King Henry VIII of England

“ 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. ”

“ England in the sixteenth century put its trust in its princes far more than it did in its parliaments; it invested them with attributes almost Divine. By Tudor majesty the poet was inspired with thoughts of the divinity that doth hedge a king. "Love for the King," wrote a Venetian of Henry VIII. in the early years of his reign, "is universal with all who see him, for his Highness does not seem a person of this world, but (p. 036) one descended from heaven." ”

“ Henry VIII of England having grown so unwieldy and corpulent that he was raised up and let down the stairs by a machine, after an illness of some weeks, sank under his disease, and died in the 38th year of his reign, and the 56th of his age. He repudiated his first wife 20 years after marriage, and in the course of about ten years espoused five others. Henry's reign was one of the most remarkable in the annals of the kingdom. He made himself so much feared, that no English king had fewer checks to his power. ”

“ Henry VIII should then be crowned King of France, but resign to the Emperor not merely Burgundy but also Provence and Languedoc, and cede to the Duke of Bourbon his old possessions and Dauphiné. The motive he alleges is very extraordinary: the Emperor would marry his daughter and heiress, and would at some future time inherit England and France also and then be monarch of the world. [86] Henry declares himself ready to press on with the utmost zeal, provided he can do it with some security, and himself undertake the conduct of the war in the Netherlands and the support of Bourbon. ”

“ London saw many a hideous sight in Henry's reign, but it had no cause to envy the Catholic capitals which witnessed the sack of Rome and the massacre of St. Bartholomew; for all Henry's iniquities, multiplied manifold, would not equal the volume of murder and sacrilege wrought at Rome in May, 1527, or at Paris in August, 1572. [1178] From such orgies of violence and crime, England was saved by the strong right arm and the iron will of her Tudor king. "He is," said Wolsey after his fall, [1179] "a prince of royal courage, and he hath a princely heart ”

“ Meanwhile, amid the distractions of his Scottish intrigues, of his campaign in France, and of his defence of England, the King was engaged in his last hopeless endeavour to secure unity and concord in religious opinion. The ferocious Act of Six Articles had never been more than fitfully executed; and Henry refrained from using to the full the powers with which he had been entrusted (p. 416) by Parliament. The fall of Catherine Howard may have impaired the influence of her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, who had always expressed his zeal for the burning of heretics ”

“ The King too loved building; the present of a skilfully cut jewel could delight him; and he sought honour in defending the scholastic dogmas against Luther's views; in all this Wolsey seconded and supported him, he combined state-business with conversation. He freed the King from the consultations of the Privy Council, in which the intrinsic importance of the matter always weighs more than one's own will; Henry VIII first felt himself to be really King when business was managed by a favourite thoroughly dependent on him, trusted by him, and in fact very capable. ”

“ Commenting on these atrocities of Henry VIII., Sir Walter Raleigh says, "If all the patterns of a merciless tyrant had been lost to the world, they might have been found in this prince;" and Miss Strickland adds, that "Henry VIII. was the first King of England who brought ladies to the block, and who caused the tender female form to be distorted with tortures, and committed, a living prey, to the flames. He was the only king who sought consolation for the imagined offences of his wives against his honour, by plundering their relatives of their plate and money. ”

“ True, from the reign of Henry IV. to that of queen Mary, many other species of high treason had been created by the crown, and especially by Henry VIII., such as clipping money; burning houses to extort money; stealing cattle by Welshmen; wilful poisoning; execrating the king; allowing the king to marry a woman that was not a maid, and not telling that piece of unpleasant news; refusing to abjure the pope; believing Henry VIII. to have been lawfully married to Anne of Cleves; impugning his supremacy; or not dispersing when assembled to the number of twelve upon proclamation. ”

“ Henry VIII succeeded to the throne of England in April, 1509; three years and five months later, in September, 1513, was fought the battle of Flodden. The causes may soon be told. They fall under three heads. James and Henry were alike headstrong and impetuous, and they were alike ambitious of playing a considerable part in European affairs. They were, moreover, brothers-in-law, and, in the division of the inheritance of Henry VII, the King of England had, with characteristic Tudor avarice, retained jewels and other property which had been left to his sister, the Queen of Scots. ”

“ Since your last letters, mine own darling, Walter Welshe, Master Browne, Thos. Care, Grion of Brearton, and John Coke, the apothecary, be fallen of the sweat in this house, and, thanked be God, all well recovered, so that as yet the plague is not fully ceased here, but I trust shortly it shall. By the mercy of God, the rest of us yet be well, and I trust shall pass it, either not to have it, or, at the least, as easily as the rest have done.
As touching the matter of Wilton, my lord cardinal hath had the nuns [Pg xxxi] before him, and examined them, Mr. Bell being present ”

“ He now entered into an understanding with the queen-dowager, and so thwarted the proceedings of Albany that the latter in 1524 retired to France. With the sanction, if not at the instigation, of Henry VIII, Arran and the queen-dowager now brought the young prince from Stirling to Edinburgh, where a council was held, at which he was erected as king, and proclamations issued in his name. Arran and the queen-dowager hoped to prevent the return of Angus to power, and urged Henry VIII to detain him in England. ”

“ The King of England was king of a loyal nation who obeyed him with heart and mind as loyal and faithful subjects. This was the character borne in the world by the fathers of the generation whom popular historians represent as having dishonoured themselves by subserviency to a bloodthirsty tyrant. It is at least possible that popular historians have been mistaken, and that the subjects of Henry VIII. were neither much better nor much worse than those who preceded or came after them. ”

“ The marriage was carried out without delay; in the ceremonies of her husband's coronation Catharine could actually take part as Queen. How fully did these festivities again breathe the ancient character of chivalrous splendour. Men saw the King's champion, with his own herald in front, in full armour, ride into the hall on his war-steed which carried the armorial bearings of England and France; he challenged to single combat any one who would dare to say that Henry VIII was not the true heir of this realm ”

“ Before considering the actual work of suppression, it may be interesting to glance at the royal destroyer and his times. The character of Henry VIII. is utterly inexplicable to many persons, chiefly because they do not reflect that even the inconsistencies of a great man may be understood when seen in the light of his times. A masterly and comprehensive summary of the virtues and vices of the Tudor monarch, who has been described as "the king, the whole king, and nothing but the king," may be found in "A History of Crime in England," by Luke Owen Pike. ”

“ Prince Henry (born 28th June 1491, died 28th January 1547) was the second son of Henry VII., and in 1509 succeeded his father on the throne of England. Henry VIII. always lived in much luxury and loved finery and splendour, and to a certain extent this feeling shows in the many beautiful bindings which were made for him. The King was certainly fond of his books, and he had several of them beautifully bound in velvet and embroidered with pearls and inlays of coloured silks and satins, finished with gold thread. Others are of gold, richly worked and enamelled. ”

“ Henry VIII. was not as flexible and amiable now as the youth of eighteen had been. He defied the Pope, married Anne (1533) , and sent his Minister into disgrace {76} for not serving him more effectually. "There was the weight which pulled me down," said Wolsey of Anne, and death from a broken heart mercifully saved the old man from the scaffold he would certainly have reached.
The legion of demons which had been slumbering in the King were awakened. He would break no law, but he would bend the law to his will. ”

“ The not hearing of the legate’s arrival in France causeth us somewhat to muse; notwithstanding, we trust, by your [Pg xxi] diligence and vigilancy (with the assistance of Almighty God) , shortly to be eased out of that trouble. No more to you at this time, but that I pray God send you as good health and prosperity as the writer would.
By your loving Sovereign and Friend,
H. R.
[Pg xxii]
There came to me suddenly in the night the most afflicting news that could have arrived. ”

“ CHAPTER XI HENRY VIII (vii) , 1509-1547—ASPECTS OF HENRY'S REIGN Ireland: 1509-1520—Surrey in Ireland, 1520—Irish Policy, 1520-1534—Fitzgerald's Revolt—1535-1540: Lord Leonard Grey—1540: St. Leger—"King of Ireland"— England: Wolsey's work—The Army—The Navy—The New World— Absolutism—The Parliamentary Sanction—Depression of the Nobles— Parliament and the Purse—Finance—The Land—Learning and Letters—The Utopia—Surrey and Wyatt—Appreciation of Henry VIII.: Morals and Character—Abilities and Achievement—Dominant Personality— Conclusions. ”

“ The marked preference shown by the king for Anne Boleyn raised so much jealousy and slander that it was thought advisable by her family to remove the new favourite from the court; and it was during this retirement at Hever, a seat of her father’s in Kent, that these letters were addressed to her by her royal lover. It was no doubt to render them the more agreeable that he wrote some of them in French. They breathe a fondness and an ardour which could scarcely leave room to doubt the sincerity of his love. ”

“ What has not seldom in the history of great kingdoms and states formed a decisive turning point now came to pass: to the father who had founded and maintained his power with foresight and by painful and continuous labour, succeeded a son full of life and energy, who wished to enjoy its possession, and feeling firm ground under his feet determined to live in a way more after his own mind. Henry VIII too felt the need of being popular, like most princes on their accession: he sacrificed the two chiefs of the fiscal commission, Empson and Dudley, to the universal hate. ”

“ The fourth (1) , apparently written in August, is the most interesting of the whole collection, inasmuch as it fixes the period of the commencement of the king’s affection for Anne Boleyn. He complains of “having been above a whole year struck with the dart of love,” and that he is not yet certain whether he shall succeed in finding a place in the heart and affections of her whom he loves. ”

“ It was a new world altogether when Henry VIII, in his eighteenth year, succeeded his father upon the throne. With a full exchequer and an undisputed title, the young King was at the commencement of his reign liberal and generous; and being handsome in person, highly accomplished and fond of manly exercises, he was abundantly popular. ”

“ The third, because the physician in whom I have most confidence, is absent at the very time when he might do me the greatest pleasure; for I should hope, by him and his means, to obtain one of my chief joys on earth—that is the care of my mistress—yet for want of him I send you my second, and hope that he will soon make you well. I shall then love him more than ever. I beseech you to be guided by his advice in your illness. ”

“ Next year he was sent to England as legate to incite Henry VIII to unite with other princes in a crusade against the Turks. He was detained some time at Calais before being allowed to cross, Henry VIII having insisted with the pope that his favourite, Cardinal Wolsey, should be invested with equal legatine functions before he landed. He was, however, very well received, and a few years later (1524) Henry VIII gave him, or allowed him to obtain by papal bull, the bishopric of Salisbury. ”

“ Judge what an effect the presence of that person must have on me, whose absence has grieved my heart more than either words or writing can express, and which nothing can cure, but that begging you, my mistress, to tell your father from me, that I desire him to hasten the time appointed by two days, that he may be at court before the old term, or, at farthest, on the day prefixed ”