In vain did Anne demand justice for herself and mercy for her companions in misfortune; she had been condemned beforehand, and her dishonour was the price of her condemnation. Within four months Henry had received the forgiveness of his two wives; one the irreproachable victim of his guilty passions; the other, who had been his accomplice, and who was suffering for her crime the most terrible reverses. The documents of the proceedings are no longer in existence, and it is now impossible to determine the question of the guilt of the unhappy Anne; she was condemned and died because the king her husband desired to marry Jane Seymour; that is what appears clearly from the facts transmitted to us by history. On the 15th of May, the sentence upon the queen was pronounced; her brother, Lord Rochford, and the four other accused persons, had been condemned since the 13th of May. A crowning affliction awaited Anne Boleyn before her supreme agony: Cranmer was compelled to declare the nullity of the marriage which he himself had formerly supported, and the Princess Elizabeth was stigmatized with illegitimacy like her sister Mary. The day on which the archbishop in agony of soul thus yielded tremblingly to the royal will, the accomplices or companions of the unhappy queen suffered their punishment on Tower Hill. The musician Smeaton was hanged; Lord Rochford and the three noblemen were beheaded; all had constantly protested their innocence, with the exception of the musician, who failed however to purchase his life by his confessions or falsehoods.
On the 19th of May, in the morning, less than three weeks after the day on which she had reigned triumphant over the festivities at Greenwich, Anne Boleyn was led out upon the Tower Green. The spectators were crowded together in the narrow space. Anne had, on the previous evening, entrusted one of the women among her attendants to go on her behalf and kneel before the Princess Mary, to beg her forgiveness. She walked courageously to her death. "I have a little neck," she said to the Lieutenant of the Tower; "it is said that the executioner is skillful; he will not have much trouble." She said a few words to those who came to see her die, without bitterness towards her judges, and full of affection and respect for the king who sent her to the scaffold. "Christ have mercy on my soul! Jesus receive my soul!" she repeated on placing her beautiful head up on the block. Three years had elapsed since Henry had married Anne Boleyn, moving heaven and earth to place her upon the throne, when a blow from the axe of the executioner ended her life on Tower Green. The king waited impatiently for the signal which was to announce to him the execution of the sentence. "It is done," he exclaimed, on hearing the cannon; "that is an end of the matter. Unleash the dogs, and let us follow the stag!" He returned gaily in the evening from Epping Forest, and on the morrow morning married Jane Seymour. He had not rendered to the unhappy Anne the honour which his conscience had compelled him to pay to the virtuous Catherine: no mourning garments saddened the court of the new queen. Henry VIII. was clad in white on the day of his marriage, and on the 29th of May, Jane appeared at the court decked with the royal ornaments, but she did not obtain the favour of solemnly receiving the crown; after Anne Boleyn, none of the wives of King Henry was deemed worthy of that ceremony. The Princess Mary had been received into favour by her father, not without having reluctantly signed a humiliating letter; she obtained a suitable establishment, and even appears to have been entrusted with the care of her sister, the little Princess Elizabeth. Not content with assuring the succession to the children of Jane Seymour, the king caused an act to be passed by Parliament which authorized him to dispose of his crown according to his own good will and pleasure. This exorbitant measure was destined to favour the Duke of Richmond, an illegitimate son of the king, eighteen years of age, whom he passionately loved. The young duke died before the act had received the royal sanction, and the king to his great grief, found himself deprived of male children, and with two daughters whom he had himself branded with the stigma of illegitimacy.
Meanwhile the dissolution of the monasteries had inundated the country with the poor people whom they had formerly relieved; the disaffection was great, especially in the northern counties, which were particularly attached to the old faith, from which the king was separating himself more and more. The irritation, however, was not exclusively concentrated in the lower classes; the great noblemen and gentlemen, former patrons of the monasteries, considered that the property of which they had been deprived should be returned to the families which had formerly bestowed it upon them, rather, than to the royal treasury; but it was the people of Lincolnshire who first set the example of insurrection. The king sent some forces against the insurgents, under the orders of the Duke of Suffolk. The latter found the insurrection so serious, that he determined to try negotiations. The Men of Lincoln presented six requests, complaining particularly of the sudden destruction of the monasteries, so prejudicial, they said, to the poor of the entire country; of the excessive taxes, of the vesting of the annats and tithes in the crown, and of the agitation which certain bishops, designated by their names, had brought about in the Church of Christ by altering the faith. Upon which they prayed the king to dismiss the treacherous counsellors who thought of nothing but enriching themselves at the expense of the poor people.
Time had been gained by listening to the grievances of the insurgents. Discord began to penetrate into their ranks; the king was enabled, without danger, to reply to them with the haughtiness which was natural to him when his supreme will was opposed. He rejected all the requests of the insurgents, demanding that a hundred of the more important among them should be delivered to him, in order that he might make an example of them. No fighting had taken place; a sufficiently large number of the insurgents still remained united; a second letter from the king commanded them to lay down their arms in the market-place at Lincoln, if they did not wish to bring down a terrible vengeance upon their wives and children. Before the rebels of Lincolnshire had returned home, about the 30th of October, a violent insurrection had broken out on the other side of the Trent, and this movement was spreading over the whole of Yorkshire, as well as in Durham, Northumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire; while the fifteen hostages of the insurgents of Lincolnshire were being executed, as well as some inhabitants of the environs of London, accused of having countenanced them, the rebels of the north wanted but a chief in order to stir up a veritable civil war. They marched in the name of God, they said, for the love of Jesus Christ, of the faith and the Holy Church, to the destruction of the heretics; they assumed the name of Pilgrims of Grace, and carried a crucifix upon their standard; nearly all obeyed the orders of a gentleman of Yorkshire, Robert Aske, who was wanting neither in ability nor character. The Duke of Norfolk was entrusted to march against him; the Duke of Suffolk and the Earl of Shrewsbury watched over other positions; the towns of Hull, York, and Pontefract had opened their gates to the Pilgrims of Grace before the arrival of the royal troops, and a certain number of gentlemen had joined them, when the Duke of Norfolk checked their progress before Doncaster. Negotiations were entered into at the outset as in Lincolnshire; the demands of the insurgents were almost the same, though more precise and detailed. They demanded the destruction of the heresies of Wycliffe, Huss, Luther and Melancthon, the restitution of the Pope to the religious supremacy, the rehabilitation of the Princess Mary, and the re-establishment of Parliament in all its ancient privileges. The king treated with contempt such of these requests as he deigned to answer. "You are very bold," he said, "to think that after having reigned so long I do not know better than you what laws are agreeable to the commoners. The affairs of the Church do not concern you, and it is strange that you should prefer to see some few villains fatten in the monasteries, rather than allow your prince to have them, in discharge of all the expenses which he has undertaken in order to defend you." Henry promised no other concession but the pardon of the rebels, with the exception of the ten leaders, who were to be delivered up to him immediately. The insurgents rejected without hesitation the offers of the royal clemency, and the Duke of Norfolk, who was not sufficiently powerful to fight, found himself compelled to retreat to the southern bank of the Trent, fortifying and defending all the passes in his rear. Time was being lost; the winter was approaching, the temperature and the suspension of agricultural labour were counted upon for dispersing the insurgents.
At length the king authorized the Duke of Norfolk to make overtures to the two principal chiefs of the rebels, Lord Darcy and Robert Aske; he even expressed a desire to see them. They did not respond to this gracious invitation, but the idea of betraying their partisans began to enter their minds. The soldiers perceived this; everywhere this proclamation was seen: "Commons, be of good cheer and remain faithful to your cause; the gentlemen betray you, but you will not want leaders, if there is need of them." In the month of February the numbers assembled were still very great, but the royal army had received reinforcements, the insurgent forces collapsed before the castles and towns which they were besieging; discouragement began to creep into their ranks. Lord Darcy, Robert Aske, and the greater number of the leaders were captured and sent to London, where they were executed, notwithstanding the good disposition they had manifested. The rebels now formed only scattered bodies, and martial law was proclaimed in the northern counties. Upon the express order of the king, a great number of the inhabitants of each town, borough, and village that had taken part in the revolt were hanged or quartered, in the public squares, and their bodies affixed to trees, in order to terrify the remainder of the population. The monks, who had ardently embraced the cause of the insurrection, were treated with especial rigour; the insurgent counties were everywhere strewn with bloody heads and disfigured corpses. When the amnesty was at length proclaimed and peace re-established, visitations of the religious houses still continued; nearly all the monasteries of the north were destined to be closed, and to have their property confiscated, before the royal vengeance and avidity could be satisfied. The anger of Henry had increased when he had learnt that Reginald Pole, installed a short time since in Rome upon the urgent solicitations of Pope Paul III., and against the advice of his relatives in England, had been nominated cardinal and legate beyond the Alps. The aim of the Pope was, no doubt, to take advantage of the insurrection of the Catholic counties in order to influence the king and bring him back into the bosom of the Church; but Francis I. and Charles V. deemed the moment ill-chosen; the cardinal was unable to see the king of France while crossing his kingdom, and the Emperor did not even allow him to enter his dominions. Pole learnt at the same time that a price had been placed upon his head by Henry; Cromwell asserted that the cardinal would be brought thereby to break his heart with grief. Pending this happy result, for the bringing about of which the master and the minister were not to spare their efforts, the legate was compelled to return to Rome, without having been able to accomplish his mission of sending money and encouragement to the rebels of England; the insurrection had been stifled before Pole had set foot in Flanders.
Jane Seymour had, on the 12th of October, 1537, given birth to a son, and had died shortly afterwards thus escaping the sad fate of the wives of Henry VIII. Grief for his loss had scarcely weighed in the scale against satisfaction at the birth of a male heir to the throne; the little Edward immediately received the title of Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester; the national rejoicing was mingled with the lamentations of the monks on all sides, driven from their refuges under the pretext of complicity in the recent insurrection. When nothing remained but the great abbeys, the king caused their destruction to be voted by the Parliament, notwithstanding some feeble efforts of the abbots who sat in the House of Lords. A few only escaped the wreck, at the entreaty of the population, or were consigned to the descendants of their founders. The work of spoliation was accomplished; the rich chapels, the gothic monuments, the learned libraries, the delicate sculptures, everything was delivered up to the destructive hands of the royal agents; none dared to intervene, and treasures of science, marvels of art, were for ever lost to posterity. The lands were divided among the courtiers; the valuables were nearly all reserved for the king, who contrived to remain poor notwithstanding so great an accession of riches. He was not content with plundering the living, he even went so far as to plunder the dead. From a singular animosity against the memory of Thomas Becket—of that inflexible man who would have resisted him to the death, as he had resisted Henry II.—Henry VIII. had conceived a violent dislike to his shrine at Canterbury; but he did not rest here. Becket was summoned to appear at Westminster to answer for his rebellions, and the tomb of the martyr was broken for this purpose, as though to open the prison which confined him. In presence of the silent sepulchre, the king carried on his ghastly comedy; the attorney-general spoke against the dead saint, to whom an advocate had been granted. Becket, being judged by default, was deprived of his riches and honours; two large coffers, filled with jewels deposited upon his altar, were sent to London; festivals and pilgrimages celebrated in his honour were solemnly forbidden, the portraits of the saint were destroyed, and a royal proclamation commanded the people to believe henceforth that Thomas Becket had been killed in a quarrel caused by his own obstinacy, that he had been canonized by the Bishop of Rome as the champion of an usurped authority, but that he was but a rebel and a traitor to his king, and that the faithful servants of his Majesty were to guard themselves against honouring him as a saint. Thomas Becket thus twice had the notable honour of bringing down all the royal fury; even in his tomb he was proclaimed defender of the liberties of the Church for whose sake he had yielded up his life.
So vast an amount of wealth diverted from the pious objects to which it had been originally consecrated troubled the conscience of Cranmer, feeble and vacillating in his conduct, but honest and sincere, notwithstanding his numerous backslidings. He endeavoured to found in his diocese some pious establishments to replace those which had been so abruptly destroyed; but the diocese was poor, he had not profited by the spoils of St. Thomas Becket, and the hospitals, the asylums for the poor and travelers, the schools for children which were formerly afforded by the convents, left a void from which the unfortunate suffered painfully. The public cry reached the king. The treasures of the monasteries had melted in his prodigal hands; he addressed himself to Parliament, boldly demanding subsidies to indemnify him for the expenses which he had incurred for the Reformation. The two tenths and the two fifteenths which were granted him did not suffice for his requirements, still less for those of the new bishoprics, deaneries, and colleges which Parliament had decreed. These establishments should have been endowed with the ecclesiastical property, but there was no longer any property. Six bishoprics were founded, so poorly provided for that the prelates scarcely had sufficient to live upon. A certain number of abbeys became cathedral churches; but the king was careful before appointing the dean and chapter to confiscate a portion of the lands, so that the new dignitaries of the Church ran no risk of allowing themselves to be drawn into effeminacy by the temptations of opulence. The plain parish priests, deprived of their livings, led such a miserable existence that none would any longer enter the Church. "We have ten thousand students less in the universities than there were formerly," wrote Latimer, when asking assistance for the university of Cambridge; and it was found necessary to seek for a priest to preach from St. Paul's Cross, an honour formerly sought after by the highest dignitaries.