10 



ENGLAND. (CIVIL HISTORY.) 



the Reformation ; but this too was owing to his 

 caprice, and to the casual situation of his private 

 aifuirs, more than to his conviction of the necessity 

 of a reformation in religion, or the solidity of rea- 

 soning employed by the reformers. Henry had been 

 espoused to Catharine of Spain, who was first mar- 

 ried to his elder brother, Arthur ; a prince, who died 

 young. Henry became disgusted with his queen, 

 whom, indeed, he never greatly loved. She was 

 somewhat older than he : all his children by her, 

 died in their inikncy, except the princess Mary ; and 

 the king was enamoured of one of the queen's maids 

 of honour, Anne Boleyn. He liad recourse, there- 

 fore, to the pope, to dissolve a marriage which had 

 at first been rendered legal, only by a dispensation 

 from the pontiff. The pope, through his connexions 

 with Catharine's relations on the continent, found 

 himself involved in perplexity. He endeavoured to 

 evade the determination, or by giving an ambiguous 

 answer to lengthen out the negotiation ; but the im- 

 perious passions of Henry could submit to no delay. 

 To preserve his influence in England, which the 

 pontiff" was apprehensive he might entirely lose, a 

 legate was sent to examine the cause. Catharine 

 refused to acknowledge the authority of a court, in 

 which it was evident she was to receive so little 

 justice. The business was conducted in her absence ; 

 but after it seemed to be nearly concluded, the 

 legate first prorogued the court, and afterwards 

 transferred the cause to Rome. In this mode of 

 proceeding it was not probable that the king would 

 acquiesce. Wolsey, the celebrated cardinal, by en- 

 deavouring to maintain his ground with the pope and 

 with the king, was disgraced by both parties. The 

 great seal was taken from him, and in a short time, 

 his numerous vexations terminated his existence. 

 Concerning his marriage, the king consulted the 

 universities of Europe, and all the learned men whose 

 judgment he imagined to be of consequence in the 

 affair. The opinions of the scrupulous were pur- 

 chased. All concurred in declaring the marriage 

 illegal. Henry thought that now he might venture, 

 independent of the pope's permission, to dissolve a 

 contract with which he was so much disgusted. 

 He compelled the clergy to acknowledge his power 

 in spiritual matters, to be, in his own dominions, 

 supreme. He immediately annulled his marriage with 

 Catharine ; and, in the mean time had, in a private 

 manner, espoused Anne Boleyn. To act thus with- 

 out the pope's, consent was openly to contemn his 

 authority. Instigated, therefore, at the same time, 

 by a wish to maintain his own influence, and by the 

 just complaints of Catharine's relations, the pontiff 

 declared that princess to be the lawful wife of 

 Henry ; and denounced against him the censures of 

 the church, should he refuse to dissolve his marriage 

 with Anne Boleyn. But Henry's passions were too 

 much interested to permit him to hearken to any of 

 the pope's remonstrances ; and, as he now consid- 

 ered himself as the head of the church in his own 

 kingdom, he was by no means anxious to regulate 

 his conduct by the advice of the bishop of Rome. 



Henry had other reasons for desiring to abolish 

 the pope's authority in England. The churches and 

 monasteries had, during the lapse of several super- 

 stitious ages, accumulated immense wealth ; and the 

 king imagined that he might enrich himself with the 

 spoils of the ecclesiastics. He could not, however, 

 with honour, deviate entirely from the received doc- 

 trines of the Roman church. He had already writ- 

 ten a Iwok in opposition to the reformed creed, and 

 in defence of the Catholic faith. He held, there- 

 fore, a middle course : he condemned all submission 

 to the pope as the head of the church, with several 

 of the less important articles of the Romish faith ; 



but, at the Fame time, lie condemned the doctrine of 

 the reformers. He published a creed; and com- 

 manded his subjects to believe it. Protestants and 

 Catholics were equally liable to persecution, ami 

 were sometimes burnt in the same fire. Had the 

 king adhered to the creed which he had adopted, it 

 might have been possible, if not to believe, at least 

 with some consistency, to have feigned belief; but 

 Henry either had no belief himself, or it was so 

 unsettled as to undergo almost continual changes. 

 Often did he obtrude upon his subjects new, and, in 

 some cases, contradictory tenets. To every new 

 creed an unlimited assent was required ; and when 

 this assent was obtained with incredible ease, he 

 went a step farther, and enacted, that all his subjects 

 should believe what he had already published, or 

 what he might afterwards publish. 



Henry's caprice was not more conspicuous in his 

 articles of faith, than in his conduct with regard to 

 his wives. Anne Boleyn, for some time, filled the 

 place of Catharine ; but the king, at length, became no 

 less disgusted at her than at her predecessor. Anne, 

 in consequence of the low station from which she had 

 been raised, had many enemies. These accused her 

 of conjugal infidelity. Henry eagerly seized the 

 accusation. Anne was confined to the tower, was 

 tried, condemned, and executed. She had, it ap- 

 pears, been guilty only of a levity in her behaviour, 

 which, though it cannot be commended, merits not 

 surely a capital punishment ; but Anne's guilt was 

 the more easily discovered, that the king had formed 

 a new attachment to Jane Seymour, another maid of 

 honour. With a precipitancy which indicated the 

 cause of the prosecution of his wife, he married Sey- 

 mour the day following the execution of Boleyn. 

 Seymour might, perhaps, have been discarded like 

 one of her predecessors, or beheaded like the other, 

 but her premature death prevented the king's dis- 

 gust. She died in childbed. Henry's next spouse 

 was Anne of Cleves, of whose picture he had been 

 enamoured, but whose person, when he became 

 acquainted with her, he abhorred. He soon declared 

 his marriage with her invalid. By mutual consent 

 the contract was dissolved ; and Henry espoused 

 Catharine Howard, niece of the duke of Norfolk. 

 The king's happiness was, for some time, complete ; 

 but Howard's elevation procured her many enemies ; 

 and her conduct before marriage, which had been 

 extremely dissolute, was laid open. It did not ap- 

 pear that Catharine had continued her licentiousness 

 after marriage, but the former offence was sufficient 

 to provoke the king's most weighty resentment. He 

 not only caused her to be beheaded, but declared it 

 high treason for any but a virgin to espouse the 

 king of England. About a year after the execution 

 of Howard, he married Catharine Parr, the widow 

 of Nevil, lord Latimer. 



Had not the extravagance of Henry equalled his 

 other vices, he might have amassed immense wealth. 

 When he quarrelled with the pope, he was careful to 

 dissolve all the religious houses, monasteries, and 

 convents, and he immediately seized their revenues. 

 It is not easy to perceive to what extravagancies 

 his own impetuosity, and the servile complaisance of 

 his parliament, might have hurried him : his conduct 

 was becoming daily more capricious and tyrannical, 

 when he diedin 1547. 



Henry's son, who succeeded him by the name of 

 Edward VI., was but nine years of age at the time of 

 his succession. His father by his will, had declared, 

 that Edward was to assume into his own hands the 

 reins of government, when he should be eighteen 

 years of age ; but he lived not to reach that period ; 

 he died when he was only sixteen. His short reign, 

 or rather the reign of the earl of Hertford, afterwards 



