650 



ENGLAND. 



i , M. 



Tbekuig 

 recmci the 



t .j, ,i n t - 

 * Faith. 



The kiag's 



rbitrary 



ronduct. 



cruplen 



rtielegslhv 

 f Hrary'5 



ly, arriving in England before Henry could visit Francis, 

 and inspiring the ambitious cardinal with hopes of the 

 papacy, found means to secure both the king and the 

 minister in his interests. An offensive alliance was soon 

 after concluded with the pope and emperor against 

 France ; and the Princess Mary, Henry's only child, was 

 betrothed to Charles. 



The king, strictly attached to the church of Rome, and 

 particularly displeased with the attacks of Luther upon 

 his favourite author, Thomas Aquinas, opposed, with all 

 irluence, the progress of the Reformation; and even 

 wrote a book in Latin against the great reformer, a pro- 

 duction which is considered as sufficiently creditable to 

 his talents, and which procured him from Pope Leo, the 

 title of " Defender of the Faith." 



AH invading army was sent into France in 1522 ; and 

 in the year following, an expedition was made against 

 Scotland, in order to break the alliance which subsisted 

 between the Scottish and the French governments. But 

 the immense treasures of Henry VII. were now exhaust- 

 ed, by a succession of empty pageants, guilty pleasures, 

 and useless enterprizes ; and it was necessary to find 

 money, not only for the prosecution of the war, but even 

 for the ordinary charges of the government. Large sums 

 were levied under the name of " a benevolence," which 

 were not granted without loud murmurings on the part 

 of the nation. A parliament and a convocation were 

 summoned ; but neither the clergy nor the commons were 

 so easily managed, or so liberal in their grants, ns Wolsey 

 had expected, and seven years were suffered to lnpse 

 before they were again assembled. Wolsey, attempting 

 to render the king independent of the parliament, first 

 levied in one year what they had granted payable in 

 four ; and next proceeded to raise money upon the king's 

 authority clone. The people, at length roused from their 

 long submission by the exorbitancy and the illegality of 

 his exactions, openly opposed the commissioners, and be- 

 gan to threaten a general insurrection. Henry, alarmed 

 by the consequences of his minister's precipitate mea- 

 sures, issued circular letters to all the counties, disavow- 

 ing the assessment, and declaring that he meant only to 

 apply to his subjects for " a benevolence." But the city 

 of London, hesitating to comply with his demand, and 

 open insurrections breaking out in different parts of the 

 kingdom, the king found it prudent to suspend his medi- 

 tated usurpations ; and the cardinal hastened to make his 

 peace with the sovereign, by presenting him with a mag- 

 nificent palace at Westminster, which he pretended to 

 have erected, from the first, for his master's use. But a 

 period was now approaching to the exorbitant power of 

 this artful and ambitious prelate ; and the same event, 

 v.'hich shook his hold of the king's favour, served to over- 

 throw in England the whole system of papal tyranny. 



Henry had begun, (at what time and from what mo- 

 tives is not precisely ascertained,) to entertain doubts 

 concerning the legality of his marriage with his brother's 

 widow, Catherine of Spain ; and to meditate the design 

 of procuring a divorce. It is certain, that Henry VII. 

 afterwards convinced of the unlawfulness of the match 

 which he had contracted for his son, charged him, upon 

 his death-bed, never to consent to its celebration ; and 

 that the states of Castile, when treating respecting the 

 proposal of a marriage between the Emperor Charles and 

 Henry's daughter Mary, had, among other objections, 

 nsisted upon the illegitimate birth of that princess. The 

 i Henry and Catlicrinc had been considered 



by all parties from the beginning as sanctified only by the Hittorr. 

 dispensation of the pope ; but, by the progress of the Re- w "V"' 1 "' 

 formation in England, the authority of .such decisions 

 was more fiecly questioned than in former times. Car* 

 dinal Wolsey, and all the English prelates, with only one 

 exception, concurred in declaiing that the kind's in. image 

 was unlawful ; and Henry found it decided by his favou- 

 rite theologian Aquinas, that, though the pope may dis- 

 pense with the rules of the church, the laws of God can- 

 not be set aside by any authority, inferior to that by 

 which they were enacted. The decay of Cat hen i. 

 beauty, and the passion which Henry had conceived for 

 Anne Boleyne.one of the queen's maids of honour, though 

 not perhaps the exciting causes of his scruples, furnished 

 additional motives to his desire of a divorce. 



Formal and repeated applications were made to the Application 

 pope, to annul the king's marriage with Catherine ; but 1 Llc PP e 

 his holiness, while lie professed his desire to comply with vorce, 

 Henry's request, was awed by the power of the emperor ; 1527. 

 and practised various artifices, to elude the demands of 

 the English monarch. Urged at length by his solicita- 

 tions, he commissions Cardinal Campegio as his legate 

 London, who, together with Cardinal Wolsey, should 

 hold a court for trying the validity of the king's marriage ; 

 but, when the proceedings were nearly brought to a con- 

 clusion, the legate, upon some frivolous pretences, pro- 

 rogued the court, and the pontiff a few days after ad- 

 journed the cause to his own judgment at Rome. 



Wolsey had long foreseen, that his ruin would be the 

 consequence of the king's suit for a divorce ; and his fall 

 took place more suddenly than could have been anticipa- 

 ted. Solicitous to gratify his royal master, yet fearing to 

 offend the pope, his conduct, throughout the whole course 

 of the affair, was mysterious and temporizing. The king, 

 at last, confident of his minister's talents, or blinded by 

 the ardour of his wishes, suspected his fidelity and zeal 

 in managing the affair. Anne Boleyne, who had been pre- 

 possessed against the cardinal, imputed to him the failure 

 of her hopes ; and her influence over Henry contributed 

 to fortify his suspicions against his favourite. Even the 

 queen and her partizans, judging of Wolsey by die part 

 which he had openly acted, expressed the greatest ani- 

 mosity against him ; and the most opposite factions seem- 

 ed to combine for the overthrow of that haughty mi- 

 nister. 



Henry, after remaining some time in suspence, at Fall of 

 length resolved upon the ruin of Wolsey ; required him 

 to deliver up the great seal, and to retire from his palace 

 in London to his country seat near Hampton Court. 

 He next ordered him to be indicted in the star chamber, 

 and abandoned him to all the rigour of the parliament : 

 but though many charges were brought against him, it 

 was found difficult to establish the proof of any crime ; 

 and Henry remitted the sentence of forfeiture, which had 

 been pronounced against him, and restored his property 

 which had been seized. Afterwards, however, finding 

 that he stood in the way of his measures against the 

 pope, renewed the prosecution against him ; commanded 

 him to be arrested for high treason, and to be brought to 

 London for trial. But by the fatigues of the journey, 

 the agitation of his mind, or, as some have alleged, by 

 the effects of poison which he had taken, he was seized 

 with a violent disorder by the way, and died at Leicester Decision sf 

 Abbey. See WOLSEY. 



Henry, being thus freed from a person whom he re- l""-"' 

 jarded as an obstacle to his intentions, resolved, by the 



