Henry III of England

“ All fear of excommunication and interdict had passed away. The clergy were no longer alienated from him. The ecclesiastical difficulties raised by the coronation, and the jealousies of Louis, were set at rest. The alliance of the Pope was secured. The conquest of Ireland was formally approved. Success seemed to crown Henry's scheme for the building up of his empire. Britanny had been secured for Geoffrey in 1171; in June 1172 Richard was enthroned as Duke of Aquitaine; in the following August Henry was crowned for the second time King of England. ”

“ When Henry IV. ascended the throne, parliament prayed that the Prince might not leave the realm, but remain in England as the anchor of the people's hopes; and, soon after his own accession, [12] Henry V. is advised by his council to remain near London, that he might receive prompt intelligence of whatever might arise in any quarter, and be able to take immediate steps for the safety of the commonweal. He seems to have carried with him even from his earliest youth, wherever he went, a peculiar talent of exciting confidence in every one. ”

“ England was but a country of limited extent, without colonies or even dependencies except Ireland, or any continental possession save Calais. To frame a policy for such a nation required little more than one good diplomatic head, and when that head was the King's there was not much chance of controlling him. Henry VIII was really a monarch of consummate ability, who, if his course had not been misdirected by passion and selfishness, would have left a name behind him as the very founder of England's greatness. ”

“ He could spare and reinstate Richard II's memory, as much as in him lay, though he owed the crown to his overthrow. That he furthered and advanced also in France the municipal and parliamentary interests, which were his mainstay in England, procured him the obedience which was there paid him, and a European influence. In his moral character Henry ranks above most of the Plantagenets. He had no favourites and let no unjust acts be imputed to him. He was stern towards the great and careful for the common people; at his first word men could tell what they had to expect from him. ”

“ But of all English sovereigns he stands foremost as the monarch of the sea. Young, handsome, learned, exceedingly accomplished, gloriously strong in body and in mind, Henry mounted the throne in 1509 with the hearty good will of nearly all his subjects. Before England could become the mother country of an empire overseas, she had to shake off her medieval weaknesses, become a strongly unified modern state, and arm herself against any probable combination of hostile foreign states. Happily for herself and for her future colonists, Henry was richly endowed with strength and skill for his task. ”

“ For Henry's purpose of recovery the rise of the Church to an equality with the State, its organization as an international monarchy, conscious of the value of that organization and powerful to defend it, was far more important. The Anglo-Norman monarchy had been since its beginning the strongest in Europe. Henry II was in no less absolute control of the State than his ancestors. But now there stood over against the king, as there never had before, a power almost as strong in England as his own. Thomas understood this more clearly than Henry did. ”

“ It is a singular circumstance that the king who raised the personal power of English monarchy to a height to which it had never before attained, should have come of humble race and belonged to an upstart dynasty. For three centuries and a half before the battle of Bosworth one family had occupied the English throne. Even the usurpers, Henry of Bolingbroke and Richard of York, were directly descended in unbroken male line from Henry II., and from 1154 to 1485 all the sovereigns of England were Plantagenets. ”

“ But Queen Jane's death was not to be compared in importance with the birth of Edward VI. The legitimate male heir, the object of so many desires and the cause of so many tragedies, had come at last to fill to the brim the cup of Henry's triumph. The greatest storm and stress of his reign was passed. There were crises to come, which might have been deemed serious in a less troubled reign, and they still needed all Henry's wary cunning to meet; Francis and Charles were even now preparing to end a struggle from which only Henry drew profit; and Paul was hoping to join them in war upon England. ”

“ But—as it chanced—the issue of this alliance was destined to unite the English and the Scottish crowns, when the male line of the Tudors died out, and Henry, quite unintentionally, had his share in bringing about the consummation, by peaceful means, of that end which Edward I. had sought for so long to win by the strong hand.
All the foreign politics of the reign of Henry VII. have small importance compared with his work within the realm. The true monument of his ability was that he left England tamed and orderly, with an obedient people and a full Character of Henry’s internal rule. ”

“ Henry the Fourth was far from being safe on his newly won throne. Early in 1400 he had discovered a plot against his life. The Kings of France and Scotland had refused to recognise his title to the crown, and were even making preparations11 for an invasion of England. A more immediate danger also threatened him; Wales was in revolt. Here Owen Glendower, lineal descendant of the Llewellyn who had been defeated and slain by Edward the First, had been roused by private wrongs to assert the independence of his nation. And it was here that we find the young Henry employed by his father. ”

“ Now, when Henry was left without an ally, when the Scots were victorious in the North, when France was ready to launch an Armada against the southern coasts of England, now, surely, was the time for a national uprising to depose the bloodthirsty tyrant, the enemy of the Church, the persecutor of his people. Strangely enough his people did, and even desired, nothing of the sort. Popular discontent existed only in the imagination of his enemies; Henry retained to the last his hold over the mind of his people. Never had they been called to pay such a series of loans, subsidies and benevolences ”

“ A true sympathy bound him closely to his nobles and people. His unstained family life, his piety and religious zeal, his devotion to friends and kinsfolk, his keen interest in the best movements of his time, showed him a true son of Henry III. But his strength of will and seriousness of purpose stand in strong contrast to his father's weakness and levity. A hard-working, clear-headed, practical, and sober temperament made him the most capable king of all his line. ”

“ Henry III was never a strenuous worker, and his character failed in the robustness and self-reliance necessary for personal rule. The magnates, who regarded themselves as the king's natural-born counsellors, were bitterly incensed, and hated the royal clerks as fiercely as they had disliked the ministers of his minority. Opposed by the barons, distrusted by the people, liable to be thrown over by their master at each fresh change of his caprice, the royal subordinates showed more eagerness in prosecuting their own private fortunes than in consulting the interests of the State. ”

“ Besides, Henry pretended that, together with his claims to the throne through his father, he had others more ancient and better founded still through his mother, who, as he attempted to prove, was descended from an English king who reigned before Edward III. The people of England, as they wished to have Henry for king, were very easily satisfied with his arguments, and so it was settled that he should reign. ”

“ CHAPTER X THE COURT OF HENRY In the years that followed the Assize of Northampton Henry was at the height of his power. He was only forty-three, and already his triumph was complete. One of his sons was King of England, one Count of Poitou, one Lord of Britanny, one was named King of Ireland. His eldest daughter, wife of the Duke of Saxony, was mother of a future emperor, the second was Queen of Castile, the third was in 1176 married to William of Sicily, the wealthiest king of his time. All nations hastened to do honour to so great a potentate. ”

“ King of England, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, Count of Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine, suzerain lord of Britanny, Henry found himself at twenty-one ruler of dominions such as no king before him had ever dreamed of uniting. He was master of both sides of the English Channel, and by his alliance with his uncle, the Count of Flanders, he had command of the French coast from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, while his claims on Toulouse would carry him to the shores of the Mediterranean. ”

“ Under no dynasty in the world have great national changes been so dependent on the personal aims of princes as in England under the Tudors. Just as all Henry VIII's subsequent proceedings were determined by the affair of the divorce, so also the policy of his three children was due to the relations into which they were thrown by their birth.
No one however could derive the course of English history at this epoch from this cause alone. How could Henry VIII have even thought of detaching his kingdom from the Roman See, but for the ancient and deep-seated national opposition to its encroachments? ”

“ England under Henry II. was already growing more united and more national. The crown which Henry derived from the Conqueror was national as well as feudal. Henry, like his predecessors, had two strings to his bow. On the one hand he could call upon his vassals to be faithful to him because they had sworn homage to him, whilst he himself, as far as England was concerned, had sworn homage to no one. On the other hand, he could rally round him the national forces. To do this he must do justice and gain the goodwill of the people at large. ”

“ He spent the greater part of his time on the continent, so that England was generally governed by the successive Justiciars, or prime ministers, who acted as regents while he was abroad. Henry's absence and his absorption in foreign politics were perhaps not a very grave misfortune for England; he was such a strong and able ruler, that when he had once put the realm to rights in the early part of his reign, the danger to be feared was no longer feudal anarchy, but royal despotism. ”

“ Feeling quite sure that Richard would never cease from striving to get him into his power, Henry took leave of duke Francis, and sought refuge with Charles VIII., then king of France. In Paris he found many Englishmen, who had either fled from England during the troubles, or 'to learn and study good literature and virtuous doctrine,' as the chronicler tells us. So, for the first time in his life, Henry was surrounded by his own countrymen, and they did homage to him and swore to sail with him to England in the ships that the regent, Charles's sister, had promised him ”

“ Henry, meantime, had come to the throne in 1154, and was the mightiest King who had yet reigned in England. More than half France was his—partly by inheritance, and partly by marriage with Eleanor, heiress of Aquitaine; and he was quite able to rule his vast dominions. His alertness and activity were the wonder of every one. He made journeys with great rapidity, was always busy, and hardly ever sat down. ”

“ On the 14th of June the lords and prelates were gathered together "in fear, none knowing what the king was about to decree." The younger Henry, a boy of fifteen, was brought before them; he was anointed and crowned by Roger of York. From this moment a new era opened in Henry's reign. The young king was now lord of England, in the view of the whole medieval world, by a right as absolute and sacred as that of his father. All who were discontented and restless had henceforth a leader ordained by law, consecrated by the Church, round whom they might rally. ”

“ The earlier years of Henry's reign were much disturbed by petty rebellions, the last ground-swell of discontent and lawlessness which lingered on after the great tempest of the Wars of the Roses had abated. Richard III. had left behind him a few devoted partisans who had resolved never to submit; the chief were John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, who had been declared heir to the throne by the late king, and Lord Lovel, the sole survivor of the three favourites who had "ruled all England under the Hog." They were bold reckless men, ready to risk all for ambition and revenge. ”

“ But a marriage between Edward VI. and Mary, Queen of Scots, by which it was sought to effect that union, had been the main object of Henry's efforts during the closing years of his reign, and the imperial idea was a dominant note in Henry's mind. No king was more fond of protesting that he wore an imperial crown and ruled an imperial realm. When, in 1536, Convocation declared England to be "an imperial See of itself," it only clothed in decent and formal language Henry's own boast that he was not merely King, but Pope and Emperor, in his own domains. ”

“ No act which Henry could perform would be more pleasing to the nation as a whole than this marriage, or would seem to them clearer proof of his intention to rule in the interest of the whole nation and not of himself alone, or of the small body of foreign oppressors. It would seem like the expression of a wish on Henry's part to unite his line with that of the old English kings, and to reign as their representative as well as his father's, and it was so understood, both by the party opposed to Henry and by his own supporters. ”