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HENRY A r III. 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 HENRY THE EIGHTH 
 
 ©f ©nglanii, 
 
 WITH THE FORTUNES, FATES, AND CHARACTERS 
 
 OK 
 
 HIIS SIX W IYES, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, 
 
 Author of “ The Captains of the Greek ami Roman Republics,” 
 “ The Roman Traitor,” “ Oliver Cromwell,” etc., etc. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PORTER & COATES. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 
 
 Porter & Coatee 
 
 1880 . 
 
H53) 
 
 TO 
 
 WIHLMAffi SBJMNDKTg Es©., 
 
 EDITOR OF 
 
 f IIE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER, WASHINGTON, D. C., 
 
 Ufs Volume of tjje 
 
 MEMOIRS OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH, 
 
 WITH THE 
 
 jlfortuneg, dJateg anb ©fjaracterg of Jblr SSibeg, 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, 
 
 IN TOKEN OF 
 
 HIE SINCERE VENERATION HE ENTERTAINS FOR HIS TALENTS AND CHARACTER. 
 AND OF THE HIGH VALUE IIE SETS ON HIS FRIENDSHIP, 
 
 BY HIS SINCERE AND OBLIGED 
 
 FRIEND AND SERVANT, 
 
 HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT 
 
 The Cedars, July 19, 1856. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/memoirsofhenryei01herb 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Prefatory remarks which I have to offer as an 
 induction to this volume, are few, and of small im¬ 
 portance. It appeared to me that there has long been 
 a void space in the department of history, which 
 could be filled by a work, aspiring to a popular circu¬ 
 lation by means of its style and manner, which 
 should descend from the grave and somewhat stilted 
 dignity of history proper, and attempt something of 
 the point and sparkle of fictitious narrative, while 
 closely and rigidly adhering to the solid and mate¬ 
 rial truth, which can alone give value to historical 
 compositions. 
 
 To ascertain the exact truth on all disputed points, 
 I may say that I have spared no pains ; and, I may 
 add, that I have aimed at the strictest impartiality. 
 
 # The contemporaneous chroniclers and writers of the 
 period, not of England only, but of Spain, Italy and 
 France, I have carefully consulted. 
 
 The curious and valuable work of my quaint an¬ 
 cestor of Cherbury, has furnished me accurately with 
 dates, with details of military events and treaties, 
 and with some curious particulars of the costume and 
 domestic manners of the day. 
 
 The Romish historian, Lingard, has been consulted 
 and weighed as carefully, and received as full atten- 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 tion, as the writers of our own church, and with 
 profit and advantage, his work being, for the most 
 part, as written by an avowed advocate of Papacy, 
 honest and candid ; and its investigations being con¬ 
 ducted with justice and temperance. 
 
 To the lighter and more gossipping sketches of the 
 lady-biographers of the queens of England, France 
 and Scotland, I have also had occasion to refer, prin¬ 
 cipally in relation to the personal qualities and cos¬ 
 tumes of the royal ladies. 
 
 In a word, I have neglected no means of arriving 
 at facts which were within my reach, and I have used 
 'the authorities which I have consulted, with no other 
 purpose or desire than that of ascertaining and re¬ 
 cording “ the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
 the truth,” concerning each and every one of the dis¬ 
 tinguished personages who have afforded a topic to 
 my pen. 
 
 Some new facts, I believe, I have been so happy 
 as to d isinte r from the dust of time and misrepresen¬ 
 tation concerning those two , most unfortunate and fa¬ 
 tal, Anpe Boleyn and Kafharinfi_jlqward ; and, on 
 the wholeTTtrust that I have executed the work in 
 such a tone and spirit as shall excuse what faults it 
 may possess, and render it not unacceptable either to 
 the learned or unlearned of America. 
 
 Henry William Herbert. 
 
 The Cedars, July 20, 1855. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 IIENRY THE EIGHTH. 
 
 RETROSPECTIVE. 
 
 Wai of the Roses—General Effects—War to the Castle—Gen¬ 
 eral Wish for Repose—The Rival Factions—Failure of Title 
 in HenryVII.—Sons of Edward III.—First Rupture of the 
 Houses—Failure of the Claim of Lancaster—True Title of 
 Edward IV.—'Jsuipation of Gloucester—Lambert Simnel 
 and Perkin Warbeck—Henry ot Richmond not Heir of Lan¬ 
 caster—The House of Tudor—Peath of Richard III.—Hen¬ 
 ry’s Alleged Titles—Henry King by Possession—Cruel Acta 
 of Attainder—Great Opportunities of Henry VII.—His Con¬ 
 duct and its Effects—His Parliaments—His Character, 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 
 Death of Henry VII.—Accession of Henry VIII.—His Quali¬ 
 ties and Occasions—Inconsistency of his Career—Gradual 
 Deterioration—Liscovery of America—Reformation, and Ex¬ 
 tinction of Chivalry—Growing Power of the Masses—Wars 
 of the Plantagenets—Want of Policy—Redress of Grievances 
 —Empson and Dudley—Marriage of Arthur and Katha/ine 
 —Transactions for Marriage—Henry VII. and Joanna of Cas- 
 tille—Henry’s Marriage with Katharine of Arragon—Kath¬ 
 arine Intercedes—Henry’s Vanity and Love of Fame—State 
 of Europe—The French in Italy—The English Fleet—Fail¬ 
 ure of the Campaign of 1612 —Conflagration of the Regent 
 —Rise of Wolsey—The Battle of Ravenna—Prosecution of 
 the War, 1613— Death of the Lord Admiral—Execution of 
 
 33 
 
CONTENTS.- 
 
 I'ittK 
 
 Vlll 
 
 the Earl of Suffolk—Invasion of France—Siege of Te roue ime 
 —Henry Defies James of Scotland—Battle of the Spurs— 
 Surrender of Terouenne—Investment of Tournay — Tidines 
 of Flodden Field—The Battle of Floddeu Field—The Crisis 
 of the Day—The Carnage at Flodden—Capitulation of Tour- 
 nay—Policy of Wolsey— Festivities at Tournay and Lisle — 
 Negotiations at Tournay — Disruption of the League — Wed¬ 
 ding of Louis XII. and Mary — Foreign Nationality of Queens 
 Consort — Distaste to Foreign Queens — Houses of Bourbon 
 and Brunswick—The Justs at Paris—The Duke of Suffolk— 
 The Death of King Louis—'The Youthful Widow —Mistress 
 Anne Boleyn — Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop—Character of 
 Wolsey—Foreign Policy of Wolsey—Battle of Marignano 
 —Restitution of Tournay— General Pacification, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Second Phase of Henry’s Character—Henry’s Mistresses— 
 Death of Maximilian—Candidates for Empire—Conference 
 of Kings—Idle Profusion — Mary the Beautiful—Henry’s 
 House at Guisnes—The Field of Cloth of Gold—The Tour¬ 
 naments—Intercourse of the Kings—The Emperor at Calais 
 —Queen Claude’s Maids of Honor—Henry a Theologian— 
 De Septem Sacramentis—Defender of the Faith—An Angli¬ 
 can Church—Wolsey and the Duke — The Duke of Bucking¬ 
 ham — The Prophecies of Hopkins — Trial and Death of Buck¬ 
 ingham—Henry’s Succession — State Reasons — Outbreaking 
 of War—Conferences of Arbitration — Sentence rendered by 
 Wolsey—War in the Milanese—Invention of the Musket— 
 Election of the Pope—Pope Adrian—Ireland and Scotland 
 —The House of Commons—The Scottish War — Wark Castle 
 — The Servants of the House of Tudor — Polemics in His¬ 
 tory — Winter Campaign in Italy—Bourbon Invades France 
 — Standing Armies—Forced Marches upon Milan — Mutual 
 Distrust — The Battle of Pavia — Francis a Prisoner — A Cap- 
 tivf Kina - — Lukewarmness of Charles—Royal Suspicions— 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 IX 
 
 iisa 
 
 Dissolution of the Contract—Bad Faith of both Kings_ 
 
 Marriage of Charles and the Infanta—Liberation of Francis 
 —Clement YII. a Prisoner—The Maskers at Greenwich—The 
 King’s “Secret Matter”—First Love for Anne Boleyn—Wol- 
 sey’s Secret Policy—March of Lautrech—Escape of Pope 
 Clement — Siege of Naples—Henry’s Latent Character—De¬ 
 lays in the Divorce — Grounds for the Divorce—Fall of Wol- 
 sey—M olsey’s Arrest at Cawood—Wolsey’s Foreign Corres¬ 
 pondence-Death of Wolsey — Breve by Pope Clement— 
 Statute of Praemunire — Supreme Head of the Church — Pay 
 ment of Annates Forbidden—Second Meeting of Kings — 
 Anne Henry’s Mistress—His Marriage to Anne — Cranmer’e 
 Elevation—Theologians and Canonists—Divorce Pronounced 
 —Third Division of his Life, .... . 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ^ Third Phase of Character—The Wonder of Submission—Strange 
 Spirit of the Times—Silence in Death—Marriage with Anne 
 Legalized—Resistance of the Queen — Double Dealings with 
 Clement and Francis — England Emancipated from Rome— 
 The two Acts of Parliament—Perfect Success of Henry’s 
 Schemes—Absolutism in England—His lunate Cruelty— 
 The Holy Maid of Kent— ; Fisher and More—The Persecutions 
 —Death of Fisher and More—Interdict of Paul III.—Sup¬ 
 pression of Monasteries—Death of Queen Katharine—Attain¬ 
 der of Anne Boleyn—Decapitation of Anne—Marriage with 
 Jane Seymour—Insurrection of the North—Reginald Pole— 
 Birth of Prince Edward—Death of Queen Jane—Lady 
 Shew at Calais—Amusements of Widowhood—Thomas a 
 Becket in Court—The Family of Reginald Pole—Anne of 
 Cleves— Cromwell Attainted—Religious Terrorism—Katha¬ 
 rine Howard— The Countess of Salisbury—Charges against 
 Katharine— Evidences against her— Katharine’s Attainder — 
 Katharine’s Death—Ex post facto Enactment—The King’s 
 Book—Peace with Charles V.—Katharine Parr of Kendal- 
 
 A* 
 
 10fi 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FASK 
 
 X 
 
 The Children of Henry—Protestant Ascendency—Balance 
 of Religions—Private Life of Royalty—French Campaign— 
 Henry’s Succession—Henry’s last Peace—Strife of Religious 
 Parties—Henry’s last Crimes—The Ends of Providence, . 196 
 
 KATHARINE OF ARRAGON. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Birth of Katharine—England and Spain—Period of her Birth 
 —Columbus in the Camp—Schemes of Colu nbus—Progress 
 of Discovery—False Style of Memoir Writing—Impressions 
 of her Childhood—Unprecedented Growth of Spain—The 
 Netherlands added to Spain—Prince Arthur of Wales—Kath¬ 
 arine Lands in England—Spanish Etiquette—English Blunt¬ 
 ness—Katharine’s First Marriage—Iler Married Life at Lud¬ 
 low—Silence of History in time of Peace—Katharine Dowa¬ 
 ger of Wales—The Bull and Breve of Dispensation—Gen¬ 
 eral Faith in the Virtue of Dispensations—Did she Love liimf 
 —Her Marriage with Henry—Her Coronation—War with 
 France—Katharine Queen Regent—Anne Boleyn—Visit of 
 Charles V.—The Field of Cloth of Gold—Renewed Peace 
 with France—Conduct of Katharine—Conduct of Anne 
 Boleyn—The Cardiual Legate—The Legantine Court—Cam- 
 peggio—Expulsion from Windsor—Supreme Head of the 
 Church—Anne Boleyn’s Marriage—Anne’s Unehastit}'— 
 Katharine in Seclusion—Cranmer’s Decree—Katharine’s 
 Constancy—Katharine’s Testament—Katharine’s Death, . 26S 
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Historical Partisanship—Partial and Impartial Judgment— 
 Family of Anne Boleyn— Anne’s Birth Place—Date of Anne’* 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI 
 
 p^om 
 
 Birth—Anne’s First Prospects Matrimonial—Anne’s First Love 
 —Anne Dismissed the Court—First Advances of the King— 
 Anne’s Person and Beaut}’—Her Grace and Accomplishments 
 —Small Progress of the King—Anne not a Lutheran—Wy¬ 
 att’s Suit—The Game of Bowls—The Sweating Sickness— 
 
 Fall of Wolsey—Lady Rochefort—The Sibylline Book—Anne’s 
 Marriage—Death of More and Fisher—The Cruelty of Cow¬ 
 ardice—Retribution—Anne’s Forebodings—Committee of the 
 Privy Council—Confession in Extremis—The First Charges— 
 
 In the Tower—Anne’s Admissions—Anne’s Trial—Nullity of 
 Anne’s Marriage—Death and Burial of Anne Boleyn, . . 331 
 
 JANE SEYMOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Blood of the Seymours—Birth and Youth of Jane—Jane’s 
 Levity—The Causes of her Good Report—Jane’s Unchastity— 
 Jane’s Wedding—The Wedding Day—Parliamentary Flatter¬ 
 ies—Her Bootless Reign—Birth of Prince Edward—Christen¬ 
 ing of Edward—Jane Seymour’s Death—The Monuments of 
 Queens.360 
 
 ANNE OF CLEVES. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Henry a Widower—The French Ladies—Polemical Parties— 
 
 The Smalcaldic League—Person of Anne of Cleves—She 
 Lands in England—First Interview with Henry—His Dislike 
 to her—Vengeance on Cromwell—Cromwell and Barnes— 
 Divorce of Anne—The Daughter of Cleves—Her Tranquil 
 Life—Her Death and Monument,.391 
 
xn 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAW 
 
 KATHARINE HOWARD. 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 The Birth of Katharine—The Childhood of Katharine—Manox 
 the Musician—Francis Dereham—Discovery and Flight— 
 Her Changed Demeanor—She Pleases the King—HerMarried 
 Life—Her First Peril—Cranmer Plots her Ruin—She Confesses 
 —Her Death—Public Opinion. 
 
 KATHARINE PARR. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 413 
 
 Her First Husbands—Her Connection -with the Court—Her 
 Marrjage—Her Danger—Henry’s Death—Her Fourth Mar¬ 
 riage and Death, . . . ... 485 
 
! f 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE LIFE, 
 
 POLITICAL, PRIVATE, AND DOMESTIC, 
 
 OF 
 
 KING HENRY VIII. 
 
 TWENTIETH NORMAN KING OF ENGLAND; SECOND OK THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. 
 • BORN, JUNK 28, 1491. CAME TO THE CROWN, APRIL 22, 1509. DIED, JANUARY 
 28, 1547. AGE, 55 years, T mo. reion, 87 years, 9 mo., <S days. 
 
 i 
 
 Cetermn, poractis tristitiie imitamentis, curiam ingressus, et de auctorltate pa 
 (ruin. et consensu militum profatus, consllia sibl et exempla capessendl egregle Im¬ 
 perii memoravtt; nec Juventam armis civilibus aut domesticls discordiis imbutam, 
 nulla odia, nullas injurias, Dec cupidinem ultionis adferre. 
 
 Tacitus, Annales, Lib. xiii. cap. 4. 
 
 Nemo repente fuit turplssimus. Juvenal, Saiira, 1L 88. 
 
 How oft the sight of means, to do ill deeds, 
 
 Makes deeds ill done. Buakspearb, K. John, Act lr., Sc. 2. 
 
 RETROSPECTIVE. 
 
 Before entering directly into any consideration of the ex¬ 
 traordinary career, and no less extraordinary character of this 
 monarch, it will be necessary to take a brief retrospect of the 
 affairs of England, at the period of his father’s usurpation of 
 the crown, and the consequent establishment of the Cambrian 
 house of Tudor, on the British throne; and to give some 
 passing attention to the administration of the country, during 
 the long reign of that able, but unprincipled, avaricious, and 
 cold-hearted nibnarch. 
 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, p. 4 
 
\4 GENERAL EFFECT OF THE WAR OF THE ROSES. 
 
 To almost every reader, it is, of course, farrv'Jiarly known, 
 that, for nearly a century, including the whole period from the 
 first dissensions of Richard II., the imbecile son of the famous 
 Black Prince, with the able and ambitious Henry of Boling- 
 broke, duke of Lancaster, in 1398, to the accession of Henry, 
 earl of Richmond, in 1485, with the exception of the brief but 
 glorious reign of Henry V,, England was held in a constant 
 turmoil of intestine divisions, civil wars, and bloody and barba¬ 
 rous battles, between the rival houses of York and Lancaster, 
 under their respective cognizances of the White and Red 
 Roses. 
 
 These cruel and disastrous wars, during which such was the 
 desperate animosity of the partisans of the two factions that 
 quarter was rarely either asked or given, especially among the 
 nobles, even to princes of the blood-royal, had drained England 
 of its purest and most ancient blood. Nor did the savage 
 slaughters cease with the heat and fury of the strife; the scaf¬ 
 fold resounded with the almost incessant din of the headsman’s 
 ax ; and the assassin’s knife cut off, in the secrecy of the prison- 
 house, many a victim whom policy forbade to lead to open 
 execution, hi the short space of thirty years, in the two reigus 
 of Henry VI. and his successor, the fourth Edward, no less 
 than twelve pitched* battles were fought on English soil; no 
 less than eighty princes of the blood had perished ; and, so 
 nearly was the ancient aristocracy reduced to absolute annihi¬ 
 lation, that an ingenious, though somewhat exaggerated, writer f 
 of the present day avows that, after the second battle of Bar- 
 net, a Norman baron of the pure blood was a rarer animal 
 than a wolf, on Euglish soil; and there is ao doubt, though this 
 
 ♦Hume, Hist. Eng ii 433. 
 
 tsjir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Last of the Barona 
 
WAR TO THE CASTLE. 
 
 15 
 
 must be regarded as a forced form of speech, that destruction 
 had dealt unsparingly with this class, and that the great depres¬ 
 sion of this order tended much to facilitate the aggressions of 
 the next succeeding kings, on the liberties of the English na¬ 
 tion. For, in all ages of English history, it is remarkable 
 that all successful resistance to monarchical encroachments, and 
 all considerable extensibns of popular privileges, have been 
 maintained by, or have originated with the nobles, and not with 
 the people. 
 
 It is true, that these pttiless and sanguinary wars had one 
 redeeming feature, that they were essentially wars against the 
 castle, not against the cottage ; and that, so soon as the obsti¬ 
 nate conflict was at an end, and the after-carnage done, no ven¬ 
 geance hunted the retainer to his grange, or the peasant to his 
 cot; though it might pursue the baron to his last hiding-place 
 and even tear him from sanctuary,to the block, and that, saving 
 the slaughter of the actual battle and of the immediate pursuit, 
 little scathe befel the commonalty of the nation. 
 
 A shrewd and experienced contemporaneous statesman,* the 
 minister of Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, a man intimately 
 acquainted with the condition of the principal states of continen- 
 tal Europe, France, Switzerland, and the Flemish and Holland- 
 ish Netherlands, having visited England, about this period, and, 
 that, too, before sufficient time had elapsed to heal the wounds 
 of civil war, has deliberately put it on record, that, of all the 
 countries of which he had any knowledge, England was the best 
 governed, with the greatest security to person and property; and 
 that it was inconceivable to him, how a war, which by its char¬ 
 acter of atrocious desperation, had attracted the eyes of all Eu- 
 
 * PblHp de Comb is, ambassador from Charles the Bold of Burgundy to Edward IV 
 
16 
 
 GENERAL WISH FOR REPOSE. 
 
 rope, should have rolled over the land, like a passing thunder 
 storm, leaving so few traces of havoc and ruin. He saw, he 
 says, no devastated fields, no villages given up to conflagration 
 no towns destroyed by the ravages of a licentious soldiery ; 
 but a country flourishing with a rich and thrifty agriculture, 
 hamlets full of an industrious and happy population, towns 
 teeming with the wealth of manufactures, and marts of com¬ 
 merce, white with the sails, and crowded with the keels, of 
 countless argosies. 
 
 And a late brilliant and picturesque historian* of England 
 has well stated, that, during all the fiercest phases of the war 
 of the Roses, within a week of the battles of Bramham-moor, 
 or Towton, or Bosworth-field, the esquire was flying his hawks 
 over the ground, or the plowman furrowing the lea, as if no¬ 
 thing extraordinary had occurred in the neighborhood. 
 
 Still, notwithstanding this,rnerciful exemption from the chief 
 horrors of civil war, which the middle classes and peasantry 
 of England appear to have enjoyed during this period, so dis¬ 
 astrous to the nobles, the country was becoming aweary of the 
 endless agitation of claims, in which they had little direct in¬ 
 terest ; of the interminable conflicts of armed bands, in all 
 quarters of the realm; of the lavish outpouring of blood — 
 always a thing uncongenial to the spirit of the English 
 people—and, above all, of the insecurity to property and 
 life, which is inseparable, in greater or less degree, from the 
 state of war ; and the interruption to agricultural and commer¬ 
 cial pi'Ogress, which must follow civil dissensions, even in their 
 most mitigated form. 
 
 The wars of the Roses were especially wars of faction. No 
 public principle, no popular interest was at stake. There was 
 
 * Macaulay, Hist of England. 
 
THE RIVAL FACTIONS. 
 
 17 
 
 no issue between king and nobles, king and commons, or no¬ 
 bility and people. No question of prerogative, privilege, or 
 liberty. The matter was resolved, at once, into a contest for 
 precedence between the two branches, York and Lancaster, of 
 the great royal house of Plantagenet, and their kinsmen, ad 
 herents and fautors, which should inherit the crown of Ed 
 ward III., since whose time the title had been, more or less, in 
 dispute. 
 
 Each of these great branches, almost in itself a house, had 
 such power, in land, in intimate connection with the great ba¬ 
 rons of the realm, many of them scarcely second, in wealth, 
 influence, and the ability to raise armies, to the crown itself, 
 and almost all of them connected by blood with one or other 
 of the claimants, that, in the first instance, they enlisted be¬ 
 tween them, in support of their hostile claims, nearly the whole 
 of the feudal aristocracy, and, through them, nearly the v'hole 
 of the rural population, also, of the kingdom. For many 
 years, the interested passions of the rival nobles; the deadly 
 and vindictive feuds arising from the merciless slaughter, on 
 the field or scaffold, of these aristocratical partisans; and their 
 great influence over their vassals and tenantry, which classes 
 included almost the whole agricultural populace, kept the war 
 alive, and sustained it with unabated vigor; until, when, in 
 1485, the Lancastrian pretender, Henry, earl of Richmond, 
 long an exile in Brittany, having defeated and slain Richard 
 III.. at Bosworth-field, in Leicestershire, the house of York 
 was silenced, at least, if not utterly subdued, by the absence 
 of any male heir, who should support its claims to the throne. 
 By this time, the nobles, utterly enfeebled by their long and 
 vast exertions, decimated by war and execut'ons, and impov¬ 
 erished by confiscations—and the agricultural class, weary 
 2 
 
18 
 
 '■AIl.rRE OF TITLE IN HENRY VII. 
 
 of fruitless slaughter in a cause which had no possible interest 
 for them—were both unable and indisposed to protract this 
 internecine strife to utterance; and, at this crisis, the traders 
 of the towns, the “burgesses” and “commonalty,” recently 
 erected into “ corporations,”* who are always the class most 
 averse to war, as desiring quiet and security, above all things, 
 by means of which to acquire, enjoy, and transmit commercial 
 wealth; and who had never cared much for the questions at 
 issue in this protracted and bootless struggle, now came for 
 ward, and, by their weight, carried the decision in favor of rest, 
 trauquillity, and peace, at all risk of consequences. And this 
 is generally found to be the necessary conclusion of all ques¬ 
 tions, even where vital interests, great principles, and the true 
 liberties of the people are involved ; if, being once fairly left to 
 the arbitrament of the sword, they cannot be resolved by a 
 speedy and decisive victory, final on one side or other, but de¬ 
 generate into a long and exhausting struggle, in the course of 
 which, probably, the first causes are forgotten. Much more, 
 where nothing is at stake but a barren claim of succession, 
 about which, in truth, the people have little reason to feel 
 concern. 
 
 Thus, on the defeat and death of Richard, no opposition of 
 any kind was made to the accession, to the throne of the Plan- 
 tagenets, of Henry, earl of Richmond, though he had no real 
 claim to be considered the heir to the house of Lancaster; 
 which, in its turn, had no real claim to the throne of England, 
 by the laws of primogeniture, or legitimate hereditary descent. 
 To many persons, doubtless, this will appear strange; for so 
 large a majority of English and American general readers de¬ 
 rive their most firmly fixed and clearest ideas, in regard to 
 
 * By ttia ISth of Henry VI. De Lelme, B. 14#. 
 
SONS OF EDWARD TTI. 
 
 19 
 
 English history from the historical plays of Shakspere—who 
 writing in the reign and under the special patronage of Eliza- 
 beth, herself a Tudor, and grand daughter of this very usurper, 
 Henry VII., distorted all facts, and carried all sympathies to 
 the side of the house of Lancaster—that it is usually regarded 
 as the true line; and that of York, as a family of intrusive, 
 lawless, and bloodthirsty usurpers. 
 
 The case, however, is brief, easy, and conclusive; where¬ 
 fore, without farther demur, I shall submit it at once, to my 
 readers, as curious in itself, and as having important bearing 
 on after issues of history. 
 
 On the murder, by Piers Exton, in Pontefract castle, of the 
 weak and hapless Richard II., sole heir of Edward, the Black 
 Prince, eldest son of Edward III., the crown of course de¬ 
 scended to the issue of the collateral branches, being the broth¬ 
 ers of the Black Prince, and sons of Edward III., in regular line 
 of descent. 
 
 The eldest of these princes, Lionel, duke of Clarence, third 
 son of Edward, had left, by his wife Elizabeth de Burgh, 
 one daughter, Philippa ; who married Edmund Mortimer, earl 
 of March, in 1381, and bore him Roger, earl of March. This 
 Roger married Eleonora of Kent, and left one daughter, Anne, 
 countess of March. 
 
 The second prince, John of Ghent, fourth son of Edward 
 —William of Hatfield, the second son, having died an infant— 
 married, as his first wife, Blanch, daughter of Henry, duke 
 of Lancaster, and in her right succeeded to that title. By 
 Blanch, he had Henry of Bolingbroke, carl of Derby and 
 duke of Hereford. John of Ghent subsequently married 
 Blanch, or, as she is sometimes called, Constance, of Castille; 
 and, thirdly, Katharine of Swineford, by whom he had ante 
 
20 
 
 FIRST RUPTURE OF TIIK HOUSE8. 
 
 connubial issue, John, earl of Somerset, Henry, cardinal Beau, 
 fort, Thomas, duke of Exeter, and Joan, who married Ralph 
 Nevil, and was grandmother to Richard, earl of Warwick, the 
 king maker. 
 
 The third, surviving prince, Edmund of Langley, duke of 
 York, fifth son of Edward, married Isabel of Castille, and had 
 by her, Richard, earl of Cambridge, who married his cousin 
 Anne, countess of March, heiress to Lionel of Clarence, 
 third son of Edward. Richard, earl of Cambridge, had, by 
 Anne March, Richard, duke of York, who, by Cicely, daugh¬ 
 ter of Rudolph, earl of Westmoreland, had Henry, who died 
 young ; Edward, afterward King Edward IV.; George, duke 
 of Clarence; Richard of Gloucester, afterward King Richard 
 III.; and Elizabeth. 
 
 At the murder of Richard II., therefore, Richard, duke of 
 York, as heir, through his mother, Anne of March, to Lionel, 
 third sou of Edward III., was the right and legitimate suc¬ 
 cessor to the throne, in preference to Henry of Bolingbroke, 
 who was only heir to the fourth son. 
 
 This was the first division of the kindred houses, and the 
 first usurpation of the crown by the younger line of Lancaster. 
 For, Henry of Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster, having invaded 
 England in arms, being in exile, overturned the government, im 
 prisoned the reigning monarch, and procured himself to be de¬ 
 clared king, by the lords and commons assembled in parlia¬ 
 ment, under the name of Richard II., then a prisoner of state, 
 and shortly afterward assassinated at Pontefract. 
 
 The claim of Henry IV., for under this title he reigned ably, 
 but illegally and tyrannically, during fourteen years, was con¬ 
 stantly disputed, and his reign disturbed by frequent rebellions 
 and armed risings, the most formidable of which was the union 
 
FAILURE OF TIIE CLAIM OF LANCASTER. 
 
 2 
 
 of Hemy Hotspur of Percy, the earl of Douglas, and Owen 
 Glendowcr, of Wales, terminated in favor of Henry, by the 
 bloody battle of Shrewsbury ; but he maintained his title, and 
 left it regularly to his son, Henry V., by his wife, Mary of 
 Bohun, daughter of the earl of Hereford. 
 
 He, after an able, brilliant, and moderate reign, according 
 to the ideas of those times, during which he conquered and 
 held two-thirds of France, left the crown undisputed to his in¬ 
 fant son by Katharine, daughter of Charles VI. of France, 
 Henry of Windsor, sixth king of England, of that name, since 
 the conquest. 
 
 His long minority, the reverses in France, which succeeded 
 to the wise and energetic regency of Bedford, and resulted in 
 the loss of all the French provinces of England, joined to his 
 imbecility of character, irreparable even by the dauntless cour¬ 
 age and strong intellect of his man-minded wife, Margaret of 
 Anjou, gave an occasion, to the wrongfully dispossessed house 
 of York, to throw once more for the crown; and they were 
 not slow to profit by it. 
 
 The intrusive house of Lancaster had now been kings de 
 facto , for a space of fifty-six years, during the last forty of 
 which their claim had been scarcely disputed; and had com¬ 
 menced a dynasty which had already extended to the third 
 prince regnant, and might have been firmly established, had the 
 temper of Henry VI. and his rival been different, or had they 
 changed positions. 
 
 By right of blood, the house of Lancaster had no ciaim, as 
 we have above seen, whatever; although Henry of Boling- 
 broke, evidently aware of the illegality of his title, as by par¬ 
 liamentary election, attempted in his challenge to revive an ab¬ 
 surd and antiquated story, to the effect that Edmund, earl of 
 
22 
 
 TRUE TITLE OF EDWARD IV. 
 
 Lancaster, soi. of Henry III., was really the elder brother ot 
 Edward I., and that, through him, he was the rightful heir to 
 the throne. This attempt, however, was so manifestly futile, 
 and the story On which it was founded so obviously false, that 
 no stress has been laid on it, and it is scarcely named in 
 history. 
 
 The pretended deposition of Richard II. and proclamation of 
 Henry IV , was the work of an assfufablage, utterly unworthy to 
 be styled a parliament, consisting either of open partisans ot Bol- 
 ingbroke, or of men under intimidation from actual force—which 
 was brought into play against the Bishop of Carlisle, who alone 
 had intrepidity to except to their lawless proceedings—and con¬ 
 voked by no legal authority ; since, although the name of the 
 captive king was used for form’s sake, the meeting was really 
 called by Henry, duke of Lancaster, who had no more power 
 to call it than any other peer of the realm ; and this parlia¬ 
 ment, if it should be so called, sat but one day, during which 
 period it deposed one king, and placed another on the throne, 
 having been convened solely for that purpose. 
 
 The rival faction of York, however, now took up arms; and, 
 after much severe fighting, many atrocious cruelties, perpetra¬ 
 ted on both sides, such as the mutilation of the corpse of Rich¬ 
 ard, duke of York, the murder of his son Rutland, by Clifford, 
 and the wholesale executions of the leaders and nobles taken 
 in arms on either side, succeeded in establishing their chief, in 
 the person of Edward IV., son of Richard, duke of York, and 
 grandson of Anne March, whose superior claim to the throne, 
 I have shown above, in possession of the government. 
 
 This bold and politic prince, who possessed in a high degree 
 the affections of the Londoners, and of the burgher class, in 
 general, through the kingdom, whose favor he had conciliated 
 
USURPATION OF GLOUCESTER. 
 
 23 
 
 by his concessions, wise domestic regulations, and foreign ne¬ 
 gotiations in favor of trade, finally defeated and crushed the 
 Lancastrian party, at the second battle of Barnet, where fell 
 Warwick, the king maker, his brother, the earl of Montacute, 
 and the flower of the Norman aristocracy ; which was thence¬ 
 forth so much reduced, that years elapsed before it could again 
 make effectual head against the encroachments, whether of the 
 kings or the commons. 
 
 At his death, which found him in undisputed possession of 
 his crown, he left two sons, Edward V., unmarried, and Rich¬ 
 ard, duke of York, married to Anne of Norfolk ; Elizabeth, 
 subsequently wife of Henry VII.; and four other daughters, 
 Cicely, Bridget, Anne, and Katharine, of whom no more is 
 heard in history, though they formed alliances with English 
 noblemen of rank. 
 
 No sooner was Edward IV. in the grave, than his w r ily, in¬ 
 scrutable, and wholly unscrupulous brother, Gloucester, whom 
 he had himself appointed regent, quarrelled with Dorset, Ri¬ 
 vers, Gray, Hastings, and Stanley, the kinsmen, friends and ad¬ 
 visers of the queen-dowager, brought three of them to the 
 block without form of law, made himself master of the persons 
 of the princes, his nephews, whom he committed to the tower, 
 and procured himself to be nominated protector, by the coun¬ 
 cil, without awaiting the sanction of parliament. After this, 
 impudently alleging that his own mother had been false to his 
 father’s bed, that his elder brothers, Edward IV. and George, 
 duke of Clarence, were illegitimate, with their issue, and that 
 he was himself, therefore, the only true heir, he seized the 
 crown, with no shadow of plea or excuse, no popular con 
 sent, no authority of parliament, no sanction of any kind what¬ 
 
 soever. 
 
24 
 
 LAMBERT SIMNEL AND PERKIN WARBECK. 
 
 The absurd allegations, which he put forth to justify his seiz 
 ure of the royal office, he never attempted to support by any 
 proof, nor were they ever received by the people at large, or 
 by any considerable party in the state. He called no parlia¬ 
 ment for five years; nor did he dare, until all his enemies 
 were either dead, in exile, or prostrate at his feet, to ask the 
 sanction of the houses, intimidated, helpless, and in his power, 
 to his usurpation; though, when asked, they had no choice but 
 to concede it. 
 
 What passed in the interim, is less evident, and is even open 
 to some speculation, if not doubt. The opinion generally re¬ 
 ceived, is that the young princes, Edward and Richard, were 
 smothered in the tower, by three ruffians, Slater, Forrest, and 
 Dighton, under the orders of Tyrrel, appointed to be consta¬ 
 ble of the tower, in lieu of Sir Robert Brackenbury, for that 
 one night, and for that very purpose. It is added, that their 
 bodies were buried very deep, at the foot of the stairs, under 
 a heap of stones; and that, in the reign of Charles II., the 
 bones of two persons, corresponding to the size which might 
 be expected from the reputed age of the princes, were found 
 in that spot, and suitably interred by order of the then 
 king. 
 
 On the contrary, it is certain that Henry VII., after his 
 usurpation and marriage with Elizabeth, in default of heirs 
 male, the inheritrix of the honors of the house of York, hav¬ 
 ing every possible inducement to establish the facts of the de¬ 
 cease of these princes, since their existence would have set 
 aside his claim to succeed, failed, though he caused urgent 
 search to be made in that very place, to discover any relics; 
 nor, arbitrary and cold-booded as he was, and sanctioned in all 
 his aggressions on liberty and law by a timorous and subservi 
 
HFNRY OF RICHMOND NOT HEIR OF LANCASTER. 
 
 25 
 
 ent parliament, did lie ever dare to bring to trial, or punish, 
 any one of the alleged murderers. 
 
 There is also some reason to suspect, that,although the first 
 pretender, Lambert Simnel, was clearly an impostor, the second, 
 Perkin Warbeck, as he was termed, might have been Richard, 
 the duke of York, escaped, as he averred, from the tower. 
 
 There are undoubtedly circumstances connected with his re¬ 
 cognition by many persons, who had sufficient means to be ac¬ 
 quainted with the appearance of Richard, his own mother among 
 the rest, which seem to justify such a surmise ; but, on the other 
 hand, there is as much to be adduced on the opposite side of 
 the question ; and it is more probable he was a bastard of 
 Edward IV. 
 
 The strongest reason for believing that they were actually 
 dealt upon, at the time, if not in the place or manner stated, is 
 this—that all Richard’s actions point to his own conviction of 
 their death, or, at least, non existence. He, at first, married 
 Anne, the widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI.: 
 and, after her death, not without suspicion of foul play, was on 
 the point of marrying Elizabeth, his own niece, and daughter of 
 his brother, Edward IV., from which he was only prevented 
 by the occurrences, which led to another usurpation, less fla¬ 
 grant and impudent only than his own. 
 
 His object in desiring to contract the latter incestuous al¬ 
 liance, was to establish himself on the throne, by a union with 
 the eldest surviving heir of Edward Ill.; and to make Elizabeth 
 such an heiress, the princes must have been by him presumed 
 dead, or otherwise the marriage was useless and absurd, as 
 well as odious and illegal. 
 
 But now came the last usurpation, which placed on the 
 
 throne of England not the house of Lancaster, but that of 
 B 
 
26 
 
 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. 
 
 Tudor ; and which, with the subsequent marriage of the 
 usurper, constituted his son, Henry VIII.. the subject of my 
 present memoir, legitimate and very king of Enlgand. 
 
 1 have shown above, on pages nineteen and twenty, that the 
 house of Lancaster had no valid title to the throne, as against 
 the house of York, the former being descended from the fourth, 
 the latter from the second son of King Edward III. I shall 
 now proceed to show' that Henry of Richmond had no title 
 to be held heir, even to the secondary house of Lancaster. 
 
 A Iter the death of Henry VI. and his son EH ward, prince 
 of Wales, the legitimate issue of J< ha_of Ghent, by Blanch 
 o£ Lancaster, xver, extinct. By Blanch, or Constance, of Cas- 
 tille, he had Katharine, who married King Henry III. ofCastille, 
 and appears no farther in English history. By Katharine of 
 Swineford, while his mistress, he had illegitimate issue, among 
 others, John Beaufort, earl of Somerset 
 
 It is but right, here, to admit that Richard II. granted, with 
 the authority of parliament, a charter legitimating these bas¬ 
 tards ; but it is clear that this was, on its face, an ex post facto 
 law; and no ex post facto law, legitimating bastards, or bas¬ 
 tardizing legitimate heirs, could stand for a moment, even as 
 to the inheritance of private property, much less in the succes¬ 
 sion to a crown. 
 
 Yet, on this wretched assumption, rests his only shadow of 
 pretense to the crown. 
 
 After the death of King Henry V., the conqueror of France, 
 nis wife, Katharine of Valois, now the widowed mother of 
 Henry VI., married, in second wedlock, Owen Tudor, a pri¬ 
 vate gentleman of Wales. To him she bore Edmund Tudor, 
 earl of K'hmond, uterine brother to Henry VI., but of no 
 earthly kin to the house of Lancaster. 
 
DEATH OF RICHARD III. 
 
 27 
 
 This Edmund Tudor married Margaret, daughter of John, 
 earl of Somerset and Kendal, and granddaughter of the bas¬ 
 tard, John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, son of John of Ghent 
 and Katharine of Svvineford. 
 
 Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort had issue, in the per¬ 
 son of Henry, earl of Richmond, afterward Ilenry Vll. of Er. 
 gland, and father of my hero. 
 
 His pedigree was in every way vitiated ; on his father’s 
 side he was of no kin to either royal house; on his mother’s, 
 his descent was null by the bar or baton of bastardy. 
 
 The true heiress to the throne was, beyond question, Eliza¬ 
 beth of York ; and, failing herself and her issue, then each one 
 in succession of her sisters, Cicely 7 , Bridget, Anne, and Katha¬ 
 rine, and their issue ; and even, if the pedigree of Margaret 
 Beaufort had been clear of stain, her son Henry could by no 
 means have succeeded, during the lifetime of his mother. 
 
 Notwithstanding this defect, or, to speak more correctly, this 
 total absence of right, in his title, no sooner did Richmond land at 
 Milford Haven, in his native Wales, than the leaders of the old 
 Lancastrian party flocked to his standard in arms. The earl 
 of Oxford, Sir Gilbert Talbot, Sir Walter Savage, and Jasper 
 Tudor, earl of Pembroke, joined him at once and openly. Sir 
 Rice ap Thomas deserted to him, with Richard’s new Welsh 
 levies, and Lord Stanley, who was in command of a large force, 
 nominally in arms for York, awaited only an occasion for be¬ 
 traying him. 
 
 They met at Bosworth-field, where, by Stanley’s defection 
 at the very crisis of the day, the victory 7 was decided for 
 Henry. Richard died fighting with courage worthy of a better 
 cause ; he killed Sir Henry Brandon, Henry’s standard-bearer, 
 unhorsed Sir John Cheney 7 with his own hand, and was on the 
 
28 
 
 henry’s alleged titles. 
 
 point of bringing Richmond to the arbitrament of a personal 
 conflict, when he would probably have determined the for¬ 
 tunes of the day by his rival’s death. But, at this moment, 
 Stanley’s men treacherously falling on his flank and rear, he 
 was overwhelmed by numbers, and killed by an unknown 
 hand. 
 
 The victory of Richmond was disgraced by the dishonora¬ 
 ble treatment of Richard’s corpse, which was paraded, naked 
 and covered with blood, thrown carelessly across a pack-horse, 
 through the streets of Leicester; and by the barbarous execu¬ 
 tions of the adherents of the house of York, which can be palli 
 ated by no principle of justice or even of vengeance; since it 
 can never be held a crime in the subject of any government, 
 de facto, to defend that government by force of arms against 
 a foreign invader. 
 
 The battle being won, Henry of Richmond was hailed, it 
 would seem, “by a natural and unpremeditated movement”* 
 of the soldiers, with acclamations of “Long live King Henry 
 VII.!” and Sir William Stanley crowned him, on the field,f 
 with a circlet of precious stones, which had been worn, as 
 was then not unusual, by Richard, on his basnet, and was ta¬ 
 ken, as spolia opima, from his corpse. 
 
 The acclamatory election by the soldiery, and the extern 
 pore coronation by a bloody-handed captain, fresh from a base 
 treason, had been all well enough for a Roman imperator, or 
 a wild champion of the Goths, but was scarcely valid, as a title 
 
 * Hume, Hist Eng, iii, 1. 
 
 t As at the batile of Beauge, in France, where the Duke of Clarence wore t Jew 
 Bled crown on his casque. 
 
 “ When Swinton laid the lance in rest 
 Which tamed, of yore, the sparkling crest 
 Of Clarence's Plantaganet"— Soott. 
 
29 
 
 henry's alleged titles. 
 
 1 
 
 to the. crown of already constitutional England. Some other 
 plea had to be sought, therefore, for this high-handed usurpa¬ 
 tion, and although no opposition was offered to the usurper, it 
 was long ere he could discover one which seemed, even to 
 himself, satisfactory or sufficient. 
 
 There were, it seems, three or four pleas* on which Henry 
 might have attempted to rest a claim. First, on the actual 
 right of the house of Lancaster; but this claim, originating as 
 it did, in Henry IV., who had never clearly defined his pre¬ 
 tensions, while at the same time, he had avoided to rest his 
 title on popular election, was not sufficiently tenable; the 
 rather that Henry was not the true heir of Lancaster, the Som¬ 
 erset line having been totally ignored in all settlements of the 
 crown, even by their own party, until the failure of the legiti¬ 
 mate succession. 
 
 Secondly, he might have rested on the recognition of the 
 house of Lancaster as the true house, by several parliaments ; 
 but such acts of recognition were so clearly of a partisan 
 character, that no reliance could be placed on them ; the rather 
 that they had been regularly annulled by other parliaments, 
 whenever the Yorkists came into temporary power; and, 
 again, the flaws in his own Lancastrian descent militated against 
 this title. 
 
 Thirdly, he might have urged his title on the plea of right 
 by conquest; but against this, first, stood the fact, that his vic¬ 
 torious army consisted mainly of Englishmen, who could not 
 be said to have conquered the eFown of England ; and, second, 
 the extreme odiousness of the plea of right by conquest, in¬ 
 sulting aP the patriotic feelings of the entire nation; a plea which 
 
 Hume, In Henry VII., voL lit. p. 27, fa 
 
30 
 
 HENRY KING BY POSSESSION. 
 
 even William of Normandy, at the head of his victorious for 
 eign army, dared not to assert, until he was fully established 
 on the throne, and the realm pacified. 
 
 Fourthly, he might have claimed the crown fairly , in right 
 of Elizabeth of York, had he married her instantly, as he had 
 pledged himself to do. But he had no idea of holding the 
 crown, only under the limited rights of king consort, and was 
 resolved to be himself king of England. 
 
 To this end, when he entered London, amid the acclama¬ 
 tions and rejoicings of the fickle populace, weary of war and 
 bloodshed, anxious above all things for repose, and naturally 
 attracted by the charm which invests a ysung and victorious 
 prince, he summoned a parliament, and procured his recogni¬ 
 tion as “ king in possession,” and an entail of the crown, couched 
 in words which equally avoided the assertion of a previous he¬ 
 reditary right, and the appearance of a new ordinance, no men 
 tion being made in it of the princess, Elizabeth of York, or 
 any of her family. 
 
 •‘The parliament* voted simply, ‘that the inheritance of 
 the crown should rest, remain, and abide in the king;’ but 
 whether as rightful heir, or only as present possessor, was not 
 determined.” 
 
 In like manner, though the crown was settled on the heirs 
 of the body of the king, no attempt was made, in the case of 
 their failure, to exclude the house of York, or to give prece¬ 
 dence to that of Lancaster; the king politicly preferring to 
 leave that question ambiguous. 
 
 Henry of Richmond was crowned King Henry VII., by 
 Cardinal Bourchier, archbishop of Canterbury; he shortly after 
 ward married Elizabeth, the heiress of York ; and, in the fol- 
 
 • Hume, In Henry VII., vol. ill. p. 9. 
 
CRUEL ACTS OF ATTAINDER, 
 
 SI 
 
 lowing year, as if, after all his precautions, lie was sti’l unsat¬ 
 isfied with the validity of his own title, he obtained fr m Pope 
 Innocent VIII. a bull confirmatory of it. In this dor .ment, all 
 his titles, by succession, marriage, parliamentary ioice, and 
 conquest, are enumerated ; and the thunders of tb church are 
 launched “ against every one* who should seek tc disturb him¬ 
 self in the present possession, or the heirs of f s body in the 
 future succession, of the crown.” 
 
 His first regal act, by consent of parliament, was the rever¬ 
 sal of all the attainders passed by preceding parliaments against 
 the adherents of the house of Laucaster; but this deed of grace 
 and justice he sullied bj' procuring the passage of acts of at¬ 
 tainder against the late king himself, against the Duke of Nor¬ 
 folk, the Earl of Surrey, the Lords Lovel, Zouch, and Ferrars 
 of Chartley, and some thirty knights and gentlemen, who had 
 fought on the side of the late king at Bosworth—an act equally 
 unjust, inexpedient, and injurious to the popularity with which 
 Henry began his reign. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable, that in this very king’s reign, 
 and by his complaisant and servile parliament, a statute was 
 passed—2 Henry VII. c. 1—clearly recognizing the wicked¬ 
 ness and injustice of such retributory penalties ;f “by which 
 a shield was acquired against the violence and vengeance of fac¬ 
 tions, and the civil duty of allegiance was placed on a just foun¬ 
 dation, by destroying the distinction between governments 'de 
 jure ’ and l de fade ' 
 
 “ It enacts that no person, who in arms or otherwise assists 
 ..he king, for the time being, should afterward be convicted or 
 
 * flnmo, in Ilenry VII., voi. ill. p. 9. 
 
 t Stephens on the hnglish Constitution, voL 1, ohap. vi, p. 154-5. This statute was 
 %eted on by William and Mary, in 16S9. 
 
32 
 
 HIS CONDUCT AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 attainted thereof, as of an offense, by course of law, or by act 
 of parliament,^and all process and acts of parliament to the 
 contrary should be void.” 
 
 In order to avoid protracting this preliminary notice 
 which will be found absolutely necessary for the comprelien 
 sion of the occurrences of the reign of Henry VIII., and of the 
 causes which enabled him to ride, as it were, rough-shod over 
 all the prejudices and predilections, religious and political, all 
 the liberties and most of the laws, of a people, free aud ordi¬ 
 narily tenacious of its rights, privileges, and customs—I shall 
 proceed to quote a few passages from Stephens’ History of the 
 British Constitution, which, while admirably portraying the 
 character of Henry VII., the nature of his aggressions, and the 
 means by which he effected them, show also conclusively the 
 effects of these on the temper of the English nation, and 
 preclude the necessity of entering into minute historical par 
 ticulars. 
 
 ‘•Henry VII.,” says he* “ a creature of the people, had beeu 
 raised to the throne, in order to cut up the roots of faction, to 
 restore public tranquillity, and to establish a legal government 
 on the ruins of tyranny. 
 
 “ He did the very reverse of this; his reign and that of his 
 son have been two of the severest under which our country 
 hath groaned; aud yet in these very reigns, the foundations of 
 liberty were laid much broader and stronger than ever. 
 
 “The king, under the pretext of establishing liberty, ob¬ 
 tained an ascendency over the deliberations of the commons, 
 and as practical proofs of the sincerity of his ‘liberal profes¬ 
 sions’ to his ‘liberal friends,’ procured the powers of th Star 
 
 Stephens, Brit Conet, vol. vl., p. 151, et seq. 
 
EXTORTIONS OF HENRY VII. 
 
 33 
 
 chamber, and causelessly procured numerous bills of attainder, 
 in order to gratify his hateful prejudices. 
 
 “The increased powers of the estates of parliament are 
 evinced by their vesting the crown in Henry VII., without al¬ 
 leging any title in him to that crown, by inheritance, election, 
 or otherwise. 
 
 “ This had the effect of exalting the authority of the com¬ 
 mons, and Henry availed- himself of such authority, by exer¬ 
 cising all his tyrannical acts through their instrumentality; in 
 fact, both united in one common object, namely to destroy the 
 influence of the peers. 
 
 “The facilities, which had been given to the lords to alienate 
 their lands, united with the enlargement of commerce and nav¬ 
 igation, had increased the property of the commons, and con¬ 
 sequently their power in the state; but, as the nobility de¬ 
 creased, the tyranny of the king and commons increased, and 
 to a much more dangerous extent than it had ever done under 
 the feudal laws. ******** 
 
 “ In the house of lords the influence of the crown was al¬ 
 ways predominant, the number of temporal peers having, du¬ 
 ring this reign, averaged about forty,* and at the commence¬ 
 ment not so many ; the spiritual lords having been therefore 
 always the majority of the house. 
 
 “ Henry VII. proceeded, as he had been suffered to set out, 
 and established by degrees, and those not slow, a power almost 
 absolute. By making an ill use of this power, the king was 
 
 •The number of barons summoned to parliament In the reign of Edward L, and 
 In the first years of Edward II.,—in whoso Close Roll, 15 Ed. II., tbe earls and ba¬ 
 rons are first called “ Peers of the land " —averaged about eighty. 
 
 The house of lords In the first parliament of Richard II., consisted of the archbish¬ 
 ops, bishops, twenty-two abbots, two priors, one duke, thirteen earls, forty-seven ha- 
 -ons, twelve judges and privy counsellors. — Ougilale'n Summons , Cf>9 
 
34 
 
 EXTORTIONS OF HENRY VII. 
 
 the real author of all the disorders in the state, and of all the 
 attempts against his government ; and yet, the better to pre¬ 
 vent such disorders and to resist such attempts, further powers 
 were entrusted to him. 
 
 “ Because he had governed ill, it was put in his power to 
 govern worse; and liberty was undermined for fear it should 
 be overthrown. It hath fared sometimes with monarchy as it 
 hath with the church of Rome; both have acquired greater 
 wealth and power by the abuse of what they had; and man¬ 
 kind have been egregiously the bubbles of both.” 
 
 After proceeding to point out the adoption by this monarch, 
 Henry VII., of the “unfair system of benevolences or contri¬ 
 butions,” which gifts, though apparently voluntary, were extor¬ 
 tions; his unceasing and oppressive efforts to amass treasure, 
 by every alteration of the laws, by prosecutions upon old and 
 forgotten penal statutes, by perversion of the feudal rights, by 
 the imposition of excessive fines on king’s wards, by the pros¬ 
 titution of justice and commutation of punishments for a price, 
 and by the open sale of every office in his court, and of the 
 highest dignities in the church,—Stephens concludes by ob¬ 
 serving, with his usual shrewdness and pith—“ These extor¬ 
 tions and corruptions contributed to the unpopularity of Hen 
 ry, and answered the end of invigorating his power; they were 
 tolerated by the commons, because the fines and forfeitures im¬ 
 poverished and intimidated the nobility.” 
 
 The same writer says, quoting from Hume, “ It has, how¬ 
 ever, been justly observed, that the measures of parliament, 
 during this age, furnish us with examples of a strange contrast 
 of freedom and servility. They scruple to grant, and some¬ 
 times refuse, to the king the smallest supplies, the most ne- 
 oessarv for the support of the government, even the most ne- 
 
HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 35 
 
 cessary for the maintenance of wars, fot which the nation, as 
 well a3 the parliament itself, expressed great fondness; but 
 they never scruple to concur in the most flagrant act of injus¬ 
 tice or tyranny which falls on any individual, however distiii 
 guised by birth or merit. 
 
 “These maxims, so ungenerous, so opposite to all principles 
 of good government, so contrary to the practice of present 
 parliaments, are very remarkable in all the transactions of the 
 English history for more than a century after the period in 
 which we are now engaged.”* 
 
 Finally, he closes his relation of the enactments, laws, inno 
 vations, and policy of the reign of this cold-blooded and un- 
 / principled man and king, by these striking words • 
 
 “ The only objects of Henry VII. were, per fas aut nefas, to 
 maintain the possession of the throne, depress the nobility, and 
 exalt the prerogative ; these he pursued without being blinded 
 V_ by passion, relaxed by indolence, or misled by vanity.” 
 
 And this brings me to the period when the first prince of 
 the house of Tudor, who had ascended the throne, as it were, 
 by acclamation and among the loud joy of the people, de¬ 
 parted from it and life together, amid their far more general 
 and, if not louder, infinitely sincerer rejoicings. He was a 
 selfish, cold-blooded, far-sighted, clear-headed, avaricious, and 
 unfeeling man—a politic, wise, energetic, able, sleepless, grasp 
 ing, and oppressive king. 
 
 Publicly and privately, with the exception of his own son 
 and successor, he was the most reckless and cruellest, with the 
 
 < exception of James, the first English king of the Scottish house 
 of Stuart, the basest-minded, and altogether, from nis con- 
 
 * Rlohard IIL, 14S8, 1485. 
 
36 
 
 DEPRESSION OF THE NOBLES. 
 
 stimulate craft and total lack of passion, the most dangerous 
 tyrant, who ever sat upon the throne of England. 
 
 It may be added here, not inappropriately, that the syste¬ 
 matic depression of the nobles and of the aristocratic branch 
 of the legislature, by the seventh and eighth Henrys, by the 
 arbitrary and self-willed, but lion-hearted, Elizabeth, and by 
 that odious, contemptible, and beastly pedant, sot, catamite, 
 and coward, James I., was severely avenged on their posterity, 
 in the persons of the two Charles Stuarts, when they found 
 to their fate, that the peerage had lost its power to stand be¬ 
 tween the crown and the aggressions of the people, as it had 
 been previously robbed of that, to stand between the individ¬ 
 ual and the tyranny of the crown. 
 
-vf 
 
 n 
 
 HENRY THE EIGHTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROM HIS ACCESSION, 1609, TO THE GENERAL PACIFICATION, 1618. 
 
 On the 22d day of April, 1509, King Henry VII., who had 
 ascended the throne of England twenty-four years before, amid 
 the acclamations of a whole people, almost unanimously hail¬ 
 ing him as the man of a new era, and the founder of a new 
 epoch, died in the midst of joy far more general, sincere and 
 better founded than that which had greeted his accession. 
 
 On that same 22d of April, 1509, his son, King Henry VIII. 
 ascended the same puissant seat, among the same joy, the same 
 acclamations, under far brighter auspices, far loftier promise, 
 in his turn to die, after a reign of thirty-seven years, on the 
 28th day of January, 1547, amid the undissembled rejoicings 
 of the most loyal people in the world, alienated from the true 
 affections, which they bore him, by tyranny, cruelty, crime, 
 happily unexampled in Europe, unless we return to the days 
 of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian. 
 
 For the oppressions, bad as they were, of the seventh Hen¬ 
 ry, there are palliations, if not excuses, to be found in the cir¬ 
 cumstances, both antecedent and subsequent to his seizure of 
 the throne. Even for his seizure of it there was some shadow 
 of apology. 
 
 England, al the period of his invasion, was groan ng under 
 the usurped rule 
 
 Of an untitled tyrant, bloody aceptered;" 
 
38 
 
 ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 the true heiress to the crown was a weak girl, who, even if it 
 had been possible for her to attain her rights, could by no 
 conceivable chance have governed the turbulent spirits of the 
 two rival factions, which, for well nigh a century, had torn the 
 intestines of their native land; and he himself, if not the le¬ 
 gitimate heir, had in some degree been led to regard himself 
 as such, and was, it must be admitted, the only living person 
 who could be hoped- to unite such a force under his banners 
 as to rescue England, and when rescued, to give her peace, 
 repose, and the blessings of a permanent and just government. 
 
 That he did not, scarcely made a show even of doing, this 
 latter is his crime and his disgrace; but it must be remem¬ 
 bered— 
 
 That he ascended the throne under these difficulties— He 
 ascended it, at the best, with a doubtful and disputed title; 
 with powerful, greedy, and clamorous partisans, to be concili¬ 
 ated and preserved only by rewards, necessarily more or less 
 illegal; with active and formidable enemies to be suppressed ; 
 with a flagrant feeling of wrongs to be avenged. 
 
 Throughout his whole reign he felt his occupancy of his 
 throne and the permanency of his race at least doubtful. To 
 secure both he took all means, by overpowering enemies, 
 quelling the free spirit of the people, amassing treasures, 
 whereby to weigh down opposition. That he should do so, 
 was natural in itself; that he did so, wrongfully, oppressively, 
 illegally, and heartlessly, was his sin and his shame, and the 
 consequence was not wanting? 
 
 He died the wealthiest, probably the most powerful, assu¬ 
 redly the most detested, prince in Europe. 
 
 His son succeeded him, with the gayest and most glorious 
 auguries that ever lighted a young heir to royalty. There 
 
HIS QUALITIES AND OCCASIONS. 
 
 39 
 
 was not one cloud to cast a shadow upon the sunshine of his 
 promise. 
 
 His title was undisputed, his crown his by right, as in fact, and 
 as by the universal consent of the people, ^over whom God in 
 his wonderful wisdom permitted him to reign. lie had no 
 hatreds, public or domestic, to gratify, no injuries to avenge, 
 no feuds to cherish, no onerous benefits to repay, no clamorous 
 adherents to conciliate or satisfy. He was in the flower of 
 youth, just entering his eighteenth year; overflowing with 
 health and animal spirits ; handsome, of royal port and manly 
 stature of the largest mould ;* expert in all graceful and ath¬ 
 letic exercises; blessed with an education,! most rare for 
 princes or nobles in those days, and entitled to be held learned, 
 even among men of uncommon learning. 
 
 He possessed a bold, frank, open address, which ever wins 
 favor from the people; he had a ready wit; was not without that 
 sort of bluff and burly good humor arising, in truth, only from 
 a sense of well-being and self-gratification, which so often 
 
 * Sir Henry Halford, who examined tho remains of Henry VIII. in bis coffin— 
 when it was discovered, during the search made by George IV. for the remains of 
 Charles I., broken open, probably, at the interment of that monarch — was as¬ 
 tonished at the extraordinary size and power of his preserved frame, which was 
 well suited to his enormous arm-chair, said to bo at Windsor. He resembled the 
 colossal figure of his grandfather, Edward IV., who was six feet two inches in height, 
 and possessed of tremendous strongth. — A Tote to Miss Strickland's Queens of En¬ 
 gland, -col. ii. p. 285. 
 
 t His education was accurate, being destined (its a credible author affirms) to the 
 archbishopric of Canterbury, during the life of his elder brother. Prince Arthur; 
 tnat prudent king, his father, choosing this as the most cheap and glorious way for 
 bestowing a younger son. For as he at once disburdened his revenues and the pub¬ 
 lic from the charge incident to so great a person, so he left a passage open to ambi¬ 
 tion; ever since Eugenius, 4, had declared the place of a cardinal above all other in 
 the church. * * * * By these means, not only the more necessary parts of 
 
 learning were infused into him, hut even those of ornament; so that besides his 
 being an able Latinist, philosopher, and divine, he was (what one might wonder at 
 in a king) a carious musician ; as two entire masses, composed by him, and often 
 •ling in his chapel, did abundantly witness.— Lord Herbert of Cherbury, pp. 8-4. 
 
40 
 
 INCONSISTENCY OF HENRY’S CAREER. 
 
 passes in the great for goodness of heart; and was abundantly 
 liberal, even to lavish profusion, which, of all qualities in 
 princes, most challenges the admiration, and purchases the af¬ 
 fection of the masses. 
 
 In view of his occasions, his personal capacities, his acquired 
 qualifications, the real grandeur of his position, which had no 
 single draw-back, and his general popularity with all classes 
 and estates of the realm, it may be safely said, that no mon¬ 
 arch ever climbed the steps of state with such opportunities 
 of real utility, greatness, and goodness, of living rich in a 
 people’s love, and dying with an immortal name, as Henry 
 VIII. of England. 
 
 “ It is not easy,” say s Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in his exor¬ 
 dium to the history of King Henry VIII., “to write that 
 prince’s history, of whom no one thing may be constantly af¬ 
 firmed. Changing of manners and condition alters that co¬ 
 herence of parts which should give an uniform description ; 
 nor is it probable that contradictories should agree to the 
 same person. So that nothing can shake the credit of a narra¬ 
 tion more, than if it grow unlike itself; when yet, it may 
 be, not the author, but argument caused the variation. It is 
 impossible to draw his picture well who hath several coun¬ 
 tenances. 
 
 “ I shall labor with this difficulty in King Henry VllL ; not 
 yet so much for the general observation among politics, that the 
 government of princes rarely grows milder toward their latter 
 end; but that this king, in particular, being, about his decli¬ 
 ning age, so different in many of his desires, as that he knew 
 not well how either to command or obey them, interverted 
 all, falMug at the Inst, into such violent courses, as in common 
 
GRADUAL DETERIORATION. 
 
 41 
 
 opinion derogated not a little from those virtues which at f rst 
 made him one of the most renowned princes of Christendom.” 
 
 There is not, however, so much to be admired at in the de¬ 
 clension of Henry VIII. as it would seem to have appeared to 
 his quaint and eccentric biographer; for, according to the 
 views in which I see his vicious and loathsome character, I can 
 discover nothing beyond an original proclivity to evil, increas¬ 
 ing gradually, through self-indulgence, through entire absence 
 of all governance or restraint by himself or others, through 
 almost absolute power of self-gratification, and through the 
 basest adulation of all around him, until everything that there 
 had existed in him of relatively good was merged in a slough 
 of sensuality, selfishness, self-sufficiency, and disregard to all 
 but his own pleasures; and he became a mere slave to his 
 vile lusts and unbridled passions. 
 
 This is but the common course of daily human nature. 
 The first sin, before the commission of which’ the novice 
 shrinks and trembles, essayed, repeated, unresisted, followed 
 by no sensible retribution, become habitual, is but the intro¬ 
 ducer to another, to a thousand others, each uglier than the 
 last, until the consequential train of that first trivial-seeming 
 
 error 1ms swollen into a burthen of millstone offences that 
 
 « 
 
 might suffice to unsphere and sink the brightest star of honor 
 To me there are discoverable none of those varieties of counte 
 nance, of which the historian speaks, in the hideous picture ol 
 Henry’s career of lust and cruelty. Only that gradual dark 
 ening of the first faint glimmer of light, if any light can be found 
 in the beginning, until the whole is utter darkness. 
 
 No one, as the Roman satirist declared, having the Roman 
 Nero in his eye, can be entirely infamous from the first; 
 crime must be hatched out of sin, and brooded by indulgence. 
 
42 
 
 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 The soul must be hardened and annealed by successive and 
 progressive heatings of the furnace before it can acquire that 
 temper which can defy all impress of nature, virtue, or human¬ 
 ity. It is only the superficial observer, who mistakes the ab¬ 
 sence of active vice for the reality of actual virtue, that is as¬ 
 tonished at the alteration, at the regular but rapid deteriora¬ 
 tion of character in the career, whether of the English or the 
 Roman Nero. 
 
 But from theorizing on the principles involved, I will turn 
 at once to the display of the facts of his career. 
 
 He ascended the throne of England, as I have stated, in the 
 eighteenth year of his age, at the commencement of a great 
 epoch in the world’s history, and in an era distinguished by 
 more great names of greatest men contemporaneous, and great¬ 
 est events crowding each one the other out of notice, than any 
 that had occurred before, since the fall of the Roman empire, 
 or has occurred since, until the end of the eighteenth and com 
 mencement of the nineteenth centuries. 
 
 < Less than forty years before his birth, in 1455, the first bi- * 
 ble had been printed at Mentz; and books which, multiplied 
 only by the slow and painful art of the copyist, were previously 
 valued at almost their weight in gold, and were attainable 
 only by the greatest and most wealthy, became so general that 
 the truth could no longer be concealed from the masses, whether 
 for good or for evil, nor darkness any more usurp the place of 
 light 
 
 -f. When he was but one year old, America was rediscovered 
 by Christopher Columbus, who, as the phrase went in those 
 days, gave a new world to Castille and Leon ; and to the nig¬ 
 gard and unkingly avarice of his father, Henry VII., alone,is it 
 to be ascribed that those vast realms of tropical fertility and 
 
43 
 
 #> 
 
 REFORMATION AND EXTINCTION OF CHIVALRY. 
 
 auriferous wealth, now slowly but surely dropping from the 
 hands of the degenerate Spanish race which first won them, 
 had noc fallen, on their first discovery, to that great and ener 
 getic Anglo-Norman tribe, which now seems destined one day 
 M? possess them. 
 
 — Ten years after he ascended the throne. Luther began to 
 preach against the sale of indulgences and the supremacy of 
 the pope; began to sow the seeds of that wondrous and bene¬ 
 ficent revolution, in which Henry himself, unwittingly as un¬ 
 willingly, and through the instigation of his odious lusts, the 
 agency of his atrocious cruelties, was destined to play so im¬ 
 portant, and, had he but played it knowingly and faithfully, so 
 magnificent a part. 
 
 Five years yet later, when he had ruled England only fifteen 
 years of the thirty-seven during which he oppressed her throne 
 with the weight of his bloody tyranny/chivalry fought its last 
 fight, and found its grave at Marignano and Pavia; and gun¬ 
 powder decided that the steel-clad cavalry of the feudal aristoc¬ 
 racies should no longer override the people, and decide the 
 fate of nations, by the shock of their lances and the clang of 
 their iron horsedioofs. 
 
 Four new powers, in the world, within the space in which 
 one man creeps from his cradle to his grave ! And what four 
 powers!—each mightier in itself and in its consequences, than 
 all which the intellect of man had developed, in all the antece¬ 
 dent centuries—each in itself sufficient to have revolutionized 
 the world, and recreated a new society ; and, when all four 
 united, incapable of what 1 
 
 A new power of the intellect, giving ubiquitous expansion, 
 everlasting life, incompressible circulation, to all other pow 
 
44 
 
 GROWING POWER OF THE MASSES. 
 
 ers it had before, or should invent hereafter; making knowl¬ 
 edge omnipresent, light instantaneous, truth universal. 
 
 / A new world, destined from its very origin to invent, to 
 imagine, to aim at, to compass all things new; ideas, govern¬ 
 ments, liberties, religions, theories; to strike at all things old, 
 loyalties, hierarchies, venerations, superstitions, creeds ; and to 
 strike down many of them; many of them it may be, for 
 good ; many, it is to be feared, for evil. 
 
 A new power of religion, shaking the world of ancient error 
 to its foundations; tearing the black veil of abominable dark¬ 
 ness with which a tyrannous and polluted church had enshrouded 
 its light, from before the sanctuary ; proclaiming the inviola¬ 
 bility of conscience; the responsibility of the individual man 
 to his God, and the accessibility of God to the individual man, 
 apart from the mutterings of any earthly confessional, or the 
 indulgence of any mortal mediator or dispenser. 
 
 A new power in war, equalizing the weak with the strong, 
 the peaceful with the warlike; snatching the sway of battles 
 from the fierce nobles, who had monopolized it for centuries, 
 with their iron squadrons; and giving it to the yeoman and 
 the hunter, to the humble infantry of the masses. 
 
 Four powers, all tending to one eud, the perfect establish¬ 
 ment of perfect liberty and truth; and yet by what unhal¬ 
 lowed means, by what unholy instruments, through what vicis 
 situdes, by what men! 
 
 What men, indeed ! Of what other king, save Henry VI1L 
 of England, can we summon up such contemporaries? In 
 Germany, Charles V. In France, Francis I. In Spain, Fer¬ 
 dinand and Isabella. In the Papal chair, Leo X. In the Sub 
 lime Porte, Solyman the Magnificent. And, as the inferior 
 persons, yet real powers of the states, and motors of the masses, 
 
WARS OF THE PLANTAGEKETS. 
 
 45 
 
 Columbu-i, Luther, Wolsey, Calvin, Cranmer—when will the 
 world again behold such men combined, and such a crisis 1 
 And yet what part do we find Henry playing, which side buck¬ 
 lering, on this great stage, in this mighty conflict of opinions, 
 causes, principles 1 What part worthy of a man exceedingly 
 superior in natural qualifications, and splendidly endowed with 
 artificial acquirements—what side worthy of the king of a na¬ 
 tion, free, as freedom went in those days, intelligent, enlight¬ 
 ened, and earnest in the question ] The answer is brief and 
 ready. At the head of a powerful and united nation, secured, 
 as one would have thought, from all danger of collision with 
 his Scottish neighbors, by the marriage of his eldest sister, 
 Margaret, to the king, Janies IV., of that brave and restless 
 nation, possessing the richest treasury in Europe, in command 
 of the finest infantry in the world, which had never failed in 
 the time of direst need, and of a chivalry second to none, 
 Henry was the first English monarch who ever designedly and 
 avowedly interfered, as an European power, in the politics of 
 the continent. 
 
 The kings, his predecessors, the lion-hearted and iron-handed 
 Plantagenets, had indeed, waged bloody wars in France; and 
 on more than one occasion had given the English banners to 
 wave in Spanish and Burgundian breezes ; but their efforts 
 against France were personal, their hostility partaking the 
 character of a family feud, and their cause of war originating 
 in the maintenance, vindication, or recovery of their provinces 
 of Normandy, Brittany, hereditary appanages of the crown, 
 from the time ol the conqueror, and of Anjou and Guienne, 
 acquired by intermarriage with the heiresses of those states or 
 counties. Their incursions into Spain, Holland, or the Low- 
 Countries, had arisen from casual and capricious alliances with 
 
46 
 
 HIS WANT OF FOLIC r. 
 
 various princes at varimfe times, always having some refeience 
 to their traditional Enemies beyond the channel. All their 
 continental enterprises, in fact, with the exception of their per¬ 
 sistence in their claim to the Anglo-French demesnes, had 
 borne more the character of angry and predatory incursions 
 than of wars undertaken on any settled principles. 
 
 Henry now advanced his claim to be heard in Europe, as a 
 voice potential; and, owing to his insular and almost inaccessi¬ 
 ble position at home, to his brave and powerful armies, to his 
 great resources, and unbounded popularity in England, he 
 might have acted as arbiter and umpire between all the con¬ 
 flicting parties, the two most powerful, France and Spain, most 
 easily; and, holding that eminent position, might have pro¬ 
 cured for himself and his country, at no expense, whether of 
 wealth or blood, all the advantages to be obtained by wasteful 
 and needless wars. 
 
 Instead of this, urged by vanity rather than ambition, by 
 recklessness rather than policy, he kept the country involved 
 in constant warfare, now on the French, now on the Spanish 
 side; now aiding the pope, now the Protestant princes of the 
 Smalcaldic league, with absolute inconsistency and total want 
 of either scheme or principle. It may be safely said, that uot 
 one of the wars in which he lavished all his hereditary treas¬ 
 ures, all the subsidies that he wuld by any means extort from 
 his people, until from the wealthiest he declined into the poor¬ 
 est prince of Europe, was undertaken in accordance with any 
 national necessity, any sound principle of English or European 
 policy, was closed with any gain either of advantage or honor,' 
 or was in any wise productive either of real or reputed good 
 to himself or to his people. I do not, of course, allude to his 
 war with the Scots, which was forced upon him, not sought 
 
REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. 
 
 47 
 
 and which would probably never have been undertaken, had 
 he remained at peace within his own dominions, whence no 
 cause but his own reekless vanity had called him to commence 
 an onslaught on France, which had, from the earliest times, 
 maintained the closest intimacy and alliance with the Scottish 
 princes of the house of Stuart, with whom she was closely con¬ 
 nected in her blood-royal. 
 
 In the like manner, in the mighty earthquake of the Refor¬ 
 mation, his policy was vacillating, his purpose null, his weight 
 thrown away, until, when at length it was cast into the bal¬ 
 ance, and instantly bore down in the scale the arrogant assump¬ 
 tions of the Papal See, and raised the mounting principles of 
 liberty and conscience to the skies, it did so not only without 
 his hearty accession, but in spite of his fierce prejudices and 
 cruel opposition to the cause which he obliquely and unin 
 tentionally favored, only because to do so favored his own 
 sensuality. 
 
 Not to anticipate, however, it appears that on his first ac¬ 
 cession to the throne, he submitted himself for a time to the 
 guidance of his paternal grandmother, the countess of Rich¬ 
 mond and Derby, and by her advice retained the old advisers 
 of the king as his council. These were Warham, archbishop 
 of Canterbury, his chancellor ; Sir Thomas Level, constable of 
 the tower ; Sir Edward Poyning, comptroller; Sir Henry Mar 
 ney, Sir Thomas Darcy, Doctor Ruthal, and Sir Henry Wy¬ 
 att, to whom he associated the Earl of Surrey, who became 
 his especial favorite, as treasurer, and Fox, bishop of Winches¬ 
 ter, secretary and privy seal. By their advice he repudiated 
 by proclamation all the illegal extortions and levies of his 
 father, promised redress of grievances, and the punishment of 
 all the agents, informers, and “ promoters,” as they wer» 
 
48 
 
 KMPSON AND DUDLEV. 
 
 
 teemed, by whom the rapacity of Henry VII. had been fed, 
 and the life blood drained from the impoverished and groan¬ 
 ing people, during the last reign of brass. The redress spoken 
 of extended not, however, to the restitution of one mark of the 
 extorted property; and the proclamation only enkindled the 
 rage of the people against the instruments of the late king’s op¬ 
 pressive tyranny. 
 
 The only permanent effect of so much noise and promise* 
 was the illegal verdict of a jury, the infamous attainder by act 
 of parliament, and the barbarous warrant of the king, his first 
 act of judicial murder—meet commencement of a reign which 
 blushed crimson, ore its close, with noble and guiltless blood 
 —by which Empson and Dudley were sacrificed to the popu¬ 
 lar rage, and judicially slaughtered on the scaffold, on a charge 
 utterly impossible, and which not a man in all England be¬ 
 lieved to be true, of having conspired against the king, and 
 plotted to seize the reins of government—a charge brought 
 against them only, because it was determined to destroy them, 
 whereas they had committed no crime for which they could 
 be brought to punishment, even had they not been entitled 
 to plead the king’s authority in defence of all that they had 
 done. 
 
 Thus did this much belauded boy-king, in the first days of 
 his new dignity, repay his people moneys wrongfully acquired 
 and no less wrongfully retained, by the innocent blood of two 
 wretched men, whose only crime was their implicit obedience 
 to his own odious father. Such was the early and precocious 
 virtue so much admired by his fautors, and the mole-eyed his¬ 
 torians who have followed them, “ which at first made him one 
 of the most renowned princes of Christendom.” “ And thus,”* 
 
 •Hume, in King Henry VIII., vol ill. p. 81. 
 
MARRIAGE OF ARTHUR AND K U'HARINB. 
 
 49 
 
 to Lorre w the apposite remark of Hume, in those arbitrary 
 times, justice was equally violated, whether the king sought 
 power and riches or courted popularity.” _ , 
 
 But, in order to preserve the thread' of this narrative of 
 Henry’s first blood-guiltiness, I have somewhat overstepped the 
 mark ; for, although these wretches were convicted, pilloried, 
 and paraded through the streets with theii faces toward then- 
 horse’s tails, within a few hours, or days at farthest, after the 
 king’s accession, they were not butchered on Tower Hill until 
 the 18 th of August, of the ensuing year, when it was found 
 necessary either to give the petitioners their promised redress, 
 or to satiate them, in lieu of it with what is so far cheaper, 
 blood. And, in the meantime, a circumstance had occurred, the 
 events consequent on which led to results the most important not 
 only of that king’s life, but of the history of England —results 
 which have not ceased, and shall not cease for countless unborn 
 generations, to reckon for blessings to her and her inhabitants. 
 
 Eight years before the accession of the present monarch to 
 his place, there had been a day in England, glorious for a grand 
 celebration ; and Henry, then a boy of ten years, destined to 
 be the future archbishop of Canterbury* had doubtless borne 
 ow, and delighted vastly in his own gorgeous 
 apparel, and in the pomp of the procession, the splendor of the 
 chivalric pageantry, the trumpets, the shoutings, and the salvos 
 of the ordnance. 
 
 That day hailed the nuptials f of his elder brother, Arthur, 
 
 ♦Henry, as duke of York, actually conducted the bride to St Paul’s, in quality of 
 his brother's groomsman. 
 
 f This marriage took place November 14,1501. Prince Arthur was born Scptem* 
 ber 20,14S6, and was therefore fifteen years two months old. Catalina was born De¬ 
 cember 15, 14S5, in the town of Alcala de Ilenares. She had just entered htr six 
 teenth year . — Jfiss Strickland. 
 
 c 
 
 his part in the sh 
 
50 
 
 DEATH OF PRINCE ARTHUR. 
 
 prince of Wales, and heir apparent of England, then in his six 
 teenth year, with Katharine of Arragon, daughter of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, ten months her bridegroom’s senior, a lady of 
 extraordinary' beauty and accomplishments ; and the rejoicings 
 nf all parties appear to have been as sincere and hearty as the 
 pageantry was gay and glorious. 
 
 But the happiness of the young pair, if happiness there were, 
 was as transitory as the show that inaugurated it ; for on the 
 2d day of April, 1502, “Prince Arthur died of the plague, be¬ 
 ing in the principality of Wales, in a place they call Ludlow. 
 In this house was Donna Catalina left a widow when she had 
 been married scarcely six months.” * 
 
 This passage, at a later period, may be remembered with 
 profit, as it apparently goes to admit that they lived as hus¬ 
 band and wife during their sojourn at Ludlow; as there is no 
 conceivable reason why they should not, for although sixteen 
 would be thought young now, especially on the male side, as 
 an age at which to marry, no one would hesitate to admit that 
 the parties, being a vigorous English boy and a Spanish maiden, 
 were decidedly marriageable; and it must be remembered 
 that, at the date of which I write, marriages were contracted 
 far earlier than would be now held judicious or advisable. Af¬ 
 ter the death of her young husband, Katharine still continued 
 in England ; until, as it appears, much against her will, Henry 
 VII. and her father, Ferdinand, a cold-blooded, crafty politician, 
 uot widely differing in manner from the English usurper, 
 hatched up a marriage between her and Henry, duke of York, 
 and obtained a dispensation from the then ruling pope, Julius 
 II., on the ground that the former marriage had been merelj 
 
 * Bernaldes, Spanish Hist. p. 286. Quoted by Miss Strickland, vol. it p. T8. 
 
TRANSACTIONS FOR MARRIAGE. 
 
 51 
 
 formal and had remained unccnsummated, owing to the youth 
 of the parties. 
 
 In virtue of this, the young couple were betrothed in June, 
 1503, at the house of the Bishop of Salisbury, in Fleet-street; 
 and it is worthy of remark that Katharine, although she* ob¬ 
 jected to this second marriage, her “ distaste” to it and “ the 
 inconvenience ” of such an arrangement, and yielded only to 
 the policy of her father, nowhere opposed it as incestuous or 
 grievous to her conscience, as she would probably have done, 
 had she been actually and in the fullest sense the wife of Hen 
 ry’s brother. 
 
 It would appear that her mother, Isabella of Castille, i>, some 
 sort shared in her daughter’s repugnance; for she would not 
 consent until she had obtained a breve, or authenticated copy 
 of the bull of dispensation, which she afterward contrived to 
 transmit to her daughter, who had it in her possession six-and 
 twenty f years afterward, when the validity of her marriage 
 was so basely and brutally called in question. This strange 
 matter did not, however, end here; for three years later, Eliz¬ 
 abeth of York, his amiable and delicate wife, being dead, the 
 old tyrant, Henry VII., was seized with an idea of marrying 
 Joanna, Katharine’s eldest sister, the widow of Philip the Fair, 
 and heiress of the throne of Castille, and actually compelled his 
 son Henry, then prince of Wales, to sign a protest against his 
 marriage with Kathaiine, on the ground of her previous alli¬ 
 ance with his brother. This document was signed on the day 
 
 * Miss Striokland, vol. li p. 74. 
 
 tLord Herbert of Cherbury, p. 906, quarto ed. of 1740. “The breve was only a 
 copy, subscribed and signed with the hand of Juan Vergara, a canon of Toledo, and 
 public notary ailctoritat* nposMica, and with the seals of Baltasar Castiglione, the 
 pope's nuncio, and the Right Reverend Fattier in God, Alfonso di Fonseca, arch¬ 
 bishop of Toledo.” 
 
52 
 
 JIENRT VII. AND JOANNA OF CASTILLE. 
 
 previous to Henry's entering his fifteenth year, but the inten¬ 
 tions of his father in regard to Joanna being frustrated by tne 
 lady’s insanity, the matter was hushed up, and the protest so 
 carefully concealed, that it may be held certain that Katharine 
 never heard of it until many years afterward. 
 
 It is to this fact doubtless that Hume alludes when he says, 
 “ the prince made all the opposition of which a youth of twelve 
 years old was capable ; ”* but it is not true that he did so, for, 
 on the contrary, no sooner did he imagine himself to be de¬ 
 barred from her by the protest which he had signed, than, 
 ^showing already the waywardness which afterward hardened into 
 the wilful and iron obstinacy of his later character, the young 
 prince made such efforts to obtain her, that his father actually 
 set a watch on him to prevent his having clandestine interviews 
 with his betrothed. 
 
 At length, Henry VII. being unwillingly convinced of Queen 
 Joanna’s hopeless insanity, abandoned his schemes matrimo¬ 
 nial, which Ferdinand, to do him justice, had from the first 
 strenuously opposed, when the design of Henry’s, the prince of 
 Wales, marriage with Katharine was renewed, and two install¬ 
 ments of her dowry were paid during the life of the old king. 
 These singular and disreputable intrigues were only recently 
 cleared up by Dr. Lingard,f who from consultation of the Span¬ 
 ish authorities, especially Mariana, has explained what before 
 appeared inexplicable in the conduct of Henry, thus at one 
 time protesting against contracting marriage with a girl, who 
 did not, to say the least, desire it, and then eagerly pressing 
 the same alliance, when it was at his own option to break it. 
 There can be, however, no doubt that this protest was the cause 
 
 * Hume, In Henry VII., vol. iii. p. 601, Anno 1502. 
 
 tLingard, in Henry VII., vol. vii. p. — 
 
HENRY'S MARRIAGE WITH KATHARINE OF ARAGON. 53 
 
 of his first conceiving the idea, in after years, of a divorce on the 
 pretext of undue consanguinity. 
 
 Immediately after his father’s death, and of his own head, 
 Henry brought up the matter of the marriage, declaring to 
 Fuensalida that “he desired and loved her beyond all other- 
 women.”* A deed confirmatory of her dowry was accord¬ 
 ingly signed by herself, as princess of Wales, by Fuensalida, 
 as Spanish ambassador, by Ferdinand as king of Aragon, and 
 by Joanna as queen of Castille, June 7, 1509. Her marriage 
 followed a few days afterward, although it is stated by Lord 
 Herbert of Cherbury, to have occurred on the third. His account 
 is, however, clearly set aside by the date of the above deed, and 
 by the circumstantial account of Bernaldes, the Spanish histo¬ 
 rian. “ Donna Catalina,” says he, “ wedded the brother of her 
 first lord, who was called Enrico in a place they call Grenuche” 
 —Greenwich—“on the day of St. Bernabo,”—June 11—“and 
 was crowned afterward on the day of St. John, with all the re¬ 
 joicings in the world.”f Ferrara, another Spanish historian, 
 states that “ her father, King Ferdinand, was so well pleased 
 at his daughter’s second marriage, that he celebrated it by 
 grand festivals in Spain, particularly by the jeu des Cannes , or 
 Moorish game of the jerreed, in which he himself bore a part.”J 
 Katharine was at this time very beautiful, in the Spanish 
 style, tall and of stately person, with a profusion of magnifi¬ 
 cent black hair. “ There were few women,” is the testimony 
 of Lord Herbert, In no means too favorable a witness on her 
 side, as confining himself to statements of tacts more than to 
 the offering of opinions, “ who could compete with Queen Kath- 
 
 * Cardinal de la Pole, Apol. Kegis, p. 86. Quoted by Lingard, vol. vii. p. 2. 
 
 + Bernaldes, from the Middlehill MS. cap. 163, §236. Quoted by Miss Strickland 
 
 | Ferrara, Hist Spain, vol. viii. p. 384 Quoted by Miss Strickland, li 76. 
 
54 KATHARINE INTERCEDES FOR EfclPSON AND DUDLEY. 
 
 J- 
 
 arine.” It should be observed in this place that Warham, 
 archbishop of Canterbury, and chancellor of England, did ob¬ 
 ject in council to the celebration of this marriage, in conse¬ 
 quence of undue affinity of the parties, but Eox, bishop of Win¬ 
 chester, urging it strongly on the grounds of expediency, the 
 king pressing it with all the willful headstrongness of his pas¬ 
 sionate nature, and Katharine asserting, with the attestation of 
 several noble matrons, that her marriage with Prince Arthur 
 never had been consummated, all opposition was withdrawn, 
 and the nuptials were performed a9 above stated, with a pomp 
 and splendor, on which I shall dwell more at length when we 
 come to treat of the queens in detail. 
 
 It was in the month of October, following her wedding, that 
 the young queen is believed by her intercession to have pro¬ 
 cured a respite for the unhappy men, Empson and Dudley, 
 though guilty of no crime against the state, which Henry, sat¬ 
 isfied with the confiscation of all their properties, was not unwil¬ 
 ling to grant 
 
 During the following summer, however, he made a royal 
 progress, in the course of which he was so much harassed by 
 the petitions of his subjects for redress of grievances, and for 
 the punishment of the promoters, that it seems he found him¬ 
 self compelled to grant them satisfaction on one score or the 
 other. When the question lay between the surrendering his 
 own selfish gratification, or sacrificing two innocent men, Henry 
 VIII., even in his virtuous years of youth, could not be.ex¬ 
 pected to hesitate, and he did not. 
 
 He was not avaricious, like his father, he did not value 
 money for itself, in the least, but he desperately loved what 
 money alone could produce, splendor, luxury, profusion, pomp. 
 His masques, his revels, his banquets, his tournaments, his pro- 
 
henry’s vanity and thirst of fame. 
 
 55 
 
 gresses, were already making inroads on the hoarded treasures 
 of his father. And now his people were clamorous for his 
 gold, and he gave them, what pleased them as well, and suited 
 himself far better, blood. 
 
 The cry was hushed, and he returned to his pastimes, pa¬ 
 geantry, and pleasure. For two years the court of England 
 was brilliant with one continuous display of masques,banquets, 
 balls by night, tournaments, jousting, and fighting at the bar¬ 
 riers with sword or battle-ax by day, in the presence of the 
 queen and her ladies, who dispensed the rewards of valor to 
 the victors. 
 
 Vanity was as distinct and as active an ingredient as either 
 sensuality or selfishness, in the character of Henry VIII. It was 
 moreover, as is not unusual, the first to develop and display 
 itself in broad colors, for both sensuality and selfishness re¬ 
 quire indulgence and nutriment, whereby to grow great, and 
 are rarely strongly marked in the young. Henry’s noble stat¬ 
 ure, immense power, and vigorous activity, in his earlier years, 
 before his limbs grew heavy and his frame obese, gave him 
 surpassing advantage in all military and athletic exercises; 
 and it cannot be doubted that, in all that pertained to the use 
 of weapons, the management of horses, the personal skill of 
 the knight, he was a consummate man-at-arms. Proud, young 
 and strong, he was brave by concurrence of natural endow¬ 
 ments, as by the necessities of blood and birth. To do him 
 but bare justice, he was every inch a man. 
 
 And he was now burning to display his manhood in some 
 wider and more glorious field than in the tiltyard at Westmin¬ 
 ster, or the barriers at Greenwich. He was afire to equal tne 
 honors of the living house of Tudor to the glories of the dead 
 Plantagenets—his daily dream was the recovery of the French 
 
56 
 
 STATE OF EUROPE. 
 
 provinces, lost so ingloriously in the reign of the sixth mon 
 arch of his own name, and a participation in the renown of 
 Henry of Agincourt, and his own gigantic grandsire, Edward 
 the Fourth, of York. He waited an occasion only, and one 
 was soon made to his hands. Julius 11., a wise, politic, and 
 warlike prince, who, although far advanced into the winter of 
 life, was still actuated by the fire and ambition of youth, filled 
 the chair of St. Peter; Maximilian represented the authority 
 of the imperial Caesars in Germany; Louis XII. wore the 
 crown of France, at length united into one compact and power¬ 
 ful kingdom ; Ferdinand, on the throne of Castille, had laid firm 
 the foundations of that vast and terrible Spanish monarchy, 
 which, although now sunk into hopeless decadence, for so many 
 centuries overshadowed Europe with the awe of her invincible 
 valor and the horror of her bloody superstition. Unhappy 
 Italy, then as now, partitioned among many powers, enslaved 
 and oppressed by all, was the bone of contention among the 
 nations. t 
 
 The rich diadem of Naples, or the two Sicilies, w r as an ap 
 panage of the Spanish crown in the south. On the north, 
 Louis XII. had wrested the splendid duchy of Milan from the 
 arms of Ludovico Sforza. On the north-east, the Venetians, 
 proud, grasping, warlike, mercantile republicans, the European 
 prototypes, in many respects, of the United States of America, 
 late the bulwark of Europe against the victorious power of the 
 Ottoman, had encroached on the Adriatic shores of Italy, and 
 severed the northern part of the Romagna from the church 
 On these encroaching islanders the warrior pope first declared 
 war; and, having speedily reduced them to sue for peace, 
 granted it, as he affected to say, at the instances of Henry VIII. 
 *t was not. however, the Venetians, but the French, of whrm 
 
THE FRENCH IN ITALY. 
 
 57 
 
 he was jealous , and, the war in the Adriatic regions com¬ 
 posed, his ulter.or views were speedily developed by his inva¬ 
 sion of the territories of Alphonso, duke of Ferrara, a vassal 
 of the Holy See, on pretext of some violation of his feudal 
 rights. 
 
 Louis XII. not deceived by the pretense, and perceiving that 
 in his attachment to France lay the real offense of Alphonso, 
 succored him with his army from the Milanese, under Chau- 
 mont, who soon compelled the pope to evacuate the domin¬ 
 ions of Ferrara, shut him up in Bologna, and besieged him in 
 that city, without any declaration of war. Ohaumont was 
 forced, thereafter, to retire by the arrival of Colonna at the 
 head of a body of Spanish horse, and being beaten back into 
 the Milanese, is said to have died of a broken heart. Jn the 
 succeeding spring, however, the French arms resumed their 
 supremacy ; the citadel of Bologna was stormed; Julius was 
 forced to seek safety in Ravenna, and a general appeal was 
 made to all Christian Europe to sustain the holy church against 
 the insolent aggressions of the French ; who, it was asserted, 
 had causelessly attacked the estates of the church, insulted the 
 person of the pontiff, and, having conquered Milan, now aimed 
 at adding to those unjustly acquired domains the hereditary 
 possessions of the church. 
 
 Europe, already alarmed at the extension of the French 
 power and dominions, was rudely startled at the call. An al¬ 
 liance, offensive and defensive, was concluded between Venice 
 and Rome; Maximilian affected, indeed, for a while, to hesi¬ 
 tate; but Ferdinand took arms at once, and Henry, urged by 
 vanity, ambition, and the hope of reconquering the Anglo- 
 French provinces, solicited moreover by his fathe. in-law, and 
 gratified by the pontiff with the title c" “ Head of the Italian 
 C* 
 
58 
 
 THE ENGLI8H FLEET. 
 
 League,” eagerly declared for the church. The emperor of 
 Germany soon afterward joined the league, and all parties pre¬ 
 pared earnestly for instant war. 
 
 It was agreed that Ferdinand and Henry should at once in 
 vade Guienne from the side of the Pyrenees, England furnish 
 ing six thousand five hundred men, and Spain nine thousand, 
 for this purpose; while, for the protection of the channel, each 
 power should keep a squadron afloat, manned with three thou¬ 
 sand mariners and artillerists. On the third day of June, 
 1512, Clarencieux, king-at-arms, having demanded the restitu 
 tion of the ancient patrimony of the English crown in France, 
 and received a solemn refusal, denounced war; and on the 
 same day the Earl of Dorset sailed, with the English army on 
 board Spanish transports, for the coast of Guipuscoa; while 
 the Lord Admiral Sir Edward Howard cruised between Spain 
 and England, during the summer, with the fleet. 
 
 This consisted—and it is not incurious in these days of co¬ 
 lossal armaments, to observe what three hundred years ago 
 was considered a vast naval equipment—of eighteen ships. The 
 greater part, as was usual in those days, were merchantmen, 
 hired into the service and fitted for war, as best might be, for 
 the time. Of these, the largest ship, the “ Regent,” was royal 
 property, of one thousand tons burden, commanded by Sir 
 Thomas Knyvett, with a crew of seven hundred mariners, gun 
 ne^-s, and soldiers. The other seventeen vessels, varying from 
 five hundred to one hundred ton3, had a complement of seven¬ 
 teen captains, seventeen hundred and fifty soldiers, and twelve 
 hundred and thirty-three gunners and mariners ; of whom the 
 lord admiral received ten shillings a day ; the captains, eighteen 
 pence; and all the others ten shilli tgs by the lunar month, 
 
FAILURE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1512. 
 
 59 
 
 one half for wages, and the other for provisions.* These ar¬ 
 maments, however, were wholly unsuccessful. Ferdinand re¬ 
 fused to accede to Dorset’s desire of invading Guienne by way 
 of the passes of Fontarabia, until the kingdom of Navarre, 
 which was in the possession of Jean d’Albret, a vassal of France 
 for the principality of Bearn, and known to be in strict allegi¬ 
 ance with that monarch, should be reduced, and its fortresses 
 occupied by the Spanish forces. When this end was accom¬ 
 plished, and, the Spanish army having advanced to St. Jean 
 Pie de port, the invasion of Guienne was proposed in earnest, 
 Dorset, whose army, lying inactive at Fontarabia, had been 
 attacked by disease and infected by a spirit of mutiny, utterly 
 refused to stir; alleging his distrust of the king, and the ne¬ 
 cessity of adhering to the strictest letter of his instructions. 
 Six weeks of dissension and recrimination followed ; disease 
 and discontent increased, and Lord Dorset returned home with 
 all his forces, just before Windsor, the herald, arrived with the 
 king’s commands that he should remain, and obey the orders 
 of the Spanish monarch. $- 
 
 Henry was seriously and justly aggrieved. He had fully 
 reckoned on me recovery of Guienne; but, as is usually the 
 case when England is acting in alliance with continental pow¬ 
 ers, he had as his lot the losses, mortifications, and expenses, 
 while his allies and enemies divided the advantages. 
 
 Ferdinand conquered the kingdom of Navarre; Louis seized 
 the principality of Bearn; both of which provinces belong, to 
 this day, to the successor of the monarchs who conquered 
 them. Jean d’Albret lost the whole of his dominions, the 
 French king having entered on a composition with Ferdinand, 
 though he made a show of succoring Navarre, by sending a 
 
 •Eymer xtll, 818 to 819. Quottfd by I.tngvd, rl. t>. 
 
GO CONFLAGRATION OF THE “ REGENT.” 
 
 force—under Richard de la Pole, titular duke of SulYolk, wht 
 had been, since the reign of Henry VII., a political exile in 
 France, and who was now guilty of the frantic folly of ieviving 
 the party of “the White Rose,” against the house of Tudor— 
 to the relief of Parapeluna. The expedition failed, if, indeed, 
 it was ever intended to succeed. Jean d’Albret fell to the 
 ground between the two great kingdoms, which absorbed his 
 small dominions. Louis and Ferdinand satisfied themselves 
 with securing their new conquests. Henry VIII. saw his army 
 return to England, after an idle and inglorious campaign, weak¬ 
 ened by the loss of nearly three thousand men,* who perished 
 without drawing a sword, by the malignant fevers of the coun¬ 
 try, stimulated by excess in the hot wines of Spain. The folly 
 of Richard de la Pole hi taking service under the French, and 
 reviving an unfounded and unsupported claim to the English 
 crown, had no result beyond the death of his brother Edmund, 
 earl of Suffolk, who had remained, since the late king's death, 
 a prisoner in the tower, and was shortly afterward brought to 
 the block, chiefly, it would seem, on account of his brother’s 
 treason. 
 
 The fortune of the English fleet was in no wise superior, du¬ 
 ring this campaign, to that of the army ; for, having fallen iu 
 with a powerful French squadron off Brest, a naval engagement 
 ensued, in the course of which the desperate courage of Kny- 
 vett having involved the great ship, “ Regent,” in the midst of 
 the enemy, he was grappled by Primauget, the French com¬ 
 mander, in a yet greater ship, the “ Cordelier de Brest,” when 
 both vessels taking fire, were utterly consumed with all their 
 crews, a few of the enemy alone excepted, who made their es 
 cape by swimming. The French declined further action, and 
 
 ♦Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 23. 
 
CAPTURE OP SCOTCH VESSELS. 
 
 61 
 
 found refuge under the batteries of Brest; but the loss of the 
 “Regent” was regarded an event so disastrous that it was con¬ 
 cealed from the public, until the king had supplied its loss by 
 the construction of a yet larger vessel, which he named “ Henry 
 Grace Dieu,” but which is familiarly known to this day as 
 the “ Great Harry,” the largest ship in the world, of those 
 days. 
 
 I should have observed that in the preceding yeaiyl511, two 
 events had occurred, both of which, although neither of much 
 immediate importance, had some influence on the future cir¬ 
 cumstance of this remarkable reign. 
 
 The first of these was the delivery of Queen Katharine, on • 
 the first day of the year, of a son, to the great joy of the father, 
 and among the general rejoicings of the nation. The happi¬ 
 ness, however, of both king and people proved to be prema¬ 
 ture ; for the child died before the month closed, and his fate 
 seemed to be in some sort prophetic; since out of several 
 births no heir male was spared to Henry, who earnestly de¬ 
 sired one, nor did any other child survive of this marriage, ex¬ 
 cept the Princess Mary, afterward queen, who was born on 
 February 18, 1516. 
 
 The second was the capture and destruction, near the mouth 
 of the Thames, by the Lord Thomas and Sir Edward Howard, 
 of a Scottish squadron, commanded by three brothers named 
 Barton, the bravest and most experienced officers of James IV. 
 These brothers, it appears, had, in 1506, received letters of 
 marque and reprisals against the Portuguese, who had, they 
 alleged, above thirty years before, captured a merchant vessel 
 of their father’s. Not content, however, with revenging them- 
 selves on their legitimate enemies, from privateering they 
 turned to piracy, and committed such violences on English 
 
62 
 
 RISE OF WOLSEY. 
 
 commerce, that the king issued orders for their capture; and 
 the destruction of their vessels was followed by hostilities with 
 Scotland, which took advantage of the continuance of the war 
 with France, to lend aid to her old ally, and plant a thorn in 
 the side of her border enemy. 
 
 It was about this time that Thomas Wolsey, a man of in 
 ferior birth, but of parts, energy, capacity, and ambition equal 
 only to the elevation to which he afterward rose, and to the 
 depth of his downfall and disgrace, began to acquire the great 
 ascendency over the king, which he so long enjoyed. 
 
 The son, it is said, though to me the report seems doubtful, 
 of a butcher in Ipswich, he had become chaplain of the house¬ 
 hold, almoner, and, at last, one of the counselors of the late 
 king; and in the latter quality displayed so much prompt abil¬ 
 ity, that his farther rise was, it is supposed, prevented only by 
 the death of the monarch. His learning first recommended 
 him to Henry VIII., himself both erudite and proud of his eru 
 dition, nor unwilling, at times, to mix in literary disquisitions, 
 and to busy himself earnestly in the affairs of the realm. His 
 rare tact in adapting himself to the humors of his patron, his wil¬ 
 lingness to join in his Tevelries, his jovialities, his pleasures, and 
 his pomps, his ready wit, profuse liberality, and art in “making 
 his private house a theatre for all manner of pleasures, whither 
 he frequently brought the king,’ 1 * endeared him yet farther to 
 the magnificent and pleasure-loving prince. And finally his 
 artifice of introducing business in the midst of pleasure, indu¬ 
 cing the monarch to give just so much of attention to its trans¬ 
 action, at hours when he would fain have been otherwise em¬ 
 ployed, as should suffice to disgust him with it, and then re¬ 
 lieving him of the unwelcome burthen, succeeded in raising 
 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbnry, p. 80. 
 
THE BATTLE OF RAVENNA. 
 
 ua 
 
 him to the highest place of trust, to the absolute confidence of 
 Henry, and, in fact, to the supreme conduct of the affairs of 
 England. 
 
 In the meantime, if Henry’s interference in the a (fairs of Eu 
 rope had produced no advantages to himself, it was far other¬ 
 wise with the league ; to which the powerful diversion, effected 
 by the presence of his troops on the southern frontier of France, 
 his threatened invasion of Guienne, and the necessity imposed 
 on Louis of keeping a large force on foot to hold him in check, 
 secured the advantage. 
 
 Although, in the outset of the campaign, French valor and 
 impetuosity carried all before it in Italy; though a thunder¬ 
 stroke at Ravenna fell on the Spanish and Papal forces; and 
 though that city was carried by storm—reverses ill-coinpen. 
 sated by the loss of ten thousand men and their gallant leader, 
 Gaston de Foix, to the victors — the armies of Louis were 
 forced, step by step, to fall back into the Milanese; were 
 routed, one fourth of their numbers being slain on the Tesino ; 
 and were, before Christmas, driven in confusion across the 
 mountains; so that the boast of the pope was fulfilled to the 
 letter, that he was “ resolute to chase the last barbarian beyond 
 the Alps.” 
 
 During the winter, finding himself unable to cope with the 
 united league in arms, Louis XII. had now recourse to finesse, 
 and fortune favored him. Julius, the ambitious and warrior- 
 pope, was gathered to his predecessors, and Giovanni di Medicis, 
 who was elected in his stead under the title of Leo X., though 
 he did not avowedly secede from his engagement with the allies, 
 at least ceased to exert himself actively in a cause which, it is 
 said* ho never seriously approved. Ferdinand of Spain, a 
 
 Llng&rd, Hist. Eng. Henry VIII. 
 
64 
 
 PROSECUTION OF THE WAR, 1513. 
 
 crafty, politic, and never too trustworthy prince, was easily ii 
 dueed to abstain from active operations, and to remain neulral 
 while the Venetians, who had of late been engaged on the R( 
 man party, were enabled by Leo’s lukewarmness to seced 
 from the allies, and make common cause with Louis. 
 
 Henry, however, was only incensed by this defection, and 
 rendered more resolute to persist; the Swiss had engaged to 
 second him by an irruption into Burgundy ; the Emperor 
 Maximilian, whom he had subsidized with one hundred and 
 twenty thousand crowns,* had promised to second the Swiss, 
 with eight thousand Germans; the people of England were 
 strenuous for the prosecution of l he war, and granted him an 
 ample sum to be raised by rigorous taxation; f and, thus en¬ 
 couraged, he determined to take the field in person, and re¬ 
 conquer the lost inheritance of the kings, his predecessors. 
 
 The war commenced with naval operations, in the month of 
 \pril, when the admiral, Sir Edward Howard, sailed in quest 
 
 * flume, Hist. Eng. ill. 96. 
 
 t This tax was fixed after the following rate—Rolls xxvl-xxvii. 
 £ s d 
 
 A. duke.6 18 4 
 
 Marquess or earl, and wives, . 4 0 0 
 
 Baron, baronet,^ and baroness, 2 0 0 
 Knights not lords of parliament, 1 10 0 
 Proprietors of lands above £40, 
 yearly value, . . . .10 0 
 
 From £20 to £40, . . . 0 In 0 
 
 From £10 to £20, . . .0 5 0 
 
 From £2 to £10, . . .020 
 
 Below £2, . . . 0 10 
 
 Possessors of £S00, personals, . 2 13 4 
 From £400 to £800, . . . 2 0 0 
 
 Possessors of personal property, 
 from £200 to £400, 
 
 From £100 to £200, 
 
 From £40 to £100, . ' . 
 
 From £20 to £40, . 
 
 From £10 to £20, 
 
 From £2 to £10, 
 
 Laborers and servants with wages 
 of £2 yearly, .... 
 From $1 to $2, 
 
 All other persons, 
 
 £ s d 
 
 1 6 S 
 0 13 4 
 0 6 8 
 0 3 4 
 0 16 
 0 1 U 
 
 1 0 
 0 6 
 0 4 
 
 Quoted by Lingard, vi. 14. 
 
 JFrotn these rates it appears that the old distinction between greater and lesser 
 barons was not yet abolished. They are called barons and baronets, and are consul 
 ered equally as lords of parliament,— I.higard. 
 
 The above rate is very curious, as showing the comparative value of money ; and 
 also the comparative poverty of the greatest peors; a duke being taxed only as an 
 nvner of personals to the value of about £200. 
 
DEATH OF THE LORD ADMIRAL. 
 
 65 
 
 of the enemy, having sworn, it seems, to avenge the loss of the 
 Regent, or to die in the attempt. The French fleet, it seems, 
 lay in Brest harbor, and refused, though insulted by the En¬ 
 glish squadron, to come out and engage, expecting daily to be 
 relieved by Prejent, a knight of Rhodes, with six galleys. An 
 attempt was made to attack the enemy at their moorings, but 
 it failed altogther, one ship, the “ Plantagenet,” being cast away 
 on a blind roc.k, and the rest of the squadron compelled to haul 
 off, by the fire of the batteries, as well as by rafts and fire¬ 
 ships, which were prepared to drift down with the tide on the 
 English ships. 
 
 Meanwhile, Prejent arrived with six galleys and four foysts,* 
 and put into Blanc Sablon Bay , near Conquet, a little below 
 Brest, and moored his vessels between two rocks, which had 
 bulwarks on them, full of ordnance. From this strong position 
 the lord admiral determined to cut them out; and, attacking 
 them with four galleys, himself grappled Prejent and boarded 
 him in person, one Carroz , a Spanish cavalier, and seventeen 
 Englishmen following him. Whether, however, the grapnels 
 parted, or the mariners, overpowered by the fire of the enemy’s 
 batteries, cut them loose, the brave Sir Edward was left un¬ 
 supported, and was, in the end, after casting his golden whistle, 
 the insignia of his office as lord admiral, into the sea, borne 
 overboard, by the pikes of the French, into the waves, where he 
 perished unknown to his adversaries. 
 
 Dejected and disconcerted by this loss, the English fleet re¬ 
 treated iuto its own harbors, and Prejent insulted the coasts of 
 Sussex, and even landed on them ; fait was repulsed with the 
 loss of an eye, extinguished by an arrow shot, and of some of 
 his men. This appears to have contented him, or probably the 
 
 * IIorbeTt of Cherbury, fol. 29. 
 
66 
 
 EXECUTION OF THE EARL OF SUFFOLK. 
 
 * 
 
 English squadrons were so strongly reinforced, Lord Thomas 
 Howard being now appointed admiral in lieu of his brother, 
 that he could no longer keep the seas against them. At all 
 events, he made no more head that year, but returned to his 
 own ports, leaving the mastery of the narrow seas to the Lord 
 Howard, who scoured them effectually and secured the debar¬ 
 kation of the invading forces at Calais. 
 
 Wolsey was now fully admitted as prime minister of the 
 kingdom, and to him it was, doubtless, in some sort, due that 
 the parliament agreed, though not without opposition, to the 
 departure of the king in person, at the head of the army of in¬ 
 vasion, to the victualing of which Wolsey had been appointed, 
 not without some sarcasm on his origin. The objections of 
 the parliament were founded on the fact, that the king had as 
 yet no heirs male; that his sister Margaret, wife of James IV. 
 of Scotland, was the next in the line of succession; and that, 
 in case of any disaster befalling Henry and his forces, the 
 realm would probably be again thrown into confusion by the 
 rivalry of divers competitors for the crown. 
 
 The king’s ambition of glory was not, however, to be ie- 
 strained; and by the aid and arguments of Wolsey the scru¬ 
 ples of the parliament were overcome, and the army was em¬ 
 barked for Calais. It was, however, deemed expedient, in or¬ 
 der to secure the peace of the kingdom and remove a danger¬ 
 ous competitor, to bring the unfortunate earl of Suffolk, Ed¬ 
 mund de la Pole, to the block ; and he was accordingly execu 
 ted, under Henry’s warrant, in the tower. 
 
 This unhappy nobleman, who was the nephew of Edward 
 A 7 ., being son of John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, by that 
 king’s sister, Elizabeth, and consequently nearly connected to 
 Henry, had, through his intrigues against the late king, and 
 
EXECUTION OF THE EARL OF SUFFOLK. 
 
 67 
 
 the ill favor in which he stood with hj s court, b een induced to 
 take refuge in Burgundy, then under the rule of Philip of Pas¬ 
 tille. From that monarch, who was forced by stress of weather 
 to land on the English coast, while on his way to his Spanish 
 kingdom, which he had inherited in right of his wife, Joanna, 
 llenry VII. had extorted the surrender of Suifolk ; and, though 
 at Philip’s inlercessionjie^ spared his life, he had kept him in 
 close confinement in the tower, where he had continued to this 
 moment. 
 
 It is said that the late king on his death-bed had earnestly 
 advised Henry to this act of cruelty, no farther legal process 
 being requisite, as he had been already attainted by the peers; 
 but it appears to me improbable— as it is evidently doubted 
 by the elder historians — that this was the true or sole cause 
 of his being now, after the lapse of four years since the old 
 king’s death, brought to the block, without farther cause of 
 suspicion. 
 
 Edmund de la Pole was himself, it is clear, a man of bold 
 and turbulent spirit; one of his brothers, the Earl of Lincoln, 
 had fallen in the bloody battle of Stoke, supporting the cause 
 of the impostor, Lambert Simnel; another, now in arms for 
 the French king, had revived the fiction of York, and set up 
 the rival emblem of “ the White Rose;” and, whether it be 
 true or no, as Henry’s ambassadors were ordered to allege at 
 the courts to which they were accredited, that a treasonable 
 correspondence had been discovered between the brothers, it 
 is clear to me that jealousy of his pretensions, apprehensions 
 of the popular good will to the house of York, and a well- 
 founded dread of disturbances during the absence, or in case 
 of the demise,of the king, led to this execution. Policy cer 
 tainlv commended the measure; strict justice, as it was then 
 
6S 
 
 INVASION OF FRANCE. 
 
 understood, did not forbid it; and Henry, even in his yet un 
 perverted youth, was not one to be deterred by a little blood, 
 shed on grounds even more questionable than this of Suffolk, 
 from securing his ease, much moie his security, and the succes¬ 
 sion to his throne. 
 
 Suffolk died, therefore, cruelly enough, but not probably so 
 innocent as has been pretended by some writers, and certainly 
 not without warrant of law. 
 
 The vanguard of England now sailed for Calais, consisting 
 of eight thousand men, under George Talbot, earl of Shrews¬ 
 bury, the high steward, Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby, Sir 
 Robert Ratcliffe, the Lord Fitzwater, the Lord Hastings, the 
 Lord Cobham, and Sir Rice ap Thomas, the captain of the 
 light horse. These landed in the English pale, in the middle 
 of the month of May, and were followed within fifteen days 
 by Herbert, the lord chamberlain, with the Earls of North¬ 
 umberland, Kent and Wiltshire, the Lords Audley and De-la- 
 warr, the Barons Carrow and Curzon, and many knights and 
 esquires, in command of the middleward, or centre, consisting 
 of six thousand men. On the 17th of June, by the king’s or¬ 
 ders, these forces marched in good order of battle to Terou- 
 enne, where they arrived on the 22d, and sat down at about 
 one mile’s distance before the town, which “ was fenced with a 
 large ditch, strong bulwarks, and a quantity of ordnance, which 
 shot freshly, insomuch that the Baron of Carrow, master of the 
 ordnance, was the first night killed by a bullet in the Lord Her¬ 
 bert’s tent, which came so near him, that the French, though 
 erroneously, write that he was slain there.”* 
 
 Terouenne was garrisoned by about two thousand foot, and 
 
 * Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 38 et seq from whom most of the following do- 
 tails are taken 
 
SIEGE OF TEROUENNE. 
 
 09 
 
 two hundred and fifty lances, commanded by Mons. Fran¬ 
 cois de Teligny, and Anthoine de Crequy, seigneur de Pondor- 
 my, and was at once invested by Shrewsbury on the north-west, 
 and Herbert on the east side of the place, whence they made 
 their approaches with such vigor that it was soon evident, that 
 unless relieved, the town must ere long surrender. A power¬ 
 ful army was now raised by the French for this purpose, re¬ 
 inforced by ten thousand men under the Duke of Guelders,and six 
 thousand under Richard de la Pole, brother of Edmund, who 
 had been recently beheaded; but they moved slowly and with 
 hesitation, for Louis, when he had advanced so far as to Amiens, 
 received intelligence of the defeat of his armies at Novara, in 
 Italy, and of the irruption of the Swiss, supported by three 
 thousand German horse of the emperor’s, into Burgundy, 
 where they had laid siege to Dijon, and, alarmed by the news 
 and humbled by the disaster, resolved, with the advice of his 
 counsel, not to risk a battle, but merely to endeavor to pro¬ 
 tract the siege, and try the effect of negotiation. 
 
 At length, in the end of June, Henry set sail in person, hav¬ 
 ing before his departure appointed “his most dear consort* 
 queen Katharine, rectrix and governor of the realm,” and left 
 the Earl of Surrey as his lieutenant in the north, to protect 
 the borders against James, who was openly arming, and in 
 avowed alliance with France. 
 
 Four hundred sail of transports conveyed the young and 
 daring monarch, accompanied by his new almoner and favor¬ 
 ite, Wolsey, the Duke of Buckingham, Sir Charles Brandon, 
 recently created Earl of Lisle, the Earl of Essex, Sir Edward 
 Poynings, Sir Henry Guilford, bearer of the royal standard, and 
 
 Kymer xiii. 870, 372 . Quoted by Lingard, Hist. Eng., Henry VIII., vol vi. 15 
 
70 
 
 HENRY SITS DOWN BEFORE TEROUENNE. 
 
 many more, the flower of the English chivalry and aristocracy, 
 with about twelve thousand men, a powerful wagon train, and 
 a strong park of great ordnance, among which were the famous 
 pieces known as the “ twelve apostles.” 
 
 For nearly a month Henry lingered in Calais, where he 
 was visited by the ambassadors of the emperor, by the Duke 
 of Brunswick, and the regent of Flanders, wasting his time 
 and a portion of the treasures destined to the maintenance of 
 his army and the prosecution of the war, in carousals, enter¬ 
 tainments, pageants and pomps of all kinds, in which he ever 
 took so much delight. 
 
 At length, hearing that the French were in motion to relieve 
 Terouenne, he moved his army on the 21st of July, and had 
 barely advanced so far as to Ardres, when it was announced 
 that the enemy’s outposts were in view. Hereupon, Sir Rice 
 ap Thomas, who had ridden forth with about five hundred light 
 horse to meet the king, reinforced by the Earl of Essex and 
 Sir Thomas Guilford, with a detachment of horse archers, ad¬ 
 vanced and drove them .back, though two English guns were 
 lost, one of which was recovered on the following day, after a 
 sharp skirmish. 
 
 On the 4th of August, Henry pitched a sumptuous pavillion 
 for himself under the walls of Terouenne, and made prepara¬ 
 tions to receive the Emperor Maximilian, who was on his way 
 to join him with a few German and Flemish soldiers, and to 
 make his excuses for that he had failed of furnishing the Swit¬ 
 zers with his full complement of men. About the same time, 
 Lyon, the Scottish king at arms, made his appearance in the 
 camp and was introduced to the king by Garter, king at arms, 
 as bearer of a letter from James IV., containing expostulations 
 for pretended injuries, and a denunciation of war in case satis- 
 
HENRY DEFIES JAMES OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 7) 
 
 faction should be refused. Henry, at first, delivered a sharp, 
 verbal reply, but Lyon refusing to be the bearer of any answer 
 by word of mouth, afterward indited a letter, in which he 
 plainly declared, that he was aware of his intent, which was 
 merely to pick a quarrel, with a view to aid the French king, 
 and to invade his dominions in his absence; warned him to take 
 heed lest he shared the fate of Jean d’Albret of Navarre, who 
 had lost his crown for aiding Louis in like manner, and conclu¬ 
 ded by saying that he had left a stout earl in the north, who 
 would well know how to defend his master’s cause in his mas¬ 
 ter’s absence, and assuring him that “ what he did to him or his 
 realm now he was absent, would be remembered and requited 
 again in like measure.”* 
 
 This letter, however, James was never destined to receive ; 
 for, before his herald could return, he had invaded England, 
 and falling, with the flower of his kingdom’s chivalry, had lost 
 crown and life together, on the fatal field of Flodden. 
 
 Terouenne had not, up to this time, been completely invested; 
 and a French leader, De Fonterailles, taking advantage of the 
 unfinished state of the lines on the side of the river Lys, broke 
 through them at the head of eight hundred Albanian horse, 
 each of whom carried a sack of gunpowder and two quarters 
 of bacon, en croupe , and throwing down the supplies thus boldly 
 introduced at the gates of the town, brought off his men in 
 safety, before the English could muster sufficient force under 
 arms to intercept him. 
 
 On the 12th of August Maximilian arrived in camp, and as 
 he brought no considerable power with him, assumed the red 
 cross of St. George, and asked permission to serve as Henry’s 
 
 * Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 85. 
 
72 
 
 BATTLE OF THE SPURS. 
 
 volunteer, which flattered Henry’s pride to such a degree, that 
 beside assigning to the Imperial private pay of a hundred crowns 
 a day, and erecting a splendid pavilion of cloth of gold for his 
 entertainment, he entirely overlooked his failure to fulfill his 
 engagements of cooperation, and deferred so much to his ad¬ 
 vice, that he was in fact the real commander of the combined 
 armies. 
 
 Immediately on his arrival, Henry caused five bridges to be 
 thrown across the Lys, and on the 16th he crossed the river 
 't’h Maximilian and a considerable portion of the 
 
 Scarcely were they across the river, when the light horse 
 announced the approach of the French in force, who embold¬ 
 ened, it would seem, by their late success, intended to renew 
 the attempt on a larger scale. Under the Dukes of Longue- 
 ville and d’Alencon, the French army, consisting principally 
 of cavalry, which had been collected at Blangy, divided into 
 two parties, advanced on the two sides of the Lys, when Heni’y, 
 by the advice of his imperial volunteer, who was well acquainted 
 with the country, and had already twice beaten the French on 
 nearly the same ground, determined to give them battle. 
 
 Maximilian accordingly advanced with a few squadrons of 
 German horse, and the horse archers of the English,* while 
 Henry mustered the infantry and brought it up to support the 
 cavalry ; but the main body of the troops had no opportunity 
 to distinguish themselves, for an event ensued equally unex¬ 
 pected and incomprehensible. The French gendarmerie, oon- 
 
 i? It is uot clear what this arm of the service was. The terrible English longbow 
 of six feet in length, with its clothyard arrows, was incompatible with horse service. 
 These men were probably mounted only on tho march, for speed, but fought 
 »n foot 
 
SURRENDER OF TEROUENNE. 
 
 73 
 
 listing entirely of gentlemen at the head of their feudal retain¬ 
 ers, inured to service in the Italian campaigns, during which 
 they had covered themselves with glory, and acquired the rep¬ 
 utation of being the best cavalry in Europe, constituting a body 
 of ten thousand incomparable horse, gave way at the first shock 
 of the advanced guards. The panic spread from man to man, 
 through the whole force, their officers, laboring to rally them, 
 were abandoned to the pursuers, and, for above four miles, 
 they fled in headlong rout and consternation before three 
 ,.tr.ASs of German reiters and a few hundreds of English light 
 !i||HP>, not equal to a tithe of their own numbers, who had ex¬ 
 ecution of them through the whole distance, and made prison¬ 
 ers of many, the proudest names in France and most celebra¬ 
 ted knights in Europe. Hymbercourt and La Palisse were 
 taken, but either escaped in the confusion of the melee, or, as 
 some say, were admitted to ransom and released on the in 
 stant; but the Duke de Longueville, the Marquis de Rotelin, 
 the Chevalier Bayard, Bussy d’Amboise, La Fayette, and 
 Clermont were secured, and presented by their captors to 
 Henry and the emperor, when the latter returned, still wear¬ 
 ing the red cross badge of England, and greeted his nominal 
 commander as victor of the day. No better fortune befell the 
 enemy in other quarters of the field ; for a detachment, which 
 had endeavored to intercept an English convoy between Guisnes 
 »nd Terouenne, was routed with great loss, and its com¬ 
 mander, Mons. du Plessis, slain. In the meantime, the French 
 horse, on the other side of the Lys, which had beat up the 
 Earl of Shrewsbury’s quarters, with a view to introduce suc¬ 
 cors and to reprovision the town, were met by Sir Rice ap 
 Thomas, with a sharp sally, and forced to retreat, having ef¬ 
 fected nothing; while a sortie, en masse , of the garrison and 
 
 D 
 
74 
 
 ENTRANCE OF THE ALLIES INTO TEROUBNNE. 
 
 townsmen, intended as a diversion in the opposite quarter, was 
 anticipated by Lord Herbert, who had his men under arms 
 and well in hand to receive them, and beaten in again more 
 quickly than they had sallied. 
 
 This was the famous battle of Guinegate, better known as 
 the “ Battle of the Spurs,” as it was termed by the French, 
 equally prompt to ridicule their own and their enemies’ mis¬ 
 adventures, on which rested all the small glory which accrued 
 to Henry from this unprofitable war, barren of all advantage 
 beyond che capture of two frontier towns, wholly unimp 
 
 unless as a basis for future operations. A Te Deum was per¬ 
 formed in honor of this easy victory, and, a few days afterward, 
 the Seigneur de Pondormy, despairing of relief, surrendered 
 the place with all its ordnance to the king, on condition that 
 he should march out with bag and baggage, drums beating 
 and colors flying. And this he did on the 24th of August,, 
 when the allies entered the place, Maximilian still yielding the 
 precedence to the English monarch, who, at his solicitation, 
 caused the whole town, with its fortifications, defences, and 
 even its private dwellings, to be razed to the ground, nothing 
 being excepted but the churches and religious houses. This, 
 although it nearly adjoined the English pale, and might have 
 been maintained at no great cost, because it bordered so closely 
 on Maximilian’s territory in the Low Countries, and so greatly 
 straitened his cities of Aire and St. Omar, that, should it at 
 any time fall into the hands of the French, it would be a se¬ 
 vere thorn in his side? France was at this moment in the 
 most imminent peril. No similar dangers had beset her since 
 the dark days of Poictiers. Henry was at the head of a pow¬ 
 erful, complete, and victorious army, with but a few days’ 
 inarch, and no covering army,between himself and the gates 
 
INVESTMENT OF TOURNAY. 
 
 75 
 
 of Paris. The chivalry of the kingdom, dispersed and disor¬ 
 ganized by their late disgrace, could not be rallied to defend 
 the capital, many of the inhabitants of which were beginning to 
 dislodge, without knowing whither to resort for greater secu 
 rity. The Swiss were besieging Dijon, which could not be re¬ 
 lieved, nor could be expected long to resist their assaults. 
 Ferdinand of Spain, though he had made a truce with Louis, 
 could be depended on by him, so long only as his interests 
 should be subserved by neutrality. 
 
 Louis was in the extremity of consternation and perplexity, 
 not knowing whither to turn for assistance, when the blunder¬ 
 ing strategy, and yet more blundering diplomacy, of his ene¬ 
 mies liberated him from all anxiety. 
 
 Henry, who could, beyond doubt, have marched almost un¬ 
 opposed to the gates of Paris, and perhaps have there dictated 
 a peace, turned aside to invest Tournay, a French town, 
 strongly fortified, within the limits of the Spanish Nether¬ 
 lands, affording to its possessors, for the time being, the key of 
 either country. 
 
 To Spain, therefore, as owning the Low Countries, and to 
 France, the possession of this fortress was of primary impor¬ 
 tance, since either nation must necessarily occupy it before ad-, 
 vancing into the territories of the other, in order to strike a 
 telling blow. 
 
 To England, it must, under any circumstances, be worthless, 
 even while that country held the fortress and seaport of Calais, 
 with the adjoining district within the English pale, since it is 
 so remote, even from that frontier, as to render its occupation, 
 except by an enormous garrison, impossible in peace, and in war 
 altogether hopeless. 
 
 It was nothing short, therefore, of absolute folly in Ilenry, 
 
76 
 
 TIDINGS OF FLODDEN FIELD. 
 
 to suffer himself to be turned aside from the true object of the 
 war to this vain and useless enterprise; Maximilian, however, 
 whose interests were nearly concerned, as they had been in 
 the. razing of Terouenne, persuaded him to the undertaking, 
 which was begun and completed with equal facility. On his 
 way thither, Henry tarried, however, three days at Lisle, at 
 the instance of the Archduchess Margaret, the regent of Flan¬ 
 ders, and of his nephew, the Prince Charles of Spain, nephew of 
 his own royal consort Katharine. Fast flew those three days of 
 revelry and merry-making, and scarce less fast the eight of 
 open trenches, which only, after sending a bold and chivalrous 
 defiance in reply to the king’s summons to surrender, the flit 
 burghers of Tournay endured, before yielding themselves on 
 base conditions. They accepted an English garrison, swore 
 fealty to Henry, and paid down for the expenses of the war, 
 fifty thousand crowns of the sun in one sum, agreeing to pay 
 forty thousand livres Tournois, by instalments, within the ten 
 years next ensuing. 
 
 There, on the very day of the surrender of the city, being 
 September 21st, came to the king a messenger from the Earl 
 of Surrey, bearing the tidings of the decisive battle of Flodden 
 Field, w T ith, as a token of its truth, the gauntlet and coat ar¬ 
 mor of the unfortunate James, who fell there, in an unjust 
 quarrel, though with a gallantry well worth a better cause, 
 with all the flower of his realm. The battle was fierce, terri¬ 
 ble, and well contested, and had, in truth, well nigh gone against 
 the English, as indeed it must have done, but for the skillful 
 strategy of the Eail of Surrey, and the chivalrous daring of 
 his officers. ^ 
 
 In the commencement, the Scottish had so much the advan 
 tage of position, which they appeared resolute to keep, that 
 
THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN FIELD. 
 
 77 
 
 the defeat of the English seemed inevitable, until, by a skillful 
 movement,' at the advice, it is said, of his son, Lord Thomas 
 Howard, the high admiral, Surrey crossed the river Till to its 
 right bank, and having executed a long (lank march, as if with 
 a view to giving the enemy the slip and penetrating into Scot¬ 
 land, recrossed it by Twisel bridge, in the rear of the Scottish 
 camp, and advanced as if to assault the king’s lines. 
 
 James, alarmed by this demonstration, fired his camp on the 
 hill to conceal his movements, and covered by the smoke of 
 the conflagration, broke down in five solid phalanxes of spears, 
 the favorite Scottish order of battle, upon his enemies, who 
 scarce saw, before they felt, his columns. The conflict was 
 stern and doubtful. The right wing of the English, under Sir 
 Edmund Howard, was broken, its banners beaten down and its 
 commander unhorsed, by the desperate onset of Lord Home, 
 with his serried spearmen; but the battle was restored by the 
 bastard of Heron with a band of border outlaws, and the strife 
 closed again dark and dubious, until Lord Dacre with the re¬ 
 serve of fifteen hundred lances, charged home on the flank of 
 the Scottish pikes, and finished the struggle in that quarter by 
 putting the enemy to a precipitate rout. Next, toward the 
 centre, the admiral w r as long oppressed by the stern charge of 
 the Earls of Huntley, Errol and Crawford, with a dense mass 
 of seven thousand Scots, probably Highlanders, on whom he 
 could make no impression, till at length, when their chiefs were 
 slain, they wavered and were thrown into confusion. In the 
 centre, Surrey had to sustain the steady and sustained attack 
 of James himself, who fought on foot at the head of the flower' 
 of his army, all cased in complete steel, on whom the fatal hail 
 of the English archery was showered almost in vain. 
 
 Foot by foot, animated by the presence of their king, bear 
 
78 
 
 THE CRISIS OF THE DAT. 
 
 ing down all before them, onward and onward pressed the nr. 
 broken iron lines of that mighty column, which, like the fa- 
 mous Macedonian phalanx of old, could be shaken by no front 
 attack, however fiery or persistent. In vain Surrey exhausted 
 all his efforts to resist them. Resolute to win, ignorant how 
 the day went in other quarters, aud confident of victory, they 
 bore onward, onward—they were within three spears’ length 
 of the royal banner, and Surrey looked abroad for who should 
 rescue it, and saw none. For, on the right, the dreadful con¬ 
 test, which the admiral’s division had endured, was not yet so 
 far decided that he could detach a man to relieve the centre, 
 and on the left all seemed wild and inextricable confusion. 
 From the left, however, the succor was to come which should 
 convert that half-lost battle into an almost unexampled vic¬ 
 tory, the saddest day for Scotland, bewailed by her border 
 bards in those sweet laments which still survive, complaining 
 in their simple pathos that “ the flowers of the forest are a’ wede 
 away.” 
 
 For there fought Sir Edward Stanley, with the Cheshire men 
 hardened in the Welch wars, and the famous Kendal archery, 
 and there the column of Argyle and Lennox, whose tartan 
 plaids could not brook the clothyard arrows like the steel coats 
 of the Lothianers and Mersemen, opened its ranks, unable to 
 endure the murderous volleys of the Westmoreland bowmen, 
 and “ therein seemed to give one of the first overtures of vic¬ 
 tory.”* Their confusion was completed by a charge of three 
 companies of men-at-arms, when Stanley, by a general ad¬ 
 vance, drove them over the ridge of the hill, and wheeling 
 promptly and in good order to his right, fell on the flank and 
 
 * Lord Herbert of Cherbnry, fob 40. 
 
THE CARNAGE AT FJLODDEN. 
 
 79 
 
 mar of the king’s yet unbroken column. That gallant mon¬ 
 arch fell by an unknown hand within a spear’s length of Surrey, 
 but his death was not known at the time to either paity. 
 Once checked in its forward career, that great solid mass of 
 spears, like the Roman army at Cannae, like the mighty En¬ 
 glish square at Eontenoy, like the thundering column of Lan- 
 nes at Aspem, like the young guard of Ney at Waterloo, was 
 hemmed in on all sides, and, though it fought to the last, un¬ 
 daunted, neither giving nor receiving quarter, was, ere the sun 
 set, annihilated. From the right, at last victorious over their 
 immediate adversaries, in rushed Sir Edmund and the admiral; 
 in rushed, with his bloody lances, Dacre and the reserve, which 
 had already carried all before them and restored the day, when 
 the Blanche Lion of the Howards reeled to the blows of the 
 Scottish Unicorn. Yet still outnumbered and surrounded, the 
 stubborn hardihood of Scotland endured to the last. Forming, 
 when all was lost, a huge serried circle, they long resisted all 
 attempts to break them, and were at last crushed, not con¬ 
 quered, for until darkness closed over that dreadful scene, 
 
 “Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, 
 
 As fearlessly and well, 
 
 Each stepping in his neighbor's place, 
 
 The moment that he fell.”* 
 
 In the account of the lord admiral, the whole Scottish force 
 is roundly stated at eighty thousand men; but it is probable 
 that of these nearly thirty thousand were a mere rabble of 
 camp followers, and that Lord Herbert states the king’s power 
 more truly at fifty thousand. The battle began between four 
 and five in the afternoon, and lasted, according to the last au- 
 
 *Blr Witter Scott,, Marmion. 
 
80 
 
 THE CARNAGE AT FLODDEN. 
 
 thor, nearly three hours, which made, he says, “ the event doubt¬ 
 ful and the execution great.” Night, which came on ere the 
 action was well over, and the want of cavalry on the part of 
 the English, who seem to have had no horse, except Dacre’s 
 reserve of fifteen hundred lauces on the right, and a few squad¬ 
 rons of men-at-arms on the left, put an early end to the pur¬ 
 suit; but in the conflict itself, so bloody were the hand-to-hand 
 encounters of those days, ten thousand Scots were left dead 
 on the field, while of the victors, no less than five thousand 
 were slain. 
 
 On the following morning, however, the results of that 
 bloody action were more easy to be perceived; of the English 
 dead, the great part were persons of small note, and no one in¬ 
 dividual of high celebrity had fallen. Of the Scottish, on the 
 contrary, beside the king, who was found where he had fallen, 
 with two wounds, either of them mortal, the one of an arrow- 
 shot, the other the fearful gash of a brownbill, all the flower 
 of the nobility lay there, cold in their gore. The illegitimate 
 son of James, titular archbishop of St Andrews, two bishops, 
 two abbots, twelve earls, thirteen barons, five eldest sons of 
 barons, and fifty gentlemen, knights of lineage and distinction, 
 were among the slain. All the ordnance, consisting of seven¬ 
 teen brass pieces, “ the best fashioned, with the smallest touch- 
 holes, and the finest for their length and calibre,” according to 
 the lord admiral’s statement,* “ which he had ever seen,” fell 
 into the hands of the conquerors, and among them “ seven ex¬ 
 traordinary fair culverins,| called the seven sisters.” 
 
 On the receipt of this news, which, it appears, was brought 
 
 * Letter of Lord Thomas Howard, preserved in the Herald’s offlce. Pinkerton. 
 Appendix., vol. ii., 456. Quoted by Lingard, vi., 25. 
 
 tLord Herbert of Cherbury, 41. 
 
CAPITULATION OF TOURNAY. 
 
 81 
 
 to him on the very day in which Tournay capitulated, Henry 
 either felt, or affected to feel, compassion and regret for his 
 brother-in-law, no less than satisfaction at the success of his 
 arms, and the safety of his kingdom; ‘‘It put him in mind,” 
 says Lord Herbert, “of the vicissitude of all earthly things.” 
 Nevertheless, he caused the Te Deurn to be performed ; and 
 the Bishop of Rochester preached before him, laving the whole 
 blame of the late occurrences on the unhappy James, who un¬ 
 doubtedly had atoned for his false policy with his blood, though, 
 for a long time, his subjects believed that he had escaped from 
 the carnage of the field, and, according to one legend, betaken 
 himself to the Holy Land, while another, equally unfounded, 
 asserts that he was murdered in Home Castle, after the battle. 
 
 With the siege of Tournay the active operations of this cam¬ 
 paign ended; for on the real cooperation of Ferdinand no re¬ 
 liance was to be placed; and the Swiss had suffered them¬ 
 selves to be deceived into a separate negotiation with La Tre- 
 mouille, governor of Burgundy; who, having no authority to 
 treat, and knowing well that Louis would disavow all his pro¬ 
 ceedings, cared not what terms he promised, so that he could 
 purchase their retreat. 
 
 It was determined by the council, in which Wolsey is said 
 to have played the principal part, that, notwithstanding its dis¬ 
 tance from the English frontier, and the difficulty, not to say 
 impossibility, of supporting it, Tournay should be retained 
 and garrisoned—and this, though, among the reasons given for 
 dismantling Terouenne, the very arguments were adduced, 
 which did apply to Tournay, although not to the place in ques¬ 
 tion. The whole case-of Wolsey is, however, involved in so 
 much difficulty by the furious animosities of the times, and the 
 manifest partiality of ali the writers, pro or co«, who have 
 L* a 
 
82 
 
 POLICY OF WOLSEY. 
 
 treated of his extraordinary career, that it is necessary to use 
 the utmost discretion before pronouncing judgment on his 
 measures. In this case, he had certainly private interests to 
 be served; and no part of his career shows him superior to 
 these, as personal aggrandizement and the means of personal 
 splendor and ostentation seem to have been hardly less his ob¬ 
 jects than the advancement of the monarch, and the extension 
 of the church, to which he belonged. 
 
 Tournay was a city, even then, of eighty thousand inhabi¬ 
 tants, one of the richest in Europe; it was also the seat of a 
 wealthy bishopric, and to this, with the consent of the pope, 
 Wolsey was incontinently advanced. It may be that this was 
 the cause of his advocating the retention of the city ; it may 
 be, however, that it was only his reward. For Henry was 
 himself desirous of retaining the trophy of his expensive and 
 showy campaign, and the emperor would of course support his 
 arguments The whole policy of Wolsey, from the beginning 
 to the end of his career, was founded on the maintenance of the 
 balance of European power between the emperor of Germany 
 and the king of France, and the preserving to England the post 
 of arbiter between the two. 
 
 However well conceived, his plan, nevertheless, was not 
 well carried out; as he was constantly vacillating between 
 the two powers, as the fortunes of either seemed to ascend in 
 the scale; so that, constantly involving his country in dam¬ 
 aging and expensive alliances, he materially aided neither party, 
 and But partially attained the object at which he aimed, at the 
 expense of men, money, and consistency ; when, by a resolute 
 attitude and inflexible policy, he might probably have preserved 
 the peace of Europe without striking a blow. 
 
 Still, for the time, his pobey was sincere; and, being at this 
 
FESTIVITIES AT TOURNAY AND LISLE. 
 
 83 
 
 moment engaged wholly on the imperial or Spanish side of the 
 question, he probably believed in the force of the arguments 
 which he produced. These were, in brief, that, by razing the 
 defences of Terouenne, he had made the emperor his fast friend 
 forever—that it must ever be the policy of that prince to keep 
 Tournay out of the hands of France, so that he was bound 
 both by interest and policy to support its garrison, as against 
 a coup de mala of the French. • On the other side, should a 
 rupture occur with Spain, France, he argued, would of neces- 
 cessity become the ally of England, and would necessarily prefer, 
 also, to see Tournay an English rather than a Spanish garrison. 
 
 Arguments are easily found, when it is desirable to find 
 them; and he who desires to be convinced is not hard of con¬ 
 viction. The entry of the victors into Tournay was celebra¬ 
 ted by festivities of all kinds, the most fanciful and gorgeous. 
 Margaret of Burgundy was invited, with her ladies, and Prince 
 Charles of Castille, to share the king’s hospitality, in requital 
 of that she had extended to him at Lisle. A contract of mar¬ 
 riage had existed between Charles and Henry’s beautiful sister, 
 Mary, since the time of the late king, although the bridegroom 
 was several years younger than the lovely lady; and this 
 match was, for the present, farther confirmed between them; 
 while, at the same time, overtures were made for a union be¬ 
 tween the gay and gallant Charles Brandon, Lord Lisle, the 
 king’s especial favorite, and the Princess Margaret; “ which, 
 though it took no effect, was not yet without much demon'..‘ra¬ 
 tion of outward grace and favor on her part.”* In honor of 
 the princess and her ladies, who were right royally enterteinad, 
 for many days in succession, the king and emperor, as asscci- 
 ates, did hold a solemn justs against all comers, which they 
 
 * Lord Herbert of Clierbury, fol. 8T. 
 
84 
 
 NEGOTIATIONS AT TOURNAY. 
 
 performed valiantly and successfully ; and on the return c f the 
 ladies, the royal hosts became in turn the guests, accompanying 
 their fair inviters back to Lisle. There the Princess Margaret 
 “ caused a justs to be held in an extraordinary manner, the 
 place being a large room, raised high from the ground by 
 many steps, and paved with black, square stones like marble; 
 while the horses, to prevent noise or sliding, were shod with 
 felt or flocks ; after which the lords and ladies danced all 
 night.”* 
 
 These jollities, however, as they are termed by the noble 
 author, quoted above, appear to have had a meaning and pur¬ 
 pose less frivolous than mere amusement or ostentation, being 
 in fact devised in order to account for a concourse of illustrious 
 persons, and to conceal a scheme of negotiation for the farther 
 maintenance of the war. This, it appears, was set on foot by 
 Ferdinand of Castille, who had been from the first the chief in¬ 
 stigator of the war, as he had chiefly profited by it; and who 
 now, learning that military operations were at an end for this 
 season, sent envoys, Pedro de Orrea, Juan de la Nuca, and 
 Gabriel de Orti, to Henry VIII., with commission to treat for 
 a league, by which both kings, with the emperor, should enter 
 France the next spring. In virtue of this treaty, it was agreed, 
 that Ferdinand should invade Guienne, from the kingdom of 
 Navarre, with seventeen thousand of his own subjects, to be 
 maintained at his own cost, and six thousand Germans at the 
 expense of Henry, and that the war should be made in the 
 king of England’s name, and for the recovery of his patrimony 
 of Guienne. On the other side, Henry, assisted by Maxi¬ 
 milian, was bound to attack Normandy or Picardy with twenty 
 thousand r len ; and the pope, the prince, the archduke, the 
 
 * Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 87. 
 
SIGNING OF THE LEAGUE. 
 
 85 
 
 Duke of Milan, the Swiss, and the Florentines, were all to be 
 
 invited to join in this common league against the aggressive 
 power of France. 
 
 On the 17th of October, this treaty was signed, at Lisle, by 
 the Bishop of Winchester and the Marquis of Dorset, for the 
 king; by the Seigneur de Bergues, and Gerard de Pleine, 
 president of the council, for the emperor; and by Pedro de 
 Orrea, Don Lewis Carroz, and Juan de la Nuca, for Ferdinand. 
 But, notwithstanding the great expectations from this grand 
 combination of princes, potentates, and powers, it was "found, 
 in the end, as is apt to be the case, where many parties are 
 united against one, with no connecting link beyond a tempo¬ 
 rary combination of selfish and perhaps really conflicting inter: 
 ests, that, for all its stability or real value, this solemn league 
 might as well have been engrossed on the sea sand, as on the 
 parchment, which was the most enduring portion of the doc 
 ument. However, it gave great satisfaction for the moment; 
 and Henry returned, by way of Calais, to his own dominions, 
 where he shortly afterward rejoined his queen at Richmond ; 
 and there, amid great festivities and rejoicings over his boot¬ 
 less and barren conquests, and great preparations for his in¬ 
 tended campaign of the next spring, he bestowed high honors 
 and rewaids on those whom he considered to have deservea 
 well at his hands during the war. 
 
 X 
 
 To Thomas, earl of Surrey, the victor of Flodden, he re¬ 
 stored the title of Duke of Norfolk, of which his father had 
 been deprived, for adherence to Richard III. Lord Thomas 
 Howard, his son, was created earl of Surrey ; Sir Charles 
 Brandon, earl of Lisle, was raised to the dukedom of Suffolk; 
 while Sir Charles Somerset, who w r as also Lord Herbert of 
 Chepstow, Gower, and Raglan, in right of his wife, Elizabeth. 
 
86 
 
 DISRUPTION OP THE LEAGUE. 
 
 daughter of William Herbert, earl of Huntingdon, was created 
 Earl of Worcester; and Sir Edward Stanley was made Lora 
 Mounteagle. Beside this, a great number of gentlemen were 
 made knights and bannerets, and Thomas Wolsey, bishop of 
 Tournav, was elevated to the diocese of Lincolu. 
 
 In the course of this winter, however, it was made known 
 to the king, by Louis of Orleans, duke of Longueville, who 
 was a prisoner in England since the battle of the Spurs, that 
 the pope and Ferdinand of Spain had both abandoned the 
 league, the former revoking all his former censures against 
 France, and the latter consenting to a prolongation of the ex¬ 
 isting armistice for twelve months, as the price of his confirma¬ 
 tion, in permanence, in his title to Navarre. Maximilian was 
 also seduced from his fidelity to Henry, by the bribe offered 
 to him, in the shape of an offer of Renee, the daughter of Louis 
 of France, as wife to Charles of Spain, his grandson — who was 
 already betrothed to Henry’s youngest sister, Mary — carrying 
 with her, as dowry, the cession of the duchy of Milan to Spain 
 by the crown of France, which held it by conquest from Lu¬ 
 dovico Sforza, its rightful owner and sovereign. 
 
 The king affected, at first, to doubt the authenticity of the 
 French duke's information; but, if he did really distrust it. 
 his hesitations were soon removed by the evasive answers 
 which the regency of Flanders returned to his demand, that 
 they should now proceed to celebrate the stipulated marriage 
 between Charles and Mary. 
 
 Indignant at what he justly considered the falsehood of his 
 allies, Henry instantly broke off all connection with the con¬ 
 federates, and, by aid of the Duke of Longueville, speedily 
 came to the closest terms with Louis XII., whose queen, Anne 
 
WEDDING OF LOUIS XII. AND MART. 
 
 87 
 
 of Bretagne, had lately left him a widower, at the age of fifty- 
 three years. 
 
 The binding of this contract was ratified by the hand of 
 Mary, the beautiful and blooming sister of Henry; who, 
 though but sixteen years of age, and believed to be in love 
 with Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, either yielding to state 
 necessity, or seduced by the dazzle of royalty, consented to 
 the contract, receiving the same jointure and dowry with the 
 late queen of France. She carried to Louis four hundred 
 thousand crowns as her portion. Tournay was ceded to En¬ 
 gland, a million of crowns accrued to Henry, as arrears due 
 to himself and his father, and Richard de la Pole was ban¬ 
 ished to Metz, with a pension assigned to him by the French 
 king. 
 
 Early in September the first ceremonies of the marriage 
 were performed by procuration, Louis of Longueville contract¬ 
 ing the marriage per parole de present , under authority from 
 the king, and Mary’s procuration to the same effect being sent 
 to Paris, where the ceremony was solemnly held at the Celes- 
 tins, on the fourteenth of the month. In October, she was es¬ 
 corted to the sea shore by Henry and his queen, in person, and 
 took ship for Boulogne under the guidance of the Duke of Nor¬ 
 folk, with a splendid retinue and train of attendants, among 
 whom the most remarkable were Lady Guilford, whom the 
 queen called her mother, and the beautiful mistress Anne Bo- 
 leyn, destined in after days to play so considerable and sad a 
 part in English history. From Boulogne she was escorted to 
 Abbeville, by a great train of the most distinguished persons 
 in France, and at that place met her somewhat aged but deeply 
 enamored wooer, to whom she was wedded with much splen¬ 
 dor, on St. Deny’s day, the ninth of October. 
 
8S FOREIGN NATIONALITY OF QUEENS CONSORT. 
 
 The ceremony performed, Louis bestowed many splendid 
 jewels on the queen, and rich presents on those of her suite; 
 but immediately afterward, somewhat to Mary’s discontent, in 
 the first instance, though it seems that the attentions of her doting 
 husband aud the splendid pageantries of Paris soon reconciled 
 her, he summarily dismissed all the English in her train, with 
 the exception of a few officers and ladies of her personal at¬ 
 tendance. among whom the lovely Anne Boleyu was suffered 
 to remain. Lady Guilford he especially discharged, replying 
 to the Earl of Worcester’s remonstrances, that “his wife was 
 of age to take care of herself and required no longer a gov¬ 
 erness ; ” a decision in which Mary appeal's soon to have coin¬ 
 cided, since we find her shortly afterward declaring herself per¬ 
 fectly content with her French servants. Domestically speak¬ 
 ing, Louis was wise in his decision ; and perhaps, since his con¬ 
 duct gave no offence in England, politically also. Where a 
 foreign princess is married iuto a strange land, it is always de¬ 
 sirable that anything like the maintenance of a distinct and sep 
 arate nationality should be avoided. In the first place, inter 
 nally, the royal household must be disturbed by the conflicting 
 interests, jealousies, and dislikes of two sets of attendants, inev¬ 
 itably falling into rival cliques and seeking national favoritism, 
 and probably incapable of comprehending one another fully, 
 from difference of language; while the close intimacy and per¬ 
 fect confidence of the royal persons would naturally be dimin¬ 
 ished, by suspicions instilled by the agency of rival favorites. 
 In the second place, the original nationality of queens consort, 
 if at all markedly exhibited, is always a source of distrust, sus¬ 
 picion, aud, sometimes, hatred against them, to the subjects of 
 their husbands. The merest trifle, difference of national cos- 
 
UISTASXE to foreign queens. 
 
 89 
 
 uumes, creates prejudice, excites ridicule, and begets ill-will in 
 the illiterate masses. 
 
 In almost every case of such marriages recorded in history, 
 we find the ill effect of the maintenance of such trains in the 
 courts into which foreign princesses or princes have been ad¬ 
 mitted, and the happiest instances of such.espousals have inva¬ 
 riably been those, in which the person introduced has most en¬ 
 tirely ignored the customs and costumes of the old, and adop¬ 
 ted those of the new country. 
 
 A few striking instances illustrate this fact. In the reign 
 of the very king, Henry V111., of whom I am treating, the cos¬ 
 tumes of the German ladies-in-waiting of Anne of Cleves, exci¬ 
 ted universal ridicule and disgust among the courtiers, and prob¬ 
 ably added not a little to the prejudice of the monarch against 
 the “ mare of Flanders,” as he coarsely and brutally nicknamed 
 his virtuous and noble consort. That she, after her divorce, 
 held so high a place in the feelings of her former subjects, must 
 be attributed—as was seen also in the case of her right royal 
 predecessor, Katharine of Arragon—to a total avoidance of all 
 distinctions of nationality, and to her having lived, throughout 
 her life, in the style, and after the customs, of an English lady 
 of rank. 
 
 With the hapless Mary of Scotland, the first bitter preju¬ 
 dice, both of nobles and people, against their beautiful sover¬ 
 eign, which afterward increased into vindictive and almost per¬ 
 sonal animosity, may be traced to the French attendants, 
 French manners, French frivolities, and, perhaps it may be 
 added, French morals, engrafted by her on the grim auster¬ 
 ity, gloomy decorum, and stiff solemnities of her northern 
 court. 
 
 In the reign of England’s reproach—the pale, frigid, blood) 
 
90 
 
 THE HOUSES OF BouuoM aND BRUNSWICK. 
 
 Mary—neither her bigoted cruelty, nor the real wrongs in. 
 dieted on them by the morose and sa\ age Philip, more enraged 
 the groaning English, than the sight of the black-garbed, starch- 
 rutled, stately, unbending cavaliers, the Spanish hose and long 
 rapiers of the whiskered matadoros, the bare feet and cowled 
 heads of the tonsured friars, and the Romish pomp of the 
 proud, austere prelates, who had followed him from the land 
 of the Inquisition. 
 
 No one of the unhappy English Stuarts but suffered from 
 the same cause. Henrietta Maria, though she was daughter 
 of the good and great Henry IV., subject of so much English 
 sympathy, never conciliated the favor of her unhappy husband’s 
 people; she was, to the mass of the people, ever the French¬ 
 woman, and, to the stricter Puritans, the painted Jezabel of 
 Paris. In the time of his loose, licentious son, Charles II., the 
 brown Portuguese waiting women, with their foreign farthing¬ 
 ales and sevenfold vertugardins, more even than her barefoot 
 confessor, rendered the people indifferent, if not actually hos¬ 
 tile, to his ill-treated queen, Katharine of Braganza. 
 
 Nor, while speaking of this topic, though incidentally, can 
 one fail to recall to mind the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, 
 against whom the furies of revolutionary France, and the vo¬ 
 cabulary of republican abuse could invent no reproach more 
 odious, no cry more stimulating to the passions of the rabble, 
 than the national denunciation, “a bas VAutrichienne ”—down 
 with the Austrian woman ! In like manner, with princes;** 
 the Dutch guards, the Schiedam schnapps, and the Middle- 
 burgh tobacco of William the Third, the great prince of Or 
 ange, though he had crossed over from Holland at their owe 
 invitation, and restored to them their liberty and religion, long 
 
THE HOUSES OF BOURBON AND BRUNSWICK. 
 
 91 
 
 preserved a hostile prejudice among his people against that 
 great and Protestant king. 
 
 The house of Brunswick, never, until the accession of George 
 IV., who, undoubtedly, was the least worthy of his line, but 
 who had this advantage over all his predecessors, that he was 
 the first thoroughly English, prince of the family, had com¬ 
 pletely overcome the offence given to the nation by the pre¬ 
 ference of German nobles in attendance, German preceptors 
 and governesses in the royal nurseries, German grooms, and 
 even German horses, in the stable, to natives of the unmixed 
 breed. 
 
 Even in the present most prosperous and most popular reign, 
 in spite of the deep and enthusiastic attachment of the whole na¬ 
 tion to their beloved queen, in spite of the great caution and 
 prudence which he has exhibited in his whole career, and his 
 total avoidance of foreign favoritism, that almost universal er¬ 
 ror of alien princes, the slightest suspicion of Germanism, even 
 in the shape of a soldier’s hat, or the adjustment of his cross¬ 
 belts, much more in the conduct of a war, has sufficed to raise 
 against the unobtrusive consort a burst of ridicule or a storm 
 of obloquy. It appears, however, that in this instance, though 
 they might not improperly have taken some umbrage at tho 
 summary proceeding of Louis XII., and though it would have 
 been clearly characteristic of Henry’s temper to do so, no of¬ 
 fence arose from the course adopted by the French king, as is 
 rendered clearly evident by the circumstances which followed 
 shortly afterward, and which I quote from the history of Lord 
 Herbert of Cherbury, himself an enthusiast and champion in 
 exercises such as he describes. 
 
 “Francis de Valois, duke of Angouleme, and next heir 
 
y2 
 
 THE JUSTS AT PARIS. 
 
 male to the crown, having in May before married Cloud,* 
 eldest daughter of Louis Xll., by Anne, who was inheritrix of 
 Bretagne, desired now in the king's declining age to give some 
 proof of his valor. Therefore, before the English departed 
 from Abbeville, he caused a justs to be proclaimed; which, 
 lor being so extraordinary—the persons and manner considered 
 —1 thought worth the relating. The effect thereof was that, 
 in November ensuing, he with nine aids, would answer all 
 comers, that were gentlemen of name and arms, on horseback 
 and on foot The laws on horseback were, that with sharp 
 spears they should run five courses at tilt, aud five more at 
 random, being well armed and covered with pieces of advan¬ 
 tage for their best defence. After this to light twelve strokes 
 with sharp swords. This being doue, he and his aids offered 
 to fight at barriers with a haudspear and sword. The condi¬ 
 tions were that if any man were unhorsed, or felled fighting 
 on foot, his armor and horse should be rendered to the omcer 
 of arms. 
 
 “ That for this purpose an arch triumphant should be set 
 forth at the Touruelles, near the street St. Antoine, in Paris, 
 ou which four shields should be placed. That he who touched 
 the first, which was silver, should run at tilt, according to the 
 articles. Who touched the golden shield should run at random. 
 He that touched the black shield should fight ou foot with 
 handspears and swords for the one hand; six foius with the 
 li.mdspear, and then eight strokes to the most advantage, if 
 the sword so long held, and after that twelve strokes with the 
 sword. He that touched the tawuey shield should cast a spear 
 on foot with a target ou his arm, and after fight with a two- 
 
 * Claude, the eldest daughter of Louis, by Anne of Brittany, who destined her w 
 me Archduke Charles. — France^ iL 82. 
 
THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK. 
 
 93 
 
 handed sword. This proclamation being made, the Duke of 
 Suffolk, and Marquis of Dorset, and his four brethren, the Lord 
 Clinton, Sir Edward Neville, Sir Giles Capell, Thomas C'heyney, 
 and others, obtained leave of the king to be at the challenge; 
 which they so hastened, that before the end of October they 
 came to St. Denys, where they found the queen, the so¬ 
 lemnities for her coronation, as also for her reception at 
 Paris, being not yet in readiness. Francis de Valois knowing 
 how good men-at-arms the Duke of Suffolk and Marquis of 
 Dorset were, requested them to be two of his aids, to which 
 they assented. But while these things were in preparing, 
 Mary, the French queen, was, upon the fifth of November, 
 crowned in St. Denys, the Earl of Worcester and Dr. West, 
 who were appointed for this purpose by our king, attending at 
 the solemnity thereof, and Francis de Valois, afterward king, 
 holding the crown, which was very weighty, over her head. 
 The day following she entered Paris with great pomp, and the 
 morrow after, the justs begun, of which the king and queen 
 were both spectators, the king being yet so weak that he lay 
 on a couch. These justs continued three days, in which three 
 hundred and five men-at-arms were answered by the defend¬ 
 ants, among which some were so hurt that they died not long 
 after. At Random and Tournay, the Duke of Suffolk hurt a 
 gentleman very dangerously, and the Marquis of Dorset did 
 no less. Then the duke overthrew a man, both horse and 
 arms, and so did the marquis. Francis, at last being hurt, 
 desires the duke and marquis to fight at barriers, who there¬ 
 fore took the first place against all comers. In the meanwhile, 
 Francis, intending an affront, as was thought, to the duke, 
 causeth a German, the strongest person in all the court, to be 
 armed secretly, and present himself at the barriers ; they both 
 
94 
 
 THE DEATH OF XIXO LOUIS. 
 
 did well; yet the duke, at the last, with the butt end of n 
 spear stiuck the German till he. staggered, and so the rail was 
 let fall. The Marquis of Dorset also foiled another French¬ 
 man. Then they took some breath, and returned to fight again, 
 when the duke so pommelled the German about the head, that 
 blood gU'hed from his nose, which being done the German was 
 conveyed away secretly. Divers other brave feats were done 
 likewise, which the reader may find elsewhere. At last our 
 English, with singular honor, returned to their king and mas- 
 ter, whom they found much comforted for the birth of another 
 prince, though not living long after.’'* 
 
 Such were the fierce and dangerous sports in which our An¬ 
 glo-Norman ancestors rejoiced, which were not deemed too 
 sanguinary or too cruel for the entertainment of fair and gen¬ 
 tle ladies, and in which Henry himself took especial pride and 
 pleasure. 
 
 Great and extraordinary, however, as were the rejoicings at 
 this royal marriage, and sumptuous as were the entertainments 
 which followed Mary’s elevation to her royal state, she was 
 not destined long to enjoy them. Perhaps, had the revelries 
 been less lasting and superb, the state might have endured the 
 longer; for the king, a confirmed valetudinarian, and a martyr 
 to the gout, declined rapidly under the effect of banqueting, 
 late hours, and suppers, after grand court balls, protracted un 
 lil midnight. He was so anxious to please his gay and beau¬ 
 tiful bride, says an old writer,f “ that he changed all his habi¬ 
 tudes of life; for, whereas he had been used to dine at eight 
 o’clock, he agreed to put off dinner until noon, and whereas he 
 used to retire to bed at six o’clock in the evening, he now often 
 sat up until midnight.” 
 
 * Herbert of Cherbury, 48. 
 
 t Hist de Bayard, apud Henaolt, 423. 
 
THE YOUTHFUL WIDOW. 
 
 95 
 
 At what hour the good king Louis had been wont to break¬ 
 fast , when it was his habit to dine at eight o’clock in the morn¬ 
 ing, does not appear; but one cannot but smile at the idea of 
 a man of fifty-three, certainly not a very advanced age, suffer¬ 
 ing seriously from the fact of his deferring his dinner hour un¬ 
 til noon. In truth, however, it is the name, rather than either 
 the quality, or the hour, of the midday and evening meals, rel¬ 
 atively considered, that has changed, from the sixteenth to the 
 nineteenth century, so fiir as regards the upper classes in Eu¬ 
 rope and America. Then, the dinner was a secondary meal, 
 served usually between the hours of eleven and one, breakfast 
 having been taken at five or six ; while supper, which was the 
 grand solid affair of the day, came on the board from six to 
 eight o’clock of the evening, corresponding almost exactly to 
 the.usual luncheon and dinner hours of the modern fashionable 
 world. 
 
 Be that, however, as it may, greatly to the grief of his wor¬ 
 thy Parisians, but considerably, one would say from what fol¬ 
 lowed, to the satisfaction of his fair young widow, the good 
 King Louis died, within three months after his marriage; 
 whether in consequence of indigestion from his late meridian 
 dinners, or from other causes, may be held doubtful. Francis 
 of Valois, duke of Angoulcme, his next heir of blood, and hus¬ 
 band of his eldest daughter, Claude, succeeded him ; and Ma¬ 
 ry’s former lover, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, having 
 been sent to Paris by Henry with a message of condolence, 
 was persuaded, between the blandishment of his lady love, and 
 the encouragement of Francis, who had reason to apprehend 
 that she would be given in second marriage to the Archduke 
 Charles, to risk the anger of his lord and master, by espousing 
 his fair sister, without awaiting the ceremony of asking his con- 
 
96 
 
 SECOND MARRIAGE OF MARY. 
 
 sent. It is said, that the amorous widow, taking advantage, 
 of her high rank, adopted the privilege, which is said to belong 
 to the whole sex, in leap year, and asked her lover, “ if he 
 dared, without farther reflection, to marry a queen,” assuring 
 him, at the same time, that her brother would far more readily 
 pardon them for anticipating his sanction, than for acting in de¬ 
 fiance of it. The gentleman said “Yes,” and they were wed¬ 
 ded secretly in Paris. Nor were Mary’s anticipations incor¬ 
 rect, if indeed the whole matter were not prearranged, which 
 seems probable; since Wolsey, it is known, was privy to the 
 scheme, and neither attempted to oppose, nor yet divulged it 
 to Henry. That monarch probably felt that, as both parties 
 were out of reach of his authority, he could not prevent their 
 union ; and preferred pardoning, to allowing, his sister’s ill-as¬ 
 sorted marriage with a subject. It may be added, moreover, 
 that in those times the intermarriage of royal houses with their 
 own subjects of the feudal aristocracy was not unusual, and that 
 Suffolk himself was, up to this time, Heury’s especial favorite 
 and companion. 
 
 About the same time, the other sister of the English king, 
 Margaret, who likewise had been left a widow, and queen re¬ 
 gent of Scotland, by the death of James IV. on Flodden field, 
 also married a noble from her own subjects, the Earl of An¬ 
 gus ; although she thereby forfeited the regency, which was 
 left to her on the express condition that she should not re¬ 
 marry, and was shortly afterward compelled to take refuge 
 with her husband, though she failed to bring off her youthful 
 sons, at the court of her brother, in consequence w hereof, su- 
 peradded to the recall of the Duke of Albany, a prince totally 
 in the interests of the French king, and his promotion to the 
 
MISTRESS ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 97 
 
 regency, war was, not long afterward, rekindled betweeu the 
 bordering nations. 
 
 In the meantime, the queen dowager of France, with her 
 splendid husband, and all the train which had escorted her to 
 France, returned to their native land, with the exception of 
 Mistress Anne Boleyn, who was appointed maid of honor to 
 the French queen, Claude; and perhaps of Mistress Jane Sey¬ 
 mour also, although her name is not recorded as having fol¬ 
 lowed Mary of England to France, who also figured, nearly at 
 the same time, as maid of honor to the same royal lady—a 
 fact which is established by the existence, in the gallery of the 
 Louvre, of portraits of these two celebrated beauties, by the 
 no less celebrated Hans Holbein. 
 
 Shortly after Mary’s return, she and her husband received 
 Henry’s formal pardon, and were publicly married in his pres¬ 
 ence at Greenwich; Suffolk did not, however, continue long to 
 engross the favor of Henry, but soon afterward, disgusted by 
 the overweening growth and overbearing audacity of Wolsey, 
 retired to his country-seat, at the same time with YVarham, 
 the archbishop of Canterbury and ex-chancellor. Fox, bishop 
 of Winchester, and the noble Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 For, from this moment, never did any subject ascend so 
 rapidly in his monarch’s favor, or obtain so vast an ascendency 
 both in favor and wealth, as this obscure and low-born priest, 
 partly, it must be admitted, through his administrative and 
 diplomatic talents, but far more by his rare tact, his shrewd¬ 
 ness in intrigue, and his dexterity in administering to the pas¬ 
 sions, prompting the will, and conciliating the unstable affec¬ 
 tions of the fickle king. 
 
 After his return from France, where he had been made 
 bishop of Tournay, wo have seen him raised to the see of Lin- 
 E‘ 7 
 
WOLSEY ARCHBISHOP. 
 
 98 
 
 coin, he was now successively created Bishop of Bath, Durha m 
 and Worcester, and Archbishop of York, if not holding the 
 titles, at least enjoying the revenues of all at once, in addition 
 to the abbacy of St. Albans, which he held in commendam , 
 and the tithes of the bishoprics of Hereford and Winchester, 
 and other ecclesiastical preferm ents. On the resignation of 
 William Warham, as chancellor, he received that place, after 
 obtaining from Leo X. the cardinal priestship of St. Cicely 
 beyond the Tiber, by-which that pontiff hoped to secure his 
 influence over the king, his master, and subsequently the ap 
 pointment of legate a latere , by which he held the right of vis¬ 
 iting, which carried with it the power of suspension, confisca¬ 
 tion, and imprisonment, all the ecclesiastical establishments in 
 England. 
 
 “ Thus,” says the author I have so often quoted, “ were dig¬ 
 nities and wealth heaped so fast on Wolsey, that, beiug in his 
 nature insolent, he grew at length intolerable. Neither could 
 those excellent parts with which he was endowed exempt him ; 
 insomuch that not only much arrogance, but extreme vanity, 
 was observed in him ; whereas yet nothing commends church¬ 
 men so much as a pious modesty; all degrees of persons, but 
 especially theirs, being like coius or medals, to which howso¬ 
 ever virtue gives the stamp and impression, humility must give 
 the weight. Yet this cardinal, contrary to all example, is no¬ 
 ted by Polydore, to have used silk and gold in his outward 
 vestments, and even saddles. He caused also the cardinal's 
 hat to be borne, by some principal person, before him, on a 
 great height, like some consecrated idol, and when he came to 
 the king’s chapel, would admit no place to rest it on but the 
 very altar; he had besides his serjeant-at-arms and mace, and 
 two gentlemen carrying two pillars of silver, beside his cross- 
 
CHARACTER OF WOLSEY. 
 
 99 
 
 bearer, concerning which it is observed, that he did bear the 
 cross of York, somewhat to the prejudice of that of Canterbury, 
 which perchance might be some discontentment to the Arch¬ 
 bishop Warham. In conclusion, all his actions argued a 
 haughtier spirit than could become his place.” 
 
 Though there is doubtless much truth in the reports of Wol- 
 sey’s arrogance, it must be remembered that Polydore Virgil 
 was, for especial cause, his bitter enemy, having been thrown 
 into the tower by his orders; while it is admitted that “a 
 strict administration of justice took place during his enjoyment 
 of his office ; and no chancellor ever discovered greater impar¬ 
 tiality in his decisions, deeper penetration of judgment, or 
 more enlarged knowledge of law and equity.”* It cannot be 
 denied that the country was tranquil and sufficiently well- 
 governed at home; that he caused it to be respected abroad, 
 and that, if his foreign policy in some degree lacked consist¬ 
 ency, vacillating between French and Spanish interests, it was 
 that he, the first, conceived the idea of preserving an equilib¬ 
 rium between the greater powers, and that he could not have 
 sided uniformly with one, or maintained an unbroken alliance 
 with either of two princes so puissant, so ambitious, and so 
 unscrupulous as Charles V. and Francis I., without giving to 
 one a supremacy, dangerous alike to his country and to the 
 world. He was a liberal and munificent protector of letters, 
 a powerful patron of the arts; he had a noble taste in architec¬ 
 ture, which he bounteously promoted, having built at his own 
 cost, and it is said from his own designs, the chaste and splen¬ 
 did palace of Hampton Court, which he afterward presented to 
 the king, his master, fully furnished in a style of princely mu¬ 
 nificence—the most noble gift ever bestowed by a subject od 
 ♦S ir Thomas More, quited by Hume; vol. Hi. 109, from Stcwo, p. 504. 
 
100 
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF WOLSEY. 
 
 a crowned head. If he were grasping of wealth, it was to spend 
 it in lordly lavishness, prompting all the arts of industry and 
 civilization, not to hoard it in avaricious coffers, or bestow it 
 on unworthy favorites. 
 
 lie has been accused of encouraging Henry to extravagance, 
 and discouraging him from business, in order to have the 
 greater hold on him, as being the more necessary both to his 
 pleasures and his councils; but I can discover no shadow of 
 foundation for the charge. 
 
 lie has been accused of influencing his master, at divers 
 times, to different lines of policy, for the convenience of his 
 own ambitious schemes,mot for the interests of England. Thus 
 the conquest and retention of Tournay, an impolitic measure, 
 certainly, and a possession useless and expensive to England, 
 which must needs be a source of constant irritation to France, 
 has been laid to his charge, for purposes of self-aggrandize¬ 
 ment. But, in his age, the impolicy of maintaining such places, 
 in the heart of hostile countries, was little understood; the na¬ 
 tional pride was enlisted in their retention, and the surrenders 
 of Tournay, Calais, and Dunkirk, in after days, were in no de¬ 
 gree less obnoxious to the patriotic feeling of the time, than 
 would be now the proposal to deliver up the rock of Gib¬ 
 raltar to Spain; or the heights of Abraham to the United States 
 of America. 
 
 Moreover, I find that the cardinal is charged equally with 
 obedience to self-interest when he advised the restoration of 
 the same fortress to France, in shape of a dowry for the infant 
 princess. Mary, on her betrothal to the infant dauphin, in consid¬ 
 eration of the payment to Henry of six hundred thousand crowns 
 by Francis—certainly at: ample remuneration for the cession of 
 a fortress^o retain which was both a dead loss and a decided 
 
BATTLE OF MARIGNANO. 
 
 101 
 
 danger—as when he counselled its retention. One of these 
 charges, therefore, frustrates the other; and weighing all sides 
 of the question, 1 cannot but conclude that, on the whole, Wol- 
 sey’s foreign policy was honest, beneficial to the world at 
 large, and thoroughly English. Perhaps, by carrying a higher 
 hand, he might have enforced peace between the emperor and 
 the king, but it would have been at the expense, 'if not of a re¬ 
 sort to actual warfare, at least of an armed neutrality, while 
 by the course he did pursue, he lost, so far as I can see, no val¬ 
 uable possession, and certainly no honor, to his country, which 
 never held a higher place on the continent, than while it was 
 under his high and haughty rule. 
 
 To his influeuce over Henry’s councils, it is certainly to be 
 ascribed that by conciliating Francis, so long as conciliation 
 was possible, that warlike king was prevented from creating 
 a powerful diversion in the sister kingdom, by lending armed 
 assistance to the regent, Albany. To his influence it must be 
 ascribed that conciliation ceased, and the force of England 
 leaned toward Maximilian, after the bloody battle of Marignano, 
 which, after lasting two entire days, and costing forty thousand 
 lives, opened the whole of the Milanese to the French victor, 
 and of which the old marechal, Trivulsio, who had fought in 
 eighteen pitched battles, declared that all other actions he had 
 seen were but child’s play,—this a combat of heroes. To his 
 influence, above all, it may be attributed that Henry declined 
 the investiture of that fair Italian duchy, and the imperial 
 crown of Germany, which he was to receive at the hands of 
 the sovereign pontiff, Maximilian resigning it in his favor— 
 than which magnificent and dazzling offer, had it been accepted, 
 nothing can be imagined more disastrous, more fatal to the in¬ 
 terests of England. 
 
102 
 
 RESTITUTION OF TOURNAT. 
 
 Slid cl} 'ter this occurrence, alarmed at the vast coalitions 
 which se< ed on the point of forming against him, Francis 
 showed si, as of returning moderation. The consent of the 
 Swiss confederacy to his occupation of the Milanese, was won 
 by vast sums o'’money, always said, with truth or untruth, to 
 be too effective on the Helvetic mind. Charles of Austria was 
 purchased bj the offer of the hand of the infant princess, Lou¬ 
 isa, with the ’ights of the house of Anjou to the crown of Na¬ 
 ples, for her dowry. J Maximilian was convinced by the same 
 argument, which had proved so conclusive with the stout Swit¬ 
 zers. Henry alone remained stubborn and offended; and 
 Francis was aware that he had not only subsidized his enemies, 
 but had actually concluded a secret treaty with the emperor 
 and the king of Spain, against him. 
 
 About this time, however, Selim the Magnificent, emperor 
 of the Turks, having overrun Egypt, Syria, and threatening 
 destruction to the very name of Christendom, the pope, of his 
 own authority, proclaimed a peace, which should continue for 
 the space of five years, between all Christian powers and 
 princes, and sent legates to induce all the potentates of Chris¬ 
 tendom to combine against the Turk. 
 
 This device succeeded; a confederation was formed of the 
 emperor, the pope, and the kings of France, Spain, and En¬ 
 gland, by which they were all bound to interaid and protect 
 one another; and, whenever the territories of one should be 
 invaded, whether by one of the confederates or not, all to take 
 up arms in defence of the injured party, nor to depose them 
 until justice should be done. It was to remove the last chance 
 of offence that restitution of Tournay was made, on the condi¬ 
 tions above stated, and that the little Princess Mary was con 
 
GENERAL PACIFICATION. 
 
 103 
 
 tracted to the dauphin of France, who bi ing newly born, was 
 just four years her junior. 
 
 “Thus,” says Lingard, “after ten years of war and negotia¬ 
 tion, of bloodshed and perfidy, were all the parties reestab- 
 li hed in the same situation, in which they had stood previ- 
 ous’y to the league of Cambrav, with the exception of the un- 
 fortunate, and perhaps unoffending king of Navarre, whose ter¬ 
 ritories on the south of the Pyrenees could not be recovered 
 from the unrelenting gra-p of Spain.”* 
 
 This peace, which is known historically as the general paci 
 fication, was ratified on the 2d of October, 1518, and, by it, as 
 Lingard has justly observed, no one was a loser, except the 
 unhappy Jean d’Albret, the dispossessed king of Navarre. He 
 might have added, no one was a gainer by it, except Thomas 
 Wolsey, who, from an obscure priest, son of an inconsiderable 
 burgher of Ipswich, some say of a butcher, had grown to be 
 archbishop of York, lord high chancellor of England, a cardi¬ 
 nal prince of Rome, legate a latere, and the richest subject in 
 the world ; drawing his more than royal revenues not only 
 from nearly one-tenth of the bishoprics, abbacies, and wealth¬ 
 iest churches of England, but from the coffers of France, which 
 pensioned him in compensation for his see of Tournay, and 
 from the rich bishoprics of Toledo and Palencia, in Spain, 
 which Ferdinand had conferred on him, in guerdon of his ser¬ 
 vices, in bringing about the general pacification. 
 
 His establishment consisted of eight hundred individuals, 
 earls, knights, and gentlemen of high lineage; his splendor and 
 pomp were scarce surpassed by those of royalty itself. From 
 this time forth, 11 on solemn fast days he would say mass after 
 th' nanner of the pope himself; not only bishops and abbots 
 
 Lingard, vol. vi. p. 40. 
 
104 
 
 POWIR OT WOLBKY. 
 
 serving him therein, but even dukes and earls giving him watei 
 and the towel. Besides, not contented with the cross of York 
 to be carried before him, he added another of his legacy, which 
 two of the tallest priests that could be found, carried on great 
 horses before him. Insomuch, that it grew to a jest, as if one 
 cross might not suffice for the expiation of his sins.”* Never, 
 perhaps, before or since, had any subject risen in so short a 
 time to such preferment, wealth, preeminence, and power; 
 never, in after days, did one fall more lamentably. We have 
 seen the splendor of his ascension; the next act, in the drama 
 of the master’s life, is the superb servant’s downfall and disgrace^ 
 
 • Herbert of Cherbury, foL 11 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 FROM THE QENERAL PACIFCATION, 1618, TO THE DIVORCE OF 
 KATHARINE, 1588. 
 
 With the general pacification closes the first scene of Henry's 
 strange and varied character. Up to this period, we have seen 
 him a rash, vain, luxurious, headstrong, and somewhat self- 
 willed prince; b ut nothing had vet shown itself in his disposi¬ 
 tion which indicated the obstinate and brutal tyranny, or the 
 merciless love of blood, which hereafter grew upon him, till 
 they became his most distinctive attributes. Except in the 
 executions of Empson and Dudley, the guilt of which, perhaps, 
 belong rather to his council than to himself, and that of Ed¬ 
 mund de la Pole, who was a victim, rather to state policy and 
 to the late king’s maxims, than to any sanguinary humor of the 
 present prince, hardly any blood had been spilled judicially in 
 England, since Henry’s accession. After a somewhat formi¬ 
 dable rising of the London apprentices, but one life had been 
 sacrificed to the law, that of a notorious ringleader; and, in all 
 respects, his reign thus far would compare favorably with that 
 of any one of his predecessors. B ut now the influences ha d 
 begun to affect him, which soon converted him into a savage 
 and brutal tyrant, void equally of justice, gratitude, or mercy. 
 
 Tfrom this point the declension of his character commences, 
 and the decline is lamentably rapid. 
 
 E* 
 
106 
 
 henry’s mistresses. 
 
 On his return from the continent, Henry appears to have 
 abandoned himself entirely to luxury and pleasure, leaving the 
 reins of government given up to the hands of his minister; 
 and it was at this time, probably, that he first displayed the 
 germs of that furious and ungovernable lust and licentiousness, 
 which increased on him in his latter years, until they became 
 a disease, if not a madness. 
 
 Though she had been beautiful and majestic when she was 
 first wedded to him, Katharine was eight years Henry’s senior; 
 her health seems to have been delicate from the beginning, 
 none of her children surviving many months, with the excep¬ 
 tion of the Princess Mary, who was subject from her childhood 
 to violent attacks of constitutional and probably neuralgic head¬ 
 aches ; her beauty soon faded, and, though she retained to the 
 last so much of respect and esteem as Henry was capable of 
 feeling toward any woman, she had already lost all hold on his 
 passions, which seem to have been his nearest sentiment to 
 love or affection. It is not in my plan, in this sketch of the 
 king, to touch any more on his conduct toward his several con¬ 
 sorts and the circumstances connected with them, than is ne 
 cessary, in order to keep the thread of his life unbroken. It 
 must be observed, however, that it was in this year that, so 
 far as we can ascertain, his intercourse commenced with the 
 first of the royal mistresses, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John 
 Blount, and relict of Sir Gilbert Taillebois, by whom he had 
 a son, Henry Fitzroy, afterward earl of Nottingham, duke of 
 Richmond, admiral of England,* warden of the Scottish inarches, 
 and lieutenant of Ireland. To this boy he was fondly and 
 proudly attached; and it was even suspected, that, had he 
 lived, his legitimate daughter might have been set aside from 
 
 •XJngard, ?1. lid, quoting from Cardinal Pole, §T6, TI. 
 
DEATH OF MAXIMILIAN. 
 
 107 
 
 Aer rightful succession, to make way for a male, if base-born, 
 successor. He died, however, in the year 1536, in the eight¬ 
 eenth year of his age, having, young as he was, long sui /ived 
 his mother’s influence over his father’s fickle humor. Eliza¬ 
 beth Taillebois was soon succeeded, in her empire over his 
 faithless fancy, by Mary, the daughter of Sii Thomas Beltyn, 
 the elder sister of Anne, his unfortunate second queen, an i the 
 granddaughter of Thomas, duke of Norfolk. This lad v reigned, 
 it would seem, paramount over her royal lover, for a longer 
 period than any other of his wives, or mistresses, tor whom 
 his passion seems ever to have been as short lived as b was 
 furious and beyond control. It was, however, her fai?. to be 
 deserted in her turn, though the king provided her with a hus¬ 
 band, when he wearied of her; and it was said that her fate 
 proved a useful lesson to her sister Anne, when the king courted 
 her, likewise, to illicit love. Though wherein the lesson pro ved 
 useful to poor Anne seems somewhat doubtful; since one 
 scarcely sees what could have befallen her worse than to die, 
 with a decapitated body and a blighted reputation, even if she 
 had become rather liis mistress, as Katharine Parr, the last 
 and most fortunate of his queens, declared to himself it was 
 better to be, than his wife. 
 
 In the following year, Maximilian of Germany died ; and, 
 the splendid diadem of the empire becoming a prize for the 
 most fortunate candidate, Francis of France, and Charles of 
 Austria, plunged into the rivalry, with an intensity of ambi¬ 
 tion, although at first under the forms of amicable competition, 
 which too surely portended the more violent strife, into w hich it 
 w-as afterward destined to conduct them. Henry, excited by 
 a like lust of glory Er a while, proposed himself as a rival in 
 the race to these great princes, but learning speedily from Pace, 
 
108 
 
 CANDIDATES FOR EMPIRE. 
 
 his envoy, that lie was too late in the field, a large majority of 
 the electors being already preengaged to one or other of the 
 two competitors, he withdrew from the contest, directing his 
 agent if possible to secure the election of a native priuce rather 
 than that of either Charles or Francis; but, should he find that 
 impossible, to throw his whole influence into the scale of 
 Qiarles, who, having succeeded to the rich inheritance of the 
 Netherlands, in right of his father, Philip, had on the death of 
 Ferdinand obtained the tin-one of Spain, in right of his mother, 
 Juana,* daughter of that king by Isabella of Camille. Wolsey, 
 it appears, was satisfied, from the first, of the impolicy, as well 
 as the impossibility, of obtaining the imperial crown for his 
 master; but, until after the event, when he learned the enor¬ 
 mous sums which it had cost Charles to purchase it of the 
 electors, on which he said he was “ right gladhe had not sue 
 oeeded, Henry would hear no reason. Whether it would not 
 have been the truer policy of England to support the claims 
 of the French in lieu of those of the Spanish king, is, perhaps, 
 doubtful. Both monarchs were equally ambitious; if either 
 the more so, it was not Charles, whose relationship to Katha¬ 
 rine of Arragon, his maternal aunt, might, also, be considered 
 as a cause for viewing his operations with less suspicion than 
 those of his rival. Yet the immense power arising from the 
 concentration in his hands of the kingdom of Spain, the duchy 
 of Burgundy, the Netherlands, and the empire, might perhaps 
 hive been regarded as more formidable than the accession of 
 strength which Frauds would have gained by his election. 
 Thj truth, however, appears to be this, that the moment Henry 
 resigned his pretensious to procuring the imperial diadem, he 
 returned to his original design of reconquering Anjou, Nor 
 
 * Ltngard. vi 4P. 
 
MANAGEMENT OF HENRY AND HIS MINISTER. 
 
 109 
 
 mandy, and Guienne, those ancient appanages of his house ; if 
 he did not conceive the project of conquering the crown of 
 France itself—ideas to which he clung with his wonted perti¬ 
 nacity. His whole after-conduct toward his “well-beloved 
 brother,” Francis, w r as marked by a deep duplicity that one 
 would scarce hold compatible with his furious, irritable, and jeal¬ 
 ous rashness, were it not a characteristic of his whole career. He 
 was at least as sudden, treacherous, close, and secret as he was 
 fickle, cruel, and capricious, yet at the same time obstinate, 
 and, where his purpose was set, of iron will. In conclusion, 
 the apology made by the cardinal to Francis and by him ac¬ 
 cepted, to the end that England would not have supported 
 Charles, had it been possible successfully to oppose him, had 
 in itself thus much at least of truth, that her opposition would 
 have bitterly irritated Charles, while availing Francis nothing. 
 Thus far, therefore, it is not easy to see how Henry or his min¬ 
 ister could have managed their continental policy better than 
 they did; J'even if it be admitted that they were in some de¬ 
 gree influenced by that ancient rivalry and hostility between 
 the two nations, which, arising from the growth of circum¬ 
 stances, fomented by centuries of strife, had come to be re¬ 
 garded as a principle of nature, and as the inevitable conse¬ 
 quence of their juxtaposition and their greatness. From this 
 moment it became the object of both the king and the empe 
 ror to court Henry, and conciliate him. so far at the least as to 
 secure his neutrality, if not his assistance, in case of the rup¬ 
 ture, which both foresaw, and which Francis probably intended. 
 
 The latter prince, to this intent, proposed that the meeting, 
 for which provision had been made in the treaty, of the two 
 kings, on the frontiers of their dominions, should take place 
 forthwith; and Henry, delighting in such an occasion fin- pa 
 
110 
 
 CONFERENCE OF KINGS. 
 
 geantry and splendor, with the full concurrence of Wolsey 
 himself in no sort averse to it, immediately assented. . 
 
 This led to the celeorated conference, held within the con 
 fines of the English district, or pale, as it was called, of Calais, 
 so fir renowned in legend and romance, no less than in the so¬ 
 ber page of history, as the Field of Cloth of Gold. 
 
 For this feast of kings preparations were made which exceed 
 belief, exceed even imagination ; nobles and princes mortgaged 
 their estates, sold or pawned their ancestral plate, nay, dispos¬ 
 sessed themselves of feudal droicts, and even such of their lands 
 as were unentailed, that they might go brave to that grand 
 show of bravery, of vanity of vanities. Proclamation was 
 made in every court of Europe,— France, England, the 
 Low Countries, Germany, Burgundy, Italy, and Spain,—that in 
 June, 1520, “the two kings, Francis and Henry, with fourteen 
 aids, would, in a ca mp between Ardres and Guisnes, answer 
 all comers, that were gentlemen, at Tilt, Tourney, and Barri¬ 
 ers.” The queens, with all their trains and retinues, all the 
 beauty and brilliancy, all the valor and the glory of the two 
 great rival realms were to be present; and the chivalry of the 
 assembled world were to be the champions and the spectators 
 of the noble game of spears. All the leaders of England’s 
 feudal aristocracy were summoned by name, to attend, in or¬ 
 der in their degree, to support their monarch’s state, the sum 
 mons amounting to no less than an undeniable command. 
 Yet ^ajminous were the expenses necessary, a$_ first sight, at 
 attendance, that even the Duke of Buckingham, tl^e greatest 
 and wealthiest of the English nobles of the day, wasSstaggered 
 at the amount, and at the burthens, which, as he foresaw, he 
 should be compelled to impose on his tenantry. He had the 
 unenv iable report of being parsimonious; but there is no par- 
 
rDLE PROFUSION. 
 
 Ill 
 
 simonv in reluctance to enforce undue and unwise impositions 
 on those committed to his charge, nor in grudging the profusion 
 in useless and idle splendors, of riches which might have em¬ 
 battled armies, or, in the day of need, have propped a falling 
 empire. He obeyed, but murmured in obeying. The mur¬ 
 murs, it is said, reached the ears of Wolsey, and were not for¬ 
 gotten, but, when accusations were, in after days, strong against 
 the powerful duke, even to the endangering of his head, re¬ 
 membered—to the loss of it. 
 
 Be this as it may, willing as the gentlemen of England have 
 shown themselves at all times to sacrifice their fortunes and 
 even their lives at the call of their sovereigns, there was on 
 this occasion discontent and displeasure, the deeper that they 
 were secret, among men who had not uttered a word of com¬ 
 plaint, if they had been called upon to devote their all to fur¬ 
 nish forth their king to battle. Nor that unreasonably j if, as 
 the tale runs, more than one noble family has to rue, even to 
 this day, in their impoverished conditioi^Mie lavish splendors 
 of the Field of Cloth of Gold. ^ 
 
 In the meantime, Charles regarde 
 picious eye the mighty preparatioj 
 omened, meeting; and used evd 
 astute, taciturn, wary temperanj 
 or effect, to frustrate it. Wl 
 though, if historians may be cl 
 the cardinal over to his side, 
 
 demise of Leo he would proc 
 partly by more solid earne 
 the gold of pillaged Mexico t 
 European nations, to bestow 
 
 a wakeful and sus- 
 s, to him most ill- 
 d which his close, 
 ed him to conceive 
 nd this impossible, 
 had already gained 
 omises that on the 
 be elected the pope, 
 r in presents, which 
 Spain, the richest of 
 iy than any othe* 
 
112 
 
 MARY THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 power, he wisely determined to turn to his own favor that 
 which he could not prevent. 
 
 Taking occasion, therefore, of a visit from Spain to his Neth¬ 
 erlandish provinces, which it is believed was devised only for 
 the purpose to which he turned it, he resolved to pay Henry 
 and his aunt, of Arragon, the distinguished honor of waiting 
 upon them in their own dominions, and timed his arrival so 
 well, that the Spanish ships anchored at Ilythe, on the very 
 day in which Henry entered Canterbury on his progress to 
 the coast. This preconcerted, but seemingly accidental, meet 
 ing was celebrated with great feasts and rejoicings in that an¬ 
 cient and venerable city, to which he repaired on his uncle’s 
 invitation; i: where he gladly saw his Aunt Katharine; the 
 queen dowager of France,* also, once proposed for his wife, 
 seemed very considerable, as being for her beauty much cele¬ 
 brated by the English and French writers. And, if we may 
 believe Polydore, his passion in seeing of her was such as he 
 could not be persuaded to dance, and kept that Spanish grav¬ 
 ity, which, in his age and among such company, might well 
 have been laid aside.” f 
 
 As 1 have said before, the credit of Polydore Virgil is much 
 more than doubtful; but it may be a little interesting to those 
 who look into individual history, as wherein to find the clues 
 to the history of the world, to note the supposed effects and 
 influences of the beauty of this four-times betrothed, twice- 
 wedded and historically almost unknown, Mary, on the fates 
 of nations, during one of the most eventful periods, if not the 
 most eventful, of Christendom. 
 
 What an era was that? If Mary, the beautiful sister of 
 
 • Mary, si9ter of Henry VIII,, widow of Louis XII. of France, duohess of Suffolk, 
 t Herbert, fol. T9. 
 
HENRY S HOUSE AT GUISNES. 
 
 113 
 
 Henry, “the defender of the faith,” had been the wife of Charles, i 
 the emperor, and “the most Catholic king,”—if Wolsey had, 
 in compliance with the engagements of Charles, been pope, af¬ 
 ter Leo X., in lieu of Adrian, would England have, this day, 
 been Lutheran or Romau ? Would “gospel light have dawned 
 from Anna’s eyes?” Would More and Fisher have died, 
 Catholics, at the stake, to recreate England Protestant? Would 
 Mary, the niece of that Mary, have descended to posterity as 
 “ the bloody,” or ascended the throne of Catholic England, as 
 its most Catholic queen? 
 
 During this visit, which lasted only four days, Charles ap¬ 
 pears to have succeeded in establishing himself firmly, in both 
 Henry’s and his minister’s good graces, and then “having 
 passed over the Whitsontide holidays, in those sports and enter 
 tainments which our king gave him, he departs to Sandwich the 
 29th of May, 1520, whence taking ship May 30, he arrived in 
 his native country of Flanders, while our king the same day 
 passed to Dover; and thence, May 31, with all his train and 
 company, to Calais.”* On the 4th of June, the king, the two 
 queens of' England, and the dowager of France, and their suite, 
 proceeded to Guisnes, where they took up their abode in a 
 splendid palace of wood-work, framed in England and sent out 
 by sea for erection, forming a square of three hundred and 
 twenty feet, adorned within and without, with tapestries of 
 arras, hangings of silk and satin, in short, every luxurious dec¬ 
 oration, which the art of the times could accomplish, or their 
 prodigality desire. In front of this splendid structure, daz¬ 
 zling with glass and gilding,f played two fountains, the one of 
 wine, the other of hypocras; and above it was displayed the 
 figure of an English archer—a savage, he is called by Lord 
 
 • Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 80. t Mennechet Hist. France, ii. 74. 
 
 8 
 
114 
 
 THE FIELD OF CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 Herbert, probably using the word in the sense of forester or 
 woodman—drawing a cloth-yard arrow to the head, with the 
 vaunting motto, “ cui adhcereo protest.” The king of France, 
 on the contrary, was lodged in tents only, as being farther re¬ 
 moved from his capital, but, to compensate, they were entirely 
 made of cloth of gold, with balls and other devices surmount¬ 
 ing them of solid bullion. 
 
 Before'the meeting of the kings, it seems that Wolsey vis¬ 
 ited Francis privately, and remained two days his guest, du¬ 
 ring which time the treaty of eternal amity, as it was called, 
 between the two monarchs was ratified, and the betrothal of 
 the royal children, the infant dauphin and the baby princess, 
 Mary, finally arranged, Francis agreeing to pay to Henry, 
 over and above the million of crowns stipulated in 1515, and 
 his heirs forever, in case the marriage should be concluded and 
 the dauphin become in right of his wife king of England, an 
 annual pension of a hundred thousand crowns of the sun. 
 
 This treaty-to the performance of which both monarchs 
 swore on the holy evangelists, having with their queens parta 
 ken of the eucharisf in common—which never was performed 
 at all, and which one of the parties, Henry, probably never in¬ 
 tended to perform, had eternity assigned to it, as its duration. 
 It was stricken on the sixth day of June, 1520, and broken, by 
 Henry’s formal declaration of war against Francis, on the nine¬ 
 teenth day of the same month, in 1522. Such is the faith of 
 kings, and so justly is it written, “put not your trust in prin¬ 
 ces !” Such is the durability of treaties. 
 
 On the following day, at the sound of a culverin, the two 
 royal processions set forth, the one from Guisnes, the other 
 from Ardres, and met at a place in the valley of Andern, 
 wnere a splendid pavilion of cloth of gold had been erected for 
 
THE TOURNAMENTS. 
 
 115 
 
 their reception. Here they met, surrounded by their courts, 
 blazing in embroideries of gold, enriched with precious stones, 
 velvets of Genoa, tissues of gold and silver, inwoven with all 
 gorgeous hues, so that, to borrow the words of the old French 
 chronicler, “ there were many there who carried on their backs 
 their mills, their meadows, and their forests.” The kings dis¬ 
 mounted, embraced, and walked arm in arm into the splendid 
 pavillion provided for them, and professed each for the other 
 the warmest and most affectionate regard; yet all within this 
 harmonious and fraternal show was empty hollowness and dark 
 suspicion. Rumors of intended treachery were constantly rife 
 and, to prevent the possibility of treason, the attendants were 
 carefully numbered on both sides, the kings left their residences 
 at one and the same appointed moment, visited their respective 
 queens at the same time and spot previously appointed, and that 
 simultaneously. In all respects, these royal friends comported 
 themselves, one to the other, rather as belligerents during a 
 brief armistice, than as, which they professed to be, mutual ad¬ 
 mirers, and, if rivals, rivals only in the pursuit of the same 
 phantom quarry, glory. Still, during fourteen days, the ban¬ 
 queting, -the revelry, the dance by night, and by day tae su¬ 
 perb tournament with the shock of barded steeds, the shiver¬ 
 ing of no pointless weapons but of stout ashen lances with heads 
 of the best Bourdeau steel, the clash and clangor of steel coats 
 and Milan casques, the rolling of gallant knights in the dust, 
 horse and man, before the eyes of queens and princesses, and all 
 the peerless aristocracy of female beauty, among the fanfares 
 of trumpets, and the cn of herald and king-at-arms, “ Fight 
 on, brave cavaliers. Man dies, but glory lives forever !” went 
 on unwearied and unbroken. On every occasion the two kings 
 appeared in fresh and equal splendor; on every occasion they 
 
116 
 
 THE TOURNAMENTS. 
 
 excelled all, save one another. On each day, each monarch 
 ran five courses with grinded spears, or fought at barriers with 
 sharp swords, and on each day, each bore down, or foiled, his 
 five antagonists. It is as vain to imagine, as it would be false 
 to represent, that these mighty princes owed their success to 
 the complaisance of their opponents, rather than to their own 
 skill and prowess. Those were, still, hard and fierce and yet 
 chivalric days, when such a king as Francis, on one of his own 
 fields of immortal victory, craved knighthood, as an honor, of 
 a simple French cavalier, even if that cavalier were sans peur 
 et sans reproche, even if his name were Bayard; and it is prob¬ 
 able that the suspicion of not putting forth all his force against 
 a kingly antagonist would have purchased for the flatterer, even 
 if one could be found willing to flatter at the imminent risk 
 of losing his own life, and earning by adulation the extra honor 
 of royal immolation, not favor, but the reverse; as if he pre¬ 
 sumed to regard his monarch as a mere carpet-knight, to be 
 spared, not as a champion^ to be encountered on equal terms, 
 and even so at deadly hazard. It must be remembered,'that 
 Henry II., the son of this very Francis, was killed in a tourna¬ 
 ment before the gates of his own royal residence, by a splinter 
 from the broken lance of Montgomery, the captain of his own 
 guards. A circumstance which fully justified a very common- 
 sense remark of a practical, clear-headed Turk, an envoy of the 
 Sublime Porte, who, after beholding a tournament, at the court 
 of Charles VII., quietly observed—“If this be meant for fun, 
 there’s a little too much of the thing;if for earnest, not quite 
 enough!”* It must be remembered that Francis himself, be¬ 
 fore he was unhorsed and made prisoner, in the disastrous bat¬ 
 tle of Pavia, killed seven men with his own hand, and would 
 
 * Mennechet, il. 118 
 
INTERCOURSE OE THE KINGS. 
 
 117 
 
 have cut his way through the whole army of the enemy, had 
 not his horse been shot under him, and gunpowder, “ the grave 
 of valor,” been brought into play against the lance. It must 
 be remembered that Henry was a giant in frame, scarcely in¬ 
 ferior to his colossal grandsire, the fourth Edward; that he 
 was as yet a young man, and unencumbered with the fat, which 
 in his later years rendered him unwieldy; that he was the lin¬ 
 eal descendant of the iron race of the Plantagenets, as well as 
 of the fiery Tudors; that the blood of Cceur de Lion was hot 
 in his veins, and his example ever in his mind; that he was 
 acknowledged unequivocally to stand among the best men-at- 
 arms of his own warlike nation, if not the very best. And, 
 these things borne in mind, it will not be too much to believe 
 that these generous and gallant princes, were, in deed and not 
 in word, the first as in rank, so i n prow ess and place among 
 the spears. 
 
 On one occasion, Francis, whose more impulsive and chivalric 
 spirit revolted against the narrow suspicion s which had sur¬ 
 rounded and confined the intercourse of himself and his brother 
 king with a network of ceremonials, formulas, and precautions 
 against that most atrocious of felonies, treason under trust, 
 made an effort to break through the unworthy and ungenerous 
 restrictions which he felt to be in themselves disgraceful; and, 
 taking horse with a small train of geutlemen, at an early hour 
 of the morning, galloped into Henry’s camp at Guisnes, and 
 surprised the king with a visit before he had left his chamber, 
 calling out jocosely that he and all his men were prisoners. 
 Henry affected to be charmed with his frankness, taking him 
 in his arms and exclaiming that he surrendered at discretion. 
 An exchange of gifts of jewelry followed, in which the present 
 of the French king as much excelled his rival’s as did the gen 
 
118 
 
 THE EMPEROR AT CALAIS. 
 
 erosity of his heart and the frankness of his nature; and, on 
 the ensuing day, Henry, unwilling to be outdone in the outward 
 shows and forms of noble-mindedness, rode over in the like 
 manner to visit his “ well-beloved brother” in his lines at 
 Ardres. 
 
 It is not, however, by such courtesies as these that national 
 jealousies are stilled, or national hostilities pacified. It was re¬ 
 marked by all, that, though the solemn passage at arms had 
 been proclaimed in the courts of Burgundy and Spain, no 
 knight of the emperor’s was present in arms to do honor to 
 the conference of the kings; and it said that Francis, in his re¬ 
 sentment at the affront, was so unwise as to countenance, if 
 not command, an attack, which proved no more fortunate than 
 it was fair in time of peace. 
 
 When the long series of idle displays, worse than profitless 
 expences, wearisome pomps, and heartless professions was at 
 last ended, the kings embraced with mutual expressions of 
 good will and declarations of sincere amity, but with doubt, 
 distrust, and jealousy rankling at their hearts, more bitterly 
 than before their meeting, and ready at the slightest spark to 
 blaze out into open enmity. These feelings, on the part of 
 Francis, were not likely to be much assuaged by his learning 
 that immediately after bidding himself farewell, between Ar¬ 
 dres and Guisnes, Henry set out, though without the queen 
 or the noblest of his train, to Gravelines on the Waal, there to 
 return to his nephew, the emperor, the honor he had done him 
 by visiting him in England, and reconducted him to Calais with 
 great honor, to wait upon his aunt. This visit lasted three 
 days, and was marked by the introduction-in the guise of 
 maskers at a grand entertainment-into the presence of Charles 
 and Henry,of la Roche, and certain French envoys, who read 
 
queen clause’s maids of honor. 
 
 119 
 
 aloud in their presence, the tripartite league formerly conclu¬ 
 ded between them and Francis, and cited the Emperor, then 
 and there to ratify it with his signature. This Charles evaded 
 doing, and shortly afterward departed into his own dominions, 
 though nopjjJJ. he had thoroughly captivated the vanity, and 
 gained, for the time, the capricious adhesion of his uncle, by 
 nominating him the absolute umpire in all future disputes 
 which should arise between himself and the French monarch. 
 
 An ominous anticipation, truly, to follow so close on the 
 heels of a conference for concluding a treaty of eternal and in¬ 
 dissoluble amity ; and one which Francis, undoubtedly, had no 
 difficulty in comprehending. It was not sagacity in foreseeing 
 the strokes of his enemy, nor brilliancy in the conception, nor 
 splendid execution in delivering his own counterstrokes, that 
 was wanting in Francis; but secretiveness in regard to his 
 councils, continence of tongue and temper in reference to their 
 disclosure, and patience in awaiting the true time for their de¬ 
 velopment. The lack of these qualities, in addition to his 
 splendid genius, fiery imagination, and heaven-daring courage, 
 we should perhaps say, rather than in despite of them, that laid 
 him open to the far less dazzling adversaries, whom he armed 
 against himself. It is worthy of remark, that at this interview 
 Anne Boleyn was present—on this point the positive declara¬ 
 tion of Lord Herbert leaves no room for doubt-as well, prob¬ 
 ably, as Jane Seymour, another embryo queen of England, 
 both officiating as maids of honor to Queen Claude, sumamed ' 
 the Good, and therefore brought into the closest possible asso¬ 
 ciation with the royalty of England. Miss Strickland notices 
 this fact, but observes on it, that the presence of this young 
 lady was, as yet, of no moment to the royal Katharine, al¬ 
 though her mind had been already somewhat troubled by the 
 
120 
 
 TEE MAIDS OF HOHOR. 
 
 coquetries”—a light word to use in reference to an almost 
 avowed paramour—“ of the other sister, Mary Boleyn, with 
 King Henry.” It is not, however, improbable that the royal 
 eye had been attracted by both these fair English maids of 
 honor of the French queen ; since, when the war broke out, a 
 year or two later, they were both summoned to vacate their 
 situations in the French court, and, on their return, Anne was 
 appointed to the same place in the household of Katharine 
 which she had previously held in that of Claude; and, on her 
 advancement to the crown, Jane Seymour occupied that very 
 position, and with similar results, which she had herself mis¬ 
 used toward her right-royal predecessor. 
 
 Of this, however, more in its proper place. Of the pomps 
 and splendors of the past scene 1 could and fain would dis¬ 
 course somewhat more largely ; for I confess that there is 
 something in the mingled magnificence and daring, the chiv¬ 
 alry, the recklessness, the splendor, and the risk of those en¬ 
 counters, bygone and never to return, which is singularly con¬ 
 genial and fascinating to the bent of my spirit. But a just re¬ 
 gard to my limits must forbid, and I can only refer those of 
 my readers who care to read farther of those gorgeous days, 
 to the pictured pages of Holliugshedc and Hall, the latter of 
 whom especially revels in the descriptions of those pomps and 
 pageantries, even to the dresses of the principal personages, 
 which it would not be difficult to reproduce from his minute 
 and glowing portraiture. 
 
 It was in this year, and at about this time, that the dispute 
 and differences between Luther and his party, of whom Ulrio 
 Zuinglius, Erasmus, and Philip Melancthou were the most cel¬ 
 ebrated, and Pope Leo X., being at their height, Charles, who 
 had been recently crowned emperor at Aix, summoned the 
 
HENRY A THEOLOGIAN. 
 
 121 
 
 Great Reformer to appear before a diet, which he convoked 
 at Worms, October, 23, 1520, giving him a safe conduct to 
 come and go unmolested. At this diet Luther appeared, still 
 wearing his friar’s habit, for he had not yet protested against 
 the church itself, but only against its abuses; and, refusing to 
 recant or retract his opinions, was proscribed by edict, together 
 with all his adherents and followers. 
 
 Considering that by this treatment he was rather punished 
 than put in any process of conviction, Henry, who, now liber¬ 
 ated from the excitements and fatigues of war proper, had no¬ 
 thing, unless it were polemics, wherewith to occupy and amuse 
 his restless, impatient, irritable spirit, resolved to descend into 
 the lists controversial, against this champion of reform, fully 
 confident that he could overthrow him as easily by the edge 
 of his eloquence and the weight of his ponderous theology, as 
 he had beaten down military champions in the tilt-yard by the 
 more convincing arguments of battle-axe and double-handed 
 sword. 
 
 That Henry was a man of talent, and even of erudition, ac¬ 
 cording to his day, is not to be denied; and it has ever ap¬ 
 peared to me, that one of the most adverse influences to the for¬ 
 mation of his character, and one which led to some of the most 
 odious incidents in his subsequent career, was this—that he 
 had been studiously educated a theologian, with a view, during 
 the lifetime of his brother Arthur, to filling the archiepiscopa! 
 diocese of Canterbury; that he really was more than a tolera¬ 
 ble divine; and that, having once got it into his head that he was 
 priest nearly as much as king, he never could divest himself of 
 the idea. Hence, when his quarrel arose with Pope Clement, 
 on a question perfectly laical and unconnected with religious 
 opinions, he aspired not to render Englan 1 Protestant, as some 
 F 
 
122 
 
 DF. SErTEM SAC'R AMEXTI8. 
 
 persons have strangely understood it, but to erect a separata 
 Anglican Catholic church, of which himself and his heirs and 
 successors should be the supreme heads and quasi popes. It 
 was no nominal supremacy which he claimed to hold, as is 
 sufficiently evident from the fact, that in his later persecutions of 
 the Protestants, he did actually lay claim to his own infallibil¬ 
 ity, whether he did so in words or not. It was more the con¬ 
 tumacy of the unhappy martyrs in refusing to be convinced by 
 the eloquence and divinity of himself, the pontiff-king, than 
 their heresy in rejecting the. true faith, that he punished with 
 the stake and ffigot. 
 
 No sterile, title or form of power was that, which he attached 
 to the crown of England ; for, had he succeeded in carrying 
 out his will, and had the supremacy of the church, which de¬ 
 scended to his heirs, been that supremacy which he intended 
 and understood it to be, the sovereign of Great Britain would 
 now stand precisely on parallel ground with the Tzar of Rus¬ 
 sia, as absolute monarch and infallible pope over his own church 
 and people. 
 
 At this time he was friendly to Leo; and to Luther, beside 
 that he was really averse to his doctrines, and offended at his 
 heresies, he was in a manner personally hostile, owing to the 
 German monk’s often contemptuously expressed opinion against 
 Thomas Aquinas, “ who was in so much request with the king, 
 and especially the cardinal (that as Polydore hath it) he was 
 therefore styled Thomisticus He resolved, therefore, out 
 of his love for the pontiff’ his zeal for the faith, and his hatred 
 for Luther, to meet and confound his arguments by solid force 
 of couuter-argument, and so published his book, entitled de 
 Septem Sacramentis —a work which so greatly “ delighted the 
 
 * Herbert of Cherbury, fol. S5. 
 
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. 
 
 123 
 
 pope, that Dr. John Clark, dean of Windsor, our kind’s am¬ 
 bassador, appearing in full consistory, he, knowing the glorious 
 present he brought, first gave him his foot and then his cheeks 
 to kiss”*—a condescension, which, it is devoutly to be hoped, 
 Dr. John Clark and his royal master duly appreciated. What 
 is far more curious, is this, that “ he promised to do as much 
 tor approbation theivof, to all Christian princes, as ever was done 
 for St. Augustine’s or St. Hierome’s works ”—and that this 
 promise was fulfilled, after it had been privately debated by 
 the cardinals, whether he should be styled Protector or De¬ 
 fensor Romance ecclesite, or sedis Apostolicce, or Rex Apostol¬ 
 ic us, or orthodoxies , by conferring on him the title of Defender 
 of the Faith —a title which, strange to say, is still borne by 
 the sovereigns of England—when, so tar from defending that 
 faith, it is a condition of their ascending the throne that they 
 shall not even hold to it. 
 
 King Henry’s book, de Seplem Sacramenlis, 1 have never 
 read, and most assuredly never intend to read; so that 1 nei¬ 
 ther am, nor expect to be, prepared to give an opinion of its 
 merits or demerits; neither have I ever met with any criti¬ 
 cism, pro or con. I judge from this, however, that it was su¬ 
 perior to regal authorship in general, and that it must have hit 
 the great reformer pretty hard, since it put him into such a 
 towering passion that he wrote a reply to it, in which, “ after 
 allotting to the king no other praise than that of writing in ele¬ 
 gant language,” he declared that, “ in all other respects, he was 
 a fool and an ass, a blasphemer and a liar.”f For this disre¬ 
 spect to a king, which the German princes, who protected him, 
 naturally enough considered an insult to royalty itself, Luther 
 
 * Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 85. 
 
 t Lardner, Hist liig. vL 105. 
 
124 
 
 AN ANGLICAN CHURCH. 
 
 7 
 
 was compelled, afterward, to apologise in print. But I doubt 
 whether the apology would have much availed the reformer, 
 had he ever fallen into the clutches of the royal theologian; 
 and I think I can discover in all his dealings with the pro¬ 
 fessors of the new faith, whom he persecuted so rancorously, 
 something of personal animosity, something of the jealous dis 
 putant, as when he publicly argued with the unhappy Lam 
 bert before committing him to the flames, rather than simply 
 the cruel bigot and despotical king. 
 
 That he regarded the contumacy of his heretics, in differing 
 from his opinions, refusing to conform to his example, and be 
 convinced by his arguments, as a more vital offence than adhe¬ 
 ring to the new learning, is, it appeal's to me, evident from all 
 his conduct in reference to the reform ; and that this state of 
 mind is partly to be attributed to the effect of his early dispu¬ 
 tation with Luther himself, and partly to his overweening esti¬ 
 mate of his own condition as a divine, arising from his church 
 education. Young plants easily receive a deflexion to this side 
 or that, which, when their growth is once confirmed, can never 
 again be reflexed. Ilad Henry not been destined for an arch 
 bishop of Canterbury, he never, I fancy, would have dreamed of 
 becoming supreme head of au Anglican church—perhaps would 
 never have been a persecuting king, though this is more doubt 
 ful. But in his very boyhood he had acquired a knowledge of 
 ecclesiastical power, a taste for ecclesiastical letters, and he had 
 seized au idea that he was to be the head of the English church. 
 Au idea, which he once grasped, he never again let go; and so 
 he would be, and so he was, at last, the supreme head, not of 
 the church of England, but of the Anglican church. This last 
 difference must be borne in mind, and insisted on throughout 
 this reign: for, m the latter part of it especially, we shall find 
 
DIVISIONS IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 125 
 
 three distinct parties,—the adherents of the old faith, the Pa¬ 
 pists of the Roman communion, whom Henry hanged and be¬ 
 headed for denying his own supremacy, the reformers of the 
 new faith, or Protestants, whom he roasted for disputing the 
 real presence and rejecting five of the seven sacraments, and 
 the Anglicans, as.Jn default of a better title, 1 shall designate 
 them; for it is absurd to call those Papists, who abjured the 
 pope; or Romans, who would have London, not Rome, the 
 seat of church government; and Catholics it is monstrous to 
 style them—since Catholic, or universal, they never have been, 
 and, by the grace of God, never shall be—who held to the 
 faith of Rome in every particular, except that they would 
 have an English, not a Roman, pontiff, and that pontiff, king. 
 
 This triple division certainly worked well for the reforma¬ 
 tion ; since there were clearly none who honestly wished for an 
 Anglican church and an English pontiff-king; and those who pro¬ 
 fessed to do so, did so only from fear of the king’s vengeance, 
 or from the desire to win his favor; and these men, the link 
 which bound them to Rome once broken, never returned to 
 the bondage they had once shaken off; but, when the empty 
 dream of an Anglican church of St. Peter sank into oblivion, 
 joined the reformers, and became the germ of the extreme 
 high church party in the church of England. 
 
 Immediately after this disputation followed the tragical af¬ 
 fair of the great Duke of Buckingham; an affair which it is by 
 no means easy to comprehend or unravel, since the duke’s con¬ 
 duct is clearly not free from suspicion of disloyalty and even 
 treason; while yet there seems to have been a want of sufficient 
 proof to establish the crime for which he suffered, although 
 the compassing the king’s death by words alone, without the 
 commission of any overt act, was in that age held to justify 
 
12 G 
 
 WOLSEY AND THE DUKE. 
 
 conviction. His death, it appears, was generally, by the com 
 mons, at the time charged on Wolsey; but Wolsey was then an 
 unpopular, and soon after a fallen minister; and so much is evi¬ 
 dently charged on him without any grounds, that one is apt to 
 require positive proof against him, which I do not find here, he. 
 fore finding him guilty. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who, as 
 [ have said before, follows Polydorc Virgil, the cardinal’s worst 
 enemy, says that Wolsey had determined on his destruction 
 from the hour of his murmuring at the vast expences entailed 
 on him by his compelled presence at the Field of Cloth of 
 Gold; and there is this corroboration of that fact, that Sir 
 Charles Knevet, the steward whom he had dismissed on that 
 occasion, in consequence of the complaints of his tenants, who 
 seems to have been subsequently in the cardinal’s employ¬ 
 ment* and Sir William Bulmer, a knight who had quitted the 
 king’s household, had been taken into that of the duke, for 
 which disrespect that nobleman had been so far disgraced that 
 there was even a talk of committing him to the tower, were 
 the principal witnesses against him. 
 
 I find, in Miss Strickland’s interesting work on the queens 
 of England, the following remarkable anecdote, but she finis to 
 indicate its source, which I have been unable to discover ; and, 
 as it appears to have been unknown either to Hume or Lin- 
 gard, neither of whom allude to it, I cannot judge of its value 
 as authority. It is, however, curious, and in consideration of 
 the proverb that “ where is much smoke there must needs be 
 some fire,” I quote it, inasmuch as, if it prove nothing else, it 
 does prove the generalness of the belief, that the duke fell a 
 victim to the cardinal’s enmity rather than to hk own crim¬ 
 inality. 
 
 "• Queen Katharine and Cardinal Wolsey,” says the fair au 
 
THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 12'/ 
 
 thoress, “had lived in the greatest harmony till this time, 
 when his increasing personal pride urged him to conduct which 
 wholly deprived him of her esteem. One day the Duke of 
 Buckingham was holding the basin for the king to wash, when 
 it pleased the cardinal to put in his hands. The royal blood 
 of the duke rose in indignation, and he flung the water in Wol- 
 sey’s shoes, who, with a revengeful scowl, promised Bucking¬ 
 ham ‘ that he would sit on his skirts.’ The duke treated this 
 as a joke, for he came to court in a jerkin, and being asked by 
 the king the reason of this odd costume, he replied that ‘ it was 
 to prevent the cardinal from executing his threat, for if he wore 
 no skirts they could not be sat upon.’ ” 
 
 Whatever be the truth of this anecdote, or the facts of Wol- 
 sey’s enmity to the duke, it nevertheless would seem to be 
 proved that Buckingham had been guilty of such imprudences, 
 to call them by no lighter name, and had committed himself 
 so strangely in speeches, showing that he looked forward to 
 the king’s death, without issue, as a desirable contingency, which 
 might have the effect of raising himself to the vacant throne, 
 as might well have excited the suspicions and even the fears 
 of a king less jealous, suspicious, and vindictive than he whom 
 he had unfortunately aroused. 
 
 “ The duke was descended,” says Lord Herbert, “ from Anne 
 Plantagenet, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock; ” says Lingard, 
 “from Edward III., both through John of Ghent, duke of Lancas¬ 
 ter, and Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester.” Tie was 
 not, it is true, a very near kinsman to Henry; nor was his 
 chance of succession more than remote, to speak the m jst fa¬ 
 vorably of it. Yet it was a hereditary characteristic of the 
 jealous house of Tudor to look with the utmost suspicion on 
 their collateral kindred ; and, on the smallest pretext of their 
 
128 
 
 THE PROPHECIES OF HOPKINS. 
 
 compassing the crown, to take them off as summarily as if 
 they had been the brothers of an Ottoman emperor. Henry’s 
 ®wn father had sent Edward Plantagenet, the earl of Warwick, 
 the last male of that noble race, to the block without even the al¬ 
 legation of a crime; for no other reason thau that Ferdinand of 
 Spain, when Katharine’s hand was asked for Arthur, Henry’s 
 elder brother, demurred to granting it, on the ground that so 
 long as there existed an heir male of the name of Plantagenet, 
 the crown was not secure to the house of Tudor. 
 
 That sufficed to slay Warwick. 
 
 Henry himself had beheaded Edmund de la Pole, earl of 
 Suffolk, for no other cause than that his brother Richard had 
 assumed, in France, the badge of the White Rose, as if he were 
 the heir of York, thus disputing the throne with Tudor. 
 
 And there can be no manner of doubt, that without any in¬ 
 stigation on the cardinal’s part, though probably his instigation 
 was not wanting, Henry would himself have pursued Bucking 
 ham to the block, on less ground of suspicion than the unhappy 
 nobleman had actually given. 
 
 There was at this time a person, who had made some noise 
 in England, as a prophet, whether a visionary or an impostor 
 it does not appear, one Hopkins, a monk in the priory of Hen- 
 ton, in Somersetshire. This man had by some means excited 
 the cifriosity of Buckingham, who seems to have been a weak, 
 indiscreet, and garrulous person; and, having obtained access to 
 him, won his full belief, by the accomplishment of two predic¬ 
 tions, that Henry should gain much honor in his first French 
 campaign, and that “ if the king of Scots came to England 
 then, he should never go home again.” '' Thereafter, it appears, 
 by Buckingham’s own admission, that he consulted this Hop¬ 
 kins on several occasions, and assisted him liberally with 
 
TRIAL AND DEATH OF BUCKINGHAM, 
 
 129 
 
 money; and by Hopkins’ evidence it is proved, that the sub¬ 
 ject of these consultations was the probability of the duke’s sue 
 cession to the throne. 
 
 He also said to Knevet, as it was sworn by that person, on 
 the occasion of his disgrace in the matter of Sir William Bul- 
 mer, that “ had he been committed to the tower, he would 
 have so wrought that the principal doers thereof should not ^ 
 have great cause for rejoicing. For he would have played 
 that part which his father intended to have put in practice 
 against King Richard at Salisbury ; who made earnest suit to 
 come into the presence of the king, which suit if he might have 
 obtained, he, having a knife secretly about him, would have 
 thrust it into the body of King Richard, as he had made sem¬ 
 blance to kneel down before him.”* He stated, moreover, to 
 Sir George Nevil, lord Abergavenny, “ that if the king died, 
 he would have the whole rule of the realm in spite of whoever 
 said the contrary, swearing that if the Lord Abergavenny re 
 vealed this he would fight him.’”f 
 
 There is no pretence brought forward that he was not tried 
 fairly; indeed, unusual impartiality would seem to have been 
 used in this case, which was tried by a duke, a marquis, seven 
 earls, and twelve barons. The Duke of Norfolk, whose son, 
 the Earl of Surrey, was married to Buckingham’s daughter, 
 was created lord steward, in order to preside; which, as he 
 may be presumed friendly to the prisoner, assuredly argues 
 no desire to deal with him unjustly. The witnesses were 
 confronted with the prisoner, which was rarely the case in 
 this reign, and when Norfolk delivered the sentence it was not 
 without tears. 
 
 * Horbert of Cherbnry, fol. 8T. 
 
 F* 
 
 t Ibidem. 
 
 9 
 
ISO 
 
 DEATH OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 In answer to his sentence he professed that he never had 
 been a traitor, declared that he had nothing against his judges, 
 prayed God to pardon them his death, even as he did, and de¬ 
 clining to beg his life, left himself to the king’s disposal, and 
 died as he had lived, a gentleman. He was accordingly be¬ 
 headed, the other revolting particulars of a traitor’s doom be¬ 
 ing remitted to him. “ Thus ended the Duke of Buckingham, 
 much lamented by the people, who libelled the cardinal for it, 
 calling him carnijicis jilium , as being thought rather criminal 
 through folly and rash words, than any intention declared by 
 overt act against the king’s person, and therefore not uncapable 
 of mercy ; which also it was thought would not have been de¬ 
 nied, had he sued for it in fitting terms.” * According to mod 
 ern ideas, and to the law as it exists at present, he was an in 
 nocent man, unjustly sacrificed; but in his own day there is 
 no doubt that his sentence was legal, and that his condemna¬ 
 tion and execution were both within the reasons of the statute 
 and the usual practice in such cases. In later days of the same 
 reign, nobles and noble ladies were brought to the block, for 
 no farther offence than quartering royal bearings with their 
 own, where the right to do was doubtful. The suggestion, 
 however, that Henry would have pardoned the duke on any 
 suit of his own, or at any intercession of others, appears to me 
 no less gratuitous than the attempt to cast the blame of his 
 death on the cardinal, who has enough reproaches to bear, 
 justly thrown on him, without fathering on him others, in 
 which he has no share. Miss Strickland, quoting Godwin and 
 Shakspere, would have us to believe that Queen Katharine did 
 make strenuous intercession for the duke, and tint, ‘-after use¬ 
 lessly pleading for him with the king, she did not conceal her 
 
 • Herbert of Cberbury, foL 87. 
 
henry’s succession. 
 
 131 
 
 opinion of Wolsey’s conduct in the business.” It is evident, 
 also, that she attributes to this supposed disagreement and 
 rupture Wolsey’s subsequent hostility to herself and her 
 nephew, Charles V.; but not only does this lack confirmation, 
 but it can actually be denied; since Wolsey was balancing be¬ 
 tween the emperor and Francis, and had nearly inclined the 
 king, his master, to declare war on France, and knit ties not 
 only of amity but of consanguity with Spain, until the death 
 of Leo X., and the election of Adrian showed him that he had 
 been tricked with false promises by Charles 
 
 The fact is, that Buckingham has little claim on our sympa¬ 
 thies. He died a victim assuredly to the stringency of the 
 statute of treason, to the jealous state-policy of England, this 
 last in some degree palliated if not excused by the cruel wars 
 which had so long devastated the land and decimated the ba¬ 
 rons in consequence of the jarring pretensions of royal houses 
 and would-be royal heirs, and in some degree to the jealous 
 and unforgiving temper of Henry himself. 
 
 It must also be remembered, that this point of succession 
 was an extremely sore subject with Henry. Heirs male were 
 ever his grand desiderata; and it is more than possible that, 
 had the sons of Queen Katharine lived and promised hearty 
 health, Anne Boleyti never had succeeded to her honors, while 
 she was yet alive; and that, if Anne’s child, Elizabeth, had 
 been as masculine in sex as she proved afterward to be in soul, 
 her mother would never have , made way for Jane Seymour, 
 by the brief and bloody passage from the tower to the grave. 
 
 To all mortals there is a natural desire for sons, who shall 
 transmit the name at least of the father to posterity. The 
 larger the possessions and the brighter the honors to be handed 
 down, the more urgent becomes that desire. When it is the 
 
132 
 
 STATE REASONS. 
 
 question of an empire, and when the translation of that empire 
 peacely, lawfully, and among the happiness of the people, or 
 bloodily, anarchically, and with the devastation of fields and 
 the conflagration of cities, is the point at issue, it is clear to me 
 that a monarch may, not only humanly and naturally, but law¬ 
 fully and patriotically,besiege heaven with prayers for lawful 
 issue male; and use any weapon, which the law gives into 
 his hands, in order to preserve the succession to his own law¬ 
 ful line, and to bequeath peace to the nation confided to his 
 charge. x 
 
 Henry had, at this timejno heir male, \ o hope of having 
 any. Buckingham had announced ms intention of claiming 
 the crown, should Henry die childless; and, when we con¬ 
 sider the fact, that since the conquest but one woman, Matilda, 
 had ever succeeded to the throne, and she only to have it dis¬ 
 puted through twenty years of civil war at the sword’s point, 
 we cannot wonder, or much blame that king, if he merely en¬ 
 forced the law, without granting mercy, which does not seem 
 to have been asked, either directly or vicariously, for the 
 eujprit. 
 
 f If Henry had no blacker stain of bloodshed, registered 
 against his name, than this of Buckingham, he would not figure 
 on the page of history as the sanguinary tyrant, we now see 
 him painted; nor, if Wolsey had never counselled anything 
 more evil than his taking off, even if he did counsel it, which 
 is not proven, would he have had cause to repent him that 
 he had not served his heavenly, as he had his earthly, king 
 and master. 
 
 The unhappy Buckingham had not long expiated his offence 
 by his blood, before Europe was again kindled into flame by 
 the fiery ambition of Francis, at the very moment, moreover, 
 
OUTBREAKING OF THE WAR. 
 
 133 
 
 when Charles and Henry were secretly devising plans for ere 
 ating a rupture, in order to favor the English king’s cherished 
 object of reconquering France, and replacing on his head the 
 more than half-won diadem, which had been wrested from the 
 feeble hands of his sixth namesake and predecessor. Before, 
 however, their plans were matured, making the restitution of 
 the kingdom of Navarre to its rightful owners his pretext, and 
 taking occasion of a revolt in Spain against Charles as his oc¬ 
 casion, Francis hurried his armies across the Pyrenees, and, 
 within fifteen days, drove every Spaniard out of the territories 
 of that kingdom ; but when he pressed his advantages a\d 
 pushed his forces forward to Logrono, in Castille, the insi r- 
 gents rallied to the banners of their king, drove back the inv i- 
 ders, and recovered Navarre, even more rapidly than it la-d 
 been taken. 
 
 At the same time, De la Marque, duke of Bouillon, was in¬ 
 cited by Francis to invade the Netherlands, which he actually 
 did, at the head of an army levied in France. This diversion 
 was, however, no more successful than the direct attack. De 
 la Marque was driven back, and, the war being carried into his 
 own country, saw his territories devastated by forty thousand 
 men—Germans and Switzers, in the pay of Charles—while the 
 people of Italy flew to arms, at the call of the pope, with the 
 intent to drive the French across the Alps. 
 
 So soon as the first blow was struck, and before the proxi¬ 
 mate results could be anticipated, both the belligerents ap 
 pealed to Henry, as their regularly constituted arbiter 1 , France 
 claiming that, by the treaty of Noyon, Spain was bound to 
 evacuate Navarre—which was merely an idle pretext—and 
 Spain complaining that France had invaded her terrifies in 
 
134 
 
 CONFERENCES OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 time of peace, and demanding Henry’s armed intervention, ae 
 cording to the articles of the general pacification. 
 
 At this point, the king of England had unquestionably the 
 right to intervene; and, with a view to his favorite project of 
 reconquering France, it was clearly his policy to take part with 
 the emperor, by a bold and energetic resolution, thereby se¬ 
 curing the weight of his alliance. He was. however, taken un- 
 awares. The moment he had so long desired had anticipated 
 his desire; his project was yet a project only; no preparations 
 made, no levies of men, no squadrons at sea, no moneys 
 granted, still less any on hand, for the prosecution of a design 
 so gigantic. 
 
 Henry, therefore, hesitated; wisely deferred the execution 
 of plans, which, under his then circumstances, he could by no 
 means have prosecuted to advantage; exhorted both the kings 
 to peace, inviting them to send commissioners, with full pow 
 crs, to explain their grievances, and pledged himself to a just 
 arbitration between them. 
 
 Francis, at first demurred; Charles, who was confident both 
 of the justice of his own cause and of the favorable inclinations 
 of his umpire, and farther having the means of proving by in¬ 
 tercepted letters that the simultaneous attack of Navarre and 
 the Netherlands had been premeditated by the French, gave 
 his immediate consent. When the fortune of war, however, 
 turned against himself, the French king accepted the media¬ 
 tion, but refused to be bound by any award, which should not 
 meet the concurrence of the chancellor, his chief commissioner. 
 
 Wolsey was immediately nominated arbitrator, and sent to 
 Calais with a splendid train, whither came to him, first, the 
 imperial commissioners, and, on the next day, the French em¬ 
 bassy ; but it became apparent that no final end could be 
 
CONFERENCES OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 135 
 
 appio'-ched, Gattinara, the emperor’s chancellor, declaring his 
 power limited to stating the facts of the case and proving them, 
 and then demanding the intervention of Henry. On this diffi¬ 
 culty, it was proposed by Gattinara, and warmly seconded by 
 tne French, that Wolsey should visit the emperor in person, 
 who was lying at Bruges, and endeavor to bring about a re¬ 
 conciliation. 
 
 This was, probably, no more than a preconcerted plan de¬ 
 vised to give Wolsey an occasion of having personal confer 
 ence with the emperor, and of maturing secret negotiations 
 with him concerning matters, which he had full authority to 
 treat and conclude, before leaving home. Whether it was so 
 or not, Wolsey eagerly grasped the opportunity, proceeded to 
 Bruges in almost royal state escorted by four hundred horse, 
 was received by Charles at a mile without the gates, conducted 
 into the city, and feasted with great solemnity during thirteen 
 days, the mornings of which were occupied by public coun 
 cils or private conclaves, wherein all the preliminaries of a 
 private treaty were arranged between France and England. 
 
 In the meantime the war was still proceeding, and at first, 
 to the disadvantage of Francis. Amand and Mortaigne, ir. 
 Picardy, were taken by the Seigneur de Lignes, a subject of 
 the emperor’s; Ardres by the Burgundians; and Mouzon car¬ 
 ried, and Mezieres invested, by the Count de Nassau, the em¬ 
 peror lying, the while, inactive at Valenciennes. Then Francis 
 advanced, retook Mouzon, and raised the siege of Mezieres; 
 but, pressing too hotly on the retiring imperialists, was checked 
 and driven back with loss by De Nassau. 
 
 At this moment the cardinal had framed a project of peace, 
 an immediate armistice to be proclaimed on the base of uti 
 possidetis ,—the restitution or retention of the territories and 
 
136 
 
 SENTENCE RENDERED BY WOLSEY. 
 
 fortresses captured on either hand to be left to Henry’s arbi 
 try. This project was carried to the emperor by the Lord of 
 St. Johns and Sir Thomas Boleyn, and to the French king by 
 the Earl of Worcester and the Bishop of Ely. The terms 
 might possibly have been arranged ; but, pending the negotia¬ 
 tions, Fontarabbia was taken by Bonnivet, in Guipuscoa, be¬ 
 yond the frontiers of Navarre, and the emperor insisted on its 
 rendition before proceeding farther. This being refused, the 
 cardinal gave sentence, “ that the king of France having been 
 the first breaker of the truce, the king of England was bound 
 to assist the emperor, by the terms of the general pacification;” 
 and orders were issued to raise the English contingent of six 
 thousand archers, according to the articles of 1518, although 
 too late that they should take part in that campaign. A 
 league was .then contracted at Calais, between the emperor, the 
 pope, and Henry, by which it was agreed, that in order to re¬ 
 strain the ambition of France and operate more effectively 
 against the Turk, the three powers should in the spring of 
 1523 invade Frauce with a powerful army ; and that if there¬ 
 upon France should not yield to reason, Henry should then de¬ 
 clare war on him, revoke the contract of marriage of his daugh¬ 
 ter Mary to that king, and betroth her to the emperor, who 
 should make good to England the loss of all payments stipula¬ 
 ted by Francis. 
 
 Before this treaty was actually signed, the Marquis of Pes¬ 
 cara, the emperor’s general in Italy, being assisted by the pope’s 
 forces under Prospero Colonna, besieged Lescun, the French 
 commander, in Parma. Lautrech, his brother, came up to his 
 relief with twenty thousand Swiss and seven or eight thousand 
 Venetians, and raised the siege ; but, a few days later, a part 
 of the Switzers, being ill-paid, mutinied, and were gained over 
 
THE WAR IN THE MILANESE. 
 
 137 
 
 to Colonna’s army, by the Cardinal di Medicis; whereupon that 
 able officer resumed the offensive, stormed Milan, and, Parma 
 and Pavia surrendering, and the castle of Cremona having been 
 surprised by a coup de main, cleared the whole Milanese of 
 the French in a few days, and terminated the war in that quar¬ 
 ter with a thunderclap. 
 
 “ Which the pope hearing,” writes Lord Herbert, “ and be¬ 
 ing assured together that Sforza should be restored to Milan, 
 was so overjoyed that he died thereof, December 1, 1521 ; so 
 can every passion in his turn kill, though some suspected he 
 might die of poyson.” * About the same time Tournay sur¬ 
 rendered to the imperial forces ; which was a yet harder blow 
 to Francis than his expulsion from the Milanese, since he was 
 still compelled to pay to Henry the pension stipulated for its 
 restitution, unless he chose to break treaty with him also, and 
 bring him down upon himself, in open war, with all his forces 
 at once, instead of abiding the time appointed, in 1523, and 
 this he could not afford to do, having quite enough on his hands 
 already, without adding Henry’s dreaded archery to the forces 
 of the coalition. 
 
 All these events show how entirely erroneous is Miss Strick 
 land’s idea, that the cardinal entertained any personal animos¬ 
 ity either to the Emperor Charles or his Aunt Katharine, so 
 early as May of this year, when Buckingham died; and we 
 find that, on the death of Leo, Wolsey wrote to Charles, re¬ 
 minding him of his promise, as relying on his aid to obtain the 
 papacy, at the same time that he sent Dr. Pace to Rome in or¬ 
 der to solicit the cardinals, and claiming his support, in requital 
 of the care he had ever had of his interests. 
 
 This j ear, says Bellay, as quoted by Lord Herbert, muskets 
 
 * Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 94. 
 
138 
 
 INVENTION OP THE MUSKET. 
 
 wore invented, and first used in this war. The notice refers, 
 however, to some improvement in the weapon, and noc to its 
 invention de novo ; since a rude firearm, known as the hand¬ 
 gun. was in use so early as the battle of Bosworth, though so 
 clumsy as to require two men to work it. At the brattle of 
 Pavia, moreover, the musketry of the Spanish foot was so 
 rapid, and so well sustained, that it broke the magnificent 
 gendarmerie of France ; a result not attainable by means of a 
 weapon originated only one year before the time when itself, 
 with the tactics depending on it, had been brought to such 
 perfection as to decide the fate of a stricken field. 
 
 The most important thing, perhaps, to Christendom that oc¬ 
 curred in this reign, far surpassing all considerations of wars, 
 conquests, and invasions, as it probably decided forever the re¬ 
 ligious creed of the great Anglo-Norman race, in all parts of 
 the world to which it is destined to .extend, is the Papal elec¬ 
 tion. which occurred in the early part of 1522. 
 
 ~ We have seen that Wolsev depended on the active coopera¬ 
 tion of the emperor in causing the choice to fall upon himself 
 Henry was anxious that this honor should be conferred on his 
 minister and friend; and it might be supposed that Francis, 
 having no particular candidate of his own, nor influence at 
 Rome sufficient to elect him if he had, would rather see the 
 choice fall on a subject of the partially neutral king of En¬ 
 gland than on a nominee and partisan of Charles. 
 
 Had Wolsey succeeded in mounting the Papal chair, it is 
 little likely that any rupture would have occurred between 
 Rome and Henry ; and had Elizabeth been educated Catholic, 
 and. succeeding the Catholic Mary, been herself succeeded by 
 Roman Catholic Stuarts, who shall say that, at this moment, 
 Eng land, Scotland, and even the United States of America, 
 
ELECTION OF THE POPE. 
 
 139 
 
 might not have been as completely under the influence of Pa¬ 
 pistry as Spain or Ireland, and steeped in equal ignorance, im¬ 
 becility, and barbarism. On such contingencies it is useless to 
 speculate, farther than to observe on how small and seemingly 
 insignificant points the greatest events sometimes hinge and 
 turn, and how extraordinary providences of the Most High are 
 sometimes passed over, in history, almost without remark, as 
 accidents. 
 
 This election of Pope Adrian, in lieu of Wolsey, is one of 
 those accidents; and it is singular that I do not find it any¬ 
 where commented upon, as the first link in the chain of events, 
 which led to the disruption of England from the Romish ortho¬ 
 doxy, and the attribution of a religious supremacy to the wearer 
 of the British crown. 
 
 The Cardinal Giulio di Medicis, it appears, had secured 
 voices enough in the conclave to frustrate any rival candidate, 
 although not enough to install himself. Ilis most dangerous 
 competitors were the Cardinals Wolsey, Colonna, and Farnese; 
 and he at once determined that if not himself, no one of these 
 should be elected pope. lie accordingly diverted attention to 
 Adrian, cardinal of Tortosa, a native of Utrecht, eminent for 
 learning and virtue, who had been preceptor *o Charles, and 
 who was now resident in Spain, “where he had the quality of 
 “ Oobernador di Castilla.''' Cajetan, who admired the wri¬ 
 tings of Adrian, seconded his nomination by Di Medicis, and 
 Adrian was elected pope, January 9, 1522, so many as nine¬ 
 teen votes, however, having been cast, at one time, in favor of 
 Wolsey. The Italian writers throw 7 much reproach on the 
 authors of this election, Guicciardini styling Adrian, Pontif.ee 
 Barbaro , and Pallavicino lamenting that, within nine years afi 
 ter Julius drove the barbarians out of Italy, a barbarian should 
 
140 
 
 POPE ADRIAN. 
 
 have occupied his chair. The choice, however, appears to have 
 been a good one; and although Charles could not be expected 
 to oppose the elevation of his own tutor, subject, and minister, 
 to the Papal throne, he does not appear to have taken any 
 overt part in supporting him, or hindering the English cardi¬ 
 nal. And so Wolsey appears to have rightly understood it; 
 for, remembering that Adrian was an old and infirm person, 
 and regarding his hopes rather deferred than frustrated, he as 
 yet betrayed no animosity toward Charles, probably felt 
 none; but proceeded in the line of policy, which had been 
 determined, as if nothing had occurred adverse to his interests. 
 
 During this winter, seriously alarmed at the force of the 
 coalition against him, Francis at first exerted himself strenu¬ 
 ously to regain the friendship of Henry; but when he found 
 that impossible, he had recourse to the extreme measure of 
 laying all the English shipping in his ports under embargo, 
 and even of confiscating the property of all the English mer¬ 
 chants in France. Henry retaliated by imprisoning all the 
 French within his dominions, not excepting the ambassador: 
 and finished by sending his defiance to the king of France by 
 Clarencieux, king-at arms. In May, Charles landed at Dover ; 
 and the treaties between himself and his uncle, with regard to 
 the invasion of France and the marriage of Alary with her 
 cou$jn, were fully discussed and ratified. The invasion was 
 to be made by the two inonarchs, each at the head of forty 
 thousand men; but Henry’s was merely a paper army; his 
 coffers were empty 7 , exhausted by his boundless prodigality 
 and idle luxury ; the people were in no humor to be taxed ar¬ 
 bitrarily, under the name of benevolences, voluntaries, and the 
 like; and it was late in August, before the Earl of Surrey, 
 whose great reputation, won at Flodden, had gained for him 
 
IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. 
 
 141 
 
 the leading of the army of invasion, was enabled to ‘idee the 
 field at the head of twelve thousand men, paid by the king, 
 four thousand volunteers, and a thousand German horse. With 
 this force, the French wisely declining general actions, and 
 Surrey as wisely avoiding to attack fortified cities, he devas¬ 
 tated all Artois and the Boulonnois, up to Amiens; when, a 
 dysentery having attacked his men, and the season being ex¬ 
 tremely unfavorable, he retired to Calais, having inflicted cruel 
 injuries on the enemy’s country, greatly enriched the adventu¬ 
 rers, but acquired neither honor nor permanent advantage. 
 
 In the meantime Francis had awakened two formidable 
 home antagonists to Henry, who, had they been properly sus¬ 
 tained by France, or been in themselves men of energy, might 
 have shaken the English throne by diversions, which its oc¬ 
 cupant had no means of meeting with any force he had in the 
 field. 
 
 In Ireland, the Earl of Desmond agreed to rise on the land¬ 
 ing of a French army, join it with the whole power of .the na¬ 
 tion, and never lay down his arms until he should have con¬ 
 quered the whole of Ireland from the English, half for his own 
 hand, half for Richard de la Pole, the representative, or pre 
 tender of the house of York. Francis, however, contented 
 with the alarm created by the mere project, forgot to pay 
 Desmor.d the pension which was the condition, and never em 
 barked the army, the landing of which should have been the 
 signal, of the rising. In Scotland, the regent, Albany, who 
 had returned at Margaret’s invitation, that turbulent and ill- 
 conditioned woman having quarrelled both with her husband 
 and her brother, refused to renew the truce between the two 
 nations, which expired that year; and, at the instigation of 
 Francis, and by means of his aid, marched from Annan with 
 
142 
 
 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 an army of eighty thoNsand men, and forty-five brass guna 
 against the English borders, to defend which there was not a 
 man, beyond the local militia, the moss-troopers of the 
 marches, and the retainers of the feudal nobility of the district. 
 The Earl of Shrewsbury" was appointed, instantly, to array and 
 command the men of the northern counties; but he was anti¬ 
 cipated by the daring address of the bold Lord Dacre, warden 
 of the western marches, who actually crossed the borders with 
 five hundred men, made proclamation on Scottish ground, that 
 the Scots should return into peace with England before the 
 first day of March next, or they might take the consequences ; 
 which, he added, those who remembered Flodden might well 
 judge what they were like to be. At the same time, he wrote 
 to Albany granting him a month wherein to solicit peace of 
 Henry’s indulgence. Thereupon Albany" engaged to disband, 
 and actually did disband, an army, which might have marched 
 to the Trent, had it dared, without finding an organized foe to 
 resist it; and Dacre contracted to counter-order the advance 
 of the English powers, not a man of which was yet levied. It 
 is no wonder, if in one of his letters to the king, Wolsey charac¬ 
 terized the regent as “a coward and a fool.” The emperor 
 had been, equally with Henry, prevented, by lack of money, 
 from pressing the war effectively ; for he was far from being 
 popular with his Spanish subjects, who accused him of favor¬ 
 ing his Austrians and Flemings, at their expense; and the 
 Cortez were anything but liberal in their grants to sustain a 
 war, which did not in fact materially interest* them, being 
 waged chiefly in Italy and the Netherlands, their own border's 
 being in no danger even of menace. 
 
 ^ln the ensuing year, 1523, the king, who had now governed 
 for eight years, without having once summoned the great coun 
 
W0L8ET AND THE COMMONS. 
 
 143 
 
 cfl of the nation, was reduced by necessity, his French pension 
 being discontinued, and it not being looked for that Charles 
 could make it good, during the continuance of the war, tosuin- 
 mon his parliament, to meet him at the Black Friars. Sir 
 Thomas More was appointed, by Wolsey, speaker of this par¬ 
 liament ; which fully proved the truth of what has been stated 
 above, concerning the independence of the English commons 
 at this period, in relation to money questions, as compared 
 with their total subserviency in questions of general or individ¬ 
 ual liberty. 
 
 Wolsey demanded the sum of eight hundred thousand 
 pounds, to be raised by a general property tax of twenty per 
 cent. The commons heard him in silence; and, on his insist¬ 
 ing on a reply, he was informed that the house could reply 
 only by its speaker, and that the speaker could reply only as 
 instructed by the house, after debate. However dissatisfied, 
 Wolsey was compelled to await the convenience of the king’s 
 lieges. The question was debated, adjourned from day to day ; 
 and at length a deputation solicited the king, through the car¬ 
 dinal, that the amount of the demand should be reduced. 
 Wolsey again came to the house, answered the opposition in a 
 set speech, and called on them to reason with him. But, with 
 the same spirit that has always characterized that body, they 
 made answer, that they would hear all that he had to say, hut 
 that they would reason only among themselves. When Wol¬ 
 sey had left the house, they voted, in lieu of twenty per cent., 
 a tax, for two years, of five per cent, on all Kinds of property ; 
 for the third year, the same tax, on fees, pensions, and rents of 
 land; and for the fourth year the same, on movables only. 
 From this levy the northern counties—Northumberland, Dur¬ 
 ham, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Chester were exempt. 
 
144 
 
 THE SCOTTISH WAR. 
 
 on account of the Scottish war, the brunt of which they had tc 
 support; and the cinque ports were free of it, in virtue of their 
 charter. With this diminished grant Henry was obliged to 
 be content, and to maintain his contracts as best he might, 
 granting a general pardon in virtue of the goodwill of his 
 commons. 
 
 He now proceeded to cany on the war in earnest. In Scot- 
 land, whence Albany had fled in disgrace, after his inglorious 
 retreat before Dacre, he reconciled himself with his sister Mar¬ 
 garet, who readily agreed to have her son proclaimed king, a' 
 the Tolbooth in Edinburgh, on condition that her brother 
 should support her with an army. 
 
 To the command of this army, Surrey, the sou of the victor 
 of Flodden, was appointed; and he conducted the war with 
 his father’s valor.and ability. The Scottish marches were de¬ 
 vastated, far and wide; the flourishing town of Jedburgh was 
 laid in ashes, and all seemed going as he would have it, when, 
 on the very day of the Jedburgh conflagration, Albany landed 
 on the western coast of Scotland with two thousand French 
 auxiliaries and stores of arms and ammunition. The whole 
 Scottish nation rose as one man. Sixty thousand men flocked 
 under arms to the standard of the regent, on Burrow Moor. 
 Surrey wrote urgently to the king to send him reinforcements, 
 to order all the young lords who wasted their time about the 
 court at tennis and dice, that they should join the camp, and. 
 above all, to require that he should be provided with four 
 thousand German regulars, who should help to discipline his 
 raw levies, and enable him to meet pikes with pikes; the En¬ 
 glish infantry being almost entirely archers, and the phalanx 
 of Scottish spears being almost as formidable as that of the 
 Macedonians of old. 
 
WARK CASTLE. 
 
 145 
 
 In the meanwhile, Albany rushed down at the head of his 
 overwhelming force to the borders, which he reached on the 
 very day, when Surrey being reinforced from nine to fifty 
 thousand men, garrisoned the strong-holds of Wark, Norham, 
 and Berwick, and took post at Belford to watch the regent’s 
 movements. 
 
 Ignorant of what had happened, Albany at once attacked the 
 Castle of Wark, and in a single day, with his powerful artil¬ 
 lery, battered it in breach, stormed the outworks, and even 
 carried the inner court with his French auxiliaries; but there 
 the English archery rallied, and the Kentdale bows of West¬ 
 moreland poured such a deadly hail of clothyard shafts upon 
 the assailants that they were unable to keep the ground they 
 had won, and were driven in confusion out of the lines, as the 
 night fell heavy and precluded all farther effbrjts. 
 
 The writer has stood within the walls of that old and well- 
 defended keep ; which, it seems, never was repaired ; for the 
 great breach, torn down by the Scottish guns, yet yawns wide 
 enough for a hundred men abreast to march over the moat 
 upon the debris of its fall, and enter the unguarded courtyard. 
 But to this day, in all the walls, wherever the joints of the ashler- 
 work and mortar admitted their penetration, the forked, iron 
 heads of the English arrows stand black and rusted, literally 
 as thick “ as quills upon the fretful porcupine.” Thirty-and- 
 two barbed heads, of four inches in length, were counted in a 
 piece of wall not above two yards square, directly on the level 
 which the column of the enemy must have crossed in mount¬ 
 ing to the assault; and if that hail of arrows fell as thickly 
 where the combatants were in serried column as it did on the 
 bare walls, it is no wmnder that they fell back in disorder; 
 and there is no doubt that they did so fall, for although the 
 G 10 
 
146 
 
 THE SERVANTS OF THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. 
 
 English archery were trained to shoot “ together,” as it was 
 termed, “ and wholly,” every shaft was launched with an indi¬ 
 vidual aim. 
 
 On the next day the English host was in motion; but the 
 very name of the victor of Flodden, though borne by another 
 than he, was too much for the nerves of Albany. In fear and 
 disorder the Scottish host crossed the borders at midnight; 
 Albany again fled to France; the son of Margaret was pro¬ 
 claimed king, under the regency of his step-father, the Earl of 
 Angus, truce followed truce, and—a thing almost unheard of 
 in the annals of those warlike sister nations—for eighteen years 
 no slogan roused the burghers of Carlisle, no war cry of St. 
 George startled the foresters of Ettrick, the reivers of Liddes- 
 dale, and neither English bows, nor broadswords and blue-bon¬ 
 nets, crossed the border. 
 
 Of a certainty, that house of Tudor was well served by the 
 proud aristocracy of England, to the end ; though confiscation, 
 and the Tower and the block, were for the most part the re¬ 
 compense they earned from the gratitude alike of Henry and 
 his lion-hearted daughter. 
 
 In Italy, in France, things seemed at first to promise no less 
 favorably for the confederates, than in Ireland and Scotland; 
 and, in the Milanese. Bonnivet. could effect nothing, but after a 
 fruitless campaign was compelled to raise the siege of Milan, 
 and go into winter quarters at Biagrasso. But Suffolk, who 
 had invaded France with a splendid force, and had been joined 
 by the imperialists under the Count de Buren, wasted time, 
 allowed himself to be cut off from the allies on the German 
 frontiers, and after a wretched retreat on Valenciennes, was 
 compelled to disband his array. Charles, by the mutinous 
 temper of his Spanish lords, was prevented from invading Gui 
 
POLEMICS IN HISTORY. 
 
 141 
 
 enne in due season, and only succeeded, at the end of autumn, 
 in recovering Fontarabbia, the restoration of which had been 
 his ultimatum in the late negotiations for peace. In Septem¬ 
 ber of this year the Pope Adrian died, and Wolsey once more 
 entertained hopes, by the aid of the emperor, of ascending the 
 vacant chair. 
 
 Henry wrote to the emperor, requiring him to exert him¬ 
 self to secure the election of Wolsey ; and that minister him¬ 
 self went so far as to urge him to advance his Italian army 
 toward Rome, and so contribute the fear of force to the 
 other motives for his elevation. This last Charles declined to 
 do; and, although the English agents at Rome were instructed 
 to spare neither pains nor money in compassing their object, 
 the French cardinals offered so strenuous a resistance to Wol¬ 
 sey, whom they regarded as their king’s bitterest enemy, that 
 nothing could be effected in his favor; and that, ultimately, 
 Giulio di Medici, was nominated by his principal antagonist, 
 Pompeo Colonna, and, receiving the votes of a majority of the 
 conclave, ascended the Papal throne, with the title of Clem¬ 
 ent VII. 
 
 Itjhoes not, to write candidly, strike me that any faith was 
 broken by the emperor to Wolsey ; nor is it, by any means, 
 clear to me, that any offence was taken against that prince by 
 the cardinal; but the truth is this, that, throughout the whole 
 of this reign, every fact, civil or military, foreign or domes¬ 
 tic, relating to the course of affairs in England, even to the 
 character and conduct of the queens, has been seized on by po¬ 
 lemical writers, and tortured into carrying some meaning, or 
 arising from some cause, which never had any real existence. 
 Of this kind is the story insisted on, it would appear, in tho 
 first place, by the imperialists, and since taken for granted by 
 
148 
 
 WINTER CAMPAIGN IN ITALY. 
 
 all historians, up to Lingard,* that the whole matter of Henry’s 
 divorce was gotten up by Wolsey, in order to create a rup¬ 
 ture between Henry and Charles, and so to avenge himself on 
 the latter prince for his lukewarmness in his own cause at this 
 Same. It makes, however, strongly against this view of the 
 question, that for nearly two years after the date of his disap¬ 
 pointment. neither in his conduct, nor in his dispatches, neither 
 in his own bearing, nor in the policy of his government, do 
 any signs appear of disaffection toward the emperor, or of lean¬ 
 ing toward his rival, in the cardinal. Moreover, it is not in 
 evidence, that any steps were taken toward setting aside the 
 king's marriage with Katharine, even if any idea of the sort 
 had arisen in Henry’s mind, until after the conferences at 
 Greenwich, in 1527, nearly four years later, respecting the 
 marriage of Francis with the Princess Mary, whose legitimacy, 
 it is pretended,! was here first called in question, by the Bishop 
 of Tarbez. 
 
 During this winter Henry was desirous of invading Nor¬ 
 mandy, but to that end the cooperation of the Constable Bour¬ 
 bon, who had traitorously thrown off his allegiance to Francis, 
 and was bearing arms for Spain against his own country, would 
 have been required: and he could not be spared from the 
 prosecution of the war in Italy, which was carried on without 
 intermission, neither party going into winter-quarters. Bon- 
 nivet, who had hoped to be allowed to repose during the in¬ 
 clement season at Biagrasso, found his own armies so much 
 
 •Lingard, vt 78. 
 
 t Isay pretend ><?, because, on examination of the MS. journals of the French am¬ 
 bassadors, concerning these conferences, it is clear that no such question arose at all; 
 snd that the whole story was a device got up between the king and Wolsey, to ac¬ 
 count for the origination of the proceedings. The falsity, however, of the pretence 
 does not impugn the evidence afforded by the date. 
 
BOURBON INVADES FRANCE. 
 
 \ 
 
 14i> 
 
 reduced by sickness and desertion, while that of Spain was 
 maintained in perfect force and condition, that it became ne¬ 
 cessary for him to retreat. This he did in February, 1524, in 
 tolerably good order, so far as to Marignano; but, in crossing 
 the Sessia, he was totally defeated ; the Chevalier Bayard and 
 many of his best officers were slain; and, in a few days, every 
 French garrison in Italy had surrendered, and there was not 
 an armed Frenchman to be found on Italian soil. 
 
 Bourbon’s fierce thirst for vengeance now led him to insist 
 on the invasion of his native land, and the emperor, although 
 advised to the contrary, by his own officers, accepted his pro¬ 
 ject, and urged Henry to second him by the irruption of an 
 English force into Picardy. Henry had, however, found by 
 the result of the two last campaigns, that there was nothing to 
 be gained by such desultory and disconnected attacks; and, 
 though he consented to pay half the expenses of the campaign, 
 declined putting any independent army in the field. Never¬ 
 theless, the constable invaded France with an army of seven¬ 
 teen thousand veteran Spaniards, at that time the best troops 
 in the world, under the command of the Marquess of Pescara; 
 and had his plan of striking directly at the heart of the king¬ 
 dom, where he expected to be joined and probably would 
 have been joined by great forces of his friends and adherents, 
 been carried out, he might probably have succeeded in making 
 himself master of Paris. Had he done this, he would, as he 
 was sworn to do, have proclaimed Henry VIII. king of France, 
 when he would have been supported by the whole power of 
 England, both in men and moneys. But the imperialists in 
 sisted on turning aside into Provence, to besiege Marseilles, 
 wishing to secure for their master a pled a terre and port 
 
150 
 
 THE SIEGE RAISED. 
 
 if entrance in France, similar to that which Henry had ir. 
 Calais. 
 
 The step was fatal. Marseilles was stoutly defended by 
 Philip de Chabot; Francis was marching tc its relief with 
 strong forces; and Henry and Charles—each fearing, as Lurd 
 Herbert says, lest the other should reap the advantage of the 
 expedition—failing to supply him with funds, the army of 
 Bourbon mutined for want of pay ; “ although Sir John Rus¬ 
 sel had newly brought him twenty thousand pounds from our 
 king.” * The constable, in consequence, was forced to raise 
 the siege, reembarked his cannon, and retired with loss to Ge¬ 
 noa, leaving behind him the Prince of Orange, a prisoner in 
 the hands of the enemy. 
 
 It was now the middle of October, and too late for the com¬ 
 mencement of any great, new enterprise, according to the cau¬ 
 tious rules of prudential warfare. But Francis was anything 
 but of a cautious or prudential temperament. Fierce, impet¬ 
 uous, and vehement by nature, he was galled almost to madness 
 by the shameful loss of the Milanese, during the early portion 
 of the campaign, and yet more by the invasion of the sacred 
 soil of France, by one of its own recreaut sons, if he were the 
 bravest and most able. He was, moreover, at the head of a 
 “ flourishing” army of thirty thousand men; though principally 
 volunteers and mercenaries, a fact which the historian mentions, 
 as, in his opinion, a disadvantage ; because the volunteers, “be¬ 
 ing irregular and properly under no command,” would neces¬ 
 sarily “ be admitted to the hazard of disordering a whole 
 army;” while the mercenaries he represents as “slow, willful, 
 of small trust, and oftentimes venal.” It must be observed, 
 however, on the other hand, that, at this very d ite. standing 
 •Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fob 1'25. 
 
STANDING ARMIES. 
 
 151 
 
 irmies, except these very mercenary bands, from which he de¬ 
 tracts, were unknown ; and that these Swiss, German, and 
 Walloon regiments were not only the finest, but the only, dis¬ 
 ciplined soldiers in Europe. The volunteers in question, were 
 the splendid gendarmerie of France, composed of the chivalry 
 and aristocracy of the kingdom, with their households and ten¬ 
 antry, the men in the ranks being, for the most part, gentle¬ 
 men of name and lineage. 
 
 At this time there was not in England, except the beef-eaters 
 of the royal household, a body of a hundred regulars; nor were 
 there more at the commencement of the troubles between 
 Charles I. and his parliament. The Plantagenets conquered 
 Ireland, Wales, and two-thirds of France; the Tudors held the 
 balance of the world, and ruled their own country with an iron 
 hand; and the best and most unfortunate of the Stuarts main¬ 
 tained a warfare of seven years’ duration, without regular 
 troops, supplies, or money, solely by means of volunteers. 
 
 The first English standing army was that organized by 
 Cromwell, which, at his bidding, dissolved the long parlia¬ 
 ment, and at the bidding of his successor, Monk, brought 
 back a king to England,' and crushed the commonwealth under 
 foot. 
 
 With this powerful and valorous army, then, Francis re¬ 
 solved to carry the war at once into the Milanese, with the in¬ 
 tent to finish it by a blow struck at the capital. Between the 
 two armies it was now a race, whether of the two should first 
 reach Milan, the one to storm it before it should be garrisoned, 
 the other to secure it before the arrival of the French. Fran 
 cis, with the usual dash and impetus of a French general and 
 army, burst over the barriers of the Alps, by the passes of 
 Mont Cenis, and overflowed the low country at the foot of the 
 
152 
 
 FORCED MARCHES UPON MILAN. 
 
 mountains like a deluge. The imperialists, baffled but not di» 
 pirited, struggled manfully through the defiles of Riviera del 
 Mare , but had barely reached Alba, when Francis was at Ver- 
 celli, and actually nearer than themselves to the city; they 
 made such speed, however, that they were enabled to throw 
 Don Anthony de Legoa, with twelve thousand Spaniards and 
 six thousand lansquenets, into Pavia, and to garrison the cas 
 tie of Milan, the town being the seat of a pestilential disorder, 
 while with the bulk of their army they took post at Lodi. 
 
 At this period of the war, Spain appeared to be in an ill po¬ 
 sition as needs might be; the pope having secretly entered 
 into a league with Francis, and sent a special private envoy, 
 one John Joacchino, a Genoese, who should endeavor to bring 
 over Henry and his minister to that party. It is the fashion 
 for historians to say that, had Francis pushed directly on to 
 Milan, and pursued the imperialists to the uttermost, he would 
 have concluded the campaign with a conquest. Historians 
 say the same thing concerning Hannibal, after the battle of 
 Cannae; but people do not seem to remember that Hannibal, 
 and Francis the First, and a few more martialists, over whose 
 blunders the writers make so merx’y, were probably quite as 
 good generals, to say the least, as their critics. It is certain 
 that Francis obeyed a sound military rule, in refusing to leave 
 a strong fortress in his rear, garrisoned by a veteran force 
 equal to above half his own numbers, which, the moment he 
 had passed by, would be available in the field against him for 
 active operations. 
 
 His judgment is more questionable in detaching the Duke 
 of Albany, with twelve thousand men, to operate against Na¬ 
 ples; and the Marquis of Saluzzo, with four thousand more, to 
 make a demonstration against Savona, whence to threaten Ge 
 
MUTUAL DISTRUST. 
 
 153 
 
 noa. From this moment the suspicions of the emperoi 
 against Henry and Wolsey appear to have commenced, though/ 
 it should seem with little cause; for, although the Genoese, 
 Joacchino, continued in London on the part of Louise, the 
 queen mother and regent of France, no proof can be adduced 
 that Wolsey had yielded to his solicitations, or encouraged his 
 views. On the contrary, a letter is extant from that minister 
 to his envoy with the pope, charging him to warn the pontiff 
 of the danger he ran in offending the only sovereign who had 
 the power to protect the interests of the church, and repress 
 heresy, in Germany, and, in the same letter, he takes occasion 
 to reprobate the interference of the head of the church in the 
 wars of temporal princes, and goes so far as to ascribe the 
 evils, which have come upon the church in these days, to the 
 wrath of heaven at the leagues, offensive and defensive, of the 
 late popes with belligerent princes. His dispatches, more¬ 
 over, show that Sir John Russel was ordered to pay fifty or 
 sixty thousand crowns as a reward to the army of Bourbon ; 
 that Dr. Pace was instructed to urge the Venetians to seize 
 the passes of the Alps, and intercept the French reinforcements; 
 and that Sir Gregory da Casales had full powers to cooperate 
 with Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples, for the defence of that 
 kingdom, and the expulsion of the French from the Milanese. 
 
 At the same time, it cannot be denied, that there is some¬ 
 thing suspicious in his often secret interview’s with Joacchino; 
 and that the arrest of a messenger of De Praet, the imperial 
 envoy, and the decyphering of his despatches at the council 
 board, though Wolsey endeavored to explain and apologise 
 for it as an accident, afforded just cause for serious offence on 
 the part of Spain. 
 
154 
 
 THE BATTLE OV PAVIA. 
 
 The truth I conceive to lie, as it often does, in the middle. 
 Henry had probably no idea of betraying his nephew, or of 
 biking port with Francis; nor, I think, at this time,had Wol- 
 sey any personal feeling against the emperor. The king, how¬ 
 ever, had found out that this interminable conflict in Italy and 
 the Netherlands was not bringing him any the nearer to his 
 acquisition of the French crown ; while any very decided su¬ 
 periority on the part of either of the belligerents would be apt 
 to render him too powerful for the well-being of Europe. Ills 
 minister had experienced the difficulty of extracting money 
 from the commons, and both were becoming thoroughly 
 sick of a war, the expenses of which fell wholly on England, 
 while the rewards were likely to take a very different direc¬ 
 tion. It is possible, too, as suspicions seldom are single or 
 one-sided, that they also began to doubt the good faith of 
 Charles, as he doubted theirs, and perhaps with as much rea¬ 
 son ; for he had assuredly failed to fulfill his moneyed arrange¬ 
 ments with them. 
 
 The events which followed naturally inclined England to 
 the French side of the question; as it was not her policy to 
 allow either party to crush and absorb the other; even as, long 
 before, the conquest of the Milanese by Francis had led her 
 to make common cause with Maximilian against him. The 
 siege of Pavia had now lasted three months, the besiegers and 
 besieged having exhausted all the means then known to the 
 art of war in the attack and defence. Don Anthony was 
 pressed by famine, and he wrote to the imperial generals,— 
 “ Either come to us, or we must cut our way to you.” They 
 came to him ; and on “ the evening of St. Matthias’ day, being 
 the day of the emperor’s nativity, in February, 1525, the Mar¬ 
 quis del Guasto leading the vantguard. the Marquis de Pescara 
 
FRANCIS A PRISONER. 
 
 155 
 
 rhe battail, and Charles de Lannoy, accompanied with liour- 
 hon, the reieward, came in good order near the French army.’ * 
 Francis drew his troops out of the trenches, unadvisedly, and 
 gave battle in front of his o.wn artillery, of which he thus lost 
 the advantage. Ilis Swiss troops, contrary to the wont of 
 Switzers, behaved ill, threw down their arms and fled precip¬ 
 itately from the field; Don Anthony broke out of the city 
 and fell upon the rear of the French, already fighting at disad¬ 
 vantage ; and this not only decided the fate of the day, but 
 converted it into a total lout and carnage. The German mer¬ 
 cenaries fought furiously, despairing probably of quarter from 
 a German conqueror, should they lay down their arms, and 
 were killed, nearly to a man. The French gendarmerie 
 charged home,' again and again, with the accustomed headlong 
 valor of their nation ; but their barbed horses and levelled 
 lances availed nothing against the regular, rolling fire of the 
 Spanish musketeers, then heard, for the first time, on the battle 
 field, the knell of chivalry, and harbinger of victory to disci¬ 
 plined and standing armies. 
 
 Francis fought like a paladin of old, killing the Marquis of 
 Civita di St. Angelo, and striking down, according to Hume, 
 seven men with his own hand, before his horse was shot under 
 him, when he surrendered to Juan de Urbieta, a Guipuscoan, 
 and afterward gave up his sword and gauntlet to Diego de 
 Avila. He was, for some time, in considerable danger of his 
 life, among the irritated soldiery, who, at first, knew not who 
 he was, and who, when they discovered the greatness of their 
 prize, tore to pieces a great pennache which he wore in his 
 helmet, and cut into shreds the surcoat of arms he had on 
 above his harness, dividing it among them, as trophies of the 
 * Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fol. 128. 
 
156 
 
 FRANCIS A PRISONER. 
 
 day and memorials of the exploit. Many of the French no 
 bles, who might have escaped, hearing that Francis was taken, 
 “ out of singular piety to their king, returned and yielded them- 
 selves, saying they ( would not return to France, and leave their 
 king behind them.” The whole remainder of this passage is 
 so striking, so graphic, and so interestingly descriptive of the 
 sentiments of the men, nobles, and kings of the last days of 
 chivalry, when the romance of real life was already fast dying 
 out, and the splendor of the warfare of the middle ages was 
 well nigh extinct, that, although it is not essential to my direct 
 narrative, or intimately connected with the career of Henry, I 
 shall make no apology for quoting it entire, from the pages of 
 the gallant and eccentric writer, who was himself almost the 
 last cavalier of England. 
 
 “ The first of the great commanders,” he says, “ that came 
 in, was the Marquis of Pescara, after him Guasta, and others; 
 at last, Bourbon, being armed cap a pit, and with his sword 
 all bloody in his hand, comes toward the king, who hereupon 
 demanded his name. Being told, he stopped, if one may be¬ 
 lieve the Spaniard, my author, a little behind the Marquis of 
 Pescara. He also, perceiving the king troubled, goes to Bour¬ 
 bon, and after he had told him that the king was there, de¬ 
 manded his sword, which Bourbon, without more adoe rendered; 
 and thereupon, running to the king, and lifting up his beaver, 
 cast himself on his knees, and humbly demanded the royal 
 hand to kiss, which yet the king refused. 
 
 “ Hereupon, Bourbon, with tears in his eyes, said, ‘Sir, if 
 you would have followed my counsel, you should not have 
 needed tc be in this estate, nor so much blood of the French 
 nobility shed, as stains the fields of Italy.’ The king, hereupon 
 turning his eves to heaven, now replied only, ‘Patience since 
 
A CAPTIVE KING. 
 
 15T 
 
 fortune hath failed me.’ Farther discourse was hindered by 
 the Marquis of Pescara, who, desiring the king to mount on 
 horseback, conducted him toward Pavia ; but the king entreat¬ 
 ing he might not be kept a prisoner in a town, before which 
 he had lately so puissant an army, they brought him to a mon¬ 
 astery adjoining—Henry de Albret, the Comte de St. Paul, 
 and divers other prisoners, being delivered to several custodies. 
 From hence the king was removed to a strong castle, Piciqui 
 ton”—Pizzighitone—“and there kept with a great guard of 
 Spaniards, under Hernando de Alanqon, till other order came 
 from Charles, to whom, immediately after this victory, a mes¬ 
 senger was sent, to acquaint him with the success. In the 
 mean time, Francis was used with all respect. For more os- 
 tention whereof Charles de Lannoy brought, before supper, the 
 bason, the Marquis of Guasta the ewer, and Bourbon the tow¬ 
 el ; which courtesy he requited, by inviting them to sit at ta¬ 
 ble with him; after which, requring some money might be 
 furnished to him for play, he passed away the time the most 
 chearfully he could.”* 
 
 The Henry d’Albret, mentioned above, is the nominal king of 
 Navarre, the son of that Jean d’Albret, whose expulsion from his 
 dominions, which were thereafter incorporated in the kingdom of 
 Spain, by Ferdinand in the first campaigns of Henry’s wars, has 
 been related above. With him were taken the bastard of Sa¬ 
 voy, and many other noblemen of high degree. The slain num¬ 
 bered eight thousand men, among whom were many captains 
 of note, Richard de la Pole, the pretender of York, being one 
 of these, greatly to the delight of Henry.f 
 
 On the news of this victory reaching London, every out¬ 
 ward demonstration of joy was made, though it is more than 
 * Lord Herbert of Cherbnry, fol. 181. t Ltngard, 111. 79. 
 
15S 
 
 LUKEWARMNESS OF CHARLES. 
 
 doubtful whether Henry was in truth inwardly satisfied, by 
 the extraordinary success of his confederate. He. went, not¬ 
 withstanding his private sentiments, be they what they might, 
 to St. Paul’s, in solemn state, where he heard high mass and a 
 te deum sung in honor of the victory; but this done, without 
 a moment’s loss of time, he dispatched Cnthbert Tonstal, bishop 
 of London, and Sir Richard Wingfield, chancellor of the duchy 
 of Lancaster, to Spain, to congratulate Charles on his victory, 
 and to concert measures for the prosecution of the war in 
 common. 
 
 They were instruoted to remind Charles that, as this war 
 was carried on in common, so it was for the common benefit 
 of both the high contracting parties; that, hitherto all the ad¬ 
 vantages had fallen to the hand of Spain; but that the king 
 of England nothing doubted his nephew would now fulfill his 
 obligations, in aiding to recover for him his throne of France, 
 which was his of right, having been wrested from his ances¬ 
 tors, and which was the subject of dispute, for which he had 
 gone to war. 
 
 lie proposed, therefore, that they should proceed at once to 
 invade France, on two sides simultaneously, and meet at Paris; 
 when Ilenrv should ascend the throne of France, as his hy in 
 heritance, and Charles recover the Burgundian provinces, which 
 had been recently alienated from his sway. 
 
 The ambassadors were also instructed to offer every oppo¬ 
 sition to any plan for the release, or ransoming, of Francis, 
 without the consent of Henry, but to claim him as a prisoner 
 in common to both the confederates, although he had surren 
 dered to the arras of Spain in particular; and it was added, 
 that it would be well that Francis should be delivered over to 
 Henry, for safe keeping, in which case the Princess Mary, 
 
ROYAL SUSPICIONS. 
 
 153 
 
 though not yet of marriageable years, should oe placed in the 
 emperor’s hands, under fitting conditions, until she should be 
 of a proper age for the celebration of the nuptial ceremony. 
 
 To all this Spain lent a deaf ear. The ambassadors sent 
 word to their court, that the emperor was, beyond doubt, treat¬ 
 ing with Francis, to release him on conditions framed solely 
 for his own benefit; and that proposals for a marriage h;id 
 been interchanged, to the detriment of his contract to the 
 Princess Mary, with Donna Isabella of Portugal. Thus Henry 
 found that, although his alliance with Spain had fully made 
 good his vaunting motto, “ cui adhereo prceest ,” he was any¬ 
 thing rather than a gainer, by the precedence he had given to 
 his ally; and, being manifestly deceived, determined at once 
 to change his course, and restore the balance of affiiirs. And, 
 in doing this, he was in no respect to blame; nor can be in 
 any degree charged with insincerity, or with breaking faith with 
 Charles—it being manifest, on the contrary, that Charles had 
 broken faith with him, in converting a war, carried on at com¬ 
 mon risk, common charge, and for the common good, in vio¬ 
 lation of express treaty stipulations, to his own singular ad¬ 
 vantage. 
 
 The clamor against Wolsey and the divoroe was the result 
 of a happy afterthought on the part of the imperialists, to di¬ 
 vert attention from their own faithlessness; and it has been 
 adopted by English historians, partly from justifiable dislike to 
 the character of tire man, partly from their blind adoption of 
 Polydore Virgil’s misrepresentations of his personal enemy, 
 and yet more from the polemical partisanship, by which, on 
 one side or other of the question, they are all more or less 
 deeply tainted, and which renders them all, as to the circum 
 
160 
 
 DISSOLUTION OF THE CONTRACT. 
 
 stances of this reign, so irresponsible and untrustworthy, as 
 authorities. 
 
 It is clear, however, that Charles did not desire to proceed 
 to a rupture with his uncle, or to throw him into the op¬ 
 posite scale, although he might avoid giving him his just share 
 of the spoils of victory. For, almost simultaneously with the 
 arrival of Tonstal and Wingfield at his court, he wrote per¬ 
 sonally to Henry, demanding the immediate consummation 
 of the contracted marriage with Mary, as he either did in truth 
 doubt his uncle’s good faith to him, or affected to doubt it; offer¬ 
 ing that she should be at once, on her arrival in the Nether¬ 
 lands, proclaimed empress, and received with the honors due 
 to her rank. 
 
 This the king of England, in his turn, peremptorily refused, 
 alleging the tender age of the princess as a reason why he 
 would not part with her, out of his custody ; yet he offered, at 
 the same time, to give her to Charles, as a sort of honorable 
 hostage, in exchange for the captive king of France. 
 
 The emperor believed, or affected to believe, that she had 
 been, pending her contract with himself, and in violation thereof, 
 offered in marriage, both to the king of France and to the king 
 of Scotland. The first is palpably untrue. He well knew, 
 what was not denied or disguised by any one, that, prior to 
 her contract to himself, she had been promised to the dauphin 
 of France, which engagement had been broken off, when Henry 
 declared war on Francis, in consequence of his invasion of Na¬ 
 varre. Since that period, it is impossible that she could have 
 been offered to that prince, since Henry had held no commu¬ 
 nication with him, but had, on the contrary, been pressing him 
 to extremity with arms. 
 
 Beyond this casual allusion, there is no mention in history of 
 
DISSOLUTION OF THE CONTRACT. 
 
 161 
 
 any serious thought having been entertained of allying her to the 
 young king of Scotland ; and, indeed, it hardly could have been 
 the case ; since, as cousins german, they were within the most 
 rigidly prohibited degrees of consanguinity, in the first place; 
 and, in the second, if such an offer had been made, supposing a 
 dispensation to be procurable, it is inconceivable that the pro¬ 
 tectors of that prince would not have eagerly embraced it, as 
 the surest mode of securing the quiet of his realm, and his 
 peaceful succession. 
 
 The more resolutely, however, that Henry refused, the more 
 pertinaciously did Charles insist on receiving her hand; until 
 the question was settled by the reply of the English king, that, 
 although he intended to keep his word and give his daughter 
 to Spain, so soon as she should have attained marriageable 
 years, and although he still desired the match, if his nephew 
 were averse to waiting for the adolescence of his promised 
 bride, he would consent to liberate him from this contract, so 
 that he should be at full liberty to wed another woman. 
 
 How much of honesty or faith, beyond the merest self-inter¬ 
 est, there was on the part of either of these monarchs, it is not 
 difficult to judge by whTlt followed. An armistice was imme¬ 
 diately agreed on, for the space of forty days, between Henry 
 and Francis, and, during the suspension of arms which fol¬ 
 lowed, a treaty, offensive and defensive, was concluded between 
 those two monarchs, on terms vastly to Henry’s advantage, 
 Fiance agreeing to pay him the sum of two millions of crowns, 
 by half-yearly instalments of fifty thousand, and moreover, 
 one hundred thousand crowns, as an annual pension for the 
 whole term of his natural life. To allow Mary, the queen 
 dowager of France, Henry’s sister, the full profits of her dower, 
 and to make good to her all arrears up to the present time. 
 
 11 
 
1G2 
 
 BAD FAITIl OP BOTH KINGS. 
 
 To pay the cardinal one hundred and thirty thousand crowns, 
 for his resignation of the bishopric of Tournay, and his services 
 to the house of France, and, lastly, to engage that the Duke of 
 Albany should never return to Scotland, during the minority 
 of the present king. This treaty Francis ratified during his 
 captivity ; and, in order to ensure the performance of it after 
 his release, Louise, the queen mother and queen regnant, sanc¬ 
 tioned it with her oath, as did moreover the principal nobility 
 of France, with the great cities of Toulouse, Lyons, Amiens, 
 Rheims, Paris, Bourdeaux, Tours, and Rouen; * all of which 
 bound themselves, under actual penalties of forfeiture, not 
 only to observe the treaty themselves, but to compel the 
 king to observe it. 
 
 A precious commentary on the good faith and honor of 
 these high-born and chivalrous nobles, in this age of punctilious 
 niceties and affected jealousy of the pun d' onor , is the fact, 
 that, in the very moment, when they were binding themselves 
 by solemn oaths to the observation of this engagement with 
 their new ally, they were secretly engaged in entering on the 
 private register of the parliament of Paris a solemn protest 
 against the treaty ; with the deliberate intention that Francis 
 should avail himself thereof, in order to escape from the ne¬ 
 cessity of fulfilling all or any of the stipulations, wherever it 
 should suit his purpose to do so. 
 
 The sincerity of Charles, in reiterating and pressing his de¬ 
 mands for the immediate solemnization of his marriage with 
 the Princess Mary, is sufficiently attested by the fact, that 
 within a few weeks after the abrogation of his contract with her 
 he actually married Matilda, the infanta of Portugal, who brought 
 him a marriage portion of nine hundred thousand crowns. 
 
FRANCIS RELEASED. 
 
 103 
 
 In January of the ensuing year, 1526, finding that in reality 
 the strength of France was in no wise reduced by the loss of 
 its Swiss and German mercenaries, at Pavia, or even by the 
 capture of the king; that all Europe was alive, since the cap¬ 
 tivity of Francis, to the danger it ran from the ambition at¬ 
 tributed to himself and the great increase of his own power; 
 and that more was to be gained by negotiation tlian by war, 
 Charles began to treat with his prisoner, for conditions on which 
 he should be restored to liberty. 
 
 On the seventeenth day of March, he was formally set at lib¬ 
 erty, his two elder sons being delivered up, at the same time, 
 as hostages to the officers of the emperor, charged with the 
 liberation of the royal prisoner. The ceremonial of his dis¬ 
 missal occurred at the mouth of the river of Fontarabbia, near 
 the town of Andaye, in the Lower Pyrenees, the king being 
 landed on the French bank at the same moment of time 
 when his sons were disembarked on the Spanish shore, the 
 boats which conveyed the parties pausing an instant in the mid¬ 
 dle of the stream, in order that the children might kiss the 
 hands of their father. 
 
 The conditions on which the French king received his free¬ 
 dom were these,—that, within six weeks after his release, he 
 should transfer Burgundy to Charles; that he should renounce 
 his pretensions to the sovereignty of Milan, Naples, and Flan¬ 
 ders, the emperor in like manner renouncing his claims to Bou¬ 
 logne, Ponthieu, and certain lands on both banks of the Somme; 
 that he should restore the Duke of Bourbon to all his droicts 
 and possessions in France, and guarantee the emperor against 
 all demands on the part of the king of England, for the arrears 
 of his pension ; that he should marry Eleanora, the sister of 
 Charles; and lastly, that, failing in ability to perform all or 
 
164 
 
 PERFIDY" OF FRANCIS. 
 
 any of these stipulations, he should place himself again a cap 
 tive in the hands of his adversary.* 
 
 “As soon as Francis came to his own ground, he got hastily 
 upon a Turkish and swift horse, and suddenly putting spurs to 
 him, if we may believe Sandoval, and casting one of his arms 
 over his head, and crying, Je suis le Roy! Je suis le Roy ! 
 posted to St. Juan de Luz, and the next day to Bayonne, 
 whither the lady, his mother, and many other principal persons 
 with much anxiety awaited him.” f 
 
 Here he swore, in person, to the fulfillment of the treaty, 
 which had been negotiated with Henry in his behalf, during 
 his imprisonment; and wrote a letter to that monarch, thank¬ 
 ing him for the exertions "which he had made in his behalf, and 
 to which he ascribed his own liberation. 
 
 At Bourdeaux, a few days later, he ratified, as a free man, 
 the engagements which he had taken to Charles while his cap¬ 
 tive; and before the ink Yvas well dry on the parchment, pro¬ 
 ceeded, deliberately and impudently, to violate every article 
 of the covenant, to which he had sworn. 
 
 More deliberate perjury, more insolent and barefaced vil 
 lainy, more cold-blooded swindling, could not be perpetrated, or 
 even expected at the hands of the most miserable trader of the 
 Low Countries, the most disreputable, money-broking Israelite, 
 or whatever there is, if aught there be baser than these, than was 
 resorted to by this great and valiant king — this knight who 
 prided himself on having taken his knighthood from the sword 
 of Bayard, the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche — this no¬ 
 ble who plumed himself upon his chivalry and his honor, more 
 than upon his nobility or his crown. 
 
 He refused to surrender Burgundy, as contrary to the will 
 
 * Liugard, vii. 87. + Herbert of Cberbury, fob 146. 
 
CLEMENT VII. A PRISONER. 
 
 1G5 
 
 of his subjects and the oath he had taken at his coronation, but 
 offered a sum of money, in lieu of it, as his ransom ; and when 
 Charles replied indignantly, that he was not a merchant to sell 
 his rights and principalities for gold, but a prince waging war 
 for the recovery of dominions of which he had been deprived 
 wrongfully, and summoned Francis to return in accordance to 
 his oath, into captivity, he laughed in his teeth, and negotia¬ 
 ted with Henry for the renewal and prosecution of the war in 
 Flanders and in the Milanese. 
 
 In the mean time, Clement VII., who had from the first es¬ 
 poused the party of Francis, entered into a league with that 
 prince, on his liberation, with Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, 
 and with the Venetians and Florentines, against the emperor. 
 But, Francis moving no army to his succor, probably having 
 none to move, but wasting his time in idle negotiations with 
 Henry, which were never to be fulfilled, the pope was over¬ 
 powered by the imperialists under Moncada, and forced to re¬ 
 tire into the castle of St. Angelo, where he was strictly be¬ 
 sieged ; Rome was stormed by the German mercenaries and 
 free companions, led by Bourbon-who fell by a musket bul¬ 
 let, while leading the assault—and was sacked with circum¬ 
 stances of horror, atrocity, cruelty, and licentiousness, by a 
 Christian army, exceeding all that she had ever undergone at the 
 hands of Alaric, or Genseric, the fiercest of her Pagan enemies; 
 and, in the end, Clement himself was forced to surrender his 
 sacred person, with thirteen of the cardinals, into the hands of 
 the imperialists, who detained him in strict captivity. 
 
 The capture and sack of Rome took place on the I Oth of 
 May, 1527, and, almost at the same moment, conferences 
 were in progress at Greenwich, between the Bishop of Tarbez 
 and Turenne, on the part of Francis, and Wolsey on Henry's, 
 
1GG 
 
 THE MASKERS AT GREENWICH. 
 
 by which the Princess Mary was once more betrothed to the 
 king of France, who had sworn scarce a year before to wed 
 the emperor’s sister, Eleanora, or, in case he should find it con 
 venient to keep his oath and marry that lady, then to his son, 
 the dauphin. The principal condition was this—that the two 
 kings should make joint war on the emperor, and never lay 
 down their arms until, he should accede to their terms, the 
 chief of which was the liberation of the hostage princes, and the 
 release of the claim to Burgundy, for a money ransom. A 
 grand entertainment was given at the palace of Greenwich, at 
 which three hundred lances were broken before supper ; and, 
 after a supper a magnificent ball followed, with orations, songs, 
 a fight at the barriers in the hall, and a dance of maskers, in 
 which the king, the ambassadors, and all the principal nobles 
 of the court took a part; and in which, when the ladies un¬ 
 masked, it was found that the Viscount Turenne had for his 
 partner the Princess Mary of England, who was still consid¬ 
 ered heiress apparent to the throne, and Henry, for his, the 
 beautiful Mistress Anne Boleyn, the lovely and accomplished 
 maid of honor to two queens. 
 
 It is significant of Henry’s infatuation, and of his probable 
 determination, already formed, that it is at these conferences, 
 according to his own and Wolsey’s statement, that Mary’s le¬ 
 gitimacy was called in question by the Bishop of Tarbez, 
 through which, as they allege, the king’s conscience was awa¬ 
 kened to the illegality and incestuous nature of his connection 
 with his late brother’s widow. From this time he began to 
 move, secretly,however, and carefully concealing his proceedings 
 from the injured queen, for a divorce, in order to gratify at 
 once his licentious passion for the charms of the coy and co¬ 
 quettish maid of honor, who would be approached on no terms 
 
THE KING’S SECRET MATTER. 
 
 16? 
 
 save those of matrimony, and his scarcely inferior desire for 
 heirs male. 
 
 That the Bishop of Tarbez should have raised doubts as to 
 the legitimacy of the princess, whom Henry had ever repre¬ 
 sented as his heiress, presumptive, at the least; the legality of 
 whose mother’s marriage had never been called in question; 
 and whom he was himself, then and there, soliciting as a wife 
 for the king, his master, who vehemently urged an immedi¬ 
 ate performance of the ceremony, despite the immature years 
 of the bride, is so unlikely, and as it were ridiculous, that, were 
 proof wanting, we might doubt the whole story. 
 
 But proof is not wanting. The journal of the French en 
 voys, recording all the minute particulars of the conferences 
 and all that passed at them is extant; and there is no mention 
 or hint of such a suspicion having been raised, or such a ques¬ 
 tion mooted. 
 
 Evidently, it was a device of the king and Wolsey, to ac¬ 
 count for the origination of such a scruple in the eighteenth 
 year of an acknowledged, undisputed, fertile, and apparently 
 happy marriage, and for the demand of a divorce, literally 
 speaking, after the twelfth hour. 
 
 From this time forth, until the whole of that iniquity was 
 accomplished, England had no continental policy, other than 
 this of “ the king’s secret matter,” as it was henceforth styled 
 by himself and the counsellors in whom he trusted. For this, 
 he risked a rupture with one or both of the twc puissant 
 princes between whom he affected to hold the balance; for 
 this, he attempted to throw dust in the eyes of both, making 
 and breaking contracts in a manner, which can only be ex 
 plained by considering how impossible it was that he could do 
 ought consistently, or even promise ought, with a prospect of 
 
108 
 
 henry’s poltcy. 
 
 its fulfilment, so long as he had, at his heart, this unworthy 
 project determined, but unrevealed ; and for this, in the eud 
 he broke with the Holy See, and, at the imminent hazard of a 
 religious rebellion, enforced a total change of church polity, if 
 not of faith, on his country, certainly before it was prepared in 
 general for such a change. 
 
 Both Charles and Francis were, in fact, deeply insulted, if 
 not injured, by his proceedings at this juncture ; for the former 
 was the nephew of the noble and virtuous lady, the right royal 
 queen, whom he now proposed causelessly to set aside, and 
 her daughter Mary, whom he now was set on bastardizing, 
 was not only his cousin german, but had been, until within a 
 very short period, his betrothed wife. 
 
 Francis he was actually, at this very moment, cozening in 
 the most impudent and barefaced manner : as must appear 
 the moment his divorce, or his application for it, should be¬ 
 come public, on the grounds whereby he alleged his marriage to 
 have been illegal from the beginning; since he was actually 
 contracting his daughter, as his heiress apparent , either to the 
 king himself, or to the dauphin, while he was secretly laboring 
 to deprive her of her legitimacy and rights of succession, by 
 repudiating her mother. 
 
 It is the consciousness of this intent, doubtless, which made 
 Ilenry so positively refuse the immediate celebration of Mary’s 
 marriage with the king of France; and insist, shortly after¬ 
 ward, on the substitution of the dauphin’s name for that of hi? 
 father, in the treaty, and on the insertion therein of a clause to 
 the effect, that, if, on account of any event which might come 
 to pass, the marriage should not take place, it should cause no 
 breach of amity between them, nor in anywise invalidate the 
 treaties now to be concluded. 
 
 / 
 
FIRST LOVE FOR ANNE BOl.EYN. 
 
 IG'J 
 
 It is very difficult to believe, when we regard the false and 
 temporising policy of Henry, with regard to his daughter’s 
 marriage, in the presence instance, when the object which he 
 had in view and the cause of his apparent inconsistency are pal¬ 
 pable, that his reason for positively refusing two years before 
 to sanction the solemnization of the same daughter’s marriage 
 with Charles, and his breaking with that prince, and altering 
 his whole policy, rather than concede the point, was not the 
 same as now. 
 
 His excuse, as to the tenderness of her years, according to 
 the ideas of that day, was invalid, and may be regarded in the 
 light of a mere subterfuge; since the question was simply of 
 solemnization, not of consummation, and to the former the 
 youth of the princess would not have been an obstacle. Taken 
 in connection with the known facts, that, Ilenry had noticed 
 Anne Boleyn, during the pageants of the Field of Cloth of 
 Gold; that, he caused her to be recalled from the court of 
 France, by name, when he declared war on Francis, in 1522; 
 that, on her return he placed her in attendance on the queen, 
 in a station where he would have constant access to her soci¬ 
 ety ; and, lastly, that from this time, he steadily refused taking 
 any step which would preclude the possibility of his setting aside 
 the Princess Mary,as illegitimate, his present conduct appears to 
 me sufficiently to show that he had meditated the commission 
 of this iniquity, long before he broached it to the nearest of his 
 confidants, long before it has been suspected by historians that 
 he did so. 
 
 Wolsey was now sent to France, with instructions either to 
 arrange the marriage on the terms above recited, which were 
 in fact adopted, or to break it off altogether. He went most 
 reluctantly, knowing that he was sent by the advice of his po¬ 
 ll 
 
i70 
 
 wolsey’s secret policy. 
 
 litical enemies,—Norfolk, Suffolk, and Viscount Eocheford-the 
 former the uncle, the latter the fit her of the favorite maid of 
 honor, he having recently been raised to the peerage under that 
 title, and being shortly afterward elevated to the earldom of 
 Wiltshire. 
 
 He went, nevertheless, and succeeded in accomplishing his 
 master’s ends, as also in procuring the insertion of a clause in 
 the treaty, to the effect that, so long as the pope should con¬ 
 tinue a prisoner in the hands of the emperor, the churches of 
 France and England should be governed by their own bishops, 
 in spite of any bull or breve, which the pontiff should issue, to 
 the contrary, during his captivity; and that, farthermore, any 
 judgment, pronounced by Wolsey in his legatine court, should 
 be carried into execution, whatever the rank of the party con¬ 
 demned, without regard to any Papal prohibition.* This 
 clause, though its meaning was, probably, kept a secret from 
 Francis, was evidently intended to give absolute power to 
 Wolsey to try, in his own court, without recourse, the ques¬ 
 tion of the validity of Katharine’s marriage, and to grant a final 
 divorce. 
 
 To this step, Wolsey had now, though reluctantly, brought 
 himself to agree, though not with a view to the king’s mar¬ 
 riage with Anne; for, reckoning on his master’s wonted fickle¬ 
 ness of humor, and probably underrating the lady’s powers of 
 resistance to her royal lover’s passion, he calculated fully on 
 his being soon weaned from this short-lived folly, and went so 
 tar as to speculate on his marriage with Rene&, the younger 
 sister of Claude, queen of France, and even to assure Louise, 
 the queen mother, and probably Francis also, that such a con¬ 
 nection, between the two crowns, would certainly and speedily 
 
 LiDgard, vi. 123 ; and state papers quoted by him. 
 
MARCH OF LAUTRECII. 
 
 171 
 
 ensue. On his return to England, he learned Henry's determi¬ 
 nation, and the inutility of attempting to oppose it. He went 
 so fir, indeed, as to implore the king on his knees to abandon 
 the project; but on finding him resolute, and knowing the 
 perduracy and violence of his resolution, he yielded his own 
 judgment and conscience, and served his master to the last, 
 more truly, as he himself confessed too late, than he served 
 his God, until his bad ends were accomplished. But not so 
 truly as to save himself innocent from the beautiful favorite’s 
 displeasure; for Anne learned, from her lover, the opposition 
 of the cardinal, and never forgave it, as it seems she never for¬ 
 gave any one, whom she thought an enemy. From this day, 
 therefore, although it was by his means, solely, that the di¬ 
 vorce was accomplished, and Anne’s marriage rendered possi¬ 
 ble, Wolsey’s downfall was dated. From this day, likewise, 
 may be dated the death-sentence of the venerable Fisher, bishop 
 of Rochester, and of the excellent Sir Thomas More ; for they 
 had both given opinions adverse to the divorce, and, although 
 they continued to hold office, and even apparently to enjoy 
 the royal favor, they were both inscribed on the black-list of 
 the revengeful mistress, who never rested from her ill offices 
 toward them, until their heads had fallen. 
 
 The first overt act of the king’s, after the ratification of this 
 treaty, was the march of a French army under Lautrech, ac¬ 
 companied by Sir Robert Jerningham, the English commis¬ 
 sary, with two hundred English horse, across the Alps, with 
 the avowed purpose of liberating the pope from his Spanish 
 captivity. But, although the French general speedily overran 
 Lombardy, and, leaving the strong garrison of Milan unreduced 
 in his rear, advanced to Piacenza, he lingered at that place, 
 with inexplicable fatuity, until the pontiff, despairing of releiue 
 
172 
 
 ESCAPE OF POrE CLEMENT. 
 
 by means of the allies, began to treat of ransom with his cap- 
 tors, and suddenly, finding their vigilance relaxed, succeeded in 
 making his escape, disguised as a gardener, to the strong town 
 of Orvieto, where he was waited on by the English envoys, 
 with congratulations, and solicitations to empower Wolsey, 
 or Staphileo, to hear and decide the cause of the divorce, and 
 to grant a dispensation to Henry, to marry any other woman 
 whomsoever, even if she were related to him in the first de¬ 
 gree, provided always, that she were not the widow of his 
 brother, or if she had been contracted to another man. 
 
 The object of these forms, in order to render possible his 
 contemplated marriage with Anne, who was not obviously 
 related to the king in any degree, nor notoriously contracted 
 to any other person, will be explained hereafter, when I come 
 to treat of her fortunes and character. In this memoir of 
 Henry, I restrict myself to my plan of regarding his political 
 career alone, and his relations to his own people and to for¬ 
 eign governments ; reserving, as much as possible, the details 
 of his private and domestic life, and the circumstances con¬ 
 nected with his queens, to be treated of in connection with those 
 ladies, and touching on his concerns with them, only so far as 
 they are mixed up with affairs of state. 
 
 The pope at once signed two instruments to the required ef¬ 
 fect, but requested that, for the present, they might be kept se¬ 
 cret ; and afterward, at Henry’s request, appointed a cardinal, 
 to be chosen by Henry himself, out of six of that rank, who 
 should try the cause in conjunction with Wolsey. It is worthy 
 of remark here, in connection with what followed in regard to 
 Henry’s rupture with Rome, that Clement, who was favorably 
 disposed and bound by gratitude to him, from the beginning, 
 warned him “That he was taking the most circuitous route,” 
 
SIEGE OF NAPLES. 
 
 173 
 
 and that, if he proceeded as he proposed, “ it was plain, that 
 by appeals, exceptions, and adjournments, the cause must be 
 protracted for many years.”* 
 
 In the meantime, the allied army, which was besieging Na¬ 
 ples by laud, while Pedro Lando, with thirty Venetian galleys, 
 was blocking it by sea, so that it seemed impossible that the 
 town should hold out any longer, was attacked by a terrible 
 disease, known as the black, or the sweating, plague; which 
 afterward spread throughout Europe, and was, especially in En¬ 
 gland, very fatal. Of this disease died, first, Sir Robert Jer- 
 ningham, then Carew, his lieutenant, and, lastly, Lautrech him¬ 
 self, the great French commander; after which the army with¬ 
 drew, pursued and sorely harassed by the imperialists, to Al¬ 
 essandria, where it passed the winter of 1528 ;the war in Italy y 
 in fact, terminating with this disastrous and inglorious cam- 
 paign. For although hostilities nominally continued betw r een 
 Spain and England, an armistice for eight months was conclu¬ 
 ded between Henry and Margaret, the governess of the Neth¬ 
 erlands, by which the war in those parts was concluded;and af¬ 
 ter the expiration of the year no more troops were sent out 
 from England, nor did Henry ever again earnestly engage in 
 active operations on the continent. 
 
 From this time forth, his domestic affairs, and his “ secret 
 matter,” completely occupied him, the more so as Clement’s 
 prediction was fulfilled to the letter, and years elapsed before 
 the cause could be decided. In April, 1528, plenary powers 
 were issued to Wolsey to try the cause, without judicial forms, 
 to pronounce according to his own conscience, without regard 
 to exception or appeal, the marriage valid oi invalid, and the 
 
 * Strype, i. 46, 75. 
 
174 
 
 henry’s latent character. 
 
 issue thereof legitimate or illegitimate, according to the desire 
 of Henry. 
 
 The king and Anne were at first in eestaeies, imagining that 
 the whole matter was decided, and all difficulty at an end ; 
 but, at this moment Wolsey took the alarm. If he granted 
 the divorce, he was ruined with both France and Spain, and 
 all for the sake of one, from whom he was well assured he had 
 no kindness to expect; for he well knew that Anne Boleyn 
 hated him, with a perfect and sufficient hatred. If he refused 
 the divorce, he lost Henry’s favor, lost his position, his power, 
 his fortunes, probably his head ; for, although the king had not 
 yet shown himself the sanguinary executioner into which he, a 
 few years later, degenerated, Wolsey unquestionably knew his 
 nature, and had discovered the latent instincts of the royal ti¬ 
 ger, which needed only to be thwarted, that they should dis¬ 
 play themselves in all their brutal force and fury. 
 
 It is probable, also, that Wolsey’s conscience did, in truth, 
 wince. For he was not a cruel, nor, as it seems to me, a bad- 
 hearted, or deliberately unjust, man. Could he have been both 
 great and good, at once, I think he would have desired to be 
 good. Perhaps, if he could have been innocent and safe, he 
 would have let the greatness go by, and have continued in¬ 
 nocent. 
 
 But his ambition and his vanity cried out; and he felt, as 
 all ambitious, proud, vain men must naturally feel, that it is a 
 far harder trial to fall from achieved greatness, than to have re¬ 
 frained from striving to achieve it. Nor was it an easy, or in¬ 
 deed a possible thing to continue innocent, with any certainty 
 of preserving his head, for any one whom Henry had resolved 
 to have guilty for his own advantage. 
 
 He now temporized; required that Cardinal Campcggic 
 
DELAYS IN THE DIVORCE. 
 
 175 
 
 should be joined to him in the commission, as more experienced 
 than himself in the laws of Rome ; and wrote to the pope, im¬ 
 ploring him to issue a bull, decreeing the divorce and granting 
 the dispensation, which he pledged himself never to divulge ; 
 as he required it, he said, only as a safeguard to his own con¬ 
 science, without which he could not decide so great a question; 
 not as a justification to the world. 
 
 The pretence deceived not the pope, nor his advisers. It was, 
 in fact, too shallow to deceive any one. It was palpable, that 
 the bull once in his hands, so soon as his decision should be 
 impugned, he would produce it as his authority and justifica¬ 
 tion. Late in the autumn, Campeggio arrived in London, the 
 bearer of the bull which had been so earnestly desired; but 
 his instructions were distinct, that, although he might read it 
 aloud to the king and his minister, he was on no account to 
 give it into their Linds, but rather to commit it to the flames. 
 
 The queen stood resolutely on the defensive, positively re¬ 
 fusing to do the smallest act, which should invalidate her daugh¬ 
 ter’s legitimacy, or to admit that she had been living, for 
 eighteen years, with Henry, as his mistress and not his wife; 
 she produced the original breve of dispensation, granted for 
 her marriage by Julius II., to which no objections could be 
 made, and demanded that she should be allowed advocates of 
 her nephew’s subjects, who should not be liable to the influ- 
 nce of the king or his minister. 
 
 Clement, meanwhile, fell ill again, and was given over for 
 dead, but again recovered. The emperor, who had regained 
 the ascendant over French arms in Italy, by liberal and kindly 
 conduct toward the pontiff obtained a counter influence to that 
 wh'ua Francis and ITenry had hithe to exercised over him. 
 He moreover, succeeded in making peace, the treaty of which 
 
176 
 
 GROUNDS FOR THE DIVORCE. 
 
 was signed early in the year 1529, with that prince. The 
 pope, moreover, remained firm and immovable. “Campeggio 
 adhered obstinately to established forms; and neither the 
 wishes of the king, nor the entreaties of Wolsey, nor the ex¬ 
 hortations of Francis, could accelerate his progress.” 
 
 On the eighteenth of June, the court met to try the case in 
 the parliament chamber at Black Friars. The king and queen 
 were both cited to appear. The latter, on doing so, protested 
 against the judges, denied the jurisdiction of the court, and ap¬ 
 pealed to Rome. On the following day, she cast herself at 
 the king’s feet, uttered a pathetic appeal to his sympathies, and 
 then with a low obeisance retired, whispering to an attendant, 
 when an officer was sent to recall her, “ I never before dispu¬ 
 ted the will of my husband, and shall take the first opportu¬ 
 nity to ask pardon for this disobedience.” 
 
 On her refusal to appear, either in person, or by attorney, 
 she was pronounced contumacious; and the trial proceeded in 
 her absence, Henry’s counsellors demanding the abrogation of 
 the marriage on these three grounds: 1. That her marriage 
 with Arthur having been consummated, her subsequent mar¬ 
 riage with Henry was contrary to divine law, and therefore 
 null and void from the beginning; 2. That the bull of Pope 
 
 Julius II. had been obtained under false pretences; and, 
 3. That the breve of dispensation, produced by Katharine, 
 which was not liable to the defects of the bull, was a forgery. 
 As Katharine had declined the jurisdiction of the court, no re¬ 
 ply was made by her to these allegations; but Campeggio did 
 not choose to pronounce judgment, and solicited the pope to 
 call the cause before himself. In the mean time, the term 
 expired, and the matter was adjourned until the following 
 October. 
 
INSULT TO CAMPEGGIO. 
 
 177 
 
 Henry and Anne were furious. The lady extorted from 
 her lover a promise never again to see Wolsey, and the tyrant 
 kept Iris word. When the Michaelmas term arrived, Cam- 
 peggio bade his brother cardinal farewell, and departed for 
 Rome, but was grievously insulted at Dover, by the officers 
 of the customs, who forcibly entered his apartments and 
 searched his baggage, on the pretext that he was carrying off’ 
 Wolsey’s treasures, but in reality with the expectation of find¬ 
 ing papers, of which the king desired to make himself master. 
 Nothing, however, was discovered, and the only consequences 
 of the operation w r ere the converting Campeggio into an overt 
 enemy, and rendering it more difficult for Clement to favor 
 Henry in the suit, as he doubtless desired to do, if he might 
 find a way of doing so in safety. 
 
 From this_tune^kaweuer,-the fall of Wolsey must be da¬ 
 ted. He had, it is true, strained every point, sacrificed con¬ 
 science, duty, truth, used every solicitation, every exertion, left 
 no stone unturned, to gratify the will of his exacting, unrelent- 
 ing master. But he had failed. It was known that he had 
 been originally, probably w 7 as still, opposed on principle, and 
 in his own heart, to Henry’s marriage with Anne. Therefore, 
 she hated him, and it would seem that, under her soft, seduc¬ 
 tive, gentle exterior, she concealed a nature almost as unfor¬ 
 giving as her royal lover’s. Henry, probably at her sugges¬ 
 tion, was led to mistrust the sincerity of the cardinal’s en¬ 
 deavors, perhaps even to suspect him of double dealing. His 
 want of success was attributed to want of faith, and he was 
 marked for destruction. 
 
 On the very day when he opened his court, as chancellor, 
 two bills were filed against him by the attorney-general, Hales, 
 under whab-was commonly called the statute praemunire , which 
 
 IP 12 
 
178 
 
 FALL OF WOLSET. 
 
 he was accused of having transgressed in his legatine court. 
 Nothing could have been more iniquitous than the whole trans¬ 
 action. It was doubtful whether that statute had any applica 
 tion to the court of the pope’s legate. At all events, he had 
 the royal license previously obtained, and the sanction of par 
 liament; besides, that immemorial usage was in his favor. 
 He knew too well, however, the temper of the royal brute, 
 fiercer and more untamable than the animal which has ob¬ 
 tained the title, and the pitch of frenzy to which opposition 
 aroused him. He declined, therefore, to plead even the royal 
 license, but ow r ned his guilt, resigned his seals, submitted to 
 every demand, divested himself of all his personal property, 
 granted to the king by indenture the revenues of all his bene¬ 
 fices and church preferments, and threw himself wholly and 
 unconditionally on Henry’s mercy, professing his willingness 
 to give up even the shirt from his back, and to live in a her¬ 
 mitage, if Henry would but cease from his displeasure.* But 
 that, it was not in the- nature of the regal monster to do. 
 Fluctuate he might, and in the variations of his fickle, cruel 
 mood show glimpses of relenting. But to one, who had, in 
 truth, once incurred his resentment, or, what was the same 
 thing, his suspicion, he relented never. The king himself took 
 possession of his palace at York House, and the cardinal was 
 banished to Esher, a large, unfurnished house, where he dwelt 
 for above three months, with his large family, destitute of 
 every comfort and convenience, neglected by his friends—if a 
 fallen favorite have any friends—forgotten by the king, but 
 unforgotten by his enemies, who never ceased to possess 
 Henry’s ear, with all ill rumors against him. 
 
 •TheBisbip of Bayonne. Quoted by Legrand, iii. 871; apud Lingard, vL 13S. 
 
FEAR OF WOI.SEy’s ENEMIES. 
 
 179 
 
 At last, he fell ill of a fever, and was like to die; and, then, 
 for a moment the king was moved, or seemed to be so. lie 
 sent three physicians to attend him, with a gracious message, 
 and he compelled the fair Boleyn to present the sick man with 
 a tablet of gold in token of reconciliation. Shortly after his 
 recovery, by the aid of Cromwell, he effected an arrangement 
 with his enemies, on granting them, or their friends, annuities 
 out of the bishopric of Winchester, in virtue of which he was 
 allowed to retain the jurisdiction of his archbishopric of York, 
 both temporal and spiritual, and an annuity of a thousand 
 marks from the bishopric of Winchester, making over to the 
 king, in consideration thereof, for the term of his natural life, 
 all his revenues, patronage, and rights arising from that see, 
 or from his abbacy of St. Albans. For a short time, he was 
 allowed to reside at Richmond ; but his enemies feared his 
 residence so near to the ear of Henry, being constantly in ter¬ 
 ror that he would recover his influence with his master, who 
 ever seemed to have a yearning toward his old and faith¬ 
 ful servant; and procured an order that he should repair tc 
 his own archbishopric of York, and reside within its limits. 
 
 Here he conducted himself with such a mixture of quiet 
 dignity, liberal generosity, Christian charity, and clerical pro¬ 
 priety, that he gained all hearts. He became beloved, alike 
 by the rich and the poor, and those who had the most hated 
 him in his prosperity, the most inclined toward him in his ad¬ 
 versity. Still Anne’s word was ever against him. She was 
 the “ night crow,” as he said, that ever whispered in the royal 
 ear misrepresentations of his most loyal and most virtuous ac¬ 
 tions. I cannot hold it doubtful, that, at this moment, it was 
 the very prudence and decorum of his behavior, busying him¬ 
 self, solely, with the spiritual .and temporal concerns of his 
 
ISO 
 
 wolsey’s arrest at cawood. 
 
 diocese, that doubly armed his enemies against him, fearful 
 that the applause he was acquiring “ from mouths of wisest 
 censure,” would, in the end, reinstate him in the royal favor. 
 
 On the 7th of November, he had invited the nobility of his 
 county to assist at his installation; on the fourth, he was ar¬ 
 rested at his residence at Cawood, on a charge of high treason. 
 The charge has never been explained, and was, unquestionably 
 groundless. If there were any shadow of cause for suspicion, 
 it must have arisen from the fact of his correspondence with 
 the pope, with Francis, and with Louise, the queen mother of 
 France ; all of them friends and allies of his master. He as¬ 
 serted, himself, and there is no reason to doubt it, that the ob¬ 
 ject of'this correspondence was to induce those illustrious per 
 sonages to interest themselves in reconciling him with Henry, 
 apart from whose favor it would really seem that he could not 
 exist, more than a tropical plant, deprived of sunshine. 
 
 The closing scene of this great man—for, if he had his errors 
 of ambition, vanity, and pride, as who hath not his errors? he 
 was still bolh a great man and a great minister—is so admira¬ 
 bly and so curtly told by Lingard,'* that I make no apology 
 for quoting the passage entire. 
 
 “ His health,” says he, (he suffered much from the dropsy,) 
 “would not allow him to travel with expedition; and at Shef¬ 
 field park, a seat of the Earl of Shrewsbury, he was seized 
 with a dysentery, which confined him a fortnight As soon 
 as he was able to mount his mule, he resumed his jour 
 ney; but feeling his strength rapidly decline, he said to the 
 Abbot of Leicester, as he entered the gate of the monastery, 
 Father Abbot, I am come to lay my bones among you.’ He 
 was immediately carried to his bed ; and, the second day, see 
 
 ♦ Vol. iv. 163. 
 
DEATH OF WOLSEr. 
 
 1S1 
 
 ing Kingston, the lieutenant of the tower, in his chamber, he 
 addressed him in these well-known words: ‘Master Kings¬ 
 ton, I pray you have me commended to his majesty; and be¬ 
 seech him on my behalf to call to mind all things that have 
 passed between us, especially respecting good Queen Katha¬ 
 rine and himself; and then shall his grace’s conscience know 
 whether I have offended him or not. He is a prince of most 
 royal courage; rather than miss any part of his will, he will 
 endanger one half of his kingdom; and I do assure you, I have 
 often kneeled before him, sometimes for three hours together, 
 to persuade him from his appetite, and could not prevail. And, 
 Master Kingston, had I but served God as diligently as I have 
 served the king, he would not have given over my gray hairs. 
 But this is my just reward for my pains and study, not re¬ 
 garding my service to God, but only my duty to my prince.’ 
 Having received the last consolations of religion, he expired 
 the next morning, in the sixtieth year of his age. The best 
 eulogy on his character is to be found in the contrast between 
 the conduct of Henry, before and after the cardinal’s fall. 
 As long as Wolsey continued in favor, the royal passions were 
 confined within certain bounds; the moment his influence was 
 extinguished, they burst through every restraint, and by their 
 caprice and violence alarmed his subjects, and astonished the 
 other nations of Europe.” 
 
 His death, of course, induced a total change of the royal 
 councils. Sir Thomas More became chancellor ; Sir William 
 Fitzwilliam succeeded More, as treasurer of the household, and 
 chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster; Dr. Stephen Gardiner 
 was appointed secretary to the king. The Duke of Norfolk, 
 Anne’s uncle, as president of the council, her father, the Vis¬ 
 count Rochefort, lately created Earl of Wiltshire, and the 
 
182 
 
 BREVE BY POPE CLEMENT. 
 
 Duke of Suffolk, of the same party, retained their places, aud 
 ruled the council, as absolutely as Anne ruled the king. From 
 this time forth, Henry held no intercourse with his queen; 
 while on the contrary, Anne, who had ceased altogether from 
 residing in her father’s house, lived constantly under the same 
 roof with him, ate at the same table with him, assisted at his 
 councils, was present with him on all his journeys, at all pub¬ 
 lic ceremonies, at all his parties of pleasure. In a word, when 
 we find, as we shall see subsequently, that, when this, at the 
 least, doubtful and indecorous mode of life had continued three 
 whole years, she was secretly married to the king, on the 25th 
 of January, which marriage was not acknowledged until the 
 first of June, and bore him the Princess Elizabeth, on the 7th 
 day of September, 1533, all these events taking place previ¬ 
 ously to the annulling of his marriage with Katharine, we shall 
 have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion, that she was 
 living with him in open adultery, as his avowed mistress, 
 though doubtless under the most positive promises of being 
 raised to the throne, so soon as a divorce should be obtained, 
 which Henry certainly expected to occur much sooner, and to 
 be effected much more easily than proved to be the case. 
 
 Three years elapsed, in fact, during which, so far from ma¬ 
 king any progress toward gaining his object, he was constantly 
 losing ground. In 1530, a reconciliation took place between 
 the courts of Rome and Madrid, and a congress occurring be¬ 
 tween the emperor and the pope, at Bologna, Henry, hoping 
 to gain his end by mollifying Charles, sent an embassy, at the 
 head of which he placed the Earl of Wiltshire, a choice which 
 only irritated Charles, who induced Clement to issue a breve 
 forbidding Henry to marry until his sentence should be pub- 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE DIVORCE. 
 
 183 
 
 llshod, and ordering him to treat Katharine as his lawful wife. 
 In England, where his influence would have seemed the most 
 certain to prevail, he only at length extorted a favorable an¬ 
 swer from the universities by threats and even open violence. 
 In 'taly, by dint of immense bribery, he obtained favorable 
 decisions from Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara; but in the Get- 
 manic states he could not gain the assentient voice of a single 
 public body. Even the reformed churches and divines, hos¬ 
 tile as they were to the pope and the emperor, openly and 
 clamorously opposed the divorce. Luther himself wrote to 
 the royal agent, that he “ would, rather than approve of such 
 a divorce, permit the king to wed a second queen, and, after 
 the example of the patriarchs and kings of old, to have two 
 wives or queens at the same time.”* 
 
 Francis he bribed, by a surrender of his claim for five hun¬ 
 dred thousand crowns due to him by treaty, by the present of 
 a lily of diamonds pledged to his father by Charles and Max¬ 
 imilian, for fifty thousand crowns of gold, and by a farther loan 
 of four hundred thousand crowns, to exert his influence over 
 the fourteen French universities, which the Bishop of Bayonne 
 had already been soliciting in his behalf. Still he advanced so 
 little, that, in reply to a letter to the pope, which he procured 
 to be written in the name of the nation, signed by all the 
 peers, temporal and spiritual, and by a certain number of the 
 principal commoners, urging an immediate decision of this 
 vexed question, in the king’s favor, he received this cold reply 
 —that Clement “ was ready to proceed with the cause imme 
 diately, and to show to the king every indulgence and favor 
 compatible with justice; one thing only he begged, in i© 
 
 * Luther! Epist. liaise, 1717, p. 29. 
 
184 
 
 CROMWELL ADVISES IIENRV. 
 
 turn, that they would not require of him through gratitude to 
 man, to violate the immutable commandments of God.” * 
 
 For once Henry wavered. He fancied the difficulties insur¬ 
 mountable, and told his confidants that he had been deceived ; 
 that he should never have sought for a divorce, had he not 
 been led to believe that the pope’s concurrence might easily 
 be obtained, and that, finding that assurance false, he was 
 minded to abandon the attempt forever. He had, in fact, car¬ 
 ried his suit with Anne, had been disappointed by her not 
 bearing him a son, or appearing likely to do so; and his ar¬ 
 dor for the divorce, as his passion for Anna, were on the 
 decline. 
 
 But at this moment, Cromwell, who had risen, from being a 
 servitor of Wolsey, on the ruin of his patron, instigated un¬ 
 doubtedly by Anne and her friends, suggested to Henry the 
 wisdom of following the example of the German princes, sha¬ 
 king off the yoke of Rome, declaring himself the head of the 
 church within his own realm, and taking into his own hands 
 all the powers and privileges usurped by the pontiff. The av¬ 
 aricious and ambitious tyrant listened in astonishment and de¬ 
 light. It was not now his passion for Anna only—that was, 
 perhaps, half satiated, and required some newer stimulus—it 
 was his greed of gold, his burning thirst for authority and 
 power, that were now awakened. Cromwell was sworn, at 
 once, a member of the privy council, and instructed forthwith 
 to take measures for carrying out his project. 
 
 The same iniquitous plan was resorted to now, as had been 
 adopted in the prosecution of Wolsey. By submitting to the 
 cardinal’s jurisdiction, all the clergy of the realm had become 
 equal participators in the crime of which he had confessed him 
 
 tLIngard, vi. 174, quoting from Burnet an«l Herbert of Cherbury. 
 
SUPREME HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 185 
 
 self guilty, as offending against the statutes of praemunire. 
 And the attorney-general was instructed to file a bill, in the 
 king’s bench, against the whole body of the church of England. 
 Terror-stricken, astonished, and deprived of any defence by 
 Wolsey’s plea of guilty, they offered to pay a hundred thou¬ 
 sand pounds for a free pardon, but the proposal was refused, 
 except on the condition that, in the preamble to the grant, 
 they should acknowledge the king to be “ the protector and 
 only supreme head, under God, of the clergy and church of 
 England.” 
 
 After a consultation and conferences, which lasted three 
 whole days, Henry consented to the insertion of the words, 
 “ so far as the law of Christ allows,” previous to “ supreme 
 head ;” by which, in fact, the whole recognition was invalida¬ 
 ted, since it was clearly left to individual judgment to decide 
 whether the “ laws of Christ” would, or would not, allow the 
 king’s supremacy. As yet, this was a matter of no impor 
 tance, for Henry had not yet resolved on seizing either the 
 privileges, or the possessions, of the church; and, whatever he 
 might contemplate for the future, only aimed for the present 
 at intimidating the pope into submission to his will. This, 
 however, he failed to do ; and, in the month of January, 1531, 
 the inhibitory breve, which had been issued the preceding year, 
 was published in Flanders, forbidding the king to proceed in 
 his divorce of Katharine, or in his marriage with Anne; and, 
 although he made every effort to induce the injured queen to 
 submit her question to the decision of four temporal and four 
 spiritual peers, he availed nothing, that noble-spirited woman 
 remaining constant in her determination to “ abide, until the 
 church of Rome, which w r as privy to the beginning, shall have 
 made an end of the marriage.” In this year, Henry would 
 
ISO 
 
 PAYMENT OF ANNATES FORIDDEN. 
 
 have bestowed on Reginald Pole, son of Sir Richard Pole, and 
 Margaret, duchess of Salisbury — who was daughter of that 
 George, duke of Clarence, of Malmsey memory, drowned in 
 the tower by his own brother’s orders—the bishoprics of York 
 and Winchester, vacant since Wolsey’s death, if that spirited 
 youth, bred to the church in the university of Padua, and des¬ 
 tined by the king, his kinsman, to the highest dignities in his 
 possession, would have consented to give his decision in favor 
 of the divorce. This, after many struggles with himself and 
 debates with his brethren, he could not prevail on himself to 
 do, and, the king not wholly, even yet, withdrawing his favor, 
 was permitted to leave England and return to Italy, where he 
 had commenced them, for the prosecution of his studies. The 
 vacant sees were conferred on Lee, and on Gardiner, the latter 
 of whom had hoped to gain, and might have succeeded in gain¬ 
 ing, the influence of Wolsey, had he not been outstripped by 
 the growing predominance of the yet more ambitious and un¬ 
 scrupulous Cromwell. 
 
 In the meantime, Henry, despairing of bringing Clement to 
 terms by conciliation, refused to plead in person at Rome, or 
 to send an excusator, endowed with full powers, to account for 
 the cause of his absence, and convoked his parliament. They 
 assembling in the beginning of January, passed a series of 
 bills, which w r ere the commencement of that great revolution, 
 which ended in the total abolition of Popish power in the Brit¬ 
 ish empire. The first of these prohibited all payment of the 
 annates, or first fruits of the Episcopal sees, to the see of Rome, 
 by the English bishops, on pain of forfeiture to the king by 
 the delinquent of the profits of his church preferments. The 
 second provided for the consecration of future English bishops, 
 by the archbishop, or two other prelates, in default of the issue, 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL MEASURES. 
 
 187 
 
 or in despite of the prohibition, of the necessary Romish oullg. 
 A third measure, yet more hostile to the pretensions of Rome, 
 was the compulsory assent of the clergy to a declaration, that 
 they would never more enact, publish, or enforce their consti¬ 
 tutions, without the royal authority and assent; and that they 
 would submit those, now in existence, to a committee of thirty- 
 two, half laymen and half clergymen, with the king superin¬ 
 tending, in person, for rejection, confirmation, or alteration. 
 And this, thenceforth, became the law of the land ; and here¬ 
 after the bishop of Rome ceased, in fact, and by law, to hold 
 any jurisdiction, spiritual or temporal, within the dominions of 
 the English crown. 
 
 No idea, it must be observed, had been as yet broached of 
 introducing Protestant or Lutheran doctrines into England ; 
 the king, to gratify whose passions the whole machinery had 
 been set in motion by Cromwell, was bitterly and personally 
 hostile to Luther, and came to be, so soon as Lutheranism 
 showed itself at all prominently in his dominions, a cruel per 
 secutor of the professors of those tenets ; the principal oppo¬ 
 nents of Henry’s pretensions to church supremacy were not 
 Lutherans, but Papists; and, whatever advances had been 
 made, thus far, to the abolition of a Romish and the establish¬ 
 ment of an Anglican head to the church of St. Peter within 
 the dominions of England, none whatever had occurred, toward 
 the creation of a Protestant church of England. On the con¬ 
 trary, for some time after this date, Henry himself professed 
 his willingness to be reconciled to Clement and the church, 
 and would probably have carried out such a reconciliation, had 
 not events occurred, which precipitated his course of action, 
 tnd led him to steps, which rendered the pope’s assistance un- 
 
188 
 
 SECOND MEETING OF KINGS. 
 
 necessary, as after circumstances made it also undesirable, if 
 not impossible. 
 
 During the summer of this year, 1532, Henry having re¬ 
 newed his treaties of defensive alliance with Francis, against 
 the emperor, Charles, had several times solicited a personal 
 interview with the king; but he now urged it so vehemently, 
 that it could not be declined ; pressing, at the same time, that 
 Anne Boleyn should be invited to be present, and proposing 
 that Francis should bring with him the queen of Navarre, since 
 he declined meeting the queen Eleanora of France, as being 
 sister to his enemy, Charles. 
 
 Whether Anne was invited, does not appear, although cir¬ 
 cumstances indicate that she was not, since the queen of Na¬ 
 varre did not accompany Francis to the interview, though 
 Anne Boleyn was present, as Marchioness of Pembroke; which 
 dignity, with remainder to the heirs male of her body forever, 
 and a pension of two thousand pounds per annum, had been 
 conferred on her in the month of September of the preceding 
 year. 
 
 The real cause of this meeting of the kings, was Henry’s de¬ 
 sire to secure the cooperation of Francis in discarding the au¬ 
 thority of the pope, and the wish of Francis to reconcile the 
 king of England with Clement, on terms agreeable to the lat¬ 
 ter—the pretext was the formation of a confederacy against the 
 Turks, and the fearful increase of their dominion. 
 
 At a mask, given by Henry to his brother king, at Cnlai? 
 the French monarch danced with the lovely Anne, and on tk 
 following morning presented her with “a jewel worth f.P/.j 
 thousand crowns,”* as the old chronicler has it. And, a d r <r 
 
 * Hall’s Chronicles, 108, 
 
ANNE HENRY’S MISTRESS. 
 
 189 
 
 mo afterward, the two princes separated, in great amity ; 
 Francis having written to Rome complaining of the affront, 
 offered to all crowned heads, by the citation of Henry to ap¬ 
 pear out of his own dominions, and inviting the pope to meet 
 the kings at Marseilles, there to arrange all matters amicably; 
 and Henry having promised Francis that he would proceed no 
 fai ther in his matters, either of divorce or marriage, until after 
 the proposed congress should have been held. 
 
 It should have been stated above, in the order of events, that 
 in July of 1531, on her refusal to submit the question of her 
 marriage to an English board of arbitration, Katharine'had re¬ 
 ceived an order to quit the palace at Windsor, whereupon she 
 retired to Ampthill, declaring that “go where she might, she 
 should still be his lawful queen.” On her withdrawal, Anne 
 unquestionably occupied her place, if not as wife, ostensibly as 
 companion, and scarce unavowedly as mistress, of the king. In 
 proof of which, though Protestant historians have endeavored 
 to discredit and conceal the truth, in their strange misconcep¬ 
 tion that Anne, Lutheran herself, converted Henry by love of 
 her to that doctrine, it may be brought to memory that, prior 
 to this conference of the kings at Boulogne and Calais, the pope 
 issued a breve denouncing excommunication against both the 
 king and his mistress, as she is termed, unless within one 
 month they should cease from cohabitation ; and pronouncing 
 their marriage, should they presume to marry in defiance of 
 his inhibitory mandate, invalid and of no effect. 
 
 But now, that occurred which rekindled all Henry’s passion 
 for the mistress, of whom he seemed more than half satiated, 
 and redoubled his impatience and his eager cravings for instant 
 divorce. Anne, at length, informed him that she was in that 
 way “ which ladies wish to be, who love their lords,” and. 
 
190 
 
 henry’s MARRIAGE TO ANNE. 
 
 moreover, that there was no time to be lost, if he would assure 
 the legitimacy of the long wished for heir to the throne—for heir 
 they were resolved that it should be. Accordingly, his prom¬ 
 ise to the French king must be broken; and, on the twenty- 
 fifth of January, 1533—this date is incontestably shown to be 
 correct by a letter, still extant, from Archbishop Cranmer to 
 his friend Hawkins, the emperor’s ambassador ; though Henry 
 and his courtiers asserted that the marriage was celebrated 
 November 14,1532, the day on which the king and Anne sailed 
 from Calais, after his interview with the king of France— 
 at an early hour in the morning, Henry was formally espoused 
 by llowland Lee, one of the royal chaplains, to the beautiful 
 marchioness, in the presence of Anne Savage, afterward Lady 
 Berkeley, her train-bearer, and of Norris and Heneage, two 
 grooms of the bed-chamber. 
 
 It is pretended that the marriage had taken place long be¬ 
 fore, and was concealed in order to give time for the occur¬ 
 rence of the previously arranged meeting with the pope at 
 Marseilles, but, that meeting being deferred, was now necessa 
 rily proclaimed, in order to save the lady’s reputation, and se¬ 
 cure the legitimacy of the offspring. How either reputation 
 could bo saved, or legitimacy secured, does not appear; nor 
 could it have occurred to any one, who was not so thoroughly 
 consistent in inconsistency as Henry, to set up such a defence 
 for either ; when he was yet held fast by marriage to another 
 woman, toward divorce from whom he had made no progress; 
 and, when in denying his paramour to be his adulterous con 
 cubine, he only asserted himself and her to be guilty of un 
 qualified bigamy. 
 
 The marriage, however, must now be validated at all cost. 
 
cranmer’s elevation. 
 
 10] 
 
 especially since the existence or non-existence of a king of I‘in 
 gland was in posse , if not in esse. 
 
 During the past year, Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, 
 who had contended in vain with Wolsey, and been driven 
 from the court on his ascendency, died; and “to the sur¬ 
 prise and sorrow” of many, Henry determined to raise 
 Cranmer—whose zeal in favor of the divorce, his book in 
 defence thereof, and his bold advocacy of the measure at 
 Rome, had conciliated both the king’s and the favorite’s re- 
 gard—though he had not long been in holy orders, to that high 
 dignity. 
 
 This man was, doubtless, in heart a reformer and Lutheran, 
 and had, since taking orders, married, contrary to all the can 
 ons of the church, the niece of Osiander. Yet this very mar 
 ried priest had now the infamy and audacity to take the oath 
 of obedience to the pope, and to receive the consecrated pallium 
 at the hands of his delegates, having previously declared, in 
 the presence of four witnesses and a notary, in the chapter- 
 house at Westminster, that by the oath of obedience to the 
 pope, which he swore for form’s sake, he intended nothing 
 against the king’s sole supremacy, as head of the church of 
 Christ, or against any reforms, which he might thereafter judge 
 it necessary to make. 
 
 A worthy commencement, truly, for a prelate, who, in his 
 heart, a convert to the new learning, as Lutheranism was then 
 called, was so base, as to preach constantly, during the life ot 
 his tyrant master, doctrines and a faith which he secretly dis¬ 
 believed and disavowed, and so doubly base and barbarous, as 
 to condemn to the fagot and the stake his brother believers, 
 who had the constancy to assert, in the midst of the fire, the 
 creed which he, like the devils, believed in trembling, while 
 
192 
 
 THEOLOGIANS AND CANONISTS. 
 
 he persecuted it to the utmost. That he should himself, in 
 after times, have died the same cruel death, is but an 
 instance of that retributive justice, which sometimes, though 
 rarely, falls upon man, as if by direct providence; but, in 
 view of his scandalous and barbarous career, one feels more 
 disposed to regret that he should have received the honors, 
 than that he should have undergone the tortures, of mar¬ 
 tyrdom. 
 
 The first measure taken by this base and perjured prelate 
 was to write a letter to Henry, as if of his own free will and 
 suggestion, beseeching him, for the better regulation of the suc¬ 
 cession of the crown, to allow him to take cognizance of the case 
 in his archiepiscopal court, and hear the cause of the divorce, 
 and put an end, as a duty to God and the king, to the doubts 
 concerning the validity of the marriage. The next step was 
 to procure the passing of an act of parliament, prohibiting, un¬ 
 der the penalties of praemunire , any appeal from the spiritual 
 judges of England to the courts of the pontiff. A convocation 
 was then assembled, consisting of two courts, one of theologi¬ 
 ans, the other of canonists, who should give their decisions 
 severally. To the theologians was submitted the question— 
 ‘ Can a Papal dispensation validate the marriage of one brother 
 with another brother’s widow, the first marriage having been 
 consummated?” Of the canonists it was asked, “Were the 
 proofs submitted to the legate, Cardinal Campeggio, sufficient 
 canonical proof of such consummation?” 
 
 The theologians decided against the power of the pope’s dis¬ 
 pensation, to render such a marriage valid, by sixty-six dis¬ 
 senting voices to nineteen ayes. 
 
 The canonists declared on the sufficiency of proofs, by thirty- 
 eight ayes to six negative votes. 
 
DIVORCE PRONOUNCED. 
 
 193 
 
 Both courts thus deciding, directly, in Henry’s favor, he 
 granted to Cranrner his royal permission to proceed in his 
 court, though he judged it necessary, in the first place, to re¬ 
 mind him that he was only, as primate of England, the' prin¬ 
 cipal minister of the indefeasible spiritual jurisdiction res¬ 
 ident hi the crown, and that “the sovereign had no supe¬ 
 rior on earth, and was not subject to the laws of any earthly 
 creature.” * 
 
 The ambassador of Francis, in vain, protested that this pro¬ 
 cedure was in violation of Henry’s engagements, at Calais and 
 Boulogne, with his master. Cranmer was ordered to proceed, 
 and Katharine was cited to appear before him, at Dunstable, 
 near Ampthill, where she resided. 
 
 The service of the citation was proved on the tenth day of 
 May, and on her non-appearance she was pronounced “ contu¬ 
 macious.” On the twelfth, a second citation was proved, when 
 she was pronounced “ verily and manifestly contumacious,” 
 and the court proceeded to hear arguments and read deposi¬ 
 tions, in proof of tne consummation of her marriage with 
 Prince Arthur. On the seventeenth, she was a third time 
 cited to hear the judgment of the court; but to none of these 
 citations did she pay any attention, having been advised that 
 to do so would be to admit the archbishop’s jurisdiction. 
 Cranmer, therefore, on the Friday of ascension-week, pro¬ 
 nounced the marriage between her and Henry null and invalid, 
 having been contracted and consummated in defiance of the 
 divine prohibition, and, therefore, without force and effect from 
 the very beginning. 
 
 Thus, at the expense of all honor, honesty, justice, and reli- 
 
 1 
 
 * State Papers, I. 890. 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 THIRD DIVISION OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 gion, by the present change of the whole ecclesiastical polity, 
 and future alteration of the entire faith of a great nation, by a 
 total subversion of all domestic laws, and disruption of foreign 
 relations, was consummated, to gratify a bad man’s carnal 
 lust, and a bad king’s insane caprice for an heir male, this 
 great and flagrant wrong, against a woman, justly admitted, 
 in all times, to be of the most virtuous, the most woman¬ 
 ly, the most queenly, the most loyal, and most royal, of 
 her sex. 
 
 But let none say, that Katharine was unavenged. On that 
 day, forever, Henry’s good angels all abandoned him. From 
 that day, no one of the manly virtues, no one of the kingly 
 graces, any more abode with him. Up to this time, he had 
 been a man, though an obstinate, a selfish, and a willful man— 
 a king, though a despotic, arrogant, self-sufficient and ungov¬ 
 ernable king. Henceforth, he was a wild beast, a Nero, a 
 monster, and almost a demon. Henceforth he was deserted 
 by his better genius, given up, soul and body, “ to the world, 
 the flesh, and the devil.” 
 
 Little as there has been, heretofore, of pleasant to record, or 
 to read, concerning him, henceforth there is nothing but brutal 
 lust, barbarity, and butchery, perpetrated, as it would seem, 
 for the very love of blood. 
 
 Fortunately, the record will be short; for, although there 
 remain yet fourteen years, the worst years, of his detested life 
 to be related, before his unregretted death consigned him to 
 posterity, which holds his memory in equal awe and loathing, 
 and liberated England from an incubus of blood and crime, the 
 events of this third division of his reign are so narrowly sepa¬ 
 rated from the circumstances of his five later marriages, and 
 
EVENTS PROPERLY DETAILED HEREAFTER. 
 
 1^5 
 
 so little connected with the affairs, either foreign or domestic, 
 of his people, that they are more properly detailed with thi for¬ 
 tunes of the five hapless ladies, who had, successively, the mis¬ 
 ery to be his wives; and in the memoirs of these, they will 
 be chiefly, as more suitably, related. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE DIVORCE OF QUEEN KATHARINE, 1533, 10 HENRf’s 
 DEATH, 1547. 
 
 The second phase of Henry’s character,/as developed in the 
 period intervening between the general pacification and the di¬ 
 vorce of Queen Katharine^may be regarded as one of ungov¬ 
 ernable selfishness, inconsiderate obstinacy, reckless and furious 
 impetuosity in accomplishing his own purposes, with a to¬ 
 tal disregard to all rights of individuals or countries, to all 
 real interests of himself or his people, arising, in the main, 
 from mere animal licentiousness, and fierce rage, at op¬ 
 position, like that of the wild bull which shuts his eyes, 
 and dashes headlong against the first obstacle, only because 
 it is an obstacle, to the indulgence of his own passion. 
 
 Still, though he had shed blood, he had shown no special 
 thirst for it, nor seemed to desire to spill it, except when he 
 fancied that he should avert some political peril by the spill- 
 ling. In two instances, he had shown some fingerings of self- 
 respect, and some rare touches of humanity. He had been 
 induced, not without difficulty, to sanction the measures 
 which ruined Wolsey, though he believed him guilty of luke¬ 
 warmness in the prosecution of his “ secret matter; ” still he 
 would not, I believe, ever have consented to the execution of 
 that once loved friend and minister. Again, in the case of 
 
THE WONDER OF SUBMISSION. 
 
 197 
 
 Reginald Pole, who was the scion of a race which he regarded 
 as especially hostile and antagonistic to his own, and who had 
 himself crossed him in his tenderest point, and offended him 
 by opposition where he looked for support, he had shown a 
 sort of fitful generosity, which he never displayed in any case 
 again, and which seems to have utterly surprised all who wit 
 nessed it; so thoroughly did all around him comprehend al¬ 
 ready what would be, when once fairly aroused, the dormant 
 instincts of the royal savage. After this time, his obstinacy , 
 partially disappeared, because he found little or no opposition ( 
 which should call it forth ; for no one dared any longer to op¬ 
 pose his intimated will, unless it were a few fanatics, or mar¬ 
 tyrs, for religion’s sake, whom he instantly consigned to the I 
 fagot or the scaffold, and his divorced wife, who alone, it is truly 
 said, of men or women, ever braved his will with impunity. 
 His lust increased into something akin to madness; his ca¬ 
 prices were so whimsically willful and extraordinary, that, but 
 for their fearful and appalling consequences, they would be 
 ludicrous; but his cruelty, his insatiable thirst for blood, nothing 
 but blood, which no claims of gratitude, no memories of affec- / 
 tion, no ties of friendship, no bonds of kindred could divert, be- i 
 came, henceforth, the ruling passion, the unmistakable charac- * 
 ter, of his declining years. During this period, that is, indeed, 
 true of him, which the ambassador of Francis wrote to his 
 master, that, “truly, he was a marvellous man, and had mar¬ 
 vellous people about him”—not the least of the marvel lying 
 in this, that there was no law of the realm, which he did not 
 override, the moment it thwarted either his lust or his'ven¬ 
 geance, by the aid of the very parliaments whose interest, as 
 duty, it was to defend it; no liberty of the subject which he 
 did not subvert, by the cooperation of the very persons or- 
 
198 
 
 STRANGE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES. 
 
 dained to conserve it. In a word, that, throughout all that bold 
 and free England, of late so turbulent and difficult to rule, 
 even by comparatively moderate and gentle princes, among 
 all that proud and restless Norman nobility, erst so prompt 
 to offer armed resistance even to lawful rule, no resistance was 
 so much as attempted against his ruthless and organized bar¬ 
 barity. Even more wonderful is it, that even of those, who 
 fell by his sanguinary mandates on the scaffold, none dared, so 
 abject was their terror, so blind their submission to this “ ty¬ 
 rant bloody-sceptered,” even to declare their innocence, and 
 so “ impugn the justice of the king,” in that last moment, when 
 the axe was bared and the block ready, when hope or fear could 
 exist no longer, and, save the last parting pang, the bitterness 
 of death was over. 
 
 No promise, one would imagine, to speak nothing deroga¬ 
 tory to the monster who slew, so unrighteously, both the in¬ 
 nocent and guilty, would restrain some one of those unnum¬ 
 bered victims from declaring aloud his own innocence, at that 
 inevitable instant, when no farther punishment could follow the 
 breach of it, and when the last and most natural wish of man, 
 to live unsullied on the tongue of posterity, would, it should 
 seem, survive and overrule all respect for princes, all fear of 
 king or kaisar. 
 
 But so it was not. In this veritable reign of terror, brave 
 men died by the axe, intrepidly, but silent;loyal men perished, 
 without a word on their lips to indicate that they were not the 
 traitors they were, without proof or trial, pronounced to be. 
 Weak woman showed no dread of the sharp and sudden blow, 
 yet passed away, leaving it in doubt, whether they were in¬ 
 cestuous and adulteresses, or whether they were innocently, as 
 well as illegally, brought down to the block ; when but a 
 
SILENCE IN HEATH. 
 
 199 
 
 breath of theirs would have turned, to the ear of posterity, the 
 balanced scales of opinion. More wondrous yet, the alleged 
 accomplices of these women, dying before them, so that their 
 last declarations, if they were innocent, might have availed 
 those somewhat, died the death, neither confessing, nor deny¬ 
 ing, crimes so incredible as a brother’s incest with his own 
 sister. 
 
 Of a truth, if Henry were a marvellous man, or monster, 
 as no one is likely to deny, his aiders and abetters, his victims, 
 his judges, his nobles, his commons, his whole people, were, if 
 anything, more marvellous than he. 
 
 In the French reign of popular and democratic terror, the 
 submission of a whole nation to the doom of a handful of mur¬ 
 dering demagogues, whom they could have overwhelmed, in 
 an instant, like an entering ocean in its wrath, was equal, and 
 equally incomprehensible, with that of the English, during En¬ 
 gland’s reign of autocratic terror. But the French died, call¬ 
 ing Heaven to witness and Hell to avenge; proclaiming, in tones 
 that triumphed over death, their own conscious virtue, and de¬ 
 nouncing, with eloquence that scathed, like lava, all on whom 
 it flowed, the crimes of their accursed butchers. 
 
 No one suspects the patriotism of one victim of the French 
 revolution, or believes in the alleged treason to the republio 
 “one and indivisible;” no one can positively deny the crimi¬ 
 nality, or establish the purity, of one of Henry’s murdered 
 queens or nobles, however clearly he may perceive the want 
 of proof that they were guilty, and the savage illegality of 
 their doom. 
 
 A man may well die — many have, doubtless, died — ille¬ 
 gally convicted of crime, yet being guilty of the crime of which 
 he stands convict. With both of Henry’s miserable consorts, 
 
200 
 
 MARRIAGE WITH ANNE LEGALIZED. 
 
 who died bloody deaths, leaving behind them doubtful repu 
 tations, it may, or it may not, have been thus. With mor 
 than one or two, of those condemned with them, and of the 
 nobles attainted and slaughtered, by scores, on charge of trea¬ 
 son, so also. They died and made no sign. 
 
 If some of the princes and peers, whom he slaughtered, with¬ 
 out evidence or trial, had not meditated, prayed for, compassed 
 his death, their loyalty was more a marvel than a virtue ; but 
 it is to be remembered that not one ever was proved, not one 
 ever confessed, to have deserved his doom. And if every one 
 of the political sufferers of this reign of blood had been justly 
 slain, the hundreds, some say thousands, of religionists, to 
 whom no choice was left between two horns of the dilemma, 
 save to hang as traitors, if Papists, or to burn as heretics, if 
 Protestants, and of just men who could not forswear their con¬ 
 sciences, were yet enough to sink the tyrant’s soul an ocean 
 of fathoms deep in innocent and righteous gore. 
 
 The first procedure after the annulling of Henry’s marriage 
 with Katharine, was a declaration officially promulgated by 
 Cranmer, in his court at Lambeth, that Henry and Anne were 
 and had been joined in lawful matrimony, and that he himself 
 confirmed it, of his own authority, as judge and prelate. This 
 occurred on the 28th of May, 1533, and had their marriage 
 been at this time celebrated, it might have been in some sort 
 held legal, and its issue legitimate ; but to assert that a mar¬ 
 riage contracted and consummated, months before another ex- 
 .sting marriage had been dissolved, could by a retrospective 
 action, validating it from its inception, be ex post facto ren¬ 
 dered lawful, and its issue, palpably begotten during the con¬ 
 tinuance of a former undissolved contract, constituted legiti- 
 
CORONATION OF ANNE. 
 
 201 
 
 mate,* requires more than all the cynical inconsistency of 
 Henry, and the barefaced impudence of its clerical and lay 
 advisers. 
 
 On the first of June, Anne was crowned queen, with great 
 pomp and unusual magnificence, amid jousts and tournays, gor. 
 geous processions and triumphal arches, banquets and barriers, 
 splintering of lances, bellowing of ordnance, flowing of conduits 
 with wine and hypocras, smooth congratulations of the nobil¬ 
 ity, loud lip-loyalty of the mob, but amid the secret sorrow 
 and contained wrath of the English people, and the openly ex¬ 
 pressed disgust and disdain of all Europe, Catholic and Prot¬ 
 estant alike, without distinction of party, creed, or country. 
 
 On this day Anne gained the cherished wish of her ambi¬ 
 tious heart, the crown for which she had played so long, so 
 skillfully, and, it must be said, so foully — the crown, which 
 was so soon to bring down the fair head that wore it, in sorrow 
 to a bloody grave. She was the queen of England; and the 
 last queen, in that cruel reign, although four yet succeeded her, 
 who was indued solemnly with the diadem of the English 
 empire. 
 
 On this day, also, Henry satisfied one half of his fiercest as¬ 
 pirations; he had made his well-beloved Anne, from his mis¬ 
 tress, his wife ; and the rest was in process of accomplishment. 
 An heir male to his crown was within expectation, and ho 
 lacked only the solemn sanction of parliament to constitute 
 him lay pope of the church of England. Still, despot as ho 
 was, a portion of his will failed of accomplishment. He 
 
 * It is probable, and indeed appears from the declaration of Lee and Gardiner, to 
 Queen Katharine, to that effect, that after the divorce had been pronounced by Cran- 
 mer, a second marriase took place. But it is not on record. Nor does its validity 
 or the legitimacy of Elizabeth stand on this ground of defenos. 
 
202 
 
 PERSISTENCE OF THE QUEEN. 
 
 could not force the designs of Providence, nor bend to his will 
 the noble heart and unwavering confidence of one royal-minded 
 woman. 
 
 On the seventh of September, Anne deceived his hopes by 
 bearing him a girl, stronger to be, in after days, than any man- 
 monarch who has preceded or succeeded her — a girl, Eliza¬ 
 beth, thereafter, the woman-king of England. But this the 
 blinded despot saw not; more than his light consort discerned 
 the bloody winding-sheet, which had begun already to enfold 
 her, still slowly creeping upward until it should envelope, to 
 the neck, that headless trunk, which w T as now so soft and fair 
 to look upon. The first warp of that ensanguined shroud was 
 struck, on the day and hour when the baffled despot cursed 
 and raved over the birth of a female offspring. 
 
 With Katharine, no more than with heaven, not profanely 
 or irreverently be it spoken, could he prevail by any violence 
 or fury of intimidation. It was in vain that he fulminated his 
 orders against her, to forbear the style and avoid the title of 
 queen, contenting herself with the rank of dowager princess of 
 W T ales, and the income settled on her by her husband, Arthur. 
 It was in vain that he dismissed such of her attendants, as 
 should presume to style her queen, irrevocably from her ser¬ 
 vice. To every injunction, every menace, she had but one 
 answer. She had “ come a clean maid to his bed.” She 
 would never slander herself, nor bastardize her daughter. 
 She would never own herself to have been twenty-four years 
 a harlot. She valued not the judgment of Dunstable, at a 
 pin’s fee. She had lived, and would die, queen of England. 
 And she did so. 
 
 Prelates he might browbeat; pontiffs he might unseat; par 
 liaments he might bend into pliant tools; peers he might un 
 
DOUBLE DEALINGS WITH CLEMENT AND FRANCIS. 203 
 
 make, at pleasure; princes, of great names and mighty na¬ 
 tions, he might divide and conquer; but that true woman’s 
 heart was all too strong for his brute violence; and all the 
 puissance of his sceptre, all the terrors of his sword, could not 
 unqueen that royal woman, or take from her the empire she 
 ha 1 won, the title she had a (Feared in the heart of the loyal 
 English people. 
 
 If Katharine were no longer queen of England, she was, 
 more than ever, queen of the English ; and if he robbed her 
 of all else, even her brute and most unworthy husband could 
 never wholly rob her of his own esteem. For, when at last 
 she exchanged a faded earthly crown, for an incorruptible 
 crown in heaven, he — even he, who garbed himself in white, 
 and married another bride, on the very day when Anne died—• 
 who bade the physicians let beautiful Jane Seymour perish, if 
 they might save her son, untimely born, “since wives v r cre to 
 be had for the getting, but sons only by the gift of God”—he, 
 that bloated, bloody, remorseless, tearless monster, let fall one 
 tear, almost his only one, from childhood to the grave, at 
 tidings of her decease, who certainly loved him the only one 
 of women. 
 
 But, not to anticipate, for some time, appearances were kept 
 up by Ilemv with both the pontiff and the king of France, as 
 if he still des'red to negotiate and to be reconciled; but still 
 he failed ever to keep his engagements, never sending plenary 
 instructions, or full powers to treat, to his envoys. Francis, 
 from policy, Clement, from gratitude and real liking to him, 
 would have subserved his wishes; but he paltered with both, 
 and, in the end, gulled both cgregiously. To the pope he held 
 out greater concessions, than ever had been offered, if he would 
 but annul his first, and ratify his second marriage. To Fran- 
 
201 
 
 clement’s will and fear. 
 
 cis he promised alliance, offensive and defensive against all the 
 world, subsidies, men, money, all and more than all he had 
 ever asked, if he would but break off the marriage of his son, 
 Orleans, with Catharine di Medici, the pope’s niece, and deny¬ 
 ing Clement’s authority, follow his own example, discard the 
 ultramontane head, erect a French church, and make to him¬ 
 self a Gallican patriarch, abolishing the power of Rome in 
 France forever. 
 
 But Clement, though he had the will to do so, had not the 
 daring to break off with Charles, and draw down upon Italy 
 the wrath of the emperor, as he must have done by sanction¬ 
 ing the repudiation of his aunt, whose rights Spain supported, 
 unalterably, as a point both of faith and honor. Moreover, he 
 could not command his cardinals to a decision foreign to their 
 interests and their pleasure, to the laws of the church and the 
 dictates of their consciences. A want of power, on his part, in¬ 
 comprehensible to Henry, who was used to ride rough shod 
 over all scruples of religion, all principles of honor, to make 
 the faith of churchmen, the duty of parliaments, the very stat¬ 
 utes and constitutions of his kindom, bend and fall prostrate, 
 before the dictates of his own absolute yea! 
 
 Francis was not prepared to take a step so bold, so sudden, 
 and, above all, so unlikely to be supported in France by pub¬ 
 lic opinion, and by the sanction of the great barons and feuda¬ 
 tories of the kingdom ; who still retained, and who indeed pre¬ 
 served long afterward, until their powers were broken by the 
 iron rod of Richelieu, a might which the peers of England had 
 lost during the fatal wars of the Roses, a might, which no king 
 could venture to dispute, much less to defy, and without which, 
 on his side, he was powerless against a foreign enemy, and 
 profitless among his own people. 
 
TWO ACTS OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 205 
 
 But Henry, secure at home, cared for the proceedings of 
 neither; anticipated the action of both. Before the ultimate 
 decision of Rome, confirming the marriage of Katharine, and 
 excommunicating both the king and Anne Boleyn, unless he 
 repudiated her and took back to him his lawful wife, had 
 reached the ears of Henry, the acts had passed the supreme 
 courts of the land, from which lay no appeal, subtracting En¬ 
 gland from the sway of Rome, and prohibiting, forever, the in¬ 
 terference, spiritual or temporal, of foreign pontiff, as of 
 foreign potentate, with the church, as with the state, of tho 
 earthfast isle. 
 
 On the second of March, 1534, the blaze of bonfires, the 
 roar of artillery, the shouts of viva VEspagna , viva Vimperio 
 expressed the joy of the imperialists at the sentence, rendered 
 by nineteen out of two-and-twepty cardinals, confirming the 
 rights and titles of the noble Spanish princess, and deposing 
 the adulterous concubine, her despised and hated rival, anc 
 made the Vatican resound their empty exultation. On tho 
 30th of the same month, silently, solemnly, without noise, or 
 congratulation, or shouting, two bills passed the parliament 
 of England and received the royal sanction. The one erected 
 the submission of the clergy, made the previous year, into a law 
 of the land. The other set aside the marriage of the queen. 
 
 By this, all allegiance, all rendition of dues, all acknowledg- 
 ment of powers or prerogatives, all appointment of prelates, 
 all enactment of bulls, canons, statutes, having force on En¬ 
 glish soil, were prohibited to Rome forever. All the powers, 
 rights, and authorities, all payments of dues or droits, all nom¬ 
 inations to preferment, all possessions temporal and spiritual, 
 formerly belonging to the pontiff, were by this act attributed 
 solely to the king, of the time being. All the existing canons 
 
206 
 
 THE TWO ACTS OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 ordinances, and constitutions of the church, at that time exist¬ 
 ing, were to remain in force, unless modified or abrogated as 
 repugnant to the statutes or customs of the realm, or the pre¬ 
 rogatives of the crown, under that act to be determined. 
 
 Thus was the power of the pontiff annihilated at a blow, 
 and the king of England, in esse, erected forever, de jure et de 
 facto ,into the supreme head of the Anglican church, spiritually 
 no less than temporally, not as an empty title, but as an abi¬ 
 ding fact, for all future generations. 
 
 By the second act, Katharine’s marriage was invalidated and 
 made null and of no effect, from the beginning—Anne’s lawful 
 and valid. The issue of Katharine was made illegitimate, and 
 excluded from the succession—that of Anne rightly born, and true 
 heirs to the crown. To declare the first marriage valid, and its is 
 sue legitimate, or the second marriage null, and its issue illegiti 
 mate, if the declaration were in writing, printing or in deed, 
 was made high treason; if by words only, misprision of trea¬ 
 son, by the act. 
 
 And obedience to every clause of both these acts, every sub¬ 
 ject of the king’s, now of full age, or who should thereafter 
 come of age, could be compelled to swear, on penalty of mis¬ 
 prision of treason, for refusal. 
 
 The thunders of the Vatican, the artillery, the trumpets, and 
 the shouting passed away, like empty sound and thin air, as they 
 were. The acts of parliament endured, and are still, themselves, 
 or their consequences, in England and in Italy, in Europe and 
 in America, felt, and puissant with a strong vitality, living at this 
 day throughout the world, more or less, everywhere. 
 
 But not as the tyrant, who procured their enactment, to grat 
 ify his own vile lusts, intended it. He would have had an old 
 chuioh with a new head—he made a new church, with no head 
 
PERFECT SUCCESS OF HENRY'S SCHEMES. 
 
 207 
 
 at all, save the Almighty and Eternal Head, the Everliving 
 Truth in Heaven. He would have extinguished liberty of con¬ 
 science, liberty of speech, of thought, of action, of self-govern¬ 
 ment, utterly and forever. Under the will of Providence, in 
 whose hand his forceful but ephemeral tyranny was but a sha¬ 
 ping instrument, he rendered freedom what it is to-day, omnipo¬ 
 tent and ubiquitous, felt where it is least heard by the general 
 ear, perceived where it is least seen by the public eye, and 
 thundered into the conscience of the deafest and darkest despo¬ 
 tisms, by the overwhelming diapason of public opinion. 
 
 Henry would have crushed out the last spark of an expiring 
 mortal body, he created a living an'' a saving spirit. 
 
 Everything was now accomplish/I which this king had de¬ 
 sired—far more, indeed, than he had at the first hoped or even 
 aspired to gain, since he originally sought only, by a divorce, 
 granted at the hands of the pope, to rid himself of one wife, 
 and take to himself a younger and a fairer bride; nor is it in 
 the slightest degree probable, that he would, then or thereafter, 
 had he succeeded in his original object, have conceived an idea 
 of limiting the pontifical authority in his dominions, much less 
 of converting to himself the revenues of the church, or the right 
 of the chief ruler. From opposition, however, he drew in¬ 
 creased determination to resist; and from the prosecution of 
 resistance came the necessity of agents, able, ambitious and un¬ 
 scrupulous. Able enough, doubtless, and more than ambitious 
 enough, was Wolsey; but, though his conscience w T as by no 
 means of the tenderest, it was not so completely seared against 
 all sense of justice, patriotism and religion, as to suit Henry’s 
 purpose. Therefore, he fell; partly, that he had not fully sat¬ 
 isfied the expectations of his master ; mo-e, that he had awa 
 
ABSOLUTISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 '.08 
 
 kened the enmity of the mistress, who never, it seems, spared 
 any, whom she had the desire and the power to destroy. 
 
 Cromwell bid higher, in promises, for the royal favor, than 
 even his predecessor had ever done—to the power of freely indul¬ 
 ging his passions, at the expense of morality and justice, he 
 added that of gratifying his avarice and ambition, at the expense 
 of religion; and, I believe, though this is less certain, in opposi¬ 
 tion to the express desire of a majority of his people. 
 
 The ease with which one point was carried, readily suggested 
 others; and so rapidly and successfully were his advances 
 made, “the law providing safeguards and creating offences hith¬ 
 erto. unknown, for the preservation of the new royal dignities, 
 and the maintenance of the new succession,”* that at the be¬ 
 ginning of the year 1534, he had realized infinitely more, than 
 the wildest wishes of the most impracticable despot could 
 have conceived, at the commencement of his reign, but twenty- 
 three short years before ; and had, in fact, attached to the crown 
 of England, the amplest social privileges of the sultan, and the 
 largest spiritual prerogatives of the pope. lie had, moreover, 
 diverted to himself, from the lawful owners, a boundless source 
 of wealth in the revenues, possessions, and lands of the church, 
 which, by the way, the holders had never pretended to hold 
 save in trust for the indigent and pauper population of the 
 realm, of whom, practically, in the absence of poor laws or 
 any provision for the proletarian classes by statute, the church 
 was the patron and provider, fulfilling its duty, in the main, as 
 well as it has been done before or since that time. 
 
 Of this implied aud unwritten trust, it is needless to say, to 
 those who have thus far followed this history, tha-t he never 
 even pretended to take heed; as, in truth, he never did of any 
 thing human or divine, unless so far as it suited his present whim 
 * Lingard, vi. 207. 
 
HIS INNATE CRUELTY. 
 
 209 
 
 And it is this which renders it difficult to discern how far it 
 was a sincere regard for the “ ancient learning ” and the Papish 
 creed, and how far the pressure of want, no longer relieved by 
 the dole and charities of the suppressed monasteries, that caused 
 the transient religious insurrections which followed, especially 
 that known as “ the rising of the north.” 
 
 Probably the latter cause had its full share, at the least; 
 since the rising consisted mainly of the lower classes, led by 
 the rural priesthood ; and though some great names are con¬ 
 nected with it, was generally little favored by the nobility. 
 One thing is evident; that the king’s points were all gained,—• 
 that his innovations had been carried into effect unresisted, and 
 that none were disposed openly to deny, though many might 
 secretly disapprove, his spiritual assumption, as supreme head 
 of the church. 
 
 But now the bloody feature of his character was to be de¬ 
 veloped ; and it was so, shortly, in a manner the most re¬ 
 volting, and, under circumstances, which showed it to be the 
 effect of innate cruelty, not of political expediency, much less 
 of any state necessity. 
 
 The two most respectable, virtuous and learned men of En¬ 
 gland, Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, the 
 chancellor, had opposed, so far, that is to say, as refusing to 
 countenance, his views in regard to his divorce, and had thereby 
 earned the unforgiving hatred of the beautiful Anne, and drawn 
 on themselves the vindictive spite and jealousy of the tyrant. 
 
 Their innocent and holy blood was to be the first libation and 
 prelude to that multitude of human hecatombs, which made 
 the palace of the despot rather to resemble a shambles, or the 
 den of some insatiable wild beast, than the residence of a Chris¬ 
 tian king. An indictment was laid against these men for mis- 
 
 14 
 
210 
 
 TF1E HOLY MAID OF KENT. 
 
 prision of treason, in that they had in some degree listened to 
 the ravings of one Elizabeth Barton, known as the “ Holy Maid 
 ■f Kent,” an insane, epileptic nun, who supposed herself a 
 prophetess, and, having obtained a set of foolish, fanatical ad¬ 
 herents, had latterly given a political tone to her predictions. 
 Much excited, as it appears most of the women of England 
 were, by the case of Katharine, she had strongly espoused the 
 cause of the late queen, and had proclaimed, after one of her 
 visions, that the king should die within a month after his di¬ 
 vorcing Katharine; that his daughter, Mary, should succeed 
 him, and—which portion of her prophecy was, by a strange ac¬ 
 cident, fulfilled—that “dogs should lick his blood.” The king 
 had been long acquainted with these pretended prophecies ; he 
 had out lived the term appointed for his death ; and last, not 
 least, the wretched Barton and her chief adherents were brought 
 to confess the whole matter to be an imposture, publicly, at 
 St. Paul’s cross. This done, one would have judged, all possible 
 danger over, that the insignificance and obvious folly of these 
 miserable wretches might have saved their lives, and that royal 
 vengeance might have slept. But no ! Their blood was needed 
 to justify the shedding nobler blood thereafter. They were at¬ 
 tainted for treason, without trial—a thing unheard of and 
 abominable in English law—before the parliament; and though 
 the lords humbly craved permission of the king to hear what 
 defence the accused might make, no reply being vouchsafed to 
 this most moderate request, were condemned unheard, and 
 suffered at Tyburn, all the horrors which, to the disgrace of 
 English jurisprudence, remained so long attached to the crime 
 of treason. For having had one or two interviews with this 
 mad woman, for having once given her money, and, in the case 
 of More, for liavk 3 advised her to confine her predictions to 
 
FISHER AND MORE. 
 
 211 
 
 piety, avoiding to intermeddle with politics, the two illustrious 
 men first named, were connected with the low-born and delu¬ 
 ded crew who had suffered a martyrdom so cruel, for their 
 folly. The virtue, the learning, the innocence of Fisher, could 
 not preserve him from attainder. He was condemned ; and 
 purchased, for three hundred pounds, his temporary pardon 
 from the tyrant, less avaricious only, than he was bloody and 
 relentless. 
 
 The entreaties of all his counsellors, literally on their knees 
 before him, procured the erasure of More’s name from the list 
 of proscription, as there was not a shadow of evidence against 
 him, and they felt the impossibility of so destroying him. 
 
 But Boleyn thirsted for their blood; the king could refuse 
 Boleyn nothing; therefore their blood must flow. They were, 
 within a fortnight of Barton’s execution, called upon to swear 
 to the acts of successsion and supremacy. Both consented to 
 swear to the civil portions of both acts, admitting their valid¬ 
 ity and the competence of the civil power to enact them. 
 Both declined to swear to every particular in the acts, as some 
 of these contained dogmata of a purely religious nature, which 
 they could not conscientiously admit. 
 
 Cranmer was in favor of the acceptance of the oaths, so lim¬ 
 ited. Cromwell stood out for the whole; and Henry, eager 
 for their blood, if possible, and if not, anxious to compel them 
 to unconditional surrender, suppported Cromwell. They were 
 again cited to swear, and refusing, committed to the tower. In 
 the meantime, while farther proceedings were in preparation 
 igainst these, religious persecution began to take the place of 
 political- oppression. Henry was determined that his spiritual 
 supremacy should not remain as an empty title, but should go 
 into fact, as a present and active power; and called on his most 
 
212 
 
 THE PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 learned and most loyal prelates to support him v ith their tal¬ 
 ents and their counsels. Sampson and Stokesly. two of the 
 most celebrated, assisted, willingly, and from conviction, in the 
 work of blood. Tonstal and Gardiner, slavishly and cowardly, 
 and in defiance of what they believed to be the right. 
 
 The people and the clergy of the realm, for the most part, 
 outwardly, at least, and openly, conformed ; the three religious 
 orders, Carthusians, Brigittins and Franciscans defied both ar¬ 
 gument and intimidation. Of these, no less than fifty misera¬ 
 bly perished in prison; the rest, at the intercession of Wrioth- 
 esly, the chancellor, who was with them at heart, were banished 
 to France and Scotland. 
 
 Shortly after this, the priors of the. charter houses of Lon¬ 
 don, Axiholm and Belleval, were brought to trial for high trea¬ 
 son ; and, though the jury could not be brought to find against 
 them, until the minister himself had argued with them and in¬ 
 timidated them by threats of being themselves similarly ar¬ 
 raigned, were convicted, and, in company with four other 
 monks and a secular clergyman, hanged, cut down while yet 
 living, embowelled, dismembered, and beheaded. 
 
 During this interval, thus employed by Henry, his parlia¬ 
 ment had found both Fisher and More guilty of misprision of 
 treason. The sentence was forfeiture and perpetual imprison¬ 
 ment. These men—these innocent, good men, both of them, 
 but a little while before, Henry’s personal friends, associates 
 and intimates,—were now reduced, with their families, to utter 
 destitution, and almost to starvation. Fisher, at seventy 
 years, lay in his dungeon, without clothes to cover his naked¬ 
 ness. More would have perished of starvation, but for the 
 support afforded him, by his married daughter, Maigaret 
 
DEATH OF FISHER AND MORE. 
 
 213 
 
 But even this would not suffice. Henry had broken bread, 
 and tasted the sacred salt; had jested with More, and played 
 at his hearth with the innocent children, whom he was now re¬ 
 solved, per fas aut nefas , to render fatherless, as well as homo¬ 
 less. Fisher was the last surviving counsellor of Henry VII., 
 and the guardian to whose care, on her death-bed, the venera¬ 
 ble countess of Richmond had entrusted his inexperience. In 
 his earlier and better years, the king had been wont to boast 
 that no monarch in Europe had a counsellor so wise, a prelate 
 so pious as the Bishop of Rochester. He affected to revere 
 him as a father. 
 
 But both these had committed the unpardonable sin. They 
 had dared to think for themselves; they had withheld consent 
 from the king’s “ secret matter ; ” they had offended the king’s 
 harlot. Therefore, they must die. 
 
 But how or wherefore, when in these just men even their 
 false judges could find no deadly sin 1 ? They were harassed, in 
 their secret prison-houses, by examinations, interrogatories, 
 multiplications of questionings. Even that availed nothing. 
 They were tempted into, what were distinctly stated to them 
 to be, private conversations; and, these being infamously re¬ 
 vealed, if not more infamously invented, by the king’s basest 
 spies and panderers, the vilest of whom was Rich, the solicitor 
 general, were sentenced to the block for high treason. 
 
 This, be it observed, not for actions done, or opinions 
 openly, much less seditiously, expressed, but for conscientious 
 convictions, only extorted from them at all, in reply to ques¬ 
 tions at once insidiously and illegally propounded. 
 
 Fisher died first, dauntless as innocent; and, to increase, if 
 anything could increase, the atrocity of the deed, the decapita¬ 
 ted trunk was suffered to lie naked, where it fell, until night, 
 
214 
 
 DEATH OF FISHER AND MORE. 
 
 when it was removed by the guards, and buried in All-hallow’s 
 church-yard, in Barking. 
 
 More was led, on foot, from the tower to Westminster, to 
 receive his sentence; opeuly avowed his conviction that the 
 act of supremacy was unlawful; heard his doom, unmoved; 
 and even preserved his unalterable firmness, when, on his way 
 back to the tower, his beloved daughter, Margaret, twice 
 broke through the halberds of the pitying guards, and, in her 
 speechless anguish, bathed him with unavailing tears. 
 
 He died, like Fisher, dauntless. The heads of both were 
 displayed on London bridge; though it is said that More’s was 
 rescued thence by the heroism of Margaret, and, with the 
 body, duly consigned to consecrated earth. In England, men 
 were plunged into such an apathy of dismay, despair and ser¬ 
 vitude, that the death of these great, good men, though it 
 smote every heart, as with an individual calamity, awoke no 
 responsive cry of abhorrence or defiance. But their names live 
 in every English heart, synonymous with all that is best of lib¬ 
 erty and religion. 
 
 In every foreign land, the tidings were received by Lutheran 
 and Catholic alike, with one unanimous burst of open execra¬ 
 tion. The pope, Paul III., who had succeeded Clement, at the 
 urgent exhortation of the conclave, issued a bull of excommu¬ 
 nication, interdict, and dethronement, against the murderous 
 tyrant; but, perceiving that the only monarchs capable of en¬ 
 forcing it, Charles and Francis, were both eager only to court 
 the friendship, not incur the enmity, of this puissant arbiter of 
 Europe, he revoked it before publication, and reluctantly con¬ 
 signed it to oblivion in those “ lofts of piled thunder,” which 
 were stored with ineffectual and unfulminated bolts of Romish 
 arrogance and anger 
 
INTERDICT OF PAFL III. 
 
 215 
 
 During the remainder of this, and the whole of the ensuing 
 year, the king strenuously pressed, and thoroughly carried out, 
 what has been called the reformation, but what should be called 
 the suppression of Papacy in England. By a singular stratagem, 
 suggested by Leigh and Ap Rice, two creatures of Cromwell, 
 all the prelates in the realm were entrapped into the admission, 
 “ that they derived no authority from Christ, but were merely 
 occasional delegates of the crown.” * The method of effect¬ 
 ing this, was the issue by Cromwell, as vicar-general of the 
 king—in w'hich capacity, it is worthy of note, that he took prece¬ 
 dence of the Archbishop of Cantebury, primate of England— 
 of an act suspending, on the pretext of a general visitation, all 
 the powers of all the dignitaries of the English church. 
 
 Thereupon, it was held, if they claimed powers as of divine 
 right, they would adduce proofs. Otherwise, the question 
 would go in favor of the king, by default. 
 
 Recourse was had to the scheme, with absolute success. 
 The prelates submitted patiently, some ignorant of the trick, 
 some fearful to resist, some tricksters themselves and in the 
 plot; and, after a month’s suspension, on humble petition to 
 the king, all were severally restored, each by a separate com¬ 
 mission, to the exercise of their functions during the royal pleas¬ 
 ure, and that, merely as royal deputies. 
 
 This feat of legerdemain —for it deserves no other name— 
 accomplished, a bill was forced through both houses, not, how¬ 
 ever, without violent opposition—so violent, indeed, that be¬ 
 fore it passed, the king had to send for the members of the 
 lower house, whom he pleasantly informed, that he “ would 
 have the bill pass or take off some of their heads” — sup- 
 pressing all the smaller monasteries, giving the whole property 
 
 Llngard, vL, 231. 
 
210 SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 
 
 real or personal, appertaining to them, to the king and his 
 heirs forever, and vesting the possession of their lands and ten¬ 
 ements in those to whomsoever they should be granted by let¬ 
 ters patent. 
 
 So pleasant and simple, in those days, was the manner 
 adopted by the kings of England, in dealing with their trusty 
 commons ; and so obedient were the members of that puissant 
 body, now the dominant power of the state, to the monarchs, 
 their veritable lords and masters. Thus was consummated the 
 humiliation and spoliation of the church, to the indefinite aug¬ 
 mentation of the power,wealth and prerogative of the crown; 
 to the infinite enriching of the creatures of Cromwell and the king, 
 and of the grantees of the suppressed establishments; to the 
 cruel injury of the ejected monks and nuns, the latter of whom 
 were thrown on the cold charity of the world, with no provis¬ 
 ion, other than the mockery of a single gown, granted to each 
 by the king; and to the enduring loss of the indigent poor, 
 who w 7 ere supported, in a great measure, by the alms of these 
 much abused institutions. 
 
 Thus, strange to say, was accomplished a prediction uttered 
 many years before, though with no pretence of divine inspira¬ 
 tion, by an archbishop of Paris; that whensoever the Cardinal 
 of York should lose the favor of Henry,* the spoliation of the 
 church would shortly follow. 
 
 This same year, while the process of spoliation was in oper¬ 
 ation, died, in the castle of Kimbolton, w r here she had lived the 
 last years of her life, almost in durance, that most royal woman, 
 Katharine of Arragon. Nothing of persecution, of intimidation, 
 of menace, had ever induced her to abandon her style of queen 
 of England, or tempted her to accept the asylum, which Charles 
 
 Lingaid, vi. 230. 
 
DEATH OF QUEEN KATHARINE. 
 
 217 
 
 offered, and Henry dared not have disallowed, in Spain or 
 the Netherlands—not that she valued the empty title, but that 
 she would not invalidate her daughter Mary’s claim to the suc¬ 
 cession, which she ever believed would come to be hers, in 
 time. 
 
 She died on the 7th of January, 1536 ; and Henry, as I have 
 said, wept, when he heard of her decease, and ordered his court 
 into mourning for her loss. But his sympathy did not induce 
 him to grant her last request,for an interview with her child, from 
 whom he had savagely separated her; nor did it deter him from 
 endeavoving to seize himself of the small effects she had left 
 behind her ; as he had previously done by her dowry, her jew 
 els, and even her wardrobe, all of which, with the exception 
 of what she actually wore, this foul disgrace, not of royalty, 
 but of manhood, had detained, when he drove her out of her 
 apartments at Windsor, to make way for her light rival. 
 
 That rival now, when all the court wore mourning, and all 
 England, but the court, mourned indeed, trapped herself in 
 yellow robes, the color which best becomes a brunette, and 
 professed herself “ now indeed a queen.” But her departed 
 rival better knew Henry’s heart, than she ; if it be true, as it 
 is saidf by Dr. ITarpsfield, that hearing one of her ladies 
 cursing Anne, the sad queen cried, “ Curse her not—curse her 
 not, but rather pray for her, for even now is the time fast 
 coming, when you shall have reason to pity her and lament 
 her case.” 
 
 It was, indeed, fast coming ; for while she was yet exulting 
 over her rival’s death, she found her maid of honor, Jane 
 Seymour, who had supplanted her, as she had supplanted Kath¬ 
 arine, sitting on Henry’s knee. In an agony of jealous rage, 
 t Apud Miss Stricklaud, vol. iv. 109. 
 
 J 
 
218 
 
 DECAPITATION OF ANNE. 
 
 she took to her bed, for she was far gone with child, in preraa 
 ture labor pains, and was delivered of a dead son-who, had 
 he lived, would probably have prolonged, if not secured, her 
 ascendency-only twenty days after the decease of Katharine. 
 
 That mis-delivery decided her fate. On the twenty-fifth 
 day of the ensuing April, a court of commission was held to 
 inquire into her conduct; it consisted of the chancellor, of the 
 Duke of Norfolk, her uncle, the Duke of Suffolk, and her own 
 father ; and these reported, that there was proof sufficient' to 
 convict her of unchastity, with Brereton, Norris, and Weston, 
 of the privy chamber, with Smeaton, the king’s musician, and 
 even with her own brother, the Lord Rochefort. Of the cir¬ 
 cumstances of the case, and of the evidence, little is known, and 
 that little will be examined more fully, when I come to her 
 own sad story. Suffice it now, that Lady Rochefort, her own 
 brother’s wife, who, singularly enough, had been committed to 
 the tower for adherence to her predecessor, and was afterward 
 beheaded for complicity in the adultery of her third successor, 
 was the principal witness against her. Smeaton, whose rank 
 in life subjected him, and who was probably subjected, to 
 question on the rack, is said to have confessed his guilt. 
 But he, with the others, including herself, who all died on the 
 scaffold, died, not denying nor confessing anything. 
 
 She was decapitated, meeting the death stroke fearlessly, af¬ 
 ter passing her last days, strangely, between tears and laughter, 
 with a two-handed sword by the hand of a French execu¬ 
 tioner, imported from Calais, for the purpose—the last, if not 
 the only, woman who died such a death in England. 
 
 The strongest proof, or show of proof, against her, lies in 
 the bitter hatred which Henry evidently bore to her, personal 
 in its nature, and insatiate by her death, until he had destroyed 
 
MARRIAGE WITH JANE SEYMOUR. 
 
 219 
 
 her memory also. Either to slay, or to divorce her, would 
 have sufficed, to enable him to marry the Seymour had that 
 been his only object; but he must needs do both, and, more¬ 
 over, bastardize her innocent child, Elizabeth, whom, notwith¬ 
 standing, he admitted to be his own daughter, and brand her 
 memory with the stain, not of adultery only, but of the almost 
 inconceivable crime of incest. 
 
 lie sat on horseback, under an oak, in Greenwich park, un¬ 
 til the tower-gun announced that the lovely head had rolled in 
 the dust; and then uncoupled the hounds, and away on the 
 wings of the morning ! to wed Jane Seymour, on the succeed¬ 
 ing day, at Wolf’s Hall, in Wiltshire, and to feast, with her, 
 on a bridal banquet literally furnished forth, while her prede¬ 
 cessor’s life hung on the falchion’s edge. 
 
 Cranmer must next be called upon—Cranmer, who had pro¬ 
 nounced the marriage with Katharine null and void, and de¬ 
 clared that of Anne lawful and of good effect from the begin¬ 
 ning, by virtue of his own authority—only he was the man 
 who should reverse his own declaration, and falsify his own 
 record. lie did so ; and that second marriage was, likewise, 
 pronounced null and of no effect from the beginning, though 
 on what grounds is nowhere stated. The issue of Anne was 
 also, of course, declared incapable to succeed, and an act of 
 parliament was procured securing the succession, after the re¬ 
 peal of its last preceding act of entail, to the heirs of the body 
 of Jane Seymour. To this act was appended a clause, in utter 
 defiance of the laws and constitution of the kingdom, giving to 
 Henry the power “ to limit the crown in possession and re¬ 
 mainder by letters patent under the great seal, or by his last 
 will, signed with his own hand,”* to any person or persons 
 
 * Lingard, vL 252. 
 
220 
 
 INSURRECTION IN THE NORTH. 
 
 of his own choosing. The object of this enactment was to en» 
 We him, and so it was understood, in default of heirs male le¬ 
 gitimate, to bequeath the crown to his favorite, the Duke of 
 Richmond, his natural son, by Elizabeth Taillebois. He, how¬ 
 ever, died this very summer; and the willful and arrogant ty¬ 
 rant was left, without heir male or female, legitimate or ille¬ 
 gitimate, to succeed him. 
 
 Shortly after the present marriage, he partially relented 
 toward Mary, whom, on account of what he called her disobe¬ 
 dience in upholding the marriage of her own mother, he had 
 kept hitherto in penury and disgrace; and, on her confessing 
 him to be the supreme head of the church, and admitting the 
 marriage of her mother incestuous and unlawful, restored her 
 partially to his favor, and granted to her an establishment, in 
 some degree befitted to her birth, though still denying her le¬ 
 gitimacy. In this autumn, broke out a dreadful insurrection, 
 originating with the starving monks and famished populace of 
 the north, but secretly patronized and fomented by the north¬ 
 ern nobility of the old religion. To such a height did this re¬ 
 bellion rise, and so formidable had it become, involving the 
 whole north of England, from the frontiers of Scotland to Don¬ 
 caster, that Shrewsbury and Norfolk, the king’s lieutenants, 
 found it expedient to treat rather than to fight; and, on the 
 promise of a free pardon to all, and the speedy assembling of 
 the parliament at York, for the redress of all grievances, the 
 insurgents laid down their arms. Henry, of course, so soon 
 as the peril had passed over, neglected his stipulated word, 
 and the rebels again rose in force; but Norfolk was now at 
 the head of a sufficient army, and defeated them in detail. 
 Their chief leaders, Lord d’Arcy, and Robert Ashe, with some 
 others, were executed in London ; the subordinates were 
 
REGINALD POLE. 
 
 221 
 
 hanged by scores and hundreds, at York and Carlisle, and 
 when “ rebellion’s head was cold,” and the last spark of resist¬ 
 ance quenched in blood, that, which was whimsically styled the 
 king’s mercy, spared the wretched remainder, and granted a 
 general pardon. 
 
 The suppression of an insurrection ever strengthens the 
 hands of any government, and supplies a tyrannical govern 
 ment with means of fresh tyranny. Nor did this general 
 truth now fail of application. After the insurrection of the 
 north, all the great northern abbeys,—Furness, Whalley, Bot- 
 ton, Lanercost, Jovraulx, Fountains, and the rest,—shared the 
 fate of the smaller monasteries; all were, in turn, suppressed, 
 wrested from the lawful possessors, and transferred to the 
 grantees of the crown. 
 
 This done, Henry converted the last relics of his fury 
 against Reginald Pole, to whom, as has been before shown, he 
 had formerly displayed a fitful and short-lived generosity. 
 This young nobleman, who had borne himself, in his volun¬ 
 tary exile, with singular moderation, had been actually com¬ 
 pelled, by Henry’s agency, to give his opinion in writing, on 
 the assumption of supremacy and the divorce of Katharine. 
 As long as possible he avoided the unwelcome task ; but, at 
 last, after Anne’s execution, he delivered his opinion, utterly 
 condemnatory of the whole course of his royal kinsman’s con¬ 
 duct, in a long, rhetorical, elocutionary treatise, which he sent 
 by private hand to the king. Henry, for once, concealed his 
 fury, and dissembled, but dissembled only, in the hope of get¬ 
 ting his now hated enemy—for such he henceforth styled him— 
 into his power. Reginald was, however, too wise and wary 
 to accept Henry’s invitation to visit him, when they could dis¬ 
 cuss the matter together at leisure ; for he well knew that to 
 
222 
 
 henry’s purposes frustrated. 
 
 1 / 
 
 tread on English soil was to follow his friends, Fisher and 
 More, un avail ingly, to the block. Shortly after this, he was 
 created cardinal, and appointed legate beyond the Alps, for the 
 purpose of effecting a reconciliation between Francis and the 
 emperor, and uniting their arms against the Turk. Of this 
 mission and its purpose, he honestly and truthfully informed 
 Henry ; and, farther, did him good service in procuring the 
 continued suppression of the bull of interdict, which, but for 
 his intercession, would have been promulgated, during the 
 height of the northern insurrection, which Paul and his advi¬ 
 sers regarded as a favorable opportunity. Cromwell was, 
 however, his personal enemy ; and, if Henry’s rage had not 
 been, in itself, too blind and brutal to discriminate, would have 
 secured his ear against him. That was not needed; so soon 
 as he arrived at Cambray, Henry demanded him of the king 
 of France; set a price of fifty thousand crowns on his head, 
 and offered Charles an auxiliary force against Francis in ex¬ 
 change for his person. 
 
 Frustrated in his purpose, by the cardinal’s recall to Rome, 
 he declared him a public enemy, and resolved on the total de¬ 
 struction of all his English kindred, who, unhappily for them, 
 were within his reach; from which fell purpose he was not 
 diverted, although he was compelled to defer it, by the events 
 of the autumn, which one knows not, in reference to Henry, 
 whether to style calamity or good fortune, and which made 
 him, once more a father—this time of an heir male—and again 
 a widower. 
 
 On Friday, October 12th, 1537, Jane Seymour, of whom 
 Lingard most justly observes, that, with no evidence of any 
 positive merit, Dr virtue, of her own, she has fared better with 
 
BIRTH OF PRINCE EDWARD. 
 
 223 
 
 historians, than any other of Henry’s queens, was delivered 
 -if a prince, afteiward Prince of Wales, and King Edward VI. 
 
 The immunity from censure which this princess enjoyed, 
 possessing no kind of real merit, that one can discover, beyond 
 grace, beauty, and a certain inoffensiveness, which was, after 
 all is said, merely passive, he ascribes, justly, to the fact, that, 
 whereas to each one of the other five queens, either the Ro¬ 
 mish or the Protestant writers have been hostile on polemical 
 grounds, both have upheld the character of Jane. The former 
 because she w r as uniformly kind and gracious to Mary, the 
 child of Katharine, and afterward the Papistical queen — the 
 latter, because she was the mother of the ultra Lutheran king, 
 Edward VI. 
 
 He, conclusively, shows that her alleged uniform kindness 
 to Mary, might well arise from mere opposition to Anne Bo- 
 leyn, who had been peculiarly and uniformly unkind to her; 
 while Miss Strickland, no less conclusively, shows that she was 
 not “ the fairest ”—for the two unfortunates, Boleyn and How¬ 
 ard, were both fairer, as their extant portraits prove — nor 
 “ the discreetest”—for how can she be called discreet, who is 
 found by a wife sitting on her husband’s knee? — nor in any 
 respect, at all, “ the most meritorious of all Henry VIIl.’s 
 wives” — as some pompous historiographer has absurdly 
 styled her. 
 
 On the 12th of October, she was delivered, after a labor 
 so dangerous, that the physicians, apprehensive that to save 
 both lives would be impossible, left it to the option of the 
 “ uxorious” king, as he has been called, who showed his uxori¬ 
 ousness, on this occasion, by ordering the wife and mother to 
 be sacrificed, if need should be, with the pleasant and manly, 
 not to say gentlemanly, observation, that he could have as 
 
224 
 
 DEATH OF QUEEN JANE. 
 
 many wives as he pleased, but as many sons, only, as it hap 
 pened. That she lived at all, was no thanks to her brutal lord ; 
 that she died, a few days afterward, was owing, wholly, to his 
 reckless and boisterous exultation, at the birth of a boy ; and 
 
 / to the din and roar of the christening carousals, with which he 
 deafened her sick chamber, and literally drummed her into 
 the grave. 
 
 That he affected to hold her first and dearest of his wives, 
 was, first, that she died before he grew aweary of her; sec¬ 
 ond, that she was the sultana-mother of his harem of queens, 
 who alone bore him a surviving son. 
 
 How much he truly loved her, one may judge, knowing 
 that, before she had been cold in her grave, a single month, 
 he was moving heaven and earth to win the hand of the beau¬ 
 tiful Marie de Longueville, precontracted to his own nephew, 
 James of Scotland. A rare commentary, by the way, on his 
 sanctimonious horror of the iniquity of marriages with pre¬ 
 contracted women ! But why look for consistency in one 
 whose only constancy was wickedness, whose only consistency, 
 crime ? 
 
 It appears, that when, immediately on Jane Seymour’s death, 
 this truly “ marvellous man” expressed his desire for a French 
 wife, a step which, of course, Francis was bound, by his own 
 interest, to promote, that prince made him some general an¬ 
 swer, to the effect that there was no unmarried dame, or dam¬ 
 sel, in his kingdom, whose hand he might not obtain, at his 
 pleasure; and when Ilenry, after vainly persecuting Marie de 
 Longueville, for five months, to force her to accept him, was 
 compelled to resign all hopes of possessing her, on her sailing 
 to Scotland for the purpose of marrying his nephew, he actu 
 ally took his brother monarch at his word ; and required him 
 
HENRY SEEKING ANOTHER WIFE. 22ft 
 
 not as a jest, but in all sober seriousness, to produce the hand¬ 
 somest ladies in France, at Calais, for his inspection. The 
 Duchess of Vendome he might have had; but, offended by 
 the refusal of the beautiful Longueville, he refused the other 
 lady, in order to strike a balance, as one would say in mercan¬ 
 tile phrase, since James had rejected her, in like manner as 
 James’s lady-love had denied himself her favor. Marie’s'two 
 sisters, he would neither of them ; because Francis declined 
 the proposal to show them for selection ; observing, as such a 
 gay gallant as he well might do, that it was not the mode of 
 France, to do with fair ladies, as horse-coursers do with their 
 palfreys—trot them out, that he,, who wants one, may choose 
 the easiest-goer. 
 
 The truth is—strange as it may appear, that anything should 
 be exaggerated concerning Henry, unless it were the report of 
 his early virtues J —that an exaggerated rumor prevailed, on 
 the continent, in regard to the death of his first three wives, 
 which rendered the princesses of France averse to trying their 
 fortunes, as his fourth. Katharine, it was said, had died of 
 poison—a saying, for which there was no possible foundation, 
 as she had been for many years a valetudinarian, and died after 
 a lingering illness. The sharp and sudden cure of Anne’s 
 earthly sorrows was known to all; as was the cause of Jane 
 Seymour’s untimely departure; which might undoubtedly 
 have been prevented, by the common care and quietude ac¬ 
 corded, in such cases, to all women of humbler station, though 
 not, always, to those in more exalted places. It is not won¬ 
 derful, however, that such a rumor should prevail; though 
 many persons, doubtless, will esteem it even more than 
 wonderful, that, after his antecedents, he should have found any 
 lady, without the pale of his own dominions—where to ha^e 
 J.* 15 
 
226 
 
 AMUSEMENTS OF WIDOWHOOD. 
 
 refused his hand, would, in all probability, have cost her head— 
 who would accept his crown, burthened with the weight of his 
 now bloated, unwieldy and diseased person, of his brutal love, 
 and the risk of his barbarous displeasure. 
 
 It was, indeed, above two years before he could find any 
 one who would accept it; and when he did find one, it was po¬ 
 litical motives, alone, which brought about the sacrifice of the 
 hand of the unhappy lady, whom he wedded, only to repudi¬ 
 ate, almost before the honeymoon was ended. 
 
 The interval between the loss of his third, and the wedding 
 of his fourth bride, he spent for once consistently; in coquet¬ 
 ting with the pope, whom his execution of Anne, his roasting 
 of heretics, his dabbling in theology, with an evident leaning 
 to the doctrines of Rome, induced to hope that he might be 
 reclaimed into the bosom of the church ; and at the same time, 
 with the reformed states and princes of Germany, who fancied 
 that he might be brought to join their communion, in conse¬ 
 quence of their mutual antagonism to the pontiff and see of 
 St. Peters. He promulgated articles of faith, denying the pos¬ 
 sibility of salvation, except by adherence to the creed of the 
 Romish church, the head of which alone he repudiated; main¬ 
 taining the seven sacraments, the Apostles’, the Athanasian, and 
 the Nicene creeds; enforcing the compulsory celibacy of the 
 clergy, much to the grief of Cranmer, who was obliged, in or¬ 
 der to save his body from the stake, to repudiate his wife, and 
 send his children into Germany ; forbidding the cup of the 
 eucharist to the laity; and sustaining private masses and auric¬ 
 ular confession. He butchered Protestant heretics and adhe¬ 
 rents to the pope, with perfect impartiality ; he presided at 
 the examination of accused heretics, argued with them, con¬ 
 demned them, assisted at their autos da fe, to the admiration 
 
THOMAS A BECKET IN COURT. 
 
 227 
 
 of Cromwell,* and the disgust and abhorrence of the whole 
 Christian world beside. He reformed abases in religion, abol 
 ished useless holidays, destroyed miraculous shrines and holy 
 wells, prohibited pilgrimages and processions, pulled down 
 oracular chapels, burnt juggling relics, and finally, to put the 
 climax on high-flown absurdity, and stamp himself almost a 
 fool and madman, cited the Archbishop Thomas a Becket, who 
 had been dead since the reign of Henry II., nearly three cen¬ 
 turies before, to appear in court at Westminster, and show 
 cause why he should not be found guilty of rebellion, against 
 his sovereign lord, the king. At the end of thirty days, the 
 period allowed by canon law, the saint not appearing, in per¬ 
 son or by attorney, was found guilty of “ contumacy, rebellion, 
 and treason; ” his bones' were ordered to be burned, “ to ad¬ 
 monish the living of their duty by the punishment of the 
 dead; ” and all his personal property was forfeited to the 
 crown. It is worthy of remark, that his shrine was immensely 
 rich in gold and jewelry, two huge coffers full of which were 
 conveyed to the royal treasury. 
 
 One might doubt, whether he were reading history, or the 
 wildest and most imaginative, satirical romance, but that 
 Henry’s original proclamation of November 16, 1538, begin¬ 
 ning with the words, “ Whereas, Thomas a Becket, sometime 
 archbishop of Canterbury,” j- &c., &c., is still extant, as well as 
 the bull of Pope Paul III., of December 17, of the same year, 
 relating the whole affair at length. 
 
 Farther than this, he completed the suppression of all the 
 remaining monasteries and religious houses, confiscating their 
 
 •See Cromwell'sletter to Wyatt, ambassador In Germany. Collier, 1. 152, spud 
 Lingard, vi. 283. 
 
 + See the originals in note to page 27G, vol. vi. Lingard's Hist. Eng. 
 
228 
 
 TIIK FAMILY OF REGINALD POLE. 
 
 property and bestowing their lands and tenements on his 
 friends ar.d courtiers; and, finally, compelled parliament to 
 grant him subsidies of two-tenths, and two-fifteenths, within 
 twelve months, to remunerate him for the trouble he had been 
 at, in effecting these reforms, and the expenees, he had been 
 put to, in confiscating and converting, to his own use, lands, 
 dwellings, tenements, personals, treasures, rents, and revenues, 
 to an amount now wholly incalculable, but supposed by some 
 writers to have equalled one-twentieth part of all the values 
 then vested in England, though this is probably an excessive 
 valuation. 
 
 Nor was this singular being, singular mixture of cruelty 
 and puerility, sense and folly, strength and weakness, content 
 with burning obscure priests and wretched booksellers, who 
 dared to publish unauthorized translations of the holy writ; nor 
 even, with the torturing to death, in a manner too horrible to 
 bear relation, of the venerable Doctor Abell, and the aged Friar 
 Forrest, confessor of the late Queen Katharine, the latter because 
 he would not disclose the secrets of his royal penitent’s confes¬ 
 sional, but he must needs imbrue his hands, to the shoulders, 
 in the noblest blood of England, the closest akin to himself, 
 the most intimately connected with all the greatest deeds, the 
 grandest memories of the empire. 
 
 To avenge himself on Reginald Pole, whom he despaired 
 of bringing himself within reach of his vengeance, he caused to 
 be arrested, in one day, Henry Courtenay, marquess of Exe¬ 
 ter, and the marchioness, his wife; Lord Montague, and Geof¬ 
 frey Pole, brothers of the cardinal; their mother, the aged 
 Countess of Salisbury, the last of the high blood of the old 
 Plantagenets; Sir Edward Neville, the brother of Lord Ab¬ 
 ergavenny; Sir Nicholas Carew, master of the horse; and 
 
ANNE OF CLEVES. 
 
 229 
 
 two Cornish gentlemen, named Kendall, and Quintrell; all 
 of whom were accused of high treason on the most frivolous 
 pretences, not one of them for overt acts, but only for words 
 spoken, the most trivial and inoffensive, that can be imagined. 
 
 Of these, Geoffrey Pole escaped, it is supposed, by bearing 
 evidence against his comrades. The .aged Countess of Salis¬ 
 bury was retained in the tower, with her grandson, and Ger¬ 
 trude, marchioness of Exeter, against none of whom was there 
 any shadow of such evidence, as even Henry dared produce, 
 before such courts as he employed ; who seem to have re¬ 
 garded it as a matter of necessity, in respect of the king’s 
 honor, to sentence to death all whom he chose to send up for 
 trial. The rest suffered the extreme penalty of the law, and 
 died by decapitation ; except the two commoners, who under¬ 
 went all the atrocious horrors of the sentence. 
 
 Still, Henry’s fiendish heart could not be satiated, until ho 
 had wounded the cardinal in the tenderest point, by the slaughter 
 of his revered mother, the Countess of Salisbury; whom he 
 detained in the tower, perhaps in some sort as a hostage, but 
 unquestionably resolute to destroy her, so soon as a fitting op¬ 
 portunity should occur. 
 
 After this interval of widowhood, unable longer to endure 
 the state of celibacy, he determined to listen to the suggestion 
 of Cromwell, who, alarmed at the growing intimacy of alliance 
 between Charles and the French king, advised him to form a 
 counterpoise to the strength of this confederacy, by allying 
 himself to the German princes of the Smalcaldic, Lutherar 
 league. Anne, the sister of the reigning Duke of Cleves, was 
 the lady selected for this doubtful honor, and envoys being 
 sent to inspect her, and reporting of her favorably, as a large, 
 tall personage, of comely stature, and queenly deportment, 
 
230 
 
 HENRY DISAPPOINTED. 
 
 bringing with them, moreover, a portrait of the princess, by 
 Holbein, which represented her as very handsome, the royal 
 voluptuary expressed himself satisfied; the match was con¬ 
 tracted ; and the lady elect was escorted in great pomp, by 
 her own kinsmen, to Calais, where she was met by Lord 
 Southampton, the lord high admiral of England, and a splen¬ 
 did train of gentlemen and nobles. 
 
 On New Year’s eve, the king, who was impatient, as a child 
 for a new toy, to catch a glance of his young and much lauded 
 bride, rode on to Rochester, where he met her, with the intent 
 to look on her, that he might, as he termed it, “ nourish love.” 
 Awful was his disappointment, fearful his fury, when he saw 
 her, large, indeed, and well shaped in person, but coarse-com- 
 plexioned, with irregular features, and deeply pitted with the 
 small pox. She had no accomplishments, moreover, no graces 
 of air, no skill in dance or song, she could not even converse 
 with him, in his native tongue. To a man like him, above all 
 tilings, a connoisseur in beauty; an admirer of all kinds of art 
 and grace; himself a musician, a composer, a poet, with an 
 ear exquisitely attuned to all sweet sounds; a lover, who had 
 possessed the stately dignity of the majestic and right-royal 
 Katharine, the voluptuous loveliness and perfect gracefulness 
 of the admirably accomplished Anne, the gentle charms of the 
 soft and placid Seymour; above all, to a fierce, coarse sensu¬ 
 alist, who regarded woman as the merest Circassian Odalisque, 
 the rage of frenzied disgust, which poor Anne of Cleves, with 
 her high German accent, her coarse, scarred features, and her 
 gorgeous, yet ungraceful, attire and attendance, must have 
 produced, can be imagined more easily than described. He 
 swore, in his blunt, brutal humor, that she was no better than 
 “ a great Flanders brood mare,” and that he would none of 
 
BOTH GLAD TO PART. 
 
 231 
 
 her; and charged Cromwell, as he had devised, to find, as he 
 he regarded his head, some method of dissolving this odious 
 contract. 
 
 When no mode of evasion could be discovered, and when 
 he perceived, as he said, that “ there was no remedy, but he 
 must needs against his will put his head into that noose,” he 
 reluctantly consented to celebrate his nuptials, which were per¬ 
 formed with unwonted splendor, at Greenwich, on. J ami ary 6th, 
 
 being the Epiphany, or feast of kings; but, from that day '* 
 forth, the fill of Cromwell was dated. After the consumma¬ 
 tion of his marriage, Henry, with his wonted brutality, en¬ 
 deavored to depreciate her character, as he did hen person, 
 speaking of the one, as if she had not come a pure maiden to 
 his bed ; and of the other, as no man, possessing even a shadow 
 of the feelings or delicacy of a man, would speak of the lowest 
 and most downfallen of the sex. 
 
 During the brief time that he cohabited with her, he made 
 pomp, and solemn pageants and processions, afford an excuse 
 for eschewing her privacy; yet so rude and brutal was his 
 conduct, that when Wriothesley, the meanest, basest, and most 
 sordid of Henry’s low-born parasites, rudely broke to her the 
 king’s desire to annul the marriage, although she fainted on 
 the first shock, partly at the insulting style, in which the foul 
 pandar conveyed his message, partly from apprehension that 
 she was destined to share the fate of Anne Boleyn, she instantly 
 consented to join with him, in procuring a divorce, and as¬ 
 sented with alacrity to resign the title of queen, for that of the 
 king’s adopted sister, with a pension of three thousand pounds 
 a year, and precedence over all ladies of his court, except his 
 children, and his future consort. Probably, she was, to the 
 full, as much rejoiced, as he, to be liberated from the bonds of 
 
232 
 
 CROMWELL ATTAINTED. 
 
 a wedlock, in which affection or liking never lad a share, and 
 which to joylessness and disgust must have combined no small 
 share of awe and apprehension. 
 
 But I must not anticipate; for, before the divorce was car> 
 ried out by act of parliament, and by means of a convocation 
 of the clergy, principally on the unten able pr etext of a pre¬ 
 contract with the Prince of LorraineaCromwelN was himself 
 arrested, on charge of high treason, aiicPcondemned without 
 trial by his peers, exhibition of evidence, or confession, by an 
 act of attainder, passed, almost unanimously, by both houses 
 of parliament, Cranmer alone for a while feebly interposing in 
 his behalf, but finally surrendering him to his late. The 
 charges against him were groundless and futile ; the measure 
 by which he was sentenced, without trial, by attainder, most 
 iniquitous ; yet cannot any one compassionate him ; nor could 
 he with right complain, if he were compelled to drink of the 
 cup, he had himself brewed, first, for others. He was the 
 original inventor, who suggested this diabolical mode of crim¬ 
 inal procedure, and, like Perillus, the creator of the far-famed 
 brazen bull, he was the first to perish by his own invention. 
 For, although many had been executed already, by process of 
 attainder, the act had been, in all prior instances, founded on 
 alleged confession of the accused ; and, although the Countess 
 o f Salisbury now lay under sentence, awaiting death in the 
 tower, under the same atrocious procedure, she was not brought 
 to the scaffold until the ensuing year. 
 
 On the 2Sth of July, 1540, he died by the axe, under the 
 operation of the bill he had himself suggested; one other in¬ 
 stance of “ the engineer hoist by his own petard.” Not a tear 
 was shed over his headless trunk. The great lords openly exult¬ 
 ed, that the low-born tradesman, who had risen by cunning, base- 
 
RELIGIOUS TERRORISM. 
 
 233 
 
 ness, servility, and performance of all mean and ignoble offices, 
 had fallen headlong from the highest seat, which he had so un¬ 
 worthily attained, in the aouse of lords. The clergy tri¬ 
 umphed over his downfall, as over the bitter enemy, who had, 
 in his day of power, so cruelly triumphed over mother church. 
 The lovers of liberty and justice rejoiced in secret that the 
 manes of More and Fisher were at length appeased. The na¬ 
 tion, at large, looked on his death as the just reward of the 
 onerous taxation imposed on the realm, when the royal treas 
 ury was filled, or at least ought, of right, to have been filled, 
 with the overflowing spoils of the plundered monasteries. 
 
 His judicial murder was followed by a new form of religious 
 terrorism. By the same parliament, which had attainted him, 
 three Papists had been condemned to death for denying the 
 supremacy, and three Protestants for holding heterodox opin¬ 
 ions. Two and two, Protestant and Papist, the day after 
 Cromwell’s death, they were drawn on the same hurdles to 
 Smithfield, from the tower, where they expiated, the former 
 their heresy in the flames, the latter their treason by the dis¬ 
 embowelling knife of the civil executioner. 
 
 So impartially equal was the justice of this great, reforming 
 monarch to both classes of his suffering subjects. 
 
 After his divorce from the gentle, patient-minded, and no¬ 
 ble Anne of Cleves, the modern Bluebeard did not remain 
 long a widower; for, at his own suggestion, doubtless, his 
 lords humbly petitioned him, in consideration of his people’s, 
 welfare, to venture on a fifth marriage, in the hope that God 
 would bless him with a numerous issue. Anxious, as his 
 whole career shows him ever to have been, for the good and 
 happiness of his people, this pious monarch now lovingly con¬ 
 descended to grant their prayer, the rather that it was s? 
 
234 
 
 KATHARINE HOWARD. 
 
 humbly tendeied, and within a month Katharine Howard mada 
 ' her appearance at court as Queen. She was the daughter of 
 that Lord Edmund Howard, who commanded the right wing 
 of the English host at Flodden, since deceased ; niece to the 
 Du) e of Norfolk, and, of course, cousin to the unhappy Anne 
 Boleyn, whose fate she was so soon to share. She had been 
 brought up by the dowager Duchess of Norfolk—who ap¬ 
 pears to have been a garrulous, half-doting beldame, ut¬ 
 terly unfit for such a duty—and first attracted Henry’s eye at 
 a dinner party of the Bishop of Winchester, where she was 
 present, it is said, as maid of honor to Queen Anne of Cleves. 
 She was not a tall, commanding beauty of the king’s favorite 
 style, but very small, although beautifully shaped, extremely 
 pretty, with winning ways, and, says Lord Herbert of Cher- 
 bury, “ by a notable appearance of honor, cleanness, and maid 
 enly behavior, she won the king’s heart.” During about 
 twelve months he lived with her in great content and delight, 
 lavishing on her every mark of tenderness, confidence, and af¬ 
 fection. He carried her with him in his progress to York, in 
 the following year; for it delighted him to have her, at all 
 times, near to his person, and he professed to be more charmed 
 with her, than with any of his preceding consorts. Immediately 
 previous to their progress to York, there had been a trivial 
 Romish insurrection in the north, headed by Sir John Neville, 
 which was easily suppressed, but which, as usual, became a 
 means of strengthening the adverse party, and afforded a cause 
 for renewed bloodshed. 
 
 Henry attributed it, as he did all Papistical disturbances, to 
 Cardinal Pole, and seized the occasion to bring his mother, the 
 aged Countess of Salisbury, so long a prisoner in the tower, at 
 length to the scaffold. Then followed a scene of unexampled hor 
 
THE COUNTESS OF SALISBURY. 
 
 235 
 
 ror The lion-hearted septuagenarian, the last of the long and glo 
 rious line of the Plantagenets, refused to bow her hoary head to 
 ihe block, lest by so doing she should appear to admit herself 
 guilty of treason; not that she feared death—for what Planta- 
 genet ever counted that worth a moment’s thought?—but, in that 
 fiery a"\d defiant mood, net alien to the spirit of her mighty an¬ 
 cestors she strode to and fro on the scaffold, her features flushed 
 with indignation, shaking her dishevelled locks of snow abroad, 
 like the mane of an ancient lioness, and bidding the execution¬ 
 ers “ win her head as they could, if they would have it.” At 
 length, she w'as dragged violently to the block, where the head¬ 
 man “ slovenly butchered her, and stained the scaffold from veins 
 enriched by all the royal blood of England.” * 
 
 But, alas! ere long a sadder, “ a darker departure was near”— 
 even hers, the delicate, the beautiful, the notably maiden-looking 
 Howard. It is a deep, a dreadful, a mysterious tragedy ; and, 
 like that of her kinswoman and predecessor in the fearful jour¬ 
 ney down that painful and bloody road, it defies all scrutiny. 
 
 That there was a religious party, strongly set against Katha¬ 
 rine, as there had been one against Anne, is not to be doubted/ 
 The Protestants detested the former, as the Catholics hated the 
 latter, owing to the religions of the queens, whom they had, 
 each in turn, supplanted ; and the reformers, with the Duke of 
 Cloves, probably, himself at their head, believed that if the 
 Howard could be disposed of, Anne of Cleves might resume 
 the ascendency ; even as the Catholics had previously augured 
 the same for Katharine of Arragon, if the Boleyn could be 
 overthrown. 
 
 That the charge did not originate with the reformers, though 
 
 * Guthrio. Quoted by Miss Strickland, iv., 301. 
 
236 
 
 CHARGES AGAINST KATHARINE. 
 
 they certainly brought it forward, and that it was not all a plot, 
 is certain, from the partial confession of the sufferers. 
 
 During the progress to the north, it appears that a person of 
 the name of Lascelles came with information to Cranmer, that 
 absolute proof could be brought, that the queen, while Mistress 
 Catharine Howard, had continually admitted, previously to her 
 royal marriage, a gentleman to her bed, of the name of Dere¬ 
 ham, then page to the Duchess of Norfolk, in whose house they 
 both resided ; and that this said Dereham, with certain women 
 who had been privy to the whole affair at its origin, had been 
 taken into the service of the royal household, and employed 
 about the person of the queen. Henry and Katharine reached 
 Hampton court on their return, just previous to the feast of All 
 Saints, and on that day “ the king revered his Maker, and gave 
 him most hearty thanks for the good life he led and trusted 
 to lead with his wife.” The next day, while he was at mass, 
 the archbishop placed in his hand a paper containing the infor¬ 
 mation which he had received. Henry, for once in his life, was 
 deeply grieved and perturbed; and, at length, disbelieving the 
 charges, ordered a private inquiry to be held into the matter, 
 without allowing anything thereof to reach the ears of the 
 queen. Lascelles, his sister, who had been in the Duchess of 
 Norfolk’s household, and from whom the story originally came, 
 Dereham himself, and others, were strictly examined; when 
 it came out that Dereham was not merely admitted to the 
 queen’s presence, but had been employed by her as her private 
 secretary; and that while at Lincoln, on the late royal progress, 
 a gentleman of the name of Culpepper, of the privy chamber, 
 and her kinsman on the mother’s side, had remained in the 
 queen’s apartment, with none but herself and the lady Roche¬ 
 fort — the same by whose testimony Anne Boleyn was convicted 
 
EVIDENCES AGAINST HER. 
 
 237 
 
 o r incest with her own brother, and the husband of the wit¬ 
 ness—from eleven at night, until two of the morning. This 
 was considered sufficient whereon to proceed farther; and the 
 council went on to visit and examine the queen. At first, she 
 protested her innocence, fell into fits, and seemed half frantic 
 but, at a later visit from the Archbishop Cranmer, who brought 
 her some assurance from Henry of mercy, she was induced to 
 promise, under the most solemn oaths and obligations, to an¬ 
 swer truly all questions which should be put to her. Then, on 
 examination, she admitted the fatal fact, of ante-connubial inter¬ 
 course with Dereham, who, it seems, had been in the habit of 
 calling her his wife; but she insisted that all the favors he had 
 ever obtained from her had been by violence; and she vehe¬ 
 mently asseverated that from the hour of her marriage, she had 
 been true wife to the king. 
 
 To do Henry justice, it must be said that he does not seem 
 to have, for once in his life, in any wise thirsted after her 
 blood ; and that her life might have been spared, if, by admit¬ 
 ting a precontract, she had left room for his liberation from her, 
 by divorce. But this she could not be brought to do ; proba¬ 
 bly not understanding the urgency of Cranmer, who endeavored 
 strenuously to obtain such an avowal from her, clearly for the 
 purpose of saving her, though he dare not too openly declare 
 his v/bject. She persisted that all he had ever had from her, he 
 had by violence, and this which she thought should defend, did 
 in fact destroy her. 
 
 Culpepper and Dereham were tried, and found guilty of high 
 treason, and were left to suffer their penalty of crime. The 
 evidence, certainly, would not now be held sufficient for con¬ 
 viction ; but it must be admitted, that the presumption was 
 strongly against Dereham, at least, in consequence, after the ad- 
 
238 
 
 Katharine’s attainder. 
 
 mitted relations between himself and the queen, of his reap¬ 
 pearing suddenly at court, where he had been unknown before, 
 simultaneously, or nearly so, with her marriage; and of his 
 being appointed, in connection with, at least, one other individ¬ 
 ual, privy to what had gone before, to a post of trust, giving 
 him easy access to her person. 
 
 To the hapless queen, the same reasoning forcibly applies. 
 It is, indeed, possible, that the depraved persons in question, 
 forced themselves, by threats of revelation, which to her were 
 threats of destruction, upon her unwillingly; and that she had 
 no ill intention in retaining them; still her case is one of early 
 sin and shame, perhaps repented, but so unfortunately mixed 
 up with grave later suspicions, that it is equally dangerous and 
 difficult to absolve or to condemn her. 
 
 The case against Culpepper is entirely different; no guilt or 
 suspicion of guilt attaches to him ; and his death was clearly 
 as illegal, as it was unjust and cruel. 
 
 Under the present state of law in England, no one of these 
 persons could be convicted on the evidence. The hapless 
 young queen was never put on her trial, or suffered to speak a 
 word in her own behalf; a privilege which was not denied to her 
 kinswoman, Anne Boleyn, who, though die might not convince 
 her judges, or avert her doom, yet left a burning record of her el¬ 
 oquence and artless pathos to plead for her, with a posterity 
 kinder and less unforgiving than the age in which she lived. 
 Attainted on her own confession, Katharine was sentenced to 
 be beheaded, with the Lady Rochefort, as her aider and abet 
 tor, and Culpepper and Dereham as her accomplices. 
 
 Cruel and persevering attempts were made by the king, to 
 involve all her family—the old Duchess of Norfolk, Lord Wil 
 liarn Howard, her uncle, the Countess of Bridgewater, and 
 
Katharine’s death. 
 
 239 
 
 Anne Howard, the wife of her brother Henry, in her min ; for 
 the blood of the old duchess, especially, he seems to have 
 thirsted, owing to the fact of her having abstracted some pa¬ 
 pers of Dereham’s from a trunk in her possession, which he 
 conceived to have contained evidence on the point in question— • 
 the actual commission of adultery after marriage, between the 
 parties. The judges, however, for once, were firm against him. 
 Culpepper and Dereham, the latter after being most unmerci¬ 
 fully racked, as a person of his rank might, it seems, at that 
 time legally be, in order to extract evidence fatal to the queen, 
 though wholly without effect, were executed; the former by 
 the axe, the latter by the gibbet and the knife, hanged, drawn 
 and quartered. It was two months later before the queen and 
 Lady Rochefort were beheaded, within the tower, meeting their 
 fate with perfect calmness and decorum. The unhappy How¬ 
 ard died, the first, professing, with her last breath, her penitence 
 for her early sins, though declaring her innocence of the crime 
 for which she suffered. The Lady Rochefort is said—but I hold 
 this more than doubtful—to have expressed herself as satisfied 
 to die, for that she had betrayed her husband to death by her 
 false accusation of Queen Anne Boleyn, but that otherwise she 
 was conscious of no crime. 
 
 Several things—among other the fact of Cranmer having 
 felt himself in danger, as a favorer of the new learning, and 
 of his having completely recovered his own position and that 
 of his party, by means of the eclat they gained by this de¬ 
 tected plot, as well as his extreme and evident anxiety to save 
 the life of the queen, seem to indicate a consciousness, that she 
 was not guilty of that portion of the crime for which she suf¬ 
 fered, and which was not certainly proved against her. Pre¬ 
 sumptions, however, as certainly were adverse to her, and that 
 
240 
 
 EX POST FACTO ENACTMENT. 
 
 was an age in which presumptions lighter far than these, w ;re 
 held to be, in criminal cases of this nature, 
 
 . . . . “ confirmations strong 
 As proofs of holy writ” 
 
 All her relatives, who had been included in the bill of at. 
 tainder, were found guilty of misprision of treason, including 
 the old duchess, for not having revealed their kinswoman’s indis¬ 
 cretion before she was elevated to the royal bed; but the king 
 himself seems to have been aware of the absurdity of such a 
 procedure, since he shortly afterward pardoned all the subordi¬ 
 nate accessories. 
 
 In order, however, to guard against such contingencies in future, 
 it was made misprision of treason in any person knowing or sus¬ 
 pecting the incontinence of any woman about to marry with 
 the king, who should not reveal the same; and high treason 
 in any woman, who, passing for a true maid, not in very deed 
 being such, should not disclose her unchastity to him. 
 
 At this enactment the people made exceeding merry, de 
 daring that the king had nothing left for it now, but to marrj 
 a widow—as he, indeed, did soon afterward—since, surely, m 
 single woman would take him at such risk. There seems to 
 be some difficulty in fixing the exact date of Katharine How¬ 
 ard’s execution, some historians making it to have occurred in 
 1542, and others in 1543. The 12th of February was the 
 day, beyond doubt, and, I conceive, of the former year, since 
 we must otherwise suppose that a year and four months elapsed 
 between the discovery of her alleged guilt, in November 10, 
 1541, and the infliction of her punishment; which savors neither 
 of the then state of English jurisprudence, nor of the headlong 
 rapidity of Henry in the determination of such cases. 
 
THE KING’S BOOK. 
 
 241 
 
 Immediately after the conclusion of this sad and bloody 
 business, the king, as usual, turned himself to a directly oppo. 
 site course, and betook himself to piety, and to the disciplining 
 his subjects on religious topics. He, this year, prohibited the 
 use of Tyndal’s version of the holy scriptures, as “crafty, false 
 and untrue;” and ordered the authorized version to be pub¬ 
 lished without note or comment. He prohibited the reading 
 even of the authorized copy in public; restricted the use of it 
 in families, to the houses of gentlemen of rank and nobles; and 
 even its private study to householders, and ladies of gentle 
 birth. Still, desiring to provide for the people of the Christian 
 church, of which he was himself, under Christ, the supreme 
 head, some work of religious instruction, he caused two com¬ 
 mittees of prelates to digest a new code of doctrines and cer¬ 
 emonies. On this work three years were expended, in elabo¬ 
 rating it, and, on the thirtieth day of April, 1543, it was pro¬ 
 duced under the title of “ a necessary doctrine and erudition 
 for every christened man ; ” * but it was generally known by 
 the name of the “ king’s book,” and continued to be, until, with 
 the accession of the next sovereign, the religion of the kingdom 
 was again changed, the only recognized standard of English 
 orthodoxy. 
 
 During the last ten or twelve years, constant dissensions, and 
 even forays, skirmishings, invasions and counter invasions had 
 been in process on the Scottish and English borders, there be¬ 
 ing a powerful Anglo-Protestant party in the neighboring king¬ 
 dom, and a yet more powerful French and Scottish Papistical 
 party; to which Francis, following an hereditary policy of the 
 French kings, was lending constant aid and comfort, to the 
 great wrath of Henry. His sister Margaret, the queen dowa- 
 
 K 
 
 * Linganl, vi., 319. 
 
 10 
 
242 
 
 DEATH OF JAMES V 
 
 ger, widow of James, who fell at Flodden, and wedded a third 
 time, to her paramour Methuen, having been divorced by Doug 
 las, had lost all power in the realm, and sunk into the ob¬ 
 scurity of private life. Her son, James V., Henry’s nephew, 
 who had married his uncle’s lady love, the beautiful Marie de 
 Longueville, determinedly adhered to the cause of Rome, and 
 espoused French politics. Enraged at some trifling defeat of 
 a body of horse at Haldenrigs, just within the Scottish border, 
 Henry now declared war, laid claim to the crown of Scotland, 
 as its feudal superior, and ordered the Duke of Norfolk to levy 
 an army at York, and invade his nephew’s country, which he 
 did with success, burning many towns, and laying waste the 
 marches far and near, till want of provisions compelled him to 
 fall back, and return to Berwick. 
 
 Thither James, having levied an army of thirty thousand 
 men, hastened to pursue him ; but, having advanced so far as 
 to the field of Fala, his men mutinied, refused to cross the bor¬ 
 ders, and all that he could do was to dismiss his troops, pro¬ 
 ceed in person to the western marches, and order Lord Max¬ 
 well, the warden, to enter England with ten thousand men, and 
 remain in that kingdom as many days as Norfolk had tarried 
 in Scotland. Maxwell, however, was attacked and totally 
 routed, with the loss of the whole royal train of artillery, two , 
 earls, five barons, and two hundred gentlemen, prisoners, by ' 
 Lord Wharton, the English warden. James, despairing, dis¬ 
 eased and broken-hearted, retired to Caerlaverock castle, where 
 he pined for awhile, and when he heard that his beautiful wife, 
 had borne him a female child, afterward the most beautiful and. 
 the most unhappy of queens, Mary of Scotland, died with the • 
 prophetic words upon his lips, “ Woe is me! the crown came v 
 with a lassie, and with a lassie it will pass away ! ” 
 
PEACE WITH CHARLES V. 
 
 243 
 
 For the possession of that infant child, arose instant rivalry 
 between Henry and Francis, each coveting her for the bride 
 of his young son, as a means of annexing her dominions to his 
 own. Hence war broke out once more between those ancient 
 rivals, France and England ; and, in February, 1543, peace and 
 amity were once more established between the king and his 
 imperial nephew ; to gratify whom Henry consented to restore 
 Mary by act of parliament, to her right of succession in blood, 
 though without any mention of her legitimacy; by whieh 
 means he avoided the difficulty of admitting that he had 
 wronged her mother. War was then made, as in old times, 
 conjointly by the imperialists and a body of six thousand En¬ 
 glish auxiliaries; but, although they gained some trivial advan¬ 
 tages, the campaign was on the whole unimportant. 
 
 During the same period, however, Henry had effected much 
 more nearer home, and had thoroughly carried out a measure 
 of reform of the greatest importance to his country ; the com¬ 
 plete incorporation, namely, of the principality of Wales with 
 England, and the abolition of all the distinctions and jurisdic¬ 
 tions of the two portions of it; the one divided into shires, and 
 governed by the laws of England, the other consisting of one 
 hundred and forty-one several lordships, all under several gov¬ 
 ernments and jarring laws. It was, in 1536, reduced into the 
 regular form of counties, and became, under English laws, a 
 homogeneous district of the nation, as it has continued ever 
 since. He, likewise, so far pacified Ireland, as it is called, as 
 any sovereign, perhaps, since, certainly before him, has ever suc¬ 
 ceeded in doing, whether by arms or by conciliation. At least* 
 he is the first who assumed the title of king of Ireland ; of the 
 church of which, as well as of that of England, he became in the 
 same year which saw Wales incorporated with England, su- 
 
244 
 
 KATHARINE PARR, OF KENDAL. 
 
 preme head. It was not, however, until within a few days 
 before the execution of Katharine Howard, his fifth wife, 
 in 1542, that he assumed the title of king of Ireland. That 
 unhappy lady, therefore, died the first queen of the United 
 Kingdoms. 
 
 | We have now brought Ilenry, the uxorious, fairly dow r n to 
 the period, when he wedded his sixth and last wife, Katharine 
 Parr of Kendal, a double widow, first of Lord Borough, an i 
 then of Neville, lord Latimer, happier in this than any of her 
 predecessors, that she survived her lord, preserving his regard 
 to the last; though she once nearly lost it and her life together; 
 at a period of his life, when all the fits of sanguinary frenzy to 
 which he had been formerly liable, were but as passing gusts 
 compared to tropical tornadoes, to those which now possessed 
 him. Yet, in his wildest moods, she seems, although a delicate 
 and gentle creature, of small stature, and mild and feminine 
 demeanor, more to have swayed him, than any of his consorts, 
 even her first stately and majestic namesake. 
 
 She is remarkable, moreover, as the first Protestant English 
 queen of England; for so far is it from being true, that “ gos¬ 
 pel light ” as stated in my motto, chosen from Gray's exqui¬ 
 site fragment on education and government, “ first dawned from 
 Anna’s eyes,” that she was as completely a Romanist as ever 
 kneeled at confessional, except that, like Henry, and for the 
 came cause, she repudiated the supremacy of the pope, because 
 adverse to her own interests and elevation. Her elevation to 
 the throne seems to have given the most general satisfaction 
 throughout England; she was a lady of no less genius and 
 learning, than piety, morals, grace and accomplishment; speci¬ 
 mens of her handiw'ork in embroidery are still preserved at 
 Sizergh castle, and other places which she honored with her 
 
THE CHILDREN OF HENRY. 
 
 24 * 
 
 residence; her Latin correspondence with Roger Ascham, 
 and the learned men of the universities, extant to this time, 
 are fully equal to the style of Latinity of the day. But what 
 most shows her influence over the king, more even than the ad¬ 
 mirable way in which she soothed his peevish and almost in¬ 
 sane irritability, now exacerbated and exaggerated almost to 
 actual madness by an inveterate and incurable ulcer in his thigh, 
 the consequence, undoubtedly, of his gluttony and excess in wine, 
 to both of which, as he advanced in years, he became much ad¬ 
 dicted, was her perfect management of the royal children, now 
 wholly committed to her charge. 
 
 To conciliate the affections, govern the tempers, cultivate the 
 parts of the children of three queens, so widely differing in 
 character, religion, temper and fortunes, as Katharine of Arra- 
 gon, the stately Spanish lady, the Catholic daughter of Isabella, 
 the most Catholic queen; as Anne Boleyn, the light, witty, 
 brilliant, impulsive French coquette, to whom religion was but 
 an outward vestment, not “ that within, which passes shew ; ” 
 as Jane Seymour, the moderate, gentle, calm, feminine English¬ 
 woman ; with parts never exceeding mediocrity, was in itself 
 no small task, no unarduous duty. 
 
 But, when we look at the children themselves, at the nations 
 which were hanging, breathless partizans, on the ascendency of 
 each—when we consider Mary, cold, taciturn, grave, suffering 
 constantly from excruciating neuralgic headaches, already a se¬ 
 vere religionist, and a learned and accurate scholar, who had, as 
 yet, shown no tokens, however, of that hard-heartedncss and 
 cruelty, which were developed in her as she rose to power, and 
 which probably were caused by the influence of others over 
 her, rather than by innate illness of disposition—Mary, on 
 whom hung the hopes of Spain, of the Empire, of Rome, the 
 
246 
 
 PROTESTANT ASCENDENCT. 
 
 idol of the old Roman pally in England, who trusted in hei 
 again to sec their church restored to its pristine grandeur—when 
 we consider Elizabeth, already headlong, impetuous, full of the 
 hot Tudor blood, the very daughter of very father, she, too, 
 learned, overflowing with a strong, steady geuius — Elizabeth, 
 already the chosen head of the party of the Anglican church, 
 and looked up to by the preeminently English party,as to her 
 one day destined to afford the strongest type of the most En¬ 
 glish sovereign — when we look at Edward, gentle, kind-tem¬ 
 pered, with some small taste for letters, but timid, mediocre, 
 formal, narrow-minded, wholly under the dominion of the 
 strongest intellect near him, and those intellects attached to the 
 strictest Puritanism — it will be easy to see, how difficult aud 
 dangerous a part she had to play. 
 
 It is true, that by the execution of Katharine Howard, who 
 belonged strongly to that faith, to which her powerful descen¬ 
 dants still adhere, by the elevation of the present queen to the 
 throne, and by the strong influence which the Seymours had 
 obtained over the king, through their relationship to his “ best 
 loved wife,” Jane, and to his heir, prince Edward, the anti-Ro- 
 mish, and even the Protestant party in the kingdom had gained 
 a strong ascendency, which in fact, during Henry’s life-time, 
 they never wholly lost. 
 
 Still, to deny the seven sacraments, to doubt the real pres¬ 
 ence, to dispute the efficacy of prayers to the saints, masses for 
 the dead, auricular confession or supreme unction —in short, to 
 be openly a Protestant-was to go to the stake just as certainly 
 as to deny the kiug’s supremacy, was to be gibbeted, drawn 
 and quartered for high treason. 
 
 And Katharine was a Protestant, with all the deep and fer- 
 pent belief of her tranquil, sincere, and self-possessed soul. 
 
BALANCE OF RELIGIONS. 
 
 247 
 
 And Katharine, though she was the bloated tyrant’s “ best, 
 dearest wife, and sweetheart,” would have been consigned to 
 the flames, with as little scruple or hesitation, as would the 
 lowest-born handmaiden, the poorest clerk, in all England. 
 
 And ever the greedy eyes of the Catholics w’ere watching her, 
 sharpened by interest and hatred, to catch her in any lapse of 
 faith, any offence against orthodoxy, that they might give her 
 to the fagot, as they alleged the Protestants had given her 
 predecessor to the block. 
 
 A strange age, truly, when the two great religions of tho 
 world hung balanced on the smiles and tears, the sorrows and 
 the sins, the misery and the blood, of royal ladies; and when 
 a whispered word, a stolen kiss, came to be watched and sought 
 for, as the casting weight which was to turn the scale between 
 balanced creeds. 
 
 During her very honeymoon, owing to the ill will of Gar¬ 
 diner to the royal bride, Persons, Testwood, and Filmer were 
 passed through flames to a celestial crown, for holding to the 
 new religion. Marbeck, against whom no evidence was ad¬ 
 duced, but a few MS. notes on the bible, and some hundred 
 pages of a Latin concordance, found in his house, in process of 
 arrangement, by the informers, would have followed them to 
 the stake; but Katharine contrived that the concordance, 
 should be shown to Henry, who, with all his vices, was learned 
 himself, and loved learning. 
 
 “ Alas! poor Marbeck ! ” he exclaimed, moved for once by 
 an honest and manly feeling. “ It would be well for thine ac¬ 
 cusers, if they had employed their time no worse!”* and so 
 he pardoned him. Shortly afterward, encouraged by his sue 
 
 •Soame's History of tho Reformation. Qiirted by Miss Strickland, iv., Kath 
 Parr, 81. 
 
24S 
 
 PRIVATE LIFE OF ROTALTT. 
 
 cess thus far, Gardiner struck a blow, through his tools, Dr. 
 London and Symonds, at some higher persons, members of 
 the queen’s household —Dr. Haines, dean of Exeter, and pre¬ 
 bend of Windsor, Sir Philip Hoby and his lady ; Sir Thomas 
 Carden, and others of the royal household, and if this blow 
 had told successfully, there is no doubt but that the queen 
 would have been the next accused. But, in order to ensure 
 their conviction, false evidence must be used, by supposititious 
 documents introduced by one Oclcley, the clerk of the court, 
 among the papers of the accused. The plot was discovered to 
 the queen ; the forged documents were seized, London and 
 Symonds, not knowing what had happened, perjured them¬ 
 selves ; were tried for that crime, convicted, led through the 
 streets of London, on horseback, with their faces to the horses’ 
 tails, and pilloried, with papers on their foreheads setting forth 
 their crime — and so the present danger passed, and the mat¬ 
 ter ended. 
 
 / In the meantime, Katharine had as completely won the af¬ 
 fections of the royal children, which, to the day of her death, 
 she never lost, as she had that of the king, their father, and of 
 the best of his subjects; and there is no doubt, that much, the 
 best, part of all their characters is in some degree to be attributed 
 to her education. The Latin style of Mary and Elizabeth, 
 who were both proficients in writing that terse and difficult 
 language, is almost identical with her own; aud the fine pen¬ 
 manship of Edward VI., her step-son, closely resembles her 
 beautiful manuscript. She lived on the most intimate terms 
 of friendship with them all, a sweet, domestic, highly accom 
 plished English matron, rather than a mighty queen ; as is 
 clearly shown by many notes, still extant, op familiar subjects 
 which passed between those royal ladies, as also between 
 
FRENCH CAMPAIGN. 
 
 240 
 
 Katharine and her predecessor, Anne of Cleves, whose Prot¬ 
 estantism was probably another link between them ; and as is 
 farther proved by the lists of prices, paid for little mutual 
 presents, and tokens of affection, which have casually come 
 down to our days — beautiful memorials of the past, rescued 
 like waifs from the ocean of time—as charges on the daybooks 
 of the royal expenditures. 
 
 In the year following his marriage, “July 14, 1544, Henry 
 crossed the seas from Dover to Calais, in a ship with sails of 
 cloth of gold.” * He went in compliance with a treaty of of¬ 
 fensive alliance, entered into with the emperor, in the year be¬ 
 fore, by which they were to reclaim Burgundy for Charles, and 
 the French possessions of the English crown for Henry ; and 
 on refusal, make war in common. “ On the 25th, he took the 
 field in person, armed at all points, mounted on a great cour¬ 
 ser, and so rode out of Calais, with a princely train, attended 
 by Sir William Herbert, the queen’s brother in-law, bearing 
 his head piece and spear, and followed by the henxmen, bravely 
 horsed and apparelled. Katharine’s brother, the Earl of Es¬ 
 sex, was chief captain of the men-at-arms, in this expedition.” 
 
 Before setting out, Henry created his queen, as he had done 
 his first Katharine, in his previous invasion of France, queen 
 regent of the realm, during his absence ; Hertford, the uncle 
 of Prince Edward, was to assist her, and be ever resident at 
 her court, and attendant on her person. If he were forced to 
 be absent, then Cranmer was to attend her, and Sir William 
 Petre, Lord Parr of Horton, the Bishop of Wiuchester, and 
 Wriothesley, were to complete her council. 
 
 By an act of parliament, also passed before his departure, 
 
 * Miss Strickland, vol. iv., Katli. Tarr, 31. 
 
 K* 
 
HENRY S SUCCESSION. 
 
 1*50 
 
 lie finally settled his succession, which had been settled and un 
 settled with every successive validation or invalidation of mar¬ 
 riage, legitimating or illegitimating of heirs, five or six times, 
 at least, since his accession. This was, indeed, final; and as it 
 did actually regulate the succession, is worthy of notice. 
 
 In it he condescends to mention only two of his marriages, 
 those of Jane Seymour, and Katharine Parr, passing over all 
 the others, as if they had never existed at all. lie appoints 
 Prince Edward his heir; and, failing him or his hell's male, 
 then, any issue he mav have by his most entirely beloved 
 Queen Katharine. Failing issue by Katharine, then the issue 
 of any other lawful wife; and failing all these, his daughter 
 Mary and her issue, and on failure of her line also, his 
 daughter Elizabeth, and her heirs forever. Who those daugh¬ 
 ters were, or by what mothers, he does not condescend to 
 name, lest he should be led into an acknowledgment of their 
 legitimacy, or the lawfulness of the marriages of the queens, 
 from whom they sprung. 
 
 This French campaign, though Henry was at*thc head of a 
 mighty force of thirty thousand Englishmen and fifteen thou¬ 
 sand imperialists, did not effect much ; the king persisting in 
 besieging Boulogne, which detained him two months by a des¬ 
 perate resistance, instead of advancing on Paris, joining the 
 emperor, and closing the campaign by a splendid dash at the 
 capital. Still the reduction of Boulogne was well and gal¬ 
 lantly effected, and its conquest afforded the king an opportu¬ 
 nity of returning home in triumph, with the pomp and splen¬ 
 dor of a great conqueror. 
 
 In the following year, the war was carried on principally at 
 sea; where Francis endeavored, in vain, to acquire a superi¬ 
 ority. But, although the king’s great ship, the Mary Rose, 
 
henry’s last peace. 
 
 251 
 
 was sunk before his own eyes at Portsmouth, the English 
 squadrons kept tne seas, the French rarely daring to exchange 
 a few cannon shots, and, both in the channel and in the Neth¬ 
 erlands the war languished, for want of moneys. The king’s 
 vast prodigalities, though ho was esteemed the most wealthy 
 prince in Europe, had utterly exhausted his treasuries ; and, 
 although he had recourse to every unkingly and unmanly plan 
 to recruit them, extorting money for pardons, manufacturing 
 false charges of treason, and misprision of treason, in order to 
 countenance such proceedings, and even pillaging the jewel 
 boxes, seizing the wardrobes, and confiscating the dowries of 
 his repudiated and beheaded wives, he was now reduced to the 
 narrowest straits for money, and was, in fact, unable to main¬ 
 tain the war for want of it. 
 
 After great difficulties, by debasement of coin, and levying 
 contributions and benevolences from the clergy, he contrived 
 to raise sufficient means, during this winter, for the ordinary 
 needs of the government; and, at length, in June, 1543, a 
 peace was agreed on with Francis, which was far longer of 
 duration than most measures, which depended in any re¬ 
 spect for their origin or conclusion, on Henry’s pleasure or 
 caprices. 
 
 It endured until he, who made it, had gone to that place, 
 where there are no wars of mortal making ; but where there 
 is, whether he found it, or they, whom he had sent thither, in 
 such multitudes, through pain and tribulation, by fire and the 
 sword, that peace forever and forever, which passeth under¬ 
 standing. 
 
 From this day, that of his return, I mean, to England, to 
 the end, the life of Henry all is horror—a mere repetition of 
 the dreadful circumstances, which surrounded the end of Ma- 
 
252 
 
 STRIFE OF RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 
 
 rius, the great Roman plebeian, in whose dying ears rang for¬ 
 ever the knell— 
 
 <c Asivai yap xoirai xai affoi^ofLSvoio Xjov7o£.” * 
 
 Tlie dread of treason, in the king, had brought forth blood¬ 
 shed. The dread of bloodshed, in the subject, had brought 
 forth treason to the king, 
 
 To gain his own ends he had broken up the church, into 
 two parties, and played one against the other, so long as he 
 had strength and health and power to play them. But, as 
 health failed, and strength, and power of will, as energy de¬ 
 parted, and suspicion only and irritability remained and increased 
 upon him, the two parties of the church played out the game, 
 the one against the other, each striving to keep the name and 
 the authority of the king with them, flattering his passions, 
 and pandering to his infirmities, in order to strike with the 
 sword, which he could himself no longer wield. 
 
 One day, it was Gardiner and the Chancellor Wriothesley 
 who, working on his jealous suspicions against the heretics, 
 caused the young, beautiful, and delicate Anne Askew to be 
 racked to extremity, and to die at the stake—who, taking ad¬ 
 vantage of some indiscretion on the part of the queen, actu¬ 
 ally obtained from him an order for her arrest and committal 
 to the tower as a heretic. The next day, it was the Seymours, 
 the low-born uncles of the young Prince Edward, who, leaning 
 to the side of the “ new learning,” only because the Norfolks, 
 their bitterest enemies, held to the old, played upon his 
 dying weakness, and stimulated his ancient jealousies into what 
 may, I thiuk, be deemed real madness. ' 
 f The queen’s rare virtue and prudence carried her scathless 
 
 * “For dreadful is the den even of the dying ion.' 
 
henry’s last crimes. 
 
 253 
 
 through the perils of the deep-laid treachery, which had so 
 nearly overwhelmed her. All that Wriothesley gained by 
 his base and insidious scheme, when he entered the garden of 
 Hampton Court, where Henry was taking the air, with his 
 “ sweetheart,” with whom he had again become “ perfect 
 friends,” having the guards at his heels to convey her to the 
 tower, was to be called, “Beast and fool and knave”—all 
 three of which he indeed was—and to be bade, “Avaunt from 
 his presence! ” 
 
 To dwell on the imbecility of crime and cruelty, as it dwin¬ 
 dles into the weakness of the last ashes of itself, is in itself a 
 painful task and horrible. But when that last weakness is 
 perverted and distorted to the commission of yet worse wick¬ 
 edness, than the strength and maturity of its power had con¬ 
 ceived, it leads us to doubt whether the tyrant himself, or the 
 age of tyranny, which he created and fostered to his own de¬ 
 struction, were most savage and tyrannical. 
 
 Of all Henry’s atrocious crimes, those for which he has 
 been censured the most unsparingly, condemned with the deep¬ 
 est condemnation, are precisely those, in my thinking, of which 
 he is the least guilty. 
 
 While I do not believe — God forbid! — in the old Greek 
 tragic creed of fate, that ancestral crime must produce crime, 
 and reproduce it, generation after generation, I do believe, for 
 I have read it in history, and seen it in nature, that blood be¬ 
 gets the thirst of blood, even as wine begets the thirst of 
 wine. 
 
 The drunkard in blood, as the drunkard in wine, under the 
 curse of habit, when the cup is thrust before his lips, must 
 drink. Wo be to those who administer the cup! 
 
 When the noble and gallant, the chivalrous and lettered 
 
DEATH OF HRXRT. 
 
 254 
 
 $ - - o 
 
 . 
 
 signed the fatal w Ami!it. 
 
 \ 
 
 s 
 
 the pdNwd Gap is of the blood-haunted despot against the life 
 of his v. hlkvooe favorites, they could not ri:>d life enough in th >se 
 aietcbed mortal _ st business* A stamp 
 
 s s 'toad of * > : : before the Stan 
 
 warrant could be brought hit 
 
 had departed to the mdgment place — perhaps, to bear testi¬ 
 mony against : hose who lad porw s last Igaut^ and 
 hud upon hi# memory even a deeper stain of blood, than tlv.t 
 which rests upon his smil. 
 
 . v -Ism. . lo4T. j a the : .. 
 
 A year cf his _ . > xth of Ins age, the mos: 
 
 chess# m ost us> ' ess. most wort mess. monarc h of Jus^day. who 
 _ : ha •. . . .. . . o. u ;■ ss. #> 
 
 in a remote degree proportionate to his talents, his capacities, 
 his or lVvramit'ies. 
 
 h is wonderful to relate, because it is evidently., vvidental 
 t".d : providential, that the leaden coffin, in which his era- 
 tiaimed and perfumed body was enclosed, — in the wretched 
 gas sa . . 
 
 law# of corruption —-being suffered to fall upon the pavement, 
 the g re oozed out. and as the mad. epileptic nun. Barton, and 
 :h< . o o u ;\y; . had vtv.lhtod : him. tc his teeth — 
 ‘The dogs did lick op his blood, as they licked up that of 
 Aliab l” 
 
 s 
 
 tviv.g. and .verse man. wrought, simply for his own prvrl: and 
 
THE ENDS OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 255 
 
 self-gratification, not one operated as he intended and desired 
 that it should operate. 
 
 The cherished heir male, whom he so deeply sinned to have 
 his heir, died hcirless, after a vain attempt to create an intol¬ 
 erant, dominant religion, of that Puritan heresy which his father 
 had most abhorred and persecuted. 
 
 The daughter of the Spanish queen, the right royal Katha¬ 
 rine, whom he had robbed of all, but honor, reinstated, through 
 blood and fire, the church, which he had, as he thought, pros¬ 
 trated forever; and all but made England Spanish, and the 
 church of England, Romish. 
 
 The daughter of the woman, whom he had stigmatized with 
 incest, not content to slay, completed the work, in which ho 
 would not have that she should put a finger, but completed it, 
 not as Ilenry would, but as God would have it! — completed 
 it, so that out of the worst English despotism, grew the 
 most perfect English liberty—out of the deepest Romish dark¬ 
 ness, dawne-d the most lustrous light, the day spring from on 
 high, which, once arisen, can go down no more nor be put out 
 forever. 
 

 
 
 

 KATHARINE OF ARRAGON, 
 
 MARRIED, 1509; REPUDIATED, 1583. 
 
 Tub qnecn of earthly queens;—She is noble born; 
 
 And, like her tv o nobility, she has 
 Carried herself ward me. 
 
 Shafspea-ee, K. IT&nry VJUL 
 
KATHARINE OF ARRAGON. 
 
 BORN, 1483; MARRIED, FIRST, 1501; SECOND, 1509; REPUDIATED, 
 1533; DECEASED, 1536. 
 
 The queen of earthly queens:—Sho is noble born; 
 
 And, like her true nobility, she has 
 Carried herself toward me. 
 
 Shakspeake, K. Henry VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Had one no other object in view, than to select a subject, 
 for declamation, illustrative of the vicissitudes of human af¬ 
 fairs, the instability of human fortunes, the mutability, in one 
 word, of everything terrestrial and mortal, contrasted with the 
 sublime spectacle of a Christian soul, while yet contained within 
 the poor, perishable body, remaining constant, unaltered, and 
 the same, through all changes of condition, all trials sorest to 
 the heart, all calamities most difficult to endure serenely, up¬ 
 held by the innate consciousness of worth, by a clear sense of 
 the obligations imposed by noble birth, and, above all, by a 
 secure faith and fervent piety,—I know not whither he should 
 turn to seek one more consistently, than to the page, which con¬ 
 tains the records of this most royal lady, her varied sorrows, 
 but unvarying majesty and virtues. 
 
 Were one to exhaust all history, all romance, to draw to 
 the utmost on the dreams of unmixed imagination, in order to 
 
2(30 
 
 BIRTH OF KATHARINE. 
 
 find something nobler in its origin, more blessed in its early 
 promise, more prosperous and full of all good augury in the 
 first years of life’s voyage, more consistent with that promise 
 and augury in its undisturbed and gorgeous noontide, than the 
 career of this illustrious princess and great queen, from her 
 cradle to her fortieth year, or even something later, he would 
 exhaust history, exhaust fiction, bankrupt imagination, to no 
 purpose. 
 
 Were he to ransack all storehouses of sorrow, humiliation, 
 and indignity, heaped on a virtuous and almost perfect woman’s 
 head, and borne with unswerving constancy and patience, with 
 unruffled temper, with more than manly dignity, yet with the 
 grace, the tenderness, the feminine affection of the most deli¬ 
 cate and gentlest woman, he could find nothing to surpass, no¬ 
 thing, in my thought, to equal, the examples shown in the lat¬ 
 ter years of Katharine of Arragon. 
 
 The youngest daughter of the two greatest monarchs of the 
 most powerful, splendid, and civilized country, at that day, in 
 all Europe, Ferdinand of Arragon, and Isabella of Castille, 
 who won from the Saracen Abencerrages and Almohades the 
 long lost patrimony of the Gothic kings, and first united the 
 rich provinces of Spain within the compass of one gorgeous 
 diadem, to whom Columbus, “the world-seeking Genoese,” 
 gave, while she was yet but a child, careless of royalty, new 
 worlds across the western oceau, and the proud right to bear 
 the vaunting words, “Pious oultre” — “Yet more beyond” 
 the pillars of the Spanish Hercules and limits of the ancient 
 world,—she was bom amid the bray of trumpets, the splendor 
 and the din of arms, and all the pageantry and pomp of Spau 
 ish chivalry—and chivalry in those days was preeminently 
 Spauish—while her admirable mother, one of the most charm 
 
ENGLAND AND SPAIN. 
 
 2G1 
 
 ing heroines of history, was waging war, as herself the inde¬ 
 pendent queen of an independent nation, against the magnifi¬ 
 cent Moors of Grenada. 
 
 For many centuries, Spain and England had been bound 
 by strict links of amity and alliance, as well as by connection 
 of their blood royal. The arms of the English Plantagenets 
 had given their aid to support the legitimate line of Castille 
 against domestic treason, as against foreign warfare ; and two 
 several princes of the blood of that indomitable race, Edmund 
 of York, and John of Ghent, duke of Lancaster, had severally 
 married ancestresses of this lady. So settled, indeed, had be¬ 
 come the policy, and so near to the national heart was the sen¬ 
 timent of friendship toward England, that we find it recorded 
 in that most popular of all forms of record, in Spain more es¬ 
 pecially, I mean the proverb, in which no other extant lan¬ 
 guage is so rich as that of Cervantes. 
 
 The existence of such a saying as this, alive in the mouths 
 of a proud and homogeneous people, from a very remote an¬ 
 tiquity— 
 
 “Con todo el mundo gnerra 
 Y paz con Inglaterra”— 
 
 testifies to no suddenly-born or transient policy of cabinets 
 or kings, but to a genuine and established national belief; nor 
 was it, until dissensions arose, which perhaps had their origin 
 in the wrongs of this very princess, which were exaggerated 
 by religious struggles and persecutions, enduring through many 
 generations, and deeply stirring the general heart of both 
 countries, that the mutual disposition to a traditional and al¬ 
 most hereditary amity, has passed away and become extinct, 
 probably forever. 
 
 It is worthy of remembrance, that Isabella of Castille, her 
 
2G2 
 
 THE PERIOD OF HER BIRTH. 
 
 self, the mothei of Katharine, had been betrothed in her early 
 youth to Edward IV., grandfather of Henry VIII., and had 
 been slighted and discarded by that licentious monarch, in con¬ 
 sequence of his suddenly-conceived passion for the beautiful 
 Elizabeth Woodville, which he could by no means gratify, 
 save on conditions of honorable matrimony. 
 
 Of this wise and heroical queen, Katharine was the young¬ 
 est child, by her politic and prudent consort, Ferdinand V. of 
 Arragon ; who—after the death of his wife and her daughters, 
 Isabella and Joanna, the former without issue by her husbands, 
 Alphonso and Manuel of Portugal, the latter leaving an infant, 
 afterward the famous emperor, Charles V., whom she bore to 
 Philip, son of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy—succeeded 
 to the administration of the kingdom of Castille, by right 
 of guardianship to his grandson, as heir male of Isabella’s 
 royalty. 
 
 The monarchs of these two provinces, which they indeed 
 united, and left one kingdom, to their successors, yet governed 
 them severally and singly ; neither assuming to exercise sov¬ 
 ereign rights in the realm of the other, but carrying on their 
 governments, each by the ministers of each, and each com 
 manding the armies of the kingdoms they represented, per¬ 
 sonally or by national vicegerents. At the time of Katharine’s 
 birth, December 15, 1485, Isabella, with her famous clerical 
 counsellor and captain, Cardinal Ximenes, was in the full pros¬ 
 ecution of her long and difficult war against the unfortunate 
 Boabdil, the last of the Saracen kings of Spain, and his heroic 
 mother ; who did not ultimately succumb to the arms of the 
 royal consorts, until in 1492, when the young princess, who was 
 born in the city of Alcala de Ilenares, during one of the martial 
 progresses of her royal mother, and much of whose early life 
 
LAST DAYS OF CHIVALRY. 
 
 203 
 
 was passed in the besieging camp, on the banks of those deli 
 cious rivers, the Xenil and Darro, watering the lovely vegas 
 of Granada, and within view of the exquisite Alhambra, was 
 in the ninth year of her age. 
 
 What a world of romance must have passed, in splendid 
 review, before the admiring eyes of that young Spanish girl, 
 in those strange years, wherein expiring chivalry decked itself, 
 like the dying dolphin, or the autumnal forest, in hues of which 
 its lusty prime had been unconscious; wherein the practical 
 and real world, in which we live and have our being, had al¬ 
 ready begun to encroach upon that ideal and imaginative world, 
 which was as tangible to our ancestors, as theirs seems strange 
 to us, and ours would seem to them, could they be brought 
 to comprehend it. 
 
 The last spirit of the crusades was still blazing bright, on 
 the fertile valleys of Granada; gonfanons and panoplies of 
 burnished mail, surcoats of knightly arms, turbans and orien¬ 
 tal draperies were still flashing and floating, under the azure 
 skies of Spain, through the deep passes of the Alpuxarras; 
 “ the gentle river” was still running red with mingled streams 
 of infidel and Christian gore, and the Atabals, the Cymbals, 
 and the Lelilies of the Moslemin were ringing among the 
 trumpets and the war-cries of St. Jago, while the caravels 
 were fitting in the port of Palos, which were to open to the 
 old world the knowledge of the new, and to bring about 
 changes yet stranger and more potent in the manners and 
 morals of men, and in the destinies of nations, than in the re¬ 
 gions of science, and the extent of the known universe. 
 
 While this interminable domestic war was in process — 
 which resulted in the expulsion of the Moorish race from their 
 last stronghold on European soil, and which, much as it has 
 
264 
 
 COLUMBUS IN THE CAMP. 
 
 been accused for impolicy by historians who have not hesita 
 ted to ascribe to it, as one of the prime causes, the ensuing de¬ 
 cline and ultimate decadency of the Peninsula, was clearly ne¬ 
 cessary to Spain, as a homogeneous nationality and govern¬ 
 ment—uuweariedly did the enthusiastic aud indomitable nav¬ 
 igator petition the queen, who, it would seem, from the begin¬ 
 ning appreciated his daring intellect, his untiring perseverance, 
 and the far-reaching vision of his instructed mind, but in truth 
 lacked the means to forward him; for the scanty aid, which 
 he promised would suffice him to give a new world to Castille 
 and Leon, was not attainable during the continuance of that 
 exhausting struggle. 
 
 A superabundance of absurdity has been written, and high- 
 sounding indiguation wasted, on the narrow-mindedness and 
 malice —heaven save the mark!—of those, who failed immedi¬ 
 ately to fall in with the views and to appreciate the arguments 
 of Columbus, which naturally appeared to them visionary in 
 the extreme; which were contrary to all experience, to all 
 the knowledge of past ages, and, as by many it was constantly 
 asserted, to the principles of the Christian religion. The same 
 opposition has been offered, under nearly the same forms, 
 though without ascription by the writers of the day to either 
 envy, hatred, malice, or any other kind of uucharitableness, to 
 every great and marvellous discovery of modern days; to illu¬ 
 mination of the world by gas; to the navigation of the ocean 
 by steam ; to the transmission of intelligence by magnetism ; 
 to every new truth of science; and there are, at this moment, 
 in which I write, hundreds of Lutheran, Calvinist, Methodist, 
 Baptist divines, who are neither envious nor malicious, nor, in 
 other matters, ignorant, who condemn the geological discov¬ 
 eries of Buckland, Lyell, Cuvier, and Agassiz, as impious and 
 
SCHEMES OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 2G5 
 
 contrary to revealed religion, with equal intolerance to that 
 displayed by Romish inquisitors toward the world-seeking 
 navigator, and for the very same cause; that, in both cases, the 
 teachings of the philosopher are at variance with what the the- 
 ologist conceives to be the only true interpretation, because it 
 is his own interpretation, of some obscure passage in the Old 
 Testament, at the meaning of which he only arrives, at all, 
 through the medium of a translation from a dead language into 
 a foreign tongue. 
 
 It is ascertained, at this day, beyond a peradventure, that 
 Columbus had not merely surmised, as a deduction from 
 given data, the existence of a new, transatlantic world; but 
 that he knew it, as a fact, from the perusal of the journals and 
 inspection of the charts of the Norse prediscoverers, which he 
 had certainly seen in the royal library of Iceland—where they 
 are preserved to this time-during a visit, which he is known 
 to have made to that island. It is even doubtful, whether ho 
 had conceived any idea of reaching the western shores of India, 
 for such to the end he believed the newly discovered lands to 
 be, by means of circumnavigation, until after he had become 
 acquainted with the success, which the Norse rovers had en¬ 
 countered, on a western course; although—granted the world’s 
 rotundity — to perceive the feasibility of such a plan would 
 seem to argue no preternatural acumen, though to carry it 
 out, to accomplishment, might demand almost superhuman 
 fortitude, energy, perseverance, and the immutable will of a 
 very hero. 
 
 As Columbus did not choose to reveal the positive knowl 
 edge, he had acquired, of the possibility of reaching a vast 
 western land, far beyond farthest Thyle, by steering out into 
 the seemingly illimitable ocean, but persisted in resting his 
 
 L 
 
2GG 
 
 PROGRESS OF DISCOVERT. 
 
 convictions, only on vague speculations, and on reasonings, 
 which will 1 jot bear the test of reason, as to the necessity of 
 an existing continent in the west, in order to counterbalance 
 the preponderance of land in the eastern hemisphere, and so 
 to preserve the equilibrium of the globe, it appears to me far 
 more astonishing that he did ultimately, than that he did not 
 earlier, persuade any potentate of that day to adopt his theo¬ 
 ries, to such an extent as to furnish ships, mariners, and money, 
 and that when each of the three was worth many multiples 
 of its present value, for the prosecution of a plan of dis¬ 
 covery so wild, and with a prospect of remuneration so re¬ 
 mote and slender. 
 
 It does not, moreover, appear to me — although the solid 
 sanction of the universities, always the most slowly moving, 
 and most difficult to be convinced, of bodies, although the au¬ 
 thority of the ponderous doctors of Salamanca and the fanati¬ 
 cal fathers of the order of Jesus could not be readily won over 
 to the new theories—that, one of the shrewd, practical, politic 
 princes, men of the world, and statesmen, to whom he ap¬ 
 plied, ever entertained any strong doubt of the truth of the 
 chart-maker’s speculationsbut that they did, all, shrewdly 
 doubt the profitable character of the proposed enterprise, and 
 the policy of their embarking suddenly in so extraordinary an 
 adventure, is as certain, as it was natural and wise in them to 
 do so. 
 
 John II. of Portugal, who, by the discovery of the passage 
 by the Cape of Good Hope to the eastern Indies, of which he 
 was even then in pursuit, shortly afterward seized the initia¬ 
 tive and hoped to acquire a monopoly, in the trade of spice, 
 of precious gems and gold, from the rich regions of the Ori¬ 
 ent, reeded not, nor had the desire, to open a fresh channel, 
 
HENRY VII. 
 
 2G7 
 
 whether to the same or to some other mart of tropical wealth, 
 when to do so would but create a rivalry, to the detriment of 
 his own subject. 
 
 Henry VII. of England, the sagest, most prudent, most par¬ 
 simonious, and, withal, most grasping monarch of his day, 
 though he governed a people, who had hitherto displayed little 
 genius for maritime, and scarcely more for commercial, enter¬ 
 prise, yet seriously inclined his ear to the enthusiastic elo 
 quence of the Genoese mariner. He became, but a few years 
 later, the ardent patron and promoter of transatlantic discov 
 ery, and it was under his auspices, if not at his charges, that 
 the Cabots, a year at least before Columbus saw the mainland 
 of America, discovered New Foundland and the coasts of the 
 northern British provinces, thus being the first to attract the 
 English mind to that career of north-western enterprise, from 
 which it has never since been diverted ; at this time, however, 
 he was too vitally occupied in securing the crown, he had oc¬ 
 cupied, to a dynasty of his own creation, and in subduing do¬ 
 mestic insurrection aided by foreign influence, to be enabled 
 to spare either time or moneys on an adventure, which, how 
 magnificent soever, afforded little present prospect either of 
 profit or of power, which were necessary alike to his ambition 
 and to the safety of his line. 
 
 The causes for delay, on the part of Isabella, are so evident, 
 while an internecine war was raging on the frontier of her own 
 dominions, with a race, which must be extirpated or expelled— 
 since it never could be rendered subordinate to Spanish or 
 Christian rule—if Spain was ever to be made one kingdom, in¬ 
 cluded by its natural boundaries, that it is only wonderful to 
 me, how she ever was induced and enabled to furnish forth the 
 
208 
 
 FALSE STYLE OF MEMOIR WRITING. 
 
 means, scanty as they were, with which Columhus proceeded 
 on his voyage of discovery. 
 
 After eight years, however, of incessant solicitation, the 
 good queen was able to do what she had earnestly desired to do, 
 years before; and, on the third of August, 1492, the world- 
 finder set sail, with three small vessels, from the port of Palos, 
 in Seville, the year following the final conquest of Granada, 
 and the incorporation of the whole territory, between the Py¬ 
 renees, the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic ocean, and the Mediter¬ 
 ranean sea, the small kingdom of Portugal on the western 
 shore alone excepted, into one state, which soon became from 
 a third rate, a first rate power among the nations. 
 
 ? I am not about to fall into an error, common to many bril¬ 
 liant and speculative writers; that of assuming the probabil¬ 
 ity, because she was in being at the time, that the child Kath¬ 
 arine had any agency whatever in any of the great movements, 
 which were going on around her; much less of imagining that 
 her childish fancy might have been touched by the eloquence 
 and sublime aspect of the pilgrim navigator, or that her child¬ 
 ish endearments might have had their effect in bringing her 
 mother to grant the mariner’s supplication. Such, however, is 
 too much, and too often, the mode of writing history, adopted 
 by the memoir compilers of to-day, who, writing often to gain 
 the mere popularity of the minute, for the most part think it 
 needful to take a popular view of the subject; and, true or un¬ 
 true, possible or impossible, are ever on the qui vive to pro¬ 
 duce something in favor of the hero, or heroine—of whom they 
 almost invariably constitute themselves mere partizan defend¬ 
 ers—which no one ever heard of, or suspected, before. To such 
 an extent, is this mischievous and foolish partizanship some¬ 
 times carried, that it leads the writers into the defence of all 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF HER CHILDHOOD. 
 
 269 
 
 sorts of crimes and enormities, and deprives their works of 
 any claim to authenticity; and so flagrant does this sometimes 
 become, as to be in the end ludicrous, as well as provoking; 
 as, for instance, where Miss Strickland, in her laborious and, 
 in other respects, valuable lives of the queens of England, takes 
 every sovereign in succession, so soon as she begins to deal 
 with her as a sovereign, under her immediate and especial pro¬ 
 tection, often totally reversing the verdict she has rendered, a 
 few pages above, in considering her relations toward her pred¬ 
 ecessor, while herself a private personage. 
 
 I do mean, however, to show that the mind of an intelligent 
 girl of ten years, having such scenes constantly passing before 
 her eyes, such conversations continually held within her hear¬ 
 ing, brought up and educated, as we know Katharine to have 
 been, by such a mother, so affectionate, so pious, so prudent, 
 as we see Isabella to have been, must have taken a deep color¬ 
 ing from the vastness of the events, of which she was herself 
 a witness and in some degree a part. Her favorite device of 
 the pomegranate, which she bore, throughout her life, in a 
 sterner and bleaker clime, and in darker days, than those 
 which left their imprint on her childhood, speaks strongly of 
 the impression made upon her by the orange groves and myr¬ 
 tle gardens, the silvery waters and the umbrageous woodlands 
 of the beautiful Granada. Doubtless, she saw the rearguard 
 of the Moorish squadrons defiling through the steep streets of 
 the Saracenic city, while weak Boabdil wept, and his man- 
 hearted mother chid the tears, which bewailed an empire his 
 hand had lacked the power to defend. Doubtless, she mar¬ 
 velled in her girlish wonder at the rare, the inimitable splen¬ 
 dors of the exquisite Alhambra, and as she tasted the diamond 
 waters that sparkled from the fount of lions, and murmured 
 
270 
 
 KATHARINE IN HER NATIVE RAND. 
 
 with a cooling freshness through the hall of kings, felt, min 
 gling with triumphant admiration, some touch of sympathy 
 for those, though of a hostile race and hated creed, whom she 
 had seen expelled forever, by her mother’s arms, from that, 
 their earthly paradise. Doubtless, she had heard all the pitiful, 
 all the marvellous tales of the wild mariner, whom men 
 deemed mad, while he was wandering on foot, begging a cup 
 of water for his faiuting fellow-journeyer, from cottage door to 
 convent gate, yet promising, while he lacked bread for his own 
 need, the wealth of undiscovered realms to the mightiest of 
 monarchs—had heard of him, when Ills eloquence convinced 
 councillors and cardinals, and won Ferdinaud and Isabella to 
 speed him on his marvellous adventure — had heard of him, 
 when he sailed, tempting the terrors of the mighty deep, in 
 those three slender barques, scarce equal to the long-boats of 
 a modern three-decker. Doubtless, she heard the shouts and 
 reverberated peals of ordnance, as they hailed the return, no 
 longer of the mad adventurer, but of the world-discoverer, of 
 the lord admiral of the ocean sea, of the governor of that New 
 Spain in the farthest west, the conquest of which was to ren¬ 
 der, before her own eyes should be closed in the welcome 
 slumbers of the grave, her native land, the Old Spain, which 
 she was so soon to leave forever, the wealthiest, the mightiest, 
 the most puissant of all European kingdoms; and her own, yet 
 unborn, nephew, Charles, the stateliest and most powerful of 
 earthly monarchs. 
 
 She lived to see, even before she left the sunny shores of 
 her beloved Spain for that northern isle, the hospitality of 
 which she was destined to find as cold to her as the rigor 
 of its northern winters, the first influx of that entering tide 
 of gold, which, while it filled the treasuries with stores that ap- 
 
UNPRECEDENTED GROWTH OF SPAIN. 
 
 271 
 
 peared inexnaustible, corrupted the life-blood of the land, sap¬ 
 ped the stern virtues of its haughty aristocracy, and, in the 
 end, undermined all its foundations, and left it the baseless and 
 downfallen ruin, which we gaze on, with less of pity than con¬ 
 tempt, in the nineteenth century. 
 
 This she saw not, however, nor could in anywise foresee, un¬ 
 less it had been by aid of actual inspiration. It was the glori¬ 
 ous and majestic aspect of a rising, not a falling, empire, that 
 filled her youthful soul with visions of majesty, and fed her as¬ 
 pirations to the height of human dignity. Not so rapid is 
 even the vaunted growth of the United States, from the imbe- 
 cillity of childhood to the colossal might of immature man¬ 
 hood, as were the strides by which Spain burst, within a life¬ 
 time, from being a disjointed region of secondary, uncon¬ 
 nected kingdoms, to be greatest, wealthiest, strongest, empire, 
 since Rome’s Ccesars fixed the imperial eagles high above the 
 Palatine. 
 
 The union of Castille and Leon with Arragon and Catalonia, 
 the conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada, the acquisi¬ 
 tion of auriferous America, mainland and island, came, one and 
 all, fast following consequences, from the auspicious marriage 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella. From that of their daughter Jo¬ 
 anna with Philip, heir of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundv, 
 the whole of the rich Netherlands, and of that splendid duchy, 
 comprising nearly a third part of what is now the empire of 
 the French, was added to Spain in the succession of their son 
 Charles, the first king of the Austrian house, to that throne, on 
 the demise of his grandfather, Ferdinand. 
 
 Born of such parents, sprung from such a land, exhibiting 
 from an early age the talents which she inherited from her 
 mother, with all that mother’s dignity, and piety, and pm 
 
V 
 
 272 CHARACTER OF KATHARINE. 
 
 dence, but without her coldness, her austerity, her fanaticism, 
 or her fierce zeal, leading her even to the length of persecution, 
 gloriously endowed with the dark-glowing, stately, superb 
 beauty of her native land, who should predict for any one of 
 earthly mould a happier or grander future than for young 
 Catalina — for so she was christened, although the history of 
 the land, in which it was hers to live and die, has Anglicized 
 her into Katharine—the beautiful infanta of her paternal Arra- 
 gon? Nor was the marriage of this highly favored princess 
 less promising of happiness than was her birth august, and the 
 circumstances of her early youth auspicious. 
 
 Ilenry VII., the usurping pretender of the house of Lancas¬ 
 ter, who, with less claims of blood than any monarch, who ever 
 ascended that splendid throne, having obtained possession of 
 the crown of England, vacant by the death of Richard, that 
 tyrant, veritably “ bloody-sceptered,” and secured it by his mar¬ 
 riage with Elizabeth, the beautiful “ Pale Rose of York,” and 
 heiress of that house and its rightful claim to the monarchy, sat 
 in the place of his unjust dominion, more firmly, perhaps, than 
 any king in Europe; assuredly wielded his sceptre more des¬ 
 potically, as less checked by the arrogant feudal nobility 
 which, in other kingdoms, as in past years they had done ia 
 England, before they were decimated, and their strength was 
 well nigh broken, in the bloody wars of the Roses, still divi 
 ded the power with the monarch, and prevented the absorp¬ 
 tion of the whole puissance of the state by the crown. It is a 
 strange trait of character, that this cold, hard-hearted, selfish, 
 practical, iron-minded man, whom of all others one would the 
 least have suspected of anything like imaginative, much less 
 poetical, tendencies, was yet a dreamer, a believer and enthu¬ 
 siastic student in the old legendary lore of that wild and mystic 
 
PRINCE ARTHUR OF WALES. 
 
 land of Wales, and that yet wilder reign of Cymric Brittany, 
 with its vast stormy heaths, its bardic monuments, its crom¬ 
 lechs, its monoliths, its huge stone avenues and circles, its Car- 
 nak, vaster than Stonehenge, its identical superstitions, and al¬ 
 most identical language. 
 
 Himself of the Welsh blood of the Tudors, on the father’s 
 side, he had resided much among the mountains of North 
 Wales; he had landed in that country, at Milford Haven, when 
 he came in his chivalrous and daring enterprise against the 
 bloody Richard, and he constantly sought to identify himself 
 with the people, loyal, brave, and devoted to their hereditary 
 chiefs, of that ancient principality, in which he numbered many 
 of his most resolute adherents. Ilis eldest son, the Prince of 
 Wales, born at Winchester, while the king, his father, was 
 hunting in the New Forest, on the 20th of September, 1486 
 was named Arthur, after the great king of the Cymri, whom 
 many of his people believed, then, and perhaps still believe te 
 this very day, to survive, though plunged in a magic stupor, 
 in the enchanted shades of Ynys Avallon, the undisccrnabla 
 bardic sanctuary and admeasured centre of the island. 
 
 To this young prince, who was handsome of person, excel¬ 
 lent of disposition, and eminently learned, was the princess be¬ 
 trothed, while she was yet but a child, sporting among the ex¬ 
 quisite scenery of the Alhambra, and in the fairy halls of the 
 Generaliffe, wherein her youth was spent, happily and grace¬ 
 fully, amid the dolce far niente of that soft, southern climate 
 of Granada, which her mother made her constant abode, no 
 less than the seat of her royalty, after the expulsion—from its 
 Saracenic domes and oriental minarets, its thickets of figs and 
 jessamine and orange and pomegranate, its towe'ing palms, 
 L* 18 
 
274 
 
 KATHARINE EMBARKS FOR ENGLAND. 
 
 its shadowy cork-woods, and the blue lapse of its vocal waters— 
 of its unfortunate Moorish lords. 
 
 At the age of four, we first find Catalina present at the mar¬ 
 riage of her elder sister, Isabel, with Don Juan,* or, as he is 
 otherwise termed, Don Alphonso, the heir of Portugal. It is 
 remarkable, in reference to the question which subsequently 
 arose with regard to Katharine’s marriage with Henry, that, 
 after the death of Alphonso, Isabel was wedded to Manuel, 
 king of Portugal, who was within the prohibited degrees with 
 her first husband, and that after Isabel’s decease, her third sis¬ 
 ter, Mary, became the wife of the same Manuel, her sister’s 
 widower, so little, at that time, seems to have been the objec¬ 
 tion made to marriages with the relicts of deceased brothers 
 and sisters. Joanna, the second sister, was married to Philip 
 of Burgundy, son of Maximilian, and bore to him Charles, af¬ 
 terward the magnificent rival of Francis and Henry. 
 
 So soon as Arthur completed his fifteenth year, Katharine 
 being just one year older than her youthful bridegroom, the 
 marriage, which had been definitely arranged in 1496, and 
 celebrated by proxy in the chapel of the prince’s manor-house 
 at Bewdly, the Spanish ambassador standing proxy for the in¬ 
 fanta, was brought to pass in earnest. 
 
 On the seventeenth day of August, 1501, the princess em¬ 
 barked at Corunna, but-as if the winds and waves themselves, 
 things inanimate, and lying under the ban of poetry, as above 
 all else deaf and pitiless to humanity, were opposed to her de¬ 
 parture for that misty and inclement isle, wherein her future 
 fates were to be as cold and ungenial as the climate,—a fierce 
 storm, during which she suffered from sea sickness grievously, 
 
 ♦Miss Strickland calls Lira “Don Jnan, tbe heir of Portugal.” Lord Herbert of 
 Cherbury—“Alphonso, prince of Portugal.” 
 
SPANISH ETIQUETTE. 
 
 275 
 
 drove her back upon the coasts of old Castillo; but a second 
 attempt, on the twenty-sixth of the following month, was more 
 successful; and, on the second of October, she landed at 
 Plymouth, where she was received with much pomp and 
 splendor—all the population of the country flocking in to do 
 her honor, and entertaining her with west-country sports and 
 rural pastimes—by the Lord Brook, steward of the royal pal¬ 
 ace, the Duchess of Norfolk, and the Earl of Surrey, who were 
 especially deputed to wait upon her. 
 
 Tlie royal progress was so slow as to savor more of Spanish 
 etiquette, than of the frankness which is attributed to English 
 hospitality. The roads were execrable ; the weather was such 
 as may be understood by those who know what is English 
 weather in November, the bleakest, saddest, stormiest month 
 of the year; the processions of the princess, inland, and of her 
 royal bridegroom, seaward, were made on horseback, and it 
 would seem that they never exceeded a foot’s pace; for it ap¬ 
 pears to have been the third or fourth day after Katharine’s 
 departure from Plymouth, before the royal parties met on the 
 open downs, in the midst of a wild and pelting storm, not far 
 from the town of Dogmersfield, where some circumstances oc¬ 
 curred sufficiently curious to be worthy of remark. At this 
 period, Spanish etiquette, always rigid and formal in the ex¬ 
 treme, had caught, from long habitude to Moorish customs 
 and ideas, an ultraism, in regard to the fair sex, amounting al¬ 
 most to the oriental usages of female sequestration ; and it 
 seems that the high Spanish dignitaries, to whose care the in¬ 
 fanta was committed, had received positive regulations as to 
 her intercourse, previous to marriage, even with her father in¬ 
 law and husband, that were to be, which, like the laws of the 
 
27G 
 
 THE COUNCIL ON THE HAMPSHIRE DOWNS. 
 
 Medes and Persians, were to be immutable under whatever 
 mutation of circumstances. 
 
 Under no possible contingency, was the young infanta to be 
 looked upon by the profane eyes of a male animal, until she 
 should stand before the altar ; when, and when only, her veil 
 was to be raised, and the charms of the bride exhibited to the 
 bridegroom, which he was not so much as to behold, until the 
 indissoluble knot should be tied. 
 
 Ilenry VII. was himself a man of forms and ceremonials, 
 cold, hard, close-handed, and close-hearted; but, whether, as 
 Miss Strickland has it, his curiosity*was thoroughly aroused 
 by the prohibition, or, as I presume, he did not choose to re¬ 
 ceive dictation in his own country, he would not hear of the 
 restriction. A council was called, on the bleak Hampshire 
 downs—one would like to have seen that council, at nightfall, 
 in the gray, ghostly mist of a November evening, amid the 
 pelting rain, and the cutting breath of the cold north-easter, 
 without so much as a tree or a hedgerow to shield them from 
 the bitter rain storm — the starched, grim-visaged, whiskered, 
 "Spanish grandees, wrapped in their long capas, with their som¬ 
 breros slouched over their brows, shivering on the backs of 
 their Andalusian coursers, yet holding out in high debate 
 against the mere idea of such a breach of all Iberian proprieties, 
 as the suffering a Spanish maiden to be shown unveiled to the 
 eyes of her nearest future relatives; while Henry, in his blunt 
 \ English fashion, backed by the opinion of his sturdy lords, 
 l -who were probably cursing the stilted nonsense of the dons, 
 ' from the depths of their Saxon souls, as they thought of the 
 barons of beef, the haunches of venison, and the giggots of 
 mutton, which were growing cold in the lodging, prepared for 
 the royal cavalcade, at Dogmei-sfield, insisted that since “ the 
 
henry’s bluntness. 
 
 277 
 
 Spanish infanta was now in the heart of the realm, of which 
 King Ilenry was master, he might look at her if he liked.” 
 And, as it seems, that emphatically “he did like ; ” so it was 
 decided ; and, accordingly, leaving his son in the storm on the 
 downs, he rode on to Dogmersfield, whither the princess and 
 her ladies had very sensibly got themselves out of the rain, 
 some three hours, or so, before. But, even so, the matter 
 was not to end; for a Spanish count, an archbishop, and a 
 bishop opposed the king’s entrance to the apartments of his 
 fair daughter-in-law, saying that “ the lady infanta had retired 
 to her chamber.” 
 
 But Henry VII., cold, as he was selfish and hard of heart, 
 had too much British blood—none the coolest when once fairly 
 aroused, at bottom—to brook the Spanish formulas; nor was 
 the man, who had met the bloody boar of York, front to front, 
 at Bosworth, precisely the person to be turned from his pur¬ 
 pose by a Spanish count, even if he were supported by an arch¬ 
 bishop and a bishop, as his assessors. So he swore a lusty 
 oath, that, “ if she were even in her bed, he meant to see and 
 speak to her, for that was his mind, and the whole intent of 
 his coming.” Wherefore, seeing that he was a man some¬ 
 what apt to have the whole intents of his mind satisfied, the 
 infanta, who really had gone to bed, being, probably, tho¬ 
 roughly tired and drenched to the skin, had no choice for it, 
 out to get up again, dress herself, and receive the visit of her 
 father-in-law in futuro. He, being well pleased with her ap¬ 
 pearance, sent for his son to come in out of the rain, retired to 
 change his own wet riding suit, and then proceeded to intro¬ 
 duce the prince to the bride elect. Thereafter, they parted, 
 after pledging their troth in person, the king going with his son 
 and his hungry lords to the long desired supper, and the prin 
 
278 
 
 Katharine's first marriage. 
 
 cess not, as one would have expected, going back again to bed , 
 for, we find that after the jolly evening meal was over, at 
 which one can well imagine how the stout English peers laughed 
 and roared among their cups, over the discomfiture of the 
 pompous dons, she received her betrothed lover and his hither 
 in her own apartments, “ when she and her ladies called for 
 their minstrels, and with right goodly behavior and manner so¬ 
 laced themselves with dancing.” The prince, it seems, whether 
 that he did not understand the Spanish dances, or that it was 
 contrary to the rules of etiquette, did not mingle with his lady 
 love and her damsels in the dance, but, when his tu n came, 
 “ in like demeanor took the Lady Guilford,” governess to his 
 sister Mary, afterward Queen of France and Duchess of Suf¬ 
 folk, “ and danced right pleasantly and honorably.” 
 
 On the following day, Katharine arrived at Chertsey, where 
 she was lodged in the royal palace at that place; thence, on the 
 eighth of November, she came to Kingston on Thames, where 
 she was met by the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Kent, 
 and the Abbot of Bury, who, on the next morning, escorted 
 her with a splendid train to her own lodging, in Kenningtou 
 palace, close to Lambeth, which had been duly prepared for 
 her reception. 
 
 On the twelfth of November, being the day of Saint Kath¬ 
 arine, her patroness, chosen as such in her honor, she made her 
 solemn entrance by London bridge, whence she was conducted 
 in great pomp to St. Paul’s, the streets crowded with people 
 in holiday garbs, the conduits running all day long with Gas¬ 
 con wine, instead of water, and the nobility vieing with each 
 other in the lavish expense of bravery and decoration, whereby 
 to testify their sense of the occasion. On that night, as on that, 
 also, which followed the wedding, she was lodged in the palace 
 
HER MARRIED LIFE AT LUDLOW. 
 
 279 
 
 of the Bishc p of London, adjoining the cathedral, in which the 
 ceremonial was performed, on the feast of St. Erkenwald, being 
 November 14, 1501, by which she became Princess of Wales, 
 and wife to the heir apparent of the British throne. 
 
 The young Duke of York, afterward Henry VIII. and her 
 second husband, conducted her to the altar, himself attired, as 
 was the bridegroom, his brother, in white satin; the princess 
 Cecily bore her train, attended by a hundred ladies of rank ; 
 the service was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 assisted by nineteen bishops and mitred abbots; and the king, 
 the queen, Elizabeth of York, and the king’s mother, the ven¬ 
 erable Countess of Richmond, witnessed the proceedings from 
 a latticed box, which had been prepared for their reception, 
 near to an elevated stage, or mount, as it is called, in the cen¬ 
 tre of the church, whereon the principal persons stood, during 
 the celebration of the nuptials. After the wedding, the prince 
 and princess were sumptuously feasted in the episcopal palace, 
 in St. Paul’s church-yard; and were there bedded, according to 
 the ceremonial and usage of the day, the bed being solemnly 
 blessed, in the presence of a multitude of noble lords and la¬ 
 dies, who were called upon many years afterward to testify to 
 what they had seen on that night, in regard to the cohabita¬ 
 tion of the parties as man and wife. 
 
 And it is w’ell here to state, in a word, that it was proved 
 on oath, by the old Duchess of Norfolk, the Lord and Lady 
 Fitzwater, and other witnesses, who had ample means of know¬ 
 ing the fact, that the young couple slept together on the night 
 of their marriage, at the bishop’s palace, and for five or six 
 nights subsequently; and that,for five months, thereafter,both 
 in London, and at Ludlow, where, as the capital of their prin¬ 
 cipality of Wales, they held a miniature court, modelled after 
 
280 
 
 THE MARRIAGE CONTROVERSY. 
 
 that of Westminstei, they lived in all respects, as n an and 
 wife. At this time, Arthur was in good health, and is de¬ 
 scribed as a gentleman of good and sanguine complexion, above 
 fifteen years of age, while Katharine was a year his senior. 
 Some indelicate remarks of the prince, suited to the rudeness 
 of the time, are quoted, as tending to prove the consumma¬ 
 tion of the marriage; but Katharine, both previous to her sec¬ 
 ond marriage, and at the period of her repudiation, swore that 
 she came to Henry’s bed a pure virgin, as indeed she persisted 
 to the last; and, on the former occasion, offered to submit to 
 the examination of a board of matrons. The whole affair is 
 mysterious, and difficult of ascertainment; yet, in view of 
 Katharine’s unblemished and unquestionable character for pi¬ 
 ety, morality, integrity, honor and worth, we cannot, I think, 
 err in placing full confidence in the veracity of her statements 
 —the rather that she does not by any means appear to have 
 been solicitous to marry, the second time, with Henry, who 
 was five or six years her junior—and in taking it to be a fact, 
 however we may explain it, that her marriage with Arthur 
 never had consummation. It is not my intention to fill whole 
 pages with descriptions of the childish and endless pageants, 
 allegories and masks, which are one of the features of this pe¬ 
 riod, and which must have been, one might judge, from the te¬ 
 diousness of the narrative, mortally wearisome, both to the 
 spectators and performers. They are curious, certainly, in an 
 antiquarian point of view, and as throwing some light on the 
 social life and amusements of our ancestors, which seem to have 
 been as ponderous as their diet; and that was no light matter 
 in days, when the fairest and most delicate of ladies broke their 
 morning fast on chines of beef, kits of salted herrings, with a 
 proper seasoning of kilderkins of mustard, and washed the 
 
SILENCE OF HISTORY IN TIMES OF I’EACE. 
 
 281 
 
 solids down with gallons of October. Those who are curious 
 about such details, will find them spread out over the solid 
 tomes of Ilolingshede and Hall, and quoted largely in Miss 
 Strickland’s lives, as if to make up for the want of what we 
 most desire to know, and what she could not give us, from the 
 lack of existing information, something of the inner and more 
 domestic life of the princes, as well as of the people of that 
 day. 
 
 The truth is this; that where the lives of individuals, and the 
 courses of nations, run tranquilly, peacefully and happily, the 
 memoirs of those and the histories of these have little to re 
 late, and that little is related in a few brief sentences. A cen¬ 
 tury of undisturbed and peaceful national advancement, is fully 
 narrated in two or three generalizing paragraphs — a single year 
 of warfare, of conspiracy, of pestilence, of conquest in a peo¬ 
 ple’s career — of crime, intrigue, misery and ruin in a man’s 
 story, shall require pages, and exhaust eloquence, in proportion 
 as it will excite interest and enchain sympathy. The deepest, 
 and grandest and most fertilizing river, where it dispenses 
 wealth by the lapse of its waters, and bears the welfare of na¬ 
 tions on its bosom, rolls on in silence without a murmur that 
 should denote its existence at a mile’s distance. The paltriest 
 of brooks, where it is tortured into agony, or lashed into fury, 
 shall roar you, that its echoes will be heard over leagues of 
 space. 
 
 We know, therefore, that, before he would consent that his 
 gentle daughter should wed with the heir of England, Ferdinand 
 insisted that the blood of the innocent young Earl of Warwick, 
 unhappy son of the murdered Clarence, and last heir male of 
 the direct line of the Plantagenets of York, should flow on tne 
 seatlold, lest he should one day dispute Arthur’s claim to the 
 
2S2 
 
 KATHARINE, DOWAGER OF WALES. 
 
 throne; but of the life of that young and interesting couple 
 during the brief five months, in which they played Prince and 
 Princess of Wales, in their miniature court of Ludlow, we 
 know nothing. History is silent, and tradition has not left a 
 whisper; but the absence of all rumor is conclusive, as is the 
 regret and the long and exemplary widowhood of the charming 
 Katharine, that they were, as they deserved to be, happy, be¬ 
 loved of one another, and honored by their people. 
 
 Katharine had brought a royal dower of two hundred thou¬ 
 sand crowns to England, on her marriage, half of which sum 
 had been paid down in gold, on the celebration of her nuptials. 
 As Princess of Wales, she received in dower Wallingford 
 castle, Cheylesmore, near Coventry, the city of Coventry, the 
 castles of Conway and Caernarvon, a third part of the stanna¬ 
 ries in Cornwall, and the city and town lands of Macclesfield ; 
 and now, on the death of her young husband by the plague, 
 which occurred amid the general lamentations of the people, 
 within six months after his marriage, she was allowed, in lieu 
 of the rents and rights of these manors and cities, the sum of 
 five thousand pounds, annually, equal, in all respects, to at least 
 ten times that sum in the present day, as her appanage, as 
 princess dowager of Wales. 
 
 It would seem strange, were it not too common of occur¬ 
 rence to excite wonder, that, out of what would seem the abun 
 daDce of her advantages, and the greatness of her position, 
 ATine her worst sorrows. Which was the craftier and more 
 cold-blooded schemer, which the more grasping and avaricious 
 man, which the more ambitious, politic and wily statesman, 
 her father-in-law, or her own father, it were difficult to say. But, 
 no sooner was her young and beloved husband dead, than she 
 
KATHARINE BETROTHED TO HENRY. 
 
 283 
 
 herself, and her possessions, beg:in to be a subject of anxiety, 
 which should profit by her, of the two royal intriguers. 
 
 It was the game of Ferdinand to avoid paying the second 
 hundred thousand crowns of the infanta’s dowry ; and to re¬ 
 cover the hundred thousand which he had already advanced; 
 he, therefore, as loudly reclaimed his “ daughter and his du¬ 
 cats,” as though he had been a very Shyloek, not the most 
 Catholic king of Christian Spain. 
 
 Henry, on the contrary, had no notion of refunding the first 
 instalment, but “ had made it his mind and the whole of his in¬ 
 tent,” to get the second instalment, also; and farther, he had 
 resolved that Katharine’s appanage should be spent, so long as 
 she should draw it, in England, and to England’s profit, and 
 that she should not carry it abroad or disburse it in Spain. 
 
 Hereupon, it was proposed by Henry, and, after some de¬ 
 mur, agreed to by the parents of Katharine, that a dispensation 
 should be obtained from the pope, and that she should be in due 
 season married to Henry, duke of York, who, having been ed¬ 
 ucated for the church, had now become heir, and afterward suc¬ 
 ceeded to the throne, on the demise of his father, as Henry 
 VIII. This prince, it will be remembered, was born on the 
 twenty-eighth of June, 1491, and was now in his twelfth year '■ 
 only ; while the infanta was a magnificent young woman, of 
 eighteen, in the full flush of mature, Spanish adolescence. It 
 is not to be wondered, therefore, that this lady, in the flower 
 of young womanhood, should have been averse to a marriage 
 with a mere boy; and that she should have written to her 
 father, earr estly deprecating the proposed alliance, though pro¬ 
 fessing, at the same time, perfect obedience to his wishes. That 
 father was a mere cold-blooded politician, and the daughter’s 
 nappiness was, of course, unhesitatingly sacrificed on the altai 
 
284 
 
 THE BULL AND BREVE OT DISPENSATION. 
 
 of state expediency. A dispensation was readily obtained 
 from the reigning pontiff, Julius II., and the ceremony of be¬ 
 trothal was performed on the twenty-fifth of June, 1503, in 
 the house of the Bishop of Salisbury, in Fleet street. 
 
 It is very worthy of remark, that Isabella of Castille, who 
 was at this moment on her death-bed, was deeply troubled in her 
 mind with forebodings as to the result of this marriage, though 
 on what grounds it cannot readily be conjectured ; and that 
 she procured a copy of the breve of dispensation to be trans¬ 
 mitted to her in Spain, which she afterward conveyed into Kath¬ 
 arine’s possession, who carefully preserved, and afterward pro¬ 
 duced it, in support of the validity of her marriage. 
 
 By Miss Strickland this alarm on the part of Isabella is re¬ 
 garded, it would appear, as an indication of doubt as to the 
 lawfulness of the marriage, on any terms; while Miss Benger, 
 in her life of Anne Boleyn, speaks stfhngcly of the inconsist 
 ency of Henry and Anne in resting their opposition to the le¬ 
 gality of the marriage, on the alleged invalidity of the bull of 
 dispensation, w hich she terms a mere quibble , rather than on the 
 inherent unlawfulness and vice of such an alliance. Both these 
 ladies forget, I apprehend-the former in marvelling that Kath¬ 
 arine, among her objections to the proposed marriage, should 
 not have spoken of it as repugnant to the laws of God and 
 man, rather than as merely repugnant to her own feelings; 
 and the latter, in viewing the question of the dispensation as a 
 mere quibble—two most important considerations. 
 
 First, that neither Isabella nor Katharine could have regarded 
 such a union as utterly repugnant to the laws of God or man, 
 since such unions were of common occurrence in Spain and 
 Portugal, two of Katharine’s own sisters having been success¬ 
 ively wives to the same man, without a pretence of denying 
 
GENERAL FAITH IN THE VIRTUE OF DISPENSATIONS. 285 
 
 oohalitation or consummation; and since dispensation was re- 
 quired in such cases, only, as it was in case of the union of 
 cousins, of persons pre-contracted but never married, and in 
 all other instances, where the parties were within the prohibi¬ 
 ted degrees of consanguinity, and ! where the bar was merely 
 formal and easily set aside. 
 
 Secondly, that in those days, not one person, in ten thou¬ 
 sand, doubted the right of the pope to grant dispensations, or 
 the absolute virtue of the Papal dispensation, when granted, to 
 legalize that which would otherwise have been illegal, and to 
 obviate all objections to the commission of any deed, which 
 would otherwise have been positively criminal, but was thus 
 rendered innocent and irreproachable. 
 
 The fears of Isabella cannot, therefore, have pointed to any 
 such or similar scruples, but must be attributed to her knowl¬ 
 edge of the tortuous dispositions both of her own husband, 
 Ferdinand, and of Henry, of England, which led her to ap¬ 
 prehend that political chicanery might cause interference with 
 her fair child’s prospect of married happiness, unless her mar¬ 
 riage should be secured beyond a peradventure; and this 
 caused her too seek, by all means, to ensure its validity, and to 
 satisfy herself of the authenticity and fullness of the instrument 
 which sanctioned it. 
 
 Her fears were shortly to be realized, by an occurrence, 
 which doubtless led, in after days, to the inception of Henry’s 
 idea of procuring a divorce, though she lived not to see their 
 confirmation; for soon after the death of Isabella, Elizabeth, 
 the fair Rose of York, Henry’s virtuous and lovely consort, 
 died; and, within a few months of that event, Philip of Bur¬ 
 gundy, sou of Maximilian, on liis voyage from the Nether¬ 
 lands to Spain, was forced by stress of weather to land on the 
 
2SG 
 
 DID SHE LOVE HIM ? 
 
 English coast, with his wife, Joanna, the elder sister of Katha 
 rine. Henry, it appears, was struck with her beauty, and, her 
 husband dying shortly afterward, conceived the idea of him- 
 self marrying the fair widow, and so allying himself yet more 
 closely with the powerful family of Spain. 
 
 hi all ages, the English mind has been especially averse to 
 kindred marriages ; and it seems, that the contract of Katha¬ 
 rine, as widow of one, to a second brother, had not been per¬ 
 fectly acceptable to the people of the realm. At all events, 
 Henry VII. was well assured that if, in addition to this mis- 
 liked alliance, he should himself be united to another sister, of 
 the successive wife of two of his own sons, the popular indig¬ 
 nation would be excited to a dangerous pitch. Warham, the 
 archbishop of Canterbury, one of the most trusty and wisest 
 of his counsellors had, it was understood, already taken excep¬ 
 tion to the marriage of Katharine with the Duke of York, and 
 several of the cardinals were said to have protested against the 
 bull of dispensation. He, therefore, compelled his son, on at¬ 
 taining his fifteenth year, to protest against the contract of mar¬ 
 riage with his brother’s widow, with a view, undoubtedly, to the 
 setting aside of that contract, in case of his own marriage with 
 Joanna ; as that lady proved, however, to be hopelessly insane, 
 the idea of the match passed away, and the protest itself was 
 concealed, as a state secret, until many years afterward, when 
 it was produced, in order to give a color to the base schemes 
 of the lover of Anne Boleyn. 
 
 It is characteristic of Henry’s recklessness and headstrong 
 obstinacy, while he was at yet a mere boy, that, although he 
 had, probably, thought little and cared less, up to this time, 
 for the grave and stately Spanish maiden, who was, as we have 
 seen, six years his senior, he now became, or imagined h'm- 
 
L 
 
 FEARS OF CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE. 287 
 
 self to be, passionately enamored of her, and his father found 
 it necessary to keep a watch over the young couple, and to -J 
 debar their meeting, in order to prevent the possibility of their 
 contracting a clandestine marriage. In what degree, there was 
 real peril of this, it is not easy to judge; whether it was, as 
 Miss Strickland argues “ it must have been, truly provoking 
 to the princess to be treated, as if she wished to steal a mar¬ 
 riage, which she had designated to her father as distasteful 
 and unsuitable,” or whether, in the time that had elapsed since 
 the writing of that letter, her sentiments had not undergone a 
 change, is, to say the least, doubtful. There is, it must be re¬ 
 membered, infinitely a greater disparity between the girl of 
 eighteen and the boy of twelve years, than between a young 
 woman of twenty-one and a youth, unusually precocious of in¬ 
 tellect, as he was beyond his age in stature, both as to height 
 and development, of fifteen. It is scarce to be doubted, that 
 Henry VIII., who had, at the early age of forty, become so 
 bulky as to be difficult of locomotion, ponderous and un¬ 
 wieldy, and who stood, when at his prime, six feet four inches 
 in height, was already at fifteen a large, fully-formed man, 
 looking many years in advance of his actual time of life. And 
 it is possible that the heart of Katharine was not untouched 
 by the manly graces, chivalrous deportment, fair person, and 
 various accomplishments of her youthful lover, even as it is 
 certain, that in after life she did, for her own misfortune, be¬ 
 ing probably the only woman who ever did so, truly and sin¬ 
 cerely love him. 
 
 One; fact is undoubted, that to whatever other causes this 
 contract is assignable, it is not to any distaste to the marriage 
 on the part of Henry ; who, on the contrary, ardently desired 
 it, as was proved by the alacrity with which, immediately on 
 
288 
 
 HER MARRIAGE WITH HENRY. 
 
 his beooming his own master, he proceeded to accomplish the 
 engagement, in spite of the objections of Warham, who liked 
 not the circumstances of the alliance. 
 
 Scarce had he ascended the throne, before he stated to Fu- 
 ensalida, in expressing his determination to fulfill his father’s 
 contract, that he loved Katharine above all other women ; 
 and, for many years after his marriage, after, even, he had be¬ 
 come a faithless and negligent husband, he esteemed her vir¬ 
 tues, appreciated the sweet gentleness of her character, the irre¬ 
 proachable dignity and purity of her life, admired her talents, 
 and loved her as well as such men, as he, are capable of 
 loving. 
 
 “On the day of St. Bernabos, June 11, 1509,” says Bernal- 
 des, the Spanish historian, quoted by Miss Strickland, “ Donna 
 Catalina wedded the brother of her first lord, who was called 
 Enrico, in a place they call Granuche”—Greenwich—“and was 
 crowned afterward on the day of St. John, with all the re¬ 
 joicings in the world.” “Her father, King Ferdinand, was so 
 well pleased,” adds another Spanish historian, “ at his daugh¬ 
 ter’s second marriage, that he celebrated it by grand festivals 
 in Spain, particularly by the jeu des Cannes, or darting the 
 jerreed, in which Moorish sport Ferdinand assisted in person.” 
 
 “ On the 21st of June,” continues the fair authoress, from 
 whom I have quoted the above, “ King Ilenry and Queen 
 Katharine came to the tower from Greenwich, attended by 
 many of the nobility. After creating twenty-four knights, 
 Ilenry, accompanied by Katharine, on the 23d of June, pro 
 ceeded in state through the streets of London, which were 
 hung for the occasion with tapestry. The inhabitants of Corn 
 hill, as the richest citizens, displayed cloth of gold. From 
 Cornhill and the Old Change, the way was lined with young 
 
HER CORONATION. 
 
 289 
 
 maidens, dressed in virgin white, bearing palms of white wax 
 in their hands; these damsels were marshalled and attended 
 by priests in their richest robes, who censed the queen’s pro¬ 
 cession from silver censers, as it passed. Of all the pageants 
 ever devised for royalty, this was the most ideal and beauti¬ 
 ful. At that time, Katharine was pleasing in person. ‘There 
 were few women,’ says Lord Herbert, ‘who could compete 
 with Queen Katharine, when in her prime.’ She had been 
 married but a few days, and was attired as a bride, in white 
 embroidered satin ; her hair, which was black and very beau¬ 
 tiful, hung at length down her back, almost to her feet; she 
 wore on her head a coronal set with many orient stones. The 
 queen, thus attired as a royal bride, was seated in a litter of 
 white cloth of gold, borne by two white horses. She was fol¬ 
 lowed by the female nobility of England, drawn in whirlcotes, 
 a species of car that preceded the use of coaches. Thus she 
 proceeded to the palace of Westminster, where diligent pre¬ 
 paration was making for the coronation next day. Caven¬ 
 dish asserts that all the orders for the king’s coronation and 
 the funeral of King Henry VII. were given by Katharine, the 
 illness of the king’s grandmother and the youth of the king 
 were, perhaps, the reasons that she had thus to exert herself.” 
 That venerable lady, the Countess of Richmond, who had been 
 regent up to the period of the coronation, when Henry at¬ 
 tained his eighteenth year, died a few days after that occur¬ 
 rence, and her decease, joined to a dreadful pestilence, which 
 broke out in London, banished the court to Richmond, where 
 Henry passed the year in “ pageants, masking, and diversions 
 of the like nature, into which he entered with all the avidity 
 of a grown-up child.” 
 
 It is pleasant to know, that the first act of royalty performed 
 
 M 19 
 
290 
 
 WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 by this good queen, was one, consistent with her whole career, 
 of mercy, charity, and justice. At her intercession, the unfor 
 tunate agents of the late monarch’s extortions, Empson and 
 Dudley, who had been, both illegally and unjustly, attainted 
 for high treason, were respited for a while, and would proba- 
 Dly have been pardoned, had not the clamors and accusations 
 of the people, which fatigued Henry’s ears and wore out his 
 patience, during a progress to the northern part of his domin¬ 
 ions, induced him to order them for execution, finding it 
 cheaper to repay his father’s debts to his subjects with inno¬ 
 cent blood, than by refunding the amount which he owed 
 them. 
 
 During the two years, which followed, history has nothing 
 to record, save the balls, revels, and devices of the court, the 
 tilts, tournaments, and barriers, at svhich the young king ex 
 ercised and distinguished himself, fighting daily before the 
 queen and her ladies; the former affecting, probably, an interest 
 in those rude sports, which she did not really feel—for she was 
 of a grave and sedate humor, addicted to literary amusements 
 and studies, strictly observant of her religious duties, and a rare 
 proficient, not in Latin only, in which she composed fluently 
 and correctly, but in the feminine and beautiful art of em¬ 
 broidery, in which she was held to excel. 
 
 In the year 1512, however, he determined to intervene in 
 the war, waging between Pope Julius II. and the Erench king, 
 in which most of the European kingdoms were in some sort 
 involved ; and, in June of that year, the third after his accession 
 to the throne, he sent an army, under the Marquis of Dorset, 
 in Spanish transports, to the coast of Guipuscoa, to cooperate 
 in the conquest of Navarre, and the invasion of Picardy and 
 Guienne. At the same time, Sir Edward Howanl was ap 
 
KATHARINE QUEEN REGENT. 
 
 291 
 
 pointed to cruise in the Channel, to blockade the French fleet 
 in its harbors, and to act in concert with the armies. Both 
 these expeditions were unsuccessful. The army lying inactive, 
 owing to want of concert with the Spaniards, became muti¬ 
 nous in consequence of want and pestilence, lost nearly half 
 its numbers, and finally returned home, having effected no¬ 
 thing, and gained no honor. Sir Edward Howard, whose fa¬ 
 vorite maxim it was, that a sailor’s highest virtue is the height 
 of rashness, after seeing his great ship, the Regent, burnt be¬ 
 fore his face, fell in a desperate attempt to cutout six French 
 galleys, which were moored in the bay of Conquet, under the 
 defence of batteries and rocks planted with cannon. Boarding 
 the largest of the enemy, at the head of a handful of men, he 
 was unsupported, overwhelmed by numbers, and thrust over 
 board by the pikes of the defenders, casting the insignia of 
 command, his admiral’s golden whistle, into the waves, that it 
 might not be a trophy in the hands of the foes of England. 
 This gallant officer, scion of an illustrious and noble race, “was 
 a friend of Queen Katharine and her parents, having served 
 as a volunteer at the seige of Granada; he bequeathed to her 
 in his will a beautiful relic of antiquity, the grace-cup of 
 Thomas a. Becket. The queen subsequently restored the 
 the cup to the noble family of Howard, in whose possession it 
 yet remains.” 
 
 In the following year, burning to achieve glory and to avenge 
 the disasters of the late campaign, Henry took the field in per¬ 
 son, passing over to Calais at the head of a great army, and 
 professing his resolve never to desist from the war, until he 
 should have reconquered all the French dominions of the En¬ 
 glish crown, lost in the disastrous reign of Henry VI. Before 
 departing, he constituted Katharine queen regent of the realm, 
 
292 
 
 HER LETTERS TO HENRY. 
 
 during his absence, with larger powers than any female had 
 ever held in England, with the title of captain-general of all 
 his forces, aided by a council of five nobles — a trust which 
 proves how absolute, at this time, was his confidence in her, 
 and which was fully justified by the wisdom and energy which 
 she displayed in her government. 
 
 Henry’s showy and vain-glorious campaign, which had no 
 results beyond the fruitless victory of “ the Spurs,” and the 
 no less fruitless capture of Terouenne and Tournay, gained, at 
 the best, empty honor only, for the country; but the arms of 
 Katharine at home, wielded by the noble Earl of Surrey and 
 his two gallant sons, Sir Thomas and Sir Edmund Howard, 
 the latter father of a future queen of England, yet more unfor¬ 
 tunate than his first royal mistress, were crowned alike with 
 glory and advantage; for James IV. of Scotland, who had 
 married Henry’s sister, Margaret, and who now took occasion 
 of his brother-in-law’s absence, and the war with France, to in¬ 
 vade his dominions, suffered the heaviest defeat on the famous 
 field of Flodden, which had befallen a Scottish army since the 
 disastrous rout of Nevil’s Cross—at which, as now, an English 
 queen commanded, Philippa, regent for Edward I., like Henry, 
 absent in France with his army—and lost the flower of his 
 kingdom and his own life, in guerdon of his unjust and unchiv- 
 alrous attempt. 
 
 The letters of Katharine to her husband, to Wolsey, now 
 rising in power and in the royal favor, and to other officers 
 of the crown, which are yet extant, display at once the great¬ 
 ness of her talents, the goodness of her disposition, and her 
 administrative capacity. They are written in pure, idiomatic 
 English, without any foreign tone or expression, and indicate 
 how completely, when she assumed the crown of England, she 
 
HER MERCIES. 
 
 293 
 
 assumed also the heart and feelings of an English woman, as 
 well as the dignity of an English queen. It may here be sta 
 ted, if only to refute a charge, probably false, on the memory 
 of Ferdinand, who is said to have suggested to Henry the jn 
 dicial murder of De la Pole, earl of Suffolk, who w r as sacri 
 ficed to the jealousy nourished by Henry against every one, 
 who claimed the dangerous honor of representing a drop of 
 the blood of York, and consequently having the remotest show 
 of pretence to the succession, that, as she did in the case of 
 Warwick, of Einpson and Dudley, of the princely Bucking¬ 
 ham, and of all the unhappy victims of Henry’s rage or policy, 
 Katharine argued and entreated earnestly, though in vain, on 
 the side of mercy. There wars no taint of blood on the un¬ 
 stained whiteness of her regal ermine; and, even to the ex¬ 
 communicated corpse of the ruthless invader, James, she had 
 rendered royal honors, and would have granted a kingly in¬ 
 terment, but that the return of Henry, who meanly avenged 
 the sins of the living man upon the dead clay, frustrated her 
 clemency, and defeated her pious intent. 
 
 In the following September, Henry landed at Dover, and 
 rode post, incognito, to surprise the queen at Richmond, 
 “ where,” observes Hall, “ there was such a loving meeting, 
 that every one rejoiced who witnessed it. 7 ’ Yet under the ex¬ 
 terior show of love, there was already the hollowness of infi¬ 
 delity ; for it was during this campaign, that he first met, at 
 Calais, Elizabeth Taillebois, his first, and, for a long time, his 
 only mistress, with whom he maintained a connection for 
 many years, though with little publicity, meeting her in pri¬ 
 vate at a place called Jericho, near New Hall, in Essex, where, 
 in 1519, she bore him a son, Henry Fitzroy, afterward Duke 
 of Richmond; whom, on the failure of all hope of heirs male 
 
294 
 
 J 
 
 ANXE BOLEYN. 
 
 by Katharine, he once contemplated legitimating and making 
 his heir. This, however, he was prevented doing by the dc 
 cease of the young man, previous to the repudiation of the 
 queen. 
 
 On the 18th of February, 1516, the queen, who had already 
 been the mother of at least two princes, neither of whom long 
 survived his birth, was again brought to bed, this time of a 
 daughter, who was named Mary, after her beautiful aunt, the 
 queen of France; who, after her husband’s decease, had re¬ 
 turned to her native land, and married the object of her first 
 youthful fancy, Charles Brandon, the gay and gallant duke of 
 Suffolk. With this lady is associated the first mention of the 
 queen’s future rival and successor, Anne Boleyn, who accom 
 panied her, as one of her train, then quite a girl, to France, on 
 her wedding with Louis XII.; and who, almost alone of her 
 English ladies, was permitted to remain in her suite, when the 
 rest of her attendants were dismissed. After the death of 
 Louis, and the return of Mary to England, Anne was transferred 
 to the service of the good Queen Claude of France, and is said, 
 though, it is probable, without any real foundation, to have 
 been a favorite of that merry monarch, Francis I., previous 
 to attracting the regards of Henry. At this time, the court 
 of Katharine was graced by the presence of two queens dow¬ 
 ager, both of them sisters of her lord, Mary of France, and 
 Margaret of Scotland, beside an unhappy princess, the daugh¬ 
 ter of the unfortunate Clarence, and sister to that young, un¬ 
 happy Warwick, who died to secure her own accession to the 
 crown. To this royal lady her unvarying kindness and con¬ 
 stant friendship, is a beautiful trait of her gentle and loving na¬ 
 ture, ever anxious to compensate the cruelties of her husband 
 to the survivors of his victims; as was her successful interccs- 
 
VISIT OF CHARLES V. 
 
 295 
 
 sion, in behalf of the London apprentices, condemned to death 
 for their fierce riot, on what is known as “ 111 May-day,” against 
 the Spanish residents, her own countrymen and loving subjects, 
 a proof of her forgiving disposition and true attachment to her 
 English people. 
 
 Eighteen months after the birth of the Princess Mary, the 
 queen had once more hope of giving the king an heir, hope 
 which was again frustrated by the death of the infant, so soon 
 as it saw the light. It was after this disappointment, that 
 Henry publicly owned his son by Elizabeth Taillebois, “ a cir¬ 
 cumstance which,” as Miss Strickland justly observes, “ gave 
 the queen more uneasiness than any jealousy ever occasioned 
 by the boy’s mother.” 
 
 In 1520, the year was rendered famous by two great events, 
 one of which, at least, made glad the heart of Katharine, 
 though probably she had little pleasure in the empty pomps 
 and lavish vanities of the other — the first of these, was the 
 visit of her nephew, Charles V., the emperor of Germany, 
 who landed at Dover, and afterward was spendidly entertained 
 at Calais, whither the royalty of England had crossed over, in 
 order to the second event, alluded to above, the meeting of 
 the kings on the field of Ardres, better known as the field of 
 Cloth of Gold. At this interview, Charles entered into a con¬ 
 tract of marriage with his cousin, the Princess Mary of En¬ 
 gland, and was much delighted with his reception, with the 
 splendor of the English court, and with the enviable position 
 of his aunt, of “ whose happiness he often spoke, in being wed¬ 
 ded to so magnificent a prince as Henry.” 
 
 Little did he think how hollow and insincere was that out¬ 
 ward magnificence; how soon that happiness was to come to 
 a close • how low that position was to be brought down, be- 
 
296 
 
 THE FIELD OF CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 fore the arrival of death, that common leveller of the great 
 ness of kings. 
 
 To Katharine, the field of the Cloth of Gold produced no result, 
 unless it be the real friendship, to which it gave birth, between 
 herself and the good Queen Claude of France; for although 
 Anne Boleyn was certainly present, in the train of the French 
 queen, it does not appear, that she even excited the attention 
 of Henry, much less aroused the jealousy of the queen; who had, 
 at that very moment, reason why she should be aggrieved at the 
 conduct of Anne’s younger sister, Mary Boleyn, a fair, blue¬ 
 eyed beauty, who was, at this time, even more openly and os¬ 
 tensibly Henry’s mistress, than the beautiful Taillebois had been 
 befiire her. For some reason, it is difficult to say why, Miss 
 Strickland chooses to discredit this fact, as she does other well 
 proved circumstances in the life of Anne, to which I shall al- 
 1 ude, hereafter; although it is notorious, that it was by his 
 own shameless assertion of his connection with the younger 
 sister, though neither marriage nor contract between the par¬ 
 ties was pretended, that he procured his subsequent marriage 
 with Anne to be declared null from the beginning, and its ofF 
 spring illegitimate. The clever authoress produces some very 
 pretty sentiment on this subject, in relation to Mary’s subse¬ 
 quent nuptials with William Carey, as disproving the reports 
 of her intimacy with Henry; just as if all history did not 
 teem with examples of fair ladies content to bury the honor, 
 or dishonor, whichever it may be deemed, of royal sultanaship, 
 under the name of wife; and of court gallants willing to ac¬ 
 cept beauty, even when tainted by the touch of kingly favor. 
 
 In 1522, war was again declared against France, and, all 
 the English being recalled to their own country, Anne Boleyn 
 returned to England, and was appointed to the same office in 
 
ANNE BOLEYN, 
 
 297 
 
 the court of Katharine, which she had held in that of Mary 
 and Claude of France, and Margaret of Navarre. She seems, 
 however, to have made, as yet, no impression on Henry; at 
 least the first evidence of his entertaining any regard for 
 her, is found in the passion into which he burst on learning, 
 in 1523, that she was contracted to Ilenry Percy, son of the 
 Duke of Northumberland, and the pains which he took, by 
 aid of the Cardinal Wolsey, to break off the marriage. 
 
 Still, it is clear that the maid of honor did not as yet under¬ 
 stand, or appreciate, Henry’s views —■ perhaps, she imagined 
 that he had deprived her of a noble husband, only in order to 
 make her a royal concubine, a questionable honor, which she 
 by no means appreciated, not yet entertaining a suspicion of 
 the ulterior views, which possibly Henry had not, as yet, him 
 self conceived. At all events, she retired, indignant and of¬ 
 fended, from court to the shades of her father’s noble place of 
 Hever Castle, in Kent, having, it is said by some, been dis¬ 
 missed from her situation about the queen, as a punishment 
 for the favor she had shown to the suit of Percy. From this 
 year, until 1527, there is no mention of her in history, unless 
 it be a vague rumor that the king, on one occasion visiting 
 Hever Castle, the lady took to her bed on the pretence of in¬ 
 disposition, and did not suffer herself to be seen, until after the 
 departure of the royal guest. It is, by some writers, ascribed 
 to this dissolution of her contract with Percy, that she was so 
 constant and unrelenting an enemy to Wolsey ; but it is far 
 more likely that his subsequent opposition, to her elevation 
 to the throne, earned him her ill-will, than his agency in this 
 matter, which, however much it might have grieved her at 
 the moment, certainly, in the end, paved her way to the 
 throne. 
 
 M* 
 
208 
 
 PEACE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 At this same period, Katharine also disappears almost en 
 tirely from the page of history. Her ill health probably in¬ 
 capacitated her from taking, any longer, a part in Henry’s ab¬ 
 surd pageants and revelries; as her gentle and domestic hab¬ 
 its held her aloof from his hunting matches, in which she never 
 took any delight. Her studious tastes increased on her, at the 
 same time her religious observances degenerated into something 
 like asceticism, and, at the very moment, when her declining 
 beauty, her increasing years, and her failure to give him a son, 
 had begun to operate on Henry to her disadvantage, she fur¬ 
 nished her rival with weapons against herself, by withdraw¬ 
 ing herself from participation in the king’s boisterous amuse¬ 
 ments. 
 
 In 1525, Sir Thomas Boleyn, Anne’s father, was created 
 Viscount Rochefort; in 1527, she was recalled to court and re¬ 
 appointed to her old station about the queen’s person, her old 
 lover, Percy, having been compelled to marry Mary Talbot, 
 daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, with whom he led a most 
 unhappy life. It was on the 5th of May, in this year, that 
 peace was reinstated with France, and Mary, the king’s daugh¬ 
 ter, recontracted to Francis, in breach of her engagement to 
 Charles of Spain. 
 
 It is a significant circumstance, that at a grand masque, given 
 to the French ambassadors at Greenwich, Anne was the king’s 
 partner in the dance, and that in the conferences relating to 
 the marriage, the first idea of Mary’s illegitimacy and of the 
 unlawfulness of his union with Katharine was, according to 
 Henry and Wolsey, suggested by a question of the Bishop of 
 Tarbez, concerning the dispensatory power. The allegation is 
 proved to be false, by the minutes of the conferences which 
 have been preserved but the fact has its value, as proving the 
 
CONDUCT OF KATHARINE. 
 
 299 
 
 date when the divorce became a settled object of Henry’s pol¬ 
 icy, which was henceforth avowed to his ministers, and urged 
 by them, as the “ king’s secret matter.” This alleged question, 
 it seems, speedily came to the ears of the queen, who imme¬ 
 diately took measures to protect herself, by sending a private 
 messenger to her nephew in Spain; but Henry, falsely and 
 cowardly protesting that he had no object in view, but to 
 establish the legitimacy of their daughter, beyond a doubt, she 
 was forced to remain apparently satisfied, though doubtless she 
 was not deceived by the weak falsehood. 
 
 It must have been a cruel aggravation to her anxieties, to 
 have Anne always about her person, present at all her pro 
 gresses and entertainments, attracting, doubtless, all the king’s 
 eyes by the coquetries which she so well knew how to prac¬ 
 tice, and monopolizing the attentions, which had once been her 
 own, and which she was not content to resign. 
 
 During all this trying time, the conduct of Katharine was 
 more than irreproachable; it combined all that consummate 
 wisdom, perfect temper, feminine dignity, and conjugal duty 
 could effect or suggest. Thus far, all decorum had been pre¬ 
 served between Henry and his new dulcinea, however he might 
 solicit her in private, ply her with love letters, decorate her 
 with jewels, distinguish her above all other ladies. Thus far, 
 it is probable, save in the resolve to rise unlawfully, Anne was 
 an innocent woman. She had no mind, as she told Henry, to be 
 his mistress, and, as yet, she saw no certain prospect of becoming 
 his wife. She knew, that at this early stage to become the 
 former, while the king had in no wise yet committed himself, 
 would be to renounce all hope of ever becoming the latter. So 
 far, therefore, since Katharine sacrificed nothing of self-respect, 
 dignity, or decorum, resolute to do nothing which should pro- 
 
300 
 
 CONDUCT OF ANNE BOLEVN. 
 
 voke, or in any way justify, a separation from her on Henry’s 
 part, and determined to maintain her own rights and those of 
 her daughter, at all hazards, she would see nothing, hear no¬ 
 thing, though of course seeing and hearing all things, but 
 treated her rival with unvarying gentleness and propriety, ac¬ 
 commodated herself to every wish of her husband, mingled 
 more generally in the sports and amusements of the court, took 
 part in the balls and masques, inclined her ear to minstrelsy, 
 and made every effort to reconciliate the affections of her ca¬ 
 pricious and licentious despot. 
 
 Once only, she seems to have yielded to a momentary in¬ 
 dignation, to have disclosed her knowledge of the secret in¬ 
 trigues of the beautiful maid of honor. She was, it appeal’s, 
 on one occasion, playing at some game of cards, with the fa¬ 
 vorite, in which the person turning up or holding the king 
 stops, as the winner of the game. Anne had a run of luck, 
 winning many times in succession, when the patient queen, 
 shaking her head, sadly exclaimed, “Ah! my Lady Anne, 
 you have the good hap ever to stop at a king, but you are like 
 the others, you will have all or none.” I cannot profess to 
 see, as Miss Strickland does, any vindication of the honor of 
 Anne, in this “gentle reproach” of the queen; nor can I be- 
 .ieve, with Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in view of her return 
 to court, her overt flirtations, and love-letter writings with 
 Henry, immediately after her first lover’s marriage, that “ she 
 would rather have been Percy’s countess than Henry’s queen;” 
 on the contrary, I see, in her every move, a deep determina¬ 
 tion to win the game, at all hazards; I see it in her coyness at 
 one time, in her consent at another; and, above all, I see it in the 
 implacable, unrelenting hatred with which she pursued all who 
 opposed her marriage with the king,—Wolsey to ruin, More 
 
VISIONS OF KATHARINE. 
 
 301 
 
 and Fisher to the block; and for the love and esteem, which 
 she is said, by her encomiasts, to have borne to Katharine, 1 
 read base rivalry and cruel triumph ; I mark her ungentle per 
 secution of the fallen queen’s orphan child, bastardized for her 
 aggrandizement; I see the triumphal dress of yellow, worn on 
 that fallen rival’s funeral day; I hear the exulting speech— 
 “At length 1 am the queen of England”—it needs not the im¬ 
 agination of a Shakspere to conceive, if it might tax his pow¬ 
 ers to create, the phantom of the abused, departed royalty, 
 floating in vengeful majesty athwart the path of the exulting 
 beauty, and replying to the wicked vaunt, “ Not long! not 
 long! ” 
 
 All this, which I can clearly see in the historic page, Katha¬ 
 rine saw, beyond doubt, with the eyes of the flesh, and much 
 of what follows after, she appears to have foreseen, with the 
 eyes of the spirit. 
 
 What during these long years of agony protracted, of hope 
 now extinguished, now for a little while relumed, must have been 
 the sufferings and sorrows of that royal lady, it taxes the most 
 fertile imagination to conceive. From this time, Henry’s ex¬ 
 ertions to obtain the pope’s decision on his divorce was open 
 and unconcealed; though, with his usual hypocrisy, he as¬ 
 cribed these exertions to dilFerent causes, as he addressed him¬ 
 self to different hearers—to the bishops and to his injured wife, 
 he spoke of the troubles of his conscience; to the temporal 
 lords of the necessity of securing the suceesssion. He de¬ 
 ceived no one, although all affected to be deceived, even Kath¬ 
 arine, whom he would have persuaded that it was the validity 
 of her marriage, not its original nullity, which he desired to 
 have confirmed by Clement. 
 
 Once, in 1528, a fearful pestilence broke out in the court, 
 
302 
 
 CAMPEGGIO AND THE DIVORCE. 
 
 known as the sweating sickness, at the same time Campeggio 
 the cardinal legate, was daily expected in London, to hold the 
 trial so long and anxiously desired; and Henry, partly afraid 
 of death, partly anxious to conciliate the good opinions, both 
 of the cardinals and the people, affected penitence and piety, 
 lie sent Anne home to her friends at Hever, and returned en 
 tirely, as it seemed, to his habits of intimacy and affection with 
 the queen. The change was not, however, of long duration, 
 nor was it even sincere while it lasted ; for, at this very time, 
 he was continually writing love letters, in the tenderest strain, 
 and even occasionally paying visits to Anne, incognito, atHle¬ 
 ver Castle. 
 
 In the autumn of this year, Campeggio arrived, with full 
 powers to hear and to decide the case; and Henry, feeling as¬ 
 sured that he should easily obtain his wishes, as dispensations 
 and divorces were, in those days, things readily granted to 
 crowned heads, was in high hope and spirits. Both these 
 were speedily diverted into blind wrath and frantic fury. The 
 pope had been assured by Wolsey, who had thus far not 
 looked unfavorably on the divorce, having it in view to ally 
 the king, his master, either with Margaret, the beautiful duch¬ 
 ess of Alencon, or with Renee, the sister of Claude of France, 
 that Katharine would not refuse to assume a religious life. 
 But now, to the dismay of all parties, and the fierce disgust 
 of Henry, she declared openly that she had no idea whatever 
 of making any religious profession, nor had she any taste or 
 vocation for a religious life. Thereupon Henry blazed out 
 into fury irrepressible, and declared that he had discovered a 
 conspiracy on the queen’s part to kill himself, her husband, 
 and the cardinal, on which revelation his obsequious council, 
 thinking his life in danger, advised him to separate h'mself 
 
TI1E LEGANTINE COURT. 
 
 303 
 
 from her bed and board, and to take from her her daughter, 
 Mary, lest she should turn her infant mind against her father. 
 
 At length, the legantine court sate, in the great hall of Black 
 Friars, on the 28th of May, 1529 ; the royal parties were 
 summoned to appear; Henry replied by two proctors; but 
 the queen appeared in person, followed by a great train of the 
 noblest ladies in the realm, and by four bishops, as her coun¬ 
 sellors ; then courtesying with much reverence to the legates, 
 she appealed from them, as prejudiced and incompetent judges, 
 to the court of Rome. The court continued to sit for weeks, 
 hearing evidence on both sides, and, on the 18th of June, again 
 summoned both the king and queen to appear personally be¬ 
 fore them. Henry, when cited by name, answered, “Here,” 
 in a loud voice, and proceeded to deliver a long, hypocritical, 
 lying speech, praising his wife for all possible excellencies, and 
 descanting on his unwillingness to part with her, unless it were 
 to soothe the pangs of his wounded conscience. The queen, 
 on answering to her name, renewed her protest, on the ground, 
 that all her judges held benefices in the gift of the king, and 
 again appealed to Rome. Her appeal was denied by the court, 
 whereupon, taking no farther notice of the legates, she made 
 the circuit of the hall, followed by all her ladies, fell at Hen 
 ry’s feet, and, after uttering an appeal so pathetic, in its calm 
 and beautiful simplicity, that it melted every heart, save that 
 one heart of stone to which her fortunes were unfortunately 
 bound, left the court, in spite of the repeated citations of 
 the crier,—“ Katharine, queen of England, come again into 
 court.” One of her attendants, on whose arm she was lean 
 ing, called her notice to the summons; when she replied, 
 “ I hear it well enough. But on, on—go j ou on, for this is no 
 court wherein I can have justice; proceed, therefore.” 
 
304 
 
 fisiier’s defence of Katharine. 
 
 When she had withdrawn herself, a strange scene followed. 
 Wolsey called on the king to exonerate him from the charge 
 of having prompted the divorce; Henry declared that this 
 was true, for that the admonitions of his confessor, Bishop 
 Longland, with the demurs of the French ambassadors, had 
 first raised his doubts and scruples. As to the French am¬ 
 bassadors, it has been already shown that they never broached 
 or heard of the topic; and the king’s confessor, according to 
 Burnet, asserted that, instead of his suggesting it to Henry, 
 Henry was continually urging it on him. The king then pro¬ 
 ceeded to state, turning to Warhain to confirm his statement, 
 that “ these doubts having arisen, he had applied to him for 
 license of enquiry, which was granted, signed by all the bish¬ 
 ops.” Fisher, of Rochester, denied that he had signed it, and 
 in being shown his hand and seal, pronounced them both 
 forgeries; and, farther, when Archbishop Warham declared, 
 that Fisher had permitted it to be signed for him, indignantly 
 repelled the falsehood, pertinently enquiring, “ Why, if he 
 wished it done, he could not have done it himself? ” 
 
 Henry, enraged and wearied out by the fruitless debate, dis¬ 
 solved the court in a fury. Fisher, who had been Henry’s tu¬ 
 tor, and was thought to be much loved by him, behaved, spoke, 
 acted, as he was, a true, single-hearted, honest-minded man. 
 But his defence availed the queen nothing, and cost him his 
 life; for neither his pupil, nor his pupil’s paramour, ever for¬ 
 gave him, until his gray head had rolled on the gory scaffold, 
 nor forgave him then ; for they would deprive the mutilated 
 corpse of the honors due to the lowest and the meanest of the 
 dead. 
 
 On the 25th of the same month, Katharine was again cited 
 into court, and, on her refusal to appear, was pronounced con 
 
CAMPEGGIO. 
 
 305 
 
 tumacious. Her appeal to the pope was, however, read, signed 
 by her own hand on every page, protesting as before; and she 
 wrote to her nephew Charles, that she would suffer death, 
 rather than do ought that should compromise her daughter’s 
 legitimacy. 
 
 On the following day she was visited by Wolscy and Cam 
 peggio, in the palace at Bridewell, where they found her em¬ 
 broidering with her maids, and she came to them with a skein 
 of red silk about her neck. They were commissioned to offer 
 her a carte blanche of wealth and honors, from the king, and a 
 patent of secondary succession to Mary, after the children of 
 the next contemplated marriage, if she would consent to a 
 divorce. 
 
 Her refusal was absolute and uncompromising; but, in a 
 private interview which followed, she succeeded in gaining both 
 legates to her cause, so that neither would ever pronounce 
 judgment against her. When the legate’s court was once 
 more assembled, the king’s counsel pressed in vain for judg¬ 
 ment ; for Catnpcggio positively refused to decide, and referred 
 the whole matter to the pontiff. The king’s rage may be im¬ 
 agined, from the conduct of his friends. His brother-in-law, 
 the Duke of Suffolk, when the legates pronounced the court to 
 be dissolved, started to his feet, dashed his hand on the coun¬ 
 cil board, so that the whole house rang, and swore a fierce 
 oath, that “ England never had known a good day since cardi¬ 
 nals came there.” But Wolsey was as proud and bold as 
 Suffolk, and retorted on him sharply. “ Had it not been,” he 
 said, “for one cardinal, at least, the Duke of Suffolk would 
 have lost his head, and had no opportunity of now reviling 
 him.” 
 
 Soon afterward, Campeggio took his leave of (he king, and 
 
 20 
 
oOG 
 
 EXPULSION FROM WINDSOR. 
 
 set off for Italy. But, before leaving England, he was subjected 
 to a grievous insult, his baggage being searched by the officers 
 of tfie customs at Dover, as if he had been conveying out of 
 the realm Wolsey’s treasures, but, in truth, in the hope that 
 the king’s love letters to Anne, which had been purloined, 
 would be found in his mails. At the same time, Wolsey was 
 disgraced, plundered, banished from the court, and, ultimately 
 arrested for high treason, was probably saved from the block 
 only by a timely natural death. 
 
 For one year longer, the unhappy queen continued to dwell 
 as his loving wife, with her reluctant husband, accompanying 
 him in his progresses, eating at his board, and playing her part 
 in the court pageants of which Anne was, in truth, the queen; 
 but when, on the following Whitsuntide, she refused to submit 
 her case to au English court, consisting of four prelates and 
 four temporal nobles, and expressed her determination “ to 
 abide by no decision but that of Rome,” she was ejected con- 
 tumeliously from Windsor castle; all her jewels, all her ward¬ 
 robe, except what she chanced to have on her person, at the 
 moment, and all the rich dowry, she had brought to England, 
 were confiscated ; she was separated from her child, and infa¬ 
 mously robbed of her dignity and title. Thenceforth, she re¬ 
 sided at her manor of More Park, and afterward at Ampthill, 
 near Dunstable. Anne, at once, took her place. In the king’s 
 pomps, his processions, in his journeys and progresses, in the 
 hunting field, at the dining table, at the council board, she 
 queened it openly. In all respects, save that she did not oc¬ 
 cupy the same chamber, and bear the same name or title, she 
 was received by his courtiers, and honored by himself, as a 
 legal wife. Still, nothing could shake Katharine in her noble 
 constancy, consistency and gentle virtues. Her beautiful let- 
 
SUPREME HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 307 
 
 ters to the child, of whom she was so savagely bereaved, and 
 whom she was not permitted to see, on her moat urgent en¬ 
 treaty, either when that child was pining for maternal love and 
 maternal care, or when she was herself on her death-bed, 
 breathe no strains but those of humility, piety and submission 
 to the will of her savage lord, to whom she charges her to be 
 an obedient, loving, grateful daughter. 
 
 About this period, Henry received a private letter of friendly 
 admonition and advice from Clement II., who was attached to 
 him by ties both of gratitude and policy, advising him to take 
 home his true and lawful wife, Queen Katharine, and inconti¬ 
 nently to put away “one Anne,” whom he kept about him. 
 Henry was, for the moment, staggered. He had expected to 
 gain his end easily; and now it was clear to see, that the whole 
 weight of the church and the whole opinion of the Christian 
 world, was against him. Following this secret admonition, as 
 the thunderbolt follows the flash, came the decision of the court 
 of Home. It declared the marriage of Katharine valid, and 
 its issue legitimate, by a preponderating vote of nineteen car¬ 
 dinals out of twenty-two, the three malcontents venturing only 
 to propose a farther delay. But, previous to the promulga- 
 tion of this decree, events had occurred, which rendered it 
 null, and in the end, produced the abolition of the pontifical 
 authority and the Romish influence in England. 
 
 Shortly after the fall of Wolsey, and the receipt by Henry 
 of the pope’s secret admonition, which had moved him so 
 greatly, that he declared himself to have been grossly deceived 
 in the matter, and went so far as to express a half-formed re*, 
 olution to abandon the attempt forever, Cromwell, who had 
 risen on the ruins of his master, Wolsey, at the instigation of 
 Anne, and her kindred—to whom such a change of sentiment 
 
308 
 
 CONFERENCE WITH FRANCIS. 
 
 would have been degradation and destruction—suggested to the 
 king the idea of setting the pope at defiance, causing the di 
 vorce to be granted in the ecclesiastical courts of his own 
 kingdom, and declaring himself supreme head of the church 
 of England. 
 
 J By this scheme, Henry would not only gain the power of 
 making his mistress—of whom he was not yet utterly aweary, 
 though possession had blunted the edge of his early passion, 
 while her failure to give him a boy led him to dread that, in 
 case of marriage, she would not perpetuate his race — but 
 would convert to his use and pleasure, all the dues and droits 
 claimed by Rome, and, on the plea of reforming abuses, 
 ultimately, all the wealth of the monasteries and abbayes of 
 England. The bait took instantly, and, though Henry prom¬ 
 ised Francis, who visited him at Calais, in order to hold a con¬ 
 ference on this very subject, that he would not proceed with 
 his new project, until the French king should have made an¬ 
 other attempt to bring Clement to grant the divorce, he never 
 gave up the idea, which shortly afterward became a fact. 
 
 On this progress to his French dominions, Henry was ac¬ 
 companied by Anne, who had been recently invested Marchion¬ 
 ess of Pembroke, with ceremonies not far differing from the 
 coronation of a queen ; but the lady and her lover were equally 
 disappointed by the evidence, which they received, of the light 
 in which her character and station were regarded on the conti¬ 
 nent, in the fact that, although especially invited, Francis 
 brought neither Margaret, queen of Navarre, nor his sister 
 Renee, to the interview; nor were any French ladies of rank, 
 jhow anxious soever Francis might be politically and socially 
 to gratify his powerful ally, found willing to lend the sanction 
 
ANNE BOLEYn’s MARRIAGE. 
 
 300 
 
 of their presence to the state of a person, who could be re¬ 
 garded in no other light than that of a royal concubine. 
 
 On the return of the king to England, circumstances pre¬ 
 cipitated measures; it was soon found, that Anne w r as likely 
 to make her lover a father, before she was herself made a 
 wife; and, in order to secure the legitimacy of the child, a 
 private marriage was resorted to, on the 25th of January, 
 1533, which was celebrated in a room of the west tower at 
 Whitehall, in the presence of Norris, who afterward suffered 
 with the new queen, Ilcneage, another groom of the chambers, 
 and Anne Savage, lady Berkeley, who bore Anne’s train. 
 The mass was performed by Dr. Rowland Lee, who demurred 
 to the duty until Henry assured him—the assurance being a 
 most unmanly and unkingly lie—that Clement had pronounced 
 in favor of his divorce, and that he, then, had the instrument 
 in his desk. Much mystification was resorted to in the con 
 cealment of the real date of the marriage; which, it appears, 
 bold as he was, Henry was afraid to avow, so indignant were' 
 the people; and in the subsequent attempt to ante-date it, in 
 order to save Anne’s character for chastity; but the date is, 
 in truth, fully established by the evidence, as well of Wyatt, 
 Anne’s former lover, constant admirer, and defender, to the 
 last, who fixes it on St. Paul’s day, the 25th of January, as 
 above stated. If this were not enough, Cranmer, the arch¬ 
 bishop, also a supporter of Anne, wrote a letter, yet extant, to 
 his friend Hawkins, the English ambassador near the court of 
 the emperor, denying that he had married the royal pair, “for 
 I myself knew not thereof, for a fortnight after it was 
 done;” and, also, stating that she was married ‘•'■much about 
 Sainte Paule’s daye laste.” The object of this letter is to 
 show that the marriage was previous, not subsequent, to the 
 
810 
 
 ANNE’S UNCHASTITV. 
 
 coronation ; and the reason for the substituting of the words 
 “ much about” for “ on,” by the archbishop, who must have 
 certainly known the real date of the celebration, is easily 
 found in the fact that the Princess Elizabeth was born on the 
 7th day of September of the same year, or seven months and 
 thirteen days after the celebration of the marriage. This date 
 is, of course, carefully suppressed, or slurred over, without 
 comment, by Protestant historians, who, blinded by polemical 
 partisanship, or by a false sympathy for their sex, like Miss 
 Bcnger and Miss Strickland, positively deny that Anne was 
 ever the mistress of Henry, or granted him any ante-connubial 
 favors—but it, in truth, summarily settles the question. That 
 she conceived a child to the king, two months before her mar¬ 
 riage—even if that marriage had been anything more than a 
 mere quibble , while a previous marriage existed, undissolved— 
 is conclusive, as to her unchastity ; nor, when to this certain 
 and undeniable proof is added the circumstantial evidence, af¬ 
 forded by her occupation of contiguous apartments to the king, 
 during at least three years, and by her being the constant 
 companion of his privacy, as well as of his pomps, can it be 
 doubted that, so soon as she felt assured that he was fully bent 
 on repudiating his lawful wife, and espousing herself in her 
 stead, she surrendered herself wholly to his passions, trust¬ 
 ing to her own blandishments and beauty to secure his capri 
 cious favor 1 
 
 How nearly that was lost, we have already seen. Had it 
 not been for Cromwell’s offer to place the power and the rev¬ 
 enues of the English church in his control, it is probable that 
 Henry would have discarded the paramour, of whom he was, 
 perhaps, half satiated, so early as 1530, when the pope’s pri¬ 
 vate admonition reached him. Had she not found herself 
 
KATHARINE IN SECLUSION. 
 
 311 
 
 enceinte, after her return from Calais, it is probable, that she 
 would have lived Marchioness of Pembroke, and died in her 
 bed, not on the scaffold. 
 
 On her expulsion from Windsor, Katharine replied only in 
 these touching words,—“Go where I may, I am his wife, and / 
 for him I will ever pray.” She never again saw her husband, 
 or her child. Until after the marriage of Anne, she was al¬ 
 lowed the title of queen, and the empty honor to be served, 
 on the knee, and to be treated with the external deference, 
 due to the rank which had been so rudely wrested from her. 
 
 Of silent sorrow, of domestic grief, of anguish beyond expres¬ 
 sion, patiently, nobly, unmurmuringly endured, history never 
 preserves a record. We know only of Katharine’s life, during 
 her seclusion, between her abandonment and her divorce, that 
 her time was passed, among her faithful ladies, in acts of char¬ 
 ity, devotion, piety, varied only by the feminine arts and oc¬ 
 cupations of embroidery, to which she had always been ad¬ 
 dicted. Wherever she lived, the poor inhabitants of the neigh¬ 
 borhood profited by her goodness, loved her, prayed for her, 
 followed her with their sighs, when she was removed from 
 among them. 
 
 In the meantime, Cranmer was raised to the archbishopric 
 of Canterbury, vacant by the death of Warham, taking the 
 oaths of obedience to the pope, under the mental reservation, 
 that he took that oath so far as it should not bind him to any¬ 
 thing, contrary to the law of God, prejudicial to the rights of 
 the king, or prohibitory of the reforms, which he intended to 
 make in the church of England. 
 
 The first measure he took, being, indeed, that for which 
 alone he was appointed, was to open his court at Dunstable, 
 for the trial of the case of Queen Katharine’s marriage, having 
 
312 
 
 chanmer’s decree. 
 
 the Bishop c f Lincoln for his assessor, and the Bishop of Win- 
 Chester and seven other prelates, for the king’s councillors. 
 The queen, who was resident at Ampthill, distent five miles 
 only from Dunstable, was thrice cited to appear, and, not ap¬ 
 pearing, the citations being proved, pronounced contumacious. 
 Whereupon, Cranmer gave his decision, not divorcing the par¬ 
 ties, but declaring the marriage null and invalid, as incestuous 
 contracted and consummated in defiance of the Divine prohibi¬ 
 tion, and therefore without effect from the beginning. 
 
 A subsequent act declared the marriage of Henry with 
 Anne to have been public aud manifest, and confirmed it by 
 the pastoral authority of Cranmer himself, so that it was in it¬ 
 self valid from the beginning, and its issue legitimate. 
 
 This measure was immediately followed by the coronation 
 of Anne, which was celebrated with unusual splendor; and 
 that by an unmanly and cruel attempt to degrade, yet farther, 
 the forsaken queen. 
 
 She was notified at once to be content with the style of 
 Dowager Princess of Wales; her income was reduced to her 
 settlement, as Arthur’s widow; and all her attendants, -who 
 should persist in giving her the title of queen, were irrevocably 
 dismissed. Still, Katharine would not yield one hair’s breadth. 
 “ She had come a clean maid to his bed, she would never be 
 her own slanderer, or confess herself a harlot of twenty-four 
 years standing. She valued not the judgment, pronounced at 
 Dunstable, while the cause was still pending ‘by the king’s li 
 cense’ at Rome, at a pin’s fee; and as to fears and threats, 
 she feared not those which have power over the body, but 
 Him only that hath the power of the soul.’” 
 
 Henry had cruelty, ability, and courage to carry out his 
 will, under almost every possible shade of circumstances; but 
 
KATHARINE AT BUCKDEN. 
 
 313 
 
 if his cruelty sufficed, he either doubted his ability, or lacked 
 the courage, to carry out his persecution, to accomplishment, 
 jf his noble and unoffending queen. He could persecute her, 
 and harass her with solicitations and commands; he could dis¬ 
 charge her women, and imprison her ecclesiastics and con¬ 
 fessors—more than one of whom, after her death, possibly he 
 dared not do it before, he consigned to the fagot and the stake 
 — but he could not bend her to resign, or compel her few 
 faithful attendants to deny to her the title which was her due. 
 
 At first she sojourned at Buckden, in what was afterward, 
 and is now, the palace of the Bishop of Lincoln ; where her 
 life, sad as it was, was embittered by the constant annoyances 
 heaped on herself and on her servants, who would not be 
 sworn to wait on her save as on the queen ; by the cruel sep¬ 
 aration from her care of the young princess, Mary; by the 
 act of succession, passed solely to illegitimate that unoffending 
 child; by the persecution of the adherents of her creed ; and, 
 above all, by the judicial murder of Fisher and More, who, as 
 she believed, to the end, were victims only to their attachment 
 to herself. 
 
 When a commission was sent down, with authority either 
 to intimidate her by threats, or induce her by conciliatory oft 
 fers of augmented rank and increased income, into consenting to 
 her own degradation, her reply was still the same,—“ For the 
 vain glory of being styled queen, she cared nothing. But the 
 king’s w'ife she was, and would be; and her daughter was the 
 king’s child, as God had given her unto them ; and so she 
 would render her unto him, and in no otherwise.” 
 
 Then she commanded, as a queen, and as the queen they 
 presumed not to disobey her, that the minutes of the confer¬ 
 ence should be brought to her; and wherever the words 
 N 
 
314 
 
 HER TIME FAST COMING. 
 
 “Princess Dowager of Wales” occurred therein, she erased 
 them with the dash of an indignant pen by her own royal 
 hand. She was the lawful queen of England, she lived so, 
 and, though she made no boast—as did her unfortunate suc¬ 
 cessor, without making her boast good — that no one could 
 prevent her from dying, as she had lived, England’s queen, 
 she died so. Henry himself dared not, or could not pre¬ 
 vent it. 
 
 While she was yet at Buckden, it was only a few months 
 before her death, that the remarkable passage occurred in 
 which, when she heard one of her ladies cursing Anne, she ap¬ 
 pears to have foreseen, in her knowledge, doubtless, of her hus¬ 
 band’s character, the fate of her haughty rival. “Curse her 
 not, curse her not,” she said, “ but rather pray for her; for 
 even now is the time fast coming, when you shall have reason 
 to pity her and lament her case.” 
 
 And so was the time, indeed, fast coming; but Katharine’s 
 own time was coming faster. Sorrow and suffering, hope de¬ 
 ferred, and agony protracted, and the ineffable, indescribable 
 heart-break of a spirit high • yet humble, proud yet patient, 
 shattered yet self-sustained, had done more than the work of 
 years on her delicate and deranged system. And, when the 
 damp climate and clay soil of the low, fenny Buckden so aggra 
 vated the malady and depressed yet more the sinking spirits, 
 of the native of the golden Granada, that she asked of her sav¬ 
 age despot a change of scene and air, he ordered her to Foth- 
 eringay, a place so notorious for its “ ill air,” that she refused 
 to be removed thither,unless she should be “ drawn by ropes” 
 to that gloomy and malarious abode; the prison in after days 
 of a more calamitous and lamentable, because less innocent 
 and noble, queen. 
 
HER LAST LETTER TO HENRY. 
 
 315 
 
 The castle of Kimbolton, when she would not go, unless per 
 force, to Fotheringay, received her—a residence, agueish and al 
 most deadly, to the most recent times, from the influence of 
 the miasma of the rivers Ouse and Nene, and the stagnant wa¬ 
 ters, not far distant, of Whittlesea More. Sir Edmund Bed- 
 ingfield was, nominally, her castellan,—virtually, her gaoler; 
 for no person was allowed access to her, even on her death¬ 
 bed, without a warrant from the privy council; her only child 
 was not permitted to gladden her dying eyes; and her inti 
 mate friend, the Lady Willoughby, obtained access to her 
 chamber, in her last moments, only by the exertion of much 
 fortitude and firmness, seconded by some female artifice. 
 
 The will of this excellent woman and admirable queen, pray¬ 
 ing for the payment of a few just debts to her immediate de¬ 
 pendents, out of her own jointure as dowager of Wales, of 
 which wretched pittance, even, her base and brutal husband, 
 who had already pocketed her dowry, and plundered her jewel 
 box and wardrobe, regularly defrauded her, speaks volumes 
 for her worth and her unworthy treatment. 
 
 Her last letter, to the husband of her youth, the father of 
 her child, the destroyer of her happiness, her life, her all, ex¬ 
 cept her honor, might have wrung tears from stone. It is 
 here:— 
 
 “ My lord and dear husband, I commend me to you. The 
 hour of my death draweth fast on, and, my case being such, 
 the tender love I owe you forceth me, with a few words, to 
 put you in remembrance of the health and safeguard of your 
 soul, which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, 
 and before the care and tendering of your own body, for the 
 which you have cast me into many miseries, and yourself into 
 
316 
 
 Katharine’s death. 
 
 many cares. For my part, I do pardon you all, yea, I do 
 wish and devoutly pray God that he will also pardon you. 
 
 “ For the rest, 1 commend unto you, Mary, our daughter, 
 beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I heretofore 
 desired. I entreat you also in behalf of my maids, to give 
 them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but 
 three. For all my other servants, I solicit a year’s pay more 
 than their due, lest they should be unprovided for. 
 
 “ Lastly, do I vow that mine eyes desire you above all 
 things.” 
 
 I said, that this letter might have wrung tears from stone. 
 It is on record that it did wring tears from Henry. How far 
 those were Egyptian tears, such as the crocodile is feigned to 
 shed, he can judge, who is informed, that, after weeping, this 
 most unkingly husband of that right royal queen, dispatched 
 his right-hand rascal — I know no other word, in our strong 
 Saxon tongue, wherewith to typify Solicitor-general Rich, or 
 my Lord-chancellor Wriothesley — to Kimbolton, to devise 
 means, whereby he might seize and convert to his own use, 
 without paying her just debts, the miserable goods and chat¬ 
 tels, the relics of the scanty wardrobe—not equal to that of an 
 English yeoman’s goodwife—of her, his true queen, and the 
 daughter of the mighty Ferdinand and Isabella, to whom, be¬ 
 side Castille aud Arragon and Leon, Columbus had given a 
 new world, beyond the Herculean pillars and the western sea. 
 
 Whether the king and his attorney succeeded in their 
 scheme, history has not told us—if they did not, pettifogging 
 Rich was not to blame for it. He advised his master, that to 
 claim her goods, as his own, would be to acknowledge her his 
 wife; and therefore suggested, that he should administer for 
 
Katharine’s perfection. 
 
 317 
 
 her, as Princess Dowager of Wales, and then confiscate all, as 
 insufficient for the charges of her funeral. 
 
 It matters not whether the advice was acted upon or no. 
 The animus , the intent, are undeniable. The advice, in this 
 case, condemns no less the receiver, than the giver. Such a 
 servant must have had no other than such a master. Tacitus 
 has recorded the atrocities of the Caesars, he has told how they 
 butchered their sisters, mistresses, wives, mothers, but it was 
 left to the Defender of Faith and the first Head of the church 
 of England, to cut the purses and rob the legatees of his 
 victims. 
 
 As Katharine of Arragon, I know of no woman, recorded in 
 veritable history, or portrayed in romance, who approaches so 
 nearly to perfection. So far as it is permitted to us to see 
 her character, without or within, there was no speck to mar 
 the loveliness, no shadow to dim the perfection, of her fault¬ 
 less, Christian womanhood. If anything mortal could be per¬ 
 fect, that mortal thing, so far as man may judge, was Katha¬ 
 rine of Arragon. 
 
 “In the words of Dr. ITarpsfield* ‘she changed this woful, 
 troublesome existence for the serenity of the celestial life, and 
 her terrestrial ingrate husband, for the heavenly spouse, who 
 will never divorce her, and with whom she will reign in glory 
 forever.’” 
 
 ♦Quoted from Strickland's Queens cf England, to whose research — although I dif¬ 
 fer totocwlo from most of her deductions, and estimates of character —1 giadiy record 
 my obligation. 
 

 
 
ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 MARRIED, 1533 ; BEHEADED, 1536. 
 
 When passion taught a monarch to be wise, 
 
 And gospol light first dawned from Anna’s eyes. 
 
 GKiT. 
 
 What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? 
 
 Bykon, Childa 1/aroU. 
 
ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 BOHN, 1501—7 ; MARRIED, 1533; BEHEADED, 1586- 
 
 When passion taught a monarch to he wise. 
 
 And gospel light first dawned from Anna’s eyes. 
 
 Gray 
 
 W hat daughter of her beauties was the hoir ? 
 
 BrnoN. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 That female beauty has a magic spell, dazzling the eyes 
 and bewildering the judgment of contemporaries, who, behold¬ 
 ing its brightness, are under the direct influence of its power, 
 is too notorious to be a matter either for marvel or comment. 
 It is but the old story of that Athenian advocate, who, finding 
 that, on the evidence, his frail client must needs be convicted 
 of the crime laid to her charge, unveiled her charms to the 
 eyes of the aged judges of the Heliaea, and won from them 
 by the mute eloquence of that unrivalled beauty, the verdict, 
 which he despaired of gaining by all his powers of oratory or 
 argument, which had no innocence for its support. But that 
 the mere report of loveliness, which their own eyes have never 
 looked upon, and which they receive only at tenth hand from 
 hearsay, when centuries have passed since that vaunted excel¬ 
 lence of form and feature has mouldered into the all-equalizin'* 
 N* 21 
 
322 
 
 HISTORICAL PARTISANSHIP. 
 
 grave, should warp the candor and disarm the judgment of 
 grave and sober-minded historians, converting them into mere 
 partisans, apologists, or even encomiasts, does, indeed, appear 
 wonderful and unaccountable, but, not for that, is it the less 
 true. 
 
 In two instances, especially, that of the unhappy lady, of 
 whom it is my earnest aim and intent to draw a truthful por 
 trait, having it still in mind, “ naught to extenuate and naught 
 set down in malice,” and that of the no less woful queen, Mary 
 of Scotland, has this been the case. 
 
 In both cases, their charms, while they were living, so mad¬ 
 dened the spirits of men and fascinated their understandings, 
 that nothing approaching to an impartial censure of their con¬ 
 duct or characters could be expected from those, who looked 
 upon them, where they were not manifestly hostile and influ¬ 
 enced by religious hatred, only to admire, to love, and to 
 deem them incapable of wrong. But it is strange, that to this 
 day, men speak tenderly, pitifully, forgivingly, almost lovingly, 
 of those two unhappy sirens, seeming to consider it almost a 
 sacrilege to impute guilt, or attach suspicion, to creatures so 
 enshrined in the halo and consecrated by the odor of grace and 
 loveliness, as these two fair, and, it must out, frail, enchant¬ 
 resses of a bygone age. The tradition of their fascinations 
 haunts us, as if it were a real presence; the memory of their 
 sorrow melts, the bitterness of their fate revolts us. We feel, 
 as if we sate in judgment on their reputations, as if we saw their 
 pale, despairing faces, their deep, earnest eyes waiting our de¬ 
 cision, and witching us to mercy, “in the scorn of consequence.” 
 We almost fancy, that to pronounce adverse sentence is to 
 bid the beautiful heads roll again upon the gory scaffold, the 
 
PARTY PREJUDICES. 
 
 323 
 
 lovely eyes and lips, again to quiver in convulsions, when held 
 up to the gaze of the abhorrent spectators. 
 
 Another object stands in the way of the truthful historian 
 of the lives of these fatally fascinating queens, whose love and 
 favor seem to have brought misery or death to all on whom 
 they rested—it is this, that in the case of each, their virtues or 
 their vices have been made almost articles of faith by the par¬ 
 tisans of two hostile religions, who have identified their causes 
 with the characters of the unhappy ladies, and have gone all 
 lengths, and hesitated at no expedients, to vilify their reputa¬ 
 tions or sustain their innocence. 
 
 The Iiomish party, justly attributing the English schism to 
 the influence of Anne over the lustful and licentious despot, 
 who shook off, in mere wanton wickedness, the yoke of Rome 
 from the English neck, have assailed her memory with no 
 less rancor, since her destruction, than her contemporaries, of 
 the same creed, hunted her living to the block. 
 
 The Protestants have, in like manner, but with far less 
 cause, since Anne was no more a Lutheran, than she was a 
 follower of Mahomet, or a favorer of reform, except so far as 
 regards the subversion of pontifical authority in England, 
 which was with her merely a matter of policy and self inter¬ 
 est, not of religion, persisted as far and as blindly in her vindi¬ 
 cation. 
 
 Precisely opposite has been the course, adopted by the two 
 religious parties, in the case of Mary Stuart, the Scottish Cal¬ 
 vinists, with the fierce, intolerant, fanatic, Knox, at their head, 
 and the English Protestant subjects of Elizabeth, combining 
 to blight her memory, after cutting short the thread of her sad 
 life; while the Papists as religiously maintained her purity, 
 and still regard her as a martyr, almost canonize her as a saint. 
 
324 
 
 PARTIAL AND IMPARTIAL JUDGMENT. 
 
 The lives of both these ladies have been given to the public 
 by authors of their own sex; but little can be said of their 
 fairness or impartiality; naturally, perhaps, but, beyond doubt, 
 unfortunately, they have chosen to buckler the cause of their 
 sex, rather than that of truth ; and the result — more particu 
 larly in Miss Benger’s life of the hapless queen, now under dis¬ 
 cussion—has been, indeed, lamentable. It is not too much to 
 say, that never was a work professing to be a history, so 
 wholly unworthy of reliance. She omits all notice of dates, 
 where to notice them would invalidate or controvert her the¬ 
 ory ; she resorts to vague probabilities, not only in lieu of, but 
 in contradiction to, approved facts; and, in every possible way, 
 manufactures evidence to suit her purpose, without the small¬ 
 est regard to consistency or truth. 
 
 It is easy, it seems to me, to discern the difference between 
 absolute innocence and absence of proved crime. It is possi¬ 
 ble to distinguish between illegal sentence, and undeserved 
 punishment. Above all, as it is natural to sympathize with a 
 person cruelly persecuted, unlawfully condemned, and mur¬ 
 derously sacrificed to the lust of bloody vengeance, not to the 
 majesty of the law—so it is unnecessary and untrue, to attribute 
 all possible excellences and an absolute immunity from all re¬ 
 proach, to the victim of injustice, however flagrant, sanguinary, 
 or atrocious, when that injustice is manifest, but in a single in¬ 
 stance—and still more so, where the charges, although unsus¬ 
 tained by sufficient evidence, are yet so countenanced by glar¬ 
 ing probabilities, and self-evident presumptions, that it is as dif¬ 
 ficult positively to pronounce the judgment virtually unjust, as 
 it is easy to declare it actually illegal. 
 
 I shall endeavor to lay the pitiful case of Anne Boleyn—for 
 pitiful it is, although her conduct toward others was not such 
 
FAMILY OF ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 325 
 
 as to entitle her, in her own turn, to claim much pity for her¬ 
 self—faithfully, and charitably before my readers, not forget¬ 
 ting that it is a duty to lean to the side of innocence, where 
 guilt is not manifestly proven, and to look with suspicious 
 eyes on persecution, where the object of the persecutor is no¬ 
 torious. Of Anne Boleyn’s early life but little can be posi- 
 tively ascertained, owing to her long-continued absence from 
 England, and to the want of correct memoranda concerning a 
 person, who was of little personal consequence, until her ro¬ 
 mantic rise and disastrous fall, after she had advanced, at least, 
 toward maturity. The date, even, and the place of her birth are 
 doubtful; the records and anecdotes of her youth are few and 
 far between; and it was found necessary to treat so fully of 
 her conduct, in relation to her predecessor, the august Katha¬ 
 rine of Arragon, in making up the memoir of that sovereign 
 lady, so closely were the threads of their fortunes and fates 
 intermingled during the pendency of the proceedings for di¬ 
 vorce, and of Anne’s accession to her perilous, and, as it proved, 
 disastrous dignity, that little remains to be given, beyond a 
 brief recital of facts, up to the date of her royal rival’s de¬ 
 cease, and the commencement of her own decline. 
 
 It is stated by Lingard, a most industrious, laborious, trust¬ 
 worthy, and generally impartial writer, that Anne Boleyn was 
 bom in the year 1507, but little more than a twelvemonth 
 prior to Henry’s accession to the throne. Miss Benger as¬ 
 sumes the date, without inquiry, as a fact; though^she subse- 
 quently discredits it, in a note, which, apparently, is done with 
 out her being aware that she does so. 
 
 She was of illustrious, if not strictly noble, blood; of a fam 
 ily, which had long enjoyed a high degree of royal favor, and 
 which was connected by intermarriage with many of the proud 
 
320 
 
 anne’s birth-place. 
 
 est and most ancient lines in the realm. Her father, Sir 
 Thomas Boleyn, who had distinguished himself in the late 
 reign, fighting for the present king’s father, against the Cornish 
 insurgents, was the son of Sir William Boleyn, of Blickling 
 Hal], in Norfolk, by Margaret, sister and coheir of Thomas 
 Butler, the last earl of Ormond, and married Elizabeth How¬ 
 ard, daughter of the renowned Earl of Surrey, victor of Flod- 
 den-field, afterward raised for his services in that battle to the 
 dukedom of Norfolk, which title had been previously in the 
 family, till forfeited by his father for adherence to Richard III., 
 at Bosworth, and which remains in it to the present day. 
 This marriage brought Sir Thomas Boleyn into close connec¬ 
 tion with the blood royal; as his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas 
 Howard, created Earl of Surrey, on his father’s elevation to 
 the dukedom, who himself led the vanguard at Flodden, hav¬ 
 ing succeeded his brother, Sir Edward, as lord high ad¬ 
 miral, had married Anne Plantagenet, sister of Elizabeth of 
 Fork, wife of Henry VII., and mother of Henry VIII. He 
 was, therefore, brother-in-law to the king’s aunt; and to this, 
 probably, is due the early and constant promotion of himself 
 and his family to offices and places of trust, about or under the 
 crown. 
 
 Hever Castle, in Kent, Rochefort Hall, in Essex, and Blick¬ 
 ling Hall, in Norfolk, have all been named as the birth-place 
 of Anne, but the evidences are strongly in favor of Blick¬ 
 ling. Oral tradition still asserts the fact, which is believed 
 even by the peasantry of the neighborhood; and the older 
 portion of the mansion, which is coeval with her birth, was 
 long supposed to be haunted by her domestic spectre. Blome- 
 field, the historian of Norfolk, and the antiquary, Sir Henry 
 
DATE OF ANNE'S BIRTH. 
 
 327 
 
 Spelman, in his Icena, the latter himself a Norfolk man, sim 
 ply assert it to be her birth-place, as a matter beyond cavil. 
 
 “No fairer spot than Blickling,” says Miss Strickland, from 
 whom the above facts are derived, “ is to be seen in tne county 
 of Norfolk. 
 
 “ Those magnificent, arcaded avenues of stately oaks and 
 giant chesnut trees, whose majestic vistas stretch across the 
 velvet verdure of the widely-extended park, reminding us, as 
 we walk beneath their solemn shades, of green, cathedral aisles, 
 were in their meridian glory three hundred and fifty years ago, 
 when Anne Boleyn first saw the light in the adjacent mansion. 
 
 “ The room where she was born was shown, till that por¬ 
 tion of the venerable abode of the Boleyns was demolished to 
 make way for modern improvements.” 
 
 Here, then, it may be assumed, the future queen of En¬ 
 gland was born, in or about the year 1501—not, with all 
 deference to Lingard’s authority, in 1507—when her lord and 
 master, that was to be, was but ten years old. A difference 
 of age so small as to set aside the possibility of the stupid and 
 malicious slander, that she was Henry’s own daughter; and 
 coinciding nearly with Lord Herbert’s estimate, who states, 
 that she returned to England, on the recall of the English stu¬ 
 dents from Paris, consequent on the declaration of war against 
 Francis, which occurred in 1522; and that she was then in 
 about the twentieth year of her age. It is also known, that 
 she accompanied Mary, the beautiful sister of Henry VIII.—on 
 her going to France as bride of Louis XII.—in quality of maid 
 of honor, in the year 1514; which is not credible of a child 
 of seven years, much less is it to be believed, that, on Mary’s 
 return to England a few months later, on her royal husband’s 
 death, so mere an infant, as she is represented to have been, 
 
date of anne’s birth. 
 
 328 
 
 should be continued in that office, with a second queen jf 
 France, Claude the Good, the lovely wife of Francis of Valois, 
 
 There is, however, evidence of her age, yet more conclusive, 
 in a letter, yet extant, which she wrote to her father, on recep¬ 
 tion of her appointment as Mary’s maid of honor, and which 
 is evidently the composition of no child, but of a mature- 
 minded and sensible young woman, containing more advanced 
 ideas, than one would now expect from a girl of fifteen years. 
 It is, moreover, certain, as we shall see hereafter, that, subse¬ 
 quent to her return to England, being about twenty years old, 
 she had love passages of some considerable duration, and, as 
 some have affirmed, a contract of marriage with Henry Percy, 
 son of the Earl of Northumberland. Now, Henry Percy was 
 married to Mary Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, 
 in the year 1523, after his flirtation with Anne had been 
 brought to a close, by the interference of Wolsey and the 
 young lord’s father, at Henry’s positive command. This is, 
 of course, conclusive as to the fact of her being born long 
 prior to 1507, as alleged; since it is equally improbable, 
 not to say impossible, that she should have been a maid of 
 honor at seven, and that at fifteen she should have made so 
 deep an impression on the mind of Henry, already a man of 
 double her years, as to determine him on divorcing his lawful 
 wife, in order to make so young a creature queen. 
 
 It is not stated, positively, that she was present at the meet¬ 
 ing of the kings of France and England, at the field of Cloth of 
 Gold ; but as both the queens were sharers in the pomp, with 
 their respective retinues, and as she was, at the time, Claude’s 
 maid of honor, it cannot be doubted that she figured in the 
 show, though it is, surely, somewhat bold to speculate, with 
 Miss Benger, on the chances of her having danced at a masque 
 
anne’s first prospects matrimonial. 
 
 329 
 
 given in honor of Henry, on the occasion of his visiting her 
 royal mistress. 
 
 After having remained some years—it cannot be stated 
 with precision how long—in the service of Queen Claude, who 
 was a lady something of Katharine of Arragon’s stamp, pious, 
 grave, devotional, and addicted to serious exercises and discipline 
 almost conventual, more than to gayetics and court pleasures, 
 Anne was tranferred to the household of the gayer, younger, 
 livelier, though still perfectly discreet and virtuous, Margaret 
 of Alencon, afterward queen of Navarre, of whose retinue she 
 continued one, until the time of her recall to England. 
 
 It appears that the character of the young English maid of 
 honor had been liable, from an early date, to aspersions and 
 imputations of something more than levity, Francis I. hav 
 ing been named as too closely intimate with her, for her good 
 fame; but it is just to say, that these tales have no more 
 weight than this—that they prove her conduct to have been 
 early marked with that extreme levity and indiscretion which, in 
 the end, without, probably, any real criminality, brought her 
 to death and shame; and that, in her desire for indiscriminate 
 admiration, she cared little to preserve her character unstained 
 by report, whether true or false, in its origin. 
 
 It is evident, from many different circumstances, that, in 
 1522, as a preliminary to the declaration of war, which ensued 
 shortly afterward, the English students, at the university of 
 Paris, and the English residents of superior class, were recalled 
 to England, and among these came Anne Boleyn. There is 
 reason to believe, moreover, that certain family reasons made 
 her return desirable at this juncture, a dispute having arisen, 
 and proceeded to a pitch of mutual exasperation, which per¬ 
 haps threatened the public peace, between the powerful Or 
 
330 
 
 anne’s first love. 
 
 monds and Boleyns, concerning the inheritance of Anne’s 
 grandfather, the last Earl of Wiltshire. This strife, it was 
 proposed, at the suggestion of the Earl of Surrey, to compose 
 by the union of Anne with Sir Piers Butler, the rival kins¬ 
 man ; and it is stated, that Cardinal Wolsey wrote to France on 
 the subject, previous to Anne’s return, and a few months sub¬ 
 sequent to the marriage of Mary, Anne’s younger sister, and 
 Henry’s second mistress, to William Carey. It is worthy of 
 notice, as it explains the false and horrible report, that Anne 
 was Henry’s own daughter, while it in no wise diminishes one’s 
 sense of disgust at all the proceedings of the brutal and lust¬ 
 ful tyrant, that the step-mother of these unhappy sisters, a 
 Norfolk woman of low birth, whom Sir Thomas married after 
 the decease of his noble Howard wife, was much about the 
 court, stood high in Henry’s favor, and yet not above the sus¬ 
 picion of his love. The error between a real mother and a 
 father’s second wife, is easily reconcilable in the historian; but 
 what must we say of the man, who could be so much as sus¬ 
 pected of having two sisters, and a step-mother, as his suc¬ 
 cessive paramours, and one of the three his wife, after consent¬ 
 ing to be his mistress. 
 
 What became of the project of marriage with Sir Piers 
 Butler, does not appear, but it probably never came even to a 
 regular engagement, since Henry, who was singularly scrupu¬ 
 lous concerning such technicalities, made no allusion to such 
 precontract, prior to his nuptials, nor use of it when he was 
 seeking a divorce, as he surely would have done, had he known 
 or suspected the existence of any such. 
 
 Shortly after her return, however, Henry, lord Percy, eldest 
 son of the Earl of Northumberland, who was precontracted, 
 much against his will, to Mary Talbot, was struck by the charms 
 
PERCY TAKES TO TASK. 
 
 331 
 
 and accomplishments of the new imported beauty, bedecked 
 with all the fashions, graces and refinements of the French 
 court, then as in all after time the arbiter elegantiarum, of 
 all the civilized world. Anne had been appointed, immedi¬ 
 ately on her arrival, maid of honor to the queen of England, 
 as she had been already to two queens of France; Henry 
 Percy, the descendant and namesake of the gallant Hotspur, 
 was constantly in attendance on the cardinal, in whosg house¬ 
 hold he was a principal gentleman. The young persons were, 
 therefore, thrown into frequent contact, both in the saloons and 
 the ante-chambers of royalty; they played their parts in the 
 same pageants; danced in the same masques, and soon came to 
 distinguish one another from all the members of the gay and 
 festive company, and, although Anne was already the cynosure 
 of many eyes, wooed, openly, by Sir Thomas Wyatt; ad¬ 
 mired, perhaps, secretly by Norris, who was afterward so 
 unfortunately connected with her fate; and possibly—though 
 this is a question—privately marked by Henry himself, as an 
 object of adventure; of which fact, however, if it were one, 
 neither she, nor any other, as yet, entertained a suspicion— 
 from fancy and flirtation, they soon came to mutual love, if 
 not to troth-plighting and private marriage contract. 
 
 By the direct orders of the king, Wolsey proceeded, in the 
 first place, to take Percy to task for his conduct, and then, to 
 bring the paternal authority of old Northumberland to his aid, 
 in order to dissolve the unpalatable project, if not troth-plight. 
 It is capable of proof, that the alleged cause of this measure 
 was the engagement, existing on the part of both the lovers, 
 to third parties; and it is quite within the scope of probabil¬ 
 ity, that Henry’s despotic temper, enraged by opposition to 
 the will he had expressed in sanctioning Anne’s marriage witn 
 
332 
 
 ANNE DISMISSED THE COURT. 
 
 Piers Butler, had as much to do with his interference in the 
 matter, as any fixed passion on his own part for the maid of 
 honor. 
 
 Anne, certainly, at this time, apprehended nothing less than 
 that she was beloved of the king; for we find, that, several 
 years afterward, so late as 1527, while he was engaged in for¬ 
 warding Henry’s divorce from Katharine, Wolsey himself so 
 little understood the extent of the king’s infatuation, that he 
 desired, and believed it possible, to bring about the union of 
 his master, with a French princess, probably Renee, the sister 
 of Queen Claude. 
 
 What is certain is, that Percy was banished the court, and, 
 in the autumn of this same year, 1523, was compelled to 
 marry Mary Talbot, in compliance with his early betrothal; 
 and farther, that Anne was dismissed from her situation about 
 the queen, and was sent home in a species of disgrace. 
 
 From this period, until the end of 1526, or the commence¬ 
 ment of 1527, Anne resided at Hever Castle, with her father 
 and his second wife, whose union seems to have created a cool 
 ness between the Boleyns and the noble house of Howard ; 
 and this coolness may have, in some degree, led to the ill-will 
 so strongly manifested by the duke toward his unhappy niece, 
 at the time of her trial for adultery and high treason. Of the 
 co.nduct, deportment, or occupations of Anne, during her pe¬ 
 riod of seclusion in the peaceful shades of Hever, no records 
 exist, unless it be a local tradition, said to be preserved in 
 Kent, that, the king on one occasion visiting Hever, Anne took 
 to her chamber, on plea of indisposition, in order to avoid see¬ 
 ing the royal visitor—conduct which, if truly told, may point 
 as well to coquetry as to either modesty or anger. Miss Ben- 
 ger chooses, gratuitously, to ascribe it to the virtue aud discre- 
 
FIRST ADVANCES OF THE KING. 
 
 333 
 
 lien of Sir Thomas Boleyn, whom she supposes to have been 
 so much alarmed by the indiscretion of Mary, and evident ad¬ 
 miration of the royal lover for Anne, that he desired to dis¬ 
 countenance the growing intimacy—an hypothesis utterly in¬ 
 consistent with the known character of this cunning old cour¬ 
 tier, who was commonly known as the pick-lock of princes 
 and whose undignified exertions to bring about the divorce, at 
 all hazards, between the king and his lawful wife, so as to pave 
 the way for his daughter’s elevation, were so notorious as to 
 provoke a public rebuke from Charles of Spain, when he vis¬ 
 ited Madrid as the king’s commissioner. 
 
 About the time of the supposed visit to llever, Sir Thomas 
 was elevated to the peerage, as Viscount Rochefort, which 
 is the second title to the earldom of Wiltshire, so long the 
 disputed point between the Ormonds and Boleyns; and, in 
 the ensuing year, Anne was recalled to court, where she re¬ 
 sumed her old office, and, shortly after her return, received a 
 magnificent set of jewels from the king, and became, at once, 
 the object of his devoted attention, and impetuous solicitation. 
 
 A question has been raised, and even magnified into a point 
 of importance, as to when and where Henry VIII. first saw or 
 noticed Anne Boleyn, whether at Greenwich or York House, 
 better known afterward as Whitehall; but to me it appears 
 of less than no moment. \ For I much doubt, whether Jhe 
 king’s agency in the afiaii"of Percy had aught to do with per¬ 
 sonal admiration or attachment; inasmuch as it is scarcely 
 /conceivable that, if he banished that young nobleman in order 
 !to be rid of his rivalry, he would have driven the object of his 
 illicit passion into the country, and abstained from all solicita¬ 
 tion for a space of four years. Such an idea is neither con 
 
334 
 
 J 
 
 anne’s person and beauty. 
 
 sistent with human nature in general, nor with the rash, furi¬ 
 ous and fiery impetuosity of Henry, in particular. 
 
 It may not be void of interest, to my fair readers more par¬ 
 ticularly, to select from the accounts of contemporary writers— 
 all of whom well knew, and one of whom, the splendid poet- 
 courtier, Sir Thomas Wyatt, loved her, dared to rival the 
 king, himself, for her favor, and wrote her encomium after her 
 ruin and death—some description of her person and accom¬ 
 plishments, when first she appeared in the court of Kath¬ 
 arine. 
 
 “ There was, at this time presented to the eye of the court,” 
 says Wyatt, “ the rare and admirable beauty of the fresh and 
 young lady, Anne Boleyn, to be attendant on the queen. In 
 this noble imp, the graces of nature graced by gracious educa¬ 
 tion, seemed, at the first, to have promised bliss unto hereafter 
 times; she was taken at that time to have a beauty not so 
 whitely clear and fresh, above all we may esteem, which ap¬ 
 peared much more excellent by her favor passing sweet and 
 cheerful, and these both also increased by her noble presence 
 of shape and fashion, representing both mildness and majesty, 
 more than can be expressed. There was found, indeed, upon the 
 side of her nail, upon one ofher fingers,some little shew of a nail, 
 which was yet so small, by the report of those that have seen 
 her, as the workmaster seemed to leave it an occasion of 
 greater grace to her hand, which, with the tip of one of her 
 other fingers might be, and usually was, by her hidden, with¬ 
 out any least blemish to it. Likewise, there were said to 
 be upon certain parts of her body, certain small moles, inci¬ 
 dent to the clearest complexions; and, certainly, both these 
 were none other than might more stain their writings with note 
 of malice, than have catch at such light moles in so bright 
 
 i O O 
 
HER GRACE AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 
 
 335 
 
 beams cf beauty, than in any part shadow it, as may right 
 well appear by many arguments, but chiefly by the choice and 
 exquisite judgment of many brave spirits that were esteemed 
 to honor the honorable parts in her, even honored of envy 
 itself.” 
 
 Sanders, who is decidedly hostile to Anne, and who in ev¬ 
 ery instance, where her character can be regarded in two lights, 
 looks to the worst, thus speaks of her; and his account is 
 agreeable to the pictures which the writer has himself seen of 
 her, and in which, though the features, especially the eyes, are 
 lovely, he can easily conceive expression to have been her pre¬ 
 dominant charm. “ Anne Boleyn was in stature rather tall 
 and slender, with an oval face, black hair, and a complexion 
 inclining to sallow; one of her upper teeth projected a little. 
 She appeared, at times, to suffer from asthma. On her left 
 band a s ixth finger might be perceived. On her throat there was 
 a protuberance, which Chateau 17miit describes as a disagreeably 
 large mole, resembling a strawberry; this she carefully cov¬ 
 ered with an ornamental collar band, a fashion which was 
 blindly imitated by the rest of the maids of honor, though 
 they had never before thought of wearing anything of the 
 kind. Her face and figure were in other respects symmetri¬ 
 cal ; beauty and sprightliness sat on her lips; in readiness of 
 repartee, skill in the dance, and in playing on the lute, she wjis 
 unsurpassed. She was unrivalled in the gracefulness of her at¬ 
 tire, and the fertility of her inventions in devising new patterns, 
 which were imitated by all the court belles, by whom she was 
 regarded as the g'ass of fashion.” 
 
 ‘•This gentlewoman,” I quote from Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
 who, though in the main, favorable to Queen Katharine, is fair 
 and candid enough toward her successor, “ being descended on 
 
336 
 
 anne’s unchastity. 
 
 the father’s side from one of the earls of Ormonde, and on the 
 mother’s from a daughter of the house of Howard, was from 
 her childhood of that singular beauty and toward ness, that her 
 parents took all care possible for her good education. There¬ 
 fore, besides the ordinary parts of virtuous instruction, where¬ 
 with she was liberally brought up, they gave her teachers in 
 playing on musical instruments, singing and dancing; insomuch, 
 that when she composed her hands to play and voice to sing, 
 it was joined with that sweetness of countenance, that three 
 harmonies concurred ; likewise, when she danced, her rare pro¬ 
 portions varied themselves into all the graces that belong either 
 to rest or motion. Briefly, it seems the most attractive per¬ 
 fections were eminent in her.” 
 
 After this passage, the historian proceeds to relate that “ our 
 king did not love her, at first; ” and then, after narrating the 
 circumstances of her love passages with Henry Percy, and the 
 breaking off of that marriage, leaves it in doubt whether the 
 cause of her anger toward the cardinal, which he emphatically 
 mentions, arose from her ignorance of the king’s passion, or 
 from her preference of Percy. This doubt, dependent, in his 
 own words, on a whether, Miss Strickland perverts into an as¬ 
 sertion on his part, that Anne “ would rather have been Percy’s 
 countess, than Henry’s queen.” This is the way in which la¬ 
 dies write history concerning ladies.* But, though the gallant 
 cavalier will not undertake to pronounce upon the lady’s in¬ 
 tentions, he does testify very powerfully to the falsity of the 
 charges of her being Henry’s daughter, as also of her having 
 been the leman of Francis I., and, moreover, vigorously insists 
 
 * The passage in Lord Herbert, which Miss Strickland has thus distorted, and 
 which I hare been at some pains to hunt up, runs thus : But Mrs. Bullen, whether 
 that she were ignorant, yet, how much the king loved her, or howsoever bad rather 
 be that lord's wife than a king’s mistreat, took very ill of the cardinal, &c , &c. 
 
SMALL PROGRESS OF THE KING. 
 
 337 
 
 on the reality of her beauty, of which, by the way, the eccen¬ 
 tric lord was a competent judge. “As for the beauty,” says 
 he, “ and handsomeness of Anne Bullen, which the same au¬ 
 thor,” it is Rastal, of whom he speaks, “ doth traduce, beside 
 that it contradicts common sense, she having been, by their al¬ 
 legation, the minion to two kings, even that picture of hers, 
 extant still with the Duchess of Richmond, doth sufficiently 
 convince.” 
 
 Shortly after Anne’s return to court, it is certain that the 
 king began to make amorous assaults and lay violent siege to 
 Anne’s virtue; and it is no less certain, that for a time she re¬ 
 sisted his addresses, with a constancy and steadiness of virtue, 
 which no one has the right to attribute, as I certainly have not the 
 desire to do so, to anything but unfeigned modesty. After a first 
 repulse and rebuke, Henry declared, it seems, that he should 
 persist to hope, and her reply has been preserved—“ I under¬ 
 stand not, most mighty king, how you should retain such hope; 
 your wife I cannot be, both in respect of mine own unworthi¬ 
 ness, and, also, because you have a queen already. Your mis¬ 
 tress I will not be.” 
 
 This is the language of virtue, and by virtue, I doubt not, 
 it was prompted. Iler ambition was not yet awakened ; she 
 had no reason to dream that she ever could become the king’s 
 wife, or that he had either the idea or the power of making her 
 so. The subject of the divorce had not yet been mooted; 
 nor was it a thing likely to occur to the mind of a young wo¬ 
 man, who knew, doubtless, that the king had indulged himself 
 in illicit loves before—once with her own sister—and who 
 would, of course, naturally suspect him of entertaining the same 
 and no other intentions toward herself. 
 
 I regard, therefore, the imputation of some authors, that, 
 O 22 
 
338 
 
 W OLSEY SENT ABROAr, 
 
 from her first acquaintance with the king, or even so late as 
 1527, she had a design to supplant the queen, and that she held 
 back only in coquetry, with a view to increase his ardor, and 
 not from modesty or virtue, as purely malignant and cruel. 
 There is no rule more imperative, whether in forming private 
 judgments, or in criticising the conduct of historical persona 
 ges, than that good motives must always be ascribed, not only 
 to good, but even to questionable actions, until evil motives 
 are decidedly proved. In this case, and up to this time, Anne’s 
 conduct was irreproachable, and it is unmanly, as well as un¬ 
 just, to attribute baseness, where no baseness is shown. At 
 this period, and much later, I doubt not Anne Boleyn would 
 have chosen to be the wife of Percy, or of any other loyal gen¬ 
 tleman, rather than to be Henry’s mistress, nor, I believe, did 
 she ever become the latter, until she was assured that the king 
 was determined to make her his wife, and until she believed 
 that the divorce would be sure and easy of attainment. It 
 was about this period, that the divorce was first mooted, and 
 Wolsey sent abroad to procure it, by tampering with the pope, 
 the king of France, and other powers, whom it was believed 
 that the offer of English alliance would induce to favor the 
 king’s wishes. But it was not until his return from France, 
 that he learned, and on learning endeavored by all means tc 
 combat, his master’s resolution to raise Anne to the throne. 
 This the cardinal opposed, not from dislike, as has been absurdly 
 argued, to Anne, much less from any doubt of her leaning to 
 Lutheran or Wicklifiite doctrines, to neither of which, as Lord 
 Herbert clearly shows, had she ever the smallest tendency. 
 “ And for her religion,’' says he, “ there is no probability that it 
 should be other than what was commonly profest. Since it ap¬ 
 pears by original letters of hers, that she was a special favorei 
 
ANNE NOT A LUTHERAN. 
 
 339 
 
 of the clergy of that time, and preferrer of the worthiest sort of 
 them to ecclesiastical livings, during her chief times of favor with 
 the king. Though I will not deny but upon his defection from 
 some articles of the Roman church, she might also comply.” 
 The same testimony is borne by Archbishop Cranmer, in his 
 letter to the king, at the time of her condemnation; in which 
 he declares, “ that he loved her formerly, because he thought 
 that she loved the gospel.” And on this expression Lingard 
 well observes, in a note, “ from this and similar expressions, 
 the queen has been represented a Protestant. She was no 
 more a Protestant than Henry. The ‘ gospel ’ means the 
 doctrine professed by Henry ; had the archbishop meant any¬ 
 thing else he would have only accelerated her ruin.” This is, 
 indisputably, true; the only article, in which Henry differed 
 from the Iloinan church, was that which rendered it Roman , 
 its dependence on the Bishop of Rome, as its head. He main¬ 
 tained all its most ultra and offensive doctrines to the end, and 
 was on the point of putting his last wife, Katharine Parr, on 
 her trial for heresy. Had Anne Boleyn been a Lutheran, 
 Henry would have been at no pains to prove her an adulter¬ 
 ess, or to divorce her, but would have sent her to the stake as 
 a heretic. At this time he had just been engaged in writing 
 against Luther, and had newly received his title of “Defender 
 of the Faith.” 
 
 It was not, therefore, from dislike to Anne, it was not from 
 disapprobation of her religious tenets—for she had no more 
 religious tenets of any kind, than any gay, volatile, fashiona¬ 
 ble girl, brought up in licentious courts, is like to have—least 
 of all, was it to subserve his own interests, that he opposed 
 Anne’s elevation, for those would evidently have been advanced 
 by the advancement of the king’s favorite, and the promoting 
 
340 
 
 wvatt’s suit. 
 
 the king’s wishes. His opposition to Anne was founded on 
 his conviction, as an English statesman, that the raising of a pri¬ 
 vate gentlewoman to the throne was in every way impolitic, 
 and injurious to English interests, as tending to alienate and 
 affront foreign princes, to breed intestine strifes, and to give 
 undue preponderance in the state, to private families. And he 
 was in the right; for, from the days of Elizabeth Woodville 
 such have been the results, in every instance, where an English 
 gentlewoman has been made an English queen. 
 
 From this moment, however, begins a total change in Anne 
 Boleyn’s character and conduct. From this moment, she con¬ 
 ceived the idea of becoming Henry’s queen, and commenced 
 dealing her cards, for that game. From this moment, we 
 find her a finished coquette, playing fast and loose, hot and 
 cold, as Henry appeared more or less urgent and enamored. 
 At about this period she encouraged the addresses of Wyatt, 
 who was now a married man, to such a degree as to excite 
 his hopes—illicit hopes, for they could have been no other — 
 so far as that he braved the rivalry of the king; and by 
 this means inflamed Henry’s passions to the height of jealous 
 fury. 
 
 Wyatt, it appears, while toying w r ith the maid of honor, on 
 some occasion, as she sate at her embroidery frame, snatched 
 from her a jewelled tablet and chain, and hung it about his 
 neck, under his doublet, vowing that he would ever wear it 
 for her sake. Henry, about the same time, despairing of win¬ 
 ning her to he his mistress, began to court her to marriage, 
 and took from her a ring, which he ever after wore on his lit¬ 
 tle finger as a love token. 
 
 Of this matter of the ring, Miss Benger observes, that this 
 ceremony, “ had it been performed before witnesses, would 
 
THE GAME OF BOWLS. 
 
 341 
 
 have l>een equivalent to a solemn betrotlnnent.” That lady, 
 in her eager advocacy of her heroine, probably meant some¬ 
 thing, or other, by this ceremony of betrothment; but, except 
 in Utah, I am aware of no place in which a married man’s be¬ 
 trothment to an unmarried girl is valid ; or where her reputa¬ 
 tion would not be damaged by such a betrothment. I men¬ 
 tion this fact, merely to show how strangely literary partisan¬ 
 ship may operate to blind the clearest minds. There never 
 was a more virtuous lady, or one to whom an idea of moral 
 turpitude, in real life, would have been more abhorrent, than 
 Miss Benger; and yet, in her zeal to bolster up Anne Boleyn’s 
 reputation, we find her inventing, as exculpatory, a circum¬ 
 stance which, if true, would have been most condemnatory of 
 her — her betrothment to a married man, during his undis¬ 
 turbed cohabitation with his first and lawful wife. 
 
 But to return to the tale—a day or two after he had gained 
 the l ing, the king was playing at bowls, in high glee and good 
 humor, with the Duke of Suffolk, Sir Francis Bryan, and Wy¬ 
 att, when there chanced to be a disputed cast, between Henry 
 and the latter knight. The king claiming it, while Wyatt and 
 his partner declared that “by his leave it was not so,” the 
 former bethought him of the other rivalry between himself 
 and his fellow-bowler, and, thinking to abash him, pointed with 
 his little finger, on which Anne’s ring was conspicuous, to the 
 disputed bowl, and exclaimed, with a meaning smile, “I tell 
 thee, Wyatt, it is mine .” 
 
 Thereupon, Wyatt drew out from his bosom Anne’s chain 
 and tablet, and retorting, “And if it may like your majesty to 
 give me leave to measure the cast with this , I have good hopes 
 it will yet be mine” proceeded to measure the ground. But 
 
342 
 
 THE SWEATINO SICKNESS. 
 
 Henry, in high dudgeon, spurned away the bowl, and broke up 
 the game, crying, “ It may be so, but then I am deceived.” 
 
 Three things strike one as remarkable in this story, which 
 is related by Wyatt himself; first, the singular equality, which 
 this bluff, cruel, despotical tyrant admitted, in privacy, with 
 his associates; secondly, the unquestionable evidence, which it 
 affords, that the pursuit of Henry, thus far, was regarded, by 
 his nearest friends, as merely licentious — for, had it been im¬ 
 agined, for a moment, that he was courting her to be his wife, 
 no man dared, for his life, to woo her ostensibly to infamy— 
 and, thirdly, to call it by no harsher name, Ihe shameless lev¬ 
 ity of the girl, who would suffer herself to be the object of am¬ 
 orous rivalry, between two married men, one of them the hus¬ 
 band of her royal mistress, whom henceforth, it cannot be de 
 nied that she was endeavoring to supplant. 
 
 From this time forth, Anne Boleyn took the lead in all the 
 pageantry and splendor of the court; and she now began to 
 assume a state, to which she was in no wise entitled, and 
 which greatly exasperated those of the.lords, who retained any 
 feelings of loyalty or independence, and the common people, 
 generally, against her. Once, during the dreadful pestilence, 
 known as the sweating sickness, partly struck with a sort of 
 pseudo compunction—for he seems to have been most unroy- 
 ally afraid of the plague — partly from a desire to cajole the 
 pope into a belief of his submission, Henry suffered her to retire 
 to Hever, where he plied her with the most ardent love letters, 
 to which she replied, so as to keep him up to fever heat, without 
 surrendering herself to his passion. On her being taken ill 
 herself, with the pestilence, the king sent his own physician to 
 attend her; and, so soon as she had recovered, she was again 
 brought back to court, and reinstated in all her former splcn- 
 
henry’s STOLEN VISITS TO ANNE. 
 
 343 
 
 dor. After a short residence, however, still in the quality of 
 maid of honor to her injured mistress, within the precincts of 
 the palace, on the arrival of Cardinal Campeggio to try the 
 question of divorce, she was again removed, as a matter of 
 policy, and, in order to keep up an appearance of decorum, once 
 more to the rural shades of Hever, where, though she with¬ 
 drew reluctantly and even indignantly, she was cheered by 
 constant love-letters, and frequent visits from the royal lover, 
 who stole away, so often as opportunity offered, from his court 
 at Eltham or Greenwich, and rode at the speed of his fastest 
 horse to his lady-love at Hever, accompanied only by his two 
 confidants, Weston and Norris, both of whom, it is strange 
 and awful to relate, shared the fate of the then beloved and 
 courted beauty. “ Tradition still points to the hill, in front 
 of the castle, where the well-known bugle announced the king’s 
 approach, and his impatience to be admitted to the beloved 
 presence. At this welcome signal, the drawbridge was low¬ 
 ered, the gates were thrown open, and Henry found all his 
 constraint and trouble overpaid by a single glance exchanged 
 with Anne Boleyn.” In this, which is quoted from Miss Ben- 
 ger, that lady sees nothing but platonic affection, nothing to 
 detract from the fair maid of honor’s unimpeachable delicacy, 
 or to lead her to doubt the affection which she entertained for 
 her noble and saintly mistress. 
 
 Miss Strickland, likewise, alludes to the romantic visits to 
 Hever; describes the oak-pannelled chamber, from the case¬ 
 ment of which Anne used to watch his approach; and the an¬ 
 tique gallery, in which she used to have her stolen interviews 
 with her lover; but, resolute as she shows herself to defend 
 the corporeal purity of her heroine, in spite of the infallible ev¬ 
 idence of dates, she cannot absolutely blind herself to the 
 
344 
 
 FALL OF WOLSEY. 
 
 truth, that “ if she abstained from compliance with the unhal 
 lowed solicitations of the king, it must be ascribed rather to 
 caution than to virtue.” 
 
 It must be admitted, in fairness, that from her letters, which 
 are probably ascribable to this period of secession from court, 
 and in one of which occurs the following remarkable passage— 
 “ 1 desire also, that if at any time before this I have in any 
 way offended you, that you would give me the same absolu¬ 
 tion that you ask, assuring you that hereafter my heart shall 
 be dedicated to you alone. I wish my person was so, too. 
 God can do it, if he pleases ”—one may infer that she had, as 
 yet, maintained her personal purity, though all her delicacy of 
 mind was, clearly, gone forever. Hereafter, however, she lived 
 cither in lodgings contiguous to the king’s apartment, under 
 the same roof with the queen, though keeping separate state, 
 having a separate train, with chaplains, ladies in waiting, and a 
 train-bearer, or in the splendid palace known as Suffolk I I«use, 
 immediately adjoining Whitehall. 
 
 On the 23d of July, 1529, the cardinal legates held their 
 last sitting, and refused, in spite of all the instances of the 
 king’s advocates, to grant the divorce, referring the decision to 
 the pope. The fury of Henry can be imagined; but the dark, 
 silent resentment of Anne was yet more deadly and implaca¬ 
 ble. Once or twice, Henry seemed on the point of relenting 
 toward his old friend and faithful servant, Wolsey, whom she 
 was bent to destroy ; but Anne’s influence was too strong for 
 him. On the last occasion he ever had to regain the king’s 
 ear, when an audience had been promised him, for the follow¬ 
 ing morning, this wily woman carried off her lover on an 
 equestrian expedition to Harewell park, provided a place for 
 him, in which to dine, and there, “ while he was dallying with 
 
wolsey’s regrets. 
 
 345 
 
 her in the gay greenwood, at their sylvan meal,” extorted 
 from him the promise, never to see or speak to the cardinal 
 again. 
 
 That promise—as ill promises, for the most fart, are—was 
 well kept. Even after his banishment to the see of York, 
 Anne was, as Wolsey himself said, “a night crow, that pos¬ 
 sessed the royal ear against him, and misrepresented all his 
 actions.” She never pardoned him; not, when her first lover, 
 Percy, now earl of Northumberland, whom his marriage with 
 Mary Talbot had made the most miserable of men, arrested 
 him at Cawoods, trembling, himself, with excess of emotion at 
 thus sating his thirst of vengeance, and bound his legs, like 
 those of the vilest malefactor, under the belly of his r m*^^ 
 not, when, in his touching address to the Abbot of Leicester, 
 he “ came, a poor old man, to lay his bones among them; ” 
 not, when he went to his long home, regretting only that he 
 had not served his God as faithfully as he had his king. In 
 the following year, Cromwell’s scheme for the separation of 
 England from the Papal see, and the granting of the divorce 
 by an English court, was matured, and the measures were put 
 in force for its accomplishment; and, forthwith, Anne took 
 on herself all the pomp and dignity of queen. At Whitsun¬ 
 tide, 1531, Katharine was ejected from Windsor castle, repu¬ 
 diated from the bed and board of her wicked lord, and forbid¬ 
 den to associate with, or even see, her child. Iler rival, at 
 once assumed her apartments, her place at the banquet, at the 
 council-board, in public processions, in private festivities, in 
 everything except style and name, she was queen of England ; 
 and, toher ineffable disgrace be it spoken, to the orphaned and 
 illegitimated child, and to all the friends and adherents of her 
 fallen queen and rival, she showed herself, constantly, a cruel 
 O* 
 
34 (> 
 
 LADY ROCHEFORT. 
 
 persecutre&s. It is idle to dispute the fact, that from this time, 
 she was openly and ostensibly Henry’s mistress. That she 
 was so, a few months later, is evident from the date of her 
 own marriage and of her daughter’s birth. To the fact of her 
 being enceinte of that daughter, she, unquestionably, owed it, 
 that she was ever more than his mistress, or higher than the 
 Marchioness of Pembroke. Her investiture with that title, 
 argued ill for her chances of coronation ; the positive refusal 
 of Francis to bring with him any of the royal ladies of Franoe, 
 when he visited the king at Calais, proves how she was re¬ 
 garded abroad ; the prospect of her bearing her lover an heir 
 male made her a queen; and, shortly afterward, her failure to 
 do so, brought her to the block. 
 
 It is a significant fact, that her sister-in-law, George Bo- 
 leyn, Viscount Rochefort’s wife — her father had been, now, 
 created Earl of Wiltshire — who was afterward the principal 
 witness against her, and still later a fellow-sufferer with her 
 cousin, Katharine Howard, was at this time committed to the 
 tower, in cousequence of her loudly expressed sympathies with 
 .Queen Katharine. 
 
 To about this date it is,that we must refer a strange story, 
 to which one would hesitate to give credit, were it not related 
 by Wyatt. It is worthy to be repeated, only because, as 
 Miss Strickland well observes, “ it shows her determination 
 to be a queen, coute qui coute .” The following are her 
 words: — 
 
 “A book, assuming to be of a prophetic character, was, by 
 some mysterious agency, placed in her chamber, one day. It 
 seems to have been of a similar class with the oracular hicro- 
 glyphical almanacs of succeeding centuries, having within its 
 pages certain figures, marked with the letter h, upon me, a, 
 
THE SYHILLINE HOOK. 
 
 347 
 
 r-n another, and k on a third, which were expounded as the 
 king and his wives; and to her person certain destruction was 
 predicted, if she married the king. Anne, finding the hook on 
 her table, took it up, and, seeing the contents, called her prin¬ 
 cipal attendant, a young lady, named Anne Saville— 
 
 “ ‘Come hither, Nan,’ said she, ‘see here this book of proph¬ 
 ecies. This is the king; this is the queen, wringing her hands 
 and mourning; and this myself, with my head cut off.’ 
 
 “Anne Saville answered, ‘If I thought it were true, I would 
 not myself have him, w r ere he an emperor.’ 
 
 “‘Tut, Nan,’ replied Anne Boleyn, ‘I think the book a bau¬ 
 ble, and am resolved to have him, that my issue may be royal, 
 whatever may become of me.’ ” 
 
 In September, 1532, Anne was invested Marchioness of 
 Pembroke, with ceremonies closely resembling those of a cor¬ 
 onation, and, immediately afterward, repaired with the king 
 to Boulogne and Calais, where he was to hold the conferences 
 with Francis, regarding a reconciliation with Pope Clement 1L 
 Here it was that she met the slight, I have recorded above, in 
 finding no French ladies, who should do her honor ; but she 
 was, in some sort, reconciled to the affront, by dancing with 
 Francis, who, on the following day, sent her a present of a 
 jewel, valued at fifteen thousand pounds. Here it was, also, 
 that Henry promised his brother monarch, that he would pro¬ 
 ceed no farther with the marriage, until another attempt should 
 have been made to gain the consent of Clement. 
 
 The circumstance of Anne’s pregnancy, however, which' ap¬ 
 peared before any negotiations had been effected, precipitated 
 matters. On the twenty-fifth of January, 1533, her marriage 
 was performed, as has been related above, privately in the 
 palace of Whitehall. On the twenty-third of May ensuing, 
 
348 
 
 anne’s marriage. 
 
 the marriage of Queen Katharine was pronounced, by Cran 
 mer, void and of no effect from the beginning, and its issue 
 illegitimate. On the twenty-eighth of the same month, by 
 the same prelate, the marriage of Anne and Henry was de 
 dared public and manifest; and was confirmed by him, by 
 his pastoral and judicial authority; and, on the first of June, 
 she was crowned, with unusual splendor, and conducted, in all 
 the pomp and pageantry of the time, from Greenwich to the 
 tower, as the royal Katharine had been conducted, three-and- 
 twenty years before, by the same road which she was, herself, 
 soon to travel on a darker errand. Miss Benger opines, that 
 “ although the present ceremony was perhaps not entitled to 
 the same magnificence, which had been displayed on that oc¬ 
 casion,” the coronation of Katharine, “it might aspire to even 
 superior elegance and taste, since its object was a woman in 
 the prime of youth and beauty,” &c., &c. The fair authoress, 
 unfortunately, forgets that Anne Boleyn was, at the time of 
 • her marriage, in her thirty-third year, while Katharine of Ar- 
 v ragon was but in her twenty-fifth ; that, from the accounts of 
 contemporaries, more particularly Sir John Russel, one of 
 Henry’s privy council, who directly compares her with Anne 
 Boleyn and Jane Seymour, it is very doubtful, if she were not 
 equal, perhaps superior, in beauty to her successor, at the time 
 of their respective marriages; and that as to the romance of 
 their antecedents, and the interest attached to each, the daugh¬ 
 ter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the patroness of Columbus, her¬ 
 self the nursling of the Alhambra, whose device was the pom¬ 
 egranate of the sunny Granada, the spotless Spanish infanta 
 was as far superior to the child of the picklock of princes, the 
 heiress of Hever castle, the concubine and bigamous bride of a 
 wedded bridegroom, as light is to darkness, or the gorgeous 
 
DEATH OF MORE AND FISHER. 
 
 349 
 
 sunshine tc the twinkling of a farthing candle. On the seventh 
 day of September, so unduly did the child-bed follow the nup¬ 
 tial bedding, was born the Princess Elizabeth, to the ineffable 
 disappointment of the royal parents, though she was destined, 
 after strange vicissitudes of fortunes, to reign as the greatest 
 queen, who ever sat on the throne of England. 
 
 The following year was infamous for the judicial murder of 
 the insane, epileptic nun, Eliza Barton, and of those most ad¬ 
 mirable men, barbarously sacrificed—I write it with regret— 
 rather to the unrelenting hatred of the new queen, than even 
 to the brute rage of Henry,—More and Fisher. The latter 
 had been his tutor, whom he once affected to love and revere, 
 above all men; the former had been his intimate friend, with 
 whom he played practical jokes and jested, as with an equal; 
 but who so well knew the tiger, with whom he was compelled to 
 play, that he once observed to his son-in-law, Roper, after 
 some unusual condescension on Henry’s part, that the king, 
 his master, was, indeed, a very gracious master, but that, “ to 
 win a small castle in France, he would very readily take his 
 head off his servant’s shoulders.” 
 
 It is reported that, when the news arrived that More’s exe¬ 
 cution had taken place, Henry was playing at tables with Anne, 
 and that, on receiving the tidings, he started up, with a “Thou 
 art the cause of the death of this man,” left the room, and shut 
 himself up in his own apartment, in great perturbation of 
 spirit. If, however, his repentance were true, it was no less 
 short-lived; it did not prevent him from reducing the inno 
 cent wife and orphan children of his victim, as nearly as it was 
 in his power to do, to beggary and starvation. The pope, on 
 the 30th of August, in the succeeding year, 1535, thundered 
 his anathema, against Henry and Anne, unless they should 
 
FRIAR PETTO. 
 
 3:,o 
 
 forthwith separate, and declared their issue illegitimate; and 
 her resentment at this attack led Anne to favor, in some de¬ 
 gree, the rising party of the reformation. But, as she held to 
 the doctrine of transubstantiation and to the entire ritual of 
 the Romish church, it is idle to call her a Protestant. Du¬ 
 ring her period of ascendency, moreover, Frith, Bilney, and 
 many other eminent reformers, perished in the flames, without 
 her making, so far as the records show, the smallest effort to 
 rescue them ; although, says Miss Strickland, justly, “it could 
 not have been harder to save them, than to destroy her politi¬ 
 cal adversaries.” That she did favor and patronize Tindal’s 
 translation of the scripture and procure for it Henry’s sanction, 
 and that she was liberal, even to profusion, in her charities, is 
 infinitely to her credit. I would willingly admit her to have 
 been, as Miss Benger will have it she was, an earnest pupil 
 and patroness of Latimer; but I find that she quotes, as au¬ 
 thority, only that very school of Protestant writers, who have 
 assumed that, because she was the original cause of the schism 
 of Rome, Anne was herself a Lutheran, and “ a most sainted 
 queen, oflener upon her knees than on her feet,”—an assumption 
 of no weight, whatsoever, and utterly controverted by all ascer¬ 
 tained facts. In this year, Friar Peyto boldly preached, be¬ 
 fore the face of Henry and his new bride, in the royal chapel, at 
 Greenwich, denouncing his divorce from Katharine, and threat¬ 
 ening that the dogs should lick his blood, as they had done that 
 of Ahab; a prophecy, which, by a curious chance, was ful 
 filled, no less than that, threatening Anne with decapitation, 
 m case of her supplanting Katharine. It is, perhaps, yet more 
 curious, that Henry only laughed, and suppressed the monas¬ 
 tery, without either beheading or burning the monk. About 
 this time, it is certain, that a great change came over Anne’s 
 
THE CRUELTY OF COWARDICE. 
 
 351 
 
 conduct, and the demeanor of her /ourt and ladies; from this 
 time, date the beautiful tapestries of Hampton Court, which, 
 
 1 think it is sufficiently authenticated, are the work of her 
 hands, and of those of her maidens; she is said, also, to have 
 labored in making garments for the poor; and this her Prot¬ 
 estant biographers, would attribute to the influence of Latimer 
 and Lutheranism. I ascribe it to the growing indifference of 
 Ilenry, which, doubtless, was visible to his wife, who had 
 watched,with interested eyes,the progress of the same feeling 
 toward her predecessor; and which she seems to have attrib¬ 
 uted to the increasing influence of her uncle, the Duke of Nor¬ 
 folk, at the head of the men of “the old learning,” who avow¬ 
 edly hated her, and who were anxious, as she fancied, to rein¬ 
 state Queen Katharine in her stead, and reconstruct the church 
 of the ancient religion. 
 
 To this feeling of insecurity and apprehension, more than to 
 any real cruelty, do I attribute her triumph, odious and re¬ 
 volting as it was, at the death of Katharine. Katharine had 
 never wronged her; she could not, therefore, cherish feelings 
 of resentment or hatred against Katharine. But she feared 
 her. And of all passions, fear is the most cruel. She feared 
 Wolsey, Fisher, More, and, fearing, she destroyed them. She 
 feared even the desolate orphan, Mary, and she was a cruel 
 stepmother to her. 
 
 All cruellest of men have been cowards — Augustus, Tibe¬ 
 rius, Nero, Hebert, Marat, Robespierre — perhaps, the reason 
 why the English and the Americans are rarely, if ever, cruel, 
 is because they are rarely, if ever, cowards. I believe, I hope, 
 the source of Anne Boleyn’s cruelty was her cowardice. 
 
 If it were, she was mistaken. She dreaded Katharine, in 
 ner aguish prison-castle at Ivimbolton; she overlooked the 
 
352 
 
 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 / 
 
 r 
 
 treacherous handmaiden, who sat on her husband’s knee, and 
 kissed his lips in her own absence, by her own fireside. She 
 was soon to find her out, to her despair and ruin. She was 
 at the height of her hopes, she was again to be a mother; if 
 the expected heir should be granted to her prayers, her em¬ 
 pire over her Henry was assured forever. She came suddenly 
 into her private apartment, and there she found Jane Seymour, 
 her own maid of honor, supplanting herself, even as she had 
 supplanted Katharine. She sate in Henry’s lap, caressing and 
 receiving caresses. Anne burst into such an agony of hyster¬ 
 ical paroxysms, that Henry himself was alarmed—not for the 
 wretched wife of whom he was aweary, but for the unborn 
 son, for which he longed with such impotent desire. He 
 called her “ sweetheart,” he bade her “ be at peace, and all 
 should go well with her.” But it was too late. Peace never 
 again came near to her. Agony of mind brought on agony 
 of body. Premature travail followed, and, after undergoing 
 much anguish and infinite danger, she bore a dead son, on the 
 29th of January, who, had he been born living, would have 
 made her a queen indeed. But therein it was seen, how 
 
 “ this even-lianded justice 
 Commends the ingredients of the poisoned elialico 
 To our own lips.” 
 
 No pity, no sympathy, no relic of once ardent love touched 
 ^ the cold, cruel despot. He burst furiously into his suffering 
 wife’s chamber, and savagely upbraided her with the loss of 
 “ his boy.” 
 
 Rashly and angrily, but, surely, on sufficient provocation, 
 she retorted, that “ the fault was his own, if he were disap¬ 
 pointed ; for the loss of the child was all owing to her distress 
 of mind, about that wench, Jane Seymour.” Henry’s answer 
 
anne’s joyless pastimes. 
 
 353 
 
 was worthy of him. Few other men were ever born capable 
 of such an one. “ She should have no more boys by him; ’ 
 he said, and banged, sullenly, out of the apartment. 
 
 She recovered her health slowly, but she knew too well that 
 her influence was at an end. “ When she found,” says Miss 
 Strickland, but without giving her authority, “ that she had no 
 power to obtain the dismissal of her rival from the royal 
 household, she became very melancholy, and withdrew herself 
 from all the gayeties of the court, passing her time in the 
 most secluded spots of Greenwich park. It is also related, 
 that she would sit for hours in the quadrangle of Greenwich 
 palace, in silence and abstraction, or seeking joyless pastime 
 in playing with her little dogs, and setting them to fight with 
 each other.” What sadder scene can fancy conjure up than 
 this 1 What thoughts, what memories, must have swept over 
 that soul, once so gay and thoughtless, in those moments of 
 agony 1 How little was her mind really there, with the sports 
 or the quarrels of the spaniels, which she probably felt were 
 the only things, now left alive, which loved her. Her original 
 friend and patroness, Mary of France, the sister of Henry, 
 was no more; her husband, Suffolk, is assumed by all the 
 lady biographers of this hapless queen, to have been her en¬ 
 emy, though I must aver, that I have found no evidence of the 
 fact, but rather presumption of the reverse; since his insult to 
 Wolsey, on the refusal of that cardinal to pronounce the di¬ 
 vorce of Katharine, savors, to say the least of it, of good will 
 to Anne. The Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Thomas Howard, 
 of Flodden fame, though her uncle, was notoriously hostile to 
 her, as he was to all his family, who had countenanced the 
 claims of the old duchess Agnes of Norfolk, in a certain fam¬ 
 ily feud of long standing. The Lady Rochefort her brother's 
 
 23 
 
354 
 
 COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL. 
 
 wife, was, it does not appear why, her deadly enemy. Even 
 the gentle Surrey, the poet, the scholar, the lover of the sweet 
 and graceful Geraldine, and the young Duke of Richmond, the 
 king’s illegitimate son, who had married Anne’s cousin, the 
 Lady Mary Howard, were ill-disposed tow'ard her. Family 
 feuds had broken up the family connection; and it appears 
 that, since the second marriage of Sir Thomas Boleyn, there 
 had been little friendship or cordiality between his house and 
 that of his first wife’s relations. 
 
 Whatever was the cause, or the nature, of her forebodings, 
 they were soon proved to be too true. All the rest is horror, 
 mystery,cruelty, suppression of the truth, by authority, manufac¬ 
 tured evidence, founded on perjury, and followed by judicial 
 murder. The whole is inscrutable, at this distance of time; and 
 it is useless to attempt to decide, authoritatively, in the ab¬ 
 sence of all responsible testimony, on the guilt or innocence 
 of the parties. All that can be done, is to state the facts of 
 the case, the nature of the proceedings, and the adumbrations 
 of suspicion, for there is, in truth, nothing stronger than this, 
 on either side, by which to judge even of the probabilities of 
 the question. 
 
 On the twenty-fourth of June, a secret committee of the 
 privy council was assembled to inquire into the charges against 
 the queen; on which sate the Duke of Norfolk, her uncle, the 
 Dukes of Suffolk and Richmond, her own father, the Earl of 
 Northumberland, her former lover, and some of the judges. 
 “ It has been supposed that her father did not attend,” says 
 Miss Strickland; but who supposes it, or on what grounds, 
 she omits to state. It must be admitted, however, that the 
 presence of these two latter noblemen, who certainly were 
 friendly to Anne, on the committee, does not look like an at 
 
THE EVIDENCE. 
 
 355 
 
 tempt to pack a jury for condemnation. The committee re¬ 
 ported, that there was cause to believe her guilty of inconti¬ 
 nence with Brereton, Weston, Norris, the king’s musician 
 Smeaton, and—what is, indeed, incredible—with her own 
 brother, Rochefort, against whom the sole testimony was his 
 own wife. 
 
 What follows, becomes, at every step, more embarrassing, 
 more incomprehensible; and renders it, more and more, diffi¬ 
 cult to form a reasonable opinion as to the guilt or innocence 
 of the parties. The incredible levity and familiarity, toward 
 parties so infinitely below her station, as the king’s player of 
 virginals, and the sufferance, which she gave to him and others, 
 of talking to her in the loosest strain of gallantry, would argue 
 strongly against Anne’s chastity ; did not the open and uncon¬ 
 scious carelessness, with which she herself detailed the conver¬ 
 sations, render it almost impossible to believe that any woman, 
 possessed of one grain of understanding, could, if guilty, have 
 been mad enough so to criminate herself. 
 
 That there existed nothing resembling legal evidence against 
 her, or her alleged accomplices, may be taken for granted ; 
 since, if any had existed, it would, of course, have been pro¬ 
 duced publicly. But it must be remembered, that the rules 
 of law were not enforced in those days as now — that, strong 
 presumptions were, it should seem, occasionally allowed to 
 weigh in absence of direct proof—and, above all, that, by a 
 strange perversion of justice, the king’s accusation, alone, was 
 supposed to have, per se, a certain preponderance, for which 
 allowance was to be made. On the other hand, it is worthy 
 of rem -rk, that not one of the men, all of whom died before 
 Anne, and consequently whose assertions on the scaffold might 
 have availed something to save the hapless lady’s life, and 
 
356 
 
 CONFESSIONS IN EXTREMIS. 
 
 would , undoubtedly, have gone far to clear her reputation, one 
 of them being her own brother, accused of the most horrible 
 and unnatural of crimes, said one word, either in confession or 
 denial of his guilt; unless it were Mark Smealon, the musician, 
 whose last words are susceptible of a double meaning. Again, 
 Anne herself, died, and said nothing to the point, although 
 Kingston, the lieutenant of the tower, expected that she would 
 declare herself a good woman, for all men, but for the king. 
 She, however, also died silent, either of confession or denial. 
 
 It has been suggested that intimidation, or persuasion, might 
 have been brought to bear upon the fears or the loyalty of 
 the victims ; and it is asserted that a promise, not to reclaim 
 against the king’s justice, had been extorted from them, which 
 they would not break in extremis. Those were strange times, 
 I readily admit. “ Henry was a marvellous man, and had 
 marvellous folk about him.” But I cannot give credit to 
 such an absolute anomaly as this. To persons, under sen¬ 
 tence of inevitable death, there can be, one would say, no far¬ 
 ther intimidation, since to persons of rank, torture was inad¬ 
 missible. To persons, wrongfully convicted of base and un¬ 
 natural crimes, there could be no persuasion, or sense of loy¬ 
 alty, so strong, as to overpower just resentment, and stifle nat¬ 
 ural indignation. To gentlemen, and men of honor, there 
 could be no stronger feeling, than the desire to rescue a beau¬ 
 tiful, innocent, and beloved woman, from an infamous death 
 and a dishonored name. 
 
 Lastly, there is something in Henry’s pertinacious, deadly, 
 and insatiate rage against Anne, which makes it difficult to 
 be believed, that he had no other object in view than get 
 rid of her. When Katharine died, he wept; when he r.aJ 
 
DEATH OF ANNE. 
 
 357 
 
 freed himself from his links matrimonial with “the Flanders 
 mare,” Anne of Cloves, he treated her as nearly like a gentle¬ 
 man as he was capable of doing, and maintained always a 
 show of decorous respect, and even of friendship, toward her; 
 when he had discovered that, in the case of the miserable 
 Katharine Howard, he had been subjected to 
 
 ** The very fiend's arch mock, 
 
 To lip a wanton and suppose her chaste,” 
 
 he would not have shed her blood, would she have allowed 
 him, by confessing a precontract, to obtain a divorce, without 
 proving her guilty of adultery. 
 
 But in the case of Anne Boleyn, when either the divorce, or 
 the death, would have sufficed to set him free, he must wreak 
 on her the agonies of both ; he must mutilate her sweet body, 
 annihilate her fair fame, declare her not merely an adulteress, 
 but incestuous, and bastardize her innocent child, even while 
 he admitted it to be his own — and all this, at the expense of 
 so glaring an inconsistency, if he had ever stickled much for 
 consistency, as the slaying a woman for adultery, alleged to 
 be committed in breach of a marriage, which was declared, in 
 the same breath, never to have existed at all, being null, void, 
 and of no effect from the beginning. 
 
 On the day of her murder, he donned his gayest garb, and 
 sat waiting the firing of the fatal gun and the hoisting of the 
 black flag, which should announce her death, on an eminence, 
 in Richmond park, commanding a distant view of those “tow¬ 
 ers of Julius, London’s lasting shame,” and when the signal 
 shot was fired, bade them uncouple the hounds, and away ! to 
 a fresher, if not a fairer bride. 
 
 In everything save the wildest and most raving madness, there 
 
358 
 
 THE FIRST CHARGES. 
 
 is some touch of method ; here, there is not a glimpse, even of 
 reason. Even the tiger, when he is neither crossed nor hungered, 
 ceases to slay. Even Henry VIII., though, verily, he spared 
 neither man in his anger nor woman in his lust, though he reck- 
 lessly crushed everything which crossed his path, which excited 
 his apprehensions, provoked his wrath, or opposed itself to his 
 pleasures, he never, so far as 1 can find, killed for the mere love 
 of killing. Anne he certainly loved once, and unless, at least, 
 he suspected a cause, one does not see why he should hate her 
 with a hatred to be satiated only by such a vengeance, even if 
 he were aweary of her. Of the rest, the reader can judge as 
 well as the historian. 
 
 On the twenty-eighth of April, the committee reported on 
 the charges, and sent Brereton to the tower. Several days be¬ 
 fore this, Anne would appear to have had some intimation of 
 what was in the wind ; for she gave a solemn charge to her 
 chaplain, Mathew Parker, in regard to the religious education 
 of her daughter, Elizabeth, which that good man spoke of, in 
 that daughter’s reign, as binding him with a most solemu 
 obligation. 
 
 On the 30th—this, be it understood, on her own showing— 
 when she foresaw the coming storm, she saw Mark Smcaton, 
 who, for his musical skill, had been promoted to be her groom 
 of the chamber, standing melancholy and musing, in one of the 
 windows of her presence chamber. In this position, she went 
 up to him, and asked him “why he was so sad.” “It is no 
 matter,” he replied; but, unless she had admitted it herself, 
 no one could believe that she would have had the incredible 
 folly to say—“ You may not look to have me speak to you as 
 if you were a nobleman, because you be an inferior person.” 
 Or that he should have replied to his queen, and that queen 
 
THE FIRST CHARGES. 
 
 359 
 
 Henry’s, unless there had been much previous encouragement, 
 “ No, no, madam. A look sufficeth me.” 
 
 On May-day, there was a great jousting match at Green¬ 
 wich, in which Rochefort was the principal challenger, and 
 Henry Norris one of the defenders. The pageant was unusu¬ 
 ally splendid, Anne being there, for the last time, in state, as 
 queen, beside her savage lord. Suddenly he rose, in the midst 
 of the sports, with a furious visage, left his balcony, and took 
 his way homeward, attended by six confidential attendants, 
 among whom was Norris, though he had been previously ar 
 rested at the barriers, for high treason, together with Roche 
 fort, and Sir Francis Weston. 
 
 There is a tale mentioned by Lord Herbert of Chcrbury, 
 but by him disallowed, as of slight authority, to the effect, that 
 the king’s rage was excited by the dropping of the queen’s 
 kerchief into the lists, which Norris picked up, and, after wiping 
 his face with it, returned on his lance’s point. I discard it ut¬ 
 terly—not because it is wholly improbable, and at variance 
 with the manners of the time; though that were cause enough. 
 But because it conflicts with ascertained facts. The charges 
 were before the privy council, six days before the alleged 
 discovery. 
 
 Anne remained at Greenwich, unconscious, says Miss Strick 
 land — though that can hardly be—of what had occurred, 
 until the following day, when she was arrested at the din¬ 
 ner table by Kingston, the lieutenant of the tower, and con¬ 
 veyed to that gloomy fortress, where she was lodged in the 
 apartment which she had occupied on her coronation night, 
 in riding home from Greenwich, it appears that the king 
 conversed apart with Norris during the whole ride, endeav¬ 
 oring to induce him to obtain mercy, by the confession of 
 
IN THE TOWER. 
 
 his guilt. Miss Strickland positively asserts that he denit d 
 it, and stoutly refused, to the end, to criminate the queen. Lin- 
 gard, on the other hand, states, that on examination before the 
 privy council, Norris, at the earnest solicitation of Sir William 
 Fitzwilliam, did confess—of this Lord Herbert states nothing, 
 nor can I discover the authority on which either statement is 
 made. Smeaton, undoubtedly, did confess; but it is almost 
 certain, that he did so under the rack, which could, at that 
 time, be legally used on persons of his condition. 
 
 Every illegal means were used to extort evidence, and to en¬ 
 trap the unfortunate queen into admissions which might serve 
 in lieu of testimony against her; she was surrounded in her 
 prison-house by lady spies, who impudently cross-examined 
 her, and then conveyed to Cromwell the smallest word she ut¬ 
 tered ; even her passionate exclamations of grief and broken 
 interjections, were watched and noted, to be used against her. 
 Thus we have no minutes of the proceedings, no notes of the 
 evidence, no positive knowledge of what crime, whether adul¬ 
 tery, or compassing the death of the king, she was found guilty, 
 though it appears probable it was on the latter ground—and 
 in respect of the reasons why her marriage was pronounced 
 null, and of no effect from the beginning, we only know that 
 the act of divorce bears in itself the record, that those reasons 
 are to be taken for granted, as if they were therein recited. 
 But, at the same time, we have every casual word which she 
 let fall, or which was extorted from her by impertinent and 
 intrusive cross-questioning, duly transmitted on the page of 
 history. 
 
 It is only clear, that she was in extreme perturbation of 
 mind, now in the highest exaltation of levity, now in the depth 
 of dejection, now declaring that some great calamity should 
 
anne’s admissions. 
 
 SGI 
 
 befall the country, and now that no more rain should fall in 
 England, if she were put to death. Now laughing wildly, and 
 jesting hysterically, but still declaring that she was a good 
 woman, to all but the king, and that whoever might accuse her 
 she could only say, “Nay ! nay ! nay ! and they had no wit¬ 
 nesses.” At one time she would express a childish interest in 
 the prisoners, asking if “ they had any one to make up their 
 beds for them ; ” and then again would reproach them in their 
 absence, for confessing against her—Norris more especially— 
 which gives some cause to believe that he did confess; and. 
 lastly, she would complain, that they should all die, together, 
 on a false charge. The strongest things brought against her 
 are her own admissions, to the prying ladies, who were em¬ 
 ployed to entrap her. Mrs. Cosyns, it seems, asked her “ how 
 Norris had come to say, to her almoner, on last Saturday, that 
 he could swear that the queen was a good woman?” “Marry,” 
 said Anne, “I told him to do so, for I asked him why he did 
 not go on with his marriage, and he made reply, that he would 
 tarry awhile. ‘ Then,’ said I, ‘ you look for dead men’s 
 shoes, if aught but good should come to the king, you would 
 look to have me.’ Then he denied it, and I told him 1 could 
 undo him, if I would; and then we fell out.” In the like man¬ 
 ner, she admitted that she had told Weston, “ that he did love 
 her kinswoman, Mrs. Skelton, and did not love his wife, and he 
 answered her again, ‘ that he loved one in her house better 
 than them both?’ She asked him ‘who?’ to which he replied, 
 ‘yourself,’ when she defied him.” _ 
 
 It is true that this is not, legally, evidence at all; most of 
 all, not evidence of adultery; it should be, however, remem¬ 
 bered, that the Duke of Buckingham was condemned, for com¬ 
 passing the king’s death, merely on account of words spoken, 
 P 
 
362 
 
 anne’s trial. 
 
 much to the same effect—between compassing and contempla 
 ting, little distinction was drawn. Unless it be on Smeaton’s 
 confession under the rack, it is probably on this ground that 
 she was convicted, by her own admissions; and her sentence 
 “ to be burnt,” seems to corroborate this, such being the pen¬ 
 alty for petty treason. 
 
 Idle inferior culprits were tried first, and all sentenced; 
 Stneaton to be hanged, and the others beheaded. On the 10th 
 of May, Rochefort and Anne were brought up to trial before 
 twenty-three peers, selected as triers, out of the whole number 
 of fifty-six, the Duke of Norfolk being lord high steward, and 
 Lord Surrey, deputy earl marshal. The Earl of Northum¬ 
 berland was one of the triers, but he was, or affected to be, 
 taken ill, before the arraignment of Lord Rochefort, and was 
 not present at the trial of his old love. This 1 do not regard 
 as wearing a fair aspect for Anne’s innocence. It looks as if 
 he felt that he should not be able to acquit in honor; and as if 
 through feeling,he would not be present to convict. 
 
 All that is known beyond this is, that Rochefort defended 
 himself eloquently and with spirit, but was convicted on the 
 evidence of his own wife, who had once seen him lean over the 
 queen’s bed, and kiss her. It must not be forgotten that the 
 queen was his sister. On this evidence, he was convicted of 
 adultery and high treason, and condemned to die. 
 
 So soon as he was found guilty, Anne was called into court, 
 held up her hand, and pleaded not guilty, without the least 
 emotion. She defended herself with so much courage, wit and 
 eloquence, that it was rumored, without the court, that she was 
 sure of a triumphant acquittal; but it proved not to be so. 
 She, too, on what evidence we know not, was found guilty of 
 what crime we know not, and was sentenced to be beheaded 
 
EXECUTIONS. 
 
 3G3 
 
 or burnt, at the king’s pleasure, receiving the decree of doom 
 with unmoved dignity and spirit. 
 
 On the 16th of May, the male prisoners all died, firmly, 
 and after this wise—Smeaton, before he was hanged, said, 
 “ Masters, I pray you all, pray for me; I have deserved the 
 death; ” leaving it in doubt, whether he would say for that 
 crime, or for offences in general. Norris died, obstinately si¬ 
 lent. Rochefort entreated the spectators to live according to 
 the gospel; but uttered no word in reference to the charge for 
 which he came to die. Weston deplored his folly in having 
 given his youth to sin, and deferred repentance to old age. 
 Brereton used these words: “ I have deserved to die, if it were 
 a thousand deaths, but the cause wherefore I die, judge ye not. 
 If ye judge, judge for the best.” 
 
 Anne was respited until the 19th, in order that she might 
 give evidence before Cranmer’s court—Cranmer, who had pro¬ 
 nounced her predecessor’s marriage null and void, and con¬ 
 firmed her own, as valid, and manifest by his own authority, 
 pastoral and judicial; and who was now prepared to declare it, 
 also, null from the beginning. It has never been shown what 
 was the cause, admitted by Anne, which rendered her mar¬ 
 riage void, or what induced her to make the admission, which 
 deprived her daughter of the right of succession. The induce¬ 
 ment to Anne was, it cannot, I think, be doubted, the commu¬ 
 tation of the penalty from burning to beheading. The cause 
 was not her precontract to Percy, for he had sworn before, and 
 now repeated his oath, that such a precontract had never ex¬ 
 isted. Dr. Lingard has proved to my satisfaction, beyond the 
 possibility of contradiction* that it was Henry’s own ante-con¬ 
 nubial cohabitation with Mary, Anne’s younger sister, though 
 
 » See voL vi., p. 247. End of vol. vi., note K. 
 
364 
 
 NULLITY OF ANNE*S MARRIAGE. 
 
 that cohabitation was illicit, which constituted his marriage 
 with the elder sister incestuous. It was exactly the case of 
 Katharine reversed. She, it was alleged, had lived with two 
 brothers in succcession, as man and wife. And, though law- 
 fully married, and by a regular dispensation obtained, her mar¬ 
 riage was set aside as incestuous. In this case he had himself 
 lived with two sisters, the first as his concubine, the second as 
 his wife ; and this fact rendered his marriage with Anne, on the 
 same grounds as that with Katharine, incestuous, illegal, and 
 void from the beginning. 
 
 On the nineteenth day of May, Anne came forth to die, ar¬ 
 rayed in a dress of black damask, and, as it is said, resplen¬ 
 dent with more than her wonted beauty. She had sent Lady 
 Kingston, on the day preceding her death, to ask pardon on 
 her knees of the Princess Mary, for all the wrongs she had 
 ever done her; and she had displayed such buoyant cheerful¬ 
 ness of disposition, that she elicited from Kingston this remark, 
 in his letter to Cromwell—“ I have seen many men and wo¬ 
 men executed, and they have been in great sorrow; and to 
 my knowledge, this lady hath much joy and pleasure in her 
 death.” 
 
 She did not, however, fulfill his expectation of professing 
 her innocence, but, after some general confessions of unworthi¬ 
 ness and as general praises of her cruel husband, performed 
 her devotions, took leave of her ladies, gave her missal, as a 
 last token, to her friend, Mistress Lee, sister of her old admi¬ 
 rer, Sir Thomas Wyatt, who remained with her to the last, 
 and then, with calm and cheerful intrepidity, gave herself up 
 to the executioner. 
 
 It had been a strange caprice of Henry, that she should be 
 beheaded with a sword, and not with an axe, as usual; and, for 
 
HER DEATH. 
 
 3G5 
 
 that purpose, the executioner from Calais, said to be a fellow 
 of rare 9kill in his bloody trade, had been imported, to deal 
 the fatal blow. Anne, it, is said, refused a bandage ; and tra¬ 
 dition records that the melting tenderness of her eyes disarmed 
 the professional butcher, until casting off his shoes, he stole be¬ 
 hind his fair victim, and terminated her sorrows at a single 
 blow. It has been recorded by Spelman, that, when the head, 
 yet bleeding, was held aloft by the executioner, the eyes and 
 lips were seen to quiver, and the former to regard, with mourn¬ 
 ful tenderness, the body from which they were so cruelly dis¬ 
 severed ; this, however, savors of romance more than of so¬ 
 ber truth. Her remains were thrust, with indecent haste, into 
 an old oak chest, which had formerly contained arrows, and 
 are said to have been interred in the tower, with no religious 
 ceremonies. But Wyatt asserts, in terms which have led 
 many to believe that he was himself privy to their removal, that 
 they were taken thence by night and laid in hallowed earth. 
 It is worthy of remark, as in some sort confirming this tale, 
 that in two several churches, that of Thornden on the Hill, 
 in Essex, and that of Salle, in Norfolk, both contiguous to es¬ 
 tates, owned by Boleyns, there are two nameless slabs of black 
 marble, without inscriptions or armorial bearings, under each of 
 which are believed to lie all the mortal remains of the beau¬ 
 tiful queen. The popular traditions, both of which cannot, 
 neither of which may, be true, seem to indicate a concealed 
 knowledge, among the vassals of the house of Bolcyn, that 
 the body was, in fact, abstracted from the tower, and placed 
 in holy ground, though the place of interment may well have 
 been concealed, or its site forgotten. 
 
 To those who believe in true love sympathies, and deaths 
 by broken hearts, it may be interesting to know, that the two 
 
366 
 
 THE TALE IS TOLD. 
 
 persons who most truly loved this young and interesting wo 
 man, perhaps, the only two, who ever truly loved her, Wy¬ 
 att and Northumberland, both followed her to the tomb within 
 four little months. 
 
 A beautiful contrast this, to die brutal, bloated tyrant, wait¬ 
 ing, on his eager horse, with his huntsmen and his hounds 
 around him, until the dull roar of the culverin, booming down 
 the wind, should tell him that the lovely form, which had so 
 often slept softly on his bosom, was now a mutilated mass 
 of gory clay, and then, amid the blase of bugles and the bay 
 of bloodhounds, the clash of spur and stirrup, and all the clang 
 and clatter of the chase, away to the nuptial orgies, at Wolf 
 Ilall in Wiltshire, away to the more recent toy, the newer, 
 not the lovelier or the younger bride, the vain and treacherous 
 Jane Seymour. 
 
 The tale is told. Such were her charms, her graces, her 
 faults, her follies—such were her sorrows and her sufferings. 
 What were her sins, or if she, indeed, had any, rests between 
 her and her Maker. There let it rest. I cannot pronounce 
 her guilty, I may not declare her innocent. I will not believe 
 her the former until she is proved to be so. But there is noth¬ 
 ing to forbid the chariest to shed a tear over her memory. If 
 she were innocent, she was unhappy; if guilty, she was doubly 
 so. If nothing in her life became her like the leaving cf it, at 
 least that became her well. A tear for Anne Boleyn. 
 
JANE SEYMOUR 
 
 MARRIED, 1536; DIED, 1537. 
 
 The doom, 
 
 Heaven, givos its favorites, early death. 
 
 Byron, Childe Harold, 
 This fair child of miDO, 
 
 Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse. 
 
 SuAKSPEARu, Second Sonnet 
 
JANE SEYMOUR. 
 
 BORN, 1501-'7-MARRIED, 1536-DECEASED, 1537 
 
 The doom, 
 
 Heaven gives its favorites, early death. 
 
 Rrp.ON. 
 
 This fair child of mine, 
 
 Shall sum my count, and be my old excuse. 
 
 Suakspeaee. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 “ But this queen certainly deserved all the favor done her, 
 as being the discreetest, fairest, and humblest of the king’s 
 wives • though both Queen Katharine in her younger days, and 
 the late queeu were not easily paralleled.” So says Cord Her¬ 
 bert of Cherbury, following, as his words show, the judgment 
 he found expressed by others, not rendering his own. It does 
 not surprise me, I confess, that Miss Strickland waxes wroth, 
 at this passage, which she takes, though she misquotes it, even 
 as I have taken it, for the exordium of her memoir of this 
 queen’s life. For it is, indeed, no easy matter to discover 
 wherein lay her extreme discretion, unless it be in her conduct 
 subsequent to her marriage with the king. As to her beauty, 
 >t is in no wise comparable to that of Anne Boleyn, or of the 
 unfortunate Katharine Howard, if Holbein’s picture in the 
 Windsor collection, with which I am familiar, be a likeness , 
 P* 24 
 
. 370 
 
 BLOOD OF THE SEYMOURS. 
 
 nor to that of Katharine of Arragon, at Versailles, if it be cor 
 rectly described by Miss Strickland, who also mentions a far 
 lovelier portrait of the Seymour in the Louvre, probably 
 painted at an earlier period in life, than the Windsor likeness. 
 Handsome, however, she must undoubtedly have been, for 
 Henry knew well what beauty was, both in man and woman ; 
 and this lady won him away from the all-admired Boleyn, who to 
 beauty united wit, grace and every accomplishment; while 
 this, her successful rival, so far as one can judge, with perhaps 
 the single exception of Anne of Cleves, whose only arts, like 
 those of the king-maker’s daughters, were to spin and to be 
 chaste, was the least highly educated and refined of all the 
 king’s wives. 
 
 Humble, God wot!—as the fair Boleyn’s royal daughter 
 would have been apt to say—she might well be, since not only 
 did she lack the casrulean blood, sangre azul , of Spain, which 
 coursed in the thrice noble veins of the Arragonese infanta; 
 not only was she unable to show such hot and high blood as 
 that which flowed from the Howards and Ormouds, through 
 the arteries of the murdered Boleyn; but, though the Sey 
 mours were unquestionably of gentle Norman origin, she could 
 point to no ancestor who had ever gained historic name, nor to 
 one of her own family, who had risen to higher rank in his 
 own county of W iltshire, than that of sheriff of the county, 
 no one of the name having been ever returned knight of the 
 shire. To compensate this, however, a fictitious pedigree was 
 trumped up, by which a royal descent is claimed for Jane 
 and her descendants, on the side of her mother, Margaret 
 Wentworth ; inasmuch as an antique Weutworth had intermar¬ 
 ried with a Lady Percy, daughter of Hotspur, and grand¬ 
 daughter of Lionel, duke of Clarence. To give a color to this, 
 
TIME OF BIRTH. 
 
 371 
 
 Cranmer went through the farce of granting a dispensation, 
 for nearness of kin between Henry VIII. and Jane; though it 
 is notorious that the Lady Percy in question died without is¬ 
 sue, and that, even, had the pedigree been true, the bridegroom 
 and bride would only have been cousins in the fifth degree, 
 which is without the scale of prohibited affinity. 
 
 Miss Strickland, however, who is admirable authority as to 
 matters heraldic, and who has, under favor be it spoken, the 
 nose of one of her own northern sleuth-hounds for a disputed 
 pedigree, well observes that, if the royal kindred be doubtful, 
 the plebeian blood is not so. For it is undeniable, that, by 
 this alliance, the sovereign of England gained one brother-in- 
 law, whose name was Smith, and another whose grandfather 
 was, actually, a blacksmith at Putney—Jane’s sister, Eliza¬ 
 beth, had married the son of the minister, Cromwell, whose 
 origin was well known ; and her sister, Dorothy, was the wife 
 of Sir Clement Smith, of Little Baddow, in Essex. 
 
 Whether the Seymours had cause to be humble or no, it is 
 very clear to me that the Smiths had cause to be proud of 
 this alliance; their name was manfestly in the ascendant. 
 
 Jane Seymour was the eldest daughter of Sir John Seymour 
 of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire ; she was almost exactly of the same 
 age as Anne Boleyn, which I have set down, at the head of 
 her life, as dating variously from 1501 to 1507. This I have 
 done, because both years are assigned to her birth, by writers 
 of credit, though I doubt not, in the least, for reasons rendered 
 in the text, that the earlier is the correct time, and that Anne 
 was at least thirty-two, when she was married, if not in her 
 thirty-third year, and thirty-six at the time of her decapitation. 
 Jane is unanimously allowed to have been the eldest daughter 
 of her father, who had eight children, one of whom, a son, 
 
372 
 
 riCTURES OF THE MAIDS OF HONOR. 
 
 younger consequently than Jane, was one of the children of 
 honor to Mary of England, when Anne Boleyn accompanied 
 that princess to France. 
 
 She could not, therefore, have been much younger than 
 Anne, who, it will be remembered, was but fourteen, at the 
 time of her going abroad. Miss Strickland produces plausible 
 reasons for believing that, although in the first instance Jane 
 was not maid of honor to Mary, she was probably herself in 
 the train, and one of those younger girls who were permitted 
 to remain, when the elder attendants were dismissed; and 
 that she was subsequently promoted to the same rank with 
 Anne. Her reasons for this conjecture are more than con¬ 
 jectural ; the picture, above alluded to, in the Louvre, which 
 our authoress confidently affirms, from its likeness to the more 
 youthful English portraits of Jane, which are well ascertained 
 to be no other than this lady, is entitled, in the French gallery, 
 “ Maid of honor to Marie d'Angleterre, queen of Louis XII.” 
 It hangs, moreover, as a pendant to a magnificent full length 
 portrait of Anne Boleyn, likewise entitled, “ Maid of honor to 
 the queen of Louis XII.” “ These two well known portraits,” 
 she adds, “ are clad in the same costume, though varied in or¬ 
 naments and color. They are not now recognized in France 
 as queens of England, but as companion suivantes of an En¬ 
 glish princess, queen of France.” It represents a beautiful, full- 
 formed woman of nineteen or twenty. 
 
 It may be added, that the English portraits of Queen Jane 
 Seymour, which appear to represent a faded and delicate vale¬ 
 tudinarian of three or four-and-thirty, have enough of the char 
 acter of the younger heads, to satisfy any observer of the iden¬ 
 tity of the persons delineated. 
 
 Of no person, probably, whc afterward became queen of 
 
TRADITIONARY STORY. 
 
 373 
 
 England is so little known, as of this most fortunate of Henry’s v- ' 
 wives—most fortunate, perhaps, because so little is known. It 
 cannot even be ascertained, how she became, in the first in¬ 
 stance, Anne’s maid of honor. It is not improbable, that she 
 came to her, as an appendage to the crown, from her own sup¬ 
 planted predecessor ; that she entered Katharine’s service with 
 her, on their return from France ; and learned, from observa¬ 
 tion of her own manoeuvres, the art of supplanting queens in 
 the affection of their lords. 
 
 I am not prone to take things for granted in history, or to 
 presume possibilities into probabilities, and then assume prob¬ 
 abilities as facts. But in (his case, the coincidence of ages, of 
 the pictures of the maids of honor to the same French queen, 
 and the conjuncture of the same two women, as successive maids 
 of honor in the English court, appear to justify a little stretch 
 of the imagination. For all that we positively know of Jane 
 Seymour, her first appearance on the historic stage is at the 
 moment when she is found sitting on Henry’s knee, utterly 
 regardless of all the decencies and delicacies, which one would 
 expect to fmd in a young woman of gentle blood and nature, 
 yet not so young withal, as to be ignorant of the proprieties of 
 the world. 
 
 How far her indecorous conduct was carried, we have no 
 means of knowing. Its duration was probably not long; for 
 the effect of the discovery of her vileness on Anne’s unborn 
 offspring, and consequently on Anne’s hold on the king’s af¬ 
 fections, gave her the victory at once. There is a story, tra¬ 
 ditionally told by both Miss Aiken and Miss Strickland, 
 though admitted to rest on no authority, that Anne first dis¬ 
 covered the intrigue of her maid with her husband, from de¬ 
 tecting a miniature of the king hanging about her neck • but 
 
374 
 
 THE CAUSES OF HER GOOD REPORT. 
 
 this I discard, as I did, in the life of Anne Boleyn, the legend 
 of the discovery of her guilt by the dropping of her kerchief 
 in the lists at Greenwich, because it manifestly conflicts with 
 ascertained facts. If Anne had been aware that there were 
 love passages between Henry and Jane, she would not have 
 been surprised, or thrown into hysterical paroxysms and pre¬ 
 mature labor by finding the maid of honor sitting on his knee. 
 It was the first shock of knowing herself supplanted, and the 
 perfect certainty of what was to follow, that overcame her. 
 The first suspicion awakened, the rest follows, of course ; and 
 Anne had doubtless sat many times too often on Henry’s 
 knee herself, while Katharine was queen, to doubt that such 
 was the natural, if not the necessary, consequence, of once ad¬ 
 mitting his addresses. 
 
 How long after the disgraceful discovery Jane remained at 
 court, is nowhere told, but long enough beyond doubt to wit¬ 
 ness the ruin of her unhappy rival’s last hope, for we know that, 
 after her tedious convalescence, there was a struggle on Anne’s 
 part to procure the dismissal of her enemy; but, that failing, 
 she fell into a stupor of despondency, from which she was 
 aroused only by the crash of all her earthly fortunes. It is 
 like, if the whole scene were told us out truly, as it is of Kath¬ 
 arine’s and Anne’s matters, we might find that, when Boleyn 
 retired to her premature accouchement, Jane took her place at 
 Henry’s banqueting board and council table. 
 
 But it is Jane’s especial good fortune, that she alone, of all 
 Henry’s queens, was neither adopted, nor attacked, by either 
 of the belligerent religions. The whole hatred of the Roman 
 ists was concentrated against the unhappy Anne, whom they 
 regarded as the personal enemy of Katharine, the most Cath¬ 
 olic, and as the head and front of the English schism. The 
 
jane’s unchastity. 
 
 375 
 
 extreme reformers, on the other hand, never rallied under 
 Anne’s party, which they did zealously and fanatically under 
 that of Jane’s son, Edward VI., who may be regarded as al¬ 
 most a Puritan king; so that, when Jane was dead and gone, 
 they regarded her only as the mother of their Protestant king; 
 while the Romanists equally upheld her, for her comparative 
 kindness to Mary, the daughter of Katharine. The conse¬ 
 quence is, that during her life the party of the Anglican church 
 upheld her, because she was of their communion; the Romish 
 church supported her, because she had overthrown their arch¬ 
 enemy, Anne; and neither kept any watch on her proceed¬ 
 ings, or took any heed of her short comings and transgressions. 
 After she was dead, all parties, most causelessly, most un¬ 
 justly, combined to glorify her. Before her marriage to the 
 king, her conduct was the most heartless and cruel, and far 
 from the least unchaste of that of any one of his least reputa¬ 
 ble queens; afterward, she was a mere passive, negative doll 
 .—a beautiful doll, probably, for, if not for her beauty, heaven 
 knows there was nothing else for which Henry should have 
 chosen her—but a most uninteresting, cold-blooded woman, and 
 a most faineante queen. 
 
 I say she was not the least unchaste of his least reputable 
 queens ; and I say so, advisedly. I do not mean to say, posi¬ 
 tively, that she was the mistress of Henry, before her marriage 
 with him, as Anne Boleyn was; or the mistress of some one else, 
 before her marriage with Henry, as Katharine Howard was; but 
 I do mean to say, that, as to her real chastity, it does not matter 
 a pin’s fee whether she was or was not. The girl, who will sit 
 on the knee, and submit to the caresses of a married man, with 
 the avowed intent of seducing him from his affection and fealty 
 to his lawful wife, is capable of anything ; and, to iry thinking, 
 
376 
 
 jane’s wedding. 
 
 is unchaste, though, from coldness of temperament, or caution, 
 she may have preserved her person as unstained as that, of 
 Diana. Indeed, I can readily imagine one, who has fallen to 
 the arts of the seducer, loving not wisely but too well, chaster 
 and purer in soul, than she who, seducer herself, has kept a 
 polluted mind in an unpolluted body. But the subject is an 
 odious one, at best; almost as odious as “ the discreetest, fair¬ 
 est, humblest wife” of the defender of the faith. 
 
 How long she tarried at the court, as I have said, is not to 
 be ascertained; perhaps, she attended the queen in the bal¬ 
 cony, during those fatal jousts at Greenwich; perhaps she was 
 one of the ladies, who waited in silence round the dinner table, 
 unwilling to be the first to disclose the horrid tidings, which they 
 were not all unwilling to see arrive, while the fated sovereign 
 wondered why the king’s waiter came not, with his wonted 
 compliment, “ much good may it do you,” until the surnap 
 was removed, and Kingston and the cruel Duke of Norfolk 
 came to remove her to the tower. 
 
 But she was not at the court, when the doom was pro¬ 
 nounced, when the two-handed broadsword flashed, and the 
 beautiful head fell. She was not at the court then. But it 
 was from no sympathy, no pity, no delicacy of mind, no ten¬ 
 derness of heart. No! it was not, even, from the natural de¬ 
 cency, which the vilest woman would assume, if she had it not. 
 No ! she was at her father’s seat of Wolf Hall, in Wiltshire, 
 fashioning the snowy robe, embroidering the bridal veil, 
 wreathing the orange crown, mixing the bride-cake, drawing 
 the marriage wine, red as the blood which must flow from an¬ 
 other lovely woman’s veins, before that festive draught can go 
 round among the shouting company; and all that, while the 
 heart was yet alive and warm and palpitating in untold agony, 
 
WOLF HALL. 
 
 377 
 
 which must cease to beat, ere her happiness could be consum¬ 
 mated. Atrocious, odious, abominable, as is the character of 
 that detestable man and king, to me it seems gentle, genial, 
 and commendable, as compared with that of the heartless, un- 
 sexed woman, who waited in her well named abode—it should 
 have been a Wolf Hall truly to afford a den to so true a she 
 wolf — with eager eyes and panting heart, for the coming of 
 the bloody-souled, if not bloody-handed, newly made widower, 
 who should make her the murderous bride of a murderer. 
 
 Such was “ the discreet, fair, humble queen,” whom Prot¬ 
 estant and Papist have vied with one another who should 
 praise the most fulsomely—of whom, historian after historian 
 has repeated the glib, parrot-story—whom American women, 
 when they read the loathsome narrative of her ascent through 
 deceit, lust, and blood, to royal eminence, are taught to regard 
 as modest, virtuous, meritorious, and, for aught that I know, 
 worthy of imitation. 
 
 One portion only of the legend must needs be false. It is 
 that, which tells us, that after awaiting the booming of the 
 noonday gun, telling of the perpetrated murder, either in Ep- 
 ping chase, or in Richmond park, for, in both localities, tradi¬ 
 tion points to the exact oak tree under which he stood, Henry 
 rode, that same night, to Wolf Hall, in Wiltshire, and was 
 wedded on the following morning. If it be true that he waited 
 in either place, it must necessarily have been at Richmond, 
 which is nine miles on the route toward Wiltshire; while 
 Epping chase lies thirteen in a diametrically opposite direc¬ 
 tion. Still, Winchester stands sixty-three miles south-west of 
 London, while Tottenham park and Wolf Hall cannot be less 
 than ten or fifteen farther, the whole making a distance, which, 
 even now, with the advantage of the excellent roads of the 
 
378 
 
 THE WEDDING DAY. 
 
 nineteenth century, it would be difficult to find a horse to cover, 
 Detween sunrise and sunset, especially with twenty stone 
 weight, or upward, on his back,—and Henry, measuring six 
 feet four inches in height, and more than obese in proportion, 
 could not have possibly weighed less. As roads were, in those 
 days, and the state of the country in general, even with relays 
 of horses, it would have been good travelling, to a man of 
 Henry’s weight and age, if he accomplished it on the second 
 evening, after starting from Richmond at mid-day; and accord¬ 
 ingly we find it stated by Lord Herbert, that there were two 
 stories in vogue, one, which represented the marriage as oc¬ 
 curring on the next, and the other, more consistently, on the 
 third day following Anne’s execution. Yet there is something 
 peculiar in the story, as has been pointed out in Fisher’s gen¬ 
 ealogical history of England,* namely, that the nineteenth of 
 May, in 1536, fell on Friday, and Saturday, the twentieth, was 
 the day before Rogation Sunday; so that, it the wedding 
 were not performed on that day, it could not have taken place 
 until after Whitsuntide. Now the marriage did take place before 
 Whitsuntide; for the bride was presented in London at that 
 time to the citizens, and the wedding festivities were mingled 
 with the rejoicings usual on that day. The ceremony certainly, 
 therefore, was performed on the twentieth day of May, in Tot¬ 
 tenham church; the bridal party partook of a splendid banquet 
 served up in a detached building at Wolf Hall, which is yet 
 entire, and, after dinner they proceeded to Marwell, near Win- 
 chester, where the chamber is still shown in which the newdy 
 married couple passed the night. 
 
 The only solution of the difficulty is, if Anne were not exe¬ 
 cuted until twelve o’clock on the nineteenth, that Henry, in 
 
 * Quoted by Miss Strickland, iv. 210. 
 
SUBSERVIENCY TO TIIE KING. 
 
 379 
 
 his furious eagerness, must have ridden through the livelong 
 night, by aid of relays posted, in advance, along the road, and 
 reached Wolf Hall on the morning of the 20th, in time to 
 celebrate his wedding. A great feat, indeed, for a man, 
 then in his forty-fifth year, of luxurious habits, and gigantic 
 frame, who had already been noticed, at his second interview 
 with Francis of France, to have become too unwieldy and 
 obese to take part any longer in his once favorite pursuits of 
 the tilt-yard and the tournay; and one which shows how 
 strong and resolute was his will, when once fairly aroused, and 
 how puissant his frame, even in its impaired condition, to meet 
 every tax, which he chose to impose on it. Several members 
 of the privy council, it seems, were present at the marriage, 
 which was performed in church, as is evident from the follow¬ 
 ing passage, as also at the feast that followed it; for Lord Her¬ 
 bert, speaking of the wedding, says, “ Concerning the ceremony 
 whereof, as well as the opinion held in those times of the differ¬ 
 ent perfections of the king, and his two queens, I shall out of 
 our records produce the censure of Sir John Russel, afterward 
 earl of Bedford, who, having been at church, observed the 
 king to be the goodliest person there ; but of the two queens 
 gave this note, that the richer Queen Jane was in clothes, the 
 fairer she appeared, but that the other, the richer she was ap¬ 
 parelled, the worse she looked.” 
 
 The strange and disgraceful subserviency to this monster 
 king, of his parliaments, is well shown in the addresses pre¬ 
 sented on his marriage, by the two houses, and the new act, 
 by which the succession was vested in the heirs of the body 
 of Queen Jane, “ whose age and fine form give promise of 
 issue,” Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne being declared illegiti¬ 
 mate, just as Mary had been, previously, on Anne’s elevation 
 
380 
 
 o 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY FLATTERIES. 
 
 Tlie speaker, chosen by this precious house of commons, was 
 Solicitor-general Rich, the perjured caitiff, who had sworn away 
 the life of Sir Thomas More, and who now unblushingly com¬ 
 pared the bloated tyrant “ for strength and fortitude, to Sam¬ 
 son, for justice and prudence, to Solomon, and for beauty and 
 comeliness, to Absalom.” 
 
 “ Thus did the English senate,” observes the lady, from 
 whom I have so often quoted, “ condescend to encourage 
 Henry in his vices, calling his self-indulgence, self-denial, and 
 all his evil, good; inflating his wicked willfulness with eulogy, 
 till he actually forgot, according to Wolsey’s solemn warning. 
 ‘ that there was both heaven and hell.’ While the biographer is 
 appalled, as the domestic features of this moral monster are un¬ 
 veiled, surely some abhorrence is due to the union of atrocities 
 that met in the heads and the hearts of his advisers and flatterers.” 
 
 A curious testimony of the circumstances of this act of ab¬ 
 horrent treachery and domestic wickedness exists in the dedica 
 tion to Coverdale’s bible, printed in Zurich, in 1535. In the 
 preface to this work, the names of Henry and his queen were 
 to be mentioned with eulogy, as reforming princes, but the 
 hapless Anne having been sacrificed, and Jane Seymour set 
 in her place, while the sheets were going through the press, 
 an attempt has been made to reconcile the error by the in¬ 
 terlineation of a J above the word Anne, as often as it occurs 
 in the text. Oddly enough, this is not the only instance of 
 ex post facto alterations of printed forms, which occurs in this 
 reign. When Anne was brought to bed of Elizabeth, so con 
 fident were the king and his council that the royal will could 
 control that of heaven, that an instrument was actually pre 
 Dared and printed, beforehand, announcing the birth of a prince. 
 When the child appeared, and proved to be a girl, the gender 
 
THE BOOTLESS REIGN. 
 
 381 
 
 had to be altered in the text; and, there not being room for 
 two letters, a single s was interpolated, making the queen to 
 be delivered of a princes; whence some authors have fallen 
 into the error of imagining that Anne Boleyn gave birth to a 
 male heir, who died, before Elizabeth. 
 
 There is hardly a fact, worthy of commemoration, recorded 
 of the brief reign of this Jane, who has been described as a para¬ 
 gon of human virtues; the only direct document of her queen- 
 ship, which has been preserved, is an order to the park-keeper 
 at Havering at the Bower, to deliver “ two bucks in high sea¬ 
 son ” to certain gentlemen named; and this instrument, as au¬ 
 thority to which she cites the king’s warrant and seal, is signed, 
 in a sprawling, awkward manuscript, “ Jane the Quene.” The 
 only act of kindness or charity, which can be quoted in her fa¬ 
 vor, is her reception of the young Princess Mary, at Green¬ 
 wich palace, during the Christmas rejoicings of 1537. Yet 
 the hard terms on which this unhappy child was readmitted to 
 her father’s partial favor, only after confessing under her own 
 hand, her own illegitimacy, and the unlawfulness of her moth¬ 
 er’s marriage, and making the most abject submission for her 
 past undutifulness, speaks little either for the kindness of this 
 queen’s heart, or the potency, if it were honest, of her inter¬ 
 cession with the king. 
 
 Her only known grief was caused by the death of her father, 
 in the sixtieth year of his age, at the height of honors and am¬ 
 bition, leaving his eldest daughter queen, and his eldest son, 
 created Earl of Beauchamp, and appointed for life lord-cham¬ 
 berlain of England; and how much she was grieved at this 
 event, or how far consoled by the wealth and honors, which 
 flowed in upon her family, from every quarter, is not to be 
 discovered. 
 
382 
 
 SENTENCE OF A DEAD SAINT. 
 
 We learn, also, that the winter was a severe one, and that 
 the queen, with her husband and all his court, crossed the 
 Thames to Greenwich, on horseback, on the ice. In the fol¬ 
 lowing spring, the royal pair made a progress to Canterbury, 
 not, one may be sure, on a pious pilgrimage to the shrine of 
 St. Thomas a Becket, though that saint was concerned in the 
 matter. It will not be forgotten, that, when Henry was busy 
 reforming abuses and abolishing shrines, this rebellious saint, 
 who had been dead three centuries, or thereabouts, was cited 
 into court to show cause why he should not be found guilty of 
 sedition against his royal master, Henry II. The saint, not 
 appearing, he was allowed thirty days, in which to make his 
 appearance in person, or by proxy; that being, it must be pre¬ 
 sumed, the ascertained period in which the journey may be 
 made between earth and Paradise—for we cannot suppose a 
 saint to have had any other abiding place ; and, failing to do 
 this, he was condemned to forfeit all his worldly goods to the 
 king, and to have his bones burned, as a public admonition to 
 future saints, in expectancy, to pay due respect to kings. The 
 latter portion of the sentence was, of course, duly executed; 
 but Henry seems to have imagined that there was some trick¬ 
 ery on the part of the saint, that the worldly goods had not all 
 been duly handed over. Perhaps, the saint had made them 
 over to some brother or sister saint, in order to cheat his ma¬ 
 jesty’s exchequer. At all events, it was a matter, evidently, 
 worth looking after ; and it appears, that it was to no small 
 purpose, that Henry did look after it; for he ever after wore, 
 as a thumb ring, the magnificent diamond, presented to St. 
 Thomas by King Lewis VII., and known by the pilgrims to 
 the time-honored shrine of the martyred bishop, as “ the Lustre 
 of France.” 
 
BIRTH OF PRINCE EDWARD. 
 
 383 
 
 On his return from this progress, Henry, it seems, was de¬ 
 sirous that, as both his former wives had enjoyed gorgeous 
 coronations, though they had both been afterward discrowned, 
 his present wife should not lack, at least, the former distinc¬ 
 tion ; but, in the first place, the plague, which raged at West¬ 
 minster, intervened ; then, the birth of Prince Edward oppo¬ 
 sed farther delay ; and, lastly, the greatest of mortal mon- 
 archs, King Death, took the matter into his own hand, and deter¬ 
 mined by that decision, from which there lies no appeal, that 
 the fair Jane Seymour should be neither crowned, nor dis¬ 
 crowned, by any fingers but his own. 
 
 It was on the sixteenth of September, 1537, that Queen Jane, 
 according to the ceremonial then in use with English queens, 
 took to her chamber at Hampton court, one month previous 
 to the expected event, during the whole of which time she was 
 not permitted to quit her apartment, and was waited on by 
 ladies only. On the 12th of October, after terrible sufferings, 
 during which the queen’s attendants put the cruel question to 
 Henry, “ Whether he would desire saved, if to save both 
 should prove impossible, his wife or the child,” she was deliv¬ 
 ered of a prince, on Friday, the vigil of St. Edward’s eve. 
 The question having been put, as it doubtless was—for such is 
 the rule in the case, at least of royal accouchemenls, and the 
 writer well remembers that it was put in the instance of the 
 Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, though, in that instance, 
 answered on the Christian view of the subject, but in vain — 
 there can be no doubt that Henry did reply, as he is said to 
 have replied — “The child, by all means. Other wives can 
 be found easily.” To have made the other choice was not in 
 Henry’s nature. The child, however, survived, without re¬ 
 course tc the dreadful alternative, to inherit his mother’s beauty, 
 
384 
 
 CHRISTENING OF EDWARD. 
 
 and especiall) her starry eyes—to inherit, I think, something 
 of her character, for he seems from childhood to have been 
 cold, formal, narrow-minded, and in spite of his after admira¬ 
 ble education by Henry’s last and most excellent wife, Kath¬ 
 arine Parr, to have had but a narrow share either of heart or 
 intellect. 
 
 The queen, with ordinary care, might have recovered and 
 survived ; but, whom the agonies and perils of child-birth had 
 spared, the christening festivities destroyed. The boisterous 
 king was furious and brutal in his joy, as he was in his rage, 
 in his tenderness, in all things. The court, at his beck, bid¬ 
 ding, and example, went mad. Revelry waxed into riot, and 
 riot roared through the palace. The ceremony took place on 
 the Monday after the birth, and the faint queen was forced to 
 rise from her bed, to lie on a state pallet, and play her part 
 in the pageant, which proceeded from her very chamber. 
 
 Never was seen such a procession—never in any procession 
 were such persons brought together. The sponsors were the 
 Princess Mary, Cranmer, and the Duke of Norfolk. The in¬ 
 fant Elizabeth, borne aloft in the arms of the arrogant and am¬ 
 bitious Seymour, the queen’s brother, carried in her baby 
 hands the crimson, for the son of her, to make whom queen 
 she was herself made motherless and bastardized; and the 
 Earl of Wiltshire, the father of the murdered Boleyn, assisted 
 at the rite, a weak, white-headed dotard. Of these persons, 
 Mary, the first sponsor, succeeding her brother, the first Prot¬ 
 estant defender of the faith, for whom she that evening re¬ 
 sponded, among the cruellest deeds of her cruel Romish reign, 
 consigned to the stake and fagot one of her associates, Cran¬ 
 mer, in that solemn, Christian rite; the other, the Duke of 
 Norfolk, who narrowly escaped his own bloody doom by 
 
jane Seymour’s death. 
 
 385 
 
 Henry’s timely death alone, being his prosecutor and deadli¬ 
 est enemy. Elizabeth, destined to be the most puissant of 
 English queens, and to efface by the glories of her reign the 
 dark and doleful memories of her mother, was led back in the 
 returning procession, by her sister Mary; her train borne by 
 the Lady Herbert, sister of yet a future queen of England, 
 Katharine Parr—both disinherited, both illegitimated, both to 
 wear the crown of England, the one under the bloodiest, the 
 other under the bravest and brightest auspices. 
 
 What a leaf was there to be read in the book of Kite, turned 
 at that christening, if any had been there endowed with lore 
 to read it. 
 
 After the ceremonial, which lasted until midnight—during 
 the whole duration of which time the king sat revelling and 
 rollicking, in his great content, by the side of the sick queen’s 
 pallet, killing her, while he was designing in the rude style of 
 his rough tenderness to cheer her—the royal child was borne 
 back to the chamber, with trumpets braying, kettle-drums 
 booming, and heralds bellowing the proclamation of the new 
 born infant’s titles, to receive his mother’s blessing. 
 
 It is no wonder that, on the Wednesday ensuing, the mother 
 was so ill that it was held necessary to administer the sacra¬ 
 ment to her. Still she died not yet, as some writers have sup¬ 
 posed, but survived a fortnight; finally, and it is like fortu¬ 
 nately for herself, departing this life at Hampton Court, on 
 the 28th day of October, the only one of Henry’s six wives, 
 who died a queen, the only one who bore him an heir male, 
 and the last who bore him a child, though she had three suc¬ 
 cessors in her perilous state. 
 
 She received a splendid funeral, and was buried in great 
 pomp, Mary officiating as chief mourner to her friendly step- 
 Q 25 
 
3S6 
 
 TIIE MONUMENTS OF QUEENS. 
 
 mother, m St. George’s chapel, at Windsor, where, on her 
 tomb, was engraved the following epitaph, in allusion to her¬ 
 self and to Prince Edward, who sprang from her decease: 
 
 “Phoenix Jana jacet, nato Phcenice. dolendum, 
 
 Saecula phoenices nulla tulisae duos.” 
 
 “Here a phoenix lieth, whose death 
 To another phoenix gave breath. 
 
 It is to be lamented much 
 
 The world at once ne'er knew two such.” 
 
 Henry wrote a characteristic letter to Francis, on this event, 
 deploring the death, and exulting at the birth, but confessing 
 that the latter gave him far more joy, than did the former 
 grief. He failed, however, in no mark of respect to her mem¬ 
 ory, causing his whole court to wear mourning for her, even 
 during the holidays of the ensuing Christmas — no slight trib¬ 
 ute when it is considered how utterly he abhorred the sight of 
 black, which he believed ominous of evil, for devoid as he was 
 of all mercy, humanity, or grace, he was, by no means, want¬ 
 ing in superstition. 
 
 It is remarkable, that in his last will the king commanded 
 that the bones of his “loving queen Jane,” in her quality, 
 doubtless, of mother to the future king, should be laid in his 
 own tomb; and his orders were obeyed, for when George IV. 
 caused the vaults of Windsor chapel to be searched, for the 
 corpse of Charles II., the coffin of Queen Jane lay, side by 
 side, with the gigantic skeleton of Henry VIII., which some 
 previous accident had exposed to view.* “ He likewise left 
 directions for a magnificent monument to their mutual memo¬ 
 ries, which, he intended, should be erected in Windsor chapel. 
 Both their statues were to be placed on the tomb ; the effigy 
 
 * Miss Strickland, vol. vi. 224. 
 
MAN PROPOSES, GOD DISPOSES. 
 
 387 
 
 of Jane was to recline, not as in death, but as one sweetly 
 sleeping; children were to sit at the corners of this tomb, 
 having baskets of roses, white and red, made of fine, oriental 
 stones—jasper, cornelian, and agate, ‘which they shall shew 
 to take in their hands and cast them down, on, and over the 
 tomb, and down on the pavement; and the roses they shall 
 cast over the tomb shall be enamelled and gilt, and the 
 roses they cast on the steps and pavement shall be formed of 
 the said fine, oriental stones, and some shall be inlaid on the 
 pavement.’ ” 
 
 The beautifnl design, though directed by Henry’s own -,ign 
 manual, was never executed ; it was begun, indeed, but n •ver 
 finished; and the materials are said to have been stoler du¬ 
 ring the civil wars. 
 
 But the monument—which he stated he would have to Queen 
 Katharine’s memory, which should be “ one of the goodliest 
 monuments in Christendom,” the beautiful abbey-church of 
 Peterborough, namely, spared from the common destruction 
 that befell all monasteries, because it covers her remains—sur¬ 
 vived the barbarous iconoclasm of Ireton, Brooke, and Pe¬ 
 ters in the seventeenth century, and still stands—though the 
 actual place of her interment is unmarked save by a small 
 brass plate—the actual monument of that most royal and mag¬ 
 nificent of all his royal consorts. 
 
 Thus, it is shown, in one more instance, that whatever man 
 may propose, it is God only who disposes ; and that, plan and 
 purpose as we may, the plans and purposes will turn only to 
 the final end, which he has predetermined. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ANNE OF CLEYES 
 
 MARRIED, 1540; REPUDIATED, 1540. 
 
 In such fi business, give me leave to use 
 The help of mine own eyes. 
 
 i cannot love her, nor will strive to try. 
 
 Shakspearb. All's Well that Ends Weil 
 
>ss- 7 
 
 ANNE OF CLEVES. 
 
 BORN, SEPTEMBER 22, 1516', MARRIED, 1540 J REPUDIATED, 1540. 
 
 In such a business, give me leave te use 
 The help of mine own eyes. 
 
 I cannot love her, nor will strive to try. 
 
 Sdakspeare. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Among the many principalities, which existed of old, sup¬ 
 porting distinct populations, and govenied by noble, brave, 
 and warlike princes, which at the end of the great Napoleonic 
 war, in 1815, were merged in the larger empires, one among 
 the most considerable of the lesser German powers, was the 
 duchy of Cleves, which, with its dependencies of Berg, the 
 county of Mark, Ravensburgh, Juliers, and Ravenstein, was 
 ruled by a line of hereditary princes, who, in the reign of 
 Henry VIII., lacked neither dignity, influence, nor importance, 
 among the European sovereigns of the time. It has since, 
 with all its subordinate possessions, been absorbed by Prussia. 
 
 The ruling monarch of these principalities, who had in fact 
 united them, himself, for the first time, into one government, 
 by his marriage with Maria, the heiress of William, duke of 
 Juliers, Berg, and Ravenstein, was John, surnamed the Paci- 
 
392 
 
 HENRY A WIDOWER. 
 
 ficator, who had succeeded his father, John the Clement, in 
 
 1521. 
 
 He was a politic and powerful prince ; he was closely 
 connected with that potent confederacy of German princes, 
 known in history as the Smalcaldic league, whereof that he¬ 
 roic prince, John Frederic, duke of Saxony, who had married 
 Sibylla, his eldest daughter, was the most distinguished chief 
 and leader. This Princess Sibylla, late of Cleves, now of 
 Saxony, was one of the most meritorious and renowned ladies 
 of her age in Europe, equally noted for her great beauty, her 
 unusual talents, and her high spirit. This princess had two 
 sisters, Anne and Amelia of Cleves, both her juniors, and both 
 said greatly to resemble her in their physical and mental qual¬ 
 ifications. 
 
 John of Cleves, the Pacificator, was a reformer and a Lu 
 theran, and his son-in-law of Saxony, “ for his invincible adhe¬ 
 rence to his principles, and his courage in adversity, was sur- 
 named the Lion of the Reformation.” 
 
 After the death of his third wife, Jane Seymour, Henry VIII., 
 who was,one would say,never contented, either with a wife while 
 he had one, or without one when a widower, immediately began 
 to cast about his eyes for another consort; and having, now, ta¬ 
 ken into his head that a French lady would suit his tastes, 
 wnich, to do him justice, were, at least, more refined than his 
 temper,.he applied to his friend, Francis the First, to aid him 
 to the object of his wishes. Francis, it seems, made some 
 general complimentary reply, to the effect that there was no 
 single lady in the kingdom, who would not hold herself hon¬ 
 ored by the offer of his hand ; whereupon, the literal-minded 
 Englishman coolly requested him to send down a batch of the 
 handsomest women of his court to Calais for inspection. 
 
MARIE OF LORRAINE. 
 
 393 
 
 Francis, of course, declined the offer, saying that it was im¬ 
 possible to trot noble ladies out, like horses at a fair, and to 
 pick them for their shapes and paces. But this strange man 
 was not to be put off easily. He had fallen in love, or, what 
 is the same thing, imagined he had fallen in love with the 
 lovely Marie of Lorraine, dowager duchess of Longueville; 
 and, though he was distinctly informed that he could not have 
 her, since she was betrothed to his nephew, James of Scotland, 
 he, in perfect consistency with his temper, only became the 
 more pertinacious, from the opposition. At last, Chatillon, 
 the French ambassador at the court of London, who was at 
 times entertained, at times worried, by his persistence, asked 
 him, as he informs his sovereign and employer, “ whether he 
 would marry the wife of another.” To which he made an¬ 
 swer that “ he knew she had not passed her word yet, and 
 that he would do ten times as much for Francis, as the king 
 of Scots could do.” When this project of alliance fell 
 through, owing to Madame de Longueville’s actual marriage 
 with James, an union with that lady’s handsome sister, or with 
 Mademoiselle de Vendome, was suggested to him, when he 
 instantly recurred to his first idea of personal inspection. Cha¬ 
 tillon hinted that he could send some one to look at them for 
 him,—“ Pardie,” replied he, “how can I depend on any one 
 except myself? ”—besides, he said, he wanted to see them, 
 and especially to see them sing. It is known, that he was an 
 enthusiastic and skillful musician and amateur, and passion¬ 
 ately fond of music; but it seems, by this, that his love of 
 sweet sounds could not overpower his love for handsome faces; 
 and that it was as indispensable in his ideas that the lady of 
 his love should look pretty while she was singing, as that she 
 should be a proficient in that art. 
 
 Q* 
 
394 
 
 THE FRENCH LADIES. 
 
 At length, reluctantly enough, as it appears, finding that he 
 could do nothing with Chatillon, nor by any means get a chance 
 of a reenactment of the judgment of Paris, with his own hand, 
 in lieu of an apple of gold, as the delur pulcherrimce of the la¬ 
 dies of France, he gave up the idea of a queen from that land 
 of grace and refinement. 
 
 It must not be forgotten, as it is absolutely necessary for 
 understanding the history of the times, that England was at 
 this time divided into two, or, one may say, three great reli¬ 
 gious parties; on the ascendency of the one or other of which, 
 all the politics of the time depended, and according to the suc¬ 
 cessive alternations of which the alliances and foreign policy 
 of the comitry alternated. The first of these was the old Ro¬ 
 mish party, sustained by many of the noblest families of the 
 peerage, especially in the north country, where to this day that 
 creed prevails more largely than elsewhere in the realm, with 
 the Howards, Percys, Cliffords, and other great names at their 
 head. These looked for nothing less than a return to the old 
 order of things, a reconciliation with the pontiff, and the res¬ 
 toration of Roman authority in England. The second was the 
 court, or Anglican church party, which, adhering to all the doc¬ 
 trines and traditions, and using the ritual of Rome, objected to 
 the foreign supremacy, and approved of the English system as 
 established by Henry, without desiring any farther reforms, 
 or countenancing the Lutheran innovations. The third were 
 the true Protestant reformers, whether Wickliffites or Lu¬ 
 therans, who were afterward termed Puritans, and who, though 
 neither in this nor any succeeding reigh, except the short one 
 of Edward VI., did they dare to avow their principles openly, 
 were yet a powerful and increasing body, especially among the 
 middle classes. It was, in fact, the weight of this secret organ- 
 
POLEMICAL PARTIES. 
 
 395 
 
 ization, that secured the establishment of Henry’s church, with 
 a view to the introduction, as occasion should serve, of yet 
 farther reforms. This latter party, of which Latimer and, se¬ 
 cretly, Cranmer, were the leaders, though often persecuted by 
 the Anglican party, always made common cause with them 
 against the Papists, the common enemies of both, and, when 
 the Anglicans needed their support, were aided by them. 
 
 From the beginning to the close of Henry’s reign, it was a 
 struggle between these parties, and also between the Roman¬ 
 ists and Reformers on the continent, which should possess the 
 king’s ear by means of his wife; and we constantly find that, 
 when he chanced to be a widower, either party used every ex¬ 
 ertion to find him a helpmate of its own persuasion ; and when 
 he had a wife, that party to which she did not belong, had re¬ 
 course to every method, however cowardly or wicked, to de¬ 
 throne and destroy her. This strange warfare waged by reli¬ 
 gious sects, with royal wives for their weapons, began with 
 the cruel injustice done to Katharine of Arragon, which the 
 Romanists vainly resented and resisted. Frustrated by the 
 elevation of Anne Boleyn, they had materially contributed to 
 her fall, if, indeed, they did not plan and execute it. Under 
 the passive reign of the cipher, Jane Seymour, who had no re¬ 
 ligion, or any, just as her husband might desire, both parties 
 remained inactive, both flattering and praising the power that 
 was at least harmless, and preferring the rule of queen log, to 
 that of queen stork, in spite of creed or church. 
 
 When Jane departed this life, and the king’s hand was again 
 in the market, the struggle recommenced, and it soon appeared 
 that fortune favored the Reformers. The inability of Henry 
 to obtain a French queen, and the unwillingness shown by 
 most of the ladies of the European courts—Spain being en- 
 
396 
 
 THE SMALCALDIC LEAGUE. 
 
 tirely out of the question, in consequence of the alienation of 
 the princes—to enter into any alliance with a king, who was 
 generally believed to have poisoned two, as he had unquestion¬ 
 ably beheaded one, of his three wives, suggested to the Prot¬ 
 estant party the idea of securing and advancing the reforma¬ 
 tion, by marrying the uxorious widower to a Lutheran prin¬ 
 cess, and entering into a close alliance with the German prin¬ 
 ces of the Smalcaldic league. 
 
 Cromwell proposed to the king the princesses of the house 
 of Cleves, and advances were made to the German princes, 
 in order to see how they would regard the project. The gal¬ 
 lant and noble elector of Saxony, at first objected strongly, 
 and opposed the union of any female member of his family to 
 a man of so inconstant, brutal and capricious a disposition, as the 
 king of England. But it was represented to him earnestly, 
 that wavering already in the scale, and half inclined to join 
 heart and hand with the reformers, such a marriage would de¬ 
 cide the English monarch, to the infinite advantage of Ger¬ 
 many, which, strengthened by the solid alliance of England, 
 might defy the united force and fraud of Spain and Rome; 
 and, ultimately, religion and policy carried the day, and, as 
 usual, female happiness was sacrificed to the demon idol of ex¬ 
 pediency and state intrigue. 
 
 It was signified to Henry that either of the sisters, Anne or 
 Amelia, was open to his addresses; agents were despatched to 
 report upon them and their respective charms; the famous 
 painter, Hans Holbein, visited the court of the Pacificator, to 
 portray their charms, and send the result of his labors for the 
 inspection of Henry. 
 
 It is impossible to doubt, that Cromwell had recourse to de¬ 
 ceit and intrigue to carry his end; for all his agents, Christo- 
 
PERSON OF ANNE OF CLEVES. 
 
 397 
 
 pher Mount, Nicholas Wolton, and, in short, all who were em¬ 
 ployed in this business, did, beyond doubt, send the most glu¬ 
 ing and exaggerated accounts of the beauties, talents and capa¬ 
 bilities of the ladies; and Holbein, whether merely from the 
 natural propensity of painters to flatter ladies’ portraits, and 
 make foul fair, or that he received a hint from the wily minis¬ 
 ter to make the best of it, transmitted two miniatures, both 
 more than usually comely, but one, that of Anne, so eminently 
 handsome, that the king was amazingly taken with it, and, 
 learning that she was of a tall and well developed person, be¬ 
 came, as usual with him, urgent and impatient for the imme¬ 
 diate consummation of the marriage. 
 
 The truth is, that Anne was a fine, tall, shapely German 
 girl, with a good, grave, somewhat heavy, gentle, placid face, a 
 dark complexion marred with the small pox, which, of course, 
 did not appear in the miniature, good eyes and hair, and no 
 more. In short, she had no pretensions to beauty, whatever. 
 She was in all respects provincial, as compared to the accom¬ 
 plished, refined, volatile beauties of the French and English, or 
 to the stately graces of the proud donnas of the Spanish courts. 
 She had not a pretension to style or grace. Probably her fine 
 and shapely person was not set up, as it is termed, by any ele¬ 
 gance of carriage or demeanor; she could speak no language 
 but her own, not even French or Latin ; she did not dance, or 
 yet play on any instrument, or even sing. In a word, she dif 
 fered fully as much from the ladies with whom Henry had been 
 wont to associate, as would the plain, unadorned daughter of 
 a German merchant, professor or counsellor, in any of the infe. 
 rior Rhenish cities of to-day, differ from a reigning beauty of 
 the exclusive coteries of London or Paris. 
 
 I,-in no respect, mean or desire to detract from this excellent 
 
398 
 
 HER CHARACTER. 
 
 and much injured lady—injured almost as much by the neg 
 lect and contempt which she has met from posterity and his 
 tory, as by the insolence and brutality of her husband. 
 
 In my memoir of Anne Boleyn, I observed on the fact, how 
 strangely the reputation of ladies, having possessed bewilder¬ 
 ing beauty, has operated on minds which, never having been 
 subject to their influence, might be expected to be impartial, 
 yet have been warped into showing as much favor to the bright 
 creatures, as though they had been themselves expectant lovers. 
 I must now notice the converse of this position. For it is not to 
 be denied, that the silence of history with regard to the high 
 qualities, the gentle virtues, the unmurmuring patience of this 
 much wronged princess, her unvarying kindness to her step¬ 
 daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, her domestic excellencies, and 
 all the fine points of her character, which endeared her to her 
 subjects, and preserved their regard when she became their fel¬ 
 low subject, must be attributed to the report of her plainness 
 of person, homeliness of habit, and entire lack of all the qualifica¬ 
 tions which we attribute to a gorgeous queen, or a heroine of 
 romance. Happily, for her, she had nothing of romance, noth¬ 
 ing of sensibility or sentiment in her disposition. She had 
 strong sense of duty, strong love of right, of order, of deco¬ 
 rum, of comfort; and, under circumstances which, to a person 
 of higher excitability, more nervous temperament, and greater 
 need of sympathy, would have been a cause of endless mis¬ 
 ery, lived happy, and died honored, in a far country and among 
 a foreign people, with whom she had no kindred or commu¬ 
 nity, even of language. 
 
 It must be admitted that the king was aware of her being 
 deficient in those accomplishments, which he so much craved 
 and admired; though he was assured that she possessed the 
 
IIER DEPARTURE. 
 
 399 
 
 talents, which would easily enable her to acquire them. It is 
 not probable, that this was the case ; for, though she was by 
 no means wanting in ability, her capacities appear to have been 
 rather administrative and domestic, with a disposition incli¬ 
 ning to be passive and acquiescent, than brilliant, rapid, or 
 comprehensive. 
 
 The very fact, however, that he so lightly accepted a bride 
 deficient in all the mental graces, which we must allow him to 
 have appreciated, induces the opinion, that he had formed the 
 most exalted estimate of her personal beauties. It was a daring 
 trick, indeed, if it were a trick, that Cromwell played on 
 his dangerous master; if an error, it was a fatal error. In 
 any event, it ruined him beyond redemption. 
 
 But to return to the course of events. Some small delays 
 occurred to the arrangement of the contract of marriage, owing 
 to the death of Anne’s father, and to some talk of a precon¬ 
 tract, which was said to have existed between herself and the 
 Duke of Lorraine. But these difficulties were easily over¬ 
 come ; the contract of marriage was signed at Dusseldorf on 
 the 4th of September, 1539, and, in the first week of October, 
 she departed from that, her native city, and proceeded over¬ 
 land, with a splendid cortege, through the Netherlands, to her 
 husband’s French stronghold of Calais. There she was met 
 by the Earl of Southampton, lord high admiral of England, 
 the Lord William Howard, Gregory Cromwell, the brother- 
 in-law of the late queen, and a splendid train of gentlemen and 
 nobles. It is a curious fact, that, in that train, were kinsmen 
 of five out of Henry’s six queens. 
 
 What these nobles thought of the person of their new queen, 
 it is not stated. Whatever was their opinion, doubtless, they 
 kept it to themselves; since to report her plain in case the king 
 
400 
 
 SIIE LANDS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 might chance to find herhandsome,orhandsorne if he should judge 
 her plain, would have been equally dangerous. For several 
 days, she was detained at Calais, by stress of weather, and 
 there kept her Christmas, royally ; probably that was the 
 pleasantest insight into royalty that she ever enjoyed. On the 
 27th of December, she took ship, landed at Walmer castle, 
 and proceeded, nobly escorted, to Rochester, where she was 
 entertained magnificently by the bishop, who had made prep, 
 aration for her passing New Year’s day at his palace. 
 
 Hither, on New Year’s eve, came Henry, incognito , intend¬ 
 ing to visit her privately on the morrow, in order, as he told 
 Cromwell, “ to nourish love ”—and hither he sent Sir Anthony 
 Brown to inform her, that “he had brought her a New Year’s 
 gift, if she would please to receive it.” 
 
 Brown stated afterward, “ that he was struck with conster¬ 
 nation when he was shown the queen; and was never so much 
 dismayed in his life to see a lady, so far unlike what had been 
 represented.” 
 
 Yet greater, it seems, was the dismay of Henry, who, in his 
 anxiety to see his new bride, in whom, probably, he expected 
 to find something that should surpass in beauty the serene ma¬ 
 jesty of Katharine of Arragon, the sparkling grace of Anne 
 Boleyn, the lovely gentleness of Jane Seymour, entered her 
 apartment, that same evening, somewhat abruptly, unable to 
 control his impatience. He absolutely recoiled, when he saw 
 her. Lord Russel, who Was present at the interview, bears 
 witnass, that he “ never saw his highness abashed, but only 
 then.” 
 
 What poor Anne thought of her burly bridegroom we 
 know not; but it is clear, that she had the most cause to com¬ 
 plain ; for Henry had lost every particle of the robust and 
 
henry’s disappointment. 
 
 401 
 
 manly beauty, for which he had been once famous, and was 
 now merely a coarse, bloated, unwieldy man, bordering on his 
 grand climacteric, and bearing on his broad, red face the traces 
 of all sorts of indulgences, physical and mental, of sensuality, 
 pride, cruelty and ungoverned temper. Probably, she was 
 both terrified and revolted ; the rather, that he was in one of 
 his moods of sullen fury ; she sank on her knees, however, at 
 his entrance, and tried, to the best of her power, to tender him 
 a loving welcome. Furious, as he was, and disappointed, the 
 meekness and humility of her demeanor so far moved him, 
 that, he for once, did so much violence to his feelings, as to 
 behave himself like a gentleman; he raised her up graciously, 
 kissed her, and supped, and passed the evening with her; yet, 
 as she spoke no English, he no Dutch, and as scarce twenty 
 words passed between them, and those through the medium of 
 an interpreter, the first unfavorable impression was not like to 
 be counteracted ; the rather that her German accent grated as 
 harshly on Henry’s musical ear, as her large, heavy features 
 offended his classic eye. 
 
 With that evening interview, all his forbearance ended. Wo 
 betide the ministers and nobles who had to bear the brunt of 
 his displeasure! 
 
 The first on whom he fell was Southampton, the lord high 
 admiral, who had brought her to England—all this would be 
 ridiculous, if it were not simply brutal. “ How like you this 
 woman 1 ” was his first salutation to the earl. “ Do you 
 think her so personable, fair and beautiful, as report hath been 
 made unto me 1 ? I pray you tell me true.” “ I take her not for 
 fair” said the admiral, who evidently did not mean to be 
 held amenable, “but to be of a brown complexion.” The next 
 on whom his fury burst after his return to Greenwich, whither 
 
402 
 
 HIS DISLIKE TO ANNE. 
 
 he rode back sulkily and alone, having sent his New Year’s 
 gift of a rich suit of sables, which he did not consider Anne hand¬ 
 some enough to receive from his own hand, with a cold mes- 
 siige, by Sir Anthony Brown, was Cromwell, who was dearly 
 to rue his agency in this matter. On seeing him, he vituper¬ 
 ated him, with the most wholesale abuse; charged him with 
 having bound him to “a Flanders mare,” and commanded 
 him on his peril to find some means to extricate his neck from 
 that yoke. 
 
 But when he found that he could not withdraw without giv¬ 
 ing the German princes cause of war against him, which he 
 could not afford to do while Spain was on ill terms with him 
 on account of his conduct toward Katharine, he sullenly, reluc¬ 
 tantly, and with many brutal, ungentlemanly and unmanly ex¬ 
 pressions of disgust and dislike, celebrated and consummated 
 his marriage with this gentle, unoffending, dignified and virtu¬ 
 ous lady, who was as far superior to him in every particular, 
 as Hyperion to a Satyr, which he most resembled. 
 
 The pomps were splendid, the pageantry magnificent, and 
 to those of the commons, who were ignorant of the guilty and 
 brutal secrets of the royal breast, the content of the king was 
 considered perfect; while he was, in truth, secretly devising 
 how he might get rid of his newly wedded queen, and on what 
 grounds or charges he might compass the death of Cromwell 
 whom he had determined to destroy, in requital of his agency 
 in this detested marriage. 
 
 To the other odious qualities of his character, Henry had now 
 added consummate hypocrisy ; and, while he was living with 
 her as man and wife, showing her much outward attention, and 
 calling her “ sweetheart,” and “ darling,” in the presence of 
 her ladies, he was privately tormenting her with his captious 
 
GROUNDS FOR THE DIVORCE. 
 
 403 
 
 temper, irritating her by every species of taunt and aggrava¬ 
 tion, and, yet worse and more infamously impugning her vir¬ 
 tue, in private, as if she had not come a virgin to his bed, and 
 declaring, in public, that it never had been his intention to own 
 her his wife. 
 
 How to get rid of her, however, appears to have been the 
 difficulty ; and, as was usual with him, when he was planning 
 any unusual enormity, he began to talk about his tenderness 
 of conscience, and his scruples at living with a heretic Lutheran ; 
 when happily, perhaps, for herself, she let fall an expression, 
 which enabled him to release himself from her, without accu¬ 
 sing her of adultery, shedding her blood, or shaming her hon¬ 
 est name by any charge of infamy. 
 
 Driven one day to extremity by his irritating persecution, 
 when she was conscious of striving to the utmost of her abil¬ 
 ity to gratify his every whim, she was provoked into saying to 
 him, “ that if she had not been compelled to marry him, she 
 might have fulfilled her engagement to another, to whom she 
 had promised her hand.” This was enough. 
 
 It gave him a clue, on which he was not slow to act; but, 
 first, he had work of blood and vengeance to perform ; and 
 from work like that, he never held back his hand. Reginald 
 de la Pole had given him fresh offence, and he was resolved to 
 punish him by the judicial slaughter of the last of his kindred. 
 Gertrude, marchioness of Exeter, and De la Pole’s mother, 
 the last of the high blood of the Plantagenets, the aged Coun¬ 
 tess of Salisbury, must be brought to the block, in order that 
 the king might be avenged on his enemy. There was no 
 proof, no charge, no shadow of offence against them, but, at 
 Henry’s order, Cromwell procured their attainder, by act of 
 parliament, without hearing, and their condemnation to death, 
 
404 
 
 IS 
 
 VENGEANCE ON CROMWELL. 
 
 without witnesses, written evidence or criminal process. This 
 was an enormous villainy of Cromwell’s own creation, a high¬ 
 handed outrage on law and justice, which he had been the first 
 to introduce into the desecrated courts of England. Peril] us- 
 like, he was the first to suffer by his own monstrous creation. 
 He had taught 
 
 “ Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return 
 
 To plague the inventor." 
 
 The unhappy ladies were committed to the tower, reprieved 
 for a while, and detained as hostages for their kinsman’s good 
 behavior, yet not to escape, one of them, at least, the dread 
 conclusion of the scaffold and the axe. But Cromwell, so soon 
 as he had accomplished this last crime, as if, with truly fiend¬ 
 ish malignity, Henry had resolved that he should jeopard his 
 own soul, before he would destroy his body, was arrested, on 
 a charge of heresy and high treason, by the Duke of Norfolk, 
 at the very council board, over which he had so long presided. 
 He was brought to the block with all speed, by the method he 
 had himself introduced, of attainder, without trial, hearing, or 
 opportunity of defence. On the 10th of June he was ar¬ 
 rested ; on the 28th of July, he laid down his head on the 
 block, and died on Tower hill, professing himself a Catholic 
 and no heretic, to the last; guiltless, certainly, of the crimes 
 for which he suffered, but surely worthy of death, for the very 
 many wickednesses he had aided the king to commit, and for 
 the very many innocent victims he had sent before him, on 
 the bloody way he was himself bound so soon to travel. 
 
 The son of a blacksmith, he rose, by no good arts, but by 
 the practice of all evil ones, by pandering basely to the passions, 
 ministering to the willfulness, and furnishing weapons to the 
 wickedness of the king, to be lord privy seal, viceregent to the 
 
CROMWELL AND BARNES. 
 
 405 
 
 king, in spiritualities, knight of the garter, earl of Essex, lord 
 great chamberlain of England. While the king had work for 
 him, he used him; when the work was done, he broke him 
 and cast him away. Like Haman, he was hanged upon the 
 gallows he had erected for Mordecai, and there were none who 
 pitied him. 
 
 Nearly at the same time, another, but a blameless, victim 
 to his agency in this inauspicious and unhappy marriage, the 
 pious and learned Doctor Barnes, perished yet more cruelly. 
 He was patronized and beloved by Anne, yet Anne could uot 
 save him. He died nobly, a martyr for his principles and his 
 faith, in the devouring flames, in Smithficld. 
 
 It is credible, that recourse was had to these arrests and 
 prosecutions, for the purpose of intimidating the queen, and 
 deterring her from opposing the will of her tyrant lord. For 
 he had now seen Katharine Howard—whom he had first met at 
 a dinner party at the Bishop of Winchester’s, and appointed 
 maid of honor to the queen—long enough to love her, and de¬ 
 termine on raising her to the crown. And, within a few days 
 after the arrest of Cromwell, Anne of Cleves was commanded 
 to withdraw herself to Richmond, on the pretence that she 
 needed change of air. Yet a few days afterward, some of the 
 very lords, who had been instrumental in bringing about her 
 marriage, moved the peers, on the ground that they doubted 
 the validity of the contracted alliance, and had fears concern¬ 
 ing the succession, to petition the king for leave to call a cler¬ 
 ical convention, and inquire into the question, to decide on it 
 according to the law. Whether intimidation was intended or 
 no—and I doubt not it was—indisputably, it was effected ; as 
 is evident, from the agony of terror, into which this unhappy 
 lady fell, when Suffolk, Southampton, and Wriothesley visited 
 
406 
 
 DIVORCE OF ANNE. 
 
 her at Richmond, in order to convey to her the king’s deter 
 mination. 
 
 For the matter had been pushed rapidly forward, as was, 
 indeed, everything that Henry undertook, from ‘he moment 
 of its first inception. The king had answered the lords’ peti¬ 
 tion cheerfully, as if he were doing a great favor to the coun¬ 
 try, professing himself^ willing to take any measures that 
 should be for the good of his well beloved people, and ready 
 to answer any questions, that might be proposed to him for 
 that end. 
 
 The convocation of the clergy was held, and, on the 9th day of 
 July, unanimously declared the marriage null, on three 
 grounds; first, that she was precontracted to the Prince of 
 Lorraine; second, that the king had wedded her against his 
 will, and had never given his inward consent to the consum¬ 
 mation of the marriage ; and third, that there were no hopes 
 of issue. 
 
 , When the three councillors entered her apartment, at Rich¬ 
 mond, of whom Suffolk was the constant instrument of Hen¬ 
 ry’s matrimonial tyrannies, and Wriothesley, the basest, mean¬ 
 est, and cruellest of all his low-born tools, conspicuously infa¬ 
 mous for his rudeness and brutality to ladies, mindful of the 
 fate of Anne Boleyn, the queen fell fainting to the floor in an 
 agony of terror. It required all their assurances to soothe her 
 and banish her terrors; but when she learned, that no more 
 was required of her, than to consent to the divorce, and, in so 
 far as she might, to reconcile her brother and friends thereto, 
 she consented with almost too much cheerfulness and alacrity. 
 Henry, who could not conceive that his persecuted and aban¬ 
 doned wives should do otherwise than idolize him, to the last, 
 was aston'shed ; it was too good news to be true. Nevertho-- 
 
THE DAUGHTER OF CLEVES. 
 
 407 
 
 less, it was true. Anne not only professed her perfect willing¬ 
 ness to pleasure the king in all things, but returned him her 
 wedding ring; spoke of her marriage as pretended ; accepted 
 with thankfulness her allotted rank of the king’s adopted sis¬ 
 ter, which was given to her, with precedence over all ladies in 
 the realm, except the future queen and the king’s daughters, 
 Elizabeth and Mary ; and agreed to carry on no correspond¬ 
 ence with her family abroad, which should not be subject to 
 the king’s inspection. This done, she received grants of three 
 thousand pounds a year, in lands, most of them the forfeited 
 property of Cromwell, who died, unpitied, a few days after her 
 divorce, but on the condition only, that she should reside 
 within the realm. Richmond palace was assigned to her as a 
 residence; and there, with a peaceful little cours, and among 
 ladies assigned to her, after those had been dismissed, who 
 were sworn to attend her as queen, she lived contentedly, 
 merrily, and in happiness, not often granted to ladies who sat, 
 in those days, on England’s thorny throne. 
 
 Cranraer pronounced her divorce. It was the strange fate 
 of this man, thrice to pronounce the same marriages of his 
 master valid and invalid.* If the old Earl of Warwick, in a 
 former reign, excited wonder, as the king-maker, surely this 
 prelate should have excited greater wonder, who made and un¬ 
 made three queens of England, without a cause for making, or 
 pretext for unmaking one. 
 
 Anne, who signed herself, hereafter, “ daughter of Cleves,” 
 was evidently detained, in some sort, as a hostage for the 
 peaceable conduct of her German relatives ; among whom, her 
 brother, the reigning Duke of Cleves, was thrown into a rage 
 of grief and indignation, and wept burning tears of humiliation 
 at hearing of the disgrace and repudiation of his beloved sister 
 
408 
 
 henry’s suspicions. 
 
 who, evidently from the tenor of more than one of her letters 
 to him, enjoining on him caution and quietude, considered that 
 her life might be endangered by any “ untowardness ” on his 
 part. 
 
 Twice she fell under suspicion from the jealous king, who 
 ever kept a watchful eye of espoinage over his adopted sister’s 
 doings, and both times for the same cause—a false rumor of 
 her being pregnant. The first time, immediately after his 
 marriage with Katharine Howard, when between his love for 
 his new doll, and his furious desire for heirs, it was something 
 doubtful, whether he wished or feared that the rumor should 
 prove true — the second time, after the fall of the fair and 
 frail Howard. On both occasions, the rumors were easily 
 proved false; but, on the latter, one of her ladies, Elizabeth 
 Basset, who had exclaimed, when she heard of that unhappy 
 girl’s execution, “ What a man the king is! and how many 
 waves will he have?” had some difficulty in saving her own 
 head, and only got off, by declaring that the tidings of Katha¬ 
 rine Howard’s naughtiness had so far astounded her, that she 
 must have lost her senses when she used those words. 
 
 Anne of Cleves, in all these difficult matters, showed con¬ 
 summate prudence and judgment. She dressed splendidly ; 
 entered largely into all sports and diversions; kept a liberal 
 household, partly after the old English open hospitality, partly 
 after the decorous fashion of German economy ; and, whether 
 that she really was exuberantly rejoiced to be free from the 
 perilous chains of royal wedlock, or merely that she affected 
 excessive happiness, in order to lull to sleep Henry’s suspi¬ 
 cions, showed herself much livelier, cheerfuller, and more 
 openly gay, after the dissolution of her marriage, than she had 
 
HENRY VISITS HER. 
 
 409 
 
 ever been during its pendency, when she was probably dis¬ 
 tracted with anxieties and apprehensions. 
 
 Henry visited her, not unfrequently at Richmond, and al¬ 
 ways found a pleasant and light-hearted welcome from her. 
 During the brief reign of her successor, Katharine Howard, she 
 was once a visitor of the royal pair, and passed some days 
 with them at the royal residence of Hampton Court; but 
 when, after her rival’s bloody death, her friends, in Germany, 
 and the Protestant party in England, hoped and endeavored 
 to reinstate her, she held prudently but positively aloof, un¬ 
 willing, if it had been offered to her, to resume the dangerous 
 dignity from which she had so happily escaped. 
 
 It is remarkable, that Hever castle, the patrimony of Anne 
 Boleyn, of which the king had, with his usual grasping tyr¬ 
 anny, possessed himself on her murder, became one of the 
 jointure houses of Anne of Cl eves, to which was added, in 
 exchange for the manor of Blitchingley, which was also her 
 property, Penshurst, famous in after days, as the birth-place 
 of the gallant Sir Philip Sydney. Here, and at her other ru¬ 
 ral manors, the noble daughter of Clevcs happily and tran¬ 
 quilly passed the noon of her life. She had become thor¬ 
 oughly English in her heart and feelings, and lived the life 
 —useful, serene, and tranquil, but noiseless and unshining,—of 
 a noble English lady. When she appeared in public, the pre 
 cedence, which had been guaranteed to her, was unhesitatingly 
 accorded. But that was not often, for she shunned splendor 
 and sought repose. She lived in the closest amity with her 
 step-daughters,—the Protestant Elizabeth, as with the Romish 
 and priest-ridden Mary,—as the constant interchange of gifts 
 and good offices between them, and the bequests to them in 
 her last testament, clearly evinces. Her last public appear 
 R 
 
410 
 
 HER DEATH AND MONUMENT. 
 
 ance was at the inauspicious marriage of the latter princess to 
 Philip of Spain, a union which entailed misery on her coun¬ 
 try, infamy and detestation on her name. “ The daughter of 
 Cleves ” survived her barbarous and brutal lord by ten years, 
 and, by his death, was at liberty if she chose it, again to try 
 the bitters and the sweets of the matrimonial cup; but her 
 experience was not such as to tempt her to the trial. She 
 died as she had lived, an honorable, unpretending, happy, En¬ 
 glish lady; but strange to say, having entered that Protestant 
 realm, a Protestant, she left it, when she died, a Papist. She 
 died peacefully, at the palace in Chelsea, of a declining sick¬ 
 ness, in the forty-first year of her age, leaving a will singularly 
 indicative of her amiable and gentle character. “Her benefi 
 cent spirit,” says Miss Strickland, with much truth, “was 
 wholly occupied in deeds of mercy, caring for the happiness 
 of her maidens and alms-children, and forgetting not any faith¬ 
 ful servant, however lowly in degree.” 
 
 Many more beautiful and showy women, many greater and 
 more celebrated queens have gone to their long homes, but 
 few, if any, more highly endowed with all the best and sweet 
 est qualities of womanhood. 
 
 She was buried, by Queen Mary’s order, with some mag¬ 
 nificence, in Westminster Abbey. Her tomb occupies a place 
 of great honor, near the high altar, at the feet of King Sebert, 
 the original founder of that minster church ; but it is rarely 
 recognized, though on a close inspection her initials, A. C., in¬ 
 terwoven in a monogram,.may be discovered on various parts 
 of the structure, which was never finished. “ Not one of 
 Henry’s wives,” says Fuller, “ excepting Anne of Cleves, had 
 a monument, and hers was but a half a one.” 
 
KATHARINE HOWARD. 
 
 MARRIED, 1640 ; BEHEADED, 1641. 
 
 Was she chaste and fair. 
 
 Worthy a king's, or more, a Roman's bed ? 
 
 How lived, how loved, how died she? 
 
 Byron. C kiltie I Tar <Ad, 
 
KATHARINE HOWARD. 
 
 » 
 
 BORN, 1522 ; MARRIED, 1540; BEHEADED, 1542- 
 
 Was she chaste and fair, 
 Worthy a king's, or more, a Roman s bed. 
 
 How lived, how loved, how died she? 
 
 Bvbon. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Histort, in all its sad details, has no sadder tale than this 
 of the young, beautiful, unhappy Howard, whom youth, sta¬ 
 tion, beauty seem only to have betrayed into deeper and more 
 inevitable ruin. In all England’s splendid and illustrious ar¬ 
 istocracy, there is no nobler name than that from which she 
 sprang; and at no period, earlier or later, of English history 
 was that noble name more gloriously or more constantly 
 brought before the public, than during the reign of Henry VIII. 
 In the first brilliaut years of his sway, full of promise and pros¬ 
 perity, before one trait of his evil passions had developed it¬ 
 self, while he was yet, to all eyes, the brave, intelligent, aspi- 
 ring youth, full of the high, mingled blood of the Tudors and 
 Plantagenets, eager to win honor and renown from, then, he-' 
 reditarily hostile France, one scion of this noble name distin¬ 
 guished himself by his gallant bearing and glorious death, as 
 
414 
 
 THE HOWARDS. 
 
 lord high admiral of England, the brave, blunt, truly En 
 glish sailor, Sir Edward Howard. He left, in his testament, 
 the gold and jewelled cup of Thomas a Becket to Queen Kath¬ 
 arine of Arragon, and to the king his golden whistle, the in¬ 
 signia which belonged, of right, to his office, and which he sus¬ 
 pended about his neck by a chain of the same precious metal. 
 It fell to the lot of a grander and"nobler legatee. Boarding a 
 French galliot, under the batteries of the bay of Conquet, he 
 was unsupported by his men, and died, fighting desperately 
 against the pikes of the enemy, thus making good in his death 
 his favorite maxim, that the valor of a sailor ought to be akin 
 to madness. Before he fell, however, he cast his whistle into 
 the waves, that it should not be a trophy in the hands of the 
 enemy. It is not unfit that the sea should receive the noble 
 legacy of one dying English admiral, when so many of those 
 nave won their laurels from the sea. 
 
 To him succeeded, as high admiral, his brother, the Lord 
 Thomas Howard; for at that time the distinction was not 
 clearly defined, between the sea and land services, and even at 
 a much later date we find instances of admirals, such as Co 
 ligny and D'Andelot, performing the duties of generals by 
 land ; and of generals, on the other hand, commanding ships 
 at sea. In fact, the services were not distinct; for the crew 
 who worked the ship, under marine officers, had nothing to do 
 with the fighting of it; while the men-at-arms, who fought un¬ 
 der the command of their own captains, had nothing to do with 
 the nautical manoeuvres, and probably scarce knew the stem 
 from the stern of the vessel. 
 
 In the terrible and glorious victory of Flodden, which was 
 won by his father, the gallant Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas led 
 the English van, on which fell the brunt of the action, and 
 
THE BIRTH OF KATHARINE. 
 
 415 
 
 which was for a considerable time in much jeopardy, being 
 oppressed by numbers, and nearly borne down by the serried 
 phalanx of Scottish spears, under Lennox and Argyle. Under 
 Sir Thomas, served yet another brother, Edmund, who showed 
 singular valor in the action, and was thrice dismounted, three 
 horses being killed under him. For their share in this vic¬ 
 tory, the Earl of Surrey was elevated to the dukedom of Nor¬ 
 folk, Lord Thomas to the earldom of Surrey, and an augmen¬ 
 tation was granted to the arms of Howard, the upper half of a 
 red lion, the royal bearing of Scotland, pierced with an arrow. 
 
 This Sir Edmund—who was one of the noble bachelors who 
 followed Mary of England in her bridal train to France, in 
 which figured also his lovely niece, daughter of his own sister, 
 Anne Boleyn—married Joyeuse, or Jocosa, daughter of Sir 
 Richard Culpepper, of Hollingbourne, in Kent, and widow of 
 Sir John Leigh. By her he had three sons, first, and there¬ 
 after three daughters, the second of whom is the subject of this 
 memoir, being, in a word, his fifth child. Now, supposing Sir 
 Edmund to have been married in the autumn of the very 
 year in which we find him a bachelor, that is to say, 1515, it 
 is impossible that his fifth child could have been born previ¬ 
 ous to the close of the year 1520, or the commencement of 
 1521. 
 
 There is an object in this calculation, as will appear here¬ 
 after, stronger than the mere verification of a date; since to 
 her extreme youth may be ascribed all the imprudencies and 
 miseries of this unhappy girl, and on it must be founded all 
 that we can ofler in her apology. 
 
 Early in Katharine’s childhood her own mother died — the 
 greatest misfortune, beyond doubt, that can befall a woman— 
 and her father married, a second time, Dorothy, the daughter 
 
116 
 
 TIIE CHILDHOOD OF KATHARINE. 
 
 of Lord Troyes. The old and noble duke, the Earl of Sur 
 rey of Flodden, dying shortly after Edmund’s first ■wife, Sir 
 Thomas, afterward created Earl Surrey, became duke; and 
 Sir Edmund, being about this time appointed controller of 
 Calais and its marches, availed himself of the offer of his step¬ 
 mother, Agnes Tylney, the dowager duchess, to bring up the 
 little Katharine in her household. 
 
 It must be borne in mind, that at this period it was not the 
 general use of parents, especially of royal or very noble houses, 
 to bring up their children at home, but rather to place them 
 out in other households of equal rank, where they were educa¬ 
 ted, it seems to have been supposed, better and more strin¬ 
 gently—a certain degree of honorable semi-servitude being 
 then considered necessary to the formation of the youth of 
 both sexes—than they could have been under the domestic 
 roof. Iu this instance, the practice was the ruin of Katharine. 
 
 Of the character or history of this Agnes Tylney, the old 
 duchess of Norfolk, as she was called, to distinguish her from 
 the wife of her step-son, little is known ; and that little equally 
 unfavorable to the qualities of her heart and of her head, but 
 more especially of the latter. She appears, in the circumstances 
 brought up by this sad case, to have been a person of no judg¬ 
 ment, a vain, talkative, weak, gossipping old woman, without 
 either prudence or common sense. 
 
 She was continually at feud, and, it would seem, engaged 
 in lawsuits with her step-sons, especially with the present duke; 
 to which must, apparently, be attributed the rancorous enmity 
 exhibited by that nobleman to both his unfortunate nieces, at 
 times when their cruel situation most claimed the sympathy 
 if not the succor and support, of a kinsman. 
 
 The duchess, at the time when Katharine was committed to 
 
MANOX THE MUSICIAN. 
 
 417 
 
 nor charge, resided at Lambeth, which was a very general re¬ 
 sort of Henry’s nobles and courtiers, being regarded as one of 
 the most pleasant and fashionable quarters in the vicinity of the 
 court, with fine lawns, orchards, and gardens, sloping to the 
 river, and numerous palatial residences, among which were 
 those of Katharine’s uncles, the Duke of Norfolk, the Lord 
 William Howard, as also of the Lord Beaumont, and other 
 great persons. 
 
 In the court of her elder niece, Anne Boleyn, the old count¬ 
 ess played a somewhat prominent part, figuring both in her 
 coronation and in the christening of Elizabeth, the. two events 
 taking place in the same year, 1533 — a fatal one, indeed, to 
 the unhappy Katharine, who was now only in her thirteenth 
 yeai. We know so little of the interior and domestic ar¬ 
 rangements of the great baronial houses of this day, that it is 
 scarcely possible to say how far the circumstances of this 
 child’s ruin—for she was but a child — are to be attributed to 
 especial neglect on the part of the duchess, and how far they 
 are ascribable only to the lax system and rude and vicious 
 habits of the time. It is certain, however, that she was made 
 to associate with waiting women, persons not of family or sta 
 tion, as their names clearly indicate, but mere servants, living 
 among them, and sleeping at night with them, in the same 
 common dormitory. And, melancholy to relate, they chanced 
 to be the most depraved of their sex. 
 
 There was in the household of the duchess, one Henry Ma- 
 nox, a player of virginals—it is worthy of remark in this con¬ 
 nection, that at this time, and long after, the musicians, lute- 
 players, and singers of the court society, perform a large part, 
 in all the most disgraceful intrigues of the day. Low born, 
 and often illiterate men, raised for the most part by their mu 
 R* 27 
 
418 
 
 INTIMACY OF KATHARINE AND MANOX. 
 
 aioal talents from the dregs of society, not gentlemen from in. 
 nate instincts, education, or high feeling, and yet raised by their 
 art, and by their position as instructors, to a certain station of 
 equality among gentlemen, and to terms of intimacy with their 
 pupils, their standing in the community was anomalous, their 
 influence was almost invariably evil, and themselves, for the 
 most part, thorough profligates and villains. This Manox had 
 become intimate with the unlucky child, at Horsham, the coun¬ 
 try place of the duchess, in Norfolk; and, though he had not 
 seduced her, which her tender years forbade, he had obtained 
 a fearful degree of intimacy with her; had brought her to con¬ 
 sent to a clandestine correspondence with him, which was car¬ 
 ried on, in succession, by two of the duchess’s women, one 
 Mistress Isabel, and, after her, one Dorothy Barwyke. About 
 this juncture, a person named Mary Lascelles, entered the house¬ 
 hold of the duchess; she had been nurse to the Lord William 
 Howard’s first child, and, on the death of his wife, was engaged 
 to attend the youthful Katharine. This woman, speedily dis¬ 
 covering, from the prattling of the servants, that there were 
 love passages between the young lady and the musician, re¬ 
 proached him violently ; threatened him for his presumption, 
 and concluded by telling him, “She is come of a noble house, 
 and if thou shouldst marry her, some of her house would kill 
 thee.” He replied, in the most profligate language, avowing 
 openly that he thought not of marriage, that his intentions 
 were dishonorable, and that, from the liberties Katharine had 
 permitted him, he was confident of success. 
 
 This infamous Lascelles, who, after ruining the girl, in the end 
 betrayed the queen, and brought her to the block, instead of re¬ 
 porting this villainy to theduchess, who might have prevented far 
 tiier misery and shame, told Katharine herself what had passed 
 
FRANCIS DEREIIAM. 
 
 419 
 
 and, although the poor child answered, in her shame and in¬ 
 dignation, that “she cared not for him,” she immediately gave 
 the lie to her own words, by going, in the company of this 
 base woman, in search of the virginal player, to the servant’s 
 hall of Lord Beaumont, where she found and upbraided him 
 with his infamy ; but on his pleading the excess of passion as 
 his excuse, saying “ that he was mad, and knew not what he 
 said,” she had the weakness to forgive him. She was once 
 seen in his company, afterward, walking in the orchard of the 
 duchess with him at Lambeth. 
 
 Such is the history, a sad one and pitiable, of her first lapse 
 from discretion, if not from virtue. If she were innocent in 
 fact, it was her tender years alone,that protected her; chance, 
 not steadiness or honor, that preserved her. Of the villain, 
 Manox, no more is known; nor does he again figure in his¬ 
 tory, until he is found, shortly previous to the concluding 
 tragedy, a musician in the king’s household, into which, like 
 another infamous person, Joan Bulmer, a confidant of her 
 guilty indiscretions in early youth, who called herself Katha¬ 
 rine’s secretary, he had compelled the queen to procure his 
 tdmission, by threats of disclosure. 
 
 The next case is more conclusive, not of indiscretion, but of 
 actual guilt, infamy, and turpitude almost inconceivable. A 
 bold, wild, dashing cavalier, named Francis Dereham, a gen¬ 
 tleman pensioner of the Duke of Norfolk, who maintained a 
 band of these daring desperadoes, fierce profligate hangers on, 
 the last remains of the feudal retainers of the middle ages, a 
 bold, handsome, insinuating man, an especial favorite of the 
 old duchess, and a distant blood relation of the family, sue 
 ceeded next to make himself master, not of her heart only, 
 but of her person. 
 
420 
 
 DEKEHAM IN IIEH APARTMENT. 
 
 Of the fact, there is no doubt; it cannot be disputed or con 
 coaled ; nor did Katharine herself attempt to deny it, although 
 she persisted, to the last, in asserting that all the favors he ob¬ 
 tained from her, were obtained by violence. This, however 
 is totally disproved, and rendered impossible by the circum 
 stances, which are too gross and revolting for detail or 
 comment. 
 
 This Dereham, as it was shown, and admitted, on her trial, 
 had obtained means of access to the women’s dormitory, after 
 the duchess had locked the door, as was her wont, and retired 
 for the night. Hither he used to repair often, bringing with 
 him wine, strawberries, and other dainties, to regale the young 
 lady of his lawless love, and her attendants; and there, it was 
 notorious that he was almost openly admitted to possession of 
 her charms. 
 
 . There is much reason to believe that she truly loved this bold, 
 bad man, and some, to suspect that she was troth-plighted to 
 him. It was shown that they were in the habit of kissing and 
 caressing each other publicly, before witnesses, and calling each 
 other husband and wife. Dereham was wont to procure her 
 articles of dress and feminine finery, at her request, at his own 
 expense ; she wore embroidered pansies for “ remembrance ” 
 of him, and friar’s knots for “ Francis ; ” and so open and in¬ 
 discreet were their endearments, that the old duchess at length 
 discovering that something was amiss, boxed Mrs. Bulmer’s 
 ears for permitting such improprieties, and chastised both her 
 young relation, and Dereham, whom she drove from her 
 presence. 
 
 It is even doubtful whether already, and not at a later date, 
 though still prior to her marriage with Henry, the duchess 
 was not aware of all the circumstances of the case. 
 
DISCOVERY AND FLIGHT. 
 
 421 
 
 At length Dereham, who was a most re ,’kless adventurer, 
 was involved in some transaction, which rendered it necessary 
 that he should leave his country for a while, when he betook 
 nimself to Ireland, with which he had some unnamed connec¬ 
 tion, and where he is said, and that with much probability, to 
 have been periodically engaged as a buccaneer or pirate. At 
 this, his first evasion, he left all his money, to the amount of 
 above a hundred pounds, in Katharine’s charge, declaring that 
 if he came not back again, he constituted her his heiress ; but, 
 unhappily, he did return; the correspondence was renewed, 
 and the whole affair w'as discovered. It cannot be doubted 
 that it was, now, actually known to many persons, though 
 from respect to her father, and the great family to which she 
 belonged, it was hushed up for the moment. 
 
 Dereham was now fain to fly in earnest, lest some of the 
 ruined girl’s hot-blooded and infuriate relations should sacrifice 
 him, as they surely would have done, an offering due to ven¬ 
 geance and family honor. 
 
 For a time, through the woman Ackworth, afterward by 
 marriage Bulmer, styling herself her secretary, Katharine still 
 continued to keep up a secret correspondence with the fugitive, 
 to whom she had said, amid tears and last embraces, as, at 
 peril of his life, he bade her his last adieu, these memorable 
 words—“Never shalt thou live to say to me, ‘thou hast 
 swerved.’ ” 
 
 It would almost appear, from this peculiar mention of Kath¬ 
 arine’s secretary, in connection with letters of a nature, which 
 no woman would be likely to entrust to an amanuensis, and 
 from some other circumstances which occur later in her his- 
 tory, as well as from the fact that there is no trace, among the 
 state papers, of anything iu the shape of a document, written 
 
422 
 
 HER CHANGED DEMEANOR. 
 
 or signed by her, that this high born lady was not able to 
 write. Yet in the age in which she lived, when a higher de¬ 
 gree of knowledge was common among refined women, inclu¬ 
 ding even the use of Latin and Greek, than is often met at the 
 present day, this would be a thing so unaccountable as to argue, 
 on the part of her guardians, even a greater degree of neglect 
 and want of supervision, than we have a right to assume. 
 
 After Dereham’s departure, a remarkable change came over 
 Katharine. She seemed to awake to a clear sense of her crim¬ 
 inality, of the ruin and disgrace into which she had been be¬ 
 trayed ; and to a clear perception of the unworthiness and in¬ 
 famy of those who had destroyed her. She was, henceforth, 
 as remarkable for her extreme modesty, feminine reserve, and 
 maidenly deportment, as she had been before for willfulness 
 and wantonness, which seem, however, to have arisen more 
 from the thoughtless levity and the want of proper education, 
 and the absence of proper standards, than from a perverted 
 heart, or the dominion of evil passions. 
 
 All her errors were committed at a very early age; cer¬ 
 tainly before she had attained her fifteenth year ; and, as she 
 advanced toward womanhood, the delicacy and sense of shame 
 which she had never learned in her childhood from a mother’s 
 holy teaching, seems to have dawned on her all at once, and 
 increased immediately to their full force, so as to become, from 
 that day forth, the rule and motive principle of her life. Dere¬ 
 ham, it appears, after a time, returned clandestinely from Ire¬ 
 land, and made some efforts to regain his ancient intimacy with 
 her; but, with the reserve and refinement which had come to 
 her, alas ! too late, she had contracted a repugnance, amount¬ 
 ing almost to personal abhorrence and fear of the man, who 
 Sad perverted her innocent ignorance of evil to such base uses. 
 
SHE PLEASES HENRY. 
 
 423 
 
 She repelled him contemptuojsly; and when a repcrt having 
 arisen to the effect that she was about to be married to her 
 maternal kinsman, Thomas Culpepper, Dereham, attributing 
 her altered manner to this circumstance, asked her “ if she was 
 going to be married to him, for he heard it so reported,” 
 answered him with scorn and anger — “what should you 
 trouble me therewith, for you know I will not have you ; 
 and if you heard such a report, you have heard more than I 
 do know.” 
 
 It is alleged, moreover, that he endeavored to use his influ¬ 
 ence to prevent her from going to court; but if he did so, in¬ 
 fluence and authority were alike wanting to him ; she went, in 
 an evil hour to herself, and he returned to his wild practices 
 and buccaneering habits, whatever they were, in Ireland. 
 
 When Henry was first acquainted with Katharine, when she 
 was first appointed maid of honor to Anne of Cleves, when 
 the sprightliness and beauty of her manner and her person first 
 attached the wandering passions of the king, does not appear; 
 nor can it be positively ascertained how old she was when she 
 was married, though she could not have been older than her 
 eighteenth year. Report says that her first meeting with the 
 arbiter of her life, if not of her fates, for they were in some 
 sort determined beforehand, took place at a dinner party at 
 Gardiner’s, the bishop of Winchester, and that, even on that 
 first occasion, she had riveted Henry’s fancy. 
 
 The gossip soon got abroad, and we find it recorded in pri¬ 
 vate letters that, “ the king is going to part from his wife, that 
 he may be married to Mrs. Howard, a very little girl ”—and 
 again we have Marillac writing to Francis, “ Now it is said the 
 king is going to marry a lady of great beauty, daughter to a 
 deceased brother of the Duke of Norfolk. It is even said. 
 
424 
 
 HER MARRIAGE WITH HENRi. 
 
 that the marriage hath already taken place, and it s kept 
 secret.” 
 
 It was now, that Katharine’s dangers began—her old enemy, 
 Bulmer, hearing of her advancement, wrote, claiming to be 
 admitted into her royal household ; and intimidated, doubtless, 
 by fear of disclosure, with that folly which is almost akin to 
 insanity, born of consciousness and terror, she consented. 
 
 Secondly, Francis Dereham reappeared on the stage, and, 
 well aware of what was in progress, observed to one of his 
 comrades—“ I could be sure of Mrs. Howard if I would, but 
 I dare not; the king begins to love her, but were he dead, I 
 am sure I might marry her.” 
 
 Lastly, the old Duchess of Norfolk—whose garrulous folly, 
 continually inquiring of the domestics, as if purposely to keep 
 up the old memories, “ what had become of Francis Dere¬ 
 ham ? ” and expressing her opinion “ that belike Katharine 
 Howard would know where he was,” could scarcely fail to kindle 
 suspicion—was now guilty of the indescribable folly of recom¬ 
 mending her to the king, as a person suitable to the honor 
 which he designed for her. By all accounts that remain, all 
 evidence that can be adduced, Katharine was guilty of none of 
 that odious levity and treachery in supplanting her mistress, 
 which must create so much indignation against her cousin 
 Anne, and Jane Seymour. Her conduct was perfectly deco¬ 
 rous ; she was not wedded until after the divorce of Anne of 
 Cleves was pronounced and promulgated; so, at least, it is au¬ 
 thoritatively stated, although no records of the solemnization 
 of this marriage were ever produced. Shortly, however, after 
 its public announcement, Anne of Cleves was the guest of 
 Henry and his new queen, at Hampton court, a fact which is 
 
A MEMORIAL. 
 
 425 
 
 entirely incompatible with the idea of her having wronged her 
 royal mistress, while serving as her maid of honor. 
 
 Of this unhappy queen, little is known save the commence¬ 
 ment and the end of her career, the sin and the punishment. 
 Of her married life, brief as it was, there is scarcely preserved 
 a memorial. The royal treasures were nearly exhausted, at 
 the date of her marriage, by the pomps and pageants so pro¬ 
 fusely bestowed to conceal the hollowness, which lay within 
 the outer show, that blazoned the nuptials of the detested, 
 Flemish bride. The royal pair lived, during the first half year, 
 almost like a private couple, amid the peaceful retirements of 
 the country, and in the green shades and grassy parks that sur¬ 
 round Hampton court and Windsor castle, the loveliest of 
 England’s semi-rural, yet all-magnificent suburban palaces. The 
 king waxed every day fonder and fonder of his beautiful young 
 bride, and but for that fatal, retrospective blot, that hidden 
 blight, cankering unseen, the blush of her bosom’s purity 
 and faith, it would be difficult to say that she deserved not 
 his love. 
 
 The only memorial, which remains of this portion of her 
 married life, is a sweet, a beautiful, a touching memorial. It 
 shows a feeling heart, one unhardened by the policy, the state in¬ 
 trigue, the cruelty, of a cold court-world, one fearless of miscon¬ 
 struction or reproach, where charity was called for, or sympathy 
 required. It is an order on her tailor—nothing more—in those 
 times tailors were not confined solely to the ruder and harder 
 sex—for a suit of warm, winter apparel, furred night gowns 
 and petticoats, worsted kirtles and the like, for the venerable 
 Countess of Salisbury, the last of the Plantagenets, who lay, 
 during the cold, winter weather, in the damp dungeons of the 
 tower, a prisoner under sentence of death, despoiled of all her 
 
426 
 
 HER FIRST PERIL. 
 
 substance, doomed to the block, on which she was scarce to lay 
 her head before it should be followed by the bright, youthful 
 head of her, who now cared so kindly for her wants, in the 
 time of trouble. During the following summer, the royal 
 pair made a progress through the north country, where an un¬ 
 successful rebellion had been recently suppressed, and where, 
 eager to demonstrate their returning loyalty, the whole pop¬ 
 ulation received them in extacies of joy and congratulation. 
 
 Never had Katharine seen or enjoyed so much of the splen¬ 
 dors and charms of royalty, as during this progress ; yet, in this 
 progress, she committed the fatal errors that destroyed her. At 
 Pontefract Dereham intruded himself on her, and compelled her, 
 by his pertinacity and threats, seconded by the persuasions of the 
 old duchess, to give him the appointment of her private sec¬ 
 retary ; or as some say, to employ him, only, in the transcrip¬ 
 tion of two or three private letters, in the absence of her proper 
 secretary. At Lincoln, a few days afterward, she imprudently 
 granted a long private interview to Thomas Culpepper, in her 
 closet or privy chamber, no person being present except the lady 
 Rochefort, the accuser of Anne Boleyn, and witness against 
 her own brother, who was Katharine’s lady of the bed¬ 
 chamber. 
 
 On the 26th of October, the royal party returned to Wind¬ 
 sor, and on the 30th, proceeded to Hampton court, there to 
 keep the feast of All Souls; and so little fear did Katharine 
 now entertain from the past, that it may be said, without ex¬ 
 aggeration, that never before were the skies of her future so 
 bright and full of promise. 
 
 Henry had actually drawn up a memorandum, and handed 
 it to the Bishop of Lincoln, whereby he should frame a thanks¬ 
 giving to be offered up to God on the morrow, recording his 
 
CRANMER PLOTS IIER RUIN. 
 
 427 
 
 especial gratitude for the excellent good wife he had vouch¬ 
 safed to him, and for the happy times he was enjoying and 
 hoped to enjoy with her. 
 
 When that morrow came, Cranmer handed him in return, a 
 a paper containing a full and succinct account of all Katha¬ 
 rine’s ante-connubial errors, praying the king to examine it 
 at his leisure, and inform him of his pleasure on the subject. 
 
 It was pretended that the brother of the wretched woman, 
 Lascelles, had divulged the circumstances, which he had from 
 his sister—who was represented as being stung by conscience—• 
 to the Archbishop; that he disclosed it to his colleagues, 
 Lord Hertford, and the lord chancellor; and that, together, 
 they judged it too grave a matter to be concealed from his 
 majesty. 
 
 The truth is probably this. By the divorce of Anne of 
 Cleves, the Lutheran party, which had gained a temporary as- 
 ^ cendency, was cast down, and the “ men of the old learning,” 
 had regained the king’s ear by Katharine’s elevation, that lady 
 being, as has been noted, the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, 
 and patronized by Gardiner who were avowedly inclined to 
 that party. It has been alleged that Henry’s fifth queen 
 had enlisted herself in their cause, and was using the in¬ 
 fluence she possessed with the king, which was very great, to 
 overthrow Cranmer and the reformers. No proof can be ad¬ 
 duced of this tradition. Katharine Howard does not appear to 
 have possessed the talents implied by the supposition of such 
 a scheme,, if she had the will, which is doubtful, nor was she 
 of a jealous or intriguing disposition. Beyond question, how¬ 
 ever, a privy council had been held at Gorstwick’s house—the 
 owner of which had, the preceding spring, openly accused 
 Cranmer of heresy in parliament—Gardiner presiding; at 
 
42S 
 
 CHARGES AGAINST KATHARINE. 
 
 which it was resolved to take strenuous measures agidnst that 
 prelate, who was undeniably in secret a reformer, to the full 
 extent of the Lutheran creed. 
 
 To save himself, it was necessary to strike a blow that should 
 be felt by the whole of the Romish and Anglican church-party, 
 and what so ready method of doing so, as through the queen ? 
 Her secret, known to so many, had undoubtedly been whispered 7 
 secretly abroad, since her rise to such high station ; for faults 
 and sins, which may lie hid in the humble and the lowly, 
 “ whose fortunes and the stories of their lives are plunged,” 
 as Sallust has it, “ in the same obscurity,” are instantly re¬ 
 vealed and made clear as day by the blaze of distinction, 
 which makes public the virtues alike and the vices of the high 
 and proud in birth and station. To the great it is permitted 
 to have nothing secret. Katharine, unhappy child, was neither 
 proud nor haughty—with all her faults, she had a loving na¬ 
 ture, a humble and retiring disposition ; but the curse of great¬ 
 ness had fallen upon her, and wear it as she might, she was to 
 rue it. Attention once called to her early life, suspicion once 
 awakened, and revenge and policy seeking her destruction, 
 witnesses were easily obtained without subornation, and the 
 whole truth was revealed ; nor the truth only, for doubts were 
 circulated, as if she had persisted in her licentious courses, and 
 dishonored the king’s bed. 
 
 The king was, at first, utterly incredulous; but, as was natu¬ 
 ral, for his own satisfaction, and for her honor, which he fully ex 
 pected to establish, he ordered an inquisition of the most pri¬ 
 vate character. The woman, Lascelles, was brought up from 
 the country ; Dereham was arrested on a charge of piracy. 
 But before any examination was had, the fact that Bulmer, Ma- 
 nox Dereham, were all found in her household, by her own 
 
SHE CONFESSES. 
 
 429 
 
 appointment, told fatally against her. To this was added, as 
 usual, the folly of the old Duchess of Norfolk, who actually 
 pointed Dereham out to a lady, in the queen’s chamber, with 
 a “ There, that is he that fled to Ireland for the queen’s sake.” 
 
 Lascelles persisted in her story. Dereham boldly avowed 
 the truth. He had been troth-plighted to Katharine; had 
 lived with her as a man with his wife; they were regarded so 
 by the servants; they were wont to call one another husband 
 and wife, before witnesses, and he had given her money when¬ 
 ever he had it. lie thought, doubtless, to save her life by 
 this avowal; as, if sustained, it would suffice to procure a di¬ 
 vorce, and no one desired her blood. He positively denied 
 any subsequent connection, even under the extremity of tor¬ 
 ture, to which he was submitted with the utmost barbarity. 
 
 Henry’s proud and savage heart was almost broken. He 
 burst into an agony of tears in the presence of all his council— 
 what torture it must have needed to wring such testimony of 
 weakness from his imperious character and merciless temper! 
 He had really loved this woman, and again and again, even 
 after she had confessed her early sins, which she did earnestly, 
 simply—and no one can read her depositions without seeing 
 that they were sincere, also—though she still persevered in 
 denying all subsequent wrong or defilement of the royal couch, 
 his heart still yearned to her, still relented; and though he 
 could never, obviously, be reconciled to a woman so tainted, 
 or receive her back to his bosom, he would have spared her 
 —he was eager and earnest to spare her, and would have done 
 so, could he have been separated from her by any legal pro¬ 
 cess. How different from his conduct toward Anne Boleyn, 
 whom, without half the evidence, he hunted with unrelenting 
 fury to the block. 
 
430 
 
 HER ATTAINDER. 
 
 Erai Cranmer, it seems, content with her fall, would have 
 spared her life, and urged her to admit a precontract with 
 Dereham, which w( uld have enabled them to grant a di¬ 
 vorce. But whether from folly, or pride, she persisted. 
 There had been no troth-plight—she had never thought to 
 marry him—whatever he had obtained from her, was obtained 
 by violence! 
 
 That sealed her fate beyond redemption. The king must 
 be liberated. He could be liberated by her blood only. 
 Therefore, her blood must flow. 
 
 The privy council, unable to find the least shadow of evi¬ 
 dence against her, in the matter of Dereham, determined that 
 she should be accused of adultery with Culpepper. All her 
 relatives, from the old duchess downward, were arrested for 
 misprision of treason, and, though no evidence could be pro¬ 
 duced against any one, except this—that Culpepper had been 
 in the queen’s chamber, on one occasion, in the presence of 
 the Lady Rochefort, only—they were all found guilty. The 
 queen, the Lady Rochefort, Culpepper and Dereham, of high 
 treason—all the rest for misprision of treason, which was at 
 that time also a capital offence. 
 
 Culpepper and Dereham suffered first—the former be¬ 
 headed, in deference to his rank, the other drawn and quar¬ 
 tered, with all the horrors of the then existing penalty for 
 treason. They both denied, to the last, the offence for which 
 they died. 
 
 The queen and Lady Rochefort were both condemned, 
 unheard, and without defence, by attainder. It is stated that 
 the queen had confessed, but it is evident, throughout the 
 whole proceedings, that she confessed nothing, as she was, in 
 deed, guilty of nothing, subsequent to her marriage. 
 
HER DEATH. 
 
 43] 
 
 “ When the commons entered,” says Miss Strickland, “ the 
 assent of the king to the bill was given by commission, and 
 the fatal sentence, le Roi le veut , was pronounced to the act 
 which deprived a queen of England of her life, and loaded 
 her memory with obloquy of so dark a hue, that no historian 
 has ventured to raise the veil, even to enquire how far the 
 charges are based on fact. 
 
 On the 11th of February the fatal doom was decreed; on 
 the thirteenth she was led to the scaffold, in company with 
 Lady Rochefort, the innocent victim of the present plot of 
 Cranmer, the guilty accomplice of Anne Boleyn’s murder. 
 They both died humbly, meekly, piously—confessing that for 
 sundry misdemeanors and grievous offences, they deserved to 
 die ; but both declaring their innocence of that for which they 
 suffered. There is no doubt that they were innocent; and 
 from the stones of the tower yard, in front of the church of 
 St. Peter ad vincula , their blood still cries to heaven for 
 vengeance. 
 
 The rest of the prisoners received pardon, on various terms 
 of composition; but the fierceness with which Henry hence¬ 
 forth raged against the blood of the Howards, the death of 
 “Surrey of the deathless lay,” and the doom of the Duke of 
 Norfolk—prevented only by the previous death of the tyrant— 
 can be attributed to no other cause than this. Acts so ab¬ 
 surdly stringent, against any woman, who should marry the 
 king, not being a maiden, and against all her relatives, if 
 knowing the fact, they should fail to disclose it, now passed 
 the parliament, that it was generally said in derision, that if 
 the king should marry again, he must needs marry a widow 
 —a jesting prophecy, which was realized by the fact — since 
 no virgin would dare to accept him under the penalties. 
 
432 
 
 PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 So great was the detestation of his sanguinary conduct, and 
 such the disgust in which he was now held, on the European 
 continent, that, when he offered his hand to Christina, the dow¬ 
 ager duchess of Milan, she declined it, with the remark, that 
 “ if she had two heads, one would have been at the service of 
 his majesty of England.” 
 
KATHARINE PARR, OF KENDAL. 
 
 MARRIED, 1543; DIED, 1548. 
 
 She actually told him, “that it was better to be his mistress 
 than his wife.” Lett. Quoted by Miss Stricklami. 
 
 'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord. 
 
 1 am a subject, fit to jest withal, 
 
 Bui most unfit to be a sovereign. 
 
 SuAKSl'KARE. K iny Henry F7. 
 
KATHARINE PARR. 
 
 DORN, 1513; MARRIED, 1543; DECEASED, 1548- 
 
 Sint actually told him, “that it was better to be his mistress 
 than his wife. Lett 
 
 ’Tis better said than done, my gracious lord. 
 
 I am a subject, fit to jest withal. 
 
 But most unfit to be a sovereign. 
 
 Suakspeaeb. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The sixth queen of Henry, and first Protestant queen of En¬ 
 gland, was one of those fortunate women, who ran her course 
 through die world, blessed and dispensing blessings, yet in a 
 course so noiseless and serene, that she has scarce left a simi 
 or a sound to tell of her transit. Such is ever the case with 
 the purest and holiest lives, as it is with the calmest and most 
 peaceful epochs. 
 
 Her gentle and graceful career, much of which was spent in 
 the peaceful dales of Westmoreland, and the green lap of Ken- 
 dale, wherein she was born, was like that of those men, cele¬ 
 brated in the harmonious words of Longfellow, those innocent 
 Acadian farmers, 
 
 “Whose lives glided on, like rivers that water the woodland, 
 
 Darkened by shadows of earth, yet reflecting the image of heaven." 
 
43G 
 
 HER HANDIWORE. 
 
 Beyond bare dates, and the brief statement that she was good, 
 learned, virtuous, humble, meek, and beloved, wheresoever she 
 went, there is little to relate of her—that she lived, was Hen¬ 
 ry’s wife, and, wonderful to tell, outlived him. At a very 
 early age she lost her father, and also at a very early age she 
 wedded the Lord Borough, a north country nobleman, who 
 had a fine mansion at Catterick, and another at Newark upon 
 Trent. lie was a widower, with children, and was connected 
 in about the fourth degree to Katharine. He died in 1528-9, 
 and left Katharine in her fifteenth year, a widow, an heiress, 
 young, beautiful, childless. 
 
 For several years she remained a widow, residing for the 
 most part at Sizergh castle, in the lake country, wherein is still 
 shown an apartment known as the queen’s chamber, in which 
 are preserved specimens of her handiwork, a bed-quilt and 
 toilet-cover of white satin, elaborately embroidered, in colors 
 and on a material, which, according to Miss Strickland, far ex¬ 
 ceed in quality, hue, texture, and finish, any productions of the 
 present degenerate day. 
 
 The lady I have quoted, is ever eager to celebrate even the 
 smallest details concerning those whom she admires and takes 
 under her patronage, and of these her most especial favorite, 
 perhaps, because she was of the blood of the Stricklands, is 
 Katharine Parr. She revels, accordingly, in descriptions of 
 all the scenes, halls, castles, bed rooms, withdrawing rooms, 
 banqueting rooms, and all their furniture, which Katharine 
 ever saw, or probably, or even possibly, might have seen or 
 visited. I shall not follow her example. 
 
 There are, in fact, but three or four things remarkable it 
 her life. The first, that herself four times a widow, thrice of 
 widowers, she was the sixth wife of a king whom she survived, 
 
HER LEARNING. 
 
 437 
 
 and then married the only man she had ever loved, only to 
 rue the marriage. That she was once on the point of perish¬ 
 ing at the stake for her generous advocacy of the cause of the 
 reformation, and that she escaped that fate only by her own ad¬ 
 dress and cleverness. 
 
 Her second marriage was to the Lord Latimer, who, du¬ 
 ring his short married life, was engaged in the first northern 
 insurrection, received his pardon in 1536, and would have en- 
 gaged in the second, but for the prudence of his wife, who per¬ 
 suaded him against it, and thus saved his life and preserved 
 his fortunes. He died, leaving Katharine a second time a 
 widow, still under thirty years of age, a greater heiress than 
 before, still passing fair, still childless. He died in 1543, 
 about a year after the death of the unfortunate Katharine 
 Howard, whom his widow was destined to succeed. Shortly 
 after his death, the lady, who had been always of a grave turn 
 of mind, and addicted to learning—she wrote a beautiful man¬ 
 uscript, and was skilled in composition, both in Greek and 
 Latin — rather than to lighter accomplishments, became con¬ 
 verted to the new doctrines, of which she continued from that 
 day forth an ardent disciple, and, so soon as she had acquired 
 the power, an eminent patroness and protectress of all who 
 professed it. 
 
 Exactly how or when she became intimately acquainted 
 with Henry, does not clearly appear; but there had always 
 existed a friendly connection between the families, manifested 
 by an interchange of courtesies and presents, the Parrs claim¬ 
 ing some blood connection with royalty. 
 
 Katharine’s sister, the Lady Herbert, wife of William, af¬ 
 terward knight of the garter and first earl of Pembroke, of tho 
 gecond creation, was much about his court, and had figured as 
 
438 
 
 SIR THOMAS SEYMOUR. 
 
 an important personage about both of his two last queens, lib 
 tie dreaming probably that her own sister would be the next. 
 It has even been conjectured that Katharine herself was re¬ 
 tained in the royal household, as preceptress or guardian to 
 Henry’s children ; but, for this conjecture, there is no founda¬ 
 tion, beyond the fact, that after her marriage, she was a kind 
 preceptress to the youthful princesses, that they were sincerely 
 attached to her, and that the manuscript of Prince Edward 
 closely resembles her own. 
 
 At this period, Sir Thomas Seymour, the brother of the 
 late Queen Jane, afterward duke of Somerset, the gayest and 
 most glorious cavalier of the day, was struck with the charms 
 of the pious young widow, and it seems that to him, both her 
 ear and her heart she did seriously incline. But, at the same 
 moment, a greater and more formidable suitor entered the 
 lists, even the king himself; and, although Katharine did not 
 express much delight at the honor, or meet the royal suit with 
 much encouragement, Seymour withdrew, daunted probably 
 by the idea of rivalling the cruel king, and in the end, as usual, 
 the suit of royalty prevailed. It is not, indeed, very certain, 
 how far, in such a case, the privileges of the sex might be al¬ 
 lowed to prevail, and whether to refuse the king might not be 
 held even a graver offence, than not to give him satisfaction as 
 a wife. 
 
 It is certain, at all events, that when the king first disclosed 
 to the lady his intention of raising her to the crown matrimo¬ 
 nial, she actually showed terror instead of joy; and, indeed, 
 told him in so many words, that it was better to be his “mis¬ 
 tress than to be his wife.” Nevertheless, she consented, and 
 on July 10th, 1543, Cranmer granted a dispensation, and on 
 the second day thereafter, the fair widow, throwing off the 
 
HER MERCIES. 
 
 439 
 
 weeds of her second widowhood, before they had been two 
 months worn, was led to the altar by her singular and formi¬ 
 dable bridegroom. The royal coffers were still suffering under 
 the same depletion, which had caused the nuptials of Katha¬ 
 rine Howard to be celebrated with so little splendor, and so 
 scanty ceremonial; but if the wedding ceremony of Katharine 
 Parr lacked the pomp and pageantry, which distinguished 
 those of Katharine of Arragon and Anne of Cleves, neither 
 were they marred by the indecent haste and unbecoming se¬ 
 crecy, which disgraced those of Anne Boleyn and Katharine 
 Howard. 
 
 On the whole, her married life was less unhappy, than 
 might have been expected. Henry, if he had not the furious 
 passion for her, which he had for his earlier idols, had the 
 fullest confidence in her judgment and virtue, and suffered 
 her to exercise much influence over him. To her honor, be it 
 spoken, that influence was ever exerted for the good. The 
 flames of martyrdom were raging cruelly, the' scaffold was 
 streaming with noble and Catholic blood, and if she could 
 neither quench the one, nor stop the red torrent which flowed 
 from the other, she at least subtracted many victims, and that 
 without distinction of sect or religion, from both. 
 
 In the characters of his three children, most of what is 
 good may be traced directly to her pure and classic educa¬ 
 tion, her firm and sensible yet gentle system. 
 
 He showed his confidence in h?r by appointing her regent 
 jf his realm, with greater powers than had ever before been 
 given to a woman, when he went for the last time to wage 
 war in France; and, though on his return, the wiles of Gar¬ 
 diner, Audley, and Wriothesley had nearly involved her in 
 ruin, on a charge of heresy, so that the warrant for her arrest 
 
440 
 
 HER DANGER. 
 
 was actually signed, and the guard despatched to arrest her, it 
 Deeded but a few words from her persuasive lips, ere the dan¬ 
 ger was overpassed. They were again “ sweethearts and fast 
 friends,” and when the chancellor came with his beef-eaters to 
 take her into custody, he got nothing for his pains but hard 
 words— “ beast! ” “ knave! ” and “ fool! ” were the mildest 
 terms, which he vouchsafed to the most trusty and subservient 
 ministers of his pleasures, when they chanced to offend him, 
 and when Katharine would, on this occasion, have interceded 
 for her enemy, “ Ah ! poor soul! ” said this most inconsistent 
 of mortal kings or men, “ thou little knowest, Kate, how little 
 he deserveth this grace at thy hands. On my word! sweet¬ 
 heart, he hath been to thee a very knave.” 
 
 Shortly afterward, Henry himself departed from this life, 
 giving up that crown which he had received amid the univer¬ 
 sal joy of his subjects, in the midst of satisfaction and joy 
 greater, if less noisy, than that which had hailed his coronation. 
 
 By his death, he liberated many prisoners, the conqueror of 
 Flodden among the rest, from the dungeon and the death 
 doom; he liberated his kingdom from the terror, under which 
 it had groaned and shuddered, during the last twenty years ; 
 and his last fair wife, happier to be his widow than his wife, 
 from chains, which, if gilded, were, nevertheless, chains, and 
 that neither the lightest nor the least irksome. 
 
 He, indeed, above all other men who ever lived, 
 
 “Left a name at which the world grew pale, 
 
 To point a moral or adorn a tale,” 
 
 while she, his last wife, deserved in very deed the eulogium 
 which was improperly bestowed upon another who deserved 
 it not. 
 
THE QUEENS COMPARED. 
 
 441 
 
 Katharine Parr it is, who, indeed, was “ the fairest, discreet- 
 est, and most meritorious of all the six wives” of the worst 
 husband, if not the wickedest man, who ever abused great 
 talents, great powers, great position, and disgraced the crown 
 of which she, his last consort, was, perhaps, the brightest or¬ 
 nament. 
 
 Except Katharine of Arragon, none other of his wives could 
 compare, for a moment, with Katharine Parr, who, in addition 
 to domestic virtues never surpassed, greatness meekly and 
 mercifully borne, and high talents not wasted, but so used as 
 to bring forth an hundred fold, united this high claim to the 
 regard of posterity— 
 
 The last wife of Henry VIII. was the first Protestant queen 
 of England, and she was an English woman born; even as 
 persecuting Mary, the first-born daughter of that persecuting 
 monarch, was its last Papist queen, and God grunt she may be 
 the last forever. 
 
 TIIR END. 
 

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2 
 
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 CHARLES DICKENS’ COMPLETE WORKS. Author’s Edition. 
 14 vols., with a portrait of the author on steel, and eight 
 illustrations by F. O. C. Darlev, Cruikshank, Fildes, Eytinge, 
 and others, in each volume. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black aud 
 gold, per vol., $1.00; sheep, marbled edges, per vol., $1.50; half 
 imt. Russia, marbled edges, per vol., $1.50: half calf, gilt, 
 marbled edges, per vol., $2.75. 
 
 ♦Pickwick Papers. 
 
 •Oliver Twist, Pictures of Italy, and 
 American Notes. 
 
 ♦Nicholas Nickleby. 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop, and Reprinted 
 Pieces. 
 
 Barnaby Radge, and Hard Times. 
 ♦Martin Chuzzlewit. 
 
 Domboy and Son. 
 
 ♦David Coppcrfield. 
 
 Christmas Books, Uncommercial 
 Traveller, and Additional 
 Christmas Stories. 
 
 Bleak House. 
 
 Lillie Doriit. 
 
 Tale of Two Cities, and Great Ex¬ 
 pectations. 
 
 Our Mutual Friend. 
 
 Edwiu Drood, Sketches, Master 
 Humphrey’s Clock, etc., etc. 
 
 Sold separately in cloth binding only. 
 
 ♦Also in Alta Edition, one illustration, 75 cents. 
 
 The same. Universe Edition. Printed on thin paper and con¬ 
 taining oue illustration to the volume. 14 vols., 12mo. Cloth, 
 extra, black aud gold, per vol., 75 cents. 
 
 The same. World Edition. 7 vols., thick 12mo., $12.25. (Sold 
 in sets only.) 
 
 CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles Dickens 
 Popular 12mo. edition; from new electrotype plates. Larg« 
 clear type. Beautifully illustrated with 8 engravings on wood. 
 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00. 
 
 Alta Edition. Oue illustration, 75 cents. 
 
 “ Dickens as a novelist and prose poet is to be classed in the front rank of 
 tlie noble company to which he belongs. He lias revived the novel of genu¬ 
 ine practical life, as it existed in the. works of Fielding, Smollett, and Gold¬ 
 smith; but at the same time has given to his material an individual coloring 
 and expression peculiarly his own. His characters, like those of his greait 
 exemplars, constitute a world of their own, whose truth to nature every 
 reader instinctively recognizes in connection with their truth to daikness. 
 — E. P. Whipple. 
 
 MACAULAY’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. From the accession 
 of James II. Bv Thomas Babington Macaulay. With a 
 steel portrait of the author. Printed from new electrotype 
 plates from the last English Edition. Being by far the most 
 correct edition in the American market. 5 volumes, 12mo 
 Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $5.00; sheep, marbled 
 edges, per sot, $7.50; half imitation Russia, $7.50; half calf, 
 gilt, marbled edges, per set, $15.00. 
 
 Popular Edition. 5 vols., cloth, plain, $5.00. 
 
 8vo. Edition. 5 volumes in one, with portrait. Cloth, extra, 
 black and gold, $3.00; sheep, marbled edges, $3.50. 
 
 MARTINEAU’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. From the beginning 
 of the 19th Century to the Crimean War. By Harriet Mar- 
 tineau. Complete in 4 vols., with full Index. Cloth, extra, 
 black and gold, per set, $1.00; sheep, marbled edges, $0.00, half 
 calf, gilt, marbled edges, $12.00. 
 
PORTER & COATES’ PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 3 
 
 HUME’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. From tlie invasion of 
 Julius Csesar to the abdication of James II, 1588. By David 
 Hume. Standard Edition. With the author’s last correcti ms 
 and improvements; to which is prefixed a short account of 
 his life, written by himself. With a portrait on steel. A new 
 edition from entirely new stereotype plates. 5 vols., 12mo. 
 Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $5.00; sheep, marbled 
 edges, per set, $7.50; half imitation Russia, $7.50; half calf, 
 gilt, marbled edges, per set, $15.00. 
 
 Popular Edition. 5 vols. Cloth, plain, $5.00. 
 
 GIBBON’S DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 By Edward Gibbon. With Notes, by Rev. II. H. Mii.man. 
 Standard Edition. To which is added a complete Index of 
 the work. A new edition from entirely new stereotype plates. 
 With portrait on steel. 5 vols., 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and 
 gold, per set, $5.00; sheep, marbled edges, per set, $7.50; half 
 imitation Russia, $7.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, per set, 
 $15.00. 
 
 Popular Edition. 5 vols. Cloth, plain, $5.00. 
 
 ENGLAND, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. By Joel 
 Cook, author of “ A Holiday Tour in Europe,” etc. With 487 
 finely engraved illustrations, descriptive of the most famous 
 and attractive places, as well as of the historic scenes and 
 rural life of England and Wales. With Mr. Cook’s admirable 
 descriptions of the places and the country, and the spleud id il¬ 
 lustrations, this is the most valuable and attractive book of the 
 season, and the sale will doubtless be very large. 4to. Cloth, 
 extra, gilt side and edges, $7.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, 
 $10.00; half morocco, full gilt edges, $10.00; full Turkey mo¬ 
 rocco, gilt edges, $15.00; tree calf, gilt edges, $18.00. 
 
 This work, which is prepared in elegant style, and profusely illustrated, 
 is a comprehensive description of England and Wales, arranged in conve¬ 
 nient form for the tourist., and at the sauio time providing an illustrated 
 guide-book to a country which Americans always view with interest. There 
 are few satisfactory works about this land which is so generously gifti d by 
 Nature and so full of memorials of tha past. Such hooks as there are, either 
 cover a few counties or are devoted to special localities, or are merely guide¬ 
 books. The present work is believed to bathe first attempt to give in attrac¬ 
 tive form a description of the stately homes, renowned castles, ivy-clad ruins 
 of abbeys, churches, and ancient fortresses, delicious scenery, rock-hound 
 coasts, aod celebrated places of England and Wales. It is written by an 
 author fully competent from travel and reading, and in position to properly 
 describe his very interesting subject; and tho artist’s pencil has been call d 
 Into requisition to graphically illustrate its well-written pages. There are 
 187 illustrations, prepared in the highest style of the engraver’s art, while 
 the book itself is ono of tho most attractive ever presented to tho American 
 public. 
 
 Its method of construction is systematic, following the most convenient 
 routes taken by tourists, and the letter-press includes enough of tin- history 
 and legend of each of tho places described to make the story highlv inter¬ 
 esting. Its pages fairly overflow with picture and description, telling i.f 
 everything attractive that is presented by England and Wales. Exeunt d 
 in the highest style of the printer's and engraver's art, “ England, Pictur¬ 
 esque and Descriptive,’• is ono of the best American books of the year. 
 
4 
 
 PORTER. & COATES PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA. By the Comtb 
 He Paris. With Maps faithfully Engraved from the Origin¬ 
 als, and Printed in Three Colors. 8vo. Cloth, per volume, 
 1 $3.50; red cloth, extra, Roxburgh style, uncut edges, $3.50; 
 
 sheep, library style, $4.50; half Turkey morocco, $6.00. Vols. 
 I, II, and III now ready. 
 
 The third volume embraces, without abridgment, the fifth and sixth 
 volumes of the French edition, and covers one of the most interesting av 
 well as tlie most anxious periods of the war, describing the operations of the 
 Army of the Potomac in the East, and the Army of the Cumberland and 
 Tennessee in the West. 
 
 It contains full accounts of the battle of Chancellorsville, the attack of the 
 monitors on Fort Sumter, the sieges and fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson; 
 the battles of Port Gibsou aud Champion's Hill, and the fullest and most 
 authentic account of the battle of Gettysburg ever written. 
 
 “The head of the Orleans family has put pen to paper with excellent 
 
 result.Our present impression is that it will form by far the best 
 
 history of the American war.”— Athenaeum, London. 
 
 “We advise all Americans to read it carefully, and judge for themselves 
 if ‘the future historian of our war,’ of whom we have heard so much, be not 
 already arrived in the Comte de Paris.”— Nation, New York. 
 
 “This is incomparably the best account of our great second revolution 
 that has yet been even attempted. It is so calm, so dispassionate, so accurate 
 in detail, and at the same time so philosophical in general, that its reader 
 counts confidently on finding the complete work thoroughly satisfactory.”— 
 Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia. 
 
 “The work expresses the calm, deliberate judgment of an experienced 
 military observer and a highly intelligent man. Many of its statements 
 will excite discussion, but we much mistake if it does not take high and 
 permanent rank among the standard histories of the civil war. Indeed 
 that place has been assigned it by the most competent critics both of this 
 country and abroad.”— Times, Cincinnati. 
 
 “Messrs. Porter & Coates, of Philadelphia, wiil publish iu a few days the 
 authorized translation of the new volume of theComtede Paris’ History of 
 Our Civil War. The two volumes in French—the fifth aud sixth—are hound 
 together in the translation in one volume. Our readers already know, 
 through a table of contents of these volumes, published in the cable columns 
 of the Herald, the period covered by this new installment of a work remark¬ 
 able in several ways. It includes the most important and decisive period of 
 the war, and the t wo great campaigns of Gettysburg aud Vicksburg. 
 
 “The great civil war has had no better, no abler historian than the French 
 prince who, emulating the example of Lafayette, took part in this new 
 struggle for freedom, and who now writes of events, in mauy of which he 
 participated, as an accomplished officer, and one who, by his independent 
 position, his high character and eminent talents, was placed iu circum¬ 
 stances and relations which gave him almost unequalled opportunities to 
 gain correct information and form impartial judgments. 
 
 “The new installment of a work which has already become a classic will 
 be read with increased interest by Americans because of the importance of 
 the period it covers and the stirring events it describes. In advance of a 
 careful review we present to-day some extracts from the advance sheets sent 
 us by Messrs. Porter & Coates, which will give our readers a foretaste of 
 chapters which bring back to memory so many half-forgotten and not a few 
 hitherto unvalued details of a time which Americans of this generatiou a* 
 least cannot read of without a fresh thrill of excitement." 
 
PORTER & COATES PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 5 
 
 HALF-HOURS WITH THE BEST AUTHORS. With short Bi- 
 ographical anil Critical Notes. By Charles Knight. 
 
 New Household Edition. With six portraits on steel. 3 vols., 
 thick 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $1.50; half imt 
 Russia, marbled edges, $6.00; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, $12.00. 
 
 Library Edition. Printed on line laid and tinted paper. With, 
 twenty-four portraits on steel. 0 vols., 12mo. Cloth, extra, per 
 set, $7.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, per set, $13.00; half Rus¬ 
 sia, gilt top, $21.00; full French morocco, limp, per set, $12.00; 
 full smooth Russia, limp, round corners, in Russia case, per set, 
 $25 .00; full seal grained Russia, limp, round corners, in Russia 
 case to match, $25.00. 
 
 The excellent, idea of Ihe editor of these choice volumes has been most 
 admirably carried out, as will be seen by the list of authors upon all sub¬ 
 jects. 8 'looting some choice passages of the best standard authors, each of.suffi¬ 
 cient length to occupy half an hour in its perusal, there is here food for 
 thought for every day in the year: so that if the purchaser will devote but 
 one-half hour each day to its appropriate selection lie will read through 
 these six volumes in one year, and in such a leisurely manner that the 
 noblest thoughts of many of the greatest minds will he firmly in his minil 
 forever. For every Sunday there is a suitable selectiou from some of the 
 most eminent writers iu sacred literature. We venture to say if the editor’s 
 idea is carried out the reader will possess more and better knowledge of the 
 English classics at the end of the year than he would by five years of desul¬ 
 tory reading. 
 
 They can be commenced at any day in the year. The variety of reading 
 is so great that no one will ever tire of these volumes. It is a library in 
 itself. 
 
 THE POETRY OF OTHER LANDS. A Collection of Transla¬ 
 tions into English Verse of the Poetry of Other Languages, 
 Ancient and Modern. Compiled by N. Clemmons Hunt. 
 Containing translations from the Greek, Latin, Persian, Ara¬ 
 bian, Japanese, Turkish, Servian, Russian, Bohemian, Polish, 
 Dutch, German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese 
 languages. 12mo. Cloth, extra, gilt edges, $2.50; half calf, gilt, 
 marbled edges, $1.00; Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $0.00. 
 
 “ Another of the publications of Porter A Coates, called ‘The Poetry of 
 Other Lands,’ compiled by N. Clemmons Hunt, we most warmly commend. 
 It is one of the best collections we have seen, containing many exquisite 
 poems and fragments of versa which have not before been put into book 
 form in English words. We find many of the old favorites, which appear 
 in every well-selected collection of sonnets and songs, and we miss others, 
 which seem a necessity to complete the bouquet of grasses and flowers, 
 some of which, from time to time, we hope to republish iu the ‘ Courier. 
 Cincinnati Courier. 
 
 “A book of rare excellence, because it gives a collection of choice gen- 
 many languages not available to the general lover of poetry, rt 
 translations from the Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabian, J .in" 
 
 Servian, Russian, Bohemian, Polish, Dutch, Genoa’ 
 
 Spanish, and Portuguese languages. The book wiP 
 panion volume to any one of the collections of F- 
 published. With the full index of authors in 
 lection, and the arrangement of the poems un 
 find it convenient for reference. It is a g! f 
 very many than some of the transitory 
 Philadelphia Methodist. 
 
c 
 
 PORTER & COATES PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE FIRESIDE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF POETRY. Edited by 
 Henry T. Coates. This is the latest, and beyond doubt the 
 best collection of poetry published. Printed on fine paper and 
 illustrated with thirteen steel engravings and fifteen title 
 pages, containing portraits of prominent American poets and 
 fac-similesof their handwriting, made expressly for this book. 
 8vo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, gilt edges, $5.00; half calf, 
 gilt, marbled edges, $7.50; half morocco, full gilt edges, $7.50; 
 full Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $10.00; tree calf, gilt edges, 
 $12.00; plush, padded side, nickel lettering, $14.00. 
 
 “The editor shows a wide acquaintance with the most precious treasures 
 of Euglisli verse, and has gathered the most admirable specimens of their 
 ample wealth. Many pieces which have been passed by in previous collec¬ 
 tions hold a place of honor in the present volume, and will be heartily wel¬ 
 comed by the lovers of poetry as a delightful addition to their sources of 
 enjoyment. It is a volume rich in solace, in entertainment, in inspiration, 
 of which the possession may well be coveted by every lover of poetry. The 
 po-torial illustrations of the work are in keeping with its poetical contents, 
 £ 1 the beauty of the typographical execution entities it to a place among 
 
 e choicest ornaments of the library .”—New Yorh Tribune. 
 
 “Lovers of good poetry will find this one of the richest collections ever 
 nade. All the best singers in our language are represented, and the selec¬ 
 tions are generally those which reveal their highest qualities.The 
 
 lights and shades, the finer play of thought and imagination belonging to 
 individual authors, are brought out in this way (by the arrangement of 
 poems under subject-headings) as they would not he under any other sys¬ 
 tem .We are deeply impressed with the keen appreciation of poetical 
 
 worth, and also with the good taste manifested by the compiler.”— Church- 
 men. 
 
 “Ovelopxdiasof poetry are numerous, hut for sterling value of its contents 
 for the library, or as a book of reference, no work of the kind will compare 
 with this admirable volume of Mr. Coates It takes the gems from many 
 volumes, culliug with rare skill and judgment .”—Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF POETRY. Compiled by Henry 
 T. Coates. Containing over 500 poems carefully selected 
 from the works of the best and most popular writers for chil¬ 
 dren ; with nearly 200 illustrations. The most complete col¬ 
 lection of poetry for children ever published. 4to. Cloth, 
 extra, black and gold, gilt side and edges, $3.00; full Turkey 
 morocco, gilt edges, $7.50. 
 
 “This seems to ns the best book of poetry for children In existence. 4Vo 
 have examined many other collections, hut we cannot name another that 
 deserves to be compared with this admirable compilation .”—Worcester Spy. 
 
 “The special value of the book lies in the fact that it nearly or quite 
 covers the entire field. There is not. a great deal of good poetry which has 
 been written for children that cannot be found in this hook. The collection 
 "rtieularly strong in ballads and tales, which arc apt to interest children 
 ~u poems of other kinds; and Mr. Coates has shown good judgment 
 '•*<r this department with some of the best i>oems of that class 
 ‘°n for grown people. A surer method of forming the 
 >d and pure literature than by reading to them from 
 '■n hardly be imagined. The volume is richly 
 und .”—Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. 
 
 'ZVnot be found. We have found within the 
 ~ 6"d upon its fair pages, many of the most 
 j contains. It must become a standard 
 obsolete .”—Episcopal Recorder. 
 

 
 
 

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