HENRY VIII. OF ENGLAND 



651 



would app.-ar. of jiiihlic i)|iinioii, \vliirlt nil tlnmi-li 



Ililil lieen oil tllOHldeof Catharine. The MM 



s,-i\v i lie definitive breach of England with Koine. 

 I'.-, tin- parliament of that year it was enacted Unit 

 all bishops Hlioiild IM appointed by a count d'elire 

 from then-own, and that all recourse to the bishop 

 <>f Kniiii- should In- regarded as illegal. It was also 

 nacte<l that the kind's marriage with Catharine 

 was invalid, that the sun --- ion lo tlie crown should 

 lie with tin- issue of Henry's marriage with Anne 

 Boleyn, and that the king was the sole supreme 

 head of the church of England. To this last act 

 Hi-Imp Fisher and Sir Thomas More, both men of 

 the old order, hut illustrious by their character 

 and attainments, refused to swear, and both were 

 executed the following year. In all his action 

 against Koine Henry was eager that the world 

 >honld understand that his quarrel was solely with 

 the pope, and not with the doctrines of the church. 

 The supporters of Luther, therefore, were treated 

 with the same severity as the clergy of the old 

 church who refused to acknowledge him in the 

 plaee of the pope. To proclaim his soundness of 

 doctrine he ordered (1537) the publication of the 

 Hix/iop's Book or the Just it ut ion of a Christian 

 Mini, in which, M'ith the exception of the headship 

 of the pope, all the Catholic doctrines were set 

 < I own after the strictest orthodoxy. It was the 

 same anxiety to save his orthodoxy that prompted 

 the famous Statute of the Six Articles, Known as 

 the Bloody Statute, in which all the fundamental 

 doctrines of the Church of Rome are insisted on as 

 necessary articles of belief the severest penalties 

 being attached to the denial of any one of them 

 (1639). 



In 1535, following the example of Wolsey, Henry 

 appointed a commission under the direction of 

 Thomas Cromwell to prepare a report on the state 

 of the monasteries for the guidance of parliament. 

 The report, contained in what is known as the 

 Black Book, revealed a state of things that justi- 

 fied the most drastic dealing. The commissioners 

 were strongly disposed to exaggerate whatever 

 evils they found, and their report is to be taken for 

 what it is worth ; yet there is abundant testimony 

 from friends and foes alike to prove that the 

 monasteries had outlived their function, and that 

 their general character was fitted to depress rather 

 than elevate the moral ideal of the nation. On the 

 strength of this report an act was passed for the 

 suppression of all monasteries with a revenue under 

 200 a year. This high-handed dealing with an 

 ancient institution brought to a head a widespread 

 discontent with the late policy of Henry. In the 

 north of England, especially, the sympathies of the 

 people were mainly with the old religion, and the 

 barons and country gentlemen were generally of the 

 same way of thinking. The people, moreover, had 

 a real grievance in the fact that everywhere there 

 was much misery in the country, by reason of the 

 land being extensively converted from agricultural 

 to pastoral purposes, and its being bought up by 

 speculators from the towns. The year following 

 the suppression of the smaller monasteries, there- 

 fore, a formidable insurrection, known as the Pil- 

 trriiiuipe of Grace, was organised in the northern 

 counties under the leadership of a barrister named 

 Robert Aske. The revolt was crushed and failed 

 in all its objects, for the very next year Henry 

 gave a final blow to the ancient church by the 

 suppression of all the remaining monasteries. 

 Henry's agent in this wholesale dissolution was 

 Thomas Cromwell, the 'Hammer of the Monks,' 

 who, after the king himself, was now the most 

 powerful man in England. The removal of the 

 monasteries was in the best interest of the country ; 

 but the manner in which Cromwell carried out the 

 work is a revelation at once of the character of 



the man and the time. The revenue* of the 

 monasteries to the amount of 161. MK) \\i-n- 

 devoted to .-mall pension* for the abbot* and 

 priors, and the erection of six new hi*liopri<-H. 

 The hulk of the revenues, however, pawed to 

 the crown and to those who had made theniHelvea 

 useful to the king. 



\Vo have again to return to the history of the 

 king's marriages, which, in every case, it is to be 

 remembered, have a more or lew*, direct bearing on 

 the policy of the reign. In 1536 Queen Catharine 

 died, and the same year Anne Boleyn herself was 

 executed in the Tower on the charge of infidelity 

 to the king. The very day liefore her execution 

 Henry was married to Jane Seymour, the only one 

 of his wives for whom he appears to have had any 

 real affection and respect. The next vear Jane 

 Seymour died, leaving a son, afterwards Edward 

 VI. The succession being in the estimation of 

 Henry and his ministers still insecure, Anne of 

 Cleves was chosen as the king's fourth wife, in the 

 hope of attaching the Protestant interest of (Ger- 

 many. Anne's personal appearance proved PO little 

 to Henry's taste that he consented to the marriage 

 only on condition that a divorce should follow as 

 speedily as decency would permit. Henry's dis- 

 gust with Anne of Cleves was the immediate 

 occasion of the ruin of his great minister Crom- 

 well. As the agent of Henry's own religious 

 policy Cromwell had made himself as generally 

 detested as his predecessor Wolsey. It was mainly 

 through his action that Anne had been brought 

 forward, and his enemies used the opportunity of 

 Henry's indignation to effect his ruin. Accused of 

 high-treason by the Duke of Norfolk, he was 

 executed on a bill of attainder, without the form 

 of a trial (1540). On the day of Cromwell's death 

 Henry married Catharine Howard, another niece 

 of the Duke of Norfolk, and thus seemed to lend 

 himself to the Catholic party represented by that 

 nobleman. Before two years had passed Catharine 

 suffered the same fate as Anne Boleyn, on the same 

 charge, and in her case proved Ijeyond dispute. In 

 July 1543 Henry married his six'th and last wife, 

 Catharine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, a woman 

 of character, who was happy enough to survive her 

 husband. 



During all these years the rivalry of Francis and 

 the emperor had been the source or almost constant 

 war, and Henry's interest in their struggle had 

 been kept continually alive by the intrigues of 

 France in Scotland. In 1543 Henry and Charles 

 made a common invasion of France, which ended 

 disgracefully for England by Francis and the 

 emperor arranging a peace in which Henry's name 

 was not even mentioned. In 1545 Francis made 

 an abortive invasion of England, and the following 

 year Henry retaliated by another invasion or 

 France. At length, both monarchs being alike 

 broken in health and spirit, they concluded a 

 peace (1546), of which, by Francis's intervention, 

 Scotland also had the benefit. 



In his last years Henry suffered much from an 

 ulcer in his leg, which seems at times to have 

 goaded almost to madness a temper never very 

 tractable or uniform. The execution of the young 

 Earl of Surrey, son of the Duke of Norfolk, on a 

 charge of high -treason, completes the long list of 

 the judicial murders of Henry's reign. Norfolk 

 himself was saved from the same fate only by the 

 death of Henry himself, January 28, 1547. 



From the revolting record of his conjugal rela- 

 tions and the long list of noble victims that make 

 his rule a veritable reign of terror, Henry is apt to 

 be hastily judged simply as an unnatural monster, 

 borne along by motives of cruelty and lust. Yet 

 it cannot be questioned that from first to last he 

 was popular with all ranks of his people, and thai 



