HENRY VIII. OF ENGLAND 



649 



he retained to the last, was due to the fact that of 



all English kings lie was tin- nm-i intensely English 

 mentally, morally, and physically. This enthu- 

 M;I~III <>f in- people was also the natural rcliouiid 



if ! -rim- al'ti-r the tame and cantioiiH government 

 ui" 1 1. -in \ VII., a king, in spite of all his admirable 

 i|iiitlitiea, the last in the world to give rise to any 

 such enthusiasm himself. In his earlier BUtthood 

 II -MI i\ wan accounted the handsomest prince of his 

 tiiin-. though foreign ohservers declared that his 



niHfinponiry, Fninci* I., l>re himself with a more 

 kingly air. In all manly exercises he could hold 

 his o\vn with any of his subjects. His attainments 

 and general mental cultivation were far beyond 

 those of his great rivals, Francis and the Emperor 

 Charles V. ; and his accession to the throne was 

 hailed with delight liysuch men as Colet, Erasmus, 

 and More, as the happiest omen for the new studies 

 which had lately found their way into England. 



At the date when Henry ascended the throne of 

 England a ruler was needed with an energy of 

 character and force of intelligence such as had never 

 yet been required of any English prince. With 

 the reign of Henry VIII. begins the modern period 

 of European history. The beginning of the new 

 time was marked by "many circumstances that 

 broadly distinguish it from the age that preceded 

 it. In Henry s reign began that relation of the 

 leading powers of Europe to each other which has 

 continued to the present day a relation of jealous 

 watchfulness, that insists on a ' balance of power ' 

 as the necessary condition of the integrity of each 

 separate state. To play his part in the new order, 

 therefore, a range of policy was required of Henry far 

 beyond that of even his most ambitious predecessors. 

 In home affairs, also, questions were thrust upon 

 him which touched the very existence of the 

 nation. By the Wars of the Roses and the policy 

 of Henry VII. the strength of the feudal barons 

 had been broken, and the modern middle class had 

 begun to be a force in the state. Had Henry been 

 a weak ruler; however, there was still sufficient 

 power left in the old aristocracy to have effected 

 at least a temporary reaction, and to have revived 

 the disasters of the late civil wars. Above all the 

 new time was marked by a revolutionary spirit in 

 all questions of religion that strained to the utmost 

 the prudence of Henry and other contemporary 

 princes. In Henry's reign the followers of Luther 

 found their way into all the leading countries of 

 Europe, and by their uncompromising zeal gave 

 the most serious alarm to the upholders of the old 

 order. By the rise of the great rival powers, also, 

 and by his own diminished prestige, the pope and 

 his claims had become a question of the first 

 political importance a question that affected the 

 entire development of the respective states of 

 Europe. The question of the papal supremacy 

 presented itself to Henry in a special form, but 

 sooner or later it must have presented itself in one 

 form or another, and sooner or later been decided 

 as Henry decided it. It was impossible that the 

 question should not arise whether certain out- 

 grown institutions and privileges should continue 

 in the interest of a foreign potentate, who by the 

 very condition of his existence was now at the 

 bidding of whatever ruler might chance to have 

 the strongest arm. The time, in short, was one 

 when revolutionary forces were everywhere at 

 work ; and it is only by keeping this fact l>efore us 

 that we can form any real conception of the most 

 extraordinary reign in English annals. 



Shortly after his accession Henry, by the advice 

 of his council, married Catharine of Aragon, his 

 brother Arthur's widow a step, as it turned out, 

 of tremendous consequence in the destinies of 

 England. The first three years of the reign passed 

 without any memorable event. At home, by a 



succession of shows and festivities, Henry at once 

 gratified his own taste for pleasure and gained an 

 easy popularity with his jeople. He also gave 

 further satisfaction by the execution of Dudley and 

 EmpHon. In 1512 the real history of Henry'* rei;m 

 begum. As a member of the Holy League, formed 

 by the pope (Julius II.) and Ferdinand of Spain 

 against Louis XII., Henry in that year began hit* 

 first war by the invasion of France. The result 

 was far from encouraging. Overreached by Fer- 

 dinand, Henry sent a body of troops to Spain, who 

 disgraced England in the eyes of Europe by mutiny- 

 ing against tneir leaders, and insisting on being led 

 home without striking an effective blow. The 

 next year Henry invaded France in pernon, and 

 partly retrieved the national honour at the so- 

 called Battle of Spurs, and by the capture of 

 Terouenne and Tournay. During his absence a 

 greater triumph was gained for England by the 

 disastrous defeat of the Scots at Flodden, which 

 for several years left Henry a freer hand to carry 

 but his continental policy. 



It was in this first French war that Henry's great 

 minister, Wolsey, began to take a prominent place 

 in the councils of the nation ; and thenceforward 

 till his fall in 1529 the history of this reign is little 

 else than the history of Wolsey. A servant of 

 Henry VII., Wolsey had early ingratiated himself 

 with his son at once by his pliant courtliness and 

 his consummate ability in public affairs. So early 

 as 1514 Wolsey was after the king himself the first 

 man in the country. During the sixteen years of 

 his administration the history of England is the 

 history of its foreign policy. In this policy the 

 chief aim of Wolsey and fiis master (for Henry 

 even at his most thoughtless period never wholly 

 neglected puhlic business ) was to hold in equipoise 

 the two great continental powers, France and 

 Spain, and by maintaining the position of arbiter 

 to win for England an importance to which her own 

 resources hardly entitled ner. In pursuance of this 

 aim the support of England was till 1525 given to 

 Spain against France. In this first period of the 

 reign the foreign events on which the most im- 

 portant consequences turned were the election of 

 the emperor in 1519, the battle of Pa via in 1525, 

 and the sack of Rome in 1527. 



From the election of Charles of Spain to the 

 empire over Francis I. of France began that rivalry 

 between these two princes which for a quarter of 

 a century distracted western Europe witn almost 

 continuous war. It was of the utmost importance 

 both to Charles and Francis what side Henry 

 should take in the duel they saw before them. 

 Both, accordingly, were eager in their proffers of 

 friendship to the English king. At the Field of 

 the Cloth of Gold, near Guisnes, in the English 

 dominion in France, where Henry and Francis 

 met in 1520 amid a blaze of grandeur that sorely 

 drained the purses of both nations, a meeting took 

 place, which, after many professions of friendship, 

 came to nothing. Henry had hardly left Francis 

 when he met the emperor at Gravelines, where a 

 formal alliance between them was confirmed by the 

 betrothal of Charles to Henry's daughter Mary, 

 then a child of four years. The protracted struggle 

 between Charles and Francis at once began, though 

 the following year (1521), at Calais, Wolsey did 

 his utmost as ambassador of England to maintain 

 the peace of Europe. The struggle proceeded with 

 varying success till in 1525, at the battle of Pavia, 

 Francis was brought to the verge of ruin by his 

 own capture and the defeat of the most powerful 

 army he had ever led into Italy. As the ascend- 

 ency thus gained by the emperor endangered that 

 balance of power at which Wolsey was ever aiming, 

 England was now thrown into alliance with France. 

 The sack of Rome by the emperor's troops in 1527 



