Henry at once wreaked his vengeance on Cromwell for deceiving him as to Anne and for failing in his negotiations with the German princes. He had him arrested, and accused him of receiving bribes and of having favoured the Protestants by "dispersing heretical books and secretly releasing heretics from prison." Both charges were probably true, but they form no excuse for Henry's cruel treatment of the faithful and intrepid minister who had helped him through all the troubles of 1536-40. Cromwell was attainted and beheaded, to the great joy of the Roman Catholics, who thought that he had been the king's tempter and evil genius, whereas in truth he had been no more than his tool.
Marriages with Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.
Cromwell's end greatly encouraged the Roman Catholic party, and they were still more elated when the king married a lady known to incline towards the old faith. This was Catherine Howard, a cousin of Anne Boleyn and, like her, a niece of the Duke of Norfolk (1540). Henry had been caught by her beauty, and had not discovered that she was a person of abandoned manners, whose amours were known to many persons about the court. Within eighteen months of her marriage, she was detected in misconduct with one of her old lovers, and sent to the block. In her case Henry had much more excuse for his ruthless cruelty than in that of Anne Boleyn; but what kind of wives could a monarch of such manners expect to find? He was undeservedly fortunate in his sixth marriage, with Catherine Parr, the dowager Lady Latimer, whom he wedded a year after Catherine Howard's execution. She was a young widow of twenty-six, a person of piety and discretion, who gave no opportunity of offence to the king, and nursed him faithfully through the infirmities of his later years. For Henry, who had now reached the age of fifty-two, was growing grossly corpulent and developing a complication of diseases which racked him fearfully during the last five years of his life, and partly explain the frantic exhibitions of cruelty to which he often gave way.
Scottish war.—Battle of Solway Moss.
The time was a very evil one for England. Not only was the king persecuting Romanist and Protestant indifferently, but he had added external to internal troubles. A war with Scotland had broken out in 1540, and was always keeping the northern frontier unquiet, though the English had the better in the fighting. James V. allied himself to France, and Henry had to keep guard against attacks on the south as well as the north. The victory of Solway Moss (November, 1542) put an end to any danger from Scotland; the news of it killed King James, who left his throne to his infant daughter Mary, the celebrated "Queen of Scots." Her minority gave rise to factious struggles among the Scottish nobles, and Henry, by buying over one party, was able to keep the rest in check. In 1544 a great English army, under the Earl of Hertford, Jane Seymour's brother, laid waste the whole of the Lowlands and burnt Edinburgh, but did not succeed in driving the enemy to sue for peace.
War with France.
The French war was far more dangerous. King Francis collected a great fleet in Normandy, and threatened an invasion of England. Henry was forced to arm and pay a vast array of shire levies to meet the attack, but when it came (1545) the French were only able to land and make a raid in the Isle of Wight. They drew back after fruitlessly demonstrating against Portsmouth and burning a few English ships. The balance of gain in the war was actually in favour of Henry, who had taken Boulogne (1544), and proved able to retain it against all attempts, till it was ceded to him by France at the peace of 1546.
Debasement of the currency.
But the struggles with France and Scotland had the most disastrous effects on the finances of the realm. Henry had wasted all the wealth that he had wrested from the monasteries, and now, to fill his pockets, tried the unrighteous expedient of debasing the currency. English money, which had been hitherto the best and purest in Europe, was horribly misused by him. He put one-sixth of copper into the gold sovereign, and one-half and afterwards two-thirds of copper into the silver shilling, to the lamentable defrauding of his subjects, who found that English money would no longer be accepted by Continental traders, though previously it had been more esteemed than that of any other country.
Growth of pauperism.