on the king's
being " head of the church," a phrase which it was evident
was not intended to remain a vain and barren title. In all
these movements Luther was the prime, though the uncon
scious, mover. His importance would be imperfectly esti-
* 23 Hen. 8. c 211. Stat, of the Realm, iii. 3H5. The pardon to the clergy
of the province of Canterbury is confirmed by 22 Hen. 8. c. 15. Stat. Realm,
iii. 334. The like to those of the province of York liy 23 Hen. 8. c. 19. The
language respecting the king's supremacy is not repeated in these acts of
parliament.

1533. PAPAL AUTHORITY REJECTED. 147
mated by the mere number of those who openly embraced
his doctrine. Many there were who, though not Lutherans,
were moved by the spirit which Luther had raised. Some
iecame moderate reformers to avert his reformation, which
they feared and hated. Others adopted a cautious and mild
reformation, from inclination towards the principles of the
great reformer. Many were influenced by a persuasion that
it was vain to struggle against the stream ; and not a few
must, in all such times, be infected by that mysterious conta
gion which spreads over the world the prevalent tendencies
of an age. Cranmer was raised to the see of Canterbury on
the death of Warham, who is celebrated by Erasmus among
his kindest friends and most generous patrons.
Henry was now on the brink of an open breach with the
apostolic see, and was about to appear as the first great mon
arch, since the extinction of the race of Constantine, who had
broken asunder the bonds of Christian communion. At the
next step he might, perhaps, find no footing. He paused. He,
as well as his contemporaries, doubtless felt misgivings that
the example of this hitherto untried policy might not only
-eradicate religious faith, but shake the foundations of civil
order, and perhaps doom human society to a long and barba
rous anarchy.
By a series of statutes passed in the year 1533 and 1534,
the church of England was withdrawn from obedience to the
see of Rome, and thereby severed from communion with the
other churches of the west. Appeals to Rome were prohibit
ed, under the penalties of premunire ;* the clergy acknow
ledged that they could not adopt any constitution without the
king's assent ;! a purely domestic election and consecration
of all prelates was established ;% all pecuniary contributions,
called Peter-pence, imposed by " the bishop of Rome, called
the pope," were abolished; all lawful powers of licensing and
dispensing were transferred from him to the archbishop of
Canterbury; and his claims to them are called usurpations
made in defiance of the true principle, " that your grace's
realm recognizing no superior under God but only your grace
lias been, and is, free from subjection to the laws of any for
eign prince, potentate, or prelate." After thus excluding for
eign powers by so strong a denial of their jurisdiction, the
same important statute proceeds to affirm that " your majesty
is supreme head of the church of England, as the prelates and
.clergy of your realm representing the said church in their
* 24 Hen. 8. c. 2. Stat, of the Realm, iii. 427.
J 25 Hen. 8. c. 19. J 2.3 Hen. 8. c. 20,

148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1534.
synods and convocations have recognized, in whom consisteth
the authority to ordain and enact laws by the assent of your
lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present par
liament assembled."* This bold statute was qualified by a
singular proviso, which suspended its execution till midsum
mer, and enabled the king on or before that day to repeal it ;
probably adopted with some remaining hope that it might
have terrors enough to countervail those which were inspired
by the imperial armies. By the next statute! provision was
made for the succession to the crown, the object and the bul
wark of the ecclesiastical reformation. It confirmed the judg
ments of Cranmer, which had pronounced the marriage with
Catharine to be void, and that with Anne to be valid. It di
rected that the lady Catharine should be henceforth called
and reputed only dowager to prince Arthur, and settled the
crown on the heirs of the king by his lawful wife, queen
Anne. This succession was guarded by a clause, perhaps
unmatched in the legislation of Tiberius, which enacted,
" that if any person, by writing, print, deed, or act, do, or
cause to be procured or done, any thing to the slander, preju
dice, disturbance, or derogation of the lawful matrimony be
tween your majesty and the said queen Anne ; or as to the
peril, slander, or disherison of any of the issue of your high
ness, limited by this act to inherit the crown ; such persons,
and their aiders and abettors, shall be adjudged high traitors,
and they shall suffer death as in cases of high treason." All
the king's subjects were required to swear to the order of suc
cession, under pain, if they did not, of the consequence of
misprision of treason.
In the next session all these enactments were sanctioned
and established by a brief but comprehensive act " concerning
the king's majesty to be supreme head upon earth of the
church of England, which granted him full power to correct
and amend any errors, heresies, abuses, &c, which by any ec
clesiastical jurisdiction might be reformed or redressed."}
The oath to the-succession was also re-enjoined, { and its terms
were somewhat altered. The first-fruits, and the tenth of
the income of all ecclesiastical benefices, were granted to the
king, and commissioners were appointed to value the bene
fices, with a machinery afterwards so enlarged as to be in
strumental in promoting rapine on a more extended scale. ||
The acquiescence, or rather the active co-operation, of the
established clergy in this revolution is not one of its least re-
* 25 Hen. 8. c. 21. t 25 Hen. 8. c. 22. J 26 Hen. 8. c. 1.
§ Ibid. c. 2. ( Ibid. u. 3.

I5S4. HOLY MAID OF KENT. 149
jnarkable features. Several bishoprics were then vacant, in
consequence of the disturbance of intercourse with Rome.
Six bishops, however, sanctioned by their vote every blow
struck at the church. Fourteen abbots were generally pres
ent, when the number of temporal peers who attended were
-somewhat more than forty. They did not shrink from the
deposition of Catharine, by reducing her title to that of
princess-dowager of Wales. By ratifying the marriage of
Anne Boleyn, they adopted those parts of the king's conduct
which most disgusted the people. The bill for subjecting the
clergy to the king as their sole head was so favorably treated
as in one day to be read three times and passed : no division
appears on these measures. After the vacancies in the epis
copal order were filled up, the usual number of .bishops -at
tending without opposition was sixteen*. Two prelates,
Heath of York, and Tunsfall of Durham, were the messen
gers chosen to convey to Catharine the tidings of her solemn
degradation in parliament Whether we ascribe this non-re
sistance to dread of the. king's displeasure, or to a lukewarm
zeal for the established religion, it affords a striking and in
structive contrast to the stubborn resistance of the best and
most honest of them in the beginning to the moderate reform
of such odious grievances as pluralities and non-residence.
They were now compelled to sacrifice more than it was fit
so suddenly to require; and very considerably more than
what, while the people were calm, would have satisfied their
wishes. Elizabeth Barton (the holy maid of Kent) was at this time
a nun profest in the priory of St. Sepulchre at Canterbury.
She had for years been held in reverence among the adhe
rents of the ancient faith for her spotless life, and the more
than usual ardor of her devotional feelings. She believed
herself (for what could be her motive for fraud 1) to be divine
ly endowed with the powers of working miracles, in which
was comprehended that of foretelling future events ; in order
that by a timely manifestation of such mighty powers wielded
by a feeble virgin an evil and corrupt generation might be re
called from that universal apostasy to which they were has
tening. Several gentlemen and clergymen of Kent believed
in her mission. Even the learned and the wise, — the honest
bishop Fisher, and the amiable archbishop Warham, gave
credit or countenance to her pretensions. The mighty intel
lect and conscious purity of Sir T. More himself did not so
fer preserve the serenity of his mind as to prevent him from
yielding to this delusion, — enough at least to enable his ene-
+ 1 Lords' Journals, 53, &c.

150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1534.
mies to charge him with a share in it. At first it should
seem that she and her Kentish associates were tried only in
the star-chamber, where it was thought sufficient to punish
them by standing at Paul's Cross during the sermon, and by
reading on that occasion a public confession of their impos
ture.* The unhappy woman was subject to faintings and
convulsions, the natural consequence of religious emotions
agitating a frame which had been weakened by fasts below'
its ordinary feebleness. In these trances she saw marvellous
visions which naturally turned on the extraordinary events
which were passing around her. A transient delirium proba
bly often clouded her senses, when on every subject but her
prevalent illusion she spoke and thought rationally. She
might have heard the death of Henry spoken of as probable
in troublous times, and perhaps represented as a desirable
event by Catholics incapable of contributing to it. The pre
sumptuous belief in divine judgments prepared her mind to
receive deep impressions from such topics. Nothing could
be more natural than that in her wild agitation she should
prophesy evil to evil-doers ; or that she should denounce pun
ishment against those whom she deemed the greatest crimi
nals. She and her abettors were attainted for high treason,
inasmuch as " she," says the statute, " declared that she had
knowledge by revelation from God, that God was highly dis
pleased With our said sovereign lord, and that, if he proceeded
in the said divorce and separation and married again, he
should no longer be king of this realm ; and that in the esti
mation of Almighty God he should not be a king one hour ;
and that he should die a villain's death."! She was executed
for misfortunes which ignorance and superstition regarded as
(Jrimes ; for the incoherent language and dark visions of a dis
turbed, if not alienated mind.
Fisher, bishop of Rochester, was attainted by the act
against Barton : by a separate statute he was afterwards at
tainted of misprision of treason for not taking the oath to the
succession. But it seems that his age, learning, and virtue,
might have preserved his life, if Paul III. had not endeavored
to secure it more perfectly by the dignity of a prince of the
church. Henry, who deemed it an indignity to him to act
as if a grace granted by Rome could protect the object of it
from his anger, commanded the aged prelate to be put to
death, saying, that the pope might send a cardinal's hat, but
that Fisher should have no head to wear it. With this scurvy
jest, and with such brutal defiance, did Henry begin his new
career of sanguinary tyranny.
i- Holioshed. t 25 Hen. 8. c. 12.

1535. SIR THOMAS MORE. 151
The next of his deeds of blood has doomed his name to
everlasting remembrance. The fate of Sit" Thomas More
was unequalled by any scene which Europe had witnessed
since the destruction of the best and wisest of the Romans
by those hideous monsters who wielded the imperial sceptre
of the West. It will be difficult, indeed, to point out any
man like More since the death of Boethius, the last sage of
the ancient world. Others imitated the Grecian arts of com
position more happily ; but when we peruse those writings
of More which were produced during the freedom and bold
ness of his youth, we must own that no other man had so
deeply imbibed; from the works of Plato and Cicero, their
liberty of reasoning, their applications of philosophy to affairs
and institutions, to manners and tastes ; in a word, their in
most habits of thinking and feeling. He faithfully transmits
the whole impression which they made on his nature. He
imprinted it with some enlargement and variation on the
minds of his readers. Those who know only his Utopia will
acknowledge that he left little of ancient wisdom unculti
vated, and that it anticipates more of the moral and political
speculation of modern times than can be credited without a
careful perusal of it. It was the earliest model among the
moderns of imaginary voyages and ideal commonwealths.
Among the remarkable parts of it may be mentioned the ad
mirable discussions on criminal law, the forcible objections to
capital punishment for offences against property, the remarks
on the tendency of the practice of inflicting needless suffer
ing on animals in weakening compassion and affection towards
our fellow-men. The specious chimera of a community of
goods allured him, as it had seduced his master Plato. The
guilt and misery caused by property lie on the surface of so
ciety ; the infinitely greater evils from which it guards us re
quire much sagacity and meditation to unfold ; insomuch that
it is hard to determine what sort of instinct restrains multi
tudes in troubled times from making terrible experiments on
this most tempting of all subjects.
The most memorable of Sir Thomas More's speculations
was the latitude of his toleration, which in Utopia, before he
was scared by the tumults of the Reformation, he expressly
extends even to atheists. " On the ground that a man can
not make himself believe what he pleases, the Utopians do
not drive any to dissemble their thoughts by threats, so that
men are not tempted there to lie or disguise their opinions."*
* Utopia (English translation), 180. London edition, 1684. Utopia ap
pears, from internal evidence, to have been written in, or before, the year
151ti, and consequently a year before the first preaching of Luther.

152 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1535.
It must be owned that he deviated from his fair visions of in
tellectual improvement, after he was alarmed by the excesses
•of some of Luther's followers. He took a part in the execu
tion of the barbarous laws against heretics, as many judges
-since his time have enforced criminal laws which punish
secondary crimes with death, and in which no good man not
inured to such inflictions by practice could have taken a share.
Yet even in his polemical writings against Luther, he repre
sents the severities of sovereigns against the new reformers
as caused by their tumults and revolts ; and at last declares
that he heartily wishes for the exclusion of violence on both
sides, trusting to the final triumph of truth.
He was the first Englishman who signalized himself as an
orator, the first writer of a prose which is still intelligible,
and probably the first layman since the beginning of authentic
history who was chancellor of England, a magistracy which
has been filled by as many memorable men as any office of. a
civilized community.
But it is time to turn from his merits, his rank, and his fame,
to the mournful contemplation of his last days. He had been
imprisoned for about twelve months, apparently in pursuance
of his attainder for misprision in not having taken the oath to
maintain the succession. He was brought to trial on the 7th
of May, 1535, before lord Audley the chancellor, the duke of
Norfolk, the chief justice, and six judges, of whom Spelman
and Fitzherbert were lawyers of considerable note. The ac
cusation against him was high treason, grounded (if on any
legal pretext) on the monstrous clause of the recent act,*
which made it treason " to do any thing by writing or act
which was to the slander, disturbance, or prejudice of the mar
riage with the lady Anne ; or to the disherison or disturbance of
the king's heirs by her." Both he and Fisher proposed their
readiness to swear that they .would support the succession to
the crown as established by parliament ; but they declined to
take that oath, if it were understood to involve an affirmation
of the facts recited in the preamble of the statute, as the prem
ises from which the statute infers the practical conclusion
respecting the legitimacy of the succession. They abstained
thereby from affirming or denying, first, that Henry's mar
riage with Catharine was invalid ; or, secondly, that his mar
riage with Anne was valid ; and, thirdly, they refused to dis
claim all foreign authority in the kingdom, the disclaimer
extending to spiritual authority, although that is in its own
nature no more than a decisive ascendant over the minds of
* 25 Hen. 8. c. 22 s. 5.

1535. SIR THOMAS MORE. 153
those who spontaneously submit to it. More was so enfeebled
by imprisonment that his limbs tottered when he came into
the court, and he supported himself with difficulty in coming
forward by a staff. The commissioners had sufficient pity on
their late illustrious colleague to allow him the indulgence of
a chair. His countenance was pale and wan, yet composed
and cheerful. His faculties were undisturbed : and the mild
dignity of his character did not forsake him. The first wit
nesses against him were the privy-councillors who had at various
times examined him during his imprisonment. Their testi
mony amounted only to his repeated declaration, " that being
loth to aggravate the king's displeasure, he would say no more '
than that the statute was a two-edged sword ; for if he spoke
against it, he should be the cause of the death of his body; and
if he assented to it, he should purchase the death of his soul."
It is obvious that this answer might be perfectly innocent,
even according to Henry's own code ; and that, even if it had
been a positive refusal to take the oath, it was only a misprision.
Hales, the attorney-general, said, that the prisoner's silence
proved his malice.* More replied that he had said nothing
against the oath, but that his own conscience forbade him to
take it, which could be no more than not taking it. The
court were driven to the very odious measure of examining a
law-officer of the crown concerning the real or pretended lan
guage of Sir Thomas More in a private conversation, where
one man might have spoken freely from some trust in the
honor of another, where disclosures were alleged to have
been made by More at an interview, in the course of which
it soon appeared that More had been betrayed by the reason
ings of the crown-lawyer. Sir Robert Rich, the solicitor-
general, was then called as a witness, and said that he had
visited More in the Tower, and after protesting he came there
without authority, which rendered the communication confi
dential,- he asked More whether if the parliament had enacted
that Rich should be king, and that it should be treason to deny
it, what offence would it be to contravene the act 1 that More
owned in answer that he was bound to obey such a statute ;!
* " Ambitiose silebat." Herbert, 183., quotes the words of the indictment,
as if he had read them, or heard them from those who had.
f The sincerity of More's statement is corroborated by the uniformity of
his opinion respecting popular consent as a necessary condition of the justice
of all civil government, which appears by his writings, twenty years before
his trial. Populus conscntiens regnum dat et aufert.
* * * '* . * * *
Quicumque multis vir viris unus prreest
Hoc debet his quibus prseest ;
Praeesse debet neutiquam diutius
Hi quam volent quibus prajest.
Thorn. Mori Epigram, p. 53. Basil, 1518—1520.

154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1535.
because a parliament can make a king, and depose him, and
that every parliament-man may give his consent thereunto ;
but asked whether, if it were enacted by parliament that God
was not God, it would be an offence to say according to such
an enactment : that More concluded by observing, that the
parliament might submit to the king as head ; but that the
other churches of Christendom would not follow their exam
ple or hold communion with them.
On hearing this testimony, Sir Thomas More said, " If I
were a man, my lords, that had no regard to my oath, I had
no need to be now here ; and if this oath which Mr. Rich have
• taken be true, I pray I may never see God's face, which, were
it otherwise, is an imprecation I would not be guilty of to
gain the whole world. I am more concerned for your perjury
than for my own danger. I am acquainted with your manner
of life' from your youth, you well know ; and I am very sorry
to be forced to speak it — you always lay under the odium of a
very lying tongue. Could I have acted so unadvisedly as to
trust Mr. Rich, of whose truth and honesty I had so mean an
opinion, with the secrets of my conscience respecting the
king's supremacy, which I had withheld from your lordships,
and from the king himself? If his evidence could be be
lieved, are words, thus dropt in an unguarded moment of
familiar conversation, to be regarded as proofs of malice and
enmity against the established order of succession to the
crown '"
This speech touched the reputation of Rich to the quick.
He called two gentlemen of the court, who were present at
the conversation ; but they did not corroborate his story, al
leging, most improbably, that their minds were so much occu
pied by their own business that they did not attend to such a
conversation. The truth or falsehood of Rich's account of a
confidential conversation very little affects the degree of his
baseness. But its falsehood, which is much the ' more proba
ble supposition, throws a darker shade on the character of the
triers who convicted More, and of the judges who condemned
him. After his condemnation, he avowed, as he said then
(when there was no temptation to suppress truth), for the first
time, that he had studied the question for seven years, and
could not escape from the conclusion that the king's marriage
with Catharine was valid. Audley the chancellor incautiously
pressed him with the weight of authority. " Would you,"
says Audley, "be esteemed wiser, or of purer conscience,
than all the bishops, doctors, nobility, and commons in this
land ?" — " For one bishop," answered More, " on your side, I
can produce a hundred holy and Catholic bishops on mine ;

1535. AFFECTION OF MORe's DAUGHTER. 155
and against one realm, the consent of Christendom for a thou
sand years." He was sentenced to die the death of a traitor ;
but Henry mercifully changed it to beheading ; and he suf
fered that punishment on the 7th day of July, 1535, in the
55th year of his age.
On his return from his arraignment at Westminster, Mar
garet Roper, his first-born child, waited on the Tower wharf,
where he landed, to see her father, as she feared, for the last
time ; and after he had stretched out his arms in token of a
blessing, while she knelt at some distance to implore and
receive it, " she, hastening towards him, without consideration
or care of herself, pressing in amongst the - throng, and the
arms of the guard, that with halberds and bills went around
him, ran to him, and openly, in presence of them all, embraced
him, took him about the neck, and kissed him. He, well liking
her most natural and dear daughterly affection, gave her again
his fatherly blessing. After she was departed, she, like one
that had forgotten herself, being all ravished with the entire
love of her dear father, having respect neither to herself nor
to the multitude, turned back, ran to him as before, took him
about the neck, and divers times kissed him most lovingly ;
the beholding of which made many who were present for
very sorrow thereof, to weep and mourn."* In his answer to
her on the last day of his life, he expressed himself thus
touchingly, in characters traced with a coal, the only means
of writing which was left within his reach : — " Dear Megg,
I never liked your manner better towards me as when you
kissed me last. For I like when daughterly love and dear
charity have no leisure to look to worldly courtesy." On the
morning of his execution he entreated that his darling daugh
ter might be allowed to attend his funeral. He was noted
among friends for the strength of his natural affection-, and for
the warmth of all the household and family kindnesses which
bless a home. But he prized Margaret above his other pro
geny, which she merited by resemblance! to himself in beauty
of form, in power ofmind, in variety of accomplishments, and,
above 'all, in a pure and tender nature. His innocent playful
ness did not forsake him in his last moments. His harmless
pleasantry, hi which he habitually indulged, now showed his
perfectly natural character, together with a quiet and cheer-
* Roper's More, ,91 , -Singer's edition.
f Margareta flliarum Mori natu maxima mulier praHer eximiam forma?
venustatem cum summa dignitate conjunctam.'judicio ingenio moribus eru-
ditione patris simillima.
" Erat Morus erga suos omnes <pi\ooTopyos ut non alius magis, sed earn
tiliam ut erat eximiis prffidita dotibus ita diligebat impensius."— Erasmus.

156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1535.
fulness of mind, which formed the graceful close of a virtuous
life* The only petition he made on the day of execution was,
that his beloved Margaret might be allowed to be present at
his burial. His friend, Sir Thomas Pope, who was sent to
announce to More his doom, answered, " The king is already
content that your wife, children, and other friends, may be
present thereat." Pope, on taking his leave, could not refrain
from Weeping: More comforted him: " I trust that we shall
once in heaven see each other full merrily, where we shall be
sure to live and love together in joyful bliss." When going
up the scaffold, which was so weak that it seemed ready to
fall, he said to the lieutenant, "I pray you, Mr. Lieutenant,
see me safe up ; and as to-coming down, let me shift for my
self." Observing some signs of shame in the executioner, he
said, " Pluck up thy spirits, man, my neck is very short ; take
heed therefore of a stroke awry, by which you will lose your
credit"! On kneeling to receive the fatal stroke, he said to
the executioner, " My beard has not offended the king, let me
put it aside." That the whole of his deportment in dying
moments, thus full of tenderness and pleasantry, of natural
affection, of benevolent religion, came without effort from his
heart, is apparent from the perfect simplicity with which he
conducted his own defence, in every part of which he avoided
all approaches to theatrical menace or ostentatious defiance ;
and, instead of provoking his judges to violence, seemed by
his example willing to teach them the decorum and mildness
of the judgment-seat. He used all the just means of defence
which law or fact afforded, as calmly as if he expected justice.
Thoughout his sufferings he betrayed no need of the base aids
from pride and passion, which often bestow counterfeit forti
tude on a public death.
The love of Margaret Roper continued to display itself in
those outwardly unavailing tokens of tenderness to his remains
by which affection seeks to perpetuate itself; ineffectually,
indeed, for the object, but very effectually for softening the
heart and exalting the soul. She procured his head to be
* " His death was of a piece with his life. There was nothing in it new,
forced, or affected He did not look upon the severance of his head from bis
body as a circumstance that ought to produce any change in the disposition
of his mind ; and as he died under a fixed hope of immortality, he thought
any unusual degree of sorrow or concern improper on such an occasion as
had nothing in it which could deject or terrify him." The modest beauty
of this composition renders it almost needless to. inform an English reader,
that it is that of Addison.
t "Honesty" in Roper, from whose beautiful narrative the greater part
of the text is taken. See also, State Trials, vol. i.

1535. FAME OF MORE. 167
taken down from London Bridge, where more odious passions
had struggled in pursuit of a species of infernal immortality
by placing it. She kept it during her life as a sacred relic,
and was buried with that object of fondness in her arms, nine
years after she was separated from her father. Erasmus calls
her the ornament of her Britain,* and the flower of the learned
matrons of England, at a time when education consisted only
of the revived study of ancient learning. He survived More
only a few months, but composed a beautiful account of his
martyrdom, though, with his wonted fearfulness, under an
imaginary name.!
Perhaps the death of no individual ever produced, merely
by his personal qualities, so much sorrow and horror as that
of Sir Thomas More. A general cry sounded over Europe.
The just fame of the sufferer, the eloquent pen of his friend
Erasmus, the excusable pride of the Roman church in so glo
rious a martyr, and the atrocious effrontery of the means used
to compass his destruction, contributed to spread indignation
and abhorrence. Perhaps the more considerate portion of men
began to pause at the sight of the first illustrious blood spilt
on the scaffold in these religious divisions which already
threatened some part of the horrors, of which they soon after
became the occasion or the pretext. Giovio, an Italian histo
rian, compared the tyranny of Henry with that preternatural
wickedness which the Grecian legends had embodied under
the appellation of Phalaris. Cardinal Pole, an exiled prince
of the royal family of England, lashed the frenzy of his kins
man with vehement eloquence, and bewailed the fate of the
martyr in the most affecting strains of oratory. Englishmen
employed abroad almost everywhere found their country the
object of dread and of execration. The emperor Charles V.
on the arrival of these tidings, sent for Sir Thomas Elliot, the
English ambassador, and said to him, " My lord, we under
stand that the king your master has put his faithful servant and
wise counsellor, Sir Thomas More, to death." Elliot answer
ed, " I understand nothing thereof." — " But," replied Charles,
" it is too true ; and had we been master of such a servant, we
would rather have lost the best city in our dominions than
such a counsellor."} Mason, who was Henry's agent in Spain,
writes with strong feeling of the horror which he sees around

* "Brittanije suk decus." Erasm. Ep. Ulreco ab Hutten.
t Conrad. Nucerinus, Epist, de Morti T. Mori : probably from Nocera, a
town in the papal states, which was the bishopric of Paolo Giovio, a noted
historical wiiter of that period.
X Roper's More, 95. ; " which matter," says William Roper, " was reported
by Sir Thomas Elliot to myself, to my wife (Margaret), and to others."
Vol. II. O

158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1535.
him at the imprisonment of the bishop of Rochester, the de
struction of More, " the greatest of men," and at the execu
tion of the holy maid of Kent.* " What end this tragedy will
come to God wot (knows), if that may be called a tragedy
which begins with a wedding." Harvey, the resident at
Venice, reports the anger of the Italians at the death of men
of such honor and virtue, against all laws of God and man.
They openly speak, he says, of Catharine being put to death,
and of the princess Mary speedily following her mother.! He
declares that all he hears disgusts him with public life, and
disposes him to retire from such scenes.
Cranmer often wanted the courage to resist crimes, but
never desired to do evil. In April, 1535, he wrote a letter to
Cromwell, earnestly advising the acquiescence of the king in
the proposal of Fisher and More, who were ready to swear to
the succession as settled by the statute, provided that they
were not obliged to include the preamble in their oath. Such
a compliance on the part of such eminent men would extin
guish all scruples about the succession through the kingdom,
and silence even the most zealous partisans of Catharine and
Mary.} He may be thought blameworthy for thus limiting
himself to topics of no very exalted policy, in a case where
justice and humanity were so deeply concerned. But it is
a decisive proof of his good faith, that he employed the only
reasons which he knew could affect the minds with which he
had to deal.
Even Henry himself confidently expected that he should
overawe More into submission, and embarked in the proceed
ings without meditating any farther result. At every step of
his progress, the anger of a self-willed man against those who
thwart his passions grew stronger as the hope of subduing
the conscience of More was enfeebled. More at last died be
cause his sincerity was perfect, and his probity incapable of
being shaken. For in all other respects we know, that though
the disorders of a revolution had frightened him out of his
youthful free-thinking, he was no slave of Rome, no bigoted ad
vocate for the papal authority ; but zealously maintained the in
dependence of the civil power, and the principles of the council
of Constance, — known in modern times as those of the Galil
ean church, — Who, with a generous but mistaken zeal.
Withstood a brutal tyrant's lustful rage.§
* Ellis's Letters, second series, vol. ii. 56. Mason's words are, " Tcr
maximus ille Moms."
t Ellis's Letters, second series, vol. ii. 73 — 77.
t Strype's Cranmer, 695. App., No. xi. Oxford, 1812.
§ Thomson.

1535. CHARACTER OF HENRY VIII. . 159
CHAP. VII.
HENRY VIH  CONTINUED.
PROCEEDINGS AGAINST QUEEN ANNE BOLEYN, AND HER EXECU
TION.
1535, 1536.
Had Henry died in the twentieth year of his reign, his
name might have come down to us as that of a festive and
martial prince, with much of the applause which is lavished
on gaiety and enterprise, and of which some fragments, pre
served in the traditions of the people, too long served to screen
the misrule of his latter years from historical justice. In the
divorce of his inoffensive wife, the disregard of honor, of grati
tude, of the ties of long union, of the sentiments which grow
out of the common habitudes of domestic union, and which
restrain the greater number of imperfect husbands from open
outrage, throw a deeper stain over the period employed in ne
gotiating and effecting that unjustifiable and unmanly separa
tion. Most readers justly consider this defiance of the most
respectable feelings, and the most ordinary decencies, as being
very little mitigated by superstitious scruples and unamiable
prejudices, of which some admixture may have colored his
passion for a youthful beauty. But the execution of More
marks the moment of the transition of his government from
joviality and parade to a species of atrocity which distin
guishes it from, and perhaps above, any other European tyr
anny. This singular revolution in his conduct has been as
cribed to the death of Wolsey, which unbridled his passions,
and gave a loose to his rage. That this was not the opinion
formed by Wolsey himself of the king, we know from the
dying words of that minister, who knew his master enough to
foretell that Henry would prove unmanageable whenever
a sharp enough spur should strike his passions. Had Wolsey
refused to concur in the divorce, he was not likely to be better
treated than More. Had he stept into blood, he must have
waded onward, or he would have been struck down on his
first attempt to fly. No change of administration could ac
count for more than that part of his conduct which had the
form of acts of state, and consisted in measures of civil or ec
clesiastical policy. But the total change of Henry's conduct
relates still more to his deeds as a man, than to his system as
a king. He is the only prince of modem times who carried
judicial murder into his bed, and imbrued his hands in the

160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
blood of those whom he had caressed. Perhaps no other mon
arch, since the emancipation of women from polygamy, put
to death two wives on the scaffold for infidelity, divorced an
other, whom he owned to be a faultless woman, after twenty-
four years of wedded friendship, and rejected a fourth with
out imputing blame to her, from the first impulse of personal
disgust. The acts of Henry which the order of time now requires
to be related must have been much more his own than those
of his political counsellors.
Anne Boleyn is acknowledged on all sides to have perse
vered in her resistance to the unlawful desires of Henry for a
considerable period. She was secretly married to the king in
January, 1533, and she was crowned, on Whitsunday of that
year.* The princess Elizabeth, the only surviving child, was
born on the 7th of September following. It should seem from
Cranmer's language, in a confidential letter, that he believed
the princess to have been conceived as well as born in wed
lock; and it seems, to be generally believed, that a child who
came into the world at eight months might exhibit no marks
of premature birth. If we should suspect, however, after a
matrimonial connexion between her and the king had for years
been the talk and business of Europe, and when every cir
cumstance at London or Rome combined to persuade her that
she was on the eve of her elevation, that she at last suf
fered her watchfulness to slumber, how much soever we may
regret the stain, we must wonder more at her steady resist
ance than at her ultimate fall.
The death of Catharine, which happened at Kimbolton on
the 29th of January, 1536, seemed to leave queen Anne in
undisturbed possession of her splendid seat. The king of
* The alleged time of the secret marriage varies very considerably. Hall
says that it took place " on St. Erkenwald's day. Holinshed fixes that day
to be the fourteenth of November. Grafton makes the same saint's day to
be on the thirtieth of April. His name is not to be found in the list of
saints prefixed tn " L'Art de v6refier les Dates." But his feast is placed in
contemporary calendars, and by Mr. Butler, on the last day of April The
fourteenth of November, however, appears from Dugdale to be the feast of
the translation of his body, which might be commonly called his day; hence,
probably, the origin of these contradictions. Cranmer says, however, " that
it was much about St. Paul's day," by which we must here understand the
twenty-fifth of January, the feast of his conversion ; though there seems to
have been another St. Paul's day, on the fourth of January. Cranmer cor
roborates his own recollection by adding, that "she is now somewhat big
with child." He is, unquestionably, the best witness, though he was not
present, and did not hear of it till a fortnight aflcv. His letter must have
been written in June, a circumstance which excludes the thirtieth of April,
as the birth of the princess is incompatible with the fourteenth of November.
— Cranmer to Hawkins, the minister at the imperial court. Archrool. xviii.
Republished in Ellis's Letters, first series, vol. ii. 33.

1536. HENRY'S INCONSTANCY. 161
France made some attempts to reconcile his ally of England
to the holy see ; a treaty in which Anne would doubtless have
been comprehended.
At this moment, when her enemies were removed, and her
prospects were cloudless, a storm broke out against her in the
breast of the monarch who had a few months before sacrificed
the best of his subjects to the honor of her bed and the legiti
macy of her issue. We are still uncertain whether he was
moved by jealousy, well or ill founded, of her, or by passion
for another, or by both these motives conjoined. Lord Herbert
a writer of research, who lived not far from the time, affirms,
" she had lived in the French court first, and after in this, with
the reputation of a virtuous lady; insomuch that the whisperings
of her enemies could not divert the king's good opinion. The
king had cast his affections on Jane Seymour, daughter of Sir
John Seymour, a young lady then of the queen's bedchamber,"*
as Anne herself had been in that of Catharine. The love-letters
between Henry and Anne, though not free from all grossness,
yet, when considered as the letters of a royal lover, and of a
damsel of his court in the sixteenth century, will be regarded
as prodigies of delicacy by the readers of Brantome.! One of
the unrefined passages seems even to be a proof of fidelity,
inasmuch as it breathes the most ardent desire to be honora
bly united to her, and exhibits every mark of an humble suit
for her hand. He obliged lord Piercy and Sir Thomas Wyatt
to relinquish their pursuit of her. Though the suit of the
former had advanced far enough to be thought a promise, he
was compelled to quiet the king's suspicions by a hurried
marriage with the daughter of lord Shrewsbury.} From one
of the most authentic accounts we learn, that " she only at
the end yielded to give her consent of marriage to him whom
hardly any other was found able to keep their hold against"}
That she resisted is on all sides allowed ; but it is difficult, if
it be possible, to assign any time when that resistance ceased,
without bringing it so near the period of the secret marriage
as to take away the only urgent motive which must be assign
ed by Anne's enemies for that union. No pregnancy occur
red from the first acquaintance till near or after the marriage ;
a circumstance which cannot be referred to any defect in the
constitution of a lady who was twice brought to bed within
little more than two years after the time of marriage. He
* Herbert, ii. Kenn. 193,
f Lettres de Henri VIII. et Anne Boleyn, iii. 117. 139.
t Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, 128 : second edition, by Singer, London,
1827. § Idem, 421—449. Wyatt's Mem. of Anne Boleyn, 428.
02

162 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
reproaches her for cruelty to one " who was one whole year
struck with the dart of love ;" which fixes the commencement
of his passion in 1527. Had she yielded before the marriage,
it is not easy to see the motive of Henry for such persevering
ardor. " Waxing great again, the time was taken to steal the
king's affection from her* when most of all she ought to have
been cherished." The sycophants watched the growth of his
unnatural distaste. " Unkindness grew, and she was brought
to bed before her time, with much peril of her life, of a male
child dead-born, to her most extreme sorrow." The king is
said to have in these circumstances brutally reproached her
for the loss of his boy. " Some words broke out from her
heart laying the fault on the king's unkindness,"! and on his
visible passion for Jane Seymour. Other equally credible ac
counts ascribe her abortion to the alarming intelligence of the
king having been thrown from his horse while hunting;
which, independent of affection or humanity,} would have en
dangered her own greatness and the succession of her daugh
ter. Both circumstances might have concurred. Sir John
Spelman, one of her judges,} mentions a dying declaration of
lady Wingfield, transmitted to the king by lady Rochford, the
wife of Anne's brother, as having made a strong impression
on that prince. These narratives are rather various than con
tradictory ; but none of them would probably have been thought
of seriously, if the rumor had not received life and strength
* Wyatt, 443.
\ Wyatt. Histoire de Anne Boleyn, par un Contemporain, 178; the
earliest account bearing date at London, on the second of June, 1536. This
metrical narrative is believed by some, on no certain proof, to be that which
Meteren, the Dutch historian, quoted as the work of Crispin, seigneur de
Mihelve. Meteren died at London in 1612, where he had long resided as
the Dutch consul-general. Some part of his narrative is a literal transla
tion of the metrical narrative. The verbal coincidence with a part of Mete
ren is better proof of the authorship of the lord of Mihelve than has as yet
appeared of the claims of others ; as, for example, of Marot, to whom it was
ascribed by the Jesuit Le Grand. We do not find it proved that he ever
was in England. In 1535 and 1536 he took refuge at the courts of Beam
and Ferrara, and in the city of Venice. The metrical narrative states the
facts alleged against Anne by three lords of the court, on the information of
the sister of one of them, who was herself reproached by her brother with
the like offences, without.contradicting, or appearing to doubt, the truth of
the accusation. But as the writer changes his tone so entirely after her im
prisonment, he seems to be rather reporting, in the more animated manner,
the speeches against her, than adopting their contents; just as, in the se
quel, he describes her sufferings, without intending to give any intimation
of his judgment for her or against her.
X Hist, de Anne Boleyn, 178.
" A done le roi s'en allant a la chasse
Cheut de cheval rudement en la place,
duand la reyne eut la nouvelle entendue
Peu s'en faillit que nGchent estendu,
Morte d'ennui."
§ Burnet.

1536. ANNE COMMITTED TO THE TOWER. 163
from the rising passion for Jane Seymour. The popular story
of the scene in the tilt-yard at Greenwich, on May-day, 1536,
of a handkerchief dropped by the queen, taken up and gallant
ly returned to her by Henry Norris, her supposed lover, hav
ing rekindled the jealousy and wrath of Henry so that he sud
denly left the joust, commanding the queen to be confined to
her apartments, and her accomplices to be sent to the Tower,
must be either altogether a pretext, or one of those " trifles
light as air" which are proofs only " to the jealous." For it
has lately been discovered, that about a week before, namely,
on the 24th of April,* a commission was issued, directing cer
tain peers and judges (one of whom, Thomas earl of Wilt
shire, was her father,) to inquire into her alleged misdeeds.
Facts must have been collected, and some deliberation on
their effect must have occurred, before the formal completion
¦of such a commission : the act of executing the commission
was a deliberate and conclusive measure. Whatever oc
curred afterwards could have no more than a faint influence
•on the succeeding events. These measures must, therefore,
have begun when she was scarcely recovered from the birth
"of her still-born son, and while her husband, her father, and
her uncle, though conscious of her destiny, still treated her
with courtesy, and probably with apparent kindness.
A tolerable diary of the last seventeen days of her life may
be collected, chiefly from the letters of Sir W. Kingston, lieu
tenant of the tower, to Cromwell.! On the 2d of May she
Was brought from Greenwich to the Tower by her uncle of
Norfolk. She knelt at the gate of that fortress, late her pal
ace, now to be her prison, and ejaculated a short prayer,} —
" O Lord, help me, as I am guiltless of this whereof I am
accused !" — She said to the lieutenant, — " Mr. Kingston, do
I go into a dungeon 1" — " No, madam," he answered ; " you
shall go into your lodging where you lay at your coronation."
The recollection overpowered her ; she cried out, — " It is too
good for me : Jesus, have mercy upon me ! " She knelt weep
ing at a great pace, and in the same " sorrow fell into a great
laughing." Her female attendants, and even her aunt Mrs.
Boleyn (as if to keep up the consistency of this unnatural tra
gedy), were placed about her as spies. They reported, with
atrocious accuracy, all the incoherent ravings of her hysteri-
* This Record is abridged by Mr. Turner. The contents would offend
every modest eye, even seen through a Latin medium.
t Strype's Memorials, i. 430— 440. Oxford ed. 1KJ. Ellis, first Series pp,
41—52. Burnet, State Trials,
J Wyatt, 444.

164 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
cal agitation.* They used the arts of tormentresses to invei
gle her into admissions of criminality. They cross-questioned
her with respect to the logical consequence and grammatical
construction of the words which burst from her in an almost
frenzied condition. But she declared to Kingston from the
beginning, and repeatedly affirmed in other words, " I am as
clear from the company of men as I am from you : I am the
king's true wife."
On the 5th of May, Cranmer, who had been forbidden to
approach the court, wrote a skilful and persuasive letter,! (if
any skill could curb furious appetites — if any persuasion could
allay raging passions,) imploring the king's mercy towards
her, " his life so late and sole delight." On the same day is
dated that no less touching than beautiful letter to the king,
which, seemingly with reason, has been ascribed to the pen
of Anne Boleyn herself.} It is not wonderful that the excite
ment of such a moment, if it left her calmness enough to
write, should raise her language to an energy unknown to
her other writings. If this explanation from lord Herbert
should be deemed inadequately to account for the singular ex
actness and elegance of the composition, why may we not
suppose, consistently with its substantial authenticity, that a
compassionate confessor, or one lingering friend, may have
secretly lent his hand to refine and elevate the diction? Sir
Thomas Wyatt, one of the fathers of English poetry (to take
an instance), could not have forgotten that his heart had once
been touched by her youthful loveliness ; and if he had been
moved by a generous remembrance of affection to lend his
help " at her utmost need," he would assuredly not have dis
turbed any of the inimitable strokes of nature which she
could scarcely avoid, but which it is unlikely that he, with all
his genius, could have invented.
In a day or two after, she was carried to Greenwich to be
examined before the privy-council, where all the artifices of
* Report of Mrs. Cosyns, in Kingston's first letter to Cromwell.
t " Scirent si ignoscere manes."
X In the appendix is inserted at length this celebrated letter, the insertion
of the parts destroyed by the fire of 1731 being marked by italics. A part of
it is now to be seen in the British Museum, with marks of partial destruc
tion by fire. It will be seen to be a copy by the affecting v, ords written on
it : — " From the Lady H the Tower." The handwriting is believed to be
about the latterpart of Henry's reign. This date of a copy carries the ori
ginal to the time. That lord Herbert modernized the orthography, which
somewhat varies the color of the whole diction, is also true of his edition
of Kingston's letters, which may be compared with the originals. It now is
and appears to have always been, kept with Kingston's correspondence, the
authenticity of which no man can pretend to doubt. Kingston himself tells
us, that she said to him, " I shall desire you to bear a letter from me to Mr.
Secretary ;" which letter agrees in time with the one now in question.

1536. queen anne's indictment. 165
veteran pettifogging were exhibited by the hoary counsellors
in the examination of this young woman of twenty-seven,
whose ears were wont to be soothed by the softest sounds of
admiration and tenderness. Norfolk interrupted her defence
with a sort of contemptuous disgust, — muttering tut, tut, tut!
She complained, on her return to the Tower, to the lieutenant
and to her more merciless attendants, — " I have been cruelly
handled by the council."
On the 10th of May, an indictment for high treason* was
found by the grand jury of Westminster against the lady Anne,
queen of England ; Henry Norris, groom of the stole ; Sir
Francis Weston and William Brereton, gentlemen of the
privy-chamber ; and Mark Smeaton, a performer on musical
instruments, and a person " of low degree," promoted to be a
groom of the chamber for his skill in the fine art which he
professed. It charges the queen with having, by all sorts of
bribes, gifts, caresses, and impure blandishments, which are
described with unblushing coarseness in the barbarous Latinity
of the indictment, allured these members of the royal house
hold into a course of criminal connexion with her, which had
been carried on for three years. It included also George
Boleyn viscount Rochford, the brother of Anne, as enticed by
the same lures and snares with the rest of the accused, so as
to have become the accomplice of his sister, by sharing her
treachery and infidelity to the king. It is hard to believe that
Anne could have dared to lead a life so unnaturally dissolute,
without such vices being more early and very generally known
in a watchful and adverse court. It is still more improbable
that she should in every instance be the seducer ; and that in
all cases (as it is alleged in the indictment) the enticement
should systematically occur on one day, while the offence
should be completed several days after. Norris, Weston,
Brereton, and Smeaton were tried before a commission of
oyer and terminer at Westminster, on the 12th of May, two
days after the bill against them was found. They all, except
Smeaton, firmly denied their guilt to the last moment. On
*Two legal explanations of this proceeding have been attempted The
first is founded on the statute of treasons. 25 Ed. 3., which made it high trea
son to " violate" the queen ; a word which had been understood as applica
ble to any illicit connexion with her. As accessory to the treason of' her
paramours, she became, by operation of law, a principal in the crime. The
other represents the indictment as under the late statute, which made it
treason " to slander the succession of her issue" by the profession of love
to others, with which she was charged. It is hard to say which of these
constructions was the mpst forced and fantastic. But it seems evident, from
the use of the word "violavit" in the indictment, that the prosecutors, in
spite of the common meaning of this word, which implies force, chose to rely
on the statute of Edward III.

166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
Smeaton's confession it must be observed that we know not
how it was obtained, how far it extended, or what were the
conditions of it ; that his humble condition might render it
more easy to subdue his spirit ; and that his ignorance would
naturally lead him to interpret every word which denoted the
faintest shade of favor to himself in a stronger sense than
those would do who better understood the cajoling language
of courts.
That statesmen, eager to accomplish the purpose of their
master, in examinations shrouded from every impartial eye,
should have religiously abstained from explicit or implied
promises and threats, is at least a very improbable hypothesis.
It is easy to excite hopes of mercy, though all intention or
authority to do so be expressly disclaimed. In this case we
know that the usual artifice of saying or hinting to each pris
oner that his fellows had confessed, was amply practised. In
deed, the terrors of the confessional might have accounted for
groundless admissions of guilt from men more enlightened,
or more liable to be degraded by falsehood, than Smeaton.
The confessor, seated in a place where he could neither be
heard nor seen by men, might overawe his penitent into a be
lief that an acknowledgment of the justice of legal and royal
acts was the only amends which could be made for the offence
charged, or for the other misdeeds of the party. The exer
cise of this invisible and inscrutable power can never be safely
committed to human frailty. The sincerity and probity of
a confessor might be no security in such a case as hers. The
majority of these English priests, who believed every story
circulated against Anne — who firmly credited the pending
accusation — who regarded with horror the usurper of the
excellent Catharine's throne, the adulterous seductress of king
and people from the church, and thereby from salvation, —
might have been the most exemplary men of the ecclesiastical
body ; but they were also the most credulous and partial in
whatever regarded her, and the most prone to magnify the
merits of confession, without strictly defining its boundaries,
in a case where they believed that every confession was short
of the whole truth.
On the 12th of May, the four commoners were condemned
to die.* Their sentence was carried into effect amidst the
plaints of the bystanders. Sir Francis Weston was a youth
whose birth, beauty, and graceful skill in every manly exer-
* The description of a trial by jury (as it is called) by "the council of
twelve," which has been preserved in the French narrative of the anony
mous contemporary, though unlike modern trials in substance, resembles
them in form with a curious minuteness. Hist, de Anne Boleyn, 192. 195.

1536. TRIAL OF ANNE. 167
cise, excited such general pity, as to embolden his mother
and his wife to throw themselves at the feet of Henry, and
to tempt him by a ransom of a hundred thousand crowns.
Pride, or revenge, or mere hardheartedness, prevailed over
the bribe.
On the 15th of May, queen Anne and her brother Roch-
ford were tried, in a temporary hall erected for that purpose
within the Tower, before the duke of Norfolk, created lord
high steward for the occasion; assisted by twenty-six " lords
triers," who in some degree performed the functions of jurors
in this tribunal, formerly often used during the vacation or
interruption of parliament. The reason assigned for the
choice of the Tower was kindness to the feeling and dignity
of the royal culprit which disposed the king to spare her a
public trial for such disgusting offences. " But," says an an
cient writer, " it could not be to conceal the heinousness of
the accusation, though that might be the pretence ; for that
was published in parliament a few weeks after."* "The
proceeding," says he, " was inclosed in strong walls." At
all events, the place of trial, even if chosen for state or deli
cacy, concealed from the public eye whatever might be want
ing in justice.
Rochford was first brought to trial, seemingly apart from
his unhappy sister. " There was brought against him, as a
witness, his wicked wife, accuser of her own husband to the
seeking of his blood."! His defence was at that time cele
brated for force and effect. "Not even More, so rich in
learning and eloquence, defended himself better against his
enemies.} His triers are said 'to have been at first divided.' "J
After his trial, Anne Boleyn was required by a gentleman
usher to come to the bar, where she appeared immediately
without an adviser, and attended only by the ignorant and
treacherous women of her household. " It was everywhere
muttered abroad, that the queen in her defence had cleared
herself in a most noble speech." || All writers who lived
near the time confirm this account of her defence. " For
* Wyatt, in Singer. Second edition of Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p.
444. Lond. 1827.
f Wyatt, 446. This detestable woman, whose name never should be for.
gotten, was Jane Parker, the daughter of Henry lord Parker and Mount-
eagle. Dugdale, ii. 207.
X Histoire de Anne Boleyn, 198.
" Non paB Morus meme, qui d'eloquence
Et de scavoir avoit tant d'affluence,
Ne repondait mieux a tous ses adversaires."
§ " Trouvez se sont d'opinion diverse." p. 199.
|| Wyatt, in Singer's Cavendish, 448. " She made such wise and discreet
answers, that she seemed fully to clear herself." — Holinsh. iii. 796.

168 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
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 prove their reproofs, when they
durst not bring them to the proof of the light in an open
place." The description of this scene by the narrative ver
sifier bears marks of accurate intelligence and minute obser
vation. " The queen," says he, " defended her honor calmly
against the imputation of unutterable turpitudes. She proved
that she was conscious of a righteous cause, more by a serene
countenance than by the power of language. She spoke lit
tle ; but no man who looked on her could see any symptoms
of criminality. She listened with an unchanged face to the
sentence of death passed upon her by her uncle. When he
had closed, clasping her hands, and turning up her eyes to
wards heaven, she uttered a short prayer : — ' Oh Father of
mankind ! the way, the life, and the truth, thou knowest
whether I have deserved this death.' Then turning round
to the judges (among whom it was some satisfaction to in
cline to the belief that her father did not sit), she said to
them, — ' I will not call your sentence unjust, nor imagine my
reasons can prevail against your convictions : I will rather
believe that you have some good reason for what you have
done ; but I hope it is different from those which you alleged
in giving judgment, for I am clear from all the offences which
you then laid to my charge. I have been ever faithful to the
king, though I do not say that I have not been wanting in due
humility to him, and have allowed my fancy to nurse some
foolish jealousy of him. Other misdeeds against him I have
never committed.' " In the mean time the four commoners
were executed. Norris, Weston, and Brereton persisted in
the denial of the charge : Smeaton, who owned his own
guilt, and declared that of the rest, was the last executed ;
so that he may have harbored hopes of life till it was too
late.* From the apprehension of Anne, to her cruel examination
at Greenwich, her existence was a moral torture. Every
wild and rambling word uttered in that agony, every answer
extracted from her by an insidious or threatening inquisition,
every misremembrance into which hurry or faintness plunged
her, were registered minutely ; and in the depositions of her
treacherous attendants became sufficient evidence. She fell
* If we suppose any rules of law to have been observed on this occasion,
it is a suspicious circumstance that Smeaton, who might otherwise have
been confronted with the queen, was disabled from being examined as a
witness by condemnation for high treason before her trial ; which might
easily have been avoided by a delay for three days.

1536. QUEEN'S MARRIAGE DECLARED NULL. 169
from laughter to weeping, from hysterical convulsions to a
trembling delirium. At every stage she was equally watched
and harassed by these wicked women ; and her distempered
language rose up in unrighteous judgment against her. After
her day of suffering at Greenwich, she betrayed no more mor
bid weakness. She contemplated death firmly, and seems to
have felt that her only remaining objects were the propriety
and dignity of her own conduct. Conscience, even when
the exercise of her power is painful, engrosses the whole
soul, and lifts it above the fear of bodily harm. She from
that moment regarded death with calmness ; and in the end
looked forward to it as to the means of relief.
One other trial awaited her, of which the particulars are
very little known to us. In a letter of the earl of Northum
berland, dated on the 12th of May, that nobleman states that
he had disclaimed upon oath the pre-contract with queen
Anne, which had once more been imputed to him.
On the morning of the 17th of May, about thirty-six hours
after sentence of death was pronounced on her, and about or
after the time when her 'brother was suffering his punish
ment, she was brought to Lambeth, where she was to go
through the forms of trial once more, in order that Cranmer
(who must then have been either the most unhappy or the
most abject of men) might act the mockery of pronouncing
the nullity of her marriage with the king. He pronounced
it never to have been good, " but utterly void, in consequence
of certain just and lawful impediments, unknown at the time
of her pretended marriage, but confessed by the said lady
Anne before the most reverend father in God sitting judi
cially."* No authentic record is known to exist of the par
ticulars of this seemingly wanton disturbance of her almost
dying moments. It is singular, but it forms an additional
presumption against the prosecutors, that even the general
nature of the alleged "impediment" is not hinted in the
statute. No supposition is so probable as that it was the pre
contract with Northumberland, which it might be pretended
was recently " known" by new evidence.! The motive for
* 28 Hen. 8. c. 7. This statute, which passed within a month of Anne's
death, recites her attainder for treason, but separately from the ecclesias
tical sentence of nullity.
t An acute writer has supposed that the unnamed impediment on which
the sentence of nullity rested was the cohabitation of Henry with Mary
Boleyn, which created a canonical impediment to his marriage with Anne ;
taken away, indeed, by the dispensation of Clement VII., but revived in
England by the rejection of the papal authority. This, however, is no more
than a bare supposition, and not quite so much to those who do not hold
Sanders, or even Pole, Anne's mortal enemies, to be conclusive witnesses
against her. If there had been such a commerce, the statute and the sen-
Vol. II. P

170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
this suit was perhaps a desire of the king to place both his
daughters at his mercy, on the same level of illegitimacy ;
and the fears of his ministers, solicitous to involve the primate
in their own criminality, and to cover by various forms of
law* what never could have any semblance of justice. On
the 18th of May we find an order issued for the expulsion of
strangers from the Tower; a minute fact, but characteristic
of tyranny, which dreads pity as a natural enemy.
In spite of this exclusion of those who might commiserate
the fate of the victim, the reports of the lieutenant to his
master Cromwell throw some light on the last morning of her
life. When he came to her, after repeating her solemn pro
testations of innocence, she said to him, — " ' Mr. Kingston, I
hear that I am not to die before noon, and I am very sorry for
it, for I thought to be dead and past my pain.' I told her it
should be no pain. She answered, — ' I heard say, that the
executioner of Calais, who was brought over, is more expert
than any in England : that is very good : I have a little neck,'
putting her hand about it, and laughing heartily."! A tran
sient and playful recurrence to the delicacy of her form, which
places in a stronger light the blackness of the man who had
often caressed that delicate form, and now commanded that it
should be mangled. "I have seen men," says Kingston, " and
also women, executed, and they have been in great sorrowing.
This lady has much joy and pleasure in death." Is there any
example in history of so much satisfaction, and so much calm
ness, in any dying person who is ascertained to be guilty of
acts owned by him to be great offences, and perseveringly
denied by him to be perpetrated by himself I
When she was brought to the scaffold, which was erected
within the Tower, she saw herself surrounded by those who,
a month before, would have trembled at her frown. The
dukes of Suffolk and Richmond, the chancellor Audley, and
secretary Cromwell, together with the mayor and aldermen
of London, constituted her auditory. On the scaffold she
uttered a few words: "Good Christian people, I am come
tence must have stated, as their main ground, a notorious falsehood; for
the commerce, if at all, must have been before the act of settlement. Add
to this, that Anne is declared, in both the sentence and the statute, to have
confessed the impediment, which she could not have done if the nullity had
depended on the supposed intercourse of Henry with Mary Boleyn.
* It seems to be doubtful whether these proceedings for treason were not,
after Cranmer's sentence of nullity, illegal. It is, at least, questionable
whether, as soon as Anne's marriage was decreed to be null, the attainder
was not necessarily overthrown ; since no union but that of legal matrimony
could transmute her infidelity into treason.
t Ellis, ii. 64—67.

1535. EXECUTION OF ANNE BOLEYN. 171
hither to die according to law ; by the law I am judged to
die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come
hither to accuse no man, nor to speak any thing of that
whereof I am accused. I pray God save the king, and send
him long to reign over you ; for a gentler* or more merciful
prince was there never. To me he was ever a good, gentle,
and sovereign lord. If any person will meddle with my cause,
I require them to judge the best : thus I take my leave of the
world and of you, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me."
Even the hardhearted courtiers who surrounded her could not
affect displeasure at this guarded language, probably suggested
by Cranmer in the sad interview of the preceding day : for it
is the phraseology of a canonist, and betrays the wariness of
a timorous man who clings to some petty hope in the worst
event and on this occasion accounted it an advantage that
Anne should not provoke Henry against their child ; and at
the same time that she should not be importuned to make a
confession of guilt. She seemed to be the only person present
who had a perfectly composed mind. All the bystanders not
corrupted by the court melted into tears, being recovered, like
the rest of the public, from their original prejudices against
her.! She removed the hat and collar, which might hinder
the speedy action of the sword ; and, humbly kneeling, she
repeated several times before the blow, — " Christ, I pray thee,-
receive my spirit ! "
Those of her female attendants who were faithful, though
fainting and drowned in tears, would not trust the remains of
their beautiful and beloved mistress to the executioner and
his brutal assistants. They washed away the blood which
now made her face ghastly and her fair form an object of
horror. " They wandered," says the metrical narrator, who
describes this scene as if he had been an eye-witness, " like
sheep without a shepherd." Her body was thrown into a box,
and interred without ceremony in the chapel of the Tower.
In surveying this case, it may be concluded that her de
parture from honor, even on the eve of marriage, is not
proved ; and that the general profligacy of her youth is the
mere assertion of her enemies, inconsistent with probability
and unsupported by proof Whether in her last year she
touched, or she overpassed, the boundaries which separate
female honor from the delicacy and decorum which are its
bulwarks, is a question which, though it gives rise to more
doubtful inquiries, can never be considered as answered in
the affirmative by the frantic language uttered in the agony
* Perhaps in the sense of nobler. \ Hist, de Anne Boleyn, 211.

172 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
of her mind and body during the first eight days' imprison
ment ; nor by the testimony of Smeaton, contradicted by all
whom he called his accomplices ; still less by the brief state
ments of such originally inadequate evidence in historians
unacquainted with legal proceedings ; and least of all by the
verdicts and judgments of such a reign as that of Henry VlIL,
in which, though guilt afforded no security, virtue was the
surest path to destruction.
The infliction of death upon a wife for infidelity might be a
consistent part of the criminal code of Judea, which permitted
polygamy on account of the barbarous manners of the Jewish
people, and, by consequence, allowed all females to remain in
a state of slavery and perpetual imprisonment. Even then,
the man would not be accounted good who should avail him
self of such a permission, so far as to put a woman to death,
unless, perhaps, as a palliation of an act done in the first trans
ports of jealous rage.
Henry alone, it may be hoped, was capable of commanding
his slaves to murder, on the scaffold, her whom he had lately
cherished and adored, for whom he had braved the opinion of
Europe, and in maintenance of whose honor he had spilt the
purest blood of England, after she had produced one child who
could lisp his name with tenderness, and when she was recov
ering from the languor and paleness of the unrequited pangs
of a more sorrowful and fruitless child-birth. The last cir
cumstance, which would have melted most beings in human
form, is said to have peculiarly heightened his aversion. Such
a deed is hardly capable of being aggravated by the consider
ations that, if she was seduced before marriage, he had cor
rupted her; and if she was unfaithful at last, the edge of the
sword that smote her was sharpened by his impatience to
make her bed empty for another woman. In a word, it may
be truly said that Henry, as if he had intended to levy war
against every various sort of natural virtue, proclaimed, by
the executions of More and of Anne, that he henceforward
bade defiance to compassion, affection, and veneration. A man
without a good quality would perhaps be in the condition of a
monster in the physical world, where distortion and deformity
in every organ seem to be incompatible with life. But, in
these two direful deeds, Henry perhaps approached as nearly
to the ideal standard of perfect wickedness as the infirmities
of human nature will allow.

1536. SUPREMACY OF THE CHURCH. 173
CHAP. VEIL
HENRY VIII  CONTINUED.
TO THE DEATH OF HENRY.
1536—1547.
While Henry was thus spreading horror around him,
which, as we are told by Erasmus, rendered the most intimate
friends fearful of corresponding with each other, his difference
with Rome had not yet extended to doctrine, but was confined
to the rejection of the papal jurisdiction, and to a consequent
separation from the churches which maintained their alle
giance to the holy see. He was a schismatic or separatist,
inasmuch as he had thrown off the ancient jurisdiction of the
Roman patriarch over the church of England. He was not a
heretic, inasmuch as he had affirmed no proposition contra
dictory to the doctrines of the Catholic church.
On the other hand, the title of supreme head of the church
of England was assumed by Henry with considerable wari
ness, in language which might be addressed. to subjects in one
sense, and defended against antagonists in another; which
was capable of a larger meaning in prosperity, or of being
contracted in a season of adverse fortune; and which was
remarkable for the gross but common fallacy, of giving a false
appearance of consistency to jarring reasons, by the use of the
same words in different acceptations. These arts or artifices
of policy, which discovered the extent and importance of the
revolution only by slow degrees to the people, are observable
in the statutes of the 25th and 26th of Henry VIII.
The preamble to these statutes recites, " that the crown of
England is independent and that all classes of men, whether
of the spiritualty or of the temporally, owe obedience to it ;*
that the church of England has been accustomed to exercise
jurisdictions in courts spiritual ; and that the encroachments
of the bishop of Rome from ancient times had been checked
by the king's renowned progenitors." It is evident that the
doctrine concerning the king's supremacy might well be
reconciled with the papal authority, if the latter were con
fined to a strictly spiritual jurisdiction on the part of the pope,
and if the former were limited to civil and coercive powers
on that of the king. But though the most learned Romanists
have generally agreed that the coercive powers of the eccle-
* 24 Hen 8. c 12. Stat, of the Realm.
P2

174 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
siastical courts arose from grants of certain portions of civil
jurisdiction made by the state to the clergy,* yet the court of
Rome has never been willing to limit itself by any formal act
to this narrow and dependent jurisdiction. On the other hand,
however the words of this statute might be otherwise con
strued, it was intended by such swelling novelties of expres
sion to inure the minds of the people to unwonted modes of
thinking on the relation between the papal jurisdiction and
the regal power.
Willing, however, to maintain the equipoise between eccle
siastical factions, he passed, in the year following, a statute
for the punishment of heresy, in which' he inscribed his ad
herence to orthodox doctrines in characters of blood, directing
that " all persons convicted of heresy before the ordinary of
the diocese, and refusing to abjure, or relapsing after abjura
tion, shall be committed to the lay power, to be burned in
open places for the example of others :" at the same time pro
viding, " that no speaking against the bishop of Rome's au
thority made and given by human law and not by holy scrip
ture, or against such authority, where it is repugnant to the
laws of this realm, shall be deemed to be heresy."! The
series of statutes on this head is closed by a short but compre
hensive act of the parliament which met in November, 1534,
wherein it is enacted, that " the king of this realm shall be
reputed to be the only supreme head of the church of Eng
land ; that as such he shall enjoy all titles, jurisdiction, and
honors to the said dignity appertaining; and that he shall
have full authority to correct all errors and abuses which
might lawfully be corrected by any spiritual jurisdiction ; any
nsage, prescription, foreign laws, or foreign authority to the
contrary notwithstanding."}:
It is obvious that the first provision, as it does not define
the office enacted to be vested in the king, would of itself
confer nothing but a title ; that the second provision contains
a falsehood, as far as it intimates the previous existence of this
office, or any knowledge of its rights ; while, on the other
side, it leaves without elucidation, whether it was intended to
assert only, like the former acts, the identical proposition that
the king is the sovereign of all classes of his subjects. It
passes over the essential distinction between wjiat. the king
may do out of parliament by his royal prerogative, and what
he can do only in parliament by the consent of the estates of
the people of the realm. It may mean that the king and par-
* For example, in testamentary and matrimonial causes.
t 25 Hen. 8.«. 14. J 26 Hen. 8. c. i.

1536. SUPREMACY OF THE CHURCH. 17-5
Siament are dependent in no respect on foreign power, and
that the legislature may change by new laws the arrange
ments of any institution, however respectable, which can owe
Its being and establishment only to law. It is under the cover
of all this vague and loose language, which treats the head
ship of the church as if it were an ancient and well-known
¦magistracy, that the unwary reader is betrayed into a notion
<(in which he could not otherwise have acquiesced) that this
statute is declaratory, and that the power of jurisdiction and
amendment in all cases where ecclesiastical superiors formerly
¦exercised such powers, in spite of any usage, prescription,
foreign law, or foreign custom to the contrary, was here not
so much granted to the crown as acknowledged to be a por
tion of the ancient prerogative. The jurisdiction of the pope
-seemed thus to be totally superseded by the powers vested in
the crown. But it was not till the parliament of 1536, that it
was universally disavowed, insomuch that the disclaimer of it
upon oath was required from the most considerable part of his
majesty's subjects. By the " act to extinguish the authority
of the bishop of Rome," the maintenance of that authority was
•¦subjected to the formidable penalties of premunire ; and every
public officer, whether ecclesiastical or civil, every person
holding place or fee from the crown, or retained in tie king's
service, or who sue out livery of land* from him, or do fealty
to him as their superior, all religious profest, all persons taking
holy orders, and all who take a degree in a university, before
the exercise of their office must make oath that they otteriy
renounce the bishop of Rome and his power, and instead of
consenting to the exercise of papal authority in this realm,
will resist it to the utmost ; that he will take the king to be
the only head of the church of England, and will defend all
statutes made or to be made in extirpation of the bishop of
Rome and of his authority, under the pains of high treason,
to be inflicted on all such of the above persons who, being
duly required, refuse to make such oath.
This memorable statute was the first which introduced into
civil legislation the union of a promise of submission with a
declaration of assent to opinions ; which had been long known
stmong ecclesiastics in the cases of submission to superiors,
and of subscription to creeds. It treats the refusal to take the
prescribed oath as a species of political heresy, the real exist
ence of which is sufficiently proved by the refusal to swear.
In the confusion of its savage haste, it punishes the refusal to
abjure the pope as a higher offence than acts in maintenance
of his authority. * 28 Hon. 8. c. 10.

176 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
By these statutes, together with others prohibiting official
intercourse with Rome, the revolution in church government
contemplated by Henry VIII. was consummated in England,
which was placed in a situation unlike that of any other
state in Christendom, acknowledging the ancient doctrine of
the Roman Catholic church, but placing the king as a sort
of lay patriarch at the head of the ecclesiastical establish
ment. Thomas Cromwell, who had become Henry's chief minis
ter, was at this critical juncture raised to the new office of
the king's vicegerent, " for good and true ministration of jus
tice in all causes and cases touching the ecclesiastical juris
diction, and for the godly reformation and redress of all errors,
heresies, and abuses in the church."* This royal appointment,
which had been made in the interval between the parliament
of 1536 and that of 1539, the latter of these assemblies seized
the earliest moment of confirming by their recognition ;
avoiding, however, the appearance of the necessity of their
sanction, by introducing the fact of appointment and the de
scription of the office into the preamble of a statute for regu
lating precedence in parliament,! where a matter so weighty
otherwise appears to be exceedingly misplaced. It was en
acted that the vicegerent should take his seat in the house of
peers before the archbishop of Canterbury, and consequently
be ranked above all temporal lords, except those princes of
the royal family on whom the dignity of the peerage had
been conferred,! or had descended. The objects of Crom
well's office were so various that it would have been difficult
to define his powers by law, and being wholly new they could
not be circumscribed by usage. They were, therefore, really
unbounded. The first experiment on this immense force was
made by the progressive suppression of various classes of re
ligious houses, and the seizure of their estates, at that time
amounting to a large share of the landed property of the
kingdom. We have already seen that the utmost jealousy
and animosity had prevailed between the secular and regular
clergy from the establishment of the latter class, who had for
ages been regarded as constituting the peculiar force of the
Roman see. The indolence, the ignorance, the indulgence of
malignant as well as of gross passions, which are apt to fol
low the fugitives from the common vices of life into their re-
* 31 Hen. 8. c. 10. f Ibid.
X Perhaps the letter of the statutes excepts only princes who have been
made dukes. As I do not know any example of a prince sitting by an
inferior title, this matter, which can affect only precedence, seems to be
unsettled.

1536. SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES, 177
treat, and to grow up with more noisome rankness in the
dark recesses where they have hidden themselves from the
wholesome control, as much as from the baleful example of
their fellows, are all such palpable consequences of specious
and well-meant institutions, that their existence requires lit
tle positive testimony, and that they are rather to be calmly
¦examined as results of the general nature of man, than looked
at with disgust as the inherent malady of those who only
breathe a mephitic atmosphere.
The Franciscan and Dominican orders, who had revived
the religious spirit in the thirteenth century, when the zeal
of the more ancient fraternities was buried under their vast
possessions, were preserved from utter languor by the abso
lute poverty which was the basis of their institution. Though
they had long ceased to be actuated by the fervid activity of
their youth, and though the revivers of ancient literature be
gan to share the conduct of education, which the friars had
long monopolized, they continued to predominate in all the
universities, to oceupy exclusively the sehools of theology,
the master science, and to exhibit occasionally some models
of that austere life which first gave them general popularity.
They were still the most eloquent and admired preachers -of
-their age.* The subordination of all monasteries to the pro
vincials, the regularity of the obedience of these last to the
general, and the constant residence of the generals at the
court of Rome, formed an uninterrupted chain of communi
cation, by means of which the commands of the supreme pon
tiff were conveyed to the humblest friar, with all the secrecy,
speed, and order of military discipline. It will not, therefore,
•excite wonder that of all the Roman Catholic clergy, of
whom the far greater part were not the less dissatisfied with
Henry's innovations, because they were compelled to show
subserviency to them in the conspicuous stations where re
sistance was dangerous, the monastic orders should be the
¦most bitter and irreconcilable enemies of a church with a lay
head, and an establishment calling itself Catholic without a
pope. They were also his most formidable opponents ; for
they preached to the lowest classes of the people, while their
general sat on the steps of the papal throne. The advances
towards the destruction of such a body were conducted with
* Savonarola joined to both these characters that of a friend of liberty.
When called to the death-bed of Lorenzo de Medici, he had the courage,
before absolution, to require Lorenzo's renunciation of usurped power and
the restoration of liberty. He perished in the flames on account of some
miraculous pretensions which he seems to have been almost forced into
•snaking, in consequence of his just invectives against the policy and man
ners of Alexander VL

178 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
the caution required in the execution of measures deemed
indeed to be necessary, but acknowledged to be beset with
perils. The first attack was made by the parliament of 1536,
already so memorable for the blows which they had struck
at the church, and the steps which they had made towards
an ecclesiastical revolution. They now passed an act to dis
solve and grant to the king all religious houses of all orders
and of both sexes, who could not spend 200Z. yearly.* Some
appearances were kept up with respect to what in point of
justice was the most important part of the case — the provision
for the superiors and members of these communities during-
their lives. " His majesty," says the statute, " was pleased
and contented, of his most excellent charity, to provide for
the heads such pensions as shall be reasonable." But, vague
and utterly unsatisfactory as it was, no such promise was
vouchsafed to the humble dwellers of the suppressed houses,
who, it seems, Were deemed beneath any assurances " of the
king's excellent charity." It was only promised that they
were either to be supported in some new charitable founda
tion, or committed for their lives to such of the great monas
teries as the king should appoint. The great monasteries
then spared were alleged, in the preamble of the act, to be
regular, devout, and exemplary. It is probable enough that
discipline was more easily maintained in great establishments,
where the means of severe punishment were abundant, and
the eyes of a numerous community were fixed on the actions
of each member. But though the assertion of this had been
universally true, yet the allegation of it in the statute would
have been in substance and effect a falsehood, inasmuch as it
was not the true motive of the suppression.
Stokesley, bishop of London, in a debate on this bill, re
marked, " that these lesser houses were as thorns, soon pluck
ed up ; but the great abbots were like putrefied old oaks ; yet
they must needs follow, and so would others do in Christen
dom."! This prelate deserves to be mentioned for having had
the sense to foresee, and the courage to foretell, the events
which were immediately following, and their connexion with
a general revolution throughout Europe. The number of
monasteries which either had been dissolved, or had surren
dered, or ransomed themselves by payments of large sums to
the king, amounted to three hundred and seventy-six.}: They
were the legal owners of a large part of the landed property
of the kingdom. The numbers of the religious were proba-
* 27 Hen. 8. c. 28. Stats, of the Realm, iii. 576.
t Burnet. Reform, book iii. J Ibid.

1536. SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES. 179
bly about six or seven thousand : that of their servants, de
pendents, and retainers, may be estimated, moderately, at an
equal number. One hundred thousand pounds (probably a
million and a half of the present value) came immediately
into the exchequer : thirty thousand pounds (probably half a
million according to our wages and prices) were added to the
annual revenue of the crown.* At the moment, however,
the confiscation was so unpopular as to occasion revolts in
those counties where the" ancient religion most retained its
ascendant The people lamented the loss of the perhaps per
nicious alms distributed by the monks. Great lords might
live at a distance. Small proprietors, who might, in some
respects, have replaced the monks, were then thinly scattered.
The ruins of magnificent edifices, the spoliation of their
richest decorations, hitherto regarded by the people as the or
naments of their little neighborhood, and the boast of village
pride, must have been keenly regretted, in proportion to the
rudeness of their private accommodations, and to the mean
ness of their domestic architecture. They were robbed of
their ancient and their only ornaments. Every church con
tained relics, for which a very mitigated reverence might
have been excused, and an undue veneration was actually
entertained. Many small chapels were visited by pilgrims
from distant lands. Every parish had miraculous legends, to
be deplored, doubtless, as the offspring of credulity, and still
more as occasionally the means of fraud ; but endearing to
the peasants the parochial church, the adjacent convent, and
every point of a neighborhood over which tradition had
strewed her tales of prodigy. The people were most affected
by the sight of the friars themselves, expelled from their home
and their land, often at an advanced age, and generally after
they had been unfitted for bodily toil ; all of whom bore out
ward marks of goodness, and many of whom were doubtless
known to the laborers and farmers of the vicinage only by
their prayers and their alms. The vices of some, the useless-
ness of most, were forgotten in the calamity of all, and in the
merits of a few. The proscribed religious inflamed all these
feelings by popular harangues.
The immediate occasion of revolt was supplied by the in
junction of the vicegerent to the clergy, in autumn 1536,
which directed them " to proclaim, for a time, on every Sun
day, and afterwards twice in each quarter, that the bishop of
Rome's usurped power had no foundation in the law of God ;
to abstain from extolling images, relics, or pilgrimages, and
* Herbert. Burnet.

180 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1536.
to exhort the people to teach their children the Lord's Prayer,
the Creed, and the Ten Commandments in English."* These
injunctions seemed to be inoffensive and almost inefficacious;
but some risk must be incurred by attempts to introduce in
novations, however small, into the public worship of a people
— the most frequently recurring of all collective acts, and the
enly solemnity in which all take an active and equal part IU
was easy for the clergy to represent the measures of govern
ment as only experiments on the patience and simplicity of
the people, preparatory to that daring plan of revolution in
doctrine and worship which was meditated by the king's heret
ical advisers.
An insurrection first broke out in Lincolnshire, the county
where the first visitation of religious houses had taken place.
Twenty thousand men appeared in open revolt, headed or in
cited by Mackrel, who assumed the name of captain Cobler.
Their proposals were extremely moderate, chiefly directed,
indeed, against the upstarts preferred in church and state. In
the month of October, 1536, this body of insurgents melted
away without a struggle. The king, alarmed by more serious
risings, granted a pardon to them, and the more stubborn and
needy of them fled to their insurgent brethren in the north.
There, the whole people between the Humber and the Tweed,
together with those of Cumberland, of Westmoreland, and of
the northern portion of Lancashire, had during the commo
tions in Lincolnshire taken up arms. They were led into the
field by Robert Ask, a man of Yorkshire, whose station en
titled him to be called " a gentleman." They assumed the
title of a " Pilgrimage of Grace," proceeding in this array to
implore with joint prayers " the grace or favor of God." The
priests marched before them bearing crucifixes and banners,
on which the sufferings of Christ were painted. They obliged
all their prisoners to swear " that they should enter into this
Pilgrimage of Grace for the love of God, the preservation of
the kind's person, the purifying of the nobility, and expelling
all villain blood and evil counsellors ; taking before them the
cross of Christ, his faith, and the restitution of the church ;
the suppression of heretics and their opinions." The garrison
of Scarborough were faithful. Clifford, earl of Cumberland,
held out in his castle of Skipton. The other strong holds of
the north, such as York and Hull, fell into the hands of the
insurgents. At Pomfret castle, Ask persuaded or compelled
the archbishop of York, and the lord Darcy, to take the oath
and join his army. Lord Dacre of Gilliesland bravely refused
* Burnet. Reform, book iii. Holinshed. Herbert.

1536. REVOLT IN THE NORTH. 181
to make any concessions to those who were masters. In the
course of negotiations which ensued, Ask, seated on a chair
of state in the castle of Pomfret, having the archbishop of
York on his right hand, and the lord Darcy on his left, re
ceived a herald from the earl of Shrewsbury the commander
of the king's troops. Ask refused to allow the herald to read
out the proclamation of which he was the bearer, but sent
him back to lord Shrewsbury, with a safe-conduct On the
6th of December, 1536, after the king had arrived at Doncas-
ter with a superior force, the lords Scroop, Latimer, Lumley,
and Darcy, Sir T. Piercy, Robert Ask, and about 300 others,
on the part of the insurgents, met the duke of Norfolk and
Sir William Fitzwilliam, on behalf of the king, in order to
consider terms of compromise. The revolters began by ask
ing a hostage for the safety of Ask. Henry, who by long de
lay had got them into his snare, haughtily answered " that he
knew no gentleman or other whom he esteemed so little as to
put him in pledge for such a man." The demands of the com
mons, which included the restoration of the princess Mary to
her legitimacy, of the pope to his wonted jurisdiction, and of
the monks to their houses, were rejected with scorn, and the
insurgents were compelled to accept a full satisfaction and
general pardon,* on condition that they should submit to Nor
folk and Shrewsbury (the king's lieutenant), and that the
northern commons should rebel no more.
Norfolk, who commanded against the revolters, was unwill
ing to obtain too complete a victory over Catholic opponents ;
and he had secretly warned the king against the danger of
strengthening the Lutheran party by the destruction of their
most irreconcilable antagonists. But the embers of rebellion
still glowed.
Various circumstances contributed to exasperate Henry
against the Catholic clergy, or afforded him plausible pretexts
for the execution of those more extensive confiscations which
he or Cromwell originally meditated. It is the nature of all
severe policy, even if justified by necessity, to provoke new
resistance, where it does not extinguish the spirit of disaffec
tion. Rigor often revives rebellion, and rebellion calls out
for redoubled rigor. There are critical moments in the his
tory of most countries, when a government appears to be, as
it were, doomed to move in this unhappy circle ; which often
doubles the righteous punishment of bad rulers, but some
times also is a severe trial of those who desire to do well.
Another insurrection in the north, though quickly subdued,
*9th Dec. 15S6. Herbert, 213.
Vol. II. Q

182 HISTORY OF ENGLAND". 1537.
was sufficient to show the fellow-feeling of the people with
the clergy. A second general visitation of monasteries took
place in 1537, and a board of commissioners was appointed for
the superintendence of the revenue confiscated, under the title
of " The Court of Augmentation of the King's Revenue." To
prepare the way for these commissioners, the richest shrines
and the most revered relics were pillaged or destroyed (more
especially those of St. Thomas at Canterbury,*) on allega
tions, too often very true, that they were scenes of gross im
posture, where pretended miracles had long undermined all-
reverence for religion. The aim of these destroying measures-
was to disgrace and desecrate religious houses in the eyes of
the people. Of all the evils of false religion, the worst, per
haps, is, that it engages a multitude of ecclesiasties in the
performance of fraudulent mummeries, which must divest
both of piety and sincerity a body who are, chosen to teach
virtue to their fellows. The objects of the visitors were so
well known, that zealous witnesses against the devoted mon
asteries were nowhere wanting. In some cases, great abuses
were detected, and perhaps sufficiently proved. It must also
be owned that some of the most disgusting and odious offences
with which they were charged are not the most unlikely to
creep into monastic retreats. But it never can be forgotten
in such cases, that revenue not reformation, plunder not pun
ishment were the objects of which the visitors were in quest ;
so that proofs of innocence were altogether unavailing, and
not even proofs of poverty could save the smallest houses
from the paws of the inferior beasts of prey. Some, indeed,
sought favor by a more promising road ; by blackening them
selves, their fellows, and their order, and thus helping to ren
der destruction popular, by averring that " the pit of hell was
ready to swallow them up for their ill life ;" by professing
that "they were now convinced of the wickedness of the
manner and trade of living that they and others of their pre
tended religion followed." A hundred and fifty abbots and
other superiors had surrendered their houses and lands to the
crown before the year 1539. Very effectual examples de
terred most ecclesiastics from walking in the footsteps of the
refractory monks. The abbots of Reading, Glastonbury, and
Colchester (three of the greatest), those of Whalley, Gerveaux,
and Sawley, together with the priors of Woburn and Burling
ton, had been executed under color of having aided the insur
gents. Several suffered within sight of their monasteries.
The nature of the proceedings may be estimated by the fact,!
* Burnet. Reform, book iii. t Burnet. Reform, book iii.

1539. RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 188
that it has been scarcely found possible to ascertain with due
precision the particulars of the respective accusations. Those
abbots, oh the other hand, who had been most forward to be
tray the communities which they ruled, and the property
which they held in trust, were rewarded by Henry with pen
sions proportioned to their dishonesty.* At length the system
of confiscation was closed and sealed by a statute passed in
1539, which provided " that all monasteries or other reli
gious houses dissolved, suppressed, surrendered, renounced,
relinquished, forfeited, or by any means come to his high
ness, shall be vested in him, his heirs, and successors, for
ever."! Thus was completed the confiscation of a fifth or a fourth
part of the landed property of England and Wales within the
space of five years. It may be a fit moment therefore to
pause here, in order calmly and shortly to review some of the
weighty questions which were involved in this measure.
There is no need of animadverting upon the means by which
it was effected, though we must assent to the affirmation of a
great man, " that an end which has no means but such as are
bad, is a bad end." But the general question may be best
considered, keeping out of view any of those attendant mis
deeds which excite a very honest indignation, but which dis
turb the operation of the judgment. Property is legal posses
sion. Whoever exercises a certain portion of power over any
outward thing in a manner which, by the laws of the country,
entitles him to an exclusive enjoyment of it, is deemed a
proprietor. But property, which is generally deemed to be
the incentive to industry, the guardian of order, the preserver
of internal quiet the channel of friendly intercourse between
men and nations, and, in a higher point of view, as affording
leisure for the pursuit of knowledge, means for the exercises
of generosity, occasions for the returns of gratitude ; as being
one of the ties which join succeeding generations, strength
ening domestic discipline, and keeping up the affections of
kindred ; above all, because it is the principle to which all
men adapt their plans of life, and on the faith of whose per
manency every human action is performed ; is an mstitution
of so high and transcendent a nature, that every government
which does not protect it, nay, that does not rigorously punish
* The abbot nf Thierney, the prior of Coventry, and the prior of North-
ampton, are named as deserters; and the warden of New College, Oxford,
and the dean of York, labor under the like imputation, though of different
classes. The income of the abbot of Glastonbury was rated at 3500X, and
that of the abbot of Reading at 21,000i
J 31 Hen. 8. c. 13.

184 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1539.
its infraction, must be guilty of a violation of the first duties
of just rulers. The common feelings of human nature have
applied to it the epithets of sacred and inviolable. Property
varies in the extent of the powers which it confers, according
to the various laws of different states. Its duration, its de
scent, its acquisition, its alienation, depend solely upon these
laws. But all laws consider what is held or transmitted
agreeably to their rules as alike possessing the character of
inviolable sacredness. There may be, and there is, property
for a term of years, for life, or for ever. It may be absolute
as to the exercise of the proprietor's rights, or it may be con
ditional, or in other words, held only as long as certain condi
tions are performed. There are specimens of all these sorts
of property in the codes of most civilized nations. But in
all these cases the essence of property is .preserved, which
consists in such a share or kind of power as the laws con
fer.. The advantages may be extremely unequal. The invio
lable right must (by the force of the terms) continue perfectly
equal. The legal limits of the authority of the supreme legislature
are not a reasonable object of inquiry, nor indeed an intelligi
ble form of expression. But to conclude that, because the
law may, in some sense, be said to create property, the law is
to be deemed on that account as entitled rightfully to take it
away, is a proposition founded on a gross confusion of two
very distinguishable conceptions. It uses the word property
in the premises for a system of rules, and in the conclusion
for a portion of external nature, of which the dominion is
acquired by the observance of these rules. It is only in the
first of these senses that property can be .truly called the crea
ture of law. In the second sense it is acquired or transmit
ted not by law but by the acts of a man when the acts are
conformable to legal rules. It is impossible within our pres
ent limits to canvass the small or apparent objections which
may occur to this scheme of reasoning. It is sufficient, per
haps, here to remark, that these are the generally acknow
ledged principles, and that deviations from them in practice
are no more than partial irregularities, to which the disturbing
forces of passion and interest expose human society.
The clergy, though for brevity somel imes called a corpora
tion, were rather an order in the state composed of many
corporations. Their share of the national wealth was im
mense, consisting of land devised by pious men, and of a tenth
part of the produce of the soil set, apart by the customary law
of Europe, for the support of the parochial clergy. Each
clergyman had only in this case an estate for life, to which

1'539, SIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 185
during its continuance the essential attribute of inviolable
possession was as firmly annexed by law as if it had been per
petual. The corporate body was supposed to endure till it
was abolished in some of the forms previously and specially
provided for by law.
For one case, however, of considerable perplexity there was
neither law nor precedent to light the way. Whenever the
supreme power deemed itself bound to change the established
church, or even materially to alter the distribution of its reve
nues, a question necessarily arose concerning the moral bound
aries of legislative authority in such cases. It was not, in
deed, about a legal boundary ; for no specific limit can be as
signed to its right of exacting obedience within the national
territory. The question was, what governments could do
morally and righteously, — what it is right for them to do, and
what they would be enjoined to do by a just superior, if such
a personage could be found among their fellow-men 1 At first
it may seem that the lands should be restored to the heirs of
the original grantor. But -no provision for such a reversion
was made in the grant. No expectation of its occurrence was
entertained by their descendants. Ne habit or plan of life had
been formed on the probability of it. The grantors -or founders
had left their property to certain bodies under the guardian
power of the commonwealth, without the reserve of any re
mainder to those who, after the lapse of centuries, might
prove themselves to be their representatives. It is a case not
very dissimilar to that of an individual who died without dis
coverable heirs, and whose property for that reason falls to the
state. It appeared, therefore, meet and righteous, that in this
new case, after the expiration of the estates for life, the prop
erty granted for a purpose no longer deemed good or the best,
should be applied by the legislature to other purposes which
they considered as better. But the sacredness of the life es
tates is an essential condition of the justice of such measures.
No man thinks an annuity for life less inviolable during his
life, than a portion of land granted to him and to his heirs for
ever. That estate might, indeed, be forfeited by a misper-
formance of duty ; but perfect good faith is in such a case
more indispensable than in most others. Fraud can convey
no title ; false pretences justify no acts. There were gross
abuses in the monasteries ; but it was not for their offences
that the monastic communities fell. The most commendable
application of their revenues would have been to purposes as
like those for which they were granted as the changes in re
ligious opinion would allow. These were religious instruction
and learned education. Some faint efforts Were made to apply
Q2

186 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1539.
part to the foundation of new bishoprics ; but this was only to
cover the profusion with which the produce of rapine was
lavished on courtiers- and noblemen, to purchase their support
of the confiscations, and to insure their zeal and that of their
descendants against the restoration of popery.
It is a melancholy truth, and may be considered by some as
a 'considerable objection to the principles which have been
thus shortly expounded, tiiat if in " the seizure of abbey
lands" the life estates had been spared, the monks, who were
the main stay of papal despotism, and the most deadly foes of
all reform, would have had arms in their hands which might
have rendered them irresistible. It must, perhaps, be acknow
ledged, that it was more necessary to the security of Henry's
partial reformation to strip the monasteries at that moment,
than to dissolve communities which a better regulation might
in future reconcile to the new system.
We are assured by Sir Thomas More, " that in all the time
while he was conversant with the court, of all the nobility of
this land he found no more than seven that thought it right or
reasonable to take away their possessions from the clergy."
So inconsiderable was the original number of those who, not
many years after, accomplished an immense revolution in
property.* To which it must be answered, that the observance of jus
tice is more necessary than security for any institution ; that
many regulations might have stood instead of one deed of ra
pine ; that the milder expedients would have provoked fewer
and more reconcilable enemies ; that if, on the whole, they
afford less security, the legislature were at least bound to try
all means before they who" were appointed to be the guardians
of right set the example of so great a wrong. Rulers can
never render so lasting a service to a people as by the exam
ple, in a time of danger, of justice to formidable enemies, and
of mercy to obnoxious delinquents. These are glorious ex
amples, for which much is to be hazarded.
The next act of Henry, as head of the church, was to frame
a creed guarded by sanguinary penalties for the species of
neutral and intermediate religion which he had established.
In 1536 the bishops were divided into two parties ; of whom
one, with Cranmer and Latimer at its head, inclined towards
reformation, though professing to be of no denomination of
Protestants; another, led by Lee and Gardiner, who, without
professing any communion with the pope, strongly leant to
the papal system. The king attempted to settle all differences
* Apology of Sir T. More, 1533.

1539. CREED OF HENRY. 187
by a proclamation (issued after long debates in the convoca
tion), which uses high language on the bodily presence of
Christ in the Lord's Supper, but speaks in a more mitigated
tone of images, saints, purgatory, and of rites and ceremo
nies ; matters deemed by many more important than doctrines,
inasmuch as they touched the ordinary and daily worship of
the people .* Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, so conspicuous
in after times for his activity in maintaining the papal power,
now wrote against the primacy of St. Peter himself, in a book,
to which Bonner, afterwards bishop of London, contributed a
preface. The case of Lambert may be selected as a speci
men of the numerous deaths inflicted on those who disbelieved
more articles of the Roman Catholic faith than the king. He
is called by Cromwell " a sacramentary ;" one who held the
Lord's Supper to be only a pious rite appointed to commemo
rate the death of Christ. " The king's majesty," says Crom
well, " for the reverence of the holy sacrament, did sit and
preside at the disputation process of the miserable heretic who
was burned on the 20th November (1537). It was a wonder
to see with how excellent majesty his highness executed the
office of supreme head. How benignly he essayed to con
vert the miserable man : how strong his highness alleged
against him."!
The creed was neither completed, nor sufficiently fenced
round by terrible penalties, till an act was passed by the par
liament which sat in April, 1539, entitled, " An act for abol
ishing diversity of opinions."! By this act, whoever preaches
against the natural body of Jesus Christ being present in the
sacrament, or that there remaineth any substance of bread
and wine in it, is declared and adjudged a heretic, and shall
suffer the pains of death by burning. The fluctuating creed
of Henry is extended by the second enactment of this clause,
which includes, for the first time, the Lutheran doctrine of
consubstantiation ; thus marking the least deviation from the
orthodox doctrine on this point as criminal in the highest de
gree.} All those who preach the necessity of the communion
in both kinds to laymen, or for the marriage of priests, or
against the observance of vows of chastity, or the propriety of
private masses, or the fitness of auricular confession ; all
priests who shall marry after having advisedly made vows of
chastity, shall suffer the pains of death as felons ; and all those
who maintain the same errors in any other manner may be
imprisoned during the king's pleasure.
* Collier, ii. 152, &c. t Notfs Surrey, ii. 328. J 31 Hen. 8. c. 14.
§ Cranmer and Latimer were then of the same opinion.

188 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1537.
Cranmer was compelled by the terrors of this statute to
send his wife secretly to Germany. The partisans of the old
faith openly rejoiced at so decisive a pledge that the king
would not wade more deeply into heresy. Latimer, bishop of
Worcester, the most upright, sincere, and frank of men,
braved the king's resentments by resigning his bishopric with
in a week after this sanguinary law was passed. His exam
ple was followed by Shaxton, bishop of Salisbury, one of the
shining lights of " the new learning." But the old religion
still retained so much power, or the late policy of the king
was so odious to a large part of the people, that the persecut
ing law was popular, and contributed to efface the odium in
curred by the spectacle of so many proprietors expelled from
their homes as the suffering monks.
The variations of policy in this reign have generally some
connexion with revolutions in Henry's palace and in his bed.
The fate of Anne Boleyn, who, if not attached to the Protest
ant religion by her faith, was at least bound to the Protestant
party by her honor, was deeply deplored by Cranmer, by Me-
lancthon, and by all the leaders of reformation at home and
abroad. Jane Seymour became friendly to the Protestants from
circumstances, of which enough is not known of her private
history to explain. She died in childbed of Edward VI. on
the 13th of October, 1537.
The next choice made by or for Henry, who remained a
widower for the period of more than two years, afforded an
indication of the progress of men in general towards reforma
tion. The princess Anne, sister of the duke of Cleves, a con
siderable prince on the Lower Rhine, who had lately estab
lished Lutheranism in his principality, was sought in marriage
by the king of England. The pencil of Holbein was employed
to paint this lady for the king, who, pleased by the execution,
gave the flattering artist credit for a faithful likeness. He met
her at Dover, and almost immediately betrayed his disappoint
ment. Without descending into disgusting particulars, it is
necessary to state, that though the marriage was solemnized,
the king treated the princess of Cleves as a friend. He early
declared that he had felt a repugnance to her from some per
sonal peculiarities which are not alluring, and which he de
scribed in their full grossness. The king's indisposition to the
princess of Cleves continued to increase during six months of
cohabitation, though we are not told that it prompted him to
actual discourtesy. The Common pretext of pre-contract, in
this case alleged to be with a prince of Lorraine, was at first
suggested. It was at last resolved to accomplish the purpose
by means still more undisguised. On the 6th of July, 1540,

1540. ANNE OF CLEVES. 189
the king's ministers consulted the house of lords on his dis
tress. These obsequious peers humbly addressed their master,
to remind him of the calamities suffered by the nation from
disputed successions, and entreated him to prevent their re
currence, by ordering inquiry to be made into the doubts
respecting the validity of his marriage with the lady Anne of
Cleves. The commons concurred with the lords, and the
king granted their prayer, referring the consideration of the
subject to the convocation.* The whole of this drama was
arranged, and all the parts of it were cast, three days before,
at the privy-council, who communicated it to Clark bishop of
Bath, minister of Cleves, in a dispatch of the 3d of July. It is
a lamentable fact that a man with so many good qualities as
Cranmer should be a party to such a mockery. The whole
convocation, however, vied in compliance with tiie parliament
They declared the marriage to be null, by the consent of the
lady Anne, and after a full consideration of all the circum
stances, none of which they deign to specify.! Her consent
was insured by a liberal income of 3000Z. a year, and she
lived for sixteen years in England with the title of princess
Anne of Cleves. The loyal nobles hastened to entertain a bill
for the nullity. On the 13th of July it was read twice and
passed. Two archbishops and eighteen bishops were present ;
of whom Bonner of London and Gardiner of Winchester were
two. J: This bill received the royal assent on the 24th of July,
1540, the day of the close of the session and of the dissolution
of the parliament
It is singular, though very characteristic of the reign, that
this annulment once more displayed the triumph of an English
lady over a foreign princess ; and that the triumphant beauty
should be the cousin-german of Anne Boleyn. This was lady
Catharine Howard, niece to the duke of Norfolk, whom the
king wedded on the 8th of August, 1540, about a fortnight
after the parliament had enabled him to form another union.
But before we proceed to relate the sequel of this fourth mar
riage, it is necessary to throw a glance backward on the fate
of Cromwell, who was the author of the marriage with Anne.
Seldom has any statesman fallen from the summit of power
and greatness more suddenly than Cromwell. A bill to attaint
him of high treason was read a first time on the 17th of June,
1540 ; on which day he took his place as earl of Essex, and
vicegerent of the king, in the royal character of supreme head
* Lords' Journals, 153.
f 32 Hen. 8. c. 25. The act for dissolving the pretended marriage with the
lady Anne recites this determination of the clergy.
X 1 Lords' Journals, 155.

190 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1540.
of the church.* So far was the accused from being heard in
his own defence, that in two days more, viz. on the 19th, the
bill was read a second and third time, passed unanimously,
and sent down to the house of commons. On the 29th of June
it came back from the commons, and was once more passed
by the lords without a dissentient voice.! He was charged
by the bill of attainder with heresy and treason : the first,
because he favored heretical preachers, patronized their works,
and discouraged informations against them : the second, be
cause he had received bribes, released many prisoners con
fined for misprision of treason, and performed several acts of
royal authority without warrant from the king ; but more
especially because he had declared, two years before, "that
if the king would turn from the preachers of the new learn
ing, yet he, Cromwell, would not ; but would fight in the field
in his own person, with his sword in his hand, to defend it
against the king himself.":): But the condemnation of a man
unheard is a case in which the strongest presumptions ao-ainst
the prosecution are warranted. That he was zealous for fur
ther reformation is certain: that he may have used warm
language to express his zeal ; that he may have transgressed
the bounds of official duty to favor the new opinion, are alle
gations in themselves not improbable : but as we do not know
the witnesses who gave testimony; as we do not even know
whether there were any examined; and, indeed, know nothing
but that he was not heard in his own defence ; it is perfectly
evident that whether the words or deeds ascribed to Cromwell
were really his or not, is a question, without any decision on
which the judicial proceedings (if they deserve that name)
may be pronounced to be altogether void of any shadow of
justice. Cranmer, in a very earnest and persuasive letter,
endeavored to obtain from the king the preservation of Crom
well's life. The archbishop, like Atticus, never forsook his
friends in their distress; but, like that famous Roman, he too
often bent the knee to their oppressors. §

* 1 Lords' Journals, 145.
t "Communi omnium procerum tunc presentium consensu, nemine
dissente." I Burn. Hist, of Reform, book iii. A. D. 1540. The bill of attainder at
length, in Burn. Rec. book iii. No. 16.
§ The character of Cromwell may be estimated from the following extracts
from a, memorandum bookof that minister, published by Mr.Ellis: 
" Item— the abbot of Reding to be sent down to be tried and executed at
Reding, with his complices."
" Item— the abbot of Glastonbury to be tried at Glaston, and also to be
executed there, with his complices."
" Item— to advertise the kingof the ordering of maister Fisher" (the bishop).
" Item— to know his pleasure touching maister More " (Sir Thomas More).

1540. CARDINAL POLE. 191
The execution of Cromwell, though an act of flagrant in
justice, was for a time popular. The most active conductor
of a wide system of confiscation must do much wrong, besides
what is involved in the very nature of rapine. He must often
cover his rpbberies by false accusations and unjust executions.
He treats the complaints of the spoiled as crimes. He excites
revolt, and is the author of that necessity which compels him
to punish the revolters. He connives at the atrocities of his
subalterns ; for with what face can the leader of a gang re
prove banditti for the injustice and cruelty which are the
cement of their discipline and the wages of their obedience?
The Roman Catholic party, incensed against Cromwell,
neither unnaturally nor unjustly, had now resumed much of
their ascendant. The act of the six articles was in the full
vigor of its cruelty. In all the course of Henry's fluctuations
between his schismatic establishment and his Catholic doc
trines, there probably was no period at which he was driven
to a greater distance from Protestants than during the six
months of his apparent union with a. princess of a Lutheran
family. The duke of Norfolk, the leader of the Catholic laity,
was suspected of being influenced by another motive besides
the interest of his party, in the share which he took in the
destruction of Cromwell. He confidently expected that it
would be followed by the elevation of his niece, lady Catha
rine Howard, to the throne ; a promotion which promised,
indeed, to serve his cause, as well as to honor his person and
enlarge his power. Among the various circumstances which
caused Cromwell to die unpitied, it was not the least, that he
had himself set the example of attainder without trial, oftener
than any other minister. He fell by his own snares.
One of the most cruel of these iniquitous executions was
that of Courtney marquis of Exeter, with lord Montague and
Sir Edward Nevil, whose guilt seems to have consisted only
in their descent from Edward IV. Exeter was charged with
the very improbable offence of conspiring to place Reginald
Pole on the throne, although the title of Exeter himself was
preferable. Reginald Pole, best known as a cardinal, was
the son of Margaret Plantagenet, daughter to the duke of
Clarence, by Sir Richard Pole, a knight of ancient descent
in Wales. He passed much of his life in Italy, where he
was the rival and delight of the most accomplished poets, ar
tists, and scholars, who adorned that brilliant age. Henry
" Item — when maister Fisher shall go."
" Item — to send unto the king by Raffe the behaviour of maister Fisher."
" To send Qurdon to the Tower, to be rakked."

192 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1541.
seemed to have been proud of him. He defrayed his rela
tion's expenses munificently, and was certainly eager in his
wish to obtain the sanction of a learned and celebrated person
of his royal blood to his marriages and divorces. He was
doubtless sincere in his urgent invitations and ample offers ;
but it might have been unsafe for so near a connexion of the
house of York to trust himself to the inconstant friendship
of his royal cousin.
He could not forget the murder of his uncle, the earl of
Warwick, by Henry VII. , more especially as he himself as
sured his biographer Beccatelli of the agreement of Henry
and Ferdinand, in 1499, that the death of Warwick should
precede the marriage of Arthur and Catharine. It is also
probable, though, considering the religious opinion then
prevalent among Italian men of letters, it cannot be certainly
known, that Pole's piety was sincere, and his zeal for the papal
authority honest. At all events, generosity and honor forbade
the desertion of faithful companions. Pole declined the ad
vances of the king, and openly professed his condemnation of
the divorce. Henry's hatred was kindled in proportion to
the ardor of his desires to obtain Pole's friendship and appro
bation. The monarch took a dreadful revenge. Margaret
Pole, a Plantagenet, the cardinal's mother, was attainted of
high treason, perhaps under the pretext of a mother's corre
spondence with her son. She was imprisoned for two years
in the Tower ; and was treated variously, as might seem con
ducive to the purposes of subduing or melting down her re
sistance. She was beheaded on the 27th of May, 1541. She
refused to lay her head on the scaffold, saying that " it was
for traitors to do so, which she was not.' She moved, or
was thought to move, aside a, hair-breadth from the spot,
seemingly as a sort of protest against an execution without
trial. The executioner, alarmed and confounded, struck
several cuts at her, which covered her gray hairs with blood
before they altogether extinguished life.
The king, who had wedded Catharine Howard only in
August, 1540, received such information in November follow
ing of her dissolute life before marriage, as immediately
caused a rigid inquiry into her behavior. The facts are con
tained in a dispatch from the privy-council to the ambassador
at Paris, dated on the 12th of November, and they are re
lated with a circumstantial exactness, forming almost a con
trast to the vagueness of all former proceedings of the like
sort. The facts, which are too gross to be stated, the names
of the witnesses, the share of Cranmer in communicating
the information to the king (which appears indeed to have

1541. CATHARINE HOWARD EXECUTED. 193
been inevitable), in a word, whatever can illustrate or estab
lish a charge, are fully related in the dispatch. There is no
evidence that Cranmer was ever guilty of a malicious or vin
dictive act. The confessions of Catharine and of lady Roch-
ford, upon which they were attainted in parliament, and exe
cuted in the Tower on the 14th of February, are not said to
have been at any time questioned. It is difficult to withhold
belief from the facts ; but the baseness of the parliament,
who entreated the king not to give his assent in person to
the bill, and the facility with which he doomed these females
to execution, in spite of the sensibility which the slavish
parliament ascribed to him, are very slightly, if at all, exten
uated by the truth of the charge. ¦ The authentic accounts
known to us relate chiefly to the vices of Catharine before
marriage. Some acts of infidelity subsequent to the marriage are in
deed recited, and were necessary to bring the charge within
the most forced construction of the statute of Edward III.
It contains, however, another abominable clause, which makes
it high treason in any Woman whom the king is. about to
marry, not to confess her unchas'ity to him, if she has been
actually unchaste, This clause, it may be supposed, would
have occurred to no tyrant if there had been no misgiving,
in the particular case, of acts done after marriage.* To
make the concealment of vices a capital offence was worthy
of such a reign. The mind of Henry, under color of pre
serving the public quiet by guarding the succession, was in
tent on fencing round a sort of successive seraglio, by all the
horrors which could deter intruders from its approaches.
Every woman who now aspired to share his throne might,
without a very powerful fancy, imagine that she saw the
heads of her predecessors planted on the walls of his palace.
His regard to the mere forms of wedlock, joined to a contempt
for kindness and tenderness, " the weightier matters of the
law," made him a more cruel tyrant than he could have been,
if he had disregarded the exterior as much as he offended
against the substance of that important union. It appears,
accordingly, that after the tremendous enactment which made
the concealment of incontinency a capital offence, the offer
of his hand was more dreaded than courted; so that the
youthful beauties stood off from a royal seat, which placed
their lives at the mercy of the king's mistakes as well as of
his passions.!
* 31 Hen. 8. c. 21. An act for the attainder of Catharine Howard and her
accomplices. t Herbert, ii. Kenn. 238.
Vol. II. R

194 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1543.
On the 10th of July, 1543, Henry wedded Catharine Parr,
the widow of lord Latimer, a lady of mature age, who showed
the same favorable disposition to the reformation with all his
English wives, except Catharine Howard. By her elevation
to the throne, the reformers obtained a compensation for the
loss of lord Audley, the chancellor, their secret but steady
friend, who was succeeded by Wriothesley, a patron of the
old doctrine. The prebendaries of Canterbury, excited, as it
was believed, by Gardiner, preferred a voluminous accusation
against Cranmer ; the substance of which was, that he dis
couraged orthodox preachers and protected the heretical ; that
under him the law of the six articles was unexecuted, and
that he had a constant correspondence with the heretics of
Germany. The conduct of Cranmer had been wary, and the
king showed a friendship for the primate, which the uniform
compliance of the latter had too well earned. He escaped
from this conspiracy of his clergy. Sir John Gortwick, mem
ber of parliament for Bedfordshire, complained to the house
of commons against Cranmer for preaching heresy. The
king rebuked Gortwick severely. The Roman Catholic party
renewed their attack in the privy-council, complaining that
"Cranmer and his learned men had so infected the whole
realm with their unsavory doctrines, that three parts of the
land were become abominable heretics." The king termi
nated the affair by declaring, that he accounted " the arch
bishop of Canterbury to be as faithful a man to the crown as
ever was prelate in this realm."
Catharine had read Lutheran books, and even presumed to
enter into theological controversy with her imperious lord.
Wriothesley and Gardiner were directed to give order for
her imprisonment, and to' prepare articles of impeachment
against her. Hearing this intelligence, she fell into a succes
sion of fits, in consequence of which he was carried to her
apartment (for he was now too unwieldy to walk), where he
said, " Kate, you are a doctor." — " No." said she, " sir, I only
wished to divert you from your pain by an argument, in
which you so much shine." — " Is it so, sweetheart 1" said he ;
" then we are friends again." By this stratagem did she
escape the vengeance of the royal polemic, which, during
the remainder of his life, she never again ventured to pro
voke.* In the beginning of the year 1543, Henry renewed his
friendship with the emperor, long suspended by the discussions
respecting the divorce and marriage of the English monarch.
* Strype's Cranmer, c. 26, 27, 28.

1544. WAR WITH FRANCE. 195
They concluded an alliance against Francis, whom they repre
sented as." the ally of the Turks."* The beginning of the
war was inconsiderable. On the 14th of July, 1544, Henry,
who still affected a fondness for warlike shows, passed the
seas in a ship with sails of cloth of gold, leaving the regency
in the hands of Catharine. The imperial ambassador urged
his immediate advance to Paris : but the king of England
rather followed the example than the counsel of the emperor,
who had already added several French towns to his Burgun-
dian territory. The duke of Suffolk marched to invest Bou
logne, which was gallantly defended by Vervins, the French
governor. The English general was speedily followed by the
duke of Albuquerque, the commander of the imperial auxilia
ries, and by Henry himself, who, in spite of his huge and dis
tempered body, came " armed at all points upon a great
courser." The lower town was taken before the 21st of July ;
but the high town did not surrender till the 14th of Septem
ber, and then on terms well merited by a brave defence. The
king made his triumphant entry on the 18th into this city, of
which the reduction was somewhat characteristic of Henry's
warfare ; having a sort of middle character between a siege
and a tournament and chiefly remarkable as a display of
prowess, and an exhibition of the feats of arms of the youth
of two warlike nations.! On the same day with Henry's tri
umphal entrance into Boulogne, the emperor made a separate
peace with France at Cressy, alleging Henry's attack on Bou
logne as a departure from the general objects of the alliance.
A secret article is said to have formed a part of that treaty of
Cressy, for the destruction of the religious revolt which was
now spreading in France, in the Netherlands, and in Switzer
land. But it is not probable that the projects of Charles V
and Henry II. were at that period so mature as to be reduced
to diplomatic formalities. The French, under the mareschal
de Monluc, were repulsed in an attempt to retake Boulogne.
They disembarked in the Isle of Wight and in Sussex. Seve
ral indecisive skirmishes occurred at sea. These unimportant
hostilities were closed by a treaty signed on' the 7th of June,
1546, and somewhat singularly dated "under tents in the
fields between Ardres and Guines," of which the principal
stipulation was, that within eight years Henry should receive
two millions of crowns, with arrears and costs which are
* Rymer, xiv. 768, &c. "Contra Franciscum cum Turcka. confederatum."
,11th Feb. 1542 (1543).
f Diary of the siege of Boulogne, 21st July to 25th September, 1544, Her
bert, 245.

196 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1546.
enumerated ; and on payment of these sums, Boulogne and
its dependencies should be restored to Francis.
The cruelty of Henry continued conspicuous to the last, in
the alternate but impartial persecution of the Lutherans as
heretics, and of the papists as traitors. But it seems to have
been somewhat mitigated in his last years to his court and
kindred ; probably from the languor of distemper, which might
put on some appearance of mildness, and produce some of the
effects of good-nature towards those on whose kind offices he
was necessarily dependent. This general softening was
chequered by occasional acts of extreme harshness, which,
for the sake of equal justice, may be laid to the account of his
occasional paroxysms of pain, which are said to have been
unusually acute. His body had become so unwieldy, that he
could not be moved without machines contrived for the pur
pose. An oppression on his breathing rendered it difficult for
him to relieve himself by a recumbent posture. The signa
ture of his name became too heavy a task for his feeble or
overloaded hands. Stamps with his initials were affixed in
his presence, and by his verbal command, to all the instru
ments which required the royal signature. He became offen
sive to his humblest attendants by an ulcer in one of his
swollen limbs, which often subjected him to the extremity of
pain. It was in this miserable condition of Henry that an act was
done by him, or in his name, which has become memorable
and interesting from the fame of an illustrious sufferer. Henry
Howard, earl of Surrey, is so justly renowned by his poetical
genius, which was then surpassed in his own country by none
but that of Chaucer ; by his happy imitations of the Italian mas
ters; by aversion of the jEneid, of which the execution is won
derful, and the very undertaking betokens the consciousness of
lofty superiority ; by the place in which we are accustomed
to behold him, at the head of the uninterrupted series of Eng
lish poets ; that we find it difficult to regard him in those in
ferior points of view, of a gallant knight, a skilful captain, and
an active statesman, which, in the eyes of his contemporaries,
eclipsed the lustre of his literary renown. He had served
with distinction in the late war against France, where differ
ences with the earl of Hertford, whom Surrey accused of
having supplanted him in command, were widened. Hertford
was the brother of Jane Seymour, and the uncle of the young
prince. The rapid decay of the king added daily to his con
sequence, and increased his desire to insure an undivided
power over his nephew. Hertford so soon after gave full
scope to his attachment for the reformation, that we cannot

1546. HOWARD, EARL OP SURREY. 197
suppose him not to have been a Protestant while Henry yet
lived. As none of the reformed nobility exposed themselves
to legal punishment by an 'avowal of their faith, so the Catho
lic lords concealed their attachments to the papal power,
which would have been an unpardonable crime in the eyes of
Henry. These circumstances render it difficult to ascertain
the real opinions of the earl of Surrey. But we know the
opinions of his father, and the inclinations of his family, so
perfectly, that there can be little doubt of Surrey being at
least an adherent of the Catholic party. The house of How
ard alone stood in the way of the Seymours in their pursuits,
under the approaching minority. Personal pique, religious
dissension, political jealousy, all pointed in the same direction.
The means by which Henry was enlisted in the service of
this confederacy of passions are unknown ; but it is likely that
he was easily filled with apprehension by representations of
the power and greatness of the Howards, who alone could en
danger the royal seat of his son.
Whatever were the motives or means employed, the earl
of Surrey, together with his father, was, on the 12th of De
cember, 1546, imprisoned in the Tower.* The legal ground
of proceeding was the sweeping section of more than one re
cent statute which made it high treason " to do any thing, by
word, writing, or deed, to the scandal or peril of the establish
ed succession to the crown." The only overt act alleged
against him was his having assumed the armorial bearing of
Edward the Confessor, " which had been hitherto exclusively
used by his majesty and his predecessors, kings of England."!
Of the witnesses who were examined in support of this
charge, the first was Mrs. Holland, the mistress of the duke
of Norfolk. She only mentioned the duke having blamed his
son for want of skill in quartering the family arms, and " had
spoken with warmth against the new nobility (meaning the
Seymours), who did not love him." The second witness was
the duchess of Richmond, the widow of Henry's natural son,
a young and very beautiful woman, who, though the daughter
of Norfolk, now appeared to swear away the lives of her father
and her brother. She deposed that her brother Surrey had
spoken with asperity of Hertford ; that he had professed a dis
like of " the new nobility," and complained of the king as the
cause of the defeat of the English before Boulogne. She add
ed, seemingly of her own accord, that Surrey wore on his
* 23 Hen. 8. c. 7. was the last. Similar clauses are in the acts of the 25th
and of the 27th of Henry.
t Nott's Works of Surrey, i. Appen. No. 33.
R2

198 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1547.
arms, instead of a ducal coronet, what seemed to her judg
ment very like a close crown, and a cipher, which she took to
be the king's H R. ; two matters, however, which had no con
nexion with the accusation.
Surrey was tried on the 13th of January, 1547, at Guild
hall ; and on this absurd charge, supported by such monstrous
evidence, he was convicted of high treason.* On the 19th
or 21st of January he was executed, either six or eight days
before Henry died, " who," says Holinshed, " on the day of
lord Surrey's execution, was lying in the agonies of death."
As the king's sick bed was surrounded by Surrey's enemies,
it must be always uncertain whether the hand of Henry was,
even in the lowest bodily sense, affixed to the instrument which
warranted the execution.
The duke of Norfolk, who seems to have owed his misfor
tunes originally to the resentment of the duchess, whom he
had long deserted for Mrs. Holland, was importuned into an
imperfect confession of acts which were almost blamable. A
bill of attainder was introduced against him, founded on his
confession. The royal assent was given to it in virtue of a
commission signed by the stamps on the 27th of January, and
orders were sent to the Tower for the execution in the morn
ing. But Henry died in the night. The execution was sus
pended. The duke was confined during the next reign ; but
in that of Mary the attainder was reversed, on the grounds
that the act could not be treason, because the arms had been
long publicly borne in the presence of the kings of England ;
that the king died in the night following the day on which
the commission bears date ; and that the commission is not
signed with his name, but with stamps put thereunto not in
the place where he was accustomed to put them ; and it was
also declared that the royal assent can only be given by the
king, either in his own person or by letters patent under the
great seal, according to a statute of 33 Henry VIII., and that
the pretended act of attainder shall be taken and deemed to
be no act of parliament!
At two o'clock in the night between the 27th and 28th of
January, 1547, Henry VIII. breathed his last in his palace at
Westminster, in the thirty-fifth year of his reign and fifty-
sixth of his age. On Saturday, the 29th, parliament met
* Six of the twelve jurors appear, from their names, to be men of ancient
note in Norfolk, from which county they were summoned: Paston, Boleyn,
Woodhouse, L'Estrange, Hobart, Bedingfield.
tNott's Surrey, i. Appen. No. 50., from the original at Norfolk-house.
Nothing is contained in the authentic edition of the statutes, but the title
of the statute of Mary, " An act to declare the pretended attainder of
Thomas duke of Norfolk to be void and of no effect."

1547. DEATH OF HENRY. 199
according to their adjournment, and transacted ordinary busi
ness. It was not till Monday, the last day of January, " that,
in presence of all the peers, and of the knights and burgesses,
Wriothesley the chancellor announced to them the decease
of their late dread lord, which," says the record, " was un
speakably sad and sorrowful to all the hearers ; the chancellor
himself being almost disabled by his tears from uttering the
words: at last, however, when they had composed their lament
ations and consoled their grief by calling to mind the promise
of ability and virtue already given by prince Edward, and
having heard a great part of the king's testament read by
Sir William Paget, secretary of state, the present parliament
was declared by the lord chancellor to be dissolved by the
demise of the crown."*
This parliamentary consideration of a royal testament im
plying that right of bequeathing a nation which had been so
decisively repelled in the minority of Henry VI., requires
some explanation. The act of settlement passed on Henry
VLII.'s marriage with Jane had vested the power of bequeath
ing the realm in the crown on failure of the king's legitimate
issue, no such issue being then in existence.-! About three
years before the king's decease, this unbounded and oriental
power was abridged by a statute, which, after the failure of
male progeny, limited the succession to Mary and Elizabeth,
without any consideration of their irreconcilable claims, or
of their common illegitimacy ; on condition, however, of these
princesses observing the terms, if any, to be prescribed by
the king ; and in the case of their death or forfeiture, the
unlimited power of devise was revested in the crown.J The
king's property in his people was still maintained, as his
daughters were not to inherit by the fundamental laws, but to
receive a conditional and defeasible authority under his will.
By the will of Henry, executed on the 30th of December
preceding his death, all the powers of government were, du
ring the minority, vested in fifteen persons therein named}
(called in the will executors, to keep up the language of the
doctrine of ownership.)
In 1539,|| the submissive parliament passed an act "that
proclamations by the king in council should b'e obeyed as
* Lords' Journals, i. 291. f 28 Hen. 8. c. 7. s. 9.
% 35 Hen. 8. c. 4.
§ Archbishop of Canterbury, lord chancellor Wriothesley, Sir John Hert
ford, Russell, Lisle, bishop Tunstall, Brown, master of the horse ; Montague,
chief justice of the Common Pleas; Bromley, a justice; North, Paget,
Denny, Harberd, and two Woottons.
]| 31 Hen. 8. c. 8.

200 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1547.
though they were made by act of parliament, under such
pains as such proclamations shall appoint :" providing, how
ever, that the punishment shall not extend to death or forfeit
ure, except in case of heresy ; and that the proclamation
shall not have the power of repealing laws, or of abolishing
the ancient usages of the realm. Offenders were to be tried
in the court of star-chamber ; and if they took refuge from
its mercy in a foreign land, were declared to be guilty of high
treason. One of the reasons assigned for it, (as Mr. Hal-lam
has, with his usual sagacity and manliness, observed,) " that
the king should not be driven to extend the liberty and su
premacy given him by God, by the wilfulness of froward sub
jects," is more shocking than the statute itself. The excep
tion of heresy showed how widely the undefined supremacy
had thrown open the door for the entrance of despotism ; for
no bounds seemed possible to an authority which united the
power of the king with that of the pope, and the pretext of
heresy furnished the ready means of crushing any opponent*
But though no language can adequately condemn the base
subserviency of Henry's parliament, it may be reasonably
doubted whether his reign was, in its ultimate consequences,
. injurious to public liberty. The immense revolutions of his
time in property, in religion, and in the inheritance of the
crown, never could have been effected without the concurrence
of parliament. Their acquiescence and co-operation in the
spoliation of property, and the condemnation of the innocent,
tempted him to carry all his purposes into execution, through
their means. Those who saw the' attainders of queens, the
alteration of an established religion, and the frequent disturb
ance of the regal succession, accomplished by acts of parlia
ment, considered nothing as beyond the jurisdiction of so
potent an assembly.! If the supremacy was a tremendous
power, it accustomed the people to set no bounds to the au
thority of those who bestowed it on the king. The omnipo
tence of parliament appeared no longer a mere hyperbole.
Let it not be supposed, that to mention the good thus finally
educed from such evils, is intended or calculated to palliate
crimes, or to lessen our just abhorrence of criminals. Nothing,
on the contrary, seems more to exalt the majesty of virtue
than to point out the tendency of the moral government of
the world, which, as in this instance, turns the worst enemies
* An old writer very significantly said, " Henry was a king with a pope
in his belly."
t The observations of Nathaniel Bacon, or rather of Selden, from whose
MS. notes he is said to have written his book, deserve serious consideration.
Bacon on the Laws and Government of England, chap. 27.

1547. PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 201
of all that is good into the laborious slaves of justice. Of all
outward benefits, the most conducive to virtue as well as to
happiness is, doubtless, popular and representative govern
ment. It is the reverse of a degradation of it to observe, that
its establishment among us was- perhaps partially promoted
by the sensuality, rapacity, and cruelty of Henry VIII. The
course of affairs is always so dark, the beneficial consequences
of public events are so distant and uncertain, that the attempt
to do evil in order to produce good is in men a most criminal
usurpation. Some direct benefits the constitution owes to this reign.
The act whch established a parliamentary representation in
so considerable a territory as Wales may be regarded as the
principal reformation in the composition of the house of com
mons since its legal maturity in the time of Edward I. That
principality had been divided into twelve shires ; of which
eight were ancient,* and four owed their origin to a statute
of Henry's reign.! Knights, citizens, and burgesses were
now directed to be chosen and sent to parliament from the
shires, cities, and burghs, of Wales.f A short time before,
the same privileges were granted to the county palatine of
Chester, of which the preamble contains a memorable recog
nition and establishment of the principles which are the basis
of the elective part of our constitution.} Nearly thirty mem
bers were thus added to the house of commons on the prin
ciple of the Chester bill : that it is disadvantageous to a prov
ince to be unrepresented ; that representation is essential to
good government ; and that those who are bound by the laws
ought to have a reasonable share of direct influence on the
passing of laws. As the practical disadvantages are only gene
rally alleged, and could scarcely have been proved, they must
have been inferred from the nature of a house of commons.
The British constitution was not thought to be enjoyed by a
district till a popular representation was bestowed on it.
* Glamorgan, Carmarthen, Pembroke, Cardigan,- Flint, Carnarvon, Angle
sea, and Merioneth.
f Radnor, Brecknock, Montgomery, and Denbigh. 27 Hen. 8. c. 26.
I 34 &. 35 Hen. 8. c. 26. s. 50
§ 34 & 35 Hen. 8. c. 13. " That the said county have hitherto been ex
cluded from the high court of parliament, to have any. knights and burgesses
within the said court, by reason whereof the inhabitants have sustained
manifold damages in their lands, goods, and bodies, as well as in the good gov
ernance of the commonwealth of their said country ; and forasmuch as they
have been bound by the acts, of the said court, and yet have had no knights
and burgesses therein, for lack whereof they have been often touched and
grieved by the acts of the said parliament, prejudicial to the commonwealth,
quietness, rest, and peace of your highness's bounden subjects, inhabiting
within the said county," &c.

202 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1547.
Election by the people was regarded, not as a source of
tumult, but as the principle most capable of composing dis
order in territories not represented.
But it is chiefly by its relation to the infant reformation of
religion that this reign became a period of great importance
in the general history of Europe. The last twenty years of it
is to be considered as a time of transition from Popery to Pro
testantism. It must be owned that it required a vigorous, and
even a harsh hand, to keep down all the fear and hatred ; all
the conscientious but furious zeal of Catholics and Gospellers ;
the whole mass of passion and of interest which were stirred
up by so prodigious a revolution in human opinion.
An ecclesiastical dictatorship might have been excused in
a time full of peril. At the beginning the Protestants (even
if we number all the anti-papists among them) formed a small,
though intelligent and bold minority. They grew stronger by
degrees, as opinions and parties which are the children of the
age naturally do. Their strength lay in the towns on the
southern and eastern coasts, and among the industrious classes
of society. In the northern and midland provinces, and in the
mountains of Wales, far removed from commerce with the
heretics of Flanders and Germany, the ancient faith main
tained its authority. At the end of this reign it is still doubt
ful whether the majority had changed sides. Henry had few
qualifications for an umpire. But it was a public service that
he restrained both factions, and kept the peace during this
dangerous process. Had he been only severe and stern,
instead of plunging into barbarism and butchery, his services
might be commended, and some allowance might be made for
the necessity of curbing uncivilized men by -rough means.
Had the Protestant party risen against him they must have
been vanquished, and he would have been driven back into
the arms of Rome. The iron hand which held back both
parties from battle was advantageous to the Protestant cause,
humanly speaking ; only because the opinions and institutions
which spring up in an age are likely to be the most progressive.
His grotesque authority as head of the church, his double per
secution of Romanists and Lutherans, his passion for transub-
stantiation, and his abhorrence of appeals to a court at Rome,
may be understood, if we regard his reign as a bridge which
the nation was to pass on its road to more complete reforma
tion. This peculiar character was given to the latter portion
of his reign by the combined power of his adherence to the
Catholic doctrines, and of his impatience of papal authority,
by the connexion of this last disposition with the validity of his
marriages and the legitimacy of his children ; by the manifold

1547. MARTIN LUTHER. 203
and intricate ties which at various times blended the interest
of each religious party with the succession to the crown ; an
object which the recent remembrance of the war of the Roses
might render very important to any prince, but which became
the ruling frenzy of Henry's mind. The reformers needed
the acquisition of one great state for the stability and solidity
of their reform. They gained England. As soon as the hand
was withdrawn which held the statesmen and the people
dumb, the reformation was established. England continues to
this day to be the only power of the first class which main
tains the reformed doctrines.
Eleven months before the decease of the English monarch,
Luther breathed his last in his native town of Eisleben, which
he had not visited for many years. He died of an inflamma
tion in his chest, which cut him off in twenty-four hours, in
the sixty-third year of his age. His last moments were placid,
and employed in prayers for the well-being of the church, now
more than ever threatened by the Roman pontiff, supported as
he was by the great council of his followers convoked at
Trent. It ought not to be doubted by a just man, of whatever
communion, that Martin Luther was an honest, disinterested,
and undaunted man, magnanimous in prosperous as well as
adverse fortune, without the slightest taint of any disposition
which rested on self as its final aim, elevated by the con
sciousness of this purity in his motives, and by the humble
desire to conform his mind to the model of supreme perfection,
and to adapt his actions to the laws which flowed from the
source of all good, through reason and through revelation.
On the other hand, it must be allowed that his virtues were
better fitted for revolutions than for quiet ; that he often sacri
ficed peace and charity to trivial differences of opinion, or
perhaps unmeaning oppositions of language; and that his
scurrilous and merciless writings, as a controversialist, both
manifested and excited very odious passions. But the object
of his life was religious truth ; and, in the pursuit of this
single and sublime end, he delivered reason from the yoke of
human authority, and contributed to set it free from all sub
jection, except that which is due to Supreme Wisdom —
" whose service is perfect freedom."
The tales propagated against this great man prove his for
midable power. He was said openly to deride all that he
taught, to have composed hymns to his favorite vice of drunk
enness, to disbelieve the immortality of the soul ; nay, even
to have been an atheist. He was represented to have been
the fruit of the commerce of his mother with a demon, — a
feble which, in the end of the seventeenth century, writers

204 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1547.
of some reputation thought it necessary to disavow. Notes of
his table-talk, published many years after his death, and then,
perhaps, very inaccurately, continued to furnish the viler sort
of antagonists with means of abuse, in the ardent phrases
which fell from him amidst the negligence of familiar con
versation.* At the moment of his death, Lutheranism was established
only in Scandinavia, and in those parts of Germany which
had embraced it when it was first preached. The extent,
however, of its invisible power over the minds of men was
not to be measured by the magnitude of the countries where
it was legally predominant. Bold inquiry, active curiosity,
excited reason, youthful enthusiasm, throughout every country
of Europe, in secret cherished a Lutheran spirit. Henry, as
we have seen, was impelled, by a singular combination of
circumstances, to prepare the way in England for embodying
that spirit in a civil establishment. Calvin, who was called
by his eminent contemporaries! the greatest divine since the
apostles, had now spread the seeds of reformation throughout
France. Had Luther survived a few years longer, he would
have seen the second and more terrible eruption of the refor
mation in the civil wars of France, in which the Protestant
party maintained their ground for thirty years, and obtained
a partial establishment for near a century, though they were
finally doomed to defeat and dispersion. In Italy, most well-
educated men, who were not infidels, became secret Protest
ants. The inquisition did not entirely exempt the Spanish
peninsula from innovation. If 100,000J or 50,000 Protestants
suffered for religion in the Netherlands, during the govern
ment of Charles V., we can desire no better proof of the
prevalence of the reformation in these rich and lettered prov
inces. Already monarchs, now become absolute, began to
apprehend that the spirit of inquiry would extend from reli
gion to civil government,} tor, in their language, prove as
fatal to the state as to the church. Such, at a much earlier
period, were the fears with which the insurrection of the
German peasants had filled the mind of Sir Thomas More.||
* Bayle, art. Luther. - f Scaliger.
X " Postquara carnificata plusquam centum millia." — Orot. Ann. lib. i.
§ "Plerisque principibus infixum, unum reipublicie corpus una religione
velut spiritu contineri. Ciesari persuasum fuit proculcata sacerdotum re-
verentia ne ipsi quidem mansurum obsequium." — Ibid.
On the other side a decisive principle had begun to dawn on the mind of
the wise, — *> neminem volentem errare aut nolenteri credere." Orot.
Jinn. lib. ii.
|| "Of this sect (the Lutherans) was the great part of those ungracious
people who of late entered Rome with the duke of Bourbon, who like very

1547. EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION. 205
The intention of quelling this general revolt of the minds of
men by a confederacy of princes, although not fully unfolded,
was, we are told, one of the motives of the treaty of Francis
I. with Charles I., which preceded the last peace between
France and England.* But points like these are long discussed
among statesmen, and acquire some steady place in their
minds, before the perils grow large enough and come near
enough to be contemplated with practical seriousness, and
long before they are felt to make urgent demands on rulers
for the security of the commonwealth against the threatening
tempest. At the death of Henry VIII. the preponderance
of visible force in the scale of establishment was immense ;
and even the moral force of the state and the church retained
its commanding posture and its aspect of authority, at the
moment when its foundation in opinion was silently crumb
ling from beneath it It is easy to blame this want of fore
sight after events have taught knowledge. But contemporary
statesmen would have acted unwisely, if they were to be in
fluenced in their deliberations concerning present events by
probabilities of future danger so uncertain, even from their
distance, as to be beyond the scope of the active politician,
who is never to forget the shortness of his foresight, and the
moral duty of walking warily when he cannot see clearly. It
was not wonderful that the masters of Europe should adjourn
the consideration of perils which still seemed to belong more
to speculation than to practice, and of a religious revolution
which, in the course of thirty years, had gained no outward
dominion in the more cultivated parts of Europe, except a
small number of German cities and principalities.
beasts outraged wives in the sight of their husbands, and slew the children
in the sight of their fathers." — More's Dialogue on the pestilent Sect of Lu.
titer and Tindal. book iv. c. 7. London, 1530.
"They teach the common people that they be in full freedom, and dis
charged from all laws spiritual and temporal." — Ibid.
" If the world were not near an end, it never could have come to pass
that so many people should fall to the following of so beastly a sect." — c. 9.
* Fra Paolo, lib. ii. in the beginning. The speech ascribed by this great
writer, in his first book, to the cardinal de Volterra, is such as might have
been made in any age of revolutions, by an undistinguishing antagonist
of refc-mation.

Vol. II.

206 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1547.
CHAP. IX.
EDWARD VI.
1547—1553.
In the list of executors appointed by the will of Henry
VIII. we see the decisive predominance of " the new nobili
ty," invidiously so called by their enemies, both because they
were partisans of the new reformers, and because they owed
their sudden rise in wealth to a share in the spoils of the
church. Generally speaking they were gentlemen of ancient
lineage ; but their fortune and rank commonly sprung from
this dubious source. Few of the highest houses were with
out some taint of it. The main body of the English peerage
are a modern nobility raised out of an ancient gentry. The
description is, however, only accurate when the words are
strictly confined to their English sense ; for in the vocabularies
of continental nations the class whom we call "gentry"
would be considered as a portion of the nobility.
As the selection was made at the very moment of the
downfall of the house of Howard, the leaders of the old no
bility and the chiefs of the old faith, the preponderating in
fluence of the earl of Hertford must be supposed to have
presided over the choice of the executors. The will was
executed when the king lay on hjs death-bed, in the hands
of Seymour, Catharine Parr, and Cranmer. The delay of
three days in taking any formal measures relating to the
demise, if it could in our time legally occur, would be cen
sured as a daring assumption. At that time no notice was
taken of it. The young prince, who was at the royal mansion
of Hatfield, was conducted to his sister Elizabeth at her resi
dence at Enfield ; whence he was brought in regal state, and
proclaimed king of England, on Monday, the 31st of January,
1546, or rather 1547. He was born on the 12th of October,
1537; and his proclamation took place when he was nine
years and about three months old. As the late king, in exe
cution of a power vested in him by statute, had appointed the
council called executors to exercise the royal authority in the
minority of his son, they do not seem to have gone substan
tially beyond their power, by nominating one of their num
ber to preside in their deliberations, and to represent the
state on fit and urgent occasions. Hertford was created duke
of Somerset, and assumed, or received, the titles of " gover
nor of his majesty, lord-protector of all his realms, lieutenant-
general of all his armies." This appointment was vainly re-

1547. CHARACTER OF EDWARD. 207
sisted by the chancellor Wriothesley, who considered it as
the grave of the ancient institutions, of which he was now
the most forward champion. In February Edward was
crowned ; and a few days afterwards the great seal was taken
from the refractory chancellor, and placed in the more trust
worthy hands of lord St. John. It might have been difficult
to have regularly removed the chancellor, placed as he was
among the executors by the late king's appointment. But he
afforded a pretext perhaps a reason, for his removal by a very
rash usurpation on his part. Preferring his political power
to his judicial duties, he, without the knowledge of his col
leagues, issued a commission under the great seal, to four
persons, therein named, to hear and determine all causes in
the court of chancery during the chancellor's absence. The
judges, twice consulted, pronounced the chancellor's act to
be an offence, punishable by imprisonment,, fine, and loss of
office, or in other words, a high misdemeanor ; and, perhaps,
the forfeiture of office was thought a necessary consequence
of imprisonment The terror of these penalties compelled
Wriothesley to resign.
The panegyrics on Edward at this time are a good examplS
of the folly of excessive praise. He was in truth a diligent,
docile, gentle, sprightly boy, whose proficiency in every
branch of study was remarkable, and who showed a more than
ordinary promise of capacity. Sycophants, declaimers, enthu
siasts, lovers of the marvellous, almost drowned in a flood of
panegyric his agreeable and amiable qualities. The manu
scripts still extant either essays or letters, might have been
corrected or dictated by his preceptors. It is not probable that
"the diary of his life," which is the most interesting of them,
should be eopied from the production of another hand ; neither
does it indicate the interposition of a corrector. It is, perhaps,
somewhat brief and dry for so young an author ; but the adop
tion of such a plan, and the accuracy with which it is writ
ten, bear marks of an untainted taste and of a considerate
mind. On the 13th of March the council, no longer restrained by
the presence of Wriothesley, proceeded to enlarge the protec
tor's authority, in a manner which was at variance with the
foundation of their own power. They addressed the king to
name the duke of Somerset protector of the king and the
kingdom ; and the royal boy, like Henry VI. in his earliest
infancy, was made to go through the ceremony of ordering
the great seal " to be affixed to letters patent, granting the
title of protector to that nobleman, with full authority to every
thing that he thought for the honor and good of the kingdom ;

208 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1547.
to swear such other commissioners as he should think fit ; and
to annul and change what they thought fitting ; provided that
the council was to act by the advice and consent of the pro
tector." The populace now began to destroy the images in churches,
which Luther had tolerated as aids to devotion, and of which
Cranmer vindicated the moderate use, as constantly preach
ing to the eyes of the ignorant. The likelihood of gross and
extensive abuse is, indeed, the only solid objection to this an
cient practice. The government, almost entirely Protestant,
proceeded to the grand object of completing the religious revo
lution, and of establishing a church not only independent of
the discipline of the see of Rome, but dissenting from many
doctrines which had been for ages held sacred by the whole
western church. The protector began his task through the
ancient prerogative of the crown, through the supremacy over
the church, and by means of the statute which gave to procla
mations the authority of laws.
Persecutions under the act of the six articles ceased ; pris
oners were released, exiles were recalled. The obedience of
the clergy was enforced by the adoption of the principle, that
the appointment of bishops, like every other, was determined
by the demise of the crown, which compelled all prelates to
receive their bishoprics by letters patent from the king, dur
ing good behavior. Preaching, which had been so rare in
Catholic times, that it would have been impossible to impose
it on an untrained clergy, was in some measure supplied by
homilies, composed by Cranmer, which the parish priests
were directed to read to their congregations. Visitors were
dispatched throughout the kingdom, with a scarcely limited
authority in ecclesiastical cases, who were instructed to re
quire that four sermons in the year should be preached in
every church against the papal authority ; that sermons should
be directed against the honor or worship of images ; that all
images abused by being the object of pilgrimages and offer
ings should be destroyed ; that the English Bible, with Eras
mus's commentary on the gospels, should be placed in every
church for the use of the people ; together with many other
points selected, not always so much on account of their in
trinsic importance, as because they were brought by public
worship into daily contact with the minds of the people ; and
because, taken altogether, they carried into every hamlet the
assurance that the government were no longer to be neutral.
Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, a man of great learning and
ability, but one of Henry's devoted agents in the suit for a di
vorce, and who did not scruple to hold his diocese during the

1547. PROGRESS OF REFORMATION. 209
whole schismatic establishment, now made a manly and be
coming resistance to these injunctions, on principles of civil
liberty, as much as of ecclesiastical discipline. He was im
prisoned for his disobedience. Bonner of London, more vio
lent and more subservient escaped a prolonged imprisonment
by an humble submission. Tunstall, bishop of Durham, a pre
late of various and eminent merit, was excluded from the
privy-council, to impress on the people, by the strongest ex
ample, the disinclination of the protector towards the ancient
faith. After these preparatory measures, a parliament was
assembled on the 4th of November, 1547, in which several
bills were passed to promote and enlarge the reformation.
The communion was appointed to be received in both kinds
by the laity as well as clergy, without condemning the usages
of other churches,* in a statute, drawn with address, which
professes to be passed for the purpose of preventing irrever
ence towards the sacrament, and which covers the . conces
sions to the people by many provisions for the former object.
Bishops were to be formally nominated by the king ; process
in the ecclesiastical courts was to run in the king's name.!
In another act the statutes of Richard II. and Henry IV.
against the Lollards were repealed, together with all the acts
in matters of religion passed under Henry VLIL, except those
directed against the papal supremacy.}: All the treasons cre
ated by Henry underwent the same fate, and that offence was
restored to the simplicity of the statute of Edward ILL The
act whieh gave legislative power to proclamations was also
abrogated by the last-quoted statute, which at the same time
guards the order of succession as established in the last act of
settlement^ Though Bonner was daily present during the
session, there were only two divisions ; one in which that pre
late, with four of his brethren, voted against the allowance of
the cup to laymen, there being twenty-two prelates in the
majority ; another|[ for vesting the possessions of chantries,
with certain colleges and free chapels in the crown, on which
Cranmer was not deterred from voting against rapine, by
finding himself in a minority with Bonner. In the next ses
sion the uniformity of public worship was established, in
which all ministers were enjoined to use only the Book of
Common Prayer, prepared by the primate and his brethren, 11
the foundation of that which, after various alterations in the
reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles II., continues in
* 1 Edw. 6. c. 1. t 1 Edw. 6. c 2.
X 1 Edw. 6. c. 12. § 35 Hen. 8.
|| 1 Edw. 6. c. 14. IT 2 Edw. 6. e. L
S2

glO HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1547.
use to this day. A singular law was passed to enforce the
observance of fast-days and of Lent, by the infliction of a fine
of ten shillings and ten days' imprisonment upon fast-break
ers, " Albeit," says the statute, " one day is not more holy
than another,* yet it is proper, to prevent this knowledge
from turning into sensuality, to subdue men's bodies to their
souls, and especially that fishers may the rather be set at
work." This strange enactment was immediately followed
by the emancipation of the Erglish clergy from compulsory
celibacy,! which is prefaced by the admission, that " it would
be much better for priests to live separate from the bond of
marriage for their own estimation, and that they might attend
solely to the ministration of the gospel."
Although there were no Protestant nonconformists at this
period, yet the last act of uniformity passed in this reign may
be considered as the earliest instance of penal legislation
pointed against mere dissenters.}: It commanded all persons
to attend public worship under pain of ecclesiastical censures,
and of six months' imprisonment for the first offence, twelve
for the second, and for the third confinement for life. Not
withstanding the merciful repeal of Henry's treasons, which
opened the new reign with a benignant aspect, it 'was deem
ed necessary before its close to pass a riot act of great severi
ty against tumultuous assemblies, and to punish those who
call the king, or any successor, under the thirty-fifth of Henry
VIII., a heretic, schismatic, tyrant infidel, or usurper, for the
first offence with forfeiture and imprisonment during pleasure,
and for the third with the pains of high treason.
The war against Scotland, begun with little justiee, and
conducted with no humanity, is better related by the histori
ans of Scotland than it could be in a summary of English his
tory. The confusions and revolts of this and of the last reign,
in Ireland, where the reformation made no progress, and had
no other effect than that of widening the ancient breach be
tween the two races, will also soon employ the brilliant pen of
a patriotic historian. The government of England, intent on
their grand object of completing the reformation at home,
withdrew themselves from that officious intrusion into conti
nental policy to which the restless spirit of Henry VIII. from
time to time prompted him. During Edward's reign England
oan scarcely be said to have been a member of the European
confederacy. * 2&3Edw. 6. c. 19. f 2&3 Edw. 6. c 21.
J: 5 & 6 Edw. 6. L

3.547. PROGRESS OF REFORMATION. 211
The Protestant portion of Europe did not, like the Catholic
world, compose one religious community : strictly speaking,
it was divided into as many churches as it contained states.
Lutheranism prevailed in Germany, and had exercised sole
dominion in the northern kingdoms. Calvinism, proceeding
from a Frenchman, found repose and safety in Switzerland,
whence it agitated France, and made considerable acquisitions
in Germany. Both unanimously received the scripture as the
¦only infallible authority : they agreed in great reverence for
the decrees of the first four general councils, if not as a stand
ard of orthodoxy, yet as a guide of high authority in the inter
pretation of the New Testament. None of them could ex
plicitly deny the weight of general tradition, and of very
ancient usage. By the constant discussion of the opinions
and practice of former ages, they implicitly allowed their
value as evidence worthy of consideration, though varying
according to their distance from the sacred source : they
-unanimously rejected the infallibility of the see of Rome,
which some zealots began to represent as Antichrist, while a
few individuals among the more learned and moderate were
privately less unwilling than they could venture to avow, to
.submit to a limited supremacy in that ancient patriarchate as
a preservative of ecclesiastical order and peace.
Each of the reformed churches left undetermined the mo
mentous question which their separation from Rome had
¦brought into discussion, respecting the competent judge in
cases of a disputed interpretation of Holy Writ Wherever
the church was reformed by the government, as in all Lu
theran and in most Calvinistic countries, as well as in Eng
land, the received opinion was that this authority belonged to
the civil lawgivers of each country ; a doctrine which, if
"understood of the belief, the feelings, and the worship of re
ligion, . entirely overthrows its nature, but, if limited to its
legal endowments and privileges, is no more than an identical
proposition. All these churches agreed in the grosser depar
ture from their own principles, which led them to punish even
with death a dissent from the creeds which they, by their dis
sent from human authority, had built on the ruins of a system
adopted by all nations for many ages : they acted as if they
were infallible, though they waged war against that proud
word. In order to escape the visible necessity of granting
that liberty of private judgment to all mankind, which could
alone justify their own assaults on popes and councils, they in
effect vested a despotic power over the utterance <of religious
doctrines in lay sovereigns, who had not even the recom
mendation -of professing to know the subject in dispute.

212 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1547*
The Lutherans adopted a poor and limited episcopacy. The
Calvinists established a perfect equality among the ministers
of religion, holding that the term which we render bishop
meant no more than that which we distinguish in our versions
as presbyter. The church of England, by the preservation of
the revenues of most of the bishoprics, and by releasing the
prelates from their subjection to the court of Rome, exalted in
many respects the dignity, and strengthened the influence, of
the episcopal order. The doctrines of absolute decrees and
irresistible grace, abandoned if not by Luther at least by the
Lutherans, but to this day rigorously maintained by all who
call themselves Calvinists, were in some measure adopted by
the English church, but in terms studiously inoffensive, and
accompanied by warnings, which, instead of being blamed as
at variance with the dogma. to which they are subjoined,
ought rather to be commended for the solicitude which they
breathe to guard the affections of the heart and the rule of
human life against the dangerous influence of abstruse and
dark speculations. On the disputes respecting the sacrament,
then the most popular, and accounted the most important of
all, the Anglican church approached more to the opinion, or
(perhaps we ought to call it) the phraseology, of Calvin, than
to that of any other leader in reformation.
Among civil occurrences one took place in the second ses
sion of parliament during this reign, which too evidently
showed how thoroughly the protector was trained in the law
less and unnatural practices of Henry VIII. Sir Thomas
Seymour, lord Sudeley and admiral of England, was a brave
soldier,, a stately and magnificent courtier, more acceptable to
the nobility than to the people ; open, passionate, ambitious,
he had none of that reputation which belonged to his brother
the protector, as the founder of the English reformation. Lie
paid court to Catharine Parr while she was lady Latimer, and
would have been successful if he had not been supplanted by
Henry. Scarcely had that monarch breathed his last* when
Seymour secretly espoused Catharine, said to have been in
duced to take that measure by a letter from Edward, which
if real .could only have been a promise of pardon. By this
marriage he acquired some part of the great fortune which
the fondness of Henry had suffered her to accumulate. The
jealousy of power appears to have early existed between the
* " You married the late queen so soon after the late king's death, that if
she had conceived straight after, it would have been a doubt whether the
child was the king's or yours; — to the peril of the succession."
An accusation is perhaps sufficient proof of a date.
Burn. App. to book 1. No. xxxi.

1548. CONDEMNATION OF SEYMOUR. 213
two brothers : they were embittered by a jealousy of rank,
which sprung up between their wives. Catharine Parr re
tained her regal station as queen-dowager ; Anne Stanhope,
the lady of Somerset the second wife of the protector, who is
charged with intolerable pride and violence, could not brook
the superiority allowed by all others to the modest Catharine,
but, as the spouse of the first person in the realm, claimed the
Tank of the first female. The death of Catharine in Septem
ber, 1547, followed her marriage so soon as to occasion rumors
that it was not left to nature. Lord Sudeley was then sus
pected of seeking the hand of the princess Elizabeth, though
then only in the fourteenth year of her age. Seymour seems
pretty certainly to have taken measures for forming a party
against his brother, to have excited the nobility against him,
to have meditated the seduction of the young king from the
protector's custody, to have aimed at the custody of the boy's
person for himself, and at sharing the authority which he
thought the elder brother ought not to monopolize.* These
projects were very likely to end in treason ; but there is no
appearance that they reached the mature state in which they
constituted that offence ; he appears to have treated the whole
matter with considerable levity.! It soon, however, assumed
a serious aspect On the 25th of February, 1548-9, a bill was
Tead a first time to attaint him of high treason ; on the 26th
it was read a second time ; on the 27th it was passed unani
mously. The presence of his brother the duke of Somerset
at the head of the lords during the three days is a circum
stance which resembles, and, indeed, surpasses, the conduct
¦of the judges of Anne Boleyn. Seymour was at the time a
prisoner in the Tower : no man proposed to send for him ; he
was not heard in his own defence; no witnesses were ex
amined against him in parliament. The lords could only rest
their bill upon the assurance of his brother, and of other mem
bers of the council, that lord Sudeley was guilty. He had
•demanded in vain that he should be openly tried and con
fronted with his accusers ; the house of commons paused at
this demand : but their hesitation to condemn an unheard man
in his absence was easily overruled.
On Monday the 4th of March, the master of the rolls
brought down a message from the throne, assuring the house
that " it was not- necessary for the admiral to appear before
them ; but, if they thought it essential, some lords should
•come to them to confirm their evidence." Even this was
* See Burnet above, &c.
t " The lord admiral's answer to three of the articles."— Burnet.

214 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1548.
deemed superfluous. The impression of the message was
such that the bill was passed on the 4th, brought back to the
lords on the 5th, and it received the royal assent with the
other bills of the session on the 14th of March, the last day
of it. On the 17th the warrant for his execution was issued
with his brother's name at the head of the subscribers. On
the 20th he was beheaded on Tower-Hill, where he solemnly
repeated his frequent disavowal of treasonable purposes against
the king or kingdom.
Though the new liturgy was as moderate and comprehen
sive as was consistent with the sincerity of the Protestant
clergy who framed it yet it is impossible for men of one com
munion to weigh the scruples of those of a different persua
sion. No man's conscience can act for that of any other.
Still less is it conceivable that one party should impartially
allow for all the prejudices and antipathies of their old oppo
nents. A change in the form of public worship was sufficient
of itself to offend the simple peasants of remote provinces,
especially when these religious solemnities were their chief
occasions of intercourse, and the only festivals which diversi
fied their lives. The substitution of a simple and grave wor
ship for a ceremonial full of magnificence could be grateful
only to the eyes of hearty reformers. "The country people
loved those shows, processions, and assemblies, as things of
diversion,"* against which the zeal of the reformers was
peculiarly pointed. The most conspicuous, if not the most
efficient cause of the commotions which followed, was the
religious feelings to which we have adverted more than
once. It cannot be doubted, however, that other agents contributed
to these and to most other disorders and revolts of the six
teenth century. The inclosure and appropriation of common
fields, from the produce of which the poorer classes had de
rived a part of their subsistence, was now hastened by the
profits to be gained by the proprietors from wool, the raw
material of the growing manufactures of the realm. A new
impulse was, perhaps, too suddenly given to this economical
revolution by the grantors of abbey lands, who were in gene
ra] rich and intelligent. The people (the learned as well as
the illiterate) were profoundly ignorant of the truth, that in
crease of produce must be finally beneficial to all classes of
men. They were equally unacquainted with that influx of
the precious metals from America, which enhanced the money
price of commodities in general before it had caused a prc-
* Burnet, 1548.

1549. POPULAR DISCONTENT. 215
portional rise in the wages of labor. The depreciation of
money in England, by the wretched debasements of the coin
to which Henry had so often recurred, had powerfully, though
secretly, disturbed every interest in the community. The
wages of laborers were paid in a debased coin, when it re
quired a greater quantity of gold and silver in their unalloyed
state to purchase the necessaries of life. All these and many
like agencies were now at work, the nature of which was as
unknown as the laws which regulate the planetary system.
The protector, who courted the people, and to whom their
discontent was at least painful, endeavored to' appease the
prevalent dissatisfaction by issuing a proclamation against
inclosures, which enjoined the landholders to break up their
parks. In general they disregarded this illegal injunction.
The laborers accepted it as their warrant for the demolition
of inclosures. Risings occurred in Wiltshire, Oxfordshire,
and Gloucestershire, which were speedily, but not without
bloodshed, quelled. Disorders in Hampshire, Sussex, and
Kent, were more easily composed. But the rapid diffusion of
these alarming revolts indicated the prevalence of a danger
ous distemper. Fears were entertained of a general insur
rection of the commonalty. In so feverish and irritable a
temper of the nation, there were not wanting causes which
brought the religious passions into contact with the distress
of the people, and melted them together into a mass of disaf
fection. The rapacity of the new owners of abbey lands was
contrasted with the indulgence of the monks, often the most
lenient of landlords, because they lived with the people, be
cause the share of advantage allotted to each individual was
so small, and because a clergy without families had -few calls
upon their purse.
On the 10th of June, 1549, a formidable insurrection broke
out in Cornwall, under a gentleman of ancient and noble lin
eage, Humphrey Arundel, governor of St Michael's Mount.
The insurgents amounted to 10,000 men. They were ani
mated by tales of the succession of the princess Mary. Their
revolt was first directed against inclosures ; but a zealous
clergyman found no difficulty in blending the Catholic cause
with the injustice of the intrusive landholders. They demand
ed the restoration of the mass, of abbey lands, and of the law
of the six articles, together with the recall of cardinal Pole
from exile. Lord Russell, who commanded the royal troops,
found means to retard the advance of the rebels by negotia
tion, until he was reinforced, not only by an English force, but
by bodies of mercenary veterans from Germany and Italy..
Exeter held out against the insurgents. On the 6th of Au>

216 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1549\
gust, Russell raised the siege, and pursued the revolters to
Launceston, where they were utterly routed. Severe military
execution was inflicted, on the country : Arundel and the
mayor of Bodmin, with some other leaders, were tried and
executed in London ; a Roman Catholic priest at Exeter
was hanged from his own tower, in his sacerdotal vestments,
and with the beads which he used in prayer hung from his
girdle. The flame which was thus extinguished in the west broke
out with new violence in Norfolk. In that county the gene
ral disaffection assumed the form of a war against the gentry,
who were most heavily loaded with charges of oppressing
farmers and laborers. In July, 1549, Ket, a tanner, but also
a considerable landholder, encamped on Mousewold Hill, near
Norwich, with an army of 20,000 men. He repulsed the
marquis of Northampton in an assault on the city, in whieh
lord Sheffield was killed. The protector was obliged to recall
troops from Scotland, under Dudley earl of Warwick, who
would not have been intrusted with such an occasion of gain
ing reputation and followers, if Ket had not rendered extreme
measures necessary. The earl, on his arrival, forced his way
into Norwich, and kept his ground there, till Ket, compelled
by famine, abandoned his encampment, and with it the com
mand of the city. On the 27th of August he was defeated
by Warwick. Two thousand insurgents perished in the ac
tion and pursuit ; the remainder, hastily throwing up rude
defences of wagons and stakes, refused a pardon, which they
naturally distrusted. Warwick, however, at last persuaded
these brave men to surrender. He kept his word more faith
fully than is usually practised on such occasions. Ket was
hanged on Norwich castle, his brother on Windham steeple,
and nine others on " the branches of the oak of reformation,"
under which Ket was wont to sit on Mousewold Hill, with a
sort of imitation of royalty, to administer grace and justice.
He had, indeed, assumed the title of king of Norfolk and Suf
folk. On the 24th of July, 1549, the first commissions were
issued for lord-lieutenants of counties ; a species of civil gov
ernors and commanders of the armed men of whom the late
confusions occasioned the appointment*
During this season of confusion the advocates of rigor loud
ly cried against the feebleness of the duke of Somerset, who
dreaded unpopularity too much to be capable of executing

*Strype, Eccl. Mem. vol. n. c. 21. The office of custos rotulorum now
usually joined to that of lord-lieutenant was an old office regulated bv a
statute of Henry VIII. '

1549. THE PROTECTOR UNPOPULAR. 21?
justice. To this infirmity they imputed the repetition and
prolongation of the revolts, -which might have been quickly
extinguished if the peasantry had not been tempted into them
by an almost total impunity of the early rebels, He professed
to think " it not safe to hold such a strict hand Over the com
mons, and to press them down and keep them in slavery."
But if he pursued the favor of the people rather than their
well-being, he soon found, when the hour of peril came, that
their favor stood him in little stead. The Catholic priesthood,
who detested him, still retained a mighty influence, especially
over the distant provinces. He retained popularity enough to
render him odious to the old nobility. The employment of
foreign troops in quelling the insurrection was unacceptable.
His last usurpation of the protectorship dwelt in the minds of
many besides his competitors. He began the erection of
Somerset-house, his palace in the Strand, on a scale of invi
dious magnificence. Architects were brought from Italy to
construct it, and professors of other fine arts to adorn it It
was said to be raised out of bishops' houses and churches, of
which the surrender was extorted from the owners by dread
of his displeasure. The demolition of the parish church of
St. Mary, to leave a wider space for the basis of this ostenta
tious structure, was considered as an offensive symptom of
disregard to religion . and to the people. These extortions
were not deemed the less flagrant acts of rapine for being
formally sanctioned by a minor king, who was in the hands
of the protector. Like many other candidates for the applause
of the multitude, he was arrogant and negligent towards hie
equals. To every cry, to every insinuation against him was
added the formidable question, " What friendship could be ex
pected from a man who had no pity on his own brother 1"
A question, whether peace ought to be made with France
and Scotland, produced considerable differences of opinion in
the king's council. The protector and his friends contended
that the object of the Scottish war, which was the marriage
of Edward to the Scottish queen, no longer existed, since the
arrival of that young princess in France ; and that Boulogne,
which the treaty required to be soon restored, should be im
mediately surrendered on payment of an adequate sum : a ne
gotiation which might happily end in a coalition of France
and England to save the German Protestants from ruin. Som
erset disappointed his opponents, by giving up his own better
opinion for unanimity ; but the dispute had already served its
most important purpose, by keeping out of view the motives
and projects of personal ambition which aimed at the over
throw of the proud protector. Lord Southampton, the son of
Vol. II. T

218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1549.
the late Catholic chancellor Wriothesley, inherited his father's
resentment against the Protestant protector. Dudley earl of
Warwick was the soul of the confederacy against him. He
was supposed to have really earned in the Scottish war, the
laurels which were borne away by Somerset, under whose
command he served ; and his success in quelling the insur
rection contributed to strengthen that opinion of his military
desert In the month of September, 1549, when the protector in
his private correspondence speaks with complacence of his
success in extinguishing the revolts, the plot for his overthrow
was matured,* the discontented lords gradually withdrew
from the court, and resorted with bodies of armed retainers to
London : they and their followers paraded the streets in mar
tial array. Sir William Paulet, the treasurer, " by his poli
cy" (which probably consisted in the seasonable use of money)
obtained for them the peaceable possession of the Tower.! As
soon as the protector learnt this intelligence, on the 6th of
October, 1549, he carried the king with him from Hampton-
court to Windsor, where he began to strengthen the castle,
and wrote circular letters to his friends, requiring them to re
pair thither with all their force for the defence of the king.
The answer of lord Russell, the privy-seal,:): on the 8th was,
that he should be ready to guard the king, to defend the king
dom against foreign invasion, and to stay bloodshed between
factions ; but that he could take no part in the personal quar
rels of the protector with the counsellors. Both parties col
lected their armed adherents. On the 7th, Sir William Petre,
secretary of state, was sent from Windsor to London to ascer
tain the demands of the seceding lords, and to desire assist
ance from the city of London ; but these attempts were fruit
less ; Petre remained with the lords, who were now joined by
nearly all the surviving executors : numerous bodies of troops
flocked to them; and the palace at Windsor was, as usual,
left a solitude by the inconstant courtiers. Sir Philip Hobby,
who was dispatched to Windsor with the answer of the lords,
urged their request so effectually, that on the 13th of October
the vast powers of Somerset were withdrawn from him, and
on the next day he was brought prisoner to the Tower under
an escort of 300 men. Articles were prepared against him,
* Somerset to Sir P. Hobby, minister at the Imperial Court, 24th August,
1549. Burnet's Collection of Records, No. xxxvi. " The people concerned
in the revolts," says he, "were without head and rule, that would have
they wot not what."
t Holinshed, iii. 1014.
j He was created earl of Bedford on the 19th of January, 1550.

1550. PROTECTOR DISGRACED. 219
which, from their extreme vagueness, cannot be considered
as a judicial charge, but must be regarded either as a popular
manifesto, or at best as the materials of an address for his re
moval from power. On the 28th of October, the great office
of lord high-admiral was conferred on his formidable and
mortal enemy the earl of Warwick ;* and, after many ex
aminations, in the month of February following he was en
larged, on the payment of a fine and ransom, amounting to
2000Z. per annum in land, all his personal goods, besides the
forfeiture of his offices. These transactions were afterwards
confirmed by act of parliament! Hitherto the circumstances
which attended this great nobleman's fall from power do not
exceed the usual accompaniments of a violent change of ad
ministration in the sixteenth century.
Warwick, who was by no very slow degrees attracting to
himself all the powers of government, hastened to assure the
nation that the Protestant interest would suffer nothing by
the protector's removal. The earl of Southampton, the stay
of the Catholics, was obliged to leave the court ; and the
bishops were apprized by circular letters of the king's deter
mination:} to carry on the reformation. These measures were,
however, rather the result of Warwick's position than of his
inclination : he declared at his death that he had always been
a Catholic ; and the most zealous Protestants bewailed the
tall of Somerset as dangerous to their cause.
Warwick, now the undisputed, chief of the government, al
lowed Somerset to resume his seat in council on the 8th of
April, 1550 ; and lord Lisle, the eldest son of Warwick, was
married on the 3d of June to Somerset's daughter. But under
a fair surface of friendship the sores of fear and anger still
rankled. Somerset could not persuade himself that be could
be safe without power. Warwick apprehended continual at
tempts on the part of Somerset to recover the protectorship.
Somerset assembled armed retainers in circumstances where
it was very difficult to separate defence from offence. On the
17th of October, 1551, the duke and duchess of Somerset,
with many of their friends, were committed to the Tower ;
and on the 1st of December following, the duke was brought
to trial before the high-steward and lords-triers for high trea
son, as conspiring to seize the king,' and for felony under the
riot act of the preceding session, in assembling to imprison
* Rymer, xv. 194.
f Very improperly omitted in the authentic edition of the statutes, as a
private act.
X Privy -council to the bishops, 25th December, 1549. Burnet, Coll. Records,
book i.

220 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1552.
the earl of Warwick, a privy-counsellor, who had since been
raised to the dignity of duke of Northumberland. The lords
unanimously acquitted him of the treason :* they convicted
him of the felony; a verdict of which the strict legality may
be questioned ; for though the tenth section of the statute!
makes it felony to stir up rebellious assemblies, yet that enact
ment is qualified by restricting it to cases where there is " an
intention to do any of the things above mentioned." Now,
this refers to the treasons created by this act, of all which the
duke was acquitted ; and it is an essential condition of the
felony that the unlawful assemblies shall continue their meet
ings after they have been legally commanded to disperse. In
this case no such command or disobedience was pretended.
This objection, however, is technical. It is probably true that
the duke of Somerset meditated a revolution as violent as
that by which he had been deposed : his principal anxiety was
to vindicate himself from the charge of plotting the death of
Northumberland and his colleagues. After his condemnation,
the ax not being carried naked before him as he left West
minster Hall, the people, who hailed this circumstance as a
proof of his acquittal, expressed their joy by loud acclama
tions. " On the 22d of January, 1552," says the diary of his
royal nephew, "he had his head cut off upon Tower Hill be
tween eight and nine o'clock in the morning."!
We learn from those on whom the protector had fewer
claims, that the particulars of the death thus shortly and
coolly mentioned were not uninteresting. A false alarm had
thrown the spectators of the execution into confusion ; some
of them fell into ditches, or were otherwise hurt. Amidst
their apprehensions, they, observing Sir Antony Brown riding
up to the scaffold, conjectured, what was not true, but which
they all wished to be true, that the king had sent a pardon
for his uncle; and, with great rejoicing and casting up their
caps, they cried out, "Pardon — pardon is come, God save
the king!" The duke showed some emotion; but his de
portment in death, and his address to the bystanders, of whom
many were deeply affected, were signalized by firmness and
dignity. The parliament, which met on the day after the execution
of the duke of Somerset, betrayed some sense of the unjust
mode of proceeding against him, by reforming at that moment
* State Trials, i. 5J8, 51"., wh-re the whole record is to be found See
40?l° a" account of the trial by Elhvard VI- t0 Barnaby Fitzpatrick, Fuller,
t 2 & 3 Edw. 0. c. 5.
J Journal of F.d\v. VI. in Burnet,

1552. GARDINER AND BONNER. 221
one of the most grievous abuses in the criminal law. A bill
was passed to make it high treason to call the king or his
successors under Henry's act of settlement usurpers, here
tics, or schismatics,* into which a clause was introduced of
greater moment than the bill itself, providing that no person
shall be convicted of these or other treasons, unless he be ac
cused by two lawful witnesses, who if alive shall be confront
ed with him on his trial. In spite of this provision, the bar
barous iniquity of former times continued to be practised long
after it was thus forbidden by law.
The policy adopted in the reign of Edward respecting dis
sent from the established church deserves some consideration.
The toleration of heresy was deemed by men of all persua
sions to be as unreasonable as it would now be thought to
propose the impunity of murder. The open exercise of any
worship except that established by law was considered as a
mutinous disregard of lawful authority, in which perseverance
was accounted a very culpable contumacy. In considering
the harsh proceedings against those prelates who refused to
give the security required by law of their attachment to the
Protestant church, it must be allowed that the legislature,
which had the power to change the civil establishment of re
ligion, is justified in employing moderate means of securing
the church, of which the exclusion of Roman Catholics from
the dignities of the Protestant church cannot be denied to be
•in itself unexceptionable. A competent and liberal allow
ance, however, towards those who lose their station without
any fault by a mere change of belief in their rulers, is even
in this case an indispensable part of equitable policy. The
simple deprivation, especially if attended with fair compensa
tion, of Bonner and Gardiner, does not appear to be blama-
ble. Gardiner, a man of extraordinary abilities, learning,,
and resolution, had been a pliant tool in Henry's negotiations
for divorce. Many attempts were made to compel him to
conform to the new system. Imprisonment, with very un
warrantable aggravations, was chiefly trusted to for subduing
his haughty spirit. But he defended himself with spirit and
address. It was easy to gain a personal advantage over some
of his opponents, by quoting, in justification of his own opin
ions; their language in the time of the late king on the sub
ject of the communion. The creed of the more reformed
church on the real presence of Christ in the sacrament was
couched in cloudy language, which the bishop could represent
as favorable to his opinion. Some of the most zealous Pro-
* 5 & 6 Edw. 6. c. xi. p. 9. authentic edition.
T2

222 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1552.
testants had already controverted the Roman Catholic system
with a warmth which gave him specious pretexts for assailing
them as Zuinglians and Sacramentaries ; heretics whom the
body of orthodox Protestants, whether Lutherans, Calvinists,
or Anglicans, held in especial abhorrence. Notwithstanding
what his enemies called contumacy, they still shrunk from a
conflict with a man of so much courage and resource. It
was thought fit to make the first experiment on a meaner
subject, Bonner, bishop of London, a canonist of note, be
lieved to be of a fierce temper and prone to cruelty ; a belief
well justified by his subsequent deeds. A commission issued
for the examination of the complaints against this prelate.
The commissioners assembled at Lambeth on the 10th of
September, 1549. He deported himself insolently, manifest
ing that he was one of those inferior spirits who need coarse
ness to whet the edge of their courage. He complained that
he was not deprived by a tribunal proceeding according to
the canon law. This jurisdiction, however, seemed to have
fallen with the ancient church. It was answered with great
force as far as related to Bonner, that he had waived such ob
jections when he consented to receive his bishopric from the
king by letters patent. Sentence of deprivation was pro
nounced against him on the 4th of October, and, on the bad
ground of his indecorum at the trial, he was sent to the Mar-
shalsea, where he continued a prisoner till the king's death.
Gardiner was brought to trial before the commissioners on
the 14th of December, 1550. He made so many concessions,
that in what remained he seems to have rather consulted
pride than conscience ; unless, we may suspect that he was
influenced by a desire not to take a decisive part on the con
tested points, until he could better foresee the issue of very
uncertain revolutions. He too suffered a very rigorous im
prisonment ; an aggravation which cannot be too much con
demned in a case which was extenuated by the partial influ
ence or even the specious color of conscience.
The treatment of the princess Mary was still more odious,
if it be considered as the conduct of a brother towards a sis
ter, or if it be tried by the standard of religious liberty in
modern times. But the first would be a false point of view,
and the second too severe a test. Somerset and Northumber
land, who were the successive masters iof the king and king
dom, saw the immense advantage to accrue to the Protestant
cause from the conversion of the presumptive heir to the
throne. The feeble infancy of Edward was the only protec
tion of the reformation against a princess already suspected
of bigotry, and who had grievous wrongs to revenge. Her

1552. MARY AND ELIZABETH. 223
conversion was therefore the highest object of policy. Justice
requires this circumstance to be borne in mind in a case
where every generous feeling rises up in arms against the
mere politician, and prompts us warmly to applaud the steady
resistance of the wronged princess.
There is no known instance in family history, in which a
brother and his two sisters appeared to be doomed to be each
other's enemies by a destiny inseparable from their birth, so
extraordinary as that of Edward and the two princesses Mary
and Elizabeth. The legitimacy of Mary necessarily rendered
Elizabeth illegitimate. The innocence of Anne Boleyn threw
a deep shade over the nuptials of which Edward was the sole
offspring. One statute had declared Mary to be illegitimate,
for the sake of settling the crown on Elizabeth. The latter
princess was condemned to the same brand, to open the door
for the nuptials with Edward's mother. Both were afterwards
illegitimatized, as it might seem, to exalt the lawful superi
ority of their brother Edward. At his accession, Mary was
in the thirty-second year of her age, Elizabeth in her four
teenth, and Edward in his ninth year. Mary was of an age
to remember with bitterness the wrongs done to her innocent
mother. Her few though faithful followers were adherents
of the ancient religion ; to which honor and affection, as well
as their instruction and example, bound her. The friends,
the teachers, the companions of Edward, were, in many in
stances, bound to the reformation by conscience. Many others
had built their character and their greatness upon its estab
lishment The pretensions of young Elizabeth were some
what more remote ; but the daughter of Anne Boleyn was
still dear to those zealous Protestants who considered Anne
(whether inviolably faithful to Henry or not) as having died
for her favor to the Protestant cause. The guardians of the
young king deserve commendation for the decorum which
they caused him to observe towards both his sisters, though
he did not conceal his affection for Elizabeth, whom he used
fondly to call "sweet sister Temperance." His mild temper
and gentle nature made the task of the guardians, as far as
regarded him, easy. Neither of the ladies were likely to
give equal help to those who labored to keep peace between
them. When the injunctions of 1549 had directed the discontinu
ance of the mass, and commanded the liturgy to be used in its
stead, the emperor's ambassador had interposed to procure an
exemption by letters patent for the lady Mary from this rigor
ous prohibition* She probably experienced some connivance,

* Edward's Journ., 19th April, 1549, in Burnet.

224 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1552.
though this formal license was refused. But, in the autumn
following, intelligence was received of designs formed by the
English exiles to carry her to the Netherlands; in conse
quence of which, she was desired to repair to her brother's
court. She declined coming nearer to London than Hunsdon ;
reasonably enough disliking the close observation and mali
cious scrutiny of her enemies. On the 15th of December,
Dr. Mallet, her principal chaplain, was committed to the
Tower for solemnizing mass at her residence, but when she
was absent) and before some who were not members of her
household.* The mention of these circumstances seems to
show that in practice, though not by law, a. connivance with
her family worship had arisen, from an understanding with
the imperial ministers. The most ungracious act of the gov
ernment was to employ the tongue and pen of her brother in
attacks on her religious opinions.!
On the 18th of March,:): 1551, she had an interview with
the council, in the presence of Edward. She was told that
" the king had long suffered her mass, in hope of her recon
ciliation ; and there being now no hope, which he perceived
by her letters, except he saw some speedy amendment he
could not bear it." She answered well, that " her soul was
God's; and her faith she would not change nor dissemble."
She was answered somewhat evasively, " The king does not
constrain your faith ; but willeth you, not as a king to rule,
but as a subject to obey." The emperor's minister hinted at
war, if his master's cousin were thus treated with discourtesy.
Cranmer and his friends allowed " that it was a sin to license
sin ; but they thought that to wink at it for a time might be
borne, if haste were used to get rid of it." Edward thought
their casuistry lax, and on their principles he was right. Soon
after, twenty-four privy-counsellors, who were assembled at
Richmond to consider the case, determined that it was not
meet to suffer the practices of the lady Mary any longer. It
should seem, however, from the instructions to Wotton, the
minister at the imperial court, that there was a disposition in
the administration to spare Mary, though they could not
avowedly dispense with the laws. In that temper they
probably continued ; but with a fluctuation between the poli
ticians who dreaded a rupture with the emperor, and the
Protestant zealots who still more dreaded a toleration of the
Roman Catholic worship : a state of things very mortifying
* Edward's Journ., l.Ith July, and 14th of August.
t Ibid., 15th December. j ibid., 18th March.

1553. OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 225
and precarious; which exposed the princess to be frequently
vexed and harassed on points where she required the most
secure quiet
But, on the whole, the reign of Edward VI. was the most
pure from religious persecution of any administration of the
same length, in any great country of Europe, since Christen
dom was divided between Catholics and Protestants. "Ed
ward,"* says a Catholic writer, " did not shed blood on that
account. No sanguinary, but only penal, laws were executed
on those who stood off." As long as both parties considered
it their duty to convert or exterminate their antagonists, a
peace between them was impossible. Whatever glimpses of
insecure truce occurred were due to the humanity or policy
of individual sovereigns, or of their ministers. In the present
case, the suspension of arms may be attributed to the humane
temper of Cranmer, in a greater measure than to any other
circumstance. It is praise enough for young Edward, that his
gentleness, as well as his docility, disposed him not to shed
blood. The fact, however, that the blood of no Roman Catho
lic was spilt on account of religion, in Edward's reign, is
indisputable. The Protestant church of England did not
strike the first blow. If this proceeded from the virtue of the
counsellors of Edward, we must allow it to. outweigh their
faults. If it followed from their fortune, they ought to have
been envied by their antagonists. This great commendation,
however, must be restricted to the war between the two
bodies which shared Europe. Other small and obscure com
munities, holding opinions equally obnoxious to the great
communions, were excluded from the truce. A distinction
was devised between the essential and unessential parts of
Christianity, by means of which all the supposed errors com
prehended under the first denomination might be treated with
the severity of the ancient laws against heresy. No statute
or canon had, established this distinction,! yet it slowly grew
out of opinion and usage. It was then a great advance to
wards religious liberty ; for it withdrew the greater number
of Christians from the reach of the persecutor's sword. At a
far later period, persecutors, when driven from their strong
holds, have sometimes fallen back on the same distinction as
a tenable post ; where, if they could not maintain themselves
permanently, their retreat would be at least covered. In
* Dod, i. 360.
t It is, however, to be observed, that the third article of the Reformatio
Legum Ecclesiastiearum does in effect recognize the distinction, and per
haps goes farther, by confining the punishment of death to apostates, and
such as opposed Christianity in general.

22fJ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1553.
Edward's reign, the doctrine that only the denial of the
essentials of Christianity could* lawfully be punished with
death, was a station in the retreat from more wide-wasting
evil. A century later it became a position, from which the
advance towards good might be impeded and retarded.
The most remarkable instances of these deviations from
humanity were those of fugitives from the Netherlands, who
held many unpopular and odious opinions. Before the time
of Luther there were small sects in the Low Countries,* who
combined a- denial of the divinity of Christ, whose divine mis
sion they revered, with a disbelief in the validity of infant
baptism, and joined the rejection of oaths with the non-resist
ance adopted afterwards by the Quakers ; proceeding, how
ever, farther than that respectable persuasion, by denying the
lawfulness of magistracy, the obedience to human laws, and
the legitimacy of separate property. Their early history is
buried in obscurity. The reformation gave them a shock
which roused them from lethargy. They were involved in
the same sufferings with the Lutherans and Calvinists. Many
of them took refuge in England, where a small number of the
natives imbibed some portion of their doctrines. In April,
1549, commissions were issued to Cranmer " to inquire into
heretical pravity,"! being nearly the same words by which
the power of the court of inquisition is described. Champneys,
a priest at Stratford on the Bow, being brought before the
commissioners on some of the lighter of these charges, con
fessed and recanted them. Ashton, a priest, who maintained
that " Christ was not God, but brought men to the knowledge
of the true God," escaped in the same manner. Thumb, a
butcher, and Putton, a tanner, went through the like process.
These feeble heresies seem indeed to have prevailed almost
solely among the inferior class. Joan Becher, commonly called
Joan of Kent, a zealous Protestant, who had privately im
ported Lutheran books for the ladies of the court in Henry's
reign, had now adopted a doctrine, or a set of words, which
brought her to be tried before the commissioners for heresy.
As her assertions are utterly unintelligible, the only mode of
fully displaying the unspeakable injustice of her sentence is
to quote the very words in which she vainly struggled to con
vey a meaning : " she denied that Christ was truly incarnate
of the Virgin, whose flesh being sinful he could take none of
it, but the word, by the consent of the inward man in the
* See the account of the Mennonites and of the Family of Love, in
Mosheim. t Rymer, xv. 181.

1553. ECCLESIASTICAL LAWS. 227
Virgin, took flesh of her.'' The execution was delayed for a
year by the compassionate scruples of Edward, who refused to
sign it. It must be owned with regret, that his conscientious
hesitation was borne down by the authority and importunity
of Cranmer, though the reasons of that prelate rather silenced
than satisfied the boy, who, as he set his hand to the warrant,
said, with tears in his eyes, to the archbishop, " If I do wrong,
since it was in submission to your authority, you must answer
for it to God." It was not till the 2d of May, 1550, that this
unfortunate woman was burnt to death. On the 24th of May,
1551, Von Panis, an eminent surgeon in London, of Dutch
extraction, having refused to purchase life by recanting his
heresy, which consisted in denying the divine nature of-
Christ, was burnt to death.
Opinions subversive of human society having been avowed
by some of the accumulation of sects in Lower Germany, who
were called Anabaptists, a strong prejudice against that sect,
whose distinguishing tenet is perfectly consistent with social
order, had a part in these lamentable executions. The found
ers of the Anglican church were solicitous to clear their es
tablishment from the odium of suffering such attacks to be
made on the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and they
considered all who were desirous to carry change farther as
impediments to the completion, and enemies to the safety, of
the reformation.
Of the forty-two articles of belief promulgated in this reign,
the principal propositions omitted under Elizabeth were, a
condemnation of those who asserted that the resurrection was
already past, or that souls sleep from death to the last judg
ment, as well as of those who maintain the final salvation of
all men, or the reign of the Messiah for a thousand years,
which last opinion the forty -first article styles " The fable of
the millenaries, a Jewish dotage." The doctrine of the pres
ence of Christ iu the communion was expressed in terms more
unfavorable to the church of Rome than those chosen by Eliza
beth's divines.
In consequence of the changes introduced by the reforma
tion, it became necessary to reform the ecclesiastical laws.
The canon law, consisting of constitutions of popes, decrees
of councils, and records of usages (many of which have been
long universally acknowledged to be frauds), was the re
ceived code of the courts termed spiritual, in every country
of Europe. The appeals allowed, by every country, to Rome
preserved a consistency of decision and unity of legislation.
But the whole system of canon law was so interwoven with
papal authority, and so favorable to the most extravagant pre-

228 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1553.
tensions of the Roman see, as to become incapable of execu
tion in a Protestant country. An act had been accordingly
passed in 1549,* providing that " the king shall have full
power to nominate sixteen ecclesiastics, of whom four to be
bishops, and sixteen laymen, of whom four to be lawyers, to
order and compile such laws ecclesiastical as shall be thought
convenient." A work was accordingly composed for this pur
pose by Cranmer, and translated into Latin with a happy imi
tation of the clear method and elegant brevity of the Roman
jurists by Sir John Cbeke and Dr. Haddon, two of the restorers
of classical literature in England. This work was not pre
pared for the royal confirmation before the close of Edward's
reign. The greater part being strictly theological, or relating
to the order of proceedings in courts, is beyond our present
province. The articles on marriage relate to questions of
very difficult solution, and affect the civil rights of all men,
as well as the highest of all the moral interests of society.
The book, not having received the royal confirmation, is not
indeed law, but it is of great authority, and conveys the opin
ions of our first reformers on problems, which the law of
England has not yet solved. A very brief summary of the
chapter on divorce may therefore be proper.
By the tenth title, divorce was allowed for adultery, and
the unoffending party was suffered to. marry ; but the sen
tence of a court was declared to be necessary to the dissolu
tion. Desertion, long absence, mortal enmities, the lasting
fierceness! of a husband to his wife, were adjudged to be law
ful ground of divorce. Separation from bed and board was
abolished, being superseded by the extension of divorce. It
is impossible to reconcile these enactments with the avowed
opinions of its authors, without believing that they considered
the answers of Christ in the Gospel, on divorce for adultery,
as confined to the national legislation of the Jews, and not
intended to have legal force in other countries.:];
These dispositions of the proposed code were probably oc
casioned by the case of Parr, marquis of Northampton, who
had divorced his wife, Anne Boucher, for adultery, in the
ecclesiastical court ; which divorce, however, had no certain
and immediate effect beyond that of a legal separation from
bed and board. A commission was appointed to inquire
whether, by a divorce on this ground, he was not so divorced
from lady Anne that no divine law prohibited his marriage.
He was too impatient to wait for the issue of their researches,
* 3 & 4. Edw. 6. c. 11. t SlEVitia.
X Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, 1571.

1553. LAW OF DIVORCE. 229
and married Elizabeth Brooke, daughter to lord Cobham. The
Protestant canonists, to whose judgment the case of North
ampton was referred, made answer to the queries put to them,
" that the band of wedlock being broken by the mere fact of
infidelity, the second marriage was lawful." The parliament
of 1551 confirmed this answer, by declaring the marriage of
Northampton with Elizabeth Brooke to be valid ; but, as this
statute was repealed by a law passed in the following reign,*
nothing is left of these proceedings but the advised and lasting
belief of Cranmer and his associates in reformation, that a
more extensive liberty of divorce ought to be allowed.
The law of England is now, in its letter and theory, con
formable to the ancient principle of the Roman Catholic
church, which regarded marriage as indissoluble. It was not
till a century and a half afterwards that a practice gradually
crept in of dissolving marriage for infidelity, by acts of par
liament specially passed for each separate case — a rude and
most inconvenient expedient, which subjects proceedings which
ought to be judicial to the temper of numerous and open as
semblies, while, by its expense, it excludes the vast majority
of men from the relief which, by long usage, it may be con
sidered as permanently holding out to suitors who are not
themselves uncommonly faulty. The reader needs not to be
reminded that whatever requires an act of legislature to le
galize must in its nature be illegal.
It must be admitted, that the intrinsic difficulties of the
subject are exceedingly great. The dangerous extremes are,
absolute and universal indissolubility, which has been found
to be productive of a general connivance at infidelity, and,
consequently, of a general dissolution of manners on the one
hand, and on the other, of a considerable facility of divorce
in cases very difficult to be defined — a practice, to say no
thing of other evil consequences, which would be at variance
with the institution of marriage, intended chiefly to protect
children from the inconstancy of parents, and next to guard
women against the inconstancy of husbands, who, if divorce
were procurable for any but clearly defined and most satis
factorily proved facts, would be enabled, as soon as they were
tired of their wives, to make the situation of the helpless
female so uneasy that they must consent to divorce. To
make the dissolution of marriage in the proper case alike
accessible to all, is one of the objects to which, in great cities
* Private act, 5& 6 Edw. 6. not printed in the authentic or common col
lections of statutes.
Vol. II. U

230 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1553.
and in highly civilized countries, it is hardest to point out a
safe road.
The duke of Northumberland ruled the kingdom with ab
solute authority, by means of the privy-council, with the title
of Admiral and Earl Marshal ; but the health of Edward be
gan to occasion serious apprehensions. His constitution,
originally weak and puny, was so much injured by measles
and small-pox,* that he was visited by a disorder in the lungs,
which, in spite of the numerous improvements in the art of
medicine, continues to baffle the skill of the physician.
Jerome Cardan, an Italian physician of great ability and
knowledge, whose name is justly celebrated in the history of
mathematical science, when on his return from Scotland,
whither he had gone to cure the archbishop of St. Andrew's
in 1552, was consulted in the case of Edward. This physi
cian was addicted to all the follies and frauds of magic and
astrology. He believed in intercourse with the devil, yet he
was charged by his enemies with atheism. He has left an
account of his own life, in which he confessed himself to be
guilty of many of the vices which men are generally most
solicitous to conceal. His passion for paradox led him to com
pose a serious and earnest panegyric on Nero. He was unable
to deliver Edward from his malady, but he ventured from
that prince's horoscope to foretell that he was to have a long
reign ; and when the event would have silenced most men,
he, with ready assurance, threw the blame on those who sup
plied him with the particulars of the king's birth.! We are
indebted to him for a character of his royal patient, which,
notwithstanding the perverseness and obliquity of the writer,
derives some value from his abilities, especially as it was
written when Edward had no longer the power to reward a
panegyrist. " He knew Latin and French well, was not ig
norant of Greek, Italian, and Spanish, and was not without a
competent knowledge of logic, of physic, and of music. A
boy of such genius and expectation was a prodigy in human
affairs. I do not speak with rhetorical exaggeration, but
rather speak under the truth." In the conversation of Car
dan with the king, in Latin, which he spoke readily and ele
gantly, Edward put some astronomical questions, which Car
dan evaded instead of confessing his ignorance ; a circum
stance which so acute a man was hardly likely to have
invented to his own disparagement
On the 1st of March, 1553, Northumberland assembled a

* Edw. 6. Diary, 2d April. The diary ends in November.
t Cardan, de Genituris, quoted in Burnet's Collections.

1553. king's health declines. 231
parliament, after preparations which indicate the importance
to which the house of commons had arisen, from the share
which they had taken in the revolutions of church and state,
in an age of conflicting titles and disputed successions. A
circular letter was sent to the sheriffs, commanding them
" to give notice to the freeholders, citizens, and burgesses,
within their county, to nominate men of knowledge and ex
perience," and " declaring it to be the king's pleasure, that
whenever the privy-council shall recommend men of learning
and wisdom, their directions be followed."* Fifteen knights
were accordingly recommended, by name, to the sheriffs of
Huntingdon), Suffolk, Bedford, Surrey, Cambridge, Bucks,
Oxford, and Northampton. " These," says Strype, " were
such as belonged to the court, and were in places of trust
about the king." Such recommendations from the crown
were continued occasionally for more than a century longer ;
but it must be owned that the exercise of influence at this
time was neither immoderate nor clandestine.
In April, after the prorogation of parliament, Edward had
been carried to Greenwich for his health. He returned in a
somewhat amended state, and a gleam of hope seems to have
cheered the public ; but Northumberland did not relax his
measures for aggrandizing his own family, and for securing a
Protestant successor. If Henry VII. be considered as the
stock of a new dynasty, it is clear that on mere principles of
hereditary right, the crown would descend, first, to the issue
of Henry VIII. ; secondly, to those of Margaret Tudor, queen
of Scots ; thirdly, to those of Mary Tudor, queen of France.
The title of Edward was on all principles equally undisputed;
but Mary and Elizabeth might be considered as excluded by
the sentence of nullity, which had been pronounced in the
case of Catharine and in that of Anne Boleyn, both which
sentences had been confirmed in parliament. They had been
expressly pronounced to be illegitimate children. Their
hereditary right of succession seemed thus to be taken away,
and their pretensions rested solely on the conditional settle
ment of the crown on them, made by their father's will, in
pursuance of authority granted to him by act of parliament.
After Elizabeth, Henry had placed the descendants of Mary,
queen of France, passing by the progeny of his eldest sister
Margaret. Mary of France, by her second marriage with
Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, had two daughters, — lady
Frances, who wedded Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset, created
duke of Suffolk ; and lady Elinor, who espoused Henry Clif-
* Strype, Ecclesiastic. Mem. A. D. 1552.

232 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1553.
ford, earl of Cumberland. Henry afterwards settled the crown
by his will on the heirs of these two ladies successively,
passing over his nieces themselves in silence. Northumber
land obtained the hand of lady Jane Grey, the eldest daughter
of Grey duke of Suffolk, by lady Frances Brandon, for lord
Guilford Dudley, the admiral's son. The marriage was sol
emnized in May, 1553, and the fatal right of succession
claimed by the house of Suffolk devolved on the excellent
and unfortunate lady Jane.
It was easy to practise on the religious sensibility of young
Edward, whose heart was now softened by the progress of in
firmity and the approach of death. It was scarcely necessary
for Northumberland to remind him, gently and seasonably,
that it was his duty not to confine his exertions for the inter
ests of religion to the short and uncertain period of his own
life ; that he was bound to provide for the security of the
Protestant cause after he himself should be no more ; and
that without the most energetic measures for that purpose, he
must leave the reformers of the church and the faithful
servants of the crown exposed to the revenge of those whom
they had incensed by their loyalty and their religion. The
zeal and rigor of Mary were well known, and their tremen
dous consequences could be prevented only by her exclusion.
The princess Elizabeth, who had only a secondary claim, de
pendent on the death of her elder sister, had been declared
illegitimate by parliament, and the will under which she must
claim would be in effect deprived of all authority by the ne
cessary exclusion of Mary. Mary queen of Scots, the grand
daughter of Margaret Tudor, was educated a Catholic, and
had espoused the dauphin. She was necessarily the irrecon
cilable enemy of the pure and reformed church, which Ed
ward had been the providential instrument of establishing in
England. If the will of Henry VIII. was valid, why should
not Edward, in whose hands the royal prerogatives were as
full and entire as in those of his father, supersede by a new
will the arrangements of the former, and settle the crown in
such a manner that it might continue to be the bulwark of the
Protestant faith 1 Only to the house of Suffolk it was possible
to look for the maintenance of the reformation. Northumber
land could not fail to remind the young king of the excellent
qualities of his playmate and the companion of his studies,
lady Jane Grey.
The religion of Elizabeth, a princess of the age of twenty,
might not always prove unshaken amidst the importunities,
flatteries, promises, and perhaps insinuations of danger, which
might be directed against her. She would be left an uncon-

1553. EDWARD APPOINTS HIS SUCCESSOR. 233
nected and defenceless female, without those trustworthy ad
visers who are engaged by personal attachment as well as
public duty to support the throne. On the other hand, was
the powerful house of Suffolk, with its experienced states
men and veteran commanders, already in possession of the
whole authority and force of the realm : in their hands the se
curities of the Protestant religion would be entire, perfect,
ready for instantaneous action. In those of all other claimants
there was wanting either the will or the strength to protect
the reformed faith. Northumberland might safely repeat his
appeal to Edward's reliance on lady Jane Grey's steady ad
herence to her religion, arising from an intimate knowledge
of her sincere piety, her undisturbed reason, and her firm
though gentle disposition.
By these and the like reasons of policy, or topics of persua
sion, was Edward induced to make a new testamentary dis
posal of the crown.
On the 11th of June, 1553, Montague, chief justice of the
common pleas, and two judges of that court were commanded
to attend his majesty at Greenwich, and were there ordered
by him to reduce his notes of an intended new settlement of
the crown to the form of letters patent He said, " that he
had considered the inconveniences of the measure, but thought
them outweighed by the consideration that if he should de
cease without an heir of his body, the realm and succession
must go to the lady Mary, who might marry a stranger born,
whereby the laws might be changed, and the proceedings in
religion totally altered. Wherefore he directed them to draw
up a settlement of the crown upon the lady Jane, the heiress
of the house of Suffolk." The judges desired time to con
sider this alarming proposal. On the 12th, they were brought
before the privy-council, from which Northumberland was ab
sent. They represented the danger of incurring the pains of
treason, to which they, and indeed all the lords, would be lia
ble, by an attempt to set aside in this manner a settlement
made under the authority of parliament. Northumberland
rushed into the council trembling with anger, and in a tone
of fury, among other tokens of rage, called Montague a trai
tor, offering to fight in his shirt any man in this cause. On
the 14th they were once more summoned to attend the coun
cil, where the king, " with sharp words and an angry counte
nance," reproved them for their contumacy. Montague repre
sented that the instrument if made, would be without effect,
because the succession could not be altered without the au
thority of parliament which had established it. To which the
king answered, " We mind to have a parliament shortly : we
U2

234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1553.
will do it, and afterwards ratify it by parliament."* The judges
yielded after this promise.
Fifteen lords of the council, with nine judges, and other
civil officers, subscribed a paper, promising to maintain the
limitation of the succession as contained in his majesty's notes,
which were delivered to the judges to clothe them with legal
formality. Cranmer is at the head of the first, though, as he
afterwards protested, unwillingly, and without being allowed
to communicate with the. king in private. Sir W. Cecil also
denied that he signed it in any other character than as a wit
ness. But the denial seems to have been postponed till it was
no longer safe to withhold it!
The most inexplicable circumstance in this transaction is,
that, after so much care to influence the elections, a parlia
ment should not have been called to perform the task of ex
cluding a popish successor. At a time when all communions
professed and practised intolerance, the exclusion of a succes
sor of a hostile persuasion, believed to be of a persecuting
temper, and likely to be under the influence of the Austrian
princes, who already gave frightful samples of their disposi
tion towards heretics, had such an exclusion been accomplish
ed by the king in parliament, could only have been regarded
as an act of indispensable self-defence. During the session
of parliament, which closed on the 30th of March, the dan
ger of the king was not thought so urgent as to require im
mediate precautions. In May| there was an apparent amend
ment in his health. A sudden disappearance of favorable
symptoms compelled Northumberland to recur to measures of
an illegal and violent description, which he might still hope
that Edward would live long enough to legalize in parlia
ment Writs for a convocation of that assembly in Septem
ber were issued about the time of the conferences with the
judges.} Henry II. took early measures to sound the court of Eng
land, the dispositions of which were of great importance to
him in his differences with Charles V. Noailles his ambassa
dor, who arrived in London early in May, represented the ru
mors of recovery, as spread by Northumberland to gain time
for his preparations. He considered a promise to present him
* Sir Edward Montague's narrative, in Fuller's Church History, book
viii. in the beginning.
t The documents are printed in the Appendix to Strype's Cranmer, No.
164; and in Burnet's Collection of Records to book iv. No. 10.
X Northumberland to Cecil, 6th May, 1553; and princess Mary to the
king, 16th May, published by Strype.
§ Strype's Mem. of Edw. 6. book ii. ch. xxii.

1553. king's illness continues. 235
speedily to the king as a feint to cover other designs, and
treated a festival, given by the minister professedly for the
king's recovery, as an artifice of the same sort. He had been
informed that the opinion of the physicians was, that Ed
ward's complaint was pulmonary, and had symptoms of an ad
vanced stage of consumption.* But the ambassador five days
afterwards tells his master that Edward was " thought out of
danger." Some part certainly of the ministerial language,
which he described as proceeding from a deep plot, arose only
from the natural anxiety of most ministers to speak, and some
times to think, as favorably as they can of their master's
health. The French ambassador had good reason to be watch
ful ; for on the 23d of June, Henry LI. had been informed that
measures were on foot at Brussels to revive the old treaty of
marriage with Mary.!
The deathbed devotions of Edward bear testimony to his
love of his people, and of his fervid zeal against what he
conscientiously believed to be corruptions of true religion.
" O Lord, save thy chosen people of England. Defend this
realm from papistry, and maintain thy true religion." What
ever were the motives of others in the irregular measures
which had been adopted, the prayer of Edward discloses the
purity of his spirit, and is sufficient to prove that he consented
to deviate from law, only because the deviation seemed to
him to be warranted by the necessity of defending religion.
He now sunk rapidly. On the day before his demise, the
council made an attempt to lure the princess Mary into their
hands, by desiring her, in the name of her brother, to repair
to London. After she had made some progress in her journey,
she received from lord Arundel private warning at Hunsdon,
which induced her to shun the snare, and to resort to her resi
dence in Norfolk. Had Northumberland acted with more ra
pidity and foresight, he might have secured Mary and Eliza
beth, by obtaining a few days sooner the king's commands,
that they should come to attend the sick-bed of a brother. On
his procrastination, the immediately following events hinged.
Perhaps, however, he thought that Mary would be more dan
gerous as a prisoner in England than as an exile at Brussels ;
and he, perhaps, connived at her journey towards the coast,
* " Les medecins ont peu d'esperance, etant en doute qu'il ne crache son
poulmon." Noailles, 13 Mai, 1553. Embassade, ii. 25.
t Henry II. a Noailles, St. Germ., 23d June. The interpretation of Ver-
tot, the editor, is adopted in the text; but the words "L'Empereur s'etoit
resolu d'entreprendre la poursuite de Ia practicque ja encommencee avec
Madame Marie," may be thought more probably to refer to more recent in
tercourse. Einb. ii. 45.

236 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 1553.
that she might be driven to that unpopular asylum. On the
6th of July, " towards nighte," this amiable and promising
boy breathed his last in his palace at Greenwich. " His dis
ease," says the privy-council, " whereof he died, was of the
putrefaction of the lungs; being utterly incurable of this
evil."* His position in English history, between a tyrant and
a bigot, adds somewhat to the grace of his innocent and attrac
tive character, which borrows also an additional charm, from
the mild lustre which surrounds the name of lady Jane Grey,
the companion of his infancy, and the object of his dying
choice as a successor on the throne.
A solemn embassy from the imperial court at Brussels
arrived too late to find Edward alive, instructed to declare,
that, if the king should die and the crown should descend to
Mary, the emperor would approve her marrying an English
man ; and of her promising that there should be no change in
religion, if the people required such an assurance. On the 13th
of July they openly threatened that Charles would not endure
such a wrong to his kinswoman as her exclusion. From this
moment Simon Bernard, who conducted the imperial business
and left the grandeur of the embassy to his noble colleagues,
became the secret counsellor of Mary, and the soul of her
political measures. It was a necessary consequence of his
ascendant in the royal closet that Noailles paid court to every
discontented party, nourished the hopes of French aid, sup
plied the needy and the covetous with money, made wary
approaches to the members of the royal family, whose name
might be used by the disaffected, and very probably magnified
the success of this policy to himself before he represented it
in such bright colors to his court. It need not, however, be
imputed to diplomatic contrivance that he calls the young
queen Jane " wise, virtuous, and beautiful," for in this lan
guage he agrees with all who saw and heard her.!
* Council to Sir P. Hobby, ambassador to the emperor, tth July. Strype's
Eccl. Mem. Ibid.
t Noailles, 13th July, Emb. ii. 58.

1553. LADY JANE GREY. 237
CHAP. X.
LADY JANE GREY.
1553.
Northumberland concealed the death of the king for two
days. On the . 8th of July, as has already been related, the
council apprized the ambassadors of this event, and commu
nicated it to the lord mayor and aldermen of London, that
they might prepare for the coronation of lady Jane. Mary
received this intelligence from her friends at court, and on the
9th wrote a letter to the privy-council, expostulating with
them for their undutiful concealment solemnly affirming her
right, and tendering an unreserved pardon on condition of
their causing her to be immediately proclaimed. In their
answer they declared their unshaken adherence to the lawful
title of queen Jane : both parties prepared to decide the con
test by an appeal to arms. Mary fixed her residence at Fram-
lingham Castle in Suffolk, where the people, retaining an
indignant remembrance of the severities employed to suppress
Ket's rebellion, hated Northumberland ; and where she might
easily receive assistance from the Low Countries, or make her
escape thither in case of need.
It was on the 9th of July, also, that Northumberland and
Suffolk communicated to lady Jane the tidings of Edward's
death, and of her own elevation to the throne. She fainted
at the announcement, apparently as much affected by the
latter as by the former of these occurrences. Afterwards,
describing the transaction in a letter to Mary, she says, " As
soon as I had, with infinite pain to my mind, understood these
things, how much I remained beside myself, stunned and
agitated, I leave to those lords to testify who saw me fall to
the ground, and who knew how grievously I wept"*
When she recovered her mind, she is said to have urged
the very simple and natural topics of the preferable claim of
the princesses, agreeably to the law of the realm and the
commandments of God. Her dignified reserve' probably pre
vented her, in the letter to Mary cited above, from adverting
to that and to many other parts of the conference farther than
by a general reference to eye-witnesses. They pressed her
with the authority of the judges. She gave the strongest
proof, that a woman of her piety could offer, of her desire to
act conscientiously, by imploring the guidance of Supreme
Wisdom. Polini Stor. ecc. della Revo), de l'lnghilterra, from Mr. Turner, v. 216.

238 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1553.
It is somewhat remarkable that the proclamations of Jane
in London, and of Mary at Norwich, excited no cries of ap
plause, and- produced no outward marks of interest, in the
choice of a sovereign. The uncertainty of the event probably
smothered the zeal of both parties. The whole public au
thority and ordinary force were in the hands of the Protestant
lords ; but Northumberland's supineness delayed the advance
of the troops long enough to suffer the friends of Mary to
assemble in force : he now felt the fatal effects of the popu
larity of Somerset, whom he had destroyed. The remem
brance of the popular protector divided the Protestants; a
great part of them co-operated with the still powerful party
of Catholics. The concealed followers of the ancient religion
threw off the mask ; the lukewarm, the hesitating, the timid,
stood aloof. Scarcely any but those adherents to the reforma
tion, who were ready to sacrifice all for it, could now be relied
on, if there were an appearance of a serious struggle. Even
they must have felt many painful misgivings at the prospect
of the triumph of the tyrannical Northumberland : never was
there a more striking contrast than that between the most
amiable of sovereigns and one of the most odious of ministers.
Though he was now the champion of the Protestant cause,
the sincerity of his attachment to it was much, and, as it
appeared afterwards, not unjustly doubted.
Shelley, who was sent by Northumberland to the emperor,
was refused an audience by that monarch, who also refused to
receive a letter in which Jane notified her accession.
On Sunday, the 16th of June, bishop Ridley, one of the
most zealous of the Protestant prelates, preached a sermon at
Paul's Cross in support of the title of Jane, with severe ani
madversions on the religion of Mary ; almost the only perilous
act of homage to the unfortunate Jane after she began her
fleeting reign. Both Mary and Jane issued commands to lord-
lieutenants and sheriffs to march with the power of their
counties to the aid of the rightful sovereign. Northumberland
was desirous of watching over the capital and the court, while
Suffolk was to put himself at the head of the army against
the followers of Mary ; but Northumberland was persuaded,
either treacherously (according to general opinion) or at least
fatally, to take the armed force into his own veteran and vic
torious hands, and leave queen Jane and the council to Suf
folk, who had no name in war. On the 18th of July, the earls
of Oxford, Bath, and Sussex, with some commoners of note,
seceded from the council. Intelligence poured in from all
quarters of the turn of the populace towards Mary ; the farmers
refused to follow their lords to the standard ; in a squadron of

1553. LADY JANE GREY. 239
six ships of war sent to Yarmouth to intercept Mary's expected
flight to Brussels, the seamen mutinied against their officers,
and brought over the vessels to Mary* On the 19th, lord
Arundel, a concealed Catholic, manifested the motives which
induced him to advise Northumberland to take the field in
person by deserting the council. The duke of Suffolk had
been persuaded to suffer some lords to leave the Tower ; they
assembled, with other lords favorable to Mary, at Baynard's
Castle, the house of the earl of Pembroke, where, after long
invectives against Northumberland, lord Arundel concluded
with an exhortation to heal the disorders of the kingdom by
proclaiming the lady Mary, who had already declared to the
people of Suffolk that she would disturb nothing established
in religion. Pembroke seconded this proposal with extreme
violence. The lords, attended as usual by the magistrates of
the city, rushed into the street and proclaimed Mary : they
surprised the Tower, which Suffolk, overwhelmed by this
sudden defection, abandoned to the prevalent faction. He
caused the ceremonial of royalty to cease, and its ensigns to
be displaced in the apartment of his daughter, who, when she
was exhorted by him to bear her fall with fortitude, answered
him with modest composure, — " This is a more welcome sum
mons than that which forced me against my will to an eleva
tion to which I am not entitled, and for which I am not quali
fied. In obedience to you, my lord, and to my mother, I did
violence to myself: the present is my own act, and I willingly
resign." On the next day she returned to her retirement in
the monastery of Sion. She reigned ten days, and was called
" a twelfth-day queen,"! by some paltry buffoon, who could look
on the misfortunes of the good as the subject of a sorry jest.
Before these decisive events in London, Northumberland had
been obliged to fall back from Newmarket to Cambridge, at
which last town the rapid progress of adversity compelled him
to proclaim Mary. This humiliating measure did not save him
from being led a prisoner for high treason, to the Tower of
London, lately his palace.
* This general defection is described by respectable authorities as being
"Non tarn studio Maria? quam odio Northumbrii ducis." — Sleidan, lib. xxv.
"Toutes ces choses sont arrivees plus par la grande haine qu'on porte a
celui due que par l'amite qu'on a pour la dite reine Marie." JVoailles, 20th July.
* " La pauvre reine de la feve."— Ibid.

240 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1553.
CHAP. XI.
MARY.
1553—1558.
Mary, accompanied by her sister Elizabeth, who for a mo
ment had a common interest with her, and had joined her at
the head of 2000 horse, made her triumphal entry into Lon
don on the 3d of August. The day before she had bestowed
the great seal on Gardiner, who had atoned for his former
hostility to her mother's marriage by recent services as well
as sufferings, and was still more recommended to her by the
importance of employing his abilities in her councils. The
first act of Mary's reign was gracious, and must have been
grateful to her. On the afternoon of her entrance into the
Tower, she found there several sufferers for her party, and
others who at least suffered from the same enemies. She had
the satisfaction of releasing the aged duke of Norfolk, and
her kinsman Edward Courtenay, whom she soon after created
earl of Devonshire. The haughty duchess of Somerset owed
her liberty to the generosity of a princess from whom no
gratitude was due to her. The duke of Suffolk was commit
ted to the Tower, but enlarged and pardoned in a few days.
On. the 18th of August, 1553, the duke of Northumberland,
the marquis of Northampton, and the earl of Warwick, were
tried for high treason in the court of the lord steward, that
office being for the time granted to the duke of Norfolk.
Northumberland defended himself by alleging the authority
of the privy-council ; a defence in some degree equivalent to
an appeal to the statute of Henry VII., which justifies obe
dience to one who is an actual, though not a rightful, possessor
of supreme power : though it seems doubtful whether an au
thority owned in the capital for ten days be not too transient
and partial to deserve the name of actual possession. On the
19th of August Sir John Gates, Sir Henry Gates, Sir Andrew
Dudley, and Sir Thomas Palmer, were tried for the same
offence by a jury : all the culprits were convicted. On the
22d of August Northumberland, with Sir John Gates, and
Sir Thomas Palmer, were executed. Northumberland owned
on the scaffold that he had never ceased to be a Roman
Catholic ; a confession not attended with those marks of peni
tence which might render it respectable ; it served only to
strip his conduct of any palliation which the mixture of a mo
tive, in its general nature commendable, might have in some
degree afforded.

1553. mary. 241
All the deprived Catholic bishops, Gardiner, Bonner, Tun-
stall, Day, and Heath, were restored ; the deprivation being
pronounced to be uncanonical. The Protestant bishops, in the
eyes of their Roman Catholic judges, had incurred depriva
tion by marriage, or more extreme penalties by preaching
heresy. The gentle and land but timid and pliant Cranmer
was committed to the Tower on the 2d of September, and on
the 13th he was followed by Latimer, a man in all respects
but religion directly opposite to the primate ; — brave, sincere,
honest, inflexible, not distinguished as a writer or a scholar,
but exercising his power over men's minds by a fervid elo
quence flowing from the deep conviction which animated his
plain, pithy, and free-spoken sermons. As he passed through
Smithneld on his road to the Tower, he said, " Smithfield has
long groaned for me."* The liberty of speech, for which he
resigned his bishopric under Henry VIII., was now treated by
the council as " insolence," and alleged in their books to be
the ground of his committal.
Charles V., who continued his instructions to Mary through
Renard, when he had heard of the revolution in her favor,
advised her to marry ; and added, that if she consulted him
on the choice, he should freely give his advice. It was by
the counsel of his ministers in London that the funeral of
Edward was performed by Cranmer according to the English
ritual. He recommended, in the commonplaces of state-
paper phraseology, a judicious selection of examples both of
justice and mercy : the merciful part of his advice was not,
however, that on which he most relied ; for Renard strongly
urged the execution of Jane, and, after a month's considera
tion, Charles earnestly repeated his advice " to punish without
mercy all those who had attempted to rob her of the crown." If
her scruples in the case of the involuntary criminal of seven
teen should prevail, he at least counselled the most rigorous
imprisonment! The king of France earnestly advised the
queen to wait for the result of the parliament before she con
tracted irrevocable engagements, " knowing- the humors of
her people, easily excited, and hard to be reconciled to a for-
t ign master."|
The advice of the emperor on ecclesiastical policy was
prudent ; but the minister Gardiner, and Paget, the old ser
vants of Henry VLLL, who well remembered the ease and
•Fox.
tGriffet, Eclaire., 56. " garder a vue," a phrase for which the humanity
of the English language has no equivalent.
X Embass. de Noailles, ii. 193.
Vol. II. V

242 history of England. 1553,
safety which the ready concurrence of slavish parliaments had
given to that monarch's innovations, must have felt the neces
sity of the same apparently national sanction after the long
period since the people had been separated from the commu
nity of Rome, and the not inconsiderable time which they
had passed under a Protestant church. One of Mary's ear
liest measures was a proclamation on the 18th of August, de
claring that "she could not hide her religion, but that she
mindeth not to compel any of her said subjects thereunto until
such time as farther order by common consent shall be taken
therein;"* a declaration which probably conveys the true
sense of the emperor's advice, and justifies the expectations
expressed by the upright Latimer, however it might lull the
alarms of the credulous multitude. The parliament assembled
on the 5th of October, 1553 ; and, in a session of nineteen
days, passed only three acts : one for the abolition of all the
treasons and felonies of Henry VIII. ; one for the restoration
in blood of Gertrude marchioness of Exeter ; and another for
the like restitution of that lady's son, Edward Courtenay, now
created earl of Devonshire. It seemed becoming to separate
these acts of personal and public grace from all other matter:
the royal assent was immediately given to them ; a proceed
ing which, according to the practice of that age, terminated
the session of sixteen days. The second session of the same
parliament was assembled on the 24th of October, after a
prorogation of three days, and it continued until a dissolution
of parliament on the 6th day of December, after passing
several momentous and memorable laws. The object of the
first! was to declare the validity of Henry's first marriage, to
pronounce his divorce to be void, and to repeal those statutes
made in affirmance of it which had declared Mary to be ille
gitimate. All titles under the will of Henry were thus for
feited; and, not content with the necessary implication, by
which the whole statute set aside Elizabeth, the parliament
excluded her as much as if she had been named, by expressly
confining the abrogation of illegitimacy to Mary. The road
to Rome was by this act thrown open: and it required little
discernment to foresee that a reconciliation with the ancient
church was fast approaching.
The progress of the revolution, however, was in some de
gree cautious ; for, though the acts of Edward VI. respecting
the sacraments, the election of bishops, the marriages of
priests, the mass and images, the ordering of ministers, the
uniformity of public worship, the keeping of fasts and holi-
* Collier, ii. App. No. 68. 1 1 Mary, stat. 2, c. 1.

1553. CORONATION OF MARY. 243
days, and the legitimation of the children of priests, were re
pealed, yet it was at the same time provided, " that the divine
service used in England in the last year of Henry VIII., and
no other, shall be used." The outward innovations were,
therefore, thus far founded on the apparent principle of re
storing the worship and discipline established by Henry. The
clauses respecting the marriage and divorce, though Gardi
ner had framed them with such dexterity as to elude the
mention of the still alarming name of pope, could only be jus
tified by papal authority ; they led by necessary consequence
to a recognition of the jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff,
and with it the whole of the doctrine and discipline of the
Roman Catholic church.
The pause which preceded the perfect reunion with the
church of Rome was occupied by events of considerable im
portance, both in themselves and as they contributed towards
that sole object of the queen's policy. Zealous Catholics
outran the course of the government, and the parochial clergy
restored the altars and resumed their Latin prayers before-
they were authorized to make these changes ; but, to the
great satisfaction of the queen,* Romanists more discerning,
who saw the predilection of the people for the cause of the
innovators, blamed their party for setting the example of these
tumultuary reformations, from which the ancient religion had
more to fear than to hope.
On the last day of September, Mary was crowned at West
minster with the accustomed solemnity and splendor, of which
the description sometimes renders our picturesque chroniclers
prolix. In the carriage which immediately followed her were
seated her sister Elizabeth and the princess Anne of Cleves ;
two ladies singularly unlike in their lot and unequal in their
fame. The latter princess, either above or below ambition,
escaped from the doom of heresy, and enjoyed, for the re
mainder of her days, the gratification of an ample income,
and the safety of a private condition. The imperial ambas
sadors reported to Charles! that they overheard Elizabeth,
who carried the crown, whisper to M. de Noailles that it was
very heavy, and she was tired of carrying it; to which he
replied, that it would be lighter on her head ; — an anecdote
doubtful on several accounts, but especially because Noailles
does not mention it in his correspondence with his court.
Elizabeth, who had just completed her twentieth year, was
* Sand, de Schism. Angl., in Collier, ii. 346.
t Griffet, 60. Noailles' account of the coronation (Emb. ii. 196.). is con
fined to the ceremonial, of which seventy ladies, married and unmarried,
riding on horses covered with crimson velvet, formed a remarkable part.

244 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1553.
about to close the studious quiet of her early life, that she
might enter on those sharp trials of adverse fortune which
were to exercise her vigorous faculties and to strengthen her
commanding genius; thus fitting her for that stormy and
glorious reign which, if it had some stain of Tudor vices, yet,
besides the prudence of her grandfather and the energy of
her father, displayed many great and some good qualities, of
which the rudest outline cannot be traced in the character of
these bad princes.
Her position was at this moment difficult. The Protest
ants already began to turn their eyes with trembling hope to
the daughter of Anne Boleyn. From her alone, after the de
feat of Northumberland, the Catholics had to dread an adverse
administration. In such a state of things, both parties were
prone to spread and to believe every rumor, ascribing to her
projects of aggrandizement which, in her case, seemed to
offer the sole chance of safety. The main object of the Catho
lic party was to secure their church by obtaining a suitable
marriage for Mary. Some spoke of cardinal Pole ; but his
age of fifty-three was an insurmountable objection. The
youth and beauty of her cousin, Edward Courtenay, earl of
Devonshire, perhaps pleased for a moment the stern and
gloomy queen. He does not seem to have betrayed any par
tiality for Elizabeth till Mary openly declared against him ;
though Burnet tells us that the queen " was thought to have
some inclination to marry him, had he not shown an inclina
tion for Elizabeth, who had much the better share of the
beauty that was between them." She objected to some of his
irregularities, but as there was little scope for them in his
long imprisonment, it is very improbable that she should have
considered them as without excuse. It may be believed that
he might have contracted in the Tower connexions, propen
sities, and manners unsuitable to his station. True English
men of both religions must have preferred a native to a foreign
husband, especially if the latter was formidable by his
strength, and tyrannical in his temper and policy ; but there
was little time for debate. On the 24th of July, as soon as
Charles had learnt the revolution in his cousin's favor, he ad
vised her to marry, and said he was ready to give his advice
on the choice if she desired it. On the 29th of July she
referred herself entirely to his judgment. Her ministers
proposed his nephew, the archduke, as one who would be ac
ceptable in England, from the small power and remote do
minions of which he was the heir. He dissuaded her from
that selection. She yielded, but, shortly after, complained of
the delay of Charles's decision. On the 20th of September

1553. NEGOTIATIONS FOR MARRIAGE. 243
he answered, that " seeing Courtenay was not agreeable to
her, and that Pole would not quit his ecclesiastical character,
he thought with her that a powerful prince would suit her
better than a private subject of Great Britain ; that if his
own age and health had not unfitted him for marriage, he
should have the greatest satisfaction in wedding her ; but
that, as he could not propose himself, he had nothing more
dear to offer to his beloved kinswoman than his son Don
Philip." The emperor begged that the queen should not
communicate this proposition to any of her English ministers.
However singular it may be, there appears to be a species of
coyness in Mary's advances, and of pedantic chivalry in
Charles's replies, which throw over their correspondence a
ludicrous semblance of superannuated gallantry. The empe
ror's declaration, that he agreed with Mary in thinking a
powerful prince a more suitable husband for her than a pri
vate subject, sufficiently indicated a previous intimation from
her of her inclination towards a Spanish match ; which she
must have intelligently conveyed to Charles in the first month
of her reign.
Gardiner's former life, and his present station, were pecu
liar motives for his not wishing success to the Spanish match,
even if he must be supposed to be void of the generous pre
judices which excite the lovers of their country against a
foreign ruler. Philip was already known to be no supine, no
indulgent master. It was well remembered by the most con
stant Catholics that the bishop of Winchester had been the
most active agent in obtaining the divorce between Henry
and Catharine, which he now persuaded the parliament to
condemn in the severest terms of reprobation. It is likely
that Gardiner did not very ardently desire a more rapid and
complete reconciliation with Rome than was absolutely ex
acted by the scruples of Mary's conscience; but rather wished
to moderate a victory in which he might apprehend that he
would be entirely eclipsed by the royal descent, the refined
literature, and the stainless life, of Pole.
The Spanish match was so decisive an advance towards
Rome, that the same cautious policy was thought necessary
in conducting it whieh is discoverable in the rest of the mea
sures of Gardiner's administration. Charles V. apprehended
the indiscretion of Pole, whose generous nature as well as
sincere religion made him so impatient of artifice as to be
averse even from that management and address which he con
sidered as arts cf worldly policy peculiarly unsuited to the
re-establishment of the orthodox faith. Pole distrusted such
a veteran politician as the emperor, whom he justly consider-
V2

246 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1553,
ed as too habitually employed in projects of aggrandizement to
be capable of fixing his mind mainly and constantly on the
interests of religion, however he might coldly assent to her
doctrines. A secret communication between Mary and the papal court
began very early. Commendone, a Roman courtier, was sent
into England by the legate at Brussels. He landed secretly,
and, having hired servants at Newport unacquainted with his
true name, arrived safely in London. There, however, he
was perplexed how to proceed, till by accident he met Lee,
one of the queen's servants, who had fled beyond sea in the
former reign, where he was known to Commendone. Lee in
troduced him to a secret audience of the queen, who owned
her design of restoring religion, but added, that prudence and
secrecy were necessary to prevent her intention from being
obstructed. She intrusted him with letters of this tenor for
the pope and Pole ; and after having, on the 22d of August,
seen the execution of Northumberland, an earnest of the firm
ness of her purpose, he repaired with these acceptable tidings
to the court of Rome.*
The pope, without delay, nominated Pole to be legate to
Mary. The pious cardinal eagerly hastened to perform this
apostolic duty to his royal kinswoman, to his deluded country,
and to the memory of his martyred parents. But Charles re
quired the mission to be delayed : he urged the necessity of
adopting every measure of precaution before the papal author
ity should appear in the person of a legate. He distrusted the
English spirit of Pole, who might, on his return to his coun
try, catch the disinclination of his countrymen to a foreign
master.! He could not, after his correspondence with the
queen, have been actuated by jealousy of Mary's inclination
to espouse her kinsman, though that circumstance has been
alleged as one of the motives of his conduct. It is very proba
ble that Charles urged and believed the necessity of a power
ful marriage, with the assurance of foreign aid, as a measure
preliminary to the re-establishment of religion ; though the
sharpest of the stimulants which excited him might have been
the prospect of an immense and immediate accession to his
mighty empire. The emperor feared the opposition of Pole
to the Spanish match, not only as an Englishman, but as jeal
ous of Spanish greatness, and unwilling that his influence
* Commendone returned to Brussels before the 28th of August, and trav
elled day and night to Rome, making a small deviation to visit Pole at the
Lago de Garda. Pallavic. fstor del Cone, di Tirnto, I. xii. c. 7.
Pallavicino. who writes from dispatches, is very valuable in dates.
t Pallavic. Istor. del Cone, di Tirnto, 1. xiii. c. 7.

1553. ADDRESS OF THE COMMONS. 247
over Mary should be shared with a husband of commanding
character. These were two palpable objects of irreconcilable
difference between Pole and the English ministers who were
supported by the emperor. They urged the necessity of pro
ceeding by very cautious steps to the total restoration of
popery. Pole was indignant at the continuance of any re
mains of the schism. They considered a papal confirmation
of all sales and grants of church lands as essential to the con
solidation of their political system. Pole protested against
this demand, and prayed the pope rather to recall him than to
require his participation in sacrilegious rapine. Mary took
the politic side on both these points, because it was that of the
court of Brussels, and wrote to her kinsman to assure him
that the life of a papal legate would not at that time be safe
in England. It is to be considered that Gardiner had now
yielded to the marriage, the final arrangement of which could
not then have been known to Pole.*
As soon as the intended marriage was noised abroad, the
house of commons took the alarm. They presented an hum
ble address to the queen, beseeching that she would be pleased
to provide for the continuance of quiet by a matrimonial union ;
hut earnestly imploring her to prefer a native Englishman to
a foreigner.! She resented this address. Her answer was
haughty, probably dictated by the imperial ministers. She
was moved by it to a step not a little remarkable in a princess
otherwise decorous in her manners-, and delicate in her senti
ments. On the evening of the address, which was the 30th
of October, she sent for the imperial minister, whom she con
ducted to her private oratory, and there kneeling before the
altar, after reciting the hymn "Veni, Creator," she called
God to witness that she solemnly plighted her troth to Philip
prince of Castile.J She was driven to this act of forwardness
by the popular discontent which the address of the commons
had embodied. By the advice of Gardiner, who had now con
quered whatever repugnance he might have formerly felt
against the marriage, Charles V. borrowed 1,200,000 crowns,
which then amounted to 400,000 pounds in English money,
from the imperial cities,} to be employed in softening the hos
tility of the lords and commons on this occasion ; " the first
instance of any rumor of the corruption of parliament "H
* Griffet, 120. Noailles. iii. 216.
t Burnet, p. ii. b. 2. Griffet and Noailles. The journals of the lords in
3he first parliament of Mary are lost, or not published. The short notes of
journals of the commons take no notice of the address.
X Griffet. Noailles. § Burnet, p. ii. b. 2. U Burnet.

248 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1554.
Philip, nine years younger than the unattractive queen, did
not sacrifice taste to aggrandizement without hesitation.
After the prorogation of parliament, which one writer as
cribes to their refusal to bastardize Elizabeth by name,* a
magnificent embassy came from the emperor, publicly to
solicit her majesty's hand for Don Philip, the heir of the Span
ish, Italian, and Burgundian dominions of the house of Austria.
The count of Egmont, who was at the head of this embassy,
at his landing found so great was the national dislike to the
union, that he and his colleagues had some difficulty in es
caping decisive marks of popular disapprobation.! They were
presented to the queen on the 2d of January, 1554. She re
ferred them to her ministers, who were easily persuaded to
advise her in the manner which they well knew to be most
agreeable to her wishes. Gardiner represented it in the fairest
colors of his eloquence to a willing privy-council, and an
nounced it afterwards to the mayor and magistrates of the
capital, with a skilful parade of its advantages. As he con
tinued in office during his life, which lasted eighteen months
after the marriage of Philip, it is not probable that the chan
cellor ever carried his opposition on so delicate a subject to
an inconvenient extent.
Though the treaty was not ratified in March, the conditions
were substantially fixed in January. The most important
were, that the appointment to all offices in the English do
minions should be left to her majesty, and confined to natural-
born subjects ; that the laws and privileges of England should
be preserved ; and that the English nation should continue to
employ in their affairs the languages to which they had been
anciently accustomed. Don Carlos, Philip's eldest son, was
declared heir of Spain, the two Sicilies, and Lombardy ; these
territories, in failure of him and his progeny, were to devolve
on the issue of the present marriage, who were to be the im
mediate heirs of the provinces of Lower Germany.:):
But these specious conditions were far from appeasing the
national discontent. The object of Charles V., it was said,
is attained. He has obtained a footing for his son in England.
That prince might smile at terms which he could and would
cancel or break at the head of a foreign army. All true Pro
testants must see with horror that they were to be subjected
to a Spanish inquisition. The lovers of liberty foretold the
overthrow of their ancient constitution ; foresaw that Eng
land, become a province of Spain, would be ruled with the
* Carte ; but withoutciting any authority. t Burnet.
t Dumont, Corps Diplom. iv. part iii. p. 106. Rymer, xvi. 377

1554. REVOLT AGAINST MARY. 249
same iron sceptre under which the Netherlands, Milan, Na
ples, and Sicily groaned. Men of common humanity shud
dered at the yoke of those who were inured to blood and ra
pine amidst the extirpation of the natives of America. Charles
V, the sovereign of a great part of the old and the new
world, if his son were once established in England, would
have no difficulty in deluging it with the veteran mercena
ries and hardened adventurers who covered his vast domin
ions. A plan of revolt was resolved on to avert all these evils,
which had in its first outline some chance of success. Sir
Thomas Wyatt the younger was to take the field in Kent.
The duke of Suffolk was to raise his tenants in the midland
counties. Sir Peter Carew was the expected leader in Dev
onshire. Henry II. king of France, who dreaded the aggran
dizement of Charles V., gave hopes of aid to the malcontent
chiefs. Noailles his ambassador entered eagerly into these
projects, and greedily swallowed every rumor which magni
fied the strength of the revolters. It is the lot of such minis
ters to be deceived, and their general disposition to exaggerate
circumstances which exalt their own importance. The earl
of Devonshire, an imprudent youth, lent an ear to Carew's
temptations. The princess Elizabeth refused to attend her
sister to mass.* Incessantly urged by those whose importu
nities were threats, she tried to gain time, by throwing her
self at her sister's feet, and with tears in her eyes she prayed
that she might not be pressed to abandon the religion in
which she was reared till they had afforded the means of re
ligious instruction through books and teachers.! On the eve
of the coronation, she yielded to the same apparent conformi
ty which Mary had practised in obedience to Henry VIII.
Her attachment to religion was, however, so well known that
this compulsory conformity deceived neither party.j: She was
incensed at the sentence of bastardy virtually pronounced
against her in the statute which established the throne of the
reigning queen. She was displeased by the precedence over
her given to other ladies of the court, as a clear, though
in itself frivolous, mode of displaying her illegitimacy. She
was impatient of the importunities which had beset her, and
indignant at the necessity of purchasing life by hypocrisy.
It is uncertain whether the consummate prudence which dis
tinguished her subsequent conduct prevailed over her natural
* Noailles, Sept. 6, 1553. Emb. ii. 141.
f Griffet, 106. from Renard's dispatches.
f Noailles, 22d Sept. 1553. Emb. ii. 160.

250 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1554.
feelings so entirely as to induce her to decline all suspicious
intercourse and dangerous propositions. Even if she was thus
prematurely wise, she could not fail to be represented as shar
ing all daring projects, by those who hoped much from her
name, as well as by those who sought a pretext for her de
struction. The French minister, who was deeply engaged in
the plot, was a credulous witness respecting the princess's
share in it. Accusation and rumors, however general, are of
little or no value where they would be as certainly pointed
against the innocent as against the guilty. But it must be
owned that her forbearance, if complete, must be attributed
more to prudence than to loyalty.
The conspirators had at first decided to postpone the rising
till the arrival of Philip, who was expected in April, should
raise to its highest point the unpopularity of the marriage.
The discovery of their designs, in the middle of January,
broke their measures. They took up arms to escape from
their enemies before their preparations were in forwardness,
and Carew fled to France. The duke of Suffolk, a Protestant
so zealous as to have already forgotten the recent mercy
shown to him, displayed his boldness by an attempt to excite
his tenants in Warwickshire to revolt. His success was
small : his followers were routed by lord Huntingdon, and he
was himself betrayed to his enemies by one of his park-keep
ers. On the 25th of January, 1554, the day on which Suffolk
left London, Sir Thomas Wyatt raised the standard of insur
rection at Maidstone. He established his head-quarters at
Rochester, and was joined by no contemptible number of the
men of Kent. After several skirmishes, with various results,
the duke of Norfolk was sent to quell the rebellion. He ar
rived at Stroud, a suburb of Rpchester, on the 27th of Janu
ary. As he was about to begin the attack, Brete and other
officers of the Londoners, who composed a large part of Nor
folk's force, fell back from their post with their soldiers ; and
as soon as the first gun was fired against the insurgents, the
London bands, who were in the rear of the queen's army,
shouted aloud sundry times, "We are all Englishmen !" The
duke made an effort to turn his artillery against them, but
the national feeling prevailed. Norfolk, attended only by the
captain of his guard, shifted for himself* Such was the ter
ror spread by this defection, that the imperial ambassador fled
from London,! and the court opened an ineffectual negotia
tion with Wyatt, now at the head of 15,000 men. At this
moment of panic, Mary went to Guildhall, and harangued the
* Holinshed. 1 Idem, iv. 15.

1554. INSURRECTION SUPPRESSED. 251
citizens of London, with much of the spirit of her race, and
with a success which has often attended female sovereigns in
their addresses to a susceptible multitude. " On the word of
a queen I promise and assure you that if it shall not appear
to the nobility and commons in the high court of parliament
that the marriage is for the singular benefit of the whole
realm, I will abstain from it"
On the second of February, the day of the queen's speech,
Wyatt advanced to Deptford, where he halted, as it seems
imprudently, for twenty-four critical hours. Twenty thousand
men enlisted under Mary's standard. Wyatt, whose quarters
in Southwark were commanded by the cannon of the Tower,
being defeated in an attempt to force London bridge, marched
to Kingston, where, on the 6th of February, he passed the re
mains of the bridge at that place without resistance. He had
concerted measures with his still numerous friends in the
city. But he lost their aid by one of those defects in punctu
ality to which warfare in the night is peculiarly liable. On
the seventh of February he arrived at Hyde Park corner. He
marched to Charing-cross, filling the court with such conster
nation, that even Gardiner entreated the queen to throw her
self into the Tower. The daughter of Henry VIII. scorned
this counsel. At Charing-cross a conflict ensued, in which
Wyatt, still eager to resume his communications with his city
adherents, advanced at the head of 400 men, being probably
cut off from his main body by the enemy, till he found Lud-
gate barred against him by lord Effingham. Disheartened by
this unexpected resistance, the greater part of his followers
were either dispersed or slain. With a remnant of about
eighty he fought his way back to St. James's ; and, after per
forming deeds of prowess worthy of his name, he surrendered
his sword to Sir Maurice Berkeley. Had his confederates,
Suffolk, Courtenay, and Carew resembled him ; had he de
layed the onset even a little longer ; had he wasted no irre
coverable time, when all depended on speed, the event might
have been very different ; for the body of the people had not
been appealed to : the insurrection of a county was quelled
almost as soon as its commencement could be known to the
most extensive and martial provinces. " The discontents of
the subject," says Noailles, " are not at all abated, but, on the
contrary, increase daily."*
On the 3d of November, 1553, lady Jane Grey and lord
Guilford Dudley were convicted of high treason. .. But no
time was fixed for the execution, and their treatment indi-
* Noailles, 4th March, 1554. Emb. iii. 97.

252 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1554.
cated some compassion for involuntary usurpers of seventeen
years of age. The ingratitude of Suffolk proved an incentive
sufficient to prevail over the slender pity of bigots and poli
ticians. On the 8th of February, Mary signed a warrant for
the execution of " Guilford Dudley and his wife," — for such
was the description by which they were distinguished at a
moment when discourtesy wears its ugliest aspect. On the
morning of the 12th, he was led to execution on Tower Hill.
Lord Guilford Dudley had requested an interview with his
beloved Jane. She, from a fear that it might unfit both for
the scene through which they were to pass, declined it. She
saw him go through the gate of the Tower towards the scaf
fold ; and, soon afterwards, she chanced to look from the same
window at his bleeding carcass, imperfectly covered, in the
cart which bore it back. Freckenham, abbot of Westminster,
had endeavored to convert her to the Catholic faith. He was
acute, eloquent, and of a tender nature ; but he made no im
pression on her considerate and steady belief She behaved
to him with such calmness and sweetness, that he had obtained
for her a day's respite. So much meekness has seldom been
so pure from lukewarmness. She wrote a letter to Harding
on his apostasy, couched in ardent and even vehement lan
guage, partly because she doubted his sincerity. Never did
affection breathe itself in language more beautiful than in her
dying letter to her father, in which she says, " My guiltless
blood may cry before the Lord, Mercy to the innocent"* A
Greek letter to her sister, lady Catharine, written on a blank
leaf of a Greek Testament, is needless as another proof of
those accomplishments which astonished the learned of Eu
rope,! but admirable as a token that neither grief nor danger
could ruffle her thoughts, nor lower the sublimity of her high
est sentiments. In the course of that morning she wrote in
her note-book three sentences in Greek, Latin, and English,
of which the last is as follows : — " Lf my fault deserved pun
ishment, my youth at least, and my imprudence, were worthy
of excuse. God and posterity will show me favor."
She was executed within the Tower, either to withdraw
her from the pitying eye of the people, or as a privilege due
to the descendant of Henry VII. She declared on the scaffold
that "her soul was as pure from trespass against queen Mary
as innocence was from injustice : I only consented to the thing
I was forced into."
In substance the last allegation was true. The history of
* Stowe. Biograph. Britan. iv. 24200. 1 Ed. 1757.
f Ileylin. Biograph. Britan.

1554. ELIZABETH AT ASHR1DGE. 253
tyranny affords no example of a female of seventeen by the
command of a female, and a relation, put to death for acqui
escence in the injunction of a father, sanctioned by the con
currence of all that the kingdom could boast of what was,
illustrious in nobility, or grave in law, or venerable in reli
gion. The example is the more affecting, as it is. that of a
person who exhibited a matchless union of youth and beauty
with genius, with learning, with virtue, with piety; whose
affections were so warm, while her passions were so perfectly
subdued. It was a death sufficient to honor and dishonor an
age. The execution of her father occurred a few days afterwards.
Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was tried, and made so good a de
fence, on grounds of law, that the jury acquitted him ; for
which several of them were heavily fined, according to an
usage then of unquestioned legality. Wyatt was convicted on
the 15th of March. Nearly a month appears to have been em
ployed in laboring to extract information from him against the
princess Elizabeth. The attorney-general at the trial aggra
vated the criminality of Wyatt by saying, " Your attempt
reached, as far as in you lay, to the second person in the
realm, whereby her honor is brought in question." Wyatt
wholly disclaimed the imputation. " Being in this wretched
estate," said he, " I beseech you not to overcharge me, nor to
make me seem that I am not"* This brave youth was be
headed on the 11th of April.
It was not till the beginning of December that Elizabeth
obtained leave to retire to her house at Ashridge, where it
was possible for her to escape the constrained participation in
a worship which she disapproved. There she received propo-
sitions and suggestions from the chief of the revolters, who
probably intended, in due time, to act in her name ; but her con
sent or acceptance was not shown, nor even seriously alleged.
Her utmost offence seems to have been the misprision, or con
cealment of projects of revolt, which was not a capital crime.
About the 8th of February, immediately after the utter dis
comfiture of Wyatt, Sir Richard Southwell, Sir Edward Hast
ings, and Sir Thomas Cornwallis, were sent to Ashridge with
a body of troops to conduct Elizabeth to London.! They were
enjoined to bring her " quick or dead," or, in other words, to
* Holinshed, iv. 29.
t Compare Strype, Mem. v. 144. 146. with Griffet, 150.
Dispatch of Noailles, 11th February, 1553-4. Emb. iii. p. 63. ; six hundred
soldiers sent to Ashridge. They probably arrived on the 13th. Six daya,
are assigned by Holinshed for the journey to London. Three .or four more
were necessary before she could be shown in London,
Vol. IL W

254 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1 554.
use any force necessary to their purpose, if the court physi-
cians, who were sent with them, should pronounce her capable
of being carried to the capital without danger of her life from.
the journey. They arrived after she had retired to rest; but
though she declined to see them till the morning, they imme
diately forced their way into her bed-chamber. " Is the haste
such," said she, " that it might not have pleased you to come
to-morrow in the morning?" They professed " that they were-
right sorry to see her in such a case." She replied, "And I.
am not glad to see you here at this time of night" Her ill
ness was so unfeigned that it compelled the courtiers and
their physicians to allow her an unusual time for her journey,
and she did not enter London till the 23d. " While the city,"
says Noailles, "was covered with gibbets,* and the public
btfildings were crowded with the heads of the bravest men in
the kingdom, the princess Elizabeth, for whom no better lot
is- foreseen, is lying ill about seven or eight miles from hence,
so swollen and disfigured that her death is expected."! He
doubted whether she- would reach London alive.J In passing
along the streets of te' capital, she ordered her litter to be
opened, in order to show herself, and was apparelled hi white,
as the emblem of innocence. The paleness produced by her
distemper was perceived and pitied by the beholders, notwith
standing the lofty port which she assumed. Her youth and
strength triumphed over the disease. She demanded an audi
ence of the queen, asserted her innocence with the utmost
boldness,} and claimed the interview on the grounds of a
promise made by her sister. But the request was vain. "The
lady Elizabeth has recovered her health, but it is a recovery
of little importance; for her death is determined." || "The
queen," continues the French ambassador, "goes to Rich
mond before Easter, to do penance, and to command acts of
cruelty." Two councils were held on the fate of Elizabeth. One-
party, supported to the last by the advice of the emperor,
urged the absolute necessity of destroying her, and the folly
of sparing a traitress, who defeated the law more effectually
by a mere evasion of it, whatever lawyers might think of her
* On Monday, the 12th of February, fifteen gallowses were erected ; on
which fifty-two men were hanged. The day was called Black Monday, as
being that of the killing of lady Jane.
t -'1st' February, Emb. iii. 78. ( Emb. iii. 88.
§ Ellis's Letters, second series, ii. 255. Princess Elizabeth to Q.ueen Mary.
!i La pauvre madame Elizabeth est amendee de sa same. Mais peu lui
servira cet amendement, puisque sa mort est resolv6. — Noailles, Emb. iii.
121. March 19, 1554.

1554. TREATMENT OF ELIZABETH. 255
¦escape from its letter. Lord Arundel and lord Paget were
the authors of these lawless counsels. On the other side,
the more experienced of the English counsellors doubted, per
haps denied, that Elizabeth could be legally convicted of trea
son under the 25th of Edward III., the only law applicable to
that offence ; since the late statute, one of the earliest and
happiest of her majesty's measures, had swept away the odious
heap of treasons raised up by her father. That ancient law,
dear to the people by contrast with the late bloody statutes,
required open and outward acts to be done by the accused in
furtherance of their criminal designs. Gardiner, though he
professed to think Elizabeth deserving of death, yet considered
her confinement at Ashridge and Courtenay's residence at
St. James's as irreconcilable with a just conviction for trea
son. If the present construction of the statute of Edward
then prevailed, he must not only have held that they did not
levy war, but that a conspiracy to rebel was not eapable of
being proved against them. Our information, which flows
from foreign ministers, throws no light on such subtle distinc
tions. But it is so probable as to allow little doubt that Gar
diner would not have harbored any scruples about the removal
of a person so obnoxious, and of whose desert he professed to
think no better than his colleagues, if there had been any
sufficient evidence of Elizabeth's substantial assent to the pro
jects of revolt suggested to her by Wyatt and perhaps by
Courtenay. It is not wonderful that a man grown gray in
affairs of state should have shrunk from the public and
personal danger likely to attend the illegal execution of the
second person in the commonwealth. No other motive can
reasonably be supposed to have influenced his conduct Eliz
abeth often assured a French minister, long after these events,
that she expected death, and that the queen thirsted for her
sister's blood ;* a circumstance which exactly tallies with the
expectations of Noailles. She probably owed her life to the
illness and distemper at Ashridge, which hindered her from
being tempted or earried into the camp of the insurgents.!
A subordinate question arose in the council, whether Eliza
beth, being absolved from a capital charge should be com
mitted to the Tower. On this question, fearing to displease
* Mem. de Castelnau, i.
t Elizabeth etoit demeuree malade dans sa maison de camnag-ne. Elle
n'etoit done dans le cas de subir la peine de mort. C'est ce qui lui sauva
la vie; sans quoi elle auroit eu la tete tranchee. Elizabeth e'y attendoit
comme elle Pavoua dans le suite a monsieur de Castelnau. Griffet, 166. In
£>. 171, he tells us on the authority of Reuard, that Gardiner prevailed over
the desire of Mary for Elizabeth's death.

256 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1554.
the queen by too frequent opposition, Gardiner took the severe
side. Elizabeth was committed to the Tower, certainly with no
other expectation than that of mounting the scaffold of her
unhappy mother ; of which all the horrors were revived
by the recent fate of lady Jane Grey, — the first intelligence
which welcomed the princess on her arrival in London. For
some time after her imprisonment in that fortress, she was
harassed by examinations, which, after the resolution of the
council, could have been prompted only by a desire to discover
some means of satisfying the lingering hatred of Mary and
the bloody policy of Charles V. In the middle of April there
seemed no remaining means of gratifying Mary's revengeful
spirit by keeping up the appearance of an inquiry ; for Eliza
beth was then permitted to walk round the Tower. On the
19th of May she was transferred to the custody of Sir F.
Williams, a gentleman of the same lineage with the Crom-
wells, who, though created* a baron only a month before,
treated the young princess with more mildness than pleased
the court ; for she was shortly imprisoned at Woodstock, un
der the jailership of Sir Henry Bedingfield, a man so much
more anxious to gratify his employers than to act as became
his original station, that he ranks among the jailers who have
derived a lasting infamy from the fame of their prisoners.
When he came with a hundred newly-equipped soldiers to
conduct her to Woodstock, she said to him with her usual
quickness and poignancy, " Is the scaffold of lady Jane yet
taken away 1"! The princess, when she afterwards became
queen, carried her anger no farther than to forbid him from
visiting the court. She said to him, on the occasion of the
prohibition, " God forgive you, and we do ; and. if we have
any prisoner whom we would have hardly handled and straitly
kept, then we will send for you."f
Philip landed at Southampton on the 19th of July, 1554,
attended by a train magnificent and formidable, composed of
Spanish grandees and Burgundian lords, who were followed
by four thousand soldiers, and had been conveyed from Corun-
na by a fleet} containing the choice of the " armed vessels of
* Dugdale, ii. 393.
t It is singular that Dr. Lingard should have laid more stress on a slight
intimation in a note of Warton (Life of Sir T. Pope, 74.) than upon the
narrative in his text.
t Holinsh. iv. 50.
§ Noailles, iii. 283., who gives a list of the Spanish and Flemish nobility.
There were 150 Spanish vessels, 28 English ships with other vessels, and 14
ebips from the Low Countries. — Holinsh. iv. 57.

1554. PHILIP AND MARY. 257
the Netherlands, of Spain, and of England. The marriage
between Philip and Mary was solemnized on the 25th by
Gardiner in his cathedral of Winchester. Philip was at that
time in the twenty-ninth year of his age, Mary in her thirty-
eighth year. The countenance and form of the prince were
in his youth not void of symmetry, and began to show marks
of his firm and sagacious mind : but the stately reserve of
his Spanish manners did not lessen the repugnance of the
English people to the marriage. " No English lord remained
at court but Gardiner. When the king and queen removed
to Hampton-court the hall door was continually shut, so that
no man might enter unless his errand were first known, which
seemed strange to Englishmen." In September a proclama
tion enjoining all vagabonds and servants out of place to quit
London in five days, bore marks of the like gloo'my distrust.
In October the queen or her sycophants began to countenance
rumors of her pregnancy, very naturally believed by a lady in
her circumstances.
On the 12th of November a parliament was holden at
Westminster to complete that imperfect restoration of reli
gion which had been faintly sketched in the former year.
This national assembly was at its opening honored by the un
wonted or rather unexampled presence of two sovereigns,
king Philip and queen Mary ; of whom the first, though iK
England only titular, was distinguished from all others byJt
statute, which made it treason to compass his death.* A bill
passed both houses in four days " for the restitution in blood
of the lord cardinal Pole;"! an act in itself of just reparation,
but thus hastened by alacrity in paying homage to the rising
religion of the court. The lords were unanimous. Lord
Paget, who had been raised by Somerset, and Sir William Ce?
cil, afterwards distinguished in a policy more acceptable to
Protestants, were among the most forward persons in their
respective parts of the reconciliation. For a time it was dif
ficult to reconcile the pious cardinal or the indignant pontiff
to the condition most essential to the peace of the papacy with
England, — that of security to the possessors of abbey lands.
At last, as an expedient for reconciling the unquiet minds of
dishonest possessors to the indelible claims of the church on
her ancient property, powers were given by the pope to the
legate " to remove all trouble or danger whieh by canons or
ecclesiastical decrees might touch the possession of such
* 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, c. 10. s. 3.
t Lords' Journ. 17th to 21st 'November.
W2

258 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1554.
goods."* This form was adopted, and it seems to have been
sufficient according to the doctrines of all reasonable Roman
Catholics; since it left all questions which directly concerned
property to the municipal law and the lay tribunals. It would,
perhaps, have been impossible to frame a more comprehensive
form of words which did not contain an express renunciation
of the papal authority over civil causes, and thus be subject
to the very serious inconvenience of being liable to be under
stood as an admission by the state, that such papal authority
previously subsisted, or interpreted as a confession by the pope,
that his predecessors had been guilty of flagrant usurpation.
Practically speaking, it is evident that whoever could violate
the obvious sense of this dispensation would not be more bound
by stronger words.
On the 20th of November, 1554, cardinal Pole arrived at
Dover, armed with apparently full power to do all the acts
which were necessary to reconcile the English nation to the
church of Rome. At Gravesend he was presented by the
earl of Shrewsbury and the bishop of Durham with the act
which reversed his attainder. A royal barge was sent by
their majesties to convey him ; and as they desired that he
should display the ensigns of his legatine powers, a silver
cross was placed on high on the prow of the barge. After a
joyful reception at court, he withdrew to the palace of Lam
beth, which, being now vacant by Cranmer's attainder, was
magnificently furnished for the purposes of accommodation
and state.
On the 28th of November he came to the house of peers,
and being introduced by Gardiner the chancellor, he address
ed both houses in a speech, in which he said, " that having
for many years been excluded, not only from that assembly,
but also from his country, by laws enacted personally against
himself, he should ever be grateful for the repeal of those
laws ; and that in return he was come to inscribe them deni
zens of heaven, and to restore them to that Christian great
ness which they had forfeited by renouncing their fealty.
That to reap so great a blessing it only remained that they
should repeal the laws which they had enacted against the
holy see, and by which they had cut themselves off from the
body of the faithful." On Thursday the 29th of November,
1554, the formal reconciliation to the Catholic church of the
only great monarchy which had separated from her commu
nion was solemnized with that dignity and splendor which
* 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8. Stat, of the Realm.

1554. REUNION WITH ROME. 259
became the most momentous transaction which had for seve
ral ages occurred in Christendom.
The queen and the king being placed in regal state in the
great hall of the palace,* the legate, who was a prince of the
blood as well as of the church, took his seat beside them at
some distance. An humble supplication of the lords spiritual
and temporal, and commons, in parliament assembled, on be
half of the whole realm, was then presented to their majes
ties, beseeching those royal persons, unpolluted themselves
by heresy, to make intercession with the lord cardinal, the
legate of the apostolic see, for their readmission within the
sacred pale of the church, and for an absolution from the con
sequences of their offences, on condition of their proving
themselves to be true penitents by the repeal of all the laws
against the Catholic religion and the holy see, passed in the
season of their delusion. The intercession having been made
by Philip and Mary, the legate then pronounced an absolution
of the parliament and the whole realm from all heresy and
schism, and from all judgments and pains for that cause in
curred. Many of the persons present burst into tears of joy
at this most happy of all human occurrences. The news
spread over Europe with gladness and speed. The pope
celebrated the second conversion of England to Christianity
by a solemn procession, and ratified all the acts of his faitMul
legate. The king, queen, and legate, together with both houses of
parliament, chanted Te Deum in the chapel of the palace.
The agitation of Mary was so great, that she imagined some
internal disturbance to be the first movement of an unborn
infant, who gave this sign of life. So entire was the belief
yielded to this female fancy, that the parliament besought the
king to undertake the guardianship of the child thus an
nounced at an auspicious moment. The privy-council had
on the day before enjoined Bonner to direct Te Deum to be
sung throughout his diocese " for the good hope of certain
succession to the crown." Weston, dean of Westminster,
framed a form of prayer for the safe delivery of Mary. An
other prayer contained these petitions : " Give therefore unto
thy servants Philip and Mary a male issue, which may sit in
the seat of thy kingdom. Give unto our queen a little infant,
in fashion and body comely and beautiful, in pregnant wit no
table and excellent."
It was not long before the hopes so fondly nursed were ut
terly dispelled. The queen, soured by early injustice, derived
* At Whitehall.

260 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1554.
little consolation from an austere and morose husband, who
was as capable, indeed, of faithful attachment, as he was in
flexible in his odious qualities, but who placed his dignity in
coldness, and was not likely to be taught by Mary to feel
emotions so foreign to his character as those of tender affec
tion. It is probable that he saved, the ' life of Elizabeth, not
from pity, for of that infirmity he would have been ashamed,*
but from the influence of one of those under-currents in
human affairs which often counteract a general course of
policy. With all his zeal and ambition, one of his prevailing
dispositions was jealousy, and fear of his formidable neighbor
and rival the king of France. As soon as he despaired of
issue by Mary, he perceived that all consistent Catholics
would consider the hereditary right to the crown of England
as devolving on Mary Stuart queen of Scots, the niece of
Henry VIII. by his eldest sister Margaret.
England and France had struggled for the disposal of the
hand of this beautiful child. The ancient connexion with
France, and long jealousy Of the designs of the nearer neigh
bor against national independence, together with the blind
and passionate measures of the English government, threw
the prize into the hands of the French monarch. Her mar
riage to the dauphin was hastened by a grasping policy, be
fore the natural age of such connexions ; after which the
wedded pair were made to assume the title of king and queen
dauphin. To prevent England from falling under their
power, after the death of a hypochondriacs' and' childless
queen, it became an object of Philip's policy to preserve Eli
zabeth, who by the will of Henry VIII., and in the opinion
of her Protestant subjects, had a preferable title to that of the
queen-dauphiness. To have a hostage in his hands, with
pretensions so specious, was on all suppositions an object of
the utmost importance to him. Whether he destined her for
the duke of Savoy or the king of Sweden, or already contem
plated the possibility of espousing her himself,! it was equally
necessary to his design that he should put on the unwonted
garb of clemency. Elizabeth had hitherto lived in a contin
ued expectation of death. Bedingfield was disgusted at the
indulgence shown to her by Williams. He forbade her to
amuse herself by looking at a game of chess. The access
of her own attendants was on one occasion prohibited, and
* Cabrera, Filipe Segundo. Madrid, 1619.
t That he proposed himself to her on the death of her sister is asserted in
the Memoires de Nevers, and somewhat countenanced by the president
Henault. The last writer inquired and knew more than the shortness of
his narrative, and a certain prudery of station, allowed him to disclose.

1554. PUNISHMENT FOR HERESY. 261
she suspected that orders had been given to put her privately
to death. Many traces of her residence were discoverable at
Woodstock in very recent times* A New Testament is still
preserved, which bears the initials of Elizabeth the captive,
in her own beautiful handwriting. She wrote the following
words on it, with a mixed allusion to her religious consola
tions and solitary walks, which, though quaint, are yet touch
ing : — " I walk many times into the pleasant fields of Holy
Scriptures, where I pluck up goodly sentences by pruning,
eat them by reading, chew them by musing, and lay them up
at length in the high seat of memory; that having tasted
their sweetness, I may the less perceive the bitterness of this
miserable life."! One of her visits to her sister at Hampton-
court displayed the subtle devices of a Spanish politician in
that age. Being conducted at midnight, by torch-light, to the
queen's apartment, when she had fallen on her knees, and
poured forth professions of loyalty, Philip was concealed be
hind the tapestry, in order that he might seem, if it had been
necessary, the protector of the princess from the passionate
temper of her sister. She was sent to Hatfield, a royal
palace, under the mild guardianship of Sir Thomas Pope, a
Catholic gentleman, who did as much as he could to mitigate
her imprisonment ; although the stress laid by historical wri
ters on some instances of common civility manifests their
sense of the rigor of his instructions.
The situation of Elizabeth must have been embittered by
the sufferings of all those who were attached to her, or whom
she was accustomed to respect. An act was passed by the
parliament of 1554, previous to the absolution, and, as if it
were a fit preparation for it, for the revival of the statutes of
Richard II., Henry IV, and Henry V. against heretics, and
especially against Lollards ; which revival was to take effect
from the 20th of January, 1555. The most important of these
persecuting statutes was that of Henry IV.,J which seems
alone to have prescribed or pointed out a regular mode of in
flicting capital punishment on heretics either refusing to ab
jure their errors or relapsed into them after abjuration. In
either of these cases, when the diocesan pronounced that the
heretic should be left to the secular arm, the sheriff or other
local magistrate was required " to receive the heretics, and
then, on a high place, before the people, to cause them to be
* Warton's Life of Sir T. Pope, 71. To the singularly bad taste of lord
treasurer Godolphin, who complained to the duchess of Marlborough that a
pile of ruins in front of her palace was an unseemly object, we owe the
destruction of " Queen Elizabeth's chamber."
X Warton's Pope, 73. | 2 Hen. 4. c. 15. de hcretico comburendo.

262 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1554.
burnt." On this statute was founded the ancient writ " on
burning a heretic," which appears to have been the only legal
warrant for execution by the lay magistrate. The act of the
six articles* had virtually abrogated the ancient statute
against Lollardy, by denouncing inferior punishments against
the greater part of such offences. With the statute was now
revived the process for its execution. Before that revival it
does not appear that there Was any system of jurisdiction or
mode of procedure for the trial of heresy ; though in the case
of Anabaptists and Anti-trinitarians, who were considered as
offenders against the essentials of Christianity, the ancient
law was followed as if it had been still in force. The Roman
Catholic church was regarded as having preserved the funda
mental articles of the Christian faith, though encumbered and
obscured by corruptions. No Roman Catholic was treated as
a heretic in the reign of Edward. It has been said that
" the Reformation of Laws," composed in the latter part of
that prince's reign, does indicate preparations for severity
against the adherents of the old religion. This statement is
chiefly grounded on a text of that projected code, which di
rects that contumacious and incorrigible heretics, after all
other means have been exhausted, shall be at length deliv
ered to the civil magistrate to be punished.] It is assumed
that the punishment must be death. Yet in the very first
article of the code, which relates to atheists and unbelievers
in Christianity, death is denounced against them in express
words.:): The admission of it into another article, by mere implica
tion, is therefore unreasonable. It is too terrible an enactment
to be admitted without express words. If punishment is held
to be synonymous with capital punishment, by force of this
clause death must be applied to all heresies. If it was in
tended to confer on the civil magistrate a large discretion in
the infliction of inferior punishments for the enumerated here
sies, the article is perfectly agreeable to the practice of the
framers, and the opinions of the times. It is incredible that
capital punishment could be denounced against the whole of
a long series of heresies, of which the catalogue nearly occu-
* 31 Hen. 8. c. 11.
t " Ad extremum ad civilem magistratum ablegatur puniendus." (Re
form. Leg., de Judic. contra lueresis, c. 3.)
The interval between " to be punished" and " to be deprived of life" is
rather wide. Another passage is equally conclusive: heretics are expressly
declared to be punishable by infamy and civil disabilities, — surely excluding
death. Reform. Leg. de Judic. contra ha^res. c 10.
I rather wonder at my friend Mr. Hallam's hesitation in a case which
seems to me to allow none.
i u Vitam illis abjudicandum statuimus." Reform. Leg. c. 1.

1555. PROTESTANTS PERSECUTED. 263
pies twenty quarto pages, besides what is called a monstrous
heap of other errors* less necessary to be specified, as being
less prevalent in that age. Even admitting this unreasonable
construction of the plan for a reformed code, it affects only
the reputation of the projectors. It never was adopted by
public authority. It was not laid before parliament. There
is no reason to doubt that the Protestant parliament would
have altered the very articles in question, if, when they were
communicated to that assembly, they could be supposed to
establish or countenance a practice perfectly at variance with
that of the king and parliament of England in the reign of
Edward VI. To hold that a few words in a Latin manuscript,
of projected but not adopted laws, not printed till many years
afterwards, could have been the incentive of those who kindled
the fires of Smithfield under Mary, is one of the most unten
able of all positions. Truth and justice require it to be posi
tively pronounced, that Gardiner and Bonner cannot plead the
example of Cranmer and Latimer for the bloody persecution
which involved in its course the destruction of the Protestant.
prelates. The Anti-trinitarian and the Anabaptist, if they had
regained power, might indeed have urged such a mitigation,
but the Roman Catholic had not even the odious excuse of
retaliation. The year 1555 opened under the saddest and darkest
auguries for the now devoted Protestants. A solemn embassy
was sent to Rome, to lay at the feet of his holiness the peni
tential homage of his erring children in England. On the 23d
of January, the bishops went to Lambeth to receive cardinal
Pole's blessing. He advised them to treat their flocks with
gentleness. On the 25th, Bonner, with eight bishops, and a
hundred and sixty priests, made a procession throughout Lon
don, to return thanks to heaven for the recovery of the kingdom.
In the midst of these joyful thanksgivings effectual preparation
was made for scenes of another kind. As soon as the solem
nities of reconciliation were completed, at the earliest moment
that the nation could be regarded as once more a member of
the Catholic church, a sanguinary persecution was not threat
ened or prepared, but inflicted, on the prelates, ministers, and
members of the reformed communion. . It was the first mea
sure of the restored church of Rome. On the 28th of Janu
ary, a commission, at the head of which was Gardiner, lord-
chancellor, and bishop olft Winchester sat in the church of
St. Mary Overies, in Southwark, for the trial of 'Protestants.
* "Possit magna' coltuvies aliarum hieresiuin accumulari."— Epilog, de
hceres.

264 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1555-
His great abilities, his commanding character, and the station
which he was now chosen to fill, do not allow us to doubt that
he, at least in the beginning, was the main author of these
bloody counsels, although perhaps he did not mean that the
persecution should extend beyond the eminent ecclesiastics
whom he called the ringleaders of sacrilegious rebellion. This
is at least agreeable to the maxim said to have been uttered
by him against mercy to the princess Elizabeth, which, if he
ever used it, must have been pronounced when the imperial
ambassadors urged a similar advice, " that it was vain to cut
away the leaves and branches, if the root and trunk of re
bellion were spared."*
Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, an ardent, austere, and scru
pulous Protestant, inclined to some of the opinions afterwards
called puritanical, and Rogers, a clergyman of Essex, were
the first martyrs in this persecution. Rogers, on his examina
tion, said to Gardiner, " Did you not pray against the pope for
twenty years?" — " I was forced by cruelty," answered Gardi
ner. — " Will you," replied Rogers, " use cruelty to others 1 "f
After his condemnation, he besought his judges to grant him
an interview with his wife, a helpless foreign woman, who
had borne to him ten children. So much had the sophistries
of a canonist silenced the feelings of nature in the breast of
Gardiner, that he had the brutality to aggravate his refusal at
such a moment by saying, " She is not your wife." On his
way to Smithfield, on the 4th of February, 1555, he met his
faithful and beloved wife with her ten childred, one of whom
she was suckling. He was unshaken by that sad scene, and
he breathed his last triumphantly in the midst of suffocating
flames.:): Hooper was sent to die in his episcopal city. He, too, was
vainly tempted by a pardon held out at the edge of the pyre
which was about to be kindled to consume him. The green
wood burnt weakly. He called upon the people to bring more
fire, for the flames burnt his limbs without reaching his vitals.
* Fuller, book viii. sect. 2.
1 1 quote with pleasure from the work of a tolerant and liberal Roman
Catholic, my Iearned_and venerable friend Mr. Butler. Hist. Account of
English Catholics, i. 133.
I " The married clergy were observed to suffer with most alacrity. They
were bearing testimony to the validity and sanctity of their marriage ; the
honor of their wives and children were at stake; the desire of leaving them
an unsullied name, and a viryious example, combined with a sense of reli
gious duty; and thus the heart derived strength:from the very ties which in
other circumstances might have weakened it." These are the just and
beautiful reflections of a line writer, who should have transplanted into his
writings more of the benevolence of his nature and of his life. — Soulhey,
Book of tb» Church, n. 151.

1555. PROTESTANTS PERSECUTED. 265
He was three quarters of an hour in dying. One of his hands
dropped off before his death. But he died with feelings of
triumphant piety. To pursue the particulars of these cruelties
more minutely is beside the purpose of such an undertaking
as the present. They excited general horror, aggravated,
doubtless, by the consideration that they were not acts of
retaliation for like cruelties suffered by Catholics. Gardiner,
disappointed by so firm a resistance, withdrew from a share in
vain bloodshed. Even Philip was compelled to cause one of
the most celebrated of his Spanish divines to preach against
these odious proceedings.* Many of the Catholic prelates are
recorded by Protestant writers to have exercised effectual and
perhaps hazardous humanity. Tunstall, bishop of Durham,
appears to have sometimes spoken to the accused with a vio
lence foreign from the general tenor of his life. It has been
suggested that, according to a practice of which there are
remarkable instances in other seasons of tyranny and terror,
he submitted thus far to wear the disguise of cruelty, in order
that he might be better able to screen more victims from
destruction. The task of continuing the system of blood
devolved on Bonner, bishop of London, a man who seems to
have been of so detestable a nature, that if there had been no
persecution he must have sought other means of venting his
cruelty. Petitions against the proceedings of government were
transmitted to the queen from the Protestant exiles who took
refuge abroad, and who too transiently and scantily imbibed
somewhat of the spirit of religious liberty in the severe school
of beggary and banishment.
While the humanity of the people was roused against cru
elty, the alarm of the nobility for their large share in the
plunder of the church was excited, by causes of a very differ
ent and much more ignoble nature.
The pope, who had received the English ambassadors at
Rome with all the splendor fit for the ministers of a great
crown dispatched on so happy an errand, thought it necessary
to expostulate with them in private on the detention of the
goods of the church, of which it was necessary to restore the
uttermost farthing, because the things that belong to God
never can be applied to human uses, and they who withhold
* Burn, book ii. A.D. 1555. Carranza, afterwards the celebrated and un
fortunate archbishop of Toledo, was one of the preachers who accompanied
Philip. He attended the emperor in his last moments. But though eighteen
years a prisoner in Spain and at Rome, he seems to have been a zealous
Catholic. Llorente, Hist. Crit. de l'Inquisition de l'Espagne, iii. 183. 304.
He boasts, in his dying confession, of having caused the bones of heretics
to be dug from their graves in England. Yet he might have preached a sin
cerely tolerant sermon.
Vol. II. X

266 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1555.
the least part of them are in a state of damnation.* It is not
difficult to understand the expedients by which the ingenious
and refined sophists of Rome might reconcile this private lan
guage of the pope with his public acts. " True," it might be
said, "his holiness had remitted all ecclesiastical censures,
and dispensed with all ecclesiastical prohibitions respecting
the property of the church in England ; but he could not
wash out the indelible turpitude of rapine, nor profane the
things set apart for the worship of God. From the penalties
of the canon law he had released the holders of church lands,
but he could not release them from being answerable to God
for a breach of the eternal and immutable laws of justice."
Whoever, indeed, is thoroughly imbued with the important
distinction between an immoral and an illegal act, will own
that this dangerously applied reasoning is not in itself alto
gether void of some color.
Mary was not slow in listening to the counsels of the su
preme pastor. She restored that portion of the confiscated
property which still remained in the hands of the crown. But
the pious princess, if we may believe Pallavicino, " deemed it
advantageous to use condescension to private individuals who
held the greater part of the confiscations, lest she might enrol
the numerous usurpers of abbey lands under the standard of
an ill-suppressed heresy."!
The number of sufferers in the very humblest conditions of
life has sometimes been mentioned as extenuating the merit
of their martyrdom. It may assuredly be represented with
more reason as an instance of the power of conscience to ele
vate the lowest of human beings above themselves, and as a
proof of the cold-blooded cruelty of the persecutors, who, in
order to spread terror through every class, laboriously dug up
victims from the darkest corners of society, whose errors might
have hoped for indulgence from any passion less merciless
than bigotry. Among the leaders of the reformed church,
Ridley, the most moderate, and Latimer, the simplest and
frankest of Protestant prelates, perished in the flames at Ox-
* Fra Paolo, lib. v. A. D. 1555. Storia del, Cone. Trident. In this case
cardinal Pallavicino, who wrote from the archives of the court of Rome
for the purpose of discrediting Fra Paolo, confirms it by a remarkable
and otherwise inexplicable silence. For while he impugns at great length
the narrative of the Venetian respecting the conversation of the pope with
ambassadors about the title of kingdom conferred on Ireland, he passes
over in silence the remonstrances of the same pontiff against the detention
of ecclesiastical property in England, which so acute and vigilant an an
tagonist would certainly have contradicted if he durst. — Pallav. Istor. del
Cone. Trident. lib. xiii. c. 12.
In c. 13. there is almost a positive admission of the veracity of Fra Paolo.
t Card. Pallav. lib. xiii. c. 13.

1555. CRANMER. 267
ford, on the 16th of October, 1555. In this persecution, it is
needless to add that their death was worthy of their cause ;
for all the martyrs deported themselves fearlessly, and often
joyfully. Among the expedients employed to annoy them, one
of the most effectual was that of pretended conferences on
the disputed doctrines, in which the audience was so carefully
selected, that they always gave the honors and applauses of
victory to the prevailing faction. These conferences were a
series of insolent triumphs. On one of them being proposed
by Bonner to Philpot, a noted divine among the Protestants,
he answered well, by quoting the words of Ambrose - arch
bishop of Milan to the emperor Valentinian : " Take away
the law, and I will reason with you ;"* an answer to which,
though perfectly conclusive, few but the weaker party appeal.
Every reader of this part of history will desire somewhat
more information respecting the fate of Cranmer, the first pa
triarch of the Protestant church of England, — a man who,
with all his infirmity, would have been blameless in an age
so calm as to require no other virtues than goodness and be
nignity. He was committed to the Tower for treason in Sep
tember, 1553. In October he was convicted of high treason
for his share in the lady Jane's proclamation. In the next
year he obtained a pardon, the government purposing to con
vict him of heresy, which from them he considered as no re
proach, though he had earnestly solicited a pardon for a breach
of allegiance. The Tower was for a time so crowded, that
Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and Bradford, were thrust together
into one chamber. In the month of April of the succeeding
year, Cranmer, Ridley, and " old father Latimer," were re
moved from the Tower to Oxford, for the purpose of a dispu
tation. The demeanor of Cranmer was acknowledged by his
opponents to be grave and modest. Latimer declared that,
by reason of his old age, his infirmities, and the weakness of
his memory, he could not bear a debate. Weston the prolo
cutor, the enemy of Cranmer, commended his modesty and
gentleness, as well as his learning and skill as a disputant.
He was permitted to survive his colleagues for many months.
A new commission was obtained from Rome, in order that the
more rigorous adherence to the forms of law might be perfect
ly evident in the case of this eminent primate. Unhappily for
his reputation, he made some of those repeated applications
to Mary for pardon by which he had before escaped out of ex
traordinary peril : it is true that in his successive letters to
her he reasoned and expostulated with her upon her own ad-
* " Tolle legem et fiet certamen."

268 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1556.
ministration; but his enemies saw his infirmity through the
disguise of apparent boldness and liberty. He was entertain
ed, if we may entirely trust Protestant writers, by the Catho
lic dean of Christ-church, where he was treated with much
courtesy and hospitality, while his hopes and his fears were
practised on by men of whom some might have really wished
to save his life : in an evil hour he signed his recantation. It
has been plausibly conjectured by Burnet, that the writ for
putting him to death was -sent down to Oxford early in the
long period between the date and the execution, to be shown
to him in order to work more effectually on the fears incident
to feeble age. Whether he could have been persuaded to ad
here to that disgraceful act for the miserable sake of a few
years of decrepitude, is a question which the unrelenting
temper of Mary renders it impossible for us to answer. On
Saturday the 22d of March, 1556, he was, without warning,
though not without expectation, brought forth to be burnt in
front of Baliol College, after a sermon preached in St. Mary's
before the university, by Cole, provost of Eton College, who
was sent by the queen to Oxford to preach on that dire occa
sion. After the sermon, the demeanor of the archbishop can
not be so well described as it is in the letter of an eye-wit
ness, a humane Catholic, who condemned the error of Cran
mer, but was touched by his gentle virtues, and could pity his
infirmities.* " I shall not need to describe his behavior for
the time of the sermon ; his sorrowful countenance, his face
bedewed with tears, sometimes lifting his eyes to heaven in
hope, sometimes casting them down to the earth for shame ;
an image of sorrow, but retaining ever a quiet and grave be
havior, which so increased the pity in men's hearts, that they
unfeignedly loved him ; hoping that it had been his repent
ance for his transgressions and errors." But Cranmer, in his
address to the audience, undeceived them concerning the
cause of his contrition and the object of his regret. " Now,"
said he, " I am come to the great thing that troubleth my con
science more than any other thing that I ever said or did
in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings con
trary to the truth ; which here now I renounce and refuse
as things written with my hand, contrary to the truth
which I thought in my heart, and writ for fear of death
and to save my life if might be, and that is all such papers as
I have written or signed since my degradation, wherein I
have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand
offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand, when I

* Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, i. 544. ed. Oxford, 1812.

1556. MARTYRDOM OF CRANMER. 269
come to the fire, shall first be burned." He added some terms
of needless insult against the pope, which he perhaps thought
necessary as a pledge of his sincerity ; whereupon, " admon
ished of his recantations and dissembling, he said, ' Alas ! my
lord,* I have all my life loved plainness, and never dissem
bled till now against the truth, which I am most sorry for ;'
and here he was suffered to speak no more." — " Then he was
carried away. Coming to the stake with a cheerful counte
nance and willing mind, he put off his garments with haste
and stood upright in his shirt He declared that he repented
his recantation right sore ; whereupon the lord William cried
' Make short, make short !\ Fire being now put to him, he
stretched out his right Jiand and thrust it into the flame, and
held it there a good space before the fire came to any other
part of his body, where his hand was seen of every man sen
sibly burning, crying with a loud voice, ' This hand hath of
fended.'" — "His patience in the torment, his courage in
dying, if it had been for the glory of God, the weal of his
country, or the testimony of truth, as it was for a pernicious
error, I could worthily have commended the example, and
marked it with the fame of any father of ancient time. His
death much grieved every man : his friends for love, his ene
mies for pity ; strangers for a common kind of humanity,
whereby we are bound one to another." To add any thing to
this equally authentic and picturesque narration from the
hand of a generous enemy, which is perhaps the most beauti
ful specimen of ancient English, would be an unskilful act of
presumption. The language of Cranmer speaks his sincerity,
and demonstrates that the love of truth still prevailed in his
inmost heart It gushed forth at the sight of death, full of
healing power, which engendered a purifying and ennobling
penitence, and restored the mind to its own esteem after a
departure from the onward path of sincerity. Courage sur
vived a public avowal of dishonor, the hardest test to which
that virtue can be exposed ; and if he once fatally failed in
fortitude, he in his last moments atoned for his failure by a
magnanimity equal to his transgression. Let those who re-
* Probably lord Williams of Thame. The privy-council wrote cifcular
letters to the nobility and gentry, desiring their attendance at the burn
ings, with that of all those whom they could influence. They even thanked
those gentlemen for compliance, and addressed letters of thanks to those of
the gentry of Essex, who, though not written to, had (in the words of
the privy-council) "honestly and of themselves gone thither;" that is,
" to the burnings at Colchester."— Book of P. C. in Burn, book ii. A. D. 1555.
f It is not unworthy of remark, that lord William was considered as the
mildest of the princess Elizabeth's jailers. Of what stuff must the sterner
have been made ?
X 2

270 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1556.
quire unbending virtue in the most tempestuous times condemn
the amiable and faulty primate ; others, who are not so cer
tain of their own steadiness, will consider his fate as perhaps
the most memorable example in history, of a soul which,
though debased, is not depraved by an act of weakness, and
preserved an heroic courage after the forfeiture of honor, its
natural spur, and, in general, its inseparable companion.
The firm endurance of sufferings by the martyrs of con
science, if it be rightly contemplated, is the most consolatory
spectacle in the clouded life of man ; far more ennobling and
sublime than the outward victories of virtue, which must be
partly won by weapons not her own, and are often the lot of
her foulest foes. Magnanimity in enduring pain for the sake
of conscience is not, indeed, an unerring mark of rectitude ;
but it is, of all other destinies, that which most exalts the
sect or party whom it visits, and bestows on their story an
undying command over the hearts of their fellow-men.
It is painful to relate that Pole was installed in the archie-
piscopal throne of Canterbury on the day of Cranmer's cruel
death. There seems to be no doubt that his temper disin
clined him to severity, if his convictions did not allow him to
regard toleration as a duty. " He never," says Burnet,* " set
on the clergy to persecute heretics, but to reform themselves."
Yet, "even in Canterbury, he left the Protestants to the
cruelties of the fiercer clergy, and thought he did enough
when he discouraged persecution in private." In a word, he
did not do evil, but he did not withstand it. His accomplish
ments were far more bright than those of Cranmer ; but, in
a good heart not enough seconded by a brave spirit, these ad
verse prelates resembled each other not a little.
The sufferings of Pole's family and his own from the
tyrant whom they regarded as the representative of the Pro
testant religion are, doubtless, no inconsiderable alleviation of
his acquiescence in cruelties which were alien from his dis
position. His suffragan bishop of Dover, and the archdeacon
of Canterbury, appear to have been among the most active
persecutors. Of fourteen bishoprics, the Catholic prelates used their in
fluence so successfully as altogether to prevent bloodshed in
nine, and to reduce it within limits in the remaining five.
Justice to Gardiner requires it to be mentioned that his dio
cese was of the bloodless class. Thirlby bishop of Ely, who
wept plentifully when he was employed in desecrating Cran
mer, perhaps thought himself obliged to cause one man to be
* Burnet, Reform, v. ii. part i. 511. ed. London, 1820.

1556. PERSECUTION OF PROTESTANTS. 271
burned at Cambridge as an earnest of his zeal. " Bonner,"
says Fuller, " whom all generations shall call bloody," raged
so furiously in the diocese of London, as to be charged with
burning about one half of the martyrs of the kingdom. Truth,
however, exacts the observation, that the number brought to
the capital for terrific example swells the apparent account
of Bonner beyond even his desert. Christopherson, bishop of
Chichester, who, in his youth, had translated the account of
the persecutions of the Christians by Eusebius, practised the
like cruelties in his unfortunate diocese with the hardness
and bitterness of an old polemic*
The total number of those who suffered in this persecution,
from the martyrdom of Rogers, in February 1555, to Septem
ber 1558, when its last ravages were felt, is variously related,
in a manner sufficiently different to assure us that the relators
were independent witnesses, who did not borrow from each
other, and yet sufficiently near to attest the general accuracy
of their distinct statements. By Cooper they are estimated
at about 290. According to Burnet they were 284. Speed
calculates them at 274. The most accurate account is prob
ably that of lord Burleigh, who, in his treatise called " The
Execution of Justice in England," reckons the number of
those who died in that reign by imprisonment, torments, fam
ine, and fire, to be near 400, of which those who were burnt
alive amounted to 290. From Burnet's Tables! °f the sepa
rate years, it is apparent that the persecution reached its full
force in its earliest years ; since, hi ten months of 1555, there
were seventy-two persons burnt ; and the number of thirty-
nine in seven months of 1558, proves that it had retained its
vigor to the last. The delay of its commencement is impu
table to no cause but the impossibility of adopting it till the
formalities of the national reconciliation with Rome were
completed. There is no reason to suppose, that if Mary had
continued to live and to reign, the persecution would have
been slackened in its course. The stories in Fox's " Martyr-
ology" are not, indeed, to be indiscriminately believed. That
honest but zealous and credulous writer would himself reject
* Fuller, book viii.
t Strype's Eccles. Mem. c. lxiv. Burnet's Table is as follows : —
1555. burnt 72
1556. burnt 94
1557. burnt 79
1558. from, February to September 39
284 ; an average of 71 a year.
Had the reign been as long as that of Elizabeth, the whole amount would
liave exceeded 3500.

272 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1556.
the commendation of impartiality : but lord Burleigh, who,
if he be wrong, has not the same excuse with Fox, positively
affirms that more than threescore women and more than forty
children* were burnt; that among the women "some were
great with child, out of whose bodies the child by fire was
expelled alive, and yet also cruelly burnt"! To determine
the probability of these " examples of more than heathen
cruelties," it is proper to observe that they would be incredi
ble if they were represented as part of the deliberate scheme
and original design of a persecution ; but in the dreadful con
fusion of such scenes very violent acts are likely to spring
up, of which the persecutor himself did not purpose to sow
the seeds. When the victims were crowded, when they were
regarded by most visitors on such occasions as children of
Satan, when some bigots were incensed at the obstinate dis
sent of the heretics, others were provoked by just reproaches,
and even by the cries excited by torture which ought to have
filled them with pity. The wicked took an active part, to
satiate their malice ; the weak, sometimes, perhaps, to silence
their remorse ; the base, very often to recommend them by
forward zeal, to patrons who would in general have disowned
them. Originally composed of the most ignorant and the
worst men of a country, the habitual attendants on such oc
casions became in process of time more and more hardened,
until wanton, unprofitable, disinterested cruelty, the most
hellish of all the inducements to human action, might stimu
late a few chosen miscreants to deeds which men who live in
better times are unable to comprehend, and all good men are
loth to believe. A country in such circumstances may exhibit
some of those unutterable horrors which are perpetrated in
great cities taken by storm.
To complete the estimate of the horrible consequences of
the persecution, the number of fugitives who sought an asy
lum from it among foreign Protestants ought not to be over
looked. The free cities of Frankfort and Geneva, together
with the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, opened their gates
to the English exiles. Calvin and Beza at Geneva received
them with open arms. Many of them imbibed a preference
for the simple worship and republican equality of the Calvin-
istic churches, which became visible in their conduct after
their return, and in the next century generated controversies
which shook the British dominions to their deepest foundations.
In this exile, John Knox learned the rudiments of that ec
clesiastical polity which kindled the spirit of civil liberty in
* Strype, ibid. } Lord Burleigh.

1556. RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. 273
Scotland. The principles of absolute monarchy and religious
intolerance gave birth to the emigration of those Protestants
who were provoked and prepared by exile for the overthrow
of these principles, and for widening the distance from their
grand seat and support at Rome. These Protestants, after
wards called Puritans, came at length to estimate their ap
proach to truth by their remoteness from the Romish church,
and to consider usages in themselves innocent, or even useful,
as almost criminal if they bore any likeness to the ancient
ritual common to the Latin church with all other Christian
communions. No sooner had these exiles obtained any asy
lum at Embden, Wesel, Arau, Strasburg, Zurich, and Frank
fort, than they began to differ from each other with tempers
embittered by misfortune. Among other matters which ex
cited war among the exiles at Frankfort, whence dissension
spread to the other towns, was the resolution of that church
to exclude the responses of the congregation in public pray
ers, and to reject as superfluous and superstitious the litany,
the surplice, and other parts of the ceremonial litany, which
the Anglican church had adopted from the practice of vener
able antiquity. Who could have foreseen that such controver
sies would have subverted thrones, and deluged kingdoms
with blood? Calvin himself recommended a conformity to
the English liturgy for which martyrs were now spilling their
blood, until its compliances with superstition could be reformed
by competent authority. Cox, the tutor of Edward VI., was
confident in his learning, and attached to every part of the
reformation in which he had a share. The unconquered soul
of Knox disdained submission to human authority, and regard
ed every usage of the church of Rome as polluted by her
adoption. Misfortune disturbs the judgment as much as pros
perity, or, as a quaint but very significant writer expresses it,
" Man in misery as well as man in honor hath no understand
ing."* The attempts of the magistrates of Frankfort and of
the clergy of Geneva to compose the discords of the exiles,
although in the presence of a common and cruel enemy, were
utterly unavailing. The ceremonial of worship, though in the
eye of religion as well as of reason of secondary importance,
is better adapted than doctrines to be the visible symbols of a
party and the badges of the hostility of factions to each other.
The greens and blues of Constantinople, the blacks and whites
of Florence, the white and red roses of ancient England, the
orange and blue parties of more recent times, were differences
legible to the most ignorant eyes. The colors often serve to
* Fuller, b. viii.

274 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1556.
assemble the adherents of each party after they have altered,
nay exchanged, their original opinions. But in the case be
fore us, though what struck the eye of the bystander might
seem frivolous, yet principles of high importance lurked under
this surface. When the minds of men are full of reforming
spirit, and predisposed to the distempers which are engendered
by such fullness, a little matter sometimes occasions rather
than causes dangerous symptoms to appear. The same quaint
but very interesting writer who has been already quoted, ap
peals, in his account of their division, to an adage of Solomon,
which, however homely in expression, is of remarkable wis
dom : " The wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood ; so
the forcing of wrath bringeth strife."*
The pretensions of the English church to an authority over
conscience in the form of prayer, seemed to the Puritans to be
a remnant of papal despotism. It was apparently the surplice
and the litany to which the Puritans objected. It was partly
so in reality, inasmuch as the usages and devotions employed
by the English church appeared to the most zealous of Pro
testants, badges of the papacy which they abhorred. But
another principle worked at the bottom, of which they were
themselves unconscious, namely, that of hostility to the impo
sition of these ceremonies by human authority.
John Fox the martyrologist was one of the stricter sect.
His reputation for learning and honesty, however, made him
a tutor in the first Catholic family of England. He was con
cealed by the duke of Norfolk from a severe search made for
him by Gardiner. His account of the sufferings of his fellow
religionists under Mary was, perhaps, the most effectual of
all dissuasives from reconciliation with Rome. He abhorred
falsehood, but he was very often deceived. When called be
fore archbishop Parker to subscribe a declaration that he ap
proved the ecclesiastic vestments, he took a small Greek new
testament out of his pocket, and said, — " To this I will sub
scribe!" Through the friendship of the bishops, however,
who were mostly his fellow exiles, he retained a prebend of
Salisbury till his death. Elizabeth called him constantly her
" father Fox," but she unhappily rejected his eloquent suppli
cation for sparing the lives of Flemish Anabaptists, for which
he ought to be held in everlasting honor.! He was probably
* Proverbs, xxx.
t " Verum ignibus et flammis aistuantibus viva miserorum corpora torre-
facera, judicii magis coecitate quam impetu voluntatis errantium, durum
istud ac Romani magis exempli quam evangelical consuetudinis videtur."
" Id unum valde deprecor ne pyros ac flammas Smithfieldianaa jamdiu faus-
tissimis tuis auspieiis hue usque sopitas sinas nunc recandescere." — Fuller,
b. ix. A.D. 1575.

1556. EXILED PROTESTANTS. 275
among the first Protestants who combined a zeal so ardent
with so wide a toleration.
It is consolatory to learn that the pious exiles were liberally
relieved by the bounty of their countrymen. Sir John Clerke,
Sir Richard Morison of Cashiobury, Sir Francis Knollis, Sir
Anthony Cook the father of the ladies Burleigh and Bacon,
celebrated for their learning, together with dame Dorothy
Stafford, and dame Elizabeth Berkeley, were among the most
conspicuous benefactors of the exiles. "Although great the
distance between London and Zurich, merchants," says Fuller,
" have long arms, and by their bills of exchange reach all the
world over," The king of Denmark, the elector-palatine, the
dukes of Wirtemberg and Deux Ponts, with all the Protest
ant free cities, stretched forth their arms for the relief of the
sufferers for conscience' sake. Even the divines of Germany
and Switzerland learned, on this occasion, a generous frugal
ity, which enabled them to exact from their own modest sti
pends the means of giving alms to their brethren. Some of
them earned their bread by writing books ; others by correct
ing the press.
The exiles and the Protestants who remained at home saw
in the Netherlands, a country nearly connected with England,
and under a sovereign not otherwise of a cruel nature,* per
secutions carried on, by which they were led to consider their
own sufferings as only a foretaste of what might be inflicted
on the followers of their religion. Father Paul assures us,
that from the first edict of Charles V. to the treaty of Cateau-
Cambresis, in 1558, 50,000 men had been hanged, beheaded,
burned, and buried alive for their religion ;! and Grotius, who
computes the number to be double, may be easily reconciled
with the Italian historian, if we bear in mind that the admi
rable annalist of Holland comprehended the period of thirty
years later. These enormities, under the rule of an expe
rienced and politic monarch, taught the English what they
had to dread from those who not only were actuated by the
fiercest passions of bigots, but who also considered bigotry as
the first principle of civil prudence.
Two days before the death of Charles V. he added a codicil
to his will, in which he exhorts his son to inflict signal and
severe punishment on heretics, " without exception," says he,
"of any criminal, and without regard to the prayers or to the
rank of the person." " It is dangerous to dispute with here-
The writ de heretico comburendo had then slumbered for seventeen years
before this application.
* " Ingenio alias haud immiti."— Orot.
t Fra Paolo, lib. v. A. D. 1558. Grot. lib. i.

276 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1556.
tics. I always refused to argue with them, and referred them
to my theologians; alleging with truth my own ignorance;
for I had scarcely begun to read a grammar when I was called
to the government of great nations."*
The history of the persecution is that of Mary's reign. The
foreign affairs of her last two years, however, require to be
summarily told. Philip was a cold husband. The scanty
attractions and importunate fondness of Mary were not likely
to prevail over his reserved and haughty disposition. When
it became apparent that the prospect of children by her was
visionary, he hastened to quit England, and afterwards disre
garded the affairs of a turbulent people, on whom he had no
hold but the slight thread of the life of a hypochondriacal
woman. The only remaining inducement for his interference
in English business was the hope of deriving present supply
and support, from the passion of his enamored wife, in his
war against France.
In the mean time Philip succeeded to the greatest monarchy
of the world, not by the death but by the voluntary abdication
of his father. Charles V., depressed and enfeebled by disease,
weary of the vulgar irritation of business, and seeking for that
sweet repose which every man in his own case fancies that
he will taste in retirement, determined on the abdication of
his vast dominions, and on hiding himself in the seclusion of
a Spanish monastery. On the 25th of October, 1555, he
solemnly resigned the sovereignty of the Belgic provinces to
his son Philip, in the capital city of Brussels. At this magni
ficent though mournful ceremony the emperor wept. Many
of the beholders were melted into tears. As he delivered his
speech, he leaned on the shoulder of William of Nassau,
prince of Orange, the chief of one of the most illustrious
houses of Europe, who had been trained from childhood in the
court, and almost in the chamber, of the emperor, in whom
that sagacious monarch discerned the seeds of great qualities,
though it was altogether beyond the foresight of man to con
jecture the purposes to which, in twenty years after, they
were to be gloriously applied.! The whole monarchy in
Spain, in Italy, in the Indies, was abdicated soon after. All
devolved on Philip, except the imperial dignity; and the ter
ritories in Germany, with Hungary and Bohemia, which fell
to Ferdinand king of the Romans, the brother of the emperor,
and are to this day ruled by his descendants.
As soon as the first cares of the government of so vast an
*Llorente, Hist de l'lnquisition de l'Espagne, ii. 155.
t Thuan. Hist, sui Temp. lib. xvi. c. 20.

1557. RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR. 277
empire allowed Philip leisure, he once more visited England,
in the spring of 1557, and had little difficulty in obtaining
from Mary a declaration of war against France, in which the
injuries most strongly urged were Henry II.'s connexion with
Northumberland's usurpation, and his support of Wyatt's re
bellion. Both these wrongs were resented too late ; and the
war was not founded on any regard to the safety, the honor,
or even the greatness, of England.
Among more recent wrongs were urged the encouragement
by France of some revolted Protestants in the district of Calais,
and the connivance of Henry II. at the equipment of a force
with which, in the year 1557, Thomas Stafford, a descendant
of the house of Buckingham, landed from France, and pos
sessed himself of Scarborough Castle, which he retained only
two days. He and his small band were made prisoners by the
earl of Westmoreland, who sent them to London, where, on
the 26th of May, about a month after their disembarkation, he
was beheaded on Tower-hill, and three of his adherents were
hanged at Tyburn. The fires of Smithfield threw light enough
on the cause of such revolts ; and the interest of Henry to
avoid giving offence to Mary renders it probable that he used
no means of aiding her revolted subjects.
It was during the visit of the king to England that " an
ambassador from the emperor of Cathaie,' Muscovia, and Rus
sia " arrived at London. The prince thus designated by our
ancient historians was Ivan Vassilowitch II., a barbarian of
genius, who reduced the powerful monarchies of Casan and
Astracan to Russian provinces, and, by introducing the two
contending powers of standing armies and of printing-presses
into his country, prepared it for admission into the common
wealth of Christendom. The English mariners, whose daring
skill penetrated every sea, had found their way to Archangel,
on the Frozen Ocean, at that time the only sea-port by which
a commerce could be opened with the vast dominions of Ivan.
The commercial enterprise of England, even in that imma
ture infancy, raised the intercourse with these barbaric regions
into such importance as to produce this embassy. " The am
bassador was honorably received at Tottenham by the mer
chants of London having trade in these countries, riding in
velvet coats and chains of gold, who bare all his costs and
charges, from the time of his entry into England, out of Scot
land, whither by tempest of weather he was driven."
Even in this reign Philip might have seen an instructive
example of regard to that perfect equality in the administra
tion of criminal justice, which an habitual share in its execu
tion as jurors has probably contributed to root so deeply in the
Vol. II. Y

278 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1557.
hearts of the English people. Charles lord Stourton, a noble
man of ancient lineage and fair possessions in Wiltshire, had,
by the help of four of his servants, committed a murder on
two persons of the name of Hargill, with whom he had been
at variance, but whom he seems to have basely lured into his
own mansion for the purpose of assassination. He had buried
their bodies fifteen feet deep in the earth; and when the crime
was discovered, petitions for pardon were conscientiously re
jected by Mary. On the 6th of March, 1557, he was hanged
at Salisbury, by a halter of silk, which he obtained as a badge
of his nobility, but which, in effect, became a trophy of the
victory of justice over dishonored and abused rank.*
Soon after the declaration of war, the English troops, con
sisting of four thousand infantry, a thousand cavalry, and two
thousand pioneers, joined the Spanish army on the frontiers
of Flanders. They were commanded by the earl of Pembroke,
and led by the flower of the nobility of England, among whom
we are somewhat surprised to find the names of Sir Peter
Carew and Sir William Courtenay, as well as of lord Robert
and lord Henry Dudley.! It is not wonderful that some of
the English exiles, indignant at their fellow-protestants who
fought the battles of their deadly enemy, should have expostu
lated " with those that are called Gospellers, and yet have
armed themselves against the Gospellers to please Jezebel. "J
Whoever gainsays the indignant reformer is assuredly trans
ported by the excellent virtues of obedience and patriotism
beyond their reasonable boundaries.
The combined army was commanded by Philibert duke of
Savoy, the most renowned captain of his age, whom Henry II.
had robbed of his dominions. Gaspar Chatillon, better known
as the admiral Coligny, threw himself as governor into the
place of St. Quentin, which was speedily invested by the
enemy ; his uncle, the constable de Montmorency, advancing
at the head of a powerful army, intended to raise the siege.
These combinations led to the celebrated battle of St. Quentin,
which was fought on the 10th of August 1557. The constable
advanced very near, to cover a detachment, intended to be
carried over a morass, or lake, which extended to the walls
of the city. The difficulties in the way of the boats were so
unexpectedly great, that the Spanish army attacked Montmo
rency while his troops were divided and exposed. The defeat
* Dugdale, ii. 229. Holinshed. f Holinshed, iv.
t Strype's Mem. vol. iii. part ii. p. 604. Oxford, 1822. Christopher Good
man, the author of this language, justly represents those " who maintained
wicked Jezebel in her tyranny at home, and her ungodly wars abroad, as
aides and helpers of her tyranny."

1558. BATTLE OF ST. QUENTIN. 279
was total. The greater part of the artillery was captured.
The loss of the Spaniards was inconsiderable. Three thou
sand Frenchmen were killed, among whom were the most
illustrious of the nobles, and the most skilful of the veteran
officers. The constable himself was made prisoner, with 6000
men who remained with him.
In spite of the immense loss, and of the dismay, which is
generally far more than proportioned to the other evils of dis
comfiture, Coligny, with his little garrison, maintained his
ruined fortress after the defeat and dispersion of his country
men. The earl of Pembroke with the English auxiliaries
seem to have been very active in the attack, perhaps because
they were not so much exhaused in the previous engagement.
Henry Dudley was killed. Philip rewarded the English with
the horrible monopoly of sacking the town. The black Reu
ters, or mercenary cavalry of Germany, were jealous of this
license for all crimes granted to a favored nation. A bloody
scuffle between the two bands of plunderers closed the scene.
In spite of this defeat the French monarch speedily collect
ed a considerable army, which, about the beginning of Jan
uary, 1558, advanced, under the command of the celebrated
due de Guise, to avenge the discomfiture at St. Quentin, and
to deprive the English of Calais, the only remaining fragment
of the Plantagenet monarchy which had once comprehended
the moiety of France. This town was dear to the English,
as the representative of their ancient renown in war. Brave
nations often value possessions more which are the mere
prize of valor, than those which produce vulgar advantage.
There is something noble, and seemingly raised above base
interest, in prizing most highly those places which have no
value but that which arises from being the scene of a virtue
which reminds a people of the glory of their forefathers. The
garrison of Calais amounted only to 800 men. They were
aided by 200 townsmen ; and the whole population within the
walls was 4200. To reduce it cost Edward III. eleven
months; and the English flag had waved from its battlements
for two hundred years and more. The due de Guise, having
surprised and mastered the outposts, made a feint of preparing
for an assault, by a cannonade which destroyed part of the
walls. He really contemplated the capture of the castle
which commanded the town. Scarcely had he turned his
artillery against the castle, when it was evacuated by the
garrison, who relied upon the efficacy of a stratagem. They
placed several barrels of gunpowder under the castle, and
connected them with the place to' which they had retired by
a train, to which they were to set fire as soon as the French

280 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1558.
should enter the keep. But, if we may believe the chronicler,
the French, who had waded through the ditch, were so wetted
that the moisture dropping from their clothes damped the
gunpowder, probably that which formed the train ; a small
interruption of which must have been fatal to the whole pro
ject, which seems also to have been rendered abortive by a
partial explosion. Some defence was made after this disas
trous occurrence.* But on the sixth night of the siege, terms
of capitulation were offered to Guise by lord Wentworth, the
English governor of Calais. A capitulation was concluded
next morning, by which the surrender of the town, with all
its military instruments and stores, was stipulated ; and all
the inhabitants were allowed to go where they listed, except
the governor and fifty persons to be named by the due de
Guise, who were to be enlarged only on the payment of ran
som. Thus fell Calais, after a siege of eight days ; and the
dishonor of the English arms was the more signal, because
the place was taken in the midst of winter, when the adjacent
ground was covered with water. The surrender was as
cribed by, general rumor to treachery, the usual expedient by
which the mortified pride of a nation seeks to escape from
imagined degradation. No nation has less need of such sup
positions than the English, yet none, perhaps, is more prone
to them. It is apparent that the fall of Calais arose from the
inadequacy of the garrison to the defence of the fortress,
which must have been the fault either of the government at
home or of the earl of Pembroke, the commander of the army
in France ; if it was not occasioned by the overruling influ
ence of Philip II. intent on other objects. The town was
cruelly pillaged. " Thus," says old Holinshed, " dealt the
French with the English in recompense of the like usage to
the French when the forces of king Philip prevailed at St.
Quentin, where, not content with the honor of victory, the
Englishmen sought nothing more than the satisfying of their
greedy vein of covetousness."! Lord Grey made an obstinate
defence of the small fortress of Guines, but was compelled to
surrender on the 20th of January, with a loss of 800 of his
• garrison, and after having slain about an equal number of the
enemy. From the small fortress of Hammes, which was the
only place unsubdued in the English pale, the garrison made
their escape by night over a marsh.
The triumphs in France, the sorrow in England, were
equally excessive, or, at least, equally disproportionate to their
professed and immediate object ; for it must be owned that a
* Holinshed, iv. 90. t Ibid. 92.

1558. DEATH OF MARY. 281
keen sense of the bitterness of defeat is one of the firmest
safeguards of every nation. In the end of January, Henry
II. visited Calais in triumph, and loaded the due de Guise
with honors which were well earned by that renowned cap
tain. The greatness of the princes of the house of Lorraine
received a new accession by the marriage of their niece,
Mary Stuart queen of Scotland, to Francis the dauphin,
which was celebrated on the 28th of September, at Paris,
with a festal magnificence worthy of the union of the most
beautiful queen, perhaps the most beautiful woman of her
age, to the heir of the greatest among the European monar
chies.* In the month of September, the emperor Charles V. expired
at his seclusion in Estremadura. In England the persecution
still vainly raged. On the 17th of November, Mary, deserted
by an ungrateful husband, perhaps overcome by misgivings
on reviewing her fruitless barbarity, or at least occasionally
haunted by those visitings of nature which never leave an
undisturbed sway to the artificial power of dogmas, breathed
her last in London, to the great relief of the larger portion
of her subjects. She died of dropsy, of which the earlier
attacks had probably excited her illusive hopes of offspring.
When on the point of death, she said — " If you open me, you
will find Calais written on my heart ;" mistaking, probably,
the subject on which her desponding thoughts brooded for
the source of disorder, and thus ennobling, by the fiction of a
mental origin, a distemper which sprung from causes of a
more bodily and humiliating nature.
Mary is a perfect and conspicuous example of the fatal
effects of error in rulers ; for to error alone the greater part
of the misery caused by her must be ascribed. The stock
was sour, and, perhaps, no culture could have engrafted ten
derness and gentleness upon it She adhered to her princi
ples ; she acted agreeably to conscience : but her principles
were perverted and her conscience misguided by false notions
of the power of sovereigns and of laws over religious opin
ions. A right judgment on that single question would have
changed the whole character of her administration, and alto
* Buchan. Epithal. Francisci Valesii et Marias Stuartte.
Fortunati ambo et felice tempore nati,
Et thalamisjuncti! Sine milite Scoto,
Nulla unquam Francis fulsit victoria castris.
Eximhn delectat gratia format?
Aspice quantus honor frontis, quae gratia,
Blandis interfusa genio, &c.
Y2

282 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1558.
gether varied the impression made on posterity by the history
of her reign.
On the next day the death of Mary was followed by the
demise of her relation, cardinal Pole, a person far more amia
ble by nature ; who, at the time of his decease, was, both by
learning and virtue, regarded throughout Europe as the most
distinguished ornament of the old church. Messages passed
between them to the last moment; and when he was ap
prized of her departure, he calmly prepared for his own.
This dying friendship between the two remnants of a royal
race, the stays of an ancient religion, has a natural power of
raising the thoughts and touching the feelings of man.
Unhappily, Pole acquiesced in the systematic persecution
of Protestants. His opinions, indeed, appear to have been
those of a good man, disposed to a very merciful application
of intolerant laws, rather than denying the justice, or refusing,
in cases where all other remedies failed, to carry them into
execution.* But it is probable that if he had been the sole
master of Mary's councils, his lenient temper and Christian
compassion would have almost stood instead of the principles
of religious liberty.
The last act of Mary's reign was the dispatch of ambassa
dors, to negotiate a general peace, to Cambray, then a city of
the Low Countries. This important negotiation was not
closed till the month of march following : but it was opened
by Mary under the influence of considerations which began
to outweigh those of local and temporary policy in the minds
of Roman Catholic monarchs. The king of France agreed to
restore Calais and its territory to England within eight years,
under a penalty of 500,000 crowns ; and the treaty compre
hended Francis and Mary, " king and queen dolphin," with
the kingdom of Scotland.! The stipulations of this treaty,
however, as they affected the British islands, were of little
moment compared with the fears of religious revolution be
coming universal, which for a time suspended the rivalships
and enmities of Catholic monarchs. It was now evident to
the great sovereigns that an alliance between France .and
Spain (originally intended to comprehend England) was ne
cessary, to reduce an armed heresy, which threatened not
only to level the church to the ground, but, in their opinion,
* Thuanus, lib. xvii. Philip's Life of Pole, sect. x. London, 1767 ; an ele
gant work, of which this portion is stained by the attempt of the writer to
cover his church by an appeal to the exhortation to the civil power, to be
merciful on delivering a heretic into their hands, which is an aggravation
of cruelty by hypocrisy. He rightly remarks, that Pole's speeches for toler
ation are the offspring of Mr. Hume's ingenuity.
f Dumont, Corps Diplom. torn v. part i. pp. 28, 29.

1558. DESIGNS AGAINST PROTESTANTISM. 283
to overthrow the thrones of longs, and to bury the whole
order of human society under the ruins of government and
religion. Experience had taught, in all ages, that these great
principles stood or fell together. Two religions, it was then
believed, were no more reconcilable in a state than two gov
ernments ; and recent events had demonstrated, to the con
viction of the ruling ministers, that men could not be taught
to throw off the dependence on priests, without learning- to
examine the limits of the power of kings. There are many
dispersed and indistinct traces of such reflections and projects
having been the subject of discussion in 1545, at the first
meeting of the council of Trent. To forward a concert against
heresy seems to have been avowed by cardinal Pole as one of
the motives for the zeal with which he promoted peace be
tween France and Spain. These projects ripened in the
spring, 1558, at the private conferences of Perrenot bishop cf
Arras, better known to history under his subsequent name of
cardinal Granville, with the cardinal of Lorraine, at Pe-
ronne, in which the former minister strongly represented
"the infatuation and dishonor of the continuance of hostilities
between the two first crowns of Christendom, in which France
and Spain turned against each other those arms which ought
to be combined against the Turk, the common enemy of the
Christian name ; but if not against that odious but distant and
not formidable adversary, then surely against those far more
perilous foes, fostered in the bosom of the great monarchies
themselves, the modern heretics, who, during the Anabaptist
domination in Lower Germany, had furnished- the most ample
proofs of a cruelty which spared neither age nor sex, and of
the tendency of their doctrines to destroy property, as well as
to overthrow lawful authority in church and state."* Peace
and friendship between the two monarchs, with the conceal
ment of these designs for the present from all Frenchmen (the
cardinal was a prince of Lorraine), were absolutely necessary
to the probability of success in an enterprise so hazardous.
There is reason to believe that ten years before, at the first
convocation of the council of Trent, Perrenot had prepared
the' young prince for the favorable reception of these political
doctrines. Some historians tell us that secret articles against
the Protestants had been adopted in the meeting at Peronne.
Certain it is, that Henry II. was induced, by the plausibility
>of Perrenot's reasonings, and by their concurrence with the
most approved policy of that age, to make peace with Spain,
* Thuani Hist. lib. xx. c 9. and lib. xxii. c. 10. Wagenaar Vaderlandache
Historie, part vi. pp. 30, 31. Walsinghain's Letters, xcix.

284 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1558.
and to begin that persecution of his Protestant subjects which
grew into civil wars of forty years' duration,* attended with
events so horrible as to be without parallel in the history of
civilized Europe. These alarming confederacies were acci
dentally disclosed to one of the illustrious persons who were
most deeply interested in their discomfiture. William of Nas
sau, prince of Orange, was, according to the usage of that
period, sent to Paris at the head of the hostages for the ob
servance of the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. He was receiv
ed with the honors of an independent sovereign, and with the
respect due to his high descent. Henry treated him with un
reserved freedom ; as one who lived in the chamber of the
emperor, and privy to all the thoughts of that great monarch,
and who was now, as he had been in the reign of Charles
thought to be, admitted into the most secret councils of his
royal master. At one of the hunting parties of the court,
when Henry and the prince were in the same carriage, the
king spoke to William as to a man who knew the secret stipu
lations or understanding between the crowns for the extirpa
tion of heresy. William spoke little, which his ordinary mod
esty and taciturnity enabled him to do without affectation. He
thus concealed his ignorance, and yet' avoided an express
breach of truth. He suffered the French monarch gradually
to betray the full extent of the designs of the royal allies. " I
heard," says the prince himself, " from the mouth of king
Henry, that the duke of Alva had agreed with the French
minister on the means of exterminating all who were sus
pected of Protestantism in France, in the Netherlands, and
throughout Christendom, by the universal establishment of an
inquisition worse and more cruel than that of Spain. I con
fess that I was moved to pity by the thoughts of so many good
men doomed to the slaughter, and I deliberately determined
to do my utmost for the expulsion of the Spanish army, the
instrument of these wicked designs, from a country to which
I was bound by the most sacred ties."! Henry had then no
suspicion that William secretly inclined to the cause of the
reformation, which was openly embraced by some branches
of his family ; and that Philip disliked and distrusted the fa
vorite of his father, who was now confined to missions or em
ployments of magnificent parade, but was excluded from
* The account received by Thuanus from hiB father, who vainly endeav
ored to stem the tide, is equally authentic and curious.
t Apologie de Guill. Prince d'Orange, 13th Dec. 1580. in Dumont, Corps
Diplomat, torn. v. part i. p. 392. Vander Vinkt, Troubles des Pays Bas, i.
p. 180. Wagenaar, Vaderl. Hist. lib. xxi. c. xi. part ii. p. 35.

1558. MEASURES AGAINST HERESY. 285
those mysterious counsels on which Perrenot and Alva only
were consulted.
The Roman court had generally betrayed the same disincli
nation to assemble general councils, as absolute monarchs
have usually manifested to the convocation of representative
or legislative assemblies.*
For the first twenty years after the dissent of Luther from
the church, the demands of the emperor and the empire for
the convocation of a general council were evaded by succes
sive pontiffs on various pretexts. The history of this period
is full of instruction relating to the course of human affairs
in those critical periods of general changes in opinions and
institutions of mankind, which are seldom accomplished with
out terrible collisions of immense masses, attended by such
ruin, rapine, and bloodshed, that good men too often recoil
from any share in them, and thus leave them to the exclusive
guidance of those whose most eminent quality is boldness, and
who often make amends for the want of that two-edged quality,
by servility towards every prevalent faction. In the writings of
the period now under consideration, we see all the common
places, on the side either of establishment or innovation, as
ably presented and as thoroughly exhausted as in any age of
the world. The forms and language are, indeed, peculiar to
the time : but the substance is that struggle between the prin
ciples of preservation and improvement, on the right balance
of which, the quiet and well-being of society are suspended
often by too slender a thread.
Of the various projects now proposed for the extinction of
the heresies of the age, the first place seemed to be due to
the plan of extending to all Christendom the system of " in
quisition into heretical pravity," which subsisted in full vigor
only in Spain. This famous tribunal originated in the com
missioners for inquest or inquiry regarding the crime of here
sy, who were appointed by successive popes to aid the bishops,
or, in case of necessity, to act with them during the wars
which in the thirteenth century were waged with unmatched
cruelty against the people of Languedoc! The emperor
Frederic II., about 1220, had added the sanction of the im
perial authority (then deemed to have a certain influence
among all European nations) to the, decrees of the council of
Lateran, by an edict, in which he commanded all incorrigible
heretics to be punished with death. The formalities of an in-
* The repugnance is owned, and the parallel admitted by Pallavicino.
f Llorente, Hist. Crit. de flnquisit. d'Espagne, i.chap. ii. Sismondi, Hist.
des Francois.

286 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1558.
quisition spread over several countries, where it preserved a
languid existence for more than two centuries. But it was in
the latter years of the fifteenth century that it was established
with terrific powers, and moved to sanguinary activity over
the Spanish peninsula, of which every part, except Portugal,
was united under one sceptre by the marriage of Ferdinand
and Isabella, the sovereigns of Aragon and Castile. It was at
first chiefly pointed against the Jews, who, though always
plundered by the kings of Spain, and not seldom massacred
by the populace, had, by their experience in commerce, and
their knowledge of books and business, found their way,
through intermarriage and feigned conversion, into the centre
of the Spanish nobility. All the nonconforming Jews were
banished from the whole monarchy by an edict which imme
diately followed the conquest of Grenada. The avowed Ma
hometans of Grenada were afterwards subjected to the same
banishment, in spite of the promises made to them when they
were finally subjugated, under a pretext copied by tyrants in
after times, " that, it having pleased God that there were no
longer any unbelievers in the kingdom of Grenada, their
majesties were pleased to forbid, under pain of death, the
entry of the Moors into that province, lest they might shake
the faith of the new converts."* The power of the inquisi
tion, now more and more relieved from the restraints of an
appeal to Rome, was exerted in every case where suspicions
were entertained of the sincerity of the new Christians. Such
was the unwearied cruelty of the tribunal in its state of youth
ful vigor, that Torquemada, the first inquisitor general, is
believed, in the eighteen years of his administration, to have
committed to the flames more than 10,000 victims.! To these
are added more than 90,000 persons condemned to the punish
ments which were called secondary — infamy, confiscation,
perpetual imprisonment. They were apprehended on slight
suspicion ; they never heard the names of their accusers ; the
inquisitors communicated only such parts of the supposed evi
dence to the accused as such judges deemed fit ; the prisoners
remained for years in their dungeons, alone, ignorant of what
passed without, and in a state where no man dared to attempt
to correspond with them, who was not willing, without serv
ing them, to share their fate. Torture was applied to them
in the presence of two inquisitors. Sentence was pronounced
* 20th July, 1501, and ]2th February, 1502. Llorente. i. 3:'5.
t Llorente, i. 280. His calculations appear to be fairly made from reason
able data. The last person burnt alive by the inquisition was an unfortu
nate woman at Seville, in 1781, for licentious intercourse with a demon.
Llorente, iv. 270.

1658. SPANISH INQUISITION. 287
in secrecy, and executed at " the acts of faith," as they were
called, where multitudes of the impenitent heretics, clad in
woollen garments, on which were painted monstrous forms, of
fiends, and hideous representations of hell-fire, walked in pro
cession to the flames. These acts of faith were solemnized
with a religious ceremonial, combined with such splendor and
magnificence as fitted them for exhibition at the coronation
of a king or the nuptials of a young queen. In the year 1560,
when Philip II. wedded the princess Elizabeth of France, the
inquisitors of Toledo, among other preparations for the wel
come and becoming reception of a queen of thirteen years
old, exhibited one of the acts of faith, when Lutherans, Ma
hometans, Jews, and sorcerers, were burnt alive in her pres
ence, before the eyes of many nobles and prelates, and of the
assembled cortez of the kingdom, who met together to swear
allegiance to the wretched Don Carlos, the heir apparent of
the crown.* Forty-five persons, of whom many were distin
guished men, had been burnt alive as Lutherans at Valladolid,
in the year before, in the presence of the king and a numerous
assembly of noble Spaniards and of foreign guests of high
station. We find the names of at least six Englishmen in
two years in the list of victims, though the two countries
were then at peace, and though the persons put to death were
probably traders or mariners earning their subsistence under
the faith of treaties.
John Louis Vives, a Spaniard of great learning and reputa
tion, bewails the fate of moderate and charitable Catholics in
Spain, nearly thirty years before the period which we are now
contemplating. " We live," says he in a letter to Erasmus,
on the 18th of May, 1534, " in hard times, in which we can
neither speak nor be silent without danger." In the forty-
three years of the administrations of the first four inquisitors
general, which closed in the year 1524, they committed 18,000
human beings to the flames, and inflicted inferior punishments
on 200,000 persons more, with various degrees of severity,
indeed, but the least of which the judges intended that bigoted
and frantic multitudes should look on with aversion and abhor
rence, as an indelible brand of infamy and a badge of perpetual
proscription. Some of these occurrences in Spain, and the
numerous executions in the Netherlands, must have been
well known in England about the period of the death of Mary,
and could not fail to affect the state of opinion in this island
so much that a writer of English history cannot with justice
exclude all mention of them from his narrative ; especially
* Llorente, ii. chap. 24.

288 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1558-
when the memorable circumstances are considered, which we
learn from the weighty testimony of the prince of Orange,
that the Spanish and French monarchs meditated the exten
sion over all Christendom of such a tribunal as the inquisition
had already shown itself to be by its exercise of authority in
Spain. The second expedient proposed for quieting the disorders
of Europe, was that of assembling a general council. Had
such an assembly been convened early, had they then adopted
effective reforms in the constitution of the church, and rigor
ously enforced amendment in the conduct of the clergy ; had
they, before the breach was visible and wide, .seasonably
granted two concessions, — the marriage of ecclesiastics and
the use of the cup by the laity, which, as both were owned to
be prohibited by mere human authority, might have been sur
rendered without any sacrifice of the highest pretensions of
Rome herself, — it seems very probable that farther reforma
tion might have been evaded, that its progress might have
been retarded, and that its complete accomplishment at some
remote period, after a long course of insensible approximation,
might have at last occurred without a shock. The ambition
or avarice of princes ; the furious zeal of multitudes, espe
cially of sectaries, who swelled the animosities of the great
parties by their absurd and odious opinions ; and the anger,
the pride, the passion for mental domination, which tarnished
the piety and sincerity of the Protestants; were formidable
obstacles to what seems to us the most desirable consumma
tion. In the reigning church, the absolute want of the policy
of seasonable concession, not indeed an infallible remedy, but
the sole resource in times of general trouble from lasting
causes, is more remarkable and more blameworthy. Among
them, however, ample allowance is due to the sincere reve
rence for what was anciently established, and to those pious
affeetions which were so interwoven with the doctrines and
worship of their fathers, that their hearts fondly clung to
every rite and to every word, which were hallowed in their
eyes as being blended from their infancy with the most sacred
feelings, and the most awful truths. How painful it must
have been to many an affectionate heart, to condemn a long
line of forefathers as guilty of fatal and irreparable error !
Nor is it to be forgotten that many wise statesmen, without
sharing the amiable infirmities of the pious, might tremble at
the impenetrable consequences of stirring that vast mass of
opinions, sentiments, habits, and prejudices, of which a large
part of the religion and morality of men is composed.
The court of Rome, according to its established policy,

1558. COUNCIL OF TRENT. 289
eluded the meeting of the council successfully, for a quarter
of a century after Luther had struck the first blow at the
pontifical throne.
At length a council was summoned to meet, and actually
assembled at Trent, in December, 1545. There were present
only four archbishops, twenty-eight bishops, three abbots, and
four generals of religious orders ; who, with the three le
gates* and the cardinal of Trent made a total of forty-three.
In the beginning of 1547, the council was transferred to Bo
logna, where they slumbered for two years. Their second
session at Trent was suspended for two years, in 1552, and
was not, in fact, assembled for ten years afterwards. At the
second assembly, which met in April, 1562, and continued till
December, 1563, the number of prelates present at the open
ing was only ninety-two ; but it increased in its progress so
much, that the decrees were finally subscribed by four legates,
two cardinals, three patriarchs, twenty-five archbishops, two
hundred and sixty-eight bishops, seven abbots, thirty-nine
proxies, and seven generals of religious orders. The ambas
sadors of the empire of France and of Spain attended the
council. England declined to receive a legate from the pope,
who was sent to desire that the representatives of the British
islands should appear in the assembly of the Christian church.
The Protestant states of Germany and Scandinavia demanded
safe-conducts more ample and precise than it was thought fit
to grant. Moreover, they refused to acknowledge the au
thority of the pope, under which the council was assembled.
It was suggested that they might appear and confer under a
protestation, affirming that they did not thereby waive their
rights : but the real difficulties lay too deep to be reached by
any temporary expedients. The Protestants allowed no au
thority but the Scriptures ; — a noble principle, if they had
adopted more consistently in their practice the legitimate
* Of whom cardinal Pole was one. The history of this celebrated council
has been related by Fra Paolo Sarpi, a Venetian of the order of the Servites,
with extraordinary ability, with the liberty of an Athenian philosopher,
but with an almost Protestant hostility to the court of Rome. Many years
after the death of the illustrious friar, cardinal Pallavicino, at the desire of
the supreme pontiff, who caused him to be supplied with the correspondence
of the papal legates at Trent, composed a controversial history, avowedly
written to confute the statement of Father Paul. His materials, however,
though we cannot know the fairness with which he employed them, stamp
a value on1 his work, especially as a report of the debates, and a record
of the formal proceedings of this famous assembly, the last general, or, as
it is called, oecumenical council. Pallavicino, whose ecclesiastical policy
was that of a cardinal and a Jesuit, is, notwithstanding, commended by
Algernon Sidney, who personally knew him ; probably on account of the
purity of his style,— the only particular in which he is generally preferred
to the philosophic Servite.
Vol. II. Z

290' HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 155®
consequence of it — that every man must judge for himself
of all religious doctrines. The Catholics maintained, that
whatever was spoken by Christ was at least as sacred as
what was written by his followers ; that the writings of the
New Testament were occasional, and intended either to cor
rect misapprehension, or to supply deficiencies in the preach
ing of the Christian missionaries ; that usage deduced from
apostolical times was the sole foundation for the substitution
of the first day of the week for the seventh, as the time of
public worship, for the baptism of infants incapable of mental
participation in any rite of religion, and for other practices,
which, though not authorized, much less enjoined, by any
passage of the Scriptures, were, nevertheless, retained by the
Lutherans as much as by the Catholic church. Connected
with these doctrines, the adherents of the ancient religion
maintained, that as God had promised never to desert his
church, he would always preserve her from error in funda
mental matters, and that a visible authority, whether vested
in general councils or in the pope, to determine the sense of
doubtful texts, and to ascertain the. genuineness of alleged
traditions, was not less- necessary than the written word ifc-
self. The doctrine of infallibility, though destructive alike
of sound reason and of pure religion, bestowed consistency
on the Roman Catholic system, and afforded them a much
more plausible color than their adversaries could employ, for
the persecution from which neither party abstained.
In many points of doctrine, the reconciliation of the Lu
therans, or at least the concealment of differences by ambigu
ous terms, was then more practicable than it may now be
supposed to be. The bodily presence of Christ in the eu-
charist was held by both parties, nor is the Lutheran doctrine
or term consubstantiation more intelligible than the ancient
word transubstantiation. In the controversies respecting the
divine decrees, the aid of grace, and the nature of justifica
tion, the Protestants were more decidedly favorable to the
stern doctrines of Augustine than the Catholics ; but the high
authority of that renowned doctor prevented a condemnation
of his opinions in the Catholic church. The Dominicans,
who were the most learned divines of the council, defended
the Augustinian system against the Franciscans and Jesuits,
who, with the majority of ecclesiastics, had adopted princi
ples more consonant with the common sense and natural feel
ings of mankind. The Lutherans themselves, after the de
parture of their great master, slid into milder and more popu
lar tenets. If the whole state of opinion on both sides, as
practically prevalent, be compared, it will be seen, that the

1558. RELIGIONS CONTROVERSIES. 291
difference on these mysterious questions between the Catholics
and Protestants was more apparent than real. It is, how
ever, very observable that those who are most distinguished
for fervid piety and severe morals on either side have, in
general, either adopted, or inclined to adopt, the system
which their opponents plausibly represent as so tainted' with
fatalism as to take away the foundations of morality and re
ligion. The great abuses of non-residence and pluralities, to which
the progress of the Reformation was in a great measure as
cribed, were prohibited by the council,, but with so many ex
ceptions as to impair the rule. The Spanish divines, who
were anti-papal, made a vain attempt to obtain a decree that
the residence of bishops was prescribed by the divine au
thority, which would have established episcopacy on the same
foundation, and thereby would have proved fatal to the pre
tensions of the bishops of Rome to be universal bishops, whose
delegates all other prelates were holden by them to be. The
council declared all marriages without the observance of cer
tain rules to be null ; the first instance of a nullity of mar
riage professedly introduced by a mere human power. In
this important particular the example and the provisions of the
council of Trent were adopted in the middle of the eighteenth
century by the English marriage act ; an odious statute, now
happily abrogated.
In 1562, the pope took occasion from the meetings of the
council to make an attempt to excite a general war of Catho
lie princes against heretics. But he found that their mutual
jealousy and separate interests were obstacles too formidable
to be surmounted. On the 10th of May, 1563, a letter from
Mary queen of Scots to the council was presented by her
uncle the cardinal of Lorrain, in which that unfortunate
princess submitted herself to the council, and declared her
determination, in case of her succession to the crown of
England, to subject both her kingdoms to the apostolic see.*
The thanks of the sacred synod were returned to her for an
act which assuredly contributed to the calamities of her sub
sequent life.
The council of Trent raised several dogmas of the schools
to the rank of doctrines of the church, at a period when
wisdom would rather have loosened than tightened the bands
of submission.! They timidly and partially reformed a few
* Fra Paolo, lib. vii.
f "II est bien certain au moins que plusieurs des opinions erigees en
dogmes dans le concile, avaient Cte jusque la librement agitees dana ies
6coles." — Le Courayer, Pref. a la Traduct. de Fra Paolo.

292 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1558.
abuses, but they redressed no grievance with such hearty
zeal and conspicuous energy as to silence opponents, to satisfy
malcontents, or even to confirm the allegiance of those adhe
rents whose fidelity was shaken.
The institution of the Jesuits was a third means of dp-
posing the rebellious and heretical spirit of the Lutheran age.
Ignatius or Inigo Loyola, a Spanish Biscayan, of ardent and
meditative temper, had imbibed a more than usual portion of
the hatred towards the enemies of the Catholic religion,
which Spaniards had, beyond other nations, learnt in the
course of the mortal feuds and fierce wars which had for cen
turies raged between the Christians and Mahometans of the
peninsula, rather with the fury of civil discord than with the
more regulated hostilities of foreign warfare. He was dis
tinguished by imagination and feeling. His breast glowed
with sincere piety ; but his religion was that of a soldier de
termined to defend his faith, and ready to spread it by the
sword. All the noble feats of Spaniards had been achieved
for religion. It was the basis of their martial renown and
of their national honor. He who was not an orthodox Catho
lic could not be embrac'ed as a true Spaniard. Loyola and his
first associates amounted only to eight, all superior to other
. men in enthusiasm and fortitude : some possessed of those great
qualities which enable men to produce mighty changes in the
opinions of their fellows, and to exercise a lasting sway over
willing minds. Their original purpose was limited to pilgrim
ages to the holy sepulchre and missions into unbelieving lands.
Faure, Jai, and Coduri, of Geneva ; Lainez, Salmeron, and
Bobadilla, Spaniards ; Roderic and Xavier, Portuguese ; and
Broet from Dauphine, were the original Jesuits, of whom
Francis Xavier, the apostle of the Indies, was a man worthy
of everlasting honor, for devoting himself to a life of suffer
ing for what he believed to be the supreme good of mankind ;
and the name of Lainez, the second general, cannot be for
gotten as the man of legislative genius, who formed the plan
and laid the foundation of that system which rendered the
order memorable. Pope Paul ILL approved of their institu
tion, under the name of " the Society of Jesus," on condition
that their number should not exceed sixty. In 1543, when
the restriction was removed, they increased to eighty. In the
course of about fifty years their number was estimated at
more than 10,000, or, according to some accounts, at nearly
" II suffit qu'on sache le commencement d'une opinion pour assurer
qu'elle ne sera jamais dCclaree etre de foi."— Fleury, Discours V. sur I'Hist
Ecclesiaat.

1558. the jesuits. 293
double that great number* They were neither confined nor
apparelled like monks. They were allowed to live in the
world dressed like the secular clergy. They were destined to
preach, to teach, to confute heretics, to convert unbelievers,
to confess dying penitents, or to act in any manner required
by the holy see for the interests of religion. The authority
of their general was more absolute than that of the chief of
any other order ; and they were dispensed from the obligation
of offering daily prayers in public, that they might have more
leisure for their special and momentous destination.
Having arisen in the age of reformation, they became the
chosen champions of the church against her new enemies.
They used some generous and liberal weapons in their war
fare. Instead of following the unlettered monks, who decried
knowledge as the parent of heresy, they joined in the general
movement of mankind towards polite literature, which they
cultivated with splendid success. They were the earliest
reformers of European education. " For education," said lord
Bacon, "consult the colleges of the Jesuits. Nothing hitherto
tried in practice surpasses them."! "Education," says he,
" has been in some sort revived in the colleges of the Jesuits,
of whom, in regard to this and other, sorts of human learning
and moral discipline, talis cum sis ulinam noster esses."
Peculiarly subjected to the see of Rome by their constitu
tion, they were devoted to its highest pretensions from feel
ing the necessity of a monarchical power, to conduct their
efforts against formidable enemies. While the nations of the
Spanish peninsula, with barbaric chivalry, carried religion
at the point of the sword to the uttermost extremes of the
East and the West, the Jesuits reclaimed the American can
nibals from savage customs, and taught them the arts and
duties of civilized life. In India they suffered martyrdom
with heroic constancy. They penetrated the barrier which
shuts out strangers from China : and by the obvious usefulness
of their scientific acquirements, they obtained toleration,
patronage, and honors from the most jealous of governments.
They were fitted by their release from conventual life, and
from their allowed intercourse with the world, to be the con
fessors of kings ; and while some guided the conscience of a
royal penitent at Versailles or Vienna, others were teaching
the use of the spade and the shuttle in California, and a third
body were braving a death of torture from the mountain chiefs
* Perhaps the exclusion or inclusion of novices and lay brethren may
account for the variation.— Dupin, Bibliolh. xv. 438. Mailer, AUg. Oesch.
book xix. c. 4.
t Bacon de Augment, lib. vi. cap. 4.
Z2

294 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1558.
of southern India. No community ever practised with so
much success the art of discerning the fitness of a peculiar
frame of mind for some specific station. Hence this society
of missionaries and schoolmasters had to boast of the most
vigorous controversialists, the most polite Scholars, the most
refined courtiers, and (unfortunately) the most flexible casu
ists, of their age.
They are the strongest if not the only proof afforded by
authentic history, that an artificial system of government and
education, formed at once by .human contrivance, is, in some
circumstances, more capable of attaining its proposed object
than the general experience of mankind would warrant us to
expect. The Jesuits had not leisure for works of genius or
for discoveries in science,to say nothing of philosophical spec
ulation, from which last they were interdicted by the adoption,
or sometimes only by the profession, of implicit faith. Though
they covered the world for two centuries with their fame and
their power, they had no names who could be opposed to
Racine and Pascal ; the produce of the little persecuted com
munity of Port Royal during its short and precarious exist
ence. This observation, however, only imports that their
powers were more applied to active than to contemplative life.
It is foreign from our present purpose to trace the story of
their downfall. They were hated by the secular clergy, and
envied by other regulars, because they were the most potent
of all associations of a monastic nature. They were watched
with jealousy by statesmen and magistrates on account of their
boundless obedience to the see of Rome. To exalt- the papal
power, they renewed the scholastic doctrine of the popular
delegation of the powers of government to rulers. The peo
pie themselves were, in all controversies between them and
their chiefs, to listen with reverential awe and unconditional
subjection to the holy pontiff, the pastor of all subjects and
sovereigns. The doctrines of deposition and regicide* were not peculiar
to the Jesuits. They had been taught by other religious
orders ; and the first of them had been inculcated by Aquinas
himself, the main column of the theological schools. It had
been adopted by eminent persons among those Protestants
who, under Calvin, had risen against the civil authority,
instead of being influenced by its guidance, like the followers
of Luther. But the whole odium belonging to some of these
opinions fell on the Jesuits, the stanchest polemics of the
court of Rome, who were looked on with an evil eye by those
* Mariana de Regis Institutione.

1558. THE JESUITS. 295~
true Catholics, who acknowledged no final jurisdiction but
that of the universal church, while they religiously respected
the independent authority of the civil magistrate. As the
Jesuits were a militia called out to combat the reformation, it
is no wonder that they were regarded throughout all the re
formed communions as incendiaries, always engaged in plot
ting the overthrow of Protestant thrones, and in heaping up
fuel to feed the flames, by which alone Protestant nations
could be recalled from heresy.
But they owed their decay to the use of the fatal expedients
to which many of them, doubtless, trusted as the strongest
props of their greatness. However shallow statesmen may be
deluded by some short and superficial appearances to the con
trary, it is a truth proclaimed by the whole course of human
affairs, that public bodies and associations vested with legal
rights cannot very long survive the decline and downfall of
their moral character. General contempt and disgust are
fatal to institutions which can flourish only by reverence.
The corruption of those who profess to teach morality, or are
appointed to enforce it, is an inconsistency which in the course
of time shocks even the profligate. The Jesuits split on this
rock. They had too carefully cultivated the dangerous sci
ence of casuistry, the inevitable growth of the practices of
confession and absolution, which, by inuring the mind to the
habitual contemplation of those extreme cases in which there
is a conflict of duties, and where one virtue may or must be
sacrificed for the sake of a greater, does more to lessen the
authority of conscience than to guide its perplexities. Casuis
try has generally vibrated between the extremes of impracti
cable severity and contemptible indulgence. The irresponsi
ble guides of the conscience of kings -were led to treat their
penitents with a very compliant morality, by the belief that
no other could be observed by such penitents, by making too
large allowances for the allurements which palliate royal
vices, by the real difficulty of discovering when more austeri
ty might plunge a prince into deeper depravity, by the im
mense importance of rendering his measures and councils, if
not his example, favorable to religion : to say nothing of the
subtle snares with which selfishness and ambition, often with
out the consciousness of the individuals, surrounded their nar
row and slippery path. These and the like circumstances betray
ed some of their doctors into shocking principles, which were
held out to the world as the maxims of the society itself by
the wit and eloquence of Pascal, one of the greatest, and, ex-

296 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1558.
cept to the Jesuits, one of the most just of men.* The order
certainly did not adopt the odious extravagancies of some
members. But the immoralities were not sufficiently disa
vowed. The selection of particular cases, as matter of charge
against a large body, has often the unjust effect of exaggera
tion. Yet it must be owned that invidious selection and even
gross exaggeration are the indications of a proneness in the
accused body towards the vice which appears in its harshest
and most hideous shape in some of their worst members ; and
that they are a sort of natural, though not nicely equal, pun
ishment of the wrong disposition which has infected the whole
mass. These were the principal preparations for those wars of re
ligious opinion, in which the most conspicuous leaders on the
side of the ancient establishment were Philip n. and the duke
of Alva ; while the party who contended for reformation were
conducted by William of Nassau prince of Orange, Henry of
Bourbon king of Navarre, and Elizabeth Tudor queen of Eng
land. The mention of these names suggests to every writer
of English history that he is about to enter on a more arduous
task ; to relate events which more powerfully command the
fellow-feeling of after-times.
* No man is a stranger to the fame of Pascal ; but those who may desire
to form a right judgment on the contents of the " Lettres Provinciales"
would do well to cast a glance over the " Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugenie"
by Bouhours, a Jesuit, who has ably vindicated his order.

APPENDIX.

PROPORTION OP DIFFERENT TROOPS IN THE ARMY OF HENRY VII.
Indenture between H. VII and Earl of Kent, dated 9th May,
1492. Witnesseth that sd Earl is reteigned to serve as long as it
shall please our Sov : with the retinue and number of vi men of
armes ; his own person comprised in the same, every of them
havyng with them his erestrel and his page.
XVI Launces - - at ixd a day.
XXI Archers on hors back vid —
LX Archers on foot vid —
(Men of armes - xviiid — )
Similar Indenture.

Men of Armes.

Di Launc

Horse.

Foot.

Lord Latymer, to supply -

3

10

2

6

 Powys - ...

I

CO

0

0

 Barnes - -

2

6

4

7

 Grey 

9

10

2.5

60

 Devon - ...

6

2

25

66

 Scroop of Bolton - - -

3

11

10

10

 Scroop of Upsal - - -

1

0

15

15

 Surrey - - -

5

12

20

46

 Audeley

3

20

11

20

 Straunge ...

10

5

24

249

Thomas Bryan, Esq. )
(of the King's Body) \

0

J

4

14

 Welles 

3

20

15

45

Other 13 Knights supplied

26

68

190

432

72

225

345

970'

Here the printed account closes, so that it only affords informa
tion of the proportions of different sorts of soldiers in an English
army three centuries ago.

298 APPENDIX. II.
(At the close of Henry VII.'s Reign.)
LORD BACON.
Lord Bacon was the man of highest intellect among the writers
of history ; but he was not the greatest historian. History ought
to be without passion ; but if it be without feeling, it loses the
interest which bestows on it the power of being useful. The
narrative of human actions would be thrown aside as a mere
catalogue of names and dates, if it did not maintain its sway by
inspiring the reader with pity for the sufferer, with anger against
the oppressor, and with earnest desires for the triumph of right
over might The defects of Bacon's nature conspired with the
faults of his conception of history to taint his work with luke
warm censure of falsehood and extortion, with a cool display of
the expedients of cunning, and with too systematic a representa
tion of the policy of a monarch in whose history he chose to con
vey a theory of kingcraft, and the likeness of its ideal model. A
writer who has been successful in unravelling an intricate char
acter, often becomes indulgent to the man whose seeming incon
sistencies he has explained, and may at length regard the work
ings of his own ingenuity with a complacency which prevails
over his indignation. Aristotle,* who first attempted a theory of
usurpation, has escaped the appearance of this fault, partly be
cause sensibility is not expected, and would displease in a treatise
on government. Maehiavel was unhappily too successful in si
lencing his abhorrence of crimes ; but this fault is chiefly to be
found in " The Prince," which is a treatise on the art of winning
and keeping tyrannical power ; which was destined by the writer
neither to instruct tyrants, nor to warn nations against their arts,
but simply to add the theory of these arts to the stock of human
knowledge ; as a philosophical treatise on poisons might be in
tended only to explain their nature and effects, though the inform
ation contained in it might be abused by the dealer in poison,
or usefully employed for cure or relief by the physician.
Lord Bacon displayed a much smaller degree of this vice, but
he displayed it in history, where it is far more unpardonable. In
the singular passage where he lays down the theory of the ad
vancement of fortune (which he knew so well and practised so
ill), he states the maxim which induced the Grecian and Italian
philosophers to compose their dissertations, "that there be not
any thing in being or action which should not be drawn into con
templation or doctrine."t He almost avows an intention of em
bodying in the person of his hero (if that be the proper term) too
much of the ideal conception of a wary, watchful, unbending
* Arist. Polit. lib. v. c. 3.
t Dignity and Advantage of Knowledge, book ii.

APPENDIX. 299
ruler, who considers men and affairs merely as they affect him
and his kingdom ; who has no good quality higher than prudence ;
who is taught by policy not to be cruel when he is secure, but
who treats pity and affection like malice and hatred, as passions
which disturb his thoughts and bias his judgment. So systematic
a purpose cannot fail to distort character and events, and to divest
both of their power over feeling. It would have been impossible
for lord Bacon, if he had not been betrayed by his chilling scheme,
to prefer Louis XI. to Louis XII., and to declare that Louis XL,
Ferdinand the Catholic, and Henry VII., were the "-three magi
among the kings of the age ;" though it be true that Henry was the
least odious of the three royal sages.
It is due in the strictest justice to lord Bacon not to omit that
the history was written to gratify James I., to whom he was then
suing for bitter bread, who revised it, and whom he addressed in
the following words : — " I have therefore chosen to write the reign
of king Henry VII., who was in a sort your forerunner ; and
whose spirit as well as his blood, is doubled upon your majesty."
Bacon had just been delivered from prison ; he1 had passed his six
tieth year, and was galled by unhonored poverty. What wonder,
if, in these circumstances, even his genius sunk under such a
patron and such a theme !

300 APPENDIX. in.
ANNE BOLEYN'S LETTER TO HENRY VIII.
The MS. was partly destroyed by fire in 1731. The following is the
document at length ; the insertions in the parts destroyed by the fire
are printed in Italics : —
Sir,
Your Grace's displeasure and my imprisoment are things soe
strange unto me, as what to wrighte, or what to excuse, I am alto-
gether ignorant. Wheras you send unto me, (willing me lo con-
fesse a truth, and soe to obteyne your favour) by such an whome
you know to be mine antient professed enemy, I noe sooner re
ceived this message by him, then I rightly conceaved your mean
ing ; and if as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my
saftie I shall wse all willingnesse and dutie perform your command.
But let not your Grace ever imagine that your poore wife will ever
be brought to acknowledge a fault, where not soe much as a thought
ever proceeded. And to speoke a truth, never a prince had wife
more loyall in all duty, and in all true affection, then you have
ever found in Anne Solen, wiih which name and place I could will
ingly have contented myself, if God and your Grace's pleasure had
so bene pleased. Neither did I at any time soe farre forgett my
selfe in my exaltation, or reeeaved queenshipp, but that I alwayes
looked for such an alteration as now I finde ; for the ground of my
preferment being on noe surer foundation then your Grace's fancye,
the least alteration was fitt and sufficient (I knowe) to draw thai
fancye to some other subjecte. You have chosen me from a lorn
estate to be your queene and companion farre beyond my desert
or desire ; if then you found me worthy of such honour, good your
Grace let not any light fancye, or bade eounsell of my enemies with-
diaw your princely favour from me; nether lett tluU stayne, thai
unworthy stayne of a disloyall hart towards your good Grace, ever
cast so/oule a blott one your most dutifull wife, and the infant prin-
cesse your daughter. Trye me, good king, but let me have a lamfull
fryall ; and let not my sworne enemyes sit as my accusers and
judges ; yee let me receave an opera tryaU, for my truth shall feare
noe open shames. Then shall you see either mine innocencye cleered,
your suspition and conscience satisfied, the ignominy e and slander
of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. Soe that what
soever God or you may determine of your Grace may be freed from
an open censure, and mine offence being soe lawfully proved, your
Grace is at liberty both before God and man, not only to execute
worthy punishment on me as an unfaythfull wife, but to follow your
affection already setled on that partie, for whose sake I am now as I
am, whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto, your
Grace being not ignorant of my suspition 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 happines, then I desire of God that he will pardon your
great sinne herein, and likewise my enemyes the instruments
thereof, and that he will not call you to a straight aecompt for
your unprincly and cruell usage of me, at h's generall judgement

APPENDIX. 301
seat where both you and my selfe must shortly appeare, and in
whose just judgement I doubt not, what soever the world may
thinke of mee, mine inocencye shall be openly knowene, and
sufficiently cleared. My last and only request shall be, that my
selfe may only beare the burthen of your Grace's displeasure ; and
that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen,
whome as I understand are likewise in straight imprisoment for
my sake. If I ever have found favoure in your sight, if ever the
name of Ann Bulen have ben' pleasing in your eares, then let me
obteyne this request ; And soe I will leave to troble your Grace any
further. With mine earnest prayer to the Trinitie to have your
Grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all yor actions, from
my dolefull prison in the Tower the 6th of Maye.
Your most lioyall and
ever faythfulZ Wife,
ANN BULEN.
The Ladye ....
to the Kinge he . . .
of the Towe ....
At the foot of the MS. the following memorandum appears in
the same handwriting. We have attempted to supply the part
destroyed by fire : —
On the King sending a messenger to Queen Ann Bulen in the
Tower willing her to confesse the truth, site said that she could eon-
fesse noe more, then shee had already done. But as. he sayd she
must eonceale nothing she would add this, that she did acknowledge
her selfe indebted to the king for many favours, for raysing her first
to be * " * next lo be a Marques, next to be his
Queerae, and that now he could bestowe noe further honor upon her
than if he were soe pleased to make her by martirdome a saint.
The handwriting appears to be that of the period between the
latter part of the reign of Henry VIII. and the earliest years of
Elizabeth. As it seems to be a copy, by the title inscribed on it
the original from which it was transcribed may, with great proba
bility, be considered as contemporary with the events to which it
relates. It is in the same volume with Kingston's letters to Crom
well during Anne's imprisonment and with them it was a part of
the Cottonian library which was formed in the time of Elizabeth
or James by Sir Robert Cotton, a skilful antiquary, not likely to
collect counterfeits, who probably possessed the means of ascer
taining the handwriting of Anne, and the history of the manu
script It will be observed that in the age of Charles I., Herbert,
who has been followed by all subsequent writers, has modernized
the orthography. An inspection of Kingston's letters, as printed
by Mr. Ellis, if compared with one of them published by Herbert
in his history, will show that he performed exactly the same ope
ration upon them— that of modernizing the spelling : their authen
ticity has never been doubted, and perhaps the reader may be dis-
Yol. II. 2 A

302 APPENDIX.
posed to think that the doubts entertained of the genuineness of
this letter are not warranted by reason. To these remarks it may
be added, that from the authentic letters she appears to have writ
ten a letter through Cromwell at the very time to which the dis
puted letter must be referred ; and that this contested letter an
swers exactly to the circumstances of the one sent or attempted
to be sent through the secretary. Enough has been said in the
text on the argument from internal evidence employed to prove
that it is spurious. We do not know the extent of Anne's capa
city ; we do not know how far she might have been lifted above
herself by the vindication of her innocence ; and we are ignorant
whether some friendly hand might not have corrected the errors
and raised the diction of the forlorn lady, without defacing the
natural beauties of her composition. The modern orthography
in which lord Herbert has arrayed the letter has much contributed
to take away that character of a somewhat rude simplicity, which,
when exhibited in its original state, as has been done above, it ap
pears in some measure to recover.

IV.
Since this volume was printed, I have been favored by Sir Rob
ert Peel with the loan of that gentleman's own copy of the first
volume of " State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIHth," about
to be published under the authority of a royal commission. Con
stant occupation has hitherto hindered me from examining it care
fully ; but had it been otherwise, it came into my hands too late
to allow me to interweave the results of such an examination with
the narrative. I believe nevertheless that a few extracts from it
may interest the reader.

The first distinct allusion to the projected divorce that I have
found in this volume is in a dispatch of Wolsey to the king.
1st July, 1527.
" It may please Your Highnes to understande, that the mes
sage, sent unto me this mornyng from the same, by Master Wol-
man, hath not a little troubled my mynde, considering that Your
Highnes shuld thinke or conjecte, upon such message as I sent
unto Your (Highness) by Master Sampson, that I shuld eyther
doubte, or shuld your secrete matier. For 1 take
God to reeorde, that there is nothing erthely, that I covet so moch,
as the avauncyng thereof; not doubting, for any thing that I have
herde this overture hath cumme to the Quene's
knowledge thenne I have doon bifore : and, as I said unto
Master Sampson, if your brother had never knowen her, by rea
son whereof there was noo affinite contracted ; yet, in that she
was maried in facie ecclesie, and contracted per verba de prosenti,

APPENDIX. 303
there did arrise impedimentum publice honestatis, which is noo
lesse impedimentum ad dirimendum matrimonium thenne affinite,
whereof the bul makith noo expresse mencion : and the woordes
that I said unto Master Sampson imported noo doubt in me, for
these folowing were my very wordes. Whenne he shewed unto
me, that the Quene was very stif and obstinate, afferming that
your brother did never knowe her carnally, and that she desired
counsail aswel of your subgettes as of straungiers, I said, this de
vise coulde never cumme of her hed, but of summe that were
lerned ; and these wer the worst poyntes that could be imagened,
for the empeching of this matier : for that she wold
resorte unto the counsail of straungiers, or she in
tended to make al the counsail of the worlde, Fraunce except as
a partie against it; wherefor, I (think) convenient, tyl it wer
knowen what shuld succede of the Pope, and to what point the
French King might be brought, Your Grace shuld handle her
both g(ently) and doulcely, as I instructed the said Master Samp
son. This was in effecte the hoi substaunce of .my charge com
mitted unto him ; at the declaration whereof was the Dukes of
Norfolk and Suffolk present State Papers, Hen. VIII. voL i. p. 194.
5th July, 1525. Wolsey to the King.
interview with archbishop wareham.
The first night of this my said journay I lodged at Sir John
Wiltesheres bowse*, where met me my Lord of Canirtourbury ;
with whom after communication had of your secrete matier and
such other thinges as have been hitherto doon therin, I shewed
him howe .the knowleage therof is cumme to the Quenes Grace,
and howe displeasantly she takith it, and what Your Highnes hath
doon for the staying and pacification of her ; declaring unto her,
that Your Grace hath hitherto nothing intended, ne doon, but oonly
for the serehing and trying out of the trouth, proeeding upon oc
casion given by the French partie, and doubtes moved therein by
the Bishop of Tarbe.t Which facion and maner liked my said
Lorde of Carmtourbury very wel. And noting his countenaunce,
gesture, and manour, although he sumwhat marveled, howe the
Quene shuld cumme to the knowleage therof, and by whom ;
thinking that Your Grace might constrayne and cause her to
shewe the discoverers therof unto Your Highnes : yet as I per-
ceyve, he is not moch altered or turned from his first facion ; ex-
pressely affermyng that howesoever displeasantly the Quene toke
this matier, yet the trowth and jugement of the lawe must have
place and be folowed. And soo proeeding further with him in
communication, I have sufficiently instructed him, howe he shall
* Cavendish describes this house to have been two miles beyond Dartford.
t Gabriel de Grammont, bishop of Tarbes, was one of those who came on
an embassy from France in the spring of 1527-

304 APPENDIX.
ordre himself, in cace the Quene doo demaunde his counsail in
the said matier, which myn advertisement he doth not oonly like,
but also hath promised me to folowe accordingly.
Slate Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 196.
INTERVIEW WITH BISHOP FISHER, IN THE SAME LETTER.
After which communication, I asked him, whether he had hard
lately any tidings from the Court, and whether any man had been
sent unto him from the Quenes Grace. At which question he
sumwhat stayed and pawsed ; nevertheles, in conclusion, he an
swered, howe truth it is, that of late oon was sent unto him from
the Quenes Grace, who brought him a message oonly by mowth,
without disclosure of any particularite, that certain matiers there
were, betweene Your Grace and her lately chaunced, wherein she
(.would be) glad to have his counsail, alleging that Your Highnes
was content she shuld soo have ; whereunto, as he saith, he made
answer, likewise by mowth, that he was redy and prone to geve
unto her his counsail, in any thing that concerned or towched
oonly herself, but in matiers concerning Your Highnes and here,
he wold nothing doo, without knowlege of your pleasour and ex-
presse commaundement, and herwith dismissed the messanger.
After declaracion wherof, I replied and said ; " My Lord, ye and
" I have been of an olde aequayntaunce, and the oon hath loved
" and trusted the other ; wherfore postponyng al doubte and feare,
" ye may be franke and playne with me, like as I, for my partie,
" wil be with youe." And soo I demaunded of him, whither he
had any special conjecture or knowlege, what the matier shuld be;
wherin the Quene desired to have his advise. Wherunto he an
swered, that by certain reaport and relation he knewe nothing ;
howbeit upon conjecture, rysing upon such thinges as he had
harde, he thinketli it was for a divorce to be had bitwene Your
Highnes and the Quene ; which to eonjecte, he was specially
moved, upon a tale brought unto him by his brother from London ;
who shewed hym, that being there, in a certain company, he harde'
saye that thinges wer set forth, sounding to such a purpose :
wherupon, and thenne calling to remembraunce the question I
moved unto him, by Your Graces commaundment, with the mes
sage sent unto him from the Quene, he verayly supposed such a
matier to be in hande, and this was al he knowith therin, as he
constantly affermith, without that ever he sent any worde or
knowlege therof, by his fayth, to the Quenes Grace, or any other
lyving personne. Upon this occasion I said unto him, that although
for such considerations, as in further hering of the matier he shal
perceyve, Your Highnes was roynded not to disclose the same to
many, but as secretly to handle it as might be, and therfore did
communicate it unto very fewe ; yet nowe, perceiving your good
mynde and gracious entent to be otherwise taken by suspicions
and conjectures, thenne was purposed, Your Highnes had given me
special charge and commission to disclose the same unto him ; takyng

APPENDIX. 305
an othe of him to kepe it close and secrete, and to shewe his
mynde and opinion, what he thought therin. After the which
othe taken, I repeted unto him the hoi matier of Fratmce, and of
the marriage entended bitwen the French King and my Lady
Princesse ; and howe that when, in processe of that matier, be
sides the expectacion of the Ambassadours of Fraunce, it was on
this side objected, that before further entree in to the treatie of the
said matrimonie, it shuld first be necessary and requisite to see,
whither the French King ever in such state and condition, as he
might, by the lawe, contracte marriage with my Lady Princesse,
fbrasmoch as it was noysid abrode, that he had made a precon-
tracte* with Madam Elienor ; and that they, having noo commis
sion to treate therupon, wer compelled to staye for a season ; al
leging, nevertheless, that such objection seemed unto them very
strange, and that it was not to be thought, that a Prince of hon-
nour, as ther master is, wolde sende them in such facion to so
noble a Prince, requiring his doughter in marriage, oonless he
might by the lawe accomplish the same ; the Bishop of Tarba,
oon of the said Ambassadours, wrote unto me from his lodging,
shewing howe he was very sory for such allegacions made on this
side ; and that for reeiproque maner, on ther partie, they wer com
pelled to demaunde likewise, that, on Your Graces behaulf, it
shuld be shewed and opened unto them, what had been here pro
vided for taking awaye the impediment of that marriage, wherof
my Lady Princesse cumeth ; and that although he doubted not,
but your Graces counsail had wel forseen that same, yet for dis
charge of ther duties towardes ther master, they must nedes re
quire a sight therof; fearing, lest upon such altercacion, on both
sides, litel effecte shuld suceede. Whe(rupon) Your Highnes had
commaundement to make enserch for such dispensations as wer
obtayned therfbr, to shewe unto them, when they shuld require it.
And, finally, for the said Bishoppes satisfaction, shewed unto him
the bul of dispensation ; which, after he had deliberatly perused
and red, noting and marking every material point therof, although
he said, for the first sight, he supposed the said bul was not suffi
cient as wel for that this impediment was de jure divino, wher-
with the Pope coulde not dispense nisi ex urgentissima causa, as
for other thinges deprehended in the same ; yet further disputa-
cion upon validite of the said bulle, and the impediment of the
French Kinges parte, was, by mutual consent put over, untyl my
cumming in to France : mynding in the meane season to see what
might be said for the justifieacion therof, and to be riped in al
poyntes, to make answer to any thing, that might be objected on
eyther partie ; and howe that, by Your Graces commaundement
I had sworn certain lerned men in the lawe, to wryte their minds
in that matier, who have right clerkly handled the same, soo as
the bokes excrescunt in magna volumina. And forasmoch as the
* By the treaty of Madrid.
2A2

306 APPENDIX.
Bishop of Tarbe wrote unto me, that the impediment shuld be de
jure divino, I moved that question unto him in another case, to
know his mynde. And thus declaring the hoi matier unto him at
lenght as was divised with Your Highnes at Yorke Place, I added
that, by what meanes it was not yet deprehended, an ending of
this matier is cumme to the Quene's knowlege ; who, being sus
picious, and casting further doubtes, thenne was ment or entended,
hath broken with Your Grace therof, after a veray displeasaunt
maner ; saying that, by my procurement and setting forth, a di
vorce was purposed bitween her and Your Highnes ; and bi her
maner, behavour, wordes, and messages sent to diverse, hath pub-
lished, divulged, and opened the same ; and what Your Highnes
hath said unto her therin, to the purging of the matier, howe, and
after what sorte, Your Grace have used yourself, to attayne to the
knowlege of him, that shulde be author of that tale unto her. And
I assure Your Grace, my Lorde of Rochester, hering the processe
of the matier after this sorte, did arrecte gret blame unto the
Quene, as wel for giving soo light credence in soo weighty a
matier, as also, when she harde it, to handle the same in such
facion, as rumor and brute shuld sprede therof; which might not
oonly be summe staye and let to the universal peace, which is now
in mayning and treating, but also to the gret daunger and peril
of Your Graces succession, if the same shulde be further spred
and divulged ; and doubted not, but that if he might speke with
her, and disclose unto her al the circumstances of the matier as
afore, he shulde cause her gretly to repent, humille, and submitte
herselfe unto Your Highnes ; considering that the thing doon by
Your Grace in this matier was soo necessary and expedient and
the Quenes acte herin soo perilous and daungerous, if it be not
redubbed. Howbeit I have soo persuaded hym, that he wil no
thing speke or doo therin, ne any thing counsail her, but as shal
stande with your pleasour ; for he saith, although she be Quene
of this realme, yet he knowelegith youe for his high Souverain
Lord and King ; and will not therfor otherwise behave himself, in
al matiers, concerning or touching your personne, thenne as he
shalbe by Your Grace expressely commaunded ; like as he made
answer unto the messanger sent from the Quene, as I have before
writen. Wherfore there restith oonly the advertisement of your
pleasour to be given unto him, wheruppon he wil incontinently
repare unto Your Highnes, and further ordre himselfe to the
Quene in wordes, maner, and facion, as he shalbe by Your Grace
enfourmed and enstructed. State Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 198.
19th July, 1527. Wolsey to the King.
And as touching the going of Fratmces Phillippes in to Spayne,
fayning the same to be for visiting of his mother, now sikely and
aged. Your Highnes takith it suerly in the right, that it is chiefly
for disclosing of the secrete matier unto thEmperour, and to divise

APPENDIX. 307
meanes and wayes, howe your entended purpose might be em-
peched. Wherfor Your Highnes hath right substaneially and
prudently divised, like as it is more thenne necessary, that his
passage in to Spayne, in any wise, shuld be letted and stopped ;
for if the said matier shuld cumme to thEmperours knowleage, it
shuld be noo litel hinderaunee to Your Graces particuler, and the
common affayres of Christendom, which be nowe in hande. • En-
suying, therfore, Your Graces pleasour, if he cumme by this way,
I shal not fayle soo to ordre al thinges, that he shalbe stopped in
summe convenient place, without suspecting that the same pro-
cedith eyther of Your Highnes, or of me. Howbeit, if he passe
by see, there earme be noo provision divised, but that he, arryved
in Spayne, shal have opportunite and meanes ynowe to cause the
said matier to be brought to thEmperours knowledge, althowe he
be not seen in his Courte, or repare unto his presence.
Slate Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 220.
29th July, 1527. Wolsey to the King.
Sire, — Dayly and hourely musing and thinking on Your Graces
gret and secret -affayre, and howe the same maye cumme to good
effecte and desired ende, aswel for the dely veraunce of Your Grace
rait of the thraalde, pensif, and dolerous lif that the same is in, as
for the continuance of your helth, and the suertie of your realme
and succession, I considre howe that the Popes Holynes consent
must concurre, asw-el for the approbation of such processe, as
shalbe made by me in tire said matier, as -in -cace the Quene wold
appelle, (as it is not unlike she wil doo) or declyne from my juris-
sdiction ; whose consent fay ling, and not possible to be had, then
the approbation of the Cardinalles, to be convoked in to oon place,
representing the state of the College, is necessaryly requisite : for
the spedy atteyning of the which consentes, I canne imagine but
two remedies ; the oon is the Poopes delyveraunce and restitucion
to libertie ; that fayling, the other is the convocation of the said
Cardinalles in to summe convenient place in Fraunce; for the
which purpose, both Your Highnes, the French King, and I, have
not oonly sent forth our letters to al such Cardinalles as be absent
but also divised offres, allectives, and practises to be set forth, to
induce them to assemble in Fraunce ; of whose repare thither ther
is good hope and apparaunce.

In cace the said peace cannot be by these meanes brought to
•effeete, whereupon might ensue the Poopes delyveraunce, by whose
auctorite and consent Your Graces affayre shuld take most sure,
nonnorable, effectual, and substancial ende ,* and who, I doubte
not considering Your Graces gratitude, wold facyly be induced
to doo al thyng therin, that might be to Your Graces good satis
faction and purpose ; thenne, and in that cace, there is noon other
-rernedye, but the convocation of the said Cardinalles-.; who, as I

308 APPENDIX.
am cnfbrmed, wil not, ne canne, conveniently convene in any other
place but at Avinion, where the administration of the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction hath been in semblable caces heretofore exercised : to
the which place, if the said Cardinalles canne be induced to
cumme, Your Highnes being soo contented, I purpose also to re
pare ; not sparing any labour, travayl, or payne in my body,
charges, or exspenees, to doo service unto Your Grace in that be-
haulf, according to my most bounden dutie and hartes desire,
there to consulte and divise with them, for the governaunce and
administracion of the auctorite of the church during the said cap-
tivite, which shalbe a good grounde and fundament for the effectual
execution of Your Graces secrete affayre.
Stale Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 230.
11th August, 1527. Wolsey to the King, from Amiens.
And forasmoch as, sythens my cummyng hither, I have re-
ceyved, out of Flanders, letters from Master Haket Your Graces
Agent there, conteyning that it is cumme to my Lady Margarettes
knowlege, by secrete wayes and meanes, as she affermith, that
Your Grace entendith to be separate and divorsed from the Quene,
and that the said Lady hath broken with the said Master Haket
therein ; wherby it may be conjected and veryly supposed, that
not oonly thEmperour hath knowlege therof, but also they wyl doo
and set forth al that they canne at Rome for the interruption and
letting of Your Graces purpose : I have therfore, by thadvise of
my Lorde of Bath, divised certain expeditions to be made to Rome,
aswel by the Bishop of Worcetour, for whom I have sent with al
diligence to cumme hither, as by Gregory de Cassales, and the
Poopes Ambassadour,* ut in omnem eventum et casum, of the
oon expedition fiiyle the other maye take effeete. And I have set
forth such practises, not sparing for offering of money, that by
oon meane or other, ther is gret appearaunce that oon of these, I
purpose to sende for the said expeditions, shal have accesse unto
the Poopes personne ; to the which if they, or any of them, may
attayne, there shalbe al possible wayes and practises set forth for
the obtayning of the Poopes consent aswel in the convocation of
Cardinalles, and administracione usum ecclesiastiearum durante
captivitate sua, as making of protestacions, and graunting of other
thinges, which may conferre and be beneficial to Your Graces
purpose. Stale Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 254.
[Wolsey, during his visit to France in summer 1527, commu
nicates to Henry the particulars of his negotiations for an intended
marriage between him and Elinor the Emperor's sister, afterwards
the second queen of Francis I., without apparently incurring any
displeasure. On the 13th September, 1527, there is a letter of the
Cardinal, full of gratitude for his master's approbation.]
* Cardinal John Salviati.

APPENDIX. 309
January or February, 1529. Tuke to Wolsey.
Mr. Brian's letter forasmany clauses as the King shewed me,
whiche was here and there as His Grace red it, was totally of des
peration, affermyng plainly that he coude not bileve the Poope
wolde do any thing for His Grace, with these wordes added ; ' It
myght wel be in his Pater Noster, but it was nothing in his crede.'
He wrote, also, at other thinges that wer in the common letters,
bothe of their oommyng to the Poopes presence, the good mes
sage sent from the Poope, that he wolde not speke with. thEmpe
rours Oratour, withoute their knowledge, and otherwise, except
the maters in cifer. I alwais satisfied the King, as wel as I coude,
with the contynue of the last letters, wherunto was more respect
to be had then to thise, seeing then they knewe and herde more
than afore. The Kinges Grace said that those last letters also
conteyn smal comfort Howbeh, finally, His Grace causing me
to rede the common letters and the newes, and liking wel the
clause discifred, that the registre of the brefe coude not be founde,
rested upon some better knowlege by the next letters, and so re
versed his letters, with on that was inclosed in Mr. Brians letters,
directed I wot not to home, but I suppose to Mastres Anne* with
nymself 4th August 1529. Gardiner to Wolsey.
His Highness having (great) trust and confidence in Your
Graces dexterite and , doubteth not but Your Grace, by
good handeling (of the) Cardinal Campegius, and the Quenes Coun
sail, the execution of those letters citatorial, also on your
, and to cause them to be content the same inhibition
(be) doon and executed by vertue of the Popes brief
to Your Grace, and mencyouning that matier, which I sende unto
the same herwith ; which brief forasmoch as it rehersith and tes-
tifith unto youe the cause to be a.d(voked), the Kinges Highnes sup-
posith that to be sufficient wherupon ye may ground the cessation
of your processe, and that it should not be nedeful any such let
ters citatorial, conteyning matier prejudicial to his personne, and
royal estate, to be shewed to his subget, within his owne realme.
For which considerations, His Highness wold gladly this breve to
be taken in the lieu of the said letters citatorial, if, upon any such
reasons as be bifore rehersed, or other as Your Grace, of your
high wisedom, can divise, it may be compassed to the satisfaction
of the Quenes Counsail, without any suspition to arrise thereof;
that any other respect wer coloured therby.
State Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 336.
[The supplications of Wolsey for mercy are earnest, and too
importunate (see State Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 347—371).
Those to Cromwell are honorable to the fidelity of that minister,

* Anne Boleyn.

312 APPENDIX.
and receaved from him some other agein ; wherof the moste parts
(as he saith) conteigned nothing els, but comforting wordes from
either to other, and declaracion of the state that they were in, in
their bodies, and gevyng of thankes for such meate or drinke,
that the tone had sent to the tother. But he saith, that he remem-
breth, that apon a quarter of a yere to his remembrance, after the
commyng of this deponent to the Toure, this respondent wrote a
letter to Mr. Fissher, wherein he certified hym that this examinat
had refused the othe of succession ; and never shewed the Cotm-
saill, nor intended ever to shewe any other, the cause, wherefor
he did so refuse the same. And the said Mr. Fissher made hym
answere by a nother letter, agein, wherein he declared what an-
swere he had made to the Counsaill, and remembreth that this
was parte of the contentes thereof: " howe he had not refused to
" swere to the succession." And saith, that there went no other
letters betwene theym, that any thing touched the Kinges bnsynes,
lawes, or affaires, till the Counsail cam hether, firste of all, to ex-
amyn this deponent upon thActe of Supreme Hed. After which
examination, this examinat receaved a letter from Mr. Fissher, of
this effect, viz. " Howe he was desirous to knowe of this respondent,
" what answere he had made to the Counsaill." And therupon
thys respondent answered hym by a nother letter, other thus :
" My Lorde, I am determyned to medle of no thing, but only to
" geve my mynde uppon Godd, and the summe of my hole studie
" shalbe, to thinke upon the Passion of Christe, and my passage
" out of this worlde, with the dependences therupon" ; — or els
thus : " My Lorde, myne answer was this, that I was determyned
to medle with no thing," &.c. as above : he can not well remembre,
whether of bothe the seid weys he wrote the same letter. Than,
within a while after, he saith, he receaved a nother letter from the
said Mr. Fissher, of this effect ; " That he was infourmed that
" there was a worde in the statute,*' " Maliciousely ;" and yf it
" were so, that he thought therby, that a man, speking nothing of
"malice, did not offende the statute; and desired this respondent
" to shew hym, whether he sawe any otherwise in it." And this
respondent answered hym agen, by a nother letter, shortely after,
of this effect viz. " Howe this examinat toke it to his thinking, as
" he did ; but the understanding or interpretation of the said stat-
" ute shulde nother be taken after his mynde, nor after this depo-
" nentes mynde ; and therefor it was not good for any man to
" truste unto any suche thing."
And saith farther, that other in this laste letter, or in a nother
meane letter, betwene this and the firste, he wrote never, whether
this examinat confessing how he had spoken to the Counsaill, that
he wolde medle with nothing, but wolde thinke on the Passion of
Christe, and his passage out of the worlde, and that he had writ
ten the same wordes to Mr. Fissher ; and fearing, leste it might
_ . _^
* 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.

APPENDIX. 313
happen hym to speake the same wordes, or like, in his answere to
the Counsaill, this examinat desired hym to make bys answere ac
cording to his owne mynde, and to medle with no suche thing, as
he had written unto hym, lest he shulde geve the Counsaill occa
sion to wene, that there were some confederacie between theym
bothe. Also, saith, that syns the last examination of hym, this examinat
did sende Mr. Fissher worde, by a letter that Mr. Sollicitour* had
shewed hym, that it was all one not to answere, and to seye agein
the statute what a man wolde, as all the lerned men of England
wolde justifie, as he said than ; and therfore he said, he coulde
reken upon nothing else, but upon the uttermoste : wherfor he
prayed him to praye for this examinat, and he wolde agein praye
for hym.
Also, he saith, that he, considering howe it shulde comme tc
his doughters eare, Mr. Ropers wife,t that the Counsaill had been
with hym, and shulde here thinges abrode of hym therupon, that
might put her to a soden flight ; and fearing leaste she, being (as
he thoughte) with childe, shulde take some harme by that soden
flight, and therfor mynding to prepare her bifore, to take well
awoorth, what so ever thing shulde betide of hym, better or worse ;
did sende unto her, bothe after the first examination, and also after
the laste, letters, by the whiche he did signifie unto her, howe that
the Counsaill had ben to examine hym, and had asked hym cer
tain questions touching the Kinges statutes, and that he had an
swered theym, that he wolde not medle with no thing, but wolde
serve God : and what thende thereof shulde be, he coulde not tell ;
but what so ever it were, better or worse, he desired her to take it
pacienllye, and take no thought therfor, but onlie praye for hym.
And saith, that she had written unto him, bifore, divers letters, to
exhorte hym, and advertise hym to accomodate hymself to the
Kinges pleasure ; and specially, in the last letter, she used greate
vehemence and obsecration, to persuade this examinat to incline
to the Kinges desire. And other letters, than are bifore touched,
he nother sent, nor receaved, to or from any person, sens he earn
to the Toure, to his remembrance ; and saith that George, the
Lieutenauntes servaunt, did carie the said letters to and fro.
To the third interrogatory he saith, that there is non of the said
letters foorth commyng, where he knoweth ; but this examinat
wolde have had George to kepe them, and George allweys said,
that there was no better keper than the fire, and so bourned theym.
And whan he sawe, that he coulde not persuade George to kepe
theym, he wolde have had George to shewe them, firste to somme
trustie freende of his, that coulde reade, and yf }ie saw that there
were any matier of importance in theym, that he shulde carie the
same to the Counsaill, and geate the thankes hymself, first of any
* Richard Rich.
X Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas More, was the wife of •William Ro
per, Esq. of Teynham and Eltham. in Kent.
Vol. II. 2 B

310 APPENDIX.
whom the Cardinal addresses as " mine only aider, my assured
refuge." His letters to Gardiner evince the favor and influence
then enjoyed by him at court]

4th June, 1535. Interrogatories of Bishop Fisher.
Interrogatories, ministered, on the Kinge's behalf, (unto) John
Fissher, Doctour of Divinitie, late Busshop* (of Rochester), the 14th
daie of June, in the 27th yere of (the Iiiign of) King Henrie th'
eight within the Toure (of London by the) right worshippful Mr.
Thomas Bedyll, (Mr. Doctour Aldrige), Mr. Richard Layton, and
Mr. Richard (Curwen being of the) Kinges counsail, in the presence
of Harrie (Polslede and John) Whalley, witnesses, and me John ap
Rice, Notary (Publick), with the answeres of the said Mr. Doctour
Fissher to the (same.)t
Firste, whether be wolde obeye the Kinges Highnes, as Su
preme Hedde in Erthe under Christe, of the Church of England,
and hym so repute, take, and accepte according to the Statute in
that behalf made ?
To this interrogatorie, he answered and said thus ; that in thende
of the communication and examynacion, had last bifore this tyme,
with this respondent, one of (them did) make motion unto hym,
(lyke as) this respondent thought - -, to the which
motion (he gave) than a certain answere, (and to the) same he is yet
content (the Kinges Highnes pleasure signified lo him therein) fully
to stande ; and th(at he) woll further, with his owne hande, more
at length write and (declare) the same ; which answer being eftsones
nowe repeted by mouth, (with) all the circumstances of the (sa)me,
he required the said Counsail to s(hew) unto the Kinges Majestie.
Item, whether he woll consent approve, and affirme (the Kinges)
Highnes mariage with the moste noble Quene Anne, (that now) is
to be good and lawfull, and affirme, saye, and pr(onounce) thother
pretended marriage betwene the Kinges said Highnes and) my
Lady Catherine Princesse Dowager, was and is (xmlauful,) nought,
and of no (ne effect), or no ?
To this interrogatorie, he answered and said ; that (he wold)
obeye this, and all o(ther articles and particles conteign(erf in the
Acte) of Succession in all (point)s, (saving allweys his conscience) :
(and) as touching the succession, he) saith he is not onlie content
to accepte and approve the same ; ye, and swere thereto, but also
to defende the same, and dampne the tother. Albe it to answer
absolutely to this interrogatorie, ye or nac, he desireth to be par
doned. Item, examined wherein, and for what cause, he wolde not an
swere resolutelye to the said interrogatories ?
* Bishop Fisher was attainted by parliament in December, 1534, for re
fusing to take the oath of succession ; but he was not beheaded till 22d
June, 1535.
t This paper, which is mutilated by damp, is among ' Tracts Theological
and Political' in the Chapter House, vol. vii. leaf 5.

APPENDIX. 311
To this interrogatorie he desirefh, that he maye not be driven
to answere, lest he shulde fall therby into the daungers of the
Statutes. (Signed) J. (Notorial Mark) R.
State Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 431.

Interrogatories, ministered to Sir Thomas More, Knight*
1. Firste, whether he had any communication, reasonyng, or
consultation with any man or person, syns he cam fo the Towre,
touching thActes of Succession,! thActe of Supreme Hedde.t
wherin speaking of certain wordes by the Kinges Highnes is
made treason^, or no ? and yf he saye, yes ; than be he asked
whan, howe ofte, with whome, and to what effeete 7
2. Item, whether he receaved any letters of any man, or wrote
any man, or wrote any letters to other men, sens he cam to the
Toure, touching the said actes, or any of theym, or any other busi-
nes or affaires concernyng the Kinges Highnes, his succession, or
this his royalme ? and if he saye, yes ; then be he enquired, howe
many, of whome, and to whome, whan, and of what tenour or
effeete ?
3. Item, whether the same letters be foorth commyng or no ?
and yf he saye no ; then be he asked, why, and to what enlent
they were doon aweye and by whose meanes ?
4. Item, whether any man of this royalme, or without this
royalme, did sende unto hym any letters or message, counsailling
or exhorting hym to continue and persiste in the opinion, that he
is in ? Yf he saye, yes ; than be inquired, howe many theye were,
of whome, and to what effeete ?

Thansweres of Sir Thomas Moore, Knyght, made to certain in
terrogatories ministered unto hym, the 14th daie of June, Anno
Regni Regis Henrici Octavi 27°, within the Toure of London,
on the behalf of the Kinges' aid Highnes, before Mr. Bedle, Mr.
Doctour Aldrige, Mr. Doctour Layton, Mr. Doctour Curwen, in
the presence of Polstede, Whalley, and Rice aforesaid.
To the firste he answereth, that he never had any communica
tion, or consultation, touching any of the actes or matiers speci
fied in this interrogatory, sens he cam to the Toure, with any per
son, as he saith.
To the seconde interrogatorie he saith, that sens he cam to the
Toure, he wrote divers scrolles or letters to Mr. Doctour Fissher,
* From the same volume, leaves 6 and 7. Sir Thomas More was attain led
for the same cause, and at the same time, as Bishop Fisher ; his execution
was delayed a few days longer, viz. to 6th July, 1535.
1 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 22. {26 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.
§ 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.

314 APPENDIX.
man, therfor : and yf there were non such matiers in theym, that
he shulde deliver theym, where he be directed. Yet the said
George feared so (as he allweys said) his master, the Lieutenaunte,
which had charged him highely, that he shulde medle with no
such matiers, leaste he wolde have ben extremely displeased with
hym if he had seen that he had doon any thing, were it never of
so small importaunce, ageinst (his) commaundement ; and therfor
he wolde nedes bourne theym.
To the 4th interrogatorie he answereth, nae.
Examined further, to what intent he did sende the said letters
to the said Mr. Doctour Fissher 7 saith, that considering they
were bothe in one prison, and for one cause, he was glad to sende
unto hym, and to here from hym agein.
(Signed) J. (Notarial Mark) R.
Interrogatories, ministered, on the Kinges behalf, unto Sir Thomas
Moore, Knyght, the dale, yere, and place above recited, by the
Counsaill afore named, and in the presence of the said wit
nesses ; with his answers unto the same.
Firste, whether he wolde obeye the Kinges Highnes, as Su
preme Hedde in erthe, immediately under Christe, of the Churche
of England, and hym so repute, take, accepte, and recognise, ac
cording unto the statute in that behalf made 7
To the which interrogatorie he saieth, that he can make no an
swere. Item, whether he woll consent and approve the Kinges High
nes marriage with the moste noble Quene Anne, that now is, to
be good and lawfull ; and afferme that the mariage betwene the
Kinges said Highnes, and the Lady Catherine, Princesse Dowa
ger, pretensed, was and is unjuste and unlawfull ; or no 7
To the same he saieth, that he did never speke nor medle ayenst
the same, nor thereunto make no annswere.
Item, where it was objected unto hym, that by the said statute,
he, being one of the Kinges subjectes, is bounde to annswere to
the said question, and to recognise the Kinges Highnes to be Su
preme Hedde, as is aforesaid, as all other his said subjectes are
bounden to recognise, according unto the said statute.
To the same, he saieth, that he can make no answere.
(Signed) J. (Notarial Mark) R.
State Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 432.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

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