FOOTNOTES:
[30] Seven years later, Henry VIII. executed this unhappy prisoner in cold blood, and for no new offence.
CHAPTER XXI.
HENRY VIII., AND THE BREACH WITH ROME.
1509-1536.
The young king who succeeded to the cautious and politic Henry VII. was perhaps the most remarkable man who ever sat upon the English throne. He guided England through the epoch of change and unrest which lay between the middle ages and modern history, and his guidance was of such a peculiar and personal stamp that he left an indelible mark on the land for many succeeding generations. All Europe was transformed during his time, and that the transformation in England differed from that on the continent in almost every respect, was due to his own strange combination of qualities.
Character of Henry VIII.
Henry's character was a very complex one, mingling qualities good and bad in strange confusion. In many things he showed the traits of his grandfather Edward IV., his selfishness, his love of display, his sensuality, his outbursts of ruthless cruelty. But Edward had been nothing more than a soldier and a man of pleasure; he had no love of work, no power to read the character of others. Henry VIII. was a student, a statesman, a deep plotter, a keen observer of other men. He chose his servants—or rather his tools—with a clear-headed sagacity which no king ever surpassed, and he could break them or fling them away when they became useless, with a coolness that was all his own. Love of power, love of work, love of pleasure, love of show and pomp, did not distract him the one from the other, but blended closely together into one complex impulse—the determination to have his own will in all things. Such a state of mind bespeaks the tyrant, and a tyrant Henry became; but a tyrant whose brain was as strong as his will—who knew the possible from the impossible, who could discern how far it was safe to go, and could check himself on the edge of any dangerous precipice of foreign or internal politics. He kept, as it were, a finger on the nation's pulse, and could restrain himself for a space if ever it began to beat too excitably. He did his best to court popularity with the English by an affable bearing and a regard for their prejudices. He strove to make them look on him as the nation's representative, and to flatter them into believing that his resolves were really in accordance with their own will and interests. He represented to them not only law and order, but national feeling and national pride. It was this clever acting that made it possible for him to manipulate England according to his wishes. He appeared to take the people into his confidence, and they replied by believing his statements even when they were most unfounded and misleading. Thus it was that Henry was able to rule despotically for forty years without having a serious quarrel with his Parliament, and without being compelled to raise a standing army—the tool which all contemporary despots were forced to employ.
His popular qualities.
Henry VIII. was very young when he came to the throne—he had only reached the age of eighteen. His character was still undeveloped, though he was known to be both clever and active. All that the nation knew of him was that he was a bright, handsome youth, fond of horse and hound, but equally fond of his books and his lute. He had from the first an eye for popularity, and did all that he could to please the people by shows and pageants that forced him to dip deeply into his father's hoarded money.
Executions of Empson and Dudley.
Yet the first act of Henry's reign was ominous of future cruelty and ruthlessness. Knowing the unpopularity of his father's harsh and extortionate but faithful servants, Empson and Dudley, he cast them into prison, and had them attainted by Parliament on a preposterous charge of treason. They were well hated, and the people saw their heads fall with joy, not reflecting on the character of a king who could deliberately slay his father's councillors merely to win popular applause.
Foreign policy.—The Holy League.
Henry retained most of his father's old ministers in office, but he instantly reversed his father's policy of non-intervention in the wars of the continent. He had not long been seated on the throne when he joined the "Holy League," a confederacy formed against France by Pope Julius II., in which both those old intriguers, the Emperor Maximilian and King Ferdinand of Aragon, were already enlisted (1511). Henry might have left them to fight their own battles for the mastery of Italy and Flanders, but he was burning to assert his power in Europe and to win military distinction. His arms were fairly fortunate. A first attack on the south of France failed, but he met with considerable success in 1513, when he landed at Calais with 25,000 men, took the towns of Tournay and Térouanne, and routed the French army of the North at an engagement called "the Battle of the Spurs," from the haste with which the French knights urged their horses out of the fray. Finding his armies losing ground both in Italy and in Flanders, King Lewis XII. sought peace from Henry, and obtained it at the cheap price of paying 100,000 crowns, and marrying the Princess Mary, the young English monarch's favourite sister (1514). These easy terms were granted because Henry found that his two wily allies, Ferdinand and Maximilian, had no intention of helping him, and were bent purely on their own aggrandisement. The alliance with Lewis was not to have much duration, for within a year he was dead—killed, as the chroniclers assert, by the late hours and high living which his gay young English queen persuaded him to adopt. His widow soon dried her tears, and married Sir Charles Brandon, one of her brother's favourite companions, whom Henry, to grace the match, decorated with the ill-omened title of Duke of Suffolk, the spoil of the unhappy de la Poles. From this union sprang one who was to sit for a brief moment on the English throne. [31]
Scottish war.
Ere the French treaty had been made, a short stirring episode of war had taken place on England's northern frontier. King James IV. of Scotland had certain border feuds to settle with the English, and thought he might best take his revenge while Henry and his army were over-seas in Flanders. So he suddenly declared war, and crossed the Tweed into Northumberland.
Battle of Flodden.
Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, son of John of Norfolk, who fell at Bosworth, was in charge of the Border at the time. He raised the levies of the northern counties, and marched to meet the Scots. By throwing himself between King James and his retreat on Scotland, he forced the enemy to fight. On Flodden Field, between the Till and the Tweed, the armies met and fought a fierce and doubtful battle which lasted far into the night. Though victorious on one wing, the Scots were beaten in the centre, and their king and most of his nobles fell in a desperate struggle around the royal banner. In the darkness the survivors of the struggle dispersed and fled home. The death of their warlike sovereign, and the slaughter which had thinned their fighting men, kept the Scots quiet for many a day. During the long and troublous minority of James V. King Henry need fear no danger from the north. As a reward for his victory, Surrey was restored to his father's dukedom of Norfolk (1513).
Wolsey.
In these early years of his reign, King Henry had already taken as his chief minister the able statesman who was for twenty years to be the second personage in England. Thomas Wolsey, Dean of Lincoln, was the son of a butcher of Ipswich, who had sought advancement in the Church, the easiest career for an able man of low birth. He had served Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, one of Henry VII.'s chief advisers, and from his service passed into that of the king. He was an active, untiring man, with a great talent for work and organization of all sorts. Henry made him Bishop of Tournay, then Archbishop of York, and finally Chancellor. In this capacity he served for no less than fourteen years, and was the chosen instrument of all his master's schemes. His dignity was increased when, in 1515, the Pope made him a cardinal, and afterwards appointed him his legate in England—an office which seemed to trench over-much on the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury as head and primate of the English Church.
It suited King Henry to have a minister who could relieve him of much of the toil and drudgery of government, who did not fear responsibility, and who was entirely dependent on his master. As long as he was well served, and granted plenty of spare time for his pleasures and enjoyments, he allowed Wolsey a very free hand. The cardinal's head was somewhat turned by his elevation, and he indulged in a pomp and state such as almost befitted a king, never moving about without a sumptuous train of attendants. This arrogance made him much disliked, especially by the old nobility; but the king tolerated it with all the more ease because he preferred that his minister should be less popular than himself. It was always convenient to have some one on whom the blame of royal failures might be laid, and Wolsey, with his ostentation of power and pride, made an admirable shield for his master. Henry allowed him, therefore, the prominence in which his soul delighted, gave him his way in things indifferent, but was ready to check him sharply when he began to develop any tendency to act contrary to his own royal will.
Charles V. and Francis I.
In the earlier days of Wolsey's ministry, the face of Europe was profoundly changed by the deaths of the three old monarchs who had been the contemporaries of Henry VII. Lewis XII. of France died in 1515, Ferdinand of Aragon in 1516, the Emperor Maximilian in 1519. The successors of these old diplomatists were two young men, each slightly junior to the young King of England. In France the reckless and warlike Francis I. succeeded his cousin Lewis XII. In Spain and in the dominions of the house of Hapsburg, Ferdinand and Maximilian were followed by their grandson, Charles V., the child of the emperor's son and the king's daughter. Charles, being already King of Spain, Duke of Burgundy, and Archduke of Austria, was elected Emperor by the Germans in succession to his grandfather Maximilian.
| Charles the Rath, Duke of Burgundy, Holland, and Brabant, Count of Flanders, Luxemburg, and Namur, slain 1477 | = | (1) Isobel of Portugal. (2) Margaret of York. |
| (1) |
| Mary of Burgundy. | = | Maximilian of Hapsburg, Archduke of Austria and Emperor, 1493-1519. | Ferdinand King of Aragon, 1479-1516. | = | Isabella, Queen of Castile, 1474-1504. |
| Philip, Archduke of Austria, died 1506. | = | Joanna. | Catherine | = | (1) Arthur, Prince of Wales, (2) Henry VIII. |
| Charles, King of Spain, 1516; Emperor, 1519-1556. | Ferdinand I., Emperor, 1556-1564 | Mary, Queen of England, 1553-1558. |
| Charles, King of Spain, 1516; Emperor, 1519-1556. | = | Mary, Queen of England, 1553-1558. |
Policy of Henry.
Now Francis of France and Charles of Austria were rivals from their youth, and their rivalry was the main source of trouble in European politics for a whole generation. England had to choose between them when she sought an ally, but Henry found it by no means easy to make up his mind. France was his hereditary enemy, but, on the other hand, Charles, by uniting Spain, the Netherlands, and Austria, and acquiring in addition the position of Emperor, had built up such a vast power that he overshadowed Europe, and seemed dangerous by reason of his over-great dominions and wealth.
The balance of power.
Henry and Wolsey, therefore, fell back on the idea that a balance of power in Europe was the best thing for England. It would be a misfortune if either Francis I. or Charles V. should grow so powerful as to dominate the whole continent. England accordingly would do well to see that neither obtained complete success, and to make a rule of helping the weaker party from time to time. For the next ten years, therefore, Henry was always trimming the scales, and transferring his weight from one side to the other. Such a policy made him much courted by both parties, and won him much flattery, and an occasional subsidy or treaty of commerce. But, on the other hand, it prevented either Francis or Charles from looking upon him as a trustworthy ally, or dealing fairly with him in the hours of their success. For they argued that there was no object in serving a friend who might turn into an enemy at the shortest notice. Thus Henry and Wolsey, with all their astuteness, got no profit for England or for themselves, for they were never trusted, and promises made to them in the hour when their help was needed were never fulfilled when their aid was no longer necessary. There was something false, insincere, and degrading in this trimming policy. It is disgusting to read how Henry greeted his neighbour Francis in 1520 at the celebrated "Field of the Cloth of Gold" near Calais, with all manner of pomp and pageantry, and profuse protestations of brotherly love, and then within a month had met Charles at Gravelines, and concluded a secret treaty of alliance with him against the friend whose kiss was yet upon his cheek.
Heavy taxation.—Benevolences.
From all the negotiations and fighting which accompanied the changes of English policy, only one definite result was reached—England was beginning to grow poorer and more discontented. The hoarded treasure of Henry VII. had long been exhausted, and the taxation which his son was compelled to levy was growing more and more heavy. Henry had fallen into the evil habit of dispensing with parliamentary grants; from 1515 to 1523, and again in 1527 and 1528, he never summoned the two Houses to assemble. The money which he ought to have asked from them, he raised by the illegal devices of "benevolences" and forced loans. Wolsey got the credit of advising this tyrannous extortion, and gained no small hatred thereby, but his master was in truth far more responsible for it than he.
Wolsey aims at becoming Pope.
The cardinal, however, bore the blame, and it was said that all the chaotic changes in England's policy were inspired by Wolsey's desire to attain the position of Pope, by the aid of whichever of the two powers of France and Austria had the advantage for the moment. There is no doubt that there was some truth in the charge; the cardinal's ambition was overweening, and he would gladly have become Pope, because he had conceived great schemes of Church reform which the possession of the papacy alone would have enabled him to carry out. It is certain that Charles V. twice deluded Wolsey into aiding him, by the tempting bait of the papal tiara. But on each occasion the Emperor used his influence at Rome to get some surer partisan elected.
Condition of the Church.
Depravity of the Popes and Clergy.
Wolsey's scheme of reforming the Church was no doubt suggested to him by the discontent against the clergy which was at this moment beginning to break out all over Europe. Since the days of Wicliffe, religious matters had not been taking any very prominent place in English politics, but a storm was now at hand far more terrible than that which had swept over the land in the days of the Lollards. The condition of the church of Western Christendom had become more and more deplorable of late. The worst example was set at head-quarters: bad as the Popes of the fourteenth century had been, those who were contemporary with the Tudors were far worse. Rome had seen in succession three scandalous Popes, the first of whom—Alexander VI., the celebrated Rodrigo Borgia—was a monster of depravity, a murderer given up to the practice of the foulest vices; the second—Julius II.—was a mere secular statesman with no piety, but a decided talent both for intrigue and for hard fighting; the third—Leo X.—was a cultured atheist, of artistic tastes, who used to tell his friends that "Christianity was a profitable superstition for Popes." Under such pontiffs all the abuses of the mediaeval Church came to a head. Ill living, corruption, open impiety, reckless interference in secular politics, non-residence, neglect of all spiritual duties, greed for money, were more openly practised by the clergy than in any previous age. Even the better sort of ecclesiastics could see no harm in obvious abuses;—Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, a man of great virtue, absented himself for twenty years from his see. Wolsey held three sees at once, and never went near any of them.
The Renaissance.— Printing.
The lamentable state of the Church would have provoked murmuring in any age, but in the sixteenth century it led to open rebellion in all those countries of Europe which still retained some regard for religion and morals. The revival of arts and letters, which men call the Renaissance, was now at its height, and Europe was for the first time full of educated laymen who could criticize the Church from outside, and compare its teaching with its practice. The multiplication of books, owing to the discovery of printing, had placed the means of knowledge in every man's hands, and the revived study of Hebrew and Greek was setting the learned to read the Scriptures in their original tongues. All the elements of a violent outbreak against the papacy, its superstitions and its enormities, were ready to combine.
Martin Luther.
In 1517 a German friar, Martin Luther, had first given voice to the universal discontent, by opposing the immoral practice of selling "indulgences," or papal letters remitting penances for sins, in return for money. He had followed this up by preaching against many other papal abuses, and, when Leo X. replied by excommunicating him, he began to attack the whole system of the mediaeval Church—inveighing against the Pope's spiritual supremacy, the invocation of saints, the celibacy of the clergy, the adoption of the monastic life, and many other matters. He was supported by his prince, Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and a great part of Germany at once declared in his favour (1517-21).
The Church in England.
England was not at first very much affected by the revolt of Germany against the papacy. The English Church was far less corrupt than those of France or Italy, and though full of abuses, was not really unpopular with the nation. It still retained much of the old national spirit, and was not the mere slave of the Pope. Neither king nor people showed any signs of following the lead of the Germans. Henry wrote a book to prove Luther's views heretical, and received in return from Leo X. the title of Defender of the Faith, which English sovereigns still display on their coinage. Wolsey devoted himself to practical reforms, leaving doctrine alone. His first measure was to suppress many small and decayed monasteries, and to build with their plunder his great foundation of Cardinal's College, afterwards known as Christ Church, in the University of Oxford.
Henry and Queen Catherine.
It was not till about 1527 that England began to be drawn into the struggle which was convulsing all continental Europe, and then the cause of quarrel came from the king's private affairs, and not from any doctrinal dispute. It will be remembered that Henry had been affianced by his father to Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his brother, Arthur Prince of Wales. Marriage with a deceased brother's wife being illegal, a papal dispensation had been procured to remove the bar, and Henry had married Catherine on his accession, so that he could not plead compulsion on the part of his father. The marriage was not a wise one, for the queen, though a very gentle and virtuous woman, was six years older than her husband, had no personal attractions, and was delicate in health. All the children whom she bore to Henry died in infancy—except one, the Princess Mary. By 1527 Catherine was a confirmed invalid, and showed all the signs of premature old age, though she was only forty-two.
Henry desires a divorce.
Now Henry VIII. was morbidly anxious for a son to succeed him; he was the only surviving male of the house of Tudor, and could not bear the thought of leaving the throne to a sickly girl. It was obvious that Catherine would bear him no more children, and, regardless of the duty and respect that he owed to her, he began to think of obtaining a divorce, and marrying a younger wife. His project took a definite shape when his eye was caught by the beautiful Anne Boleyn, a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, and one of the maids of honour. Becoming desperately enamoured of her, he resolved to press for a divorce at once. Wolsey, who saw that the kingdom needed a male heir, undertook to procure the Pope's consent to the repudiation of Catherine.
Attitude of the Pope.
But this task proved more difficult than he had expected. Popes were generally indulgent enough to kings who would pay handsomely for their heart's desire. But the reigning pontiff, Clement VII., was in an unhappy position: he was completely at the mercy of the Emperor Charles V., whose troops had lately taken and sacked Rome. Charles was resolved that his aunt Catherine should not be divorced, and Pope Clement was mortally afraid of offending him. Instead, therefore, of granting the demand of Henry VIII., he temporized, and appointed two cardinals, Wolsey himself and Campeggio, the Italian bishop of Salisbury, to investigate the question. Henry and Wolsey hoped to force on a prompt decision: but Campeggio deliberately hung back, and the Pope finally recalled him, and summoned the king to send his case to be tried at Rome (1528). Henry wrongly thought that this check was due to some bungling or reluctance on the part of Wolsey, not seeing that the Pope's fears of the Emperor were the real cause.
Unpopularity of Wolsey.
He at once withdrew his support from the great minister, though Wolsey needed it more at this moment than ever before, for he was in great disfavour with the nation, both for his arrogance and for the heavy taxation which he had imposed on the land. He had actually demanded from Parliament the unprecedented tax of 4s. in the pound on all men's lands and incomes, and, though the House plucked up courage to resist this extortionate claim, had obtained as much as 2s. In 1529 the cardinal, fearing to meet another Parliament, had recourse to the old device of benevolences, on a larger scale than ever. This led to rioting and open resistance. Then the king, to the surprise of all men, suddenly declared that Wolsey's action was taken without his knowledge and consent, and dismissed him from the office of Chancellor, which he had held since 1515.
His disgrace and death.
His place as the king's chief counsellor fell to the Duke of Norfolk, the uncle of Anne Boleyn. The king immediately proceeded to treat the cardinal with great ingratitude. Wolsey's harsh deeds had always been wrought for his master's benefit rather than his own, but Henry chose to ignore this fact, and to win a cheap popularity by persecuting his old and faithful servant. Probably Anne Boleyn and her uncle Norfolk, exasperated by the delay in the king's divorce, stirred up Henry to the attack. The cardinal was impeached for having accepted the title of legate from Rome, without the king's formal leave, many years before. Henry had made no objection at the time, and it was pure hypocrisy to pretend indignation now. But Wolsey was declared to have incurred penalties under the Statute of Praemunire, which forbad dealings with Rome conducted without royal leave. He was condemned, deprived of all his enormous personal property, and sent away from court, to live in his archbishopric of York. A year later Henry again commenced to molest him, and he was on his way to London, to answer a preposterous charge of treason, when he died at Leicester, as much of a broken heart as of any disease. He had been arrogant and harsh in his day of power, but had served his master so faithfully that nothing can excuse Henry's ingratitude. Unfortunately for England, he had taught the king the dangerous lesson that he could go very far in the direction of absolute and tyrannical government, and escape from the consequent unpopularity by throwing over his ministers. Henry used this knowledge to the full during the rest of his reign.
Cromwell and Cranmer.
Meanwhile Wolsey's disgrace, and the complete failure of the attempt to win a divorce from the Pope, had been leading the king into new paths. He had taken to himself two new councillors. In secular matters he gave his confidence to Thomas Cromwell, a clever, low-born adventurer, whom Wolsey had discovered and brought to court. In matters religious he was beginning to listen to his chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, a man with a curious mixture of piety and weakness, one of the few Englishmen who had as yet been touched by the doctrines of the Continental Reformers. It was not, however, as a Reformer that Cranmer commended himself to his master; indeed, he kept his Lutheran opinions very secret. But he had suggested to the king a new method of dealing with the divorce question, which Henry considered not unpromising. It might be urged that marriage with a deceased brother's wife was so strictly and definitely forbidden in the Scriptures, that the Pope had no authority to sanction it, and so the permissory bull of Julius II. might be scouted as so much waste paper. Henry eagerly swallowed the idea, and sent round the question, stated as a moot point, to all the universities of Europe. About half of them answered, as he wished, that the marriage was illegal from the first. Armed with this authority, he resolved to go further.
Attack on the clergy.
But first Henry was resolved to show the English clergy that he was determined to stand no opposition from them on this point. He opened a campaign against all manner of Church abuses, with the object of winning for himself popularity with the nation, by the cheap expedient of a pretended zeal for purity and piety. He told the Convocation of the clergy that they had all made themselves liable to the penalties of Praemunire, for recognizing Wolsey as legate without the royal leave. They only got pardon by voting the king the large fine of £118,000. He also caused Convocation to address him as "Supreme Head, as far as the law of Christ will allow, of the English Church and clergy," thus casting a slur on the Pope's universal authority. Convocation was also forced to submit to an Act of Parliament which swept away two ancient abuses, the right to claim "benefit of clergy" when accused of felony, and so to escape the king's justice, and the power of evading the Statute of Mortmain, by receiving legacies under trust instead of in full proprietorship. The Pope still proving recalcitrant in the matter of the divorce, Henry took the further step of threatening to cut off the main contribution which England sent to Rome—the annates or first-fruits, paid by all benefices when they changed hands.
Henry divorces Catherine.
This menace did not bring Clement VII. to reason, and Henry at last took the step which involved a fatal breach with Rome. He appointed the pliant Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, and bade him try the question of the divorce in an English ecclesiastical court, without any further application to Rome. Queen Catherine refused to appear before such a tribunal, and formally appealed to the Pope's justice. But Cranmer proceeded with the trial, declared the marriage contrary to the law of God, and pronounced the king free from all his ties and able to wed again. Even before the decision was announced, Henry had secretly married Anne Boleyn (January, 1533), and the moment that the court had given judgment he presented her to the nation as Queen of England. The unhappy Catherine retired into privacy at Kimbolton, where she survived nearly three years.
Final rupture with the Pope.
The Pope at once declared the new marriage illegal, and threatened Henry with an excommunication. Many good men were scandalized to see the king repudiate a wife who had lived as his faithful spouse for twenty years. Murmurings and prophecies of ill filled the air, and Henry felt that trouble was brewing. But he only hardened his heart, and caused Parliament to pass a bill for cutting short the Pope's spiritual authority over England, unless he should acknowledge the validity of the new marriage within three months. Clement refused to be bullied into compliance, and the rupture came (1533).
Act of Supremacy.—More and Fisher executed.
Queen Anne soon bore the king a daughter, the famous Queen Elizabeth, and Henry then ordered all his subjects to take an oath repudiating all obedience to papal orders, and acknowledging the child as rightful heiress of the realm, to the prejudice of his elder daughter Mary. This oath many persons refused to take, since it openly disavowed the Pope's authority over the English Church. The chief of them were Sir Thomas More, a learned and virtuous statesman who had succeeded Wolsey as Chancellor, and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. Henry cast them into prison, and soon after caused Parliament to pass the "Act of Supremacy," which declared him "Supreme Head of the Church of England," and pronounced any one who denied him this title guilty of high treason. Under this ferocious edict More and Fisher were beheaded, and many other minor personages suffered with them.
Henry excommunicated and deposed.
Pope Paul III., who had just succeeded to Pope Clement's tiara, now caused a Bull to be drawn up against his enemy (Dec. 15, 1535). He not only pronounced King Henry an excommunicated person, but declared him to be deposed from his throne. It was now war to the knife between the king and the papacy, and the rest of Henry's reign was to be taken up with the struggle. During the twelve years that he had still to live, he spent all his energies in severing every link that still bound England to Rome.