ENGLAND, 



65S 



History. 



The king 

 marries 

 Anne of 

 rieves. 

 15KX 



MMBlbk.l, 

 icluctantly 

 pruitntrab- 



statute," which reduced the essential articles of religion to 

 the number of six, namely, the real presence, communion 

 iu one kind, the perpetual obligation of vows of chastity, 

 the celibacy of the clergy, the utility of private masses, 

 and the necessity of auricular confession. A denial of any 

 of these points was punishable with death]; and, even 

 though recanted, subjected the offender to the forfeiture 

 of his goods, and imprisonment during the king's plea- 

 sure : but, in the case of the first, the privilege of recan- 

 tation was not admitted ; v.-hich was a degree of severity 

 hitherto unexampled, and even unknown to the inquisi- 

 tion itself. With the most abject servility, the parlia- 

 ment enacted whatever the king and his ministers thought 

 proper to dictate; confirmed the surrender of the monas- 

 teries, and secured the property of the abbey lands to 

 the king and his successors for ever ; attainted of high 

 treason, without any legal evidence or inquiry, but upon 

 a mere suspicion of having aided the insurgents, the 

 Marchioness of Exeter, the Countess of Salisbury, Sir 

 Adrian Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley, the two 

 last of whom were executed ; and at last, in one sweep- 

 ing act, made an entire surrender of all their civil liber- 

 ties, by giving to the king's proclamations the same 

 force as a parliamentary statute. 



As soon as the act of the six articles had passed, not 

 loss than 500 persons, in consequence of the zeal with 

 which the Catholics informed against offenders, were 

 committed to prison ; but though Cranmer, Cromwell, 

 and others favourable to the Protestant cause, had not 

 been able to prevent the passing of the act, they found 

 means to elude its execution ; and, in consequence of 

 their remonstrating against the cruelty of punishing so 

 many delinquents, they were all set at liberty. The king, 

 at the same time, as if desirous to give each party an op- 

 portunity of triumphing in turn, permitted every indi- 

 vidual to have in his family a copy of the new transla- 

 tion t>f the Bible. 



In the course of the year which followed the death of 

 Queen Jane, Henry had been engaged in several matri- 

 monial treaties, particularly with the duchess dowager of 

 Milan, and with Mary of Guise, who married James V. 

 of Scotland ; but at length, by the advice of Cromwell, 

 he contracted a match with a Protestant princess, Anne 

 of Cloves, of whom a flattering portrait had been shewn 

 to him, and whose relations hd great weight among the 

 Lutheran leaders. Finding, however, that her beauty 

 did not correspond with the descriptions which he hail 

 received, he conceived a strong dislike to her person ; 

 and was induced, from mere political motives, to com- 

 plete the marriage. 



A parliament wns this year assembled, in which none 

 of the abbots or priors were allowed a place ; and the 

 king, after informing them by the mouth of the chancel- 

 lor, that, in consequence of the great diversity of reli- 

 gions which still prevailed, he had appointed some emi- 

 nent divines to draw up a list of tenets to which his sub- 

 jects were to assent, proceeded to make the very unex- 

 pected demand of a subsidy, on account of the great cx- 

 pcncc which he had incurred in putting the kingdom in 

 a proper state of defence. Already had he dissipated 

 the immense sums which he had acquired by the plunder 

 of the church, and he had this very year suppressed the 

 only remaining religious order in England, the Knights 

 <>( St John of Jerusalem, or " the Knights of Malta," as 

 they arc commonly called, whose large revenues formed 

 r.o contemptible addition to the spoil which he had col- 



lected from die monasteries. The commons, though la- "History, 

 vish of the liberty and blood of their fellow subjects, S T"*' 

 were sufficiently frugal of their money ; and, had it not 

 been owing to the earnest desire of both the Protestant 

 and the Popisli parties to gain the king to their views, 

 he would have found it no easy matter to procure their 

 consent to a demand, which was so contrary to all tin; 

 expectations which had recently been held out to -the 

 public, of a long exemption from supplies to the crown. 



These measures, though passed in parliament, excited ,, 



' . . Cromwell 

 universal murmurs against the king and his minister con j cmnet i 



Cromwell. The latter had long been hated by the no- and exccn- 

 bility, on account of his low extraction, and his posses- t d 

 sion of many offices and honours which they considered 1 **' 

 as belonging only to persons of illustrious birth ; and he 

 was equally obnoxious to the clergy and the people, as the 

 supposed author of Henry's rapacious proceedings. By 

 the Catholics he was regarded as the concealed enemy of 

 their religion ; and by the Protestants, he was reproach- 

 ed with the timidity or treachery of his conduct, in gi- 

 ving his countenance to the persecutions by which they 

 were harassed. He had lost all favour with the king, in 

 consequence of his having been the adviser of his late 

 joyless marriage with Anne of Cleves ; and, as Henry 

 hail now fixed his affections upon Catherine Howard, 

 niece of the Duke of Norfolk, who had long been at en- 

 mity with Cromwell, he was easily persuaded, at once to 

 seek a divorce from his queen, and to consent to the ruin 

 of his minister. Cromwell was accused of heresy and 

 treason, and, without examination or evidence, was con- 

 demned to death. He made the most humble submis- 

 sion to the king, and wrote to him for mercy in so mo- 

 ving a strain as is said to have drawn tears from his 

 eyes. Archbishop Cranmer interceded earnestly in his 

 behalf, and even went so far as to affirm, that " no king 

 in this realm ever had such a servant." But tlie charms 

 of Catherine Howard and the importunities of her 

 friends prevailed. Cromwell, one of the wisest and most 

 upright ministers who had ever served in England, and 

 who, in all his exaltation, betrayed no insolence towards 

 his inferiors, and no forgetfulness of his former obliga- 

 tions, fell a sacrifice to the passions of a capricious ty- 

 rant, to whom he had been only too obsequious. 



The measures for Henry's divorce were carried on at K ; n j; vor 

 the same time with the bill of attainder against Crom- cej f r0 m 

 well. The convocation and parliament readily annulled Anne of 

 his marriage, upon his own affirmation, that he had not 

 consented inwardly to the match, and had never con- 

 summated the union. Anne herself discovered the ut- 

 most indifference in the matter ; and, accepting a settle. 

 ment of L. 3000 a-year, freely consented to the divorce ; 

 but, unwilling to return to her own country after sus- 

 taining Mich an affront, she lived and died in England. 



Tlie king's marriage .with Catherine Howard, which jj; s mar . 

 soon followed his divorce from Anne of Cleves, was re- riage with 

 ganled by the Catholics as a favourable event to their Catherine 



party ; and a furious prosecution was commenced against H * ard> 

 i J ' r ._. ,! . an d prosc- 



the Protestants who offended against the law of the six cutionofthe 

 articles. Nor did Henry spare the Papists who denied Protestant*, 

 his supremacy ; but displayed, with disgusting ostenta- 

 tion, his impartial oppression of both parties. Tlucc 

 Protestants, Barnes, Jerome, and Gerrard, coupled with 

 three Catholics, Abel, Fetherstone, and Powell, were 

 carried to execution at the same time ; which gave occa- 

 sion to a foreigner to remark, that, " in England, those 

 who were against the pope were burned, and those who. 



