Henry VIII Part 36

Homilies, "made by certain prelates," were submitted to Convocation, but the publication of them, and of the rationale of rites and ceremonies, was deferred to the reign of Edward VI.[1147] The greatest of all these compositions, the Litany, was, however, sanctioned in 1545.[1148]

[Footnote 1144: _L. and P._, xvi., 819; Burnet, iv., 509.]

[Footnote 1145: _L. and P._, xvi., 978, 1022, 1027.]

[Footnote 1146: _Ibid._, xvi., 1262; xvii., 176.]

[Footnote 1147: See the present writer's _Cranmer_, pp. 166-72.]

[Footnote 1148: _Ibid._, pp. 172-75.]

The King had more to do with the _Necessary Doctrine_, commonly called the "King's Book" to distinguish it from the Bishops' Book of 1537, for which Henry had declined all responsibility. Henry, indeed, had urged on its revision, he had fully discussed with Cranmer the amendments he thought the book needed, and he had brought the bishops to an agreement, which they had vainly sought for three years by themselves. It was the King who now "set forth a true and perfect doctrine for all his people".[1149] So it was fondly styled by (p. 418) his Council. A modern high-churchman[1150] a.s.serts that the King's Book taught higher doctrine than the book which the bishops had drafted six years before, but that "it was far more liberal and better composed". Whether its excellences amounted to "a true and perfect doctrine" or not, it failed of its purpose. The efforts of the old and the new parties were perpetually driving the Church from the _Via Media_, which Henry marked out. On the one hand, we have an act limiting the use of the Bible to gentlemen and their families, and plots to catch Cranmer in the meshes of the Six Articles.[1151] On the other, there were schemes on the part of some of the Council to entrap Gardiner, and we have Cranmer's a.s.sertion[1152] that, in the last months of his reign, the King commanded him to pen a form for the alteration of the Ma.s.s into a Communion, a design obviously to be connected with the fact that, in his irritation at Charles's desertion in 1544, and fear that his neutrality might become active hostility, Henry had once more entered into communication with the Lutheran princes of Germany.[1153]

[Footnote 1149: _L. and P._, XVIII., i., 534.]

[Footnote 1150: Canon Dixon.]

[Footnote 1151: See the present writer's _Cranmer_, pp. 144-60.]

[Footnote 1152: Foxe, on the authority of Cranmer's secretary, Morice, in _Acts and Monuments_, v., 563, 564; it receives some corroboration from Hooper's letter to Bullinger in _Original Letters_, i., 41.]

[Footnote 1153: See Hasenclever, _Die Politik der Schmalkaldener vor Ausbruch des Schmalkaldischen Krieges_, 1901.]

The only ecclesiastical change that went on without shadow of turning was the seizure of Church property by the King; and it is a matter of curious speculation as to where he would have stayed his hand had he lived much longer. The debas.e.m.e.nt of the coinage had proceeded apace during his later years to supply the King's necessities, and, (p. 419) for the same purpose, Parliament, in 1545, granted him all chantries, hospitals and free chapels. That session ended with Henry's last appearance before his faithful Lords and Commons, and the speech he then delivered may be regarded as his last political will and testament.[1154] He spoke, he said, instead of the Lord Chancellor, "because he is not so able to open and set forth my mind and meaning, and the secrets of my heart, in so plain and ample manner, as I myself am and can do". He thanked his subjects for their commendation, protested that he was "both bare and barren" of the virtues a prince ought to have, but rendered to G.o.d "most humble thanks" for "such small qualities as He hath indued me withal.... Now, since I find such kindness in your part towards me, I cannot choose but love and favour you; affirming that no prince in the world more favoureth his subjects than I do you, nor no subjects or Commons more love and obey their Sovereign Lord, than I perceive you do; for whose defence my treasure shall not be hidden, nor my person shall not be unadventured. Yet, although I wish you, and you wish me, to be in this perfect love and concord, this friendly amity cannot continue, except both you, my Lords Temporal and my Lords Spiritual, and you, my loving subjects, study and take pains to amend one thing, which surely is amiss and far out of order; to the which I most heartily require you. Which is, that Charity and Concord is not amongst you, but Discord and Dissension beareth rule in every place. Saint Paul saith to the Corinthians, the thirteenth chapter, _Charity is gentle, Charity is not envious,_ _Charity is not proud_, and so forth. Behold then, what love and (p. 420) charity is amongst you, when one calleth another heretic and anabaptist, and he calleth him again papist, hypocrite and Pharisee?

Be these tokens of Charity amongst you? Are these signs of fraternal love amongst you? No, no, I a.s.sure you that this lack of charity among yourselves will be the hindrance and a.s.suaging of the perfect love betwixt us, except this wound be salved and clearly made whole.... I hear daily that you of the Clergy preach one against another, without charity or discretion; some be too stiff in their old _Mumpsimus_, others be too busy and curious in their new _Sumpsimus_. Thus all men almost be in variety and discord, and few or none preach truly and sincerely the Word of G.o.d.... Yet the Temporalty be not clear and unspotted of malice and envy. For you rail on Bishops, speak slanderously of Priests, and rebuke and taunt preachers, both contrary to good order and Christian fraternity. If you know surely that a Bishop or Preacher erreth, or teacheth perverse doctrine, come and declare it to some of our Council, or to us, to whom is committed by G.o.d the high authority to reform such causes and behaviours. And be not judges of yourselves of your fantastical opinions and vain expositions.... I am very sorry to know and to hear how unreverently that most precious jewel, the Word of G.o.d, is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every Ale-house and Tavern.... And yet I am even as much sorry that the readers of the same follow it in doing so faintly and so coldly. For of this I am sure, that charity was never so faint amongst you, and virtuous and G.o.dly living was never less used, nor G.o.d Himself among Christians was never less reverenced, honoured, (p. 421) or served. Therefore, as I said before, be in charity one with another like brother and brother; love, dread, and serve G.o.d; to which I, as your Supreme Head and Sovereign Lord, exhort and require you; and then I doubt not but that love and league, that I spake of in the beginning, shall never be dissolved or broke betwixt us."

[Footnote 1154: Hall, _Chron._, pp. 864-66; Foxe, ed. Townsend, v., 534-36; Herbert, ed. 1672, pp.

598-601.]

The bond betwixt Henry and his subjects, which had lasted thirty-eight years, and had survived such strain as has rarely been put on the loyalty of any people, was now to be broken by death. The King was able to make his usual progress in August and September, 1546; from Westminster he went to Hampton Court, thence to Oatlands, Woking and Guildford, and from Guildford to Chobham and Windsor, where he spent the month of October. Early in November he came up to London, staying first at Whitehall and then at Ely Place. From Ely Place he returned, on the 3rd of January, 1547, to Whitehall, which he was never to leave alive.[1155] He is said to have become so unwieldy that he could neither walk nor stand, and mechanical contrivances were used at Windsor and his other palaces for moving the royal person from room to room. His days were numbered and finished, and every one thought of the morrow. A child of nine would reign, but who should rule? Hertford or Norfolk? The party of reform or that of reaction? Henry had apparently decided that neither should dominate the other, and designed a balance of parties in the council he named for his child-successor.[1156]

[Footnote 1155: This itinerary is worked out from the _Acts of the Privy Council_, ed. Dasent, vol.

i.]

[Footnote 1156: This is the usual view, but it is a somewhat doubtful inference. Henry's one object was the maintenance of order and his own power; he would never have set himself against the nation as a whole, and there are indications that at the end of his reign he was preparing to accept the necessity of further changes. The fall of the Howards was due to the fear that they would cause trouble in the coming minority of Edward VI. Few details are known of the party struggle in the Council in the autumn of 1546, and they come from Selve's _Correspondance_ and the new volume (1904) of the _Spanish Calendar_ (1545-47). These should be compared with Foxe, vol. v.]

Suddenly the balance upset. On the 12th of December, 1546, (p. 422) Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, were arrested for treason and sent to the Tower. Endowed with great poetic gifts, Surrey had even greater defects of character. Nine years before he had been known as "the most foolish proud boy in England".[1157] Twice he had been committed to prison by the Council for roaming the streets of the city at night and breaking the citizens' windows,[1158] offences venial in the exuberance of youth, but highly unbecoming in a man who was nearly thirty, who aspired to high place in the councils of the realm, and who despised most of his colleagues as upstarts. His enmity was specially directed against the Prince's uncles, the Seymours. Hertford had twice been called in to retrieve Surrey's military blunders.

Surrey made improper advances to Hertford's wife, but repudiated with scorn his father's suggestion for a marriage alliance between the two families.[1159] His sister testified that he had advised her to become the King's mistress, with a view to advancing the Howard interests.

Who, he asked, should be Protector, in case the King died, but his father? He quartered the royal arms with his own, in spite of the (p. 423) heralds' prohibition. This at once roused Henry's suspicions; he knew that, years before, Norfolk had been suggested as a possible claimant to the throne, and that a marriage had been proposed between Surrey and the Princess Mary.

[Footnote 1157: _L. and P._, XIV., ii., 141.]

[Footnote 1158: _Acts of the Privy Council_, i., 104; Bapst, _Deux Gentilshommes poetes a la cour d'Henri VIII._, p. 269.]

[Footnote 1159: See the present writer in _D.N.B., s.v._ "Seymour, Edward"; _cf._ Herbert, pp.

625-33. G.F. Nott in his life of Surrey prefixed to his edition of the poet's works takes too favourable a view of his conduct.]

The original charge against Surrey was prompted by personal and local jealousy, not on the part of the Seymours, but on that of a member of Surrey's own party. It came from Sir Richard Southwell, a Catholic and a man of weight and leading in Norfolk, like the Howards themselves; he even appears to have been brought up with Surrey, and for many years had been intimate with the Howard family. When Surrey was called before the Council to answer Southwell's charges, he wished to fight his accuser, but both were committed to custody. The case was investigated by the King himself, with the help of another Catholic, Lord Chancellor Wriothesley. The Duke of Norfolk confessed to technical treason in concealing his son's offences, and was sent to the Tower. On the 13th of January, 1547, Surrey was found guilty by a special commission sitting at the Guildhall;[1160] a week later he was beheaded.[1161] On the 18th Parliament met to deal with the Duke; by the 24th a bill of attainder had pa.s.sed all its stages and awaited only the King's a.s.sent. On Thursday, the 27th, that a.s.sent was given by royal commission.[1162] Orders are said to have been issued for the Duke's execution the following morning.

[Footnote 1160: See an account of his trial in _Stowe MS._, 396.]

[Footnote 1161: Wriothesley, _Chron._ i., 177, says 19th January; other authorities give the 21st.]

[Footnote 1162: _Lords' Journals_, p. 289.]

That night Norfolk lay doomed in his cell in the Tower, and Henry (p. 424) VIII. in his palace at Westminster. The Angel of Death hovered over the twain, doubting which to take. Eighteen years before, the King had said that, were his will opposed, there was never so n.o.ble a head in his kingdom but he would make it fly.[1163] Now his own hour was come, and he was loth to hear of death. His physicians dared not breathe the word, for to prophesy the King's decease was treason by Act of Parliament. As that long Thursday evening wore on, Sir Anthony Denny, chief gentleman of the chamber, "boldly coming to the King, told him what case he was in, to man's judgment not like to live; and therefore exhorted him to prepare himself to death".[1164] Sensible of his weakness, Henry "disposed himself more quietly to hearken to the words of his exhortation, and to consider his life past; which although he much abused, 'yet,' said he, 'is the mercy of Christ able to pardon me all my sins, though they were greater than they be'". Denny then asked if he should send for "any learned man to confer withal and to open his mind unto". The King replied that if he had any one, it should be Cranmer; but first he would "take a little sleep; and then, as I feel myself, I will advise upon the matter". And while he slept, Hertford and Paget paced the gallery outside, contriving to grasp the reins of power as they fell from their master's hands.[1165] When the King woke he felt his feebleness growing upon him, and told Denny to send for Cranmer. The Archbishop came about midnight: Henry was speechless, and almost unconscious. He stretched out his hand to Cranmer, and (p. 425) held him fast, while the Archbishop exhorted him to give some token that he put his trust in Christ. The King wrung Cranmer's hand with his fast-ebbing strength, and so pa.s.sed away about two in the morning, on Friday, the 28th of January, 1547. He was exactly fifty-five years and seven months old, and his reign had lasted for thirty-seven years and three-quarters.

[Footnote 1163: _L. and P._, iv., 4942.]

[Footnote 1164: Foxe, ed. Townsend, v., 692; Fuller, _Church History_, 1656, pp. 252-55.]

[Footnote 1165: _Cotton MS_., t.i.tus, F. iii.; Strype, _Eccl. Mem_., II., ii., 430.]

"And for my body," wrote Henry in his will,[1166] "which when the soul is departed, shall then remain but as a _cadaver_, and so return to the vile matter it was made of, were it not for the crown and dignity which G.o.d hath called us unto, and that We would not be counted an infringer of honest worldly policies and customs, when they be not contrary to G.o.d's laws, We would be content to have it buried in any place accustomed to Christian folks, were it never so vile, for it is but ashes, and to ashes it shall return. Nevertheless, because We would be loth, in the reputation of the people, to do injury to the Dignity, which We are unworthily called unto, We are content to will and order that Our body be buried and interred in the choir of Our college of Windsor." On the 8th of February, in every parish church in the realm, there was sung a solemn dirge by night, with all the bells ringing, and on the morrow a Requiem ma.s.s for the soul of the King.[1167] Six days later his body "was solemnly with great honour conveyed in a chariot towards Windsor," and the funeral procession stretched four miles along the roads. That night the body lay at (p. 426) Sion under a hea.r.s.e, nine storeys high. On the 15th it was taken to Windsor, where it was met by the Dean and choristers of the Chapel Royal, and by the members of Eton College. There in the castle it rested under a hea.r.s.e of thirteen storeys; and on the morrow it was buried, after ma.s.s, in the choir of St. George's Chapel.

[Footnote 1166: The original is in the Record Office; a copy of it was made for each executor, and it has been often printed; see _England under Protector Somerset_, p. 5 n.]

[Footnote 1167: Wriothesley, _Chron._, i., 181.]

Midway between the stalls and the Altar the tomb of Queen Jane Seymour was opened to receive the bones of her lord. Hard by stood that mausoleum "more costly than any royal or papal monument in the world,"[1168] which Henry VII. had commenced as a last resting-place for himself and his successors, but had abandoned for his chapel in Westminster Abbey. His son bestowed the building on Wolsey, who prepared for his own remains a splendid cenotaph of black and white marble. On the Cardinal's fall Henry VIII. designed both tomb and chapel for himself _post multos et felices annos_.[1169] But King and Cardinal reaped little honour by these strivings after posthumous glory. The dying commands of the monarch, whose will had been omnipotent during his life, remained unfulfilled; the memorial chapel was left incomplete; and the monument of marble was taken down, despoiled of its ornaments and sold in the Great Rebellion. At length, in a happier age, after more than three centuries of neglect, the magnificent building was finished, but not in Henry's honour; it was adorned and dedicated to the memory of a prince in whose veins there flowed not a drop of Henry's blood.

[Footnote 1168: _L. and P._, iv., Introd., p.

dcxviii.]

[Footnote 1169: _Ibid.; cf._ Pote, _Hist. of Windsor Castle_, 1749.]

CHAPTER XVI. (p. 427)

CONCLUSION.

So died and so was buried the most remarkable man who ever sat on the English throne. His reign, like his character, seems to be divided into two inconsistent halves. In 1519 his rule is p.r.o.nounced more suave and gentle than the greatest liberty anywhere else; twenty years later terror is said to reign supreme. It is tempting to sum up his life in one sweeping generalisation, and to say that it exhibits a continuous development of Henry's intellect and deterioration of his character. Yet it is difficult to read the King's speech in Parliament at the close of 1545, without crediting him with some sort of ethical ideas and aims; his life was at least as free from vice during the last, as during the first, seven years of his reign; in seriousness of purpose and steadfastness of aim it was immeasurably superior; and at no time did Henry's moral standard vary greatly from that of many whom the world is content to regard as its heroes. His besetting sin was egotism, a sin which princes can hardly, and Tudors could nowise, avoid. Of egotism Henry had his full share from the beginning; at first it moved in a limited, personal sphere, but gradually it extended its scope till it comprised the whole realm of national religion and policy. The obstacles which he encountered in (p. 428) prosecuting his suit for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon were the first check he experienced in the gratification of a personal whim, and the effort to remove those impediments drew him on to the world-wide stage of the conflict with Rome. He was ever proceeding from the particular to the general, from an attack on a special dispensation to an attack on the dispensing power of the Pope, and thence to an a.s.sault on the whole edifice of papal claims. He started with no desire to separate England from Rome, or to reform the Anglican Church; those aims he adopted, little by little, as subsidiary to the attainment of his one great personal purpose. He arrived at his principles by a process of deduction from his own particular case.

As Henry went on, his "quick and penetrable eyes," as More described them, were more and more opened to the extent of what he could do; and he realised, as he said, how small was the power of the Pope. Papal authority had always depended on moral influence and not on material resources. That moral influence had long been impaired; the sack of Rome in 1527 afforded further demonstration of its impotence; and, when Clement condoned that outrage, and formed a close alliance with the chief offender, the Papacy suffered a blow from which it never recovered. Temporal princes might continue to recognise the Pope's authority, but it was only because they chose, and not because they were compelled so to do; they supported him, not as the divinely commissioned Vicar of Christ, but as a useful instrument in the prosecution of their own and their people's desires. It is called a theological age, but it was also irreligious, and its princ.i.p.al (p. 429) feature was secularisation. National interests had already become the dominant factor in European politics; they were no longer to be made subservient to the behests of the universal Church. The change was tacitly or explicitly recognised everywhere; and _cujus regio, ejus religio_ was the principle upon which German ecclesiastical politics were based at the Peace of Augsburg. It was a.s.sumed that each prince could do what he liked in his own country; they might combine to make war on an excommunicate king, but only if war suited their secular policy; and the rivalry between Francis and Charles was so keen, that each set greater store upon Henry's help than upon his destruction.

Thus the breach with Rome was made a possible, though not an easy, task; and Henry was left to settle the matter at home with little to fear from abroad, except threats which he knew to be empty. England was the key of the situation, and in England must be sought the chief causes of Henry's success. If we are to believe that Henry's policy was at variance with the national will, his reign must remain a political mystery, and we can offer no explanation of the facts that Henry was permitted to do his work at all, and that it has stood so long the test of time. He had, no doubt, exceptional facilities for getting his way. His dictatorship was the child of the Wars of the Roses, and his people, conscious of the fact that Henry was their only bulwark against the recurrence of civil strife, and bound up as they were in commercial and industrial pursuits, were willing to bear with a much more arbitrary government than they would have been in less perilous times. The alternatives may have been evil, but the choice was freely made. No government, whatever its form, whatever its (p. 430) resources, can permanently resist the national will; every nation has, roughly speaking, the government it deserves and desires, and a popular vote would never in Henry's reign have decreed his deposition.

The popular mind may be ill-informed, distorted by pa.s.sion and prejudice, and formed on selfish motives. Temporarily, too, the popular will may be neutralised by skilful management on the part of the government, by dividing its enemies and counterworking their plans; and of all those arts Henry was a past master. But such expedients cannot prevail in the end; in 1553 the Duke of Northumberland had a subtle intellect and all the machinery of Tudor government at his disposal; Queen Mary had not a man, nor a shilling.

Yet Mary, by popular favour, prevailed without shedding a drop of blood. Henry himself was often compelled to yield to his people.

Abject self-abas.e.m.e.nt on their part and stupendous power of will on Henry's, together provide no adequate solution for the history of his reign.

With all his self-will, Henry was never blind to the distinction between what he could and what he could not do. Strictly speaking, he was a const.i.tutional king; he neither attempted to break up Parliament, nor to evade the law. He combined in his royal person the parts of despot and demagogue, and both he clothed in Tudor grace and majesty. He led his people in the way they wanted to go, he tempted them with the baits they coveted most, he humoured their prejudices against the clergy and against the pretensions of Rome, and he used every concession to extract some fresh material for building up his own authority. He owed his strength to the skill with which he (p. 431) appealed to the weaknesses of a people, whose prevailing characteristics were a pa.s.sion for material prosperity and an absolute indifference to human suffering. "We," wrote one of Henry's Secretaries of State, "we, which talk much of Christ and His Holy Word, have, I fear me, used a much contrary way; for we leave fishing of men, and fish again in the tempestuous seas of this world for gain and wicked Mammon."[1170] A few n.o.ble examples, Catholic and Protestant, redeemed, by their blood, the age from complete condemnation, but, in the ma.s.s of his subjects, the finer feelings seem to have been lost in the pursuit of wealth.

There is no sign that the hideous tortures inflicted on men condemned for treason, or the equally horrible sufferings of heretics burnt at the stake, excited the least qualm of compa.s.sion in the breast of the mult.i.tude; the Act of Six Articles seems to have been rather a popular measure, and the multiplication of treasons evoked no national protest.

[Footnote 1170: Sir William Petre in Tytler's _Edward VI. and Mary_, i., 427.]