But Henry had new domestic difficulties long before the suppression of monasteries—the great political act of Thomas Cromwell. His new wife, Anne Boleyn, was suspected of the crime of inconstancy, and at the very time when she had reached the summit of power, and the gratification of all worldly wishes. She had been very vain, and fond of display and of ornaments; but the latter years of her life were marked by her munificence, and attachment to the reform doctrines. But her power ceased almost as soon as she became queen. She could win, but she could not retain, the affections of her royal husband. His passion subsided into languor, and ended in disgust. The beauty of Anne Boleyn was soon forgotten when Jane Seymour, her maid of honor, attracted the attention of Henry. To make this lady his wife now became the object of his life, and this could only be effected by the divorce of his queen, who gave occasion for scandal by the levity and freedom of her manners. Henry believed every insinuation against her, because he wished to believe her guilty. There was but a step between the belief of guilt and the resolution to destroy her. She was committed to the Tower, impeached, brought to trial, condemned without evidence, and Execution of Anne Boleyn. executed without remorse. Even Cranmer, whom she had honored and befriended, dared not defend her, although he must have believed in her innocence. He knew the temper of the master whom he served too well to risk much in her defence. She was the first woman who had been beheaded in the annals of England. Not one of the Plantagenet kings ever murdered a woman. But the age of chivalry was past, and the sentiments it encouraged found no response in the bosom of such a sensual and vindictive monarch as was Henry VIII.
The very day after the execution of that accomplished lady, for whose sake the king had squandered the treasures of his kingdom, and had kept Christendom in a ferment, he married Jane Seymour, "the fairest, discreetest, and most meritorious of all his wives," as the historians say, yet a woman who did not hesitate to steal the affections of Henry and receive his addresses, while his queen was devoted to her husband. But Anne Boleyn had done so before her, and suffered a natural retribution.
Jane Seymour lived only eighteen months after her marriage, and died two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward VI. She was one of those passive women who make neither friends nor enemies. She indulged in no wit or repartee, like her brilliant but less beautiful predecessor, and she passed her regal life without uttering a sentence or a sentiment which has been deemed worthy of preservation.
She had been dead about a month, when the king looked round for another wife, and besought Francis I. to send the most beautiful ladies of his kingdom to Calais, that he might there inspect them, and select one according to his taste. But this Oriental notion was not indulged by the French king, who had more taste and delicacy; and Henry remained without a wife for more than two years, the princesses of Europe not being very eager to put themselves in the power of this royal Bluebeard. At last, at the suggestion of Cromwell, he was affianced to Anne of Cleves — Catharine Howard. Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, whose home was on the banks of the Rhine, in the city of Dusseldorf.
The king no sooner set his eyes on her than he was disappointed and disgusted, and gave vent to his feelings before Cromwell, calling her a "great Flanders mare." Nevertheless, he consummated his marriage, although his disgust constantly increased. This mistake of Cromwell was fatal to his ambitious hopes. The king vented on him all the displeasure which had been gathering in his embittered soul. Cromwell's doom was sealed. He had offended an absolute monarch. He was accused of heresy and treason,—the common accusations in that age against men devoted to destruction,—tried by a servile board of judges, condemned, and judicially murdered, in 1540. In his misfortunes, he showed no more fortitude than Wolsey. The atmosphere of a court is fatal to all moral elevation.
But, before his execution, Anne of Cleves, a virtuous and worthy woman, was divorced, and Catharine Howard, granddaughter of the victor of Flodden Field, became queen of England. The king now fancied that his domestic felicity was complete; but, soon after his marriage, it was discovered that his wife had formerly led a dissolute life, and had been unfaithful also to her royal master. When the proofs of her incontinence were presented to him, he burst into a flood of tears; but soon his natural ferocity returned, and his guilty wife expiated her crime by death on the scaffold, in 1542.
Henry's sixth and last wife was Catharine Parr, relict of Lord Latimer, a woman of great sagacity, prudence, and good sense. She favored the reformers, but had sufficient address to keep her opinions from the king, who would have executed her, had he suspected her real views. She survived her husband, who died four years after her marriage, in 1547.
The last years of any tyrant are always melancholy, and those of Henry were embittered by jealousies and domestic troubles. His finances were deranged, his treasury exhausted, and his subjects discontented. He was often at war with the Scots, and different continental powers. He added religious persecution to his other bad traits, and executed, for their opinions, some of the best people in the kingdom. His father had left him the richest sovereign of Europe, and he had seized the abbey lands, and extorted heavy sums from his oppressed people; and yet he was poor. All his wishes were apparently gratified; and yet he was the most miserable man in his dominions. He exhausted all the sources of pleasure, and nothing remained but satiety and disgust. His mind and his body were alike diseased. His inordinate gluttony made him most inconveniently corpulent, and produced ulcers and the gout. It was dangerous to approach this "corrupt mass of dying tyranny." It was impossible to please him, and the least contradiction drove him into fits of madness and frenzy.
In Last Days of Henry. his latter days, he ordered, in a fit of jealousy, the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman of the kingdom, who had given offence to the Earl of Hertford, uncle to the young prince of Wales, and the founder of the greatness of the Seymours. But the tyrant died before the sentence was carried into effect, much to the joy of the good people of England, whom he had robbed and massacred. Several thousands perished by the axe of the executioner during his disgraceful reign, and some of them were the lights of the age, and the glory of their country.