The council and the peers urge the king to an instant re-marriage.
Before the discovery of this proceeding, but in anticipation of inevitable intrigues of the kind, the privy council and the peers, on the same grounds which had before led them to favour the divorce from Catherine, petitioned the king to save the country from the perils which menaced it, and to take a fresh wife without an hour's delay. Henry's experience of matrimony had been so discouraging, that they feared he might be reluctant to venture upon it again. Nevertheless, for his country's sake, they trusted that he would not refuse.[611]
He marries Jane Seymour.
Henry, professedly in obedience to this request, was married, immediately after the execution, to Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour. The indecent haste is usually considered a proof entirely conclusive of the cause of Anne Boleyn's ruin.[612] Under any aspect it was an extraordinary step, which requires to be gravely considered. Henry, who waited seven years for Anne Boleyn, to whom he was violently attached, was not without control over his passions; and if appetite had been the moving influence with him, he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the world upon him, have passed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of which he was the sovereign. If Jane Seymour had really been the object of a previous unlawful attachment, her conduct in accepting so instantly a position so frightfully made vacant, can scarcely be painted in too revolting colours. Yet Jane Seymour's name, at home and abroad, by Catholic and Protestant, was alike honoured and respected. Among all Henry's wives she stands out distinguished by a stainless name, untarnished with the breath of reproach.
If we could conceive the English nation so tongue-tied that they dared not whisper their feelings, there were Brussels, Paris, Rome, where the truth could be told; yet, with the exception of a single passage in a letter of Mary of Hungary,[613] there is no hint in the correspondence, either in Paris, Simancas, or Brussels, that there was a suspicion of foul play. If Charles or Francis had believed Henry really capable of so deep atrocity, no political temptation would have induced either of them to commit their cousins or nieces to the embrace of a monster, yet no sooner was Jane Seymour dead, than we shall find them competing eagerly with each other to secure his hand.
It is quite possible that when Anne Boleyn was growing licentious, the king may have distinguished a lady of acknowledged excellence by some in no way improper preference, and that when desired by the council to choose a wife immediately, he should have taken a person as unlike as possible to the one who had disgraced him. This was the interpretation which was given to his conduct by the Lords and Commons of England. In the absence of any evidence, or shadow of evidence, that among contemporaries who had means of knowing the truth, another judgment was passed upon it, the deliberate assertion of an act of parliament must be considered a safer guide than modern unsupported conjecture.[614]
June 8. Parliament meets.
This matter having been accomplished, the king returned to London to meet parliament. The Houses assembled on the 8th of June; the peers had hastened up in unusual numbers, as if sensible of the greatness of the occasion. The Commons were untried and unknown; and if Anne Boleyn was an innocent victim, no king of England was ever in so terrible a position as Henry VIII. when he entered the Great Chamber fresh from his new bridal. He took his seat upon the throne; and then Audeley, the Lord Chancellor, rose and spoke:[615]
The Lord Chancellor's speech at the opening.
The succession must be reconsidered.
"At the dissolution of the late parliament, the King's Highness had not thought so soon to meet you here again. He has called you together now, being moved thereunto by causes of grave moment, affecting both his own person and the interests of the commonwealth. You will have again to consider the succession to the crown of this realm. His Highness knows himself to be but mortal, liable to fall sick, and to die.[616] At present he perceives the peace and welfare of the kingdom to depend upon his single And the king desires the parliament to name an heir apparent. life; and he is anxious to leave it, at his death, free from peril. He desires you therefore to nominate some person as his heir apparent, who, should it so befall him (which God forbid!) to depart out of this world without children lawfully begotten, may rule in peace over this land, with the consent and the good will of the inhabitants thereof.