Finding all chance of escape cut off, he began confessing his sins; but it was rather too late, for, had his repentance been sincere, the catalogue of his crimes was far too voluminous to allow of his getting through one half of it before his dissolution. He had been in the habit of adjourning that court of conscience existing in his as well as in every man's breast, and he always postponed it sine die; but when the time to die actually came, or the die was really cast, it was rather late to move for a new trial. Henry died on the 29th of January, 1547, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, the thirty-eighth of his reign, and at least the forty-first of his selfishness, baseness and brutality.
He had been married six times, having divorced two of his wives, beheaded two more, and left one a widow. This leaves one more—Jane Seymour—still unaccounted for; and indeed her death was the most wonderful of all, because it was natural. He left behind him three children: but he did not care a pin's head, or even—to name an article of smaller importance to him—a wife's head, for any one of them. Such a very bad man was sure to be a very bad father, and he had declared two of his children illegitimate, for it was the delight of this monster to depreciate his own offspring in the eyes of the world as much as possible. His religious reforms, however wholesome in their results, were brutal in their execution and base in their origin. His insincerity may be gathered from the fact that he appointed masses to be said for his own soul, though he had burnt many persons for popery; and he seemed to think that, by taking up two creeds at once on his death-bed, he could make up for the utter irreligion of his last existence. He is said to have contributed to the cause of enlightenment, and so perhaps he did with all his blackness, as the coal contributes to the gas; and never was a bit of Wallsend half so hard, or a tenth part so black, as the heart of this despicable sovereign. He never had a friend; but he was surrounded by sycophants, whom, one after the other, he atrociously sacrificed.
Cranmer being a man of superior mind, exercised an influence over him, and was sent for to his death-bed, when he pressed the prelate's hand; but whether the pressure arose from cramp or conscience, rheumatism or remorse, penitence or "pins and needles," must be considered a question to which we will not hazard an answer. We regret that we have been unable to adhere to the excellent motto, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, in this case; but Henry was such a decided malum in se, that mischief was bred in the bone, and the nil nisi bonum becomes impossible.
Learning certainly advanced in this reign, and Henry himself affected authorship; but every literary man, from the highest flyer in the realms of fancy to the humblest historian of last night's fire or yesterday's police, will be honestly ashamed of his royal fellow-craftsman.
Several colleges and schools were founded in this reign, among the principal of which were Christ Church at Oxford, Trinity at Cambridge, and St. Paul's in London. Here it was that the lowly Lily, of Lily's grammar notoriety, first raised his humble head as the head master of the school; and, though there is something lack-a-daisy-cal in Lily's style, his grammar was at one time the first round of the ladder by which every lad climed the heights of classical instruction.
It may be interesting to the gastronomic reader to be informed that salads and turnips now first came into use, with other roots, towards which the people had shown until then a rooted antipathy. They swallowed spinach without any gammon, and even the carrot, that had formerly stuck in their throat as if they feared it would injure the carotid artery, was consumed with alacrity; and those who had disdained the most delicious of green food, by courageously exclaiming, "Come, let us try it," are supposed by some—though we disclaim the monstrous idea—to have given its name to the lettuce. The cultivation of hops came as if with a hop, skip, and jump across from Flanders, and the trade in wool was brought, under the fostering patronage of Wolsey, to a state of some prosperity.
With the exception of the burning of monasteries and the murder of his wives, there was little to render the reign of Henry remarkable, beyond, perhaps, the invention of beef-eaters. The word beef-eater is known to be a corruption of buffetier, and indeed there was corruption, to a certain extent, in everything connected with this detestable tyrant. It is said they were called buffetiers from attending at the buffets, or sideboard of plate, but it is far more likely that they got the name from the buffeting to which every servant of the royal ruffian must have been occasionally liable. The neck was so often in danger, that any menial of the malignant monarch might be expected to ruff it in the best way he could, and hence the enormous ruffs, which are conspicuous to this day, round the chins of the beef-eaters. The looseness of their habits may be considered characteristic of the Court to which these functionaries were attached, though it has been said by some authorities that the beef-eaters were puffed and padded out to an enormous extent, in order that the monster Henry might not appear conspicuous.
The reign of Henry was also remarkable for the invention of pins, to which somebody had given his own head with intense earnestness. The sharpness of the English had not yet reached so fine a point as to have led to the discovery of the needle, which was doubtless suggested by the pin, to some one who had an eye for improvement. The thimble is a still later introduction, the merit of which is considerable; for though at the present day every sempstress has the thimble at her finger ends, there was a time when no one had thought of this very simple but necessary appendage to the ladies' work-table. If the reign of Henry had never been devoted to anything more objectionable than the discovery of pins and needles we should have had little reason to complain, for a few pricks of conscience, no matter whence they emanated, would have done him good; but the scissors for cutting the thread of existence formed the instruments chiefly in use during this cruel and most disastrous reign.