accused of incest with her brother, George Boleyn, and of criminal conversation with four other gentlemen of the Court. Henry refused at first to believe the charge, but his jealousy was raised, and his love for Jane Seymour contributing, likewise, to her ruin, she was committed to the Tower at once. Bossuet informs us, that Henry called on Cranmer to declare now, that his marriage with Anna was invalid from the beginning, and Elizabeth, his daughter, illegitimate, since Anna was married to him during the lifetime of Lord Percy, then Earl of Northumberland, between whom and Anna, it was asserted, there was a contract of marriage. But this charge was unfounded; there was not even a promise between them; the only foundation for the assertion was, that Percy was at one time anxious to marry her; for all, she was condemned to death for adultery, and the sentence was, that she should be burned or beheaded, at the King's pleasure. She begged to be allowed to speak to the King, but was refused; all the favour she could obtain was, that she should be beheaded; this sentence was carried into execution, and her brother, likewise, and the four gentlemen accused of being her paramours, underwent the same fate. On the day of her execution, the Lieutenant of the Tower remarked to her, by way of consolation, that she would not suffer much, as the executioner was very expert; she smilingly answered: "My neck is very slender." The day after, Henry married Jane Seymour (32). 10. He again convoked Parliament on the 7th of June, 1536, and had the law passed in favour of Elizabeth, to the exclusion of Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine, repealed, and the six Articles were passed for the regulation of religious affairs in the kingdom. The First was, that the Transubstantiation of the bread into the body of Christ in the Eucharist was an article of Faith. Second.That Communion should be given under one kind. Third.That the celibacy of the clergy should be observed. Fourth.— That the vow of chastity was binding. Fifth-That the celebration of the Mass was in conformity with the Divine law, and that private Masses were not only useful, but necessary. Sixth.-That auricular confession should be strictly practised. All these Articles were confirmed by the King, and both houses, and the penalties imposed on heretics applied to all who would either believe or teach doctrines in opposition to them (33). The primacy of the King, however, was left intact, so Henry, using his new power, appointed Cromwell, though a mere layman, his Vicar-General in Spirituals for the entire kingdom, and ordained that he should preside at all the Synods of the bishops (34). When Paul III. was informed of all these sacrilegious attempts on the integrity of Faith, and especially of the affair of St. Thomas of Canterbury, who was tried and (32) Varill. l. 9, p. 423; Gotti, s. Bossuet, Hist. l. 7, n. 21, 22, 23. art. 3, n. 7; Gotti, s. 2, art. 27. 2, n. 26; Hermant, c. 266; Nat. Alex. cit. n. 6 ; (33) Bossuet, Hist. l. 7, n. 33; Nat. Alex. t. 19, (34) Varill. t. 1, l. 12, p. 544. THE HISTORY OF HERESIES, condemned as a traitor to his country (35), and his sacred body disinterred, burned, and the ashes thrown into the Thames, he published a brief on the 1st of January, 1538, ordering that the sentence before passed against Henry should be published (36). It was, however, delayed on account of the melancholy death of Queen Jane, who died in childbirth, leaving Henry an heir, afterwards Edward VI., under whom the ruin of England was completed, as in his time heresy was firmly rooted in the country. It is said (but the report does not rest, I believe, on a good foundation), that when Henry found that there was danger of the child being lost, he ordered an operation to be performed on the mother, saying he could get wives enough, but not heirs (37). 11. On the death of Jane Seymour, Henry immediately began to look about for his fourth wife, and Paul III., hoping to bring him to a sense of his duty, wrote him a letter in which he told him of the sentence of excommunication hanging over him, which he did not promulgate, having still hopes that he would be reconciled with the Church; at the same time, he created Reginald Pole a Cardinal, and sent him to France as his Legate, that he might endeavour to arrange a marriage between Henry and Margaret, the daughter of Francis I. of France. Cardinal Pole accordingly went to France, and arranged the matter with Francis, but Henry would not agree to it, and he wrote to Francis, telling him that Pole was a rebel, and requiring Francis to deliver him up to him. This Francis refused to do, but he told the Cardinal the danger he was in, and by his advice he quitted France. Henry, disappointed in his vengeance, laid a price of fifty thousand crowns on his head (38). 12. Cromwell (not Oliver the President) now thought it a good opportunity to induce the King to take a wife on his recommendation, and bring him over to his own religion, which was Lutheran (39). He then proposed as a wife to him Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, head of one of the noblest families in Germany, sister of the Electress of Saxony. Anne had a great many good qualities which would fit her for a crown, but she was, unfortunately, a Lutheran, and her relations were the chiefs of the League of Smalcald. Of this League Henry was anxious to be admitted a member, but the Lutherans had not confidence in him, and he then imagined that by marrying a Lutheran Princess he would remove any difficulties which previously existed to his admission. The marriage was celebrated, to Henry's great joy, on the 3rd of January, 1540, and Cromwell was made High Chancellor on the occasion, and Earl of Essex. Henry was only seven months married when, as usual, he publicly declared himself discontented with his Queen,, especially as she was a heretic, as if he could be called (35) Varill. t. 1, c. 11, p. 315; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 8. (37) Varill. p. 306; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, s. 2, n. 2. (39) Varill. t. 1, l. 12, p. 551. & seq. (36) Gotti, s. 2, n. 23. (38) Varill. 7. 11, p. 507, a Catholic. He now became enamoured of Catherine Howard, niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, and one of the maids of honour to Queen Anne, and seeing no hopes of obtaining her favour unless he married her, he called on Cromwell to assist him now again to get divorced from Anne of Cleves. Cromwell had embarked his fortunes in the same boat with the Queen; he dreaded that her divorce would be the cause of his fall, and endeavoured to prevent it. Henry, displeased with his opposition, eagerly sought an occasion to ruin him, and was not long in finding it. The chiefs of the Protestant League sent their agents to London to conclude with Henry the alliance he was before so desirous of, but as he was now determined to repudiate Anne, he had no longer any wish to league himself with the Lutherans, so he refused to treat with the agents; but Cromwell, confiding in his favour, took on himself to sign the treaty. Some say that Henry was privy to this act, but this is denied by others; however it was, the upshot of the affair was the disgrace of Cromwell, for when the Emperor loudly complained of the alliance, Henry swore that he had no cognizance of it. He sent for Cromwell one day, and in presence of many of the nobility, charged him publicly with signing a treaty for which he had no authority, and ordered him immediately to be conducted to the Tower. Cromwell begged hard for a public trial, to give him an opportunity of justifying his conduct in the affair, but as, independently of that charge, he was convicted of other crimes-heresy, peculation, and illegal impositions-he, who was the cause of so many Catholics being condemned without a hearing, was, by the just judgment of the Almighty, condemned himself, and was decapitated, and his property confiscated (40). Henry now had the Queen informed, that unless she consented to a divorce, he would have the laws against heretics put in force against her, she being a Lutheran. Dreading the fate that awaited. her, from his known cruelty, and wishing to avoid also the shame of a public repudiation, she confessed, it is said, that, previous to her marriage with the King, she was promised to another; so Thomas Craniner, who gave the sentence of divorce in the cases of Catherine, and of Anna Boleyn, now, for the third time, pronounced a similar sentence. The decision was based on the greatest injustice; for the contract of marriage between Anne and the Duke of Lorraine, on which it was founded, took place while they were both children, and was never ratified. How, then, could Henry's solemn marriage be affected by this? But Cranmer-whom Burnet compares to St. Athanasius and St. Cyril-decided that it was null and void, merely to please Henry, who immediately married another. Queen Anne accepted a pension of £3,000 a-year, but never returned to Germany again (41). (40) Varillas, t. 1, l. 12, p. 53; Nat. Alex. c. 23, a. 3, n. 7; Bossuet, 7. 7, n. 34. (41) Varill. loc. cit. p. 575; Bossuet, loc. cit. Y 13. Within a week Henry was married to Catherine Howard, who soon met the same fate as Anna Boleyn. She was charged before Parliament with dissolute conduct with two individuals, before her marriage, and with adultery since, and was condemned to be beheaded (42). Henry then got a law passed, the like of which was never before heard of, enacting it high treason for any lady to marry the King, if previously she had ever offended against chastity (43). He then married Catherine Parr, sister to the Earl of Essex (44); she survived him, but having married the brother of the Regent Somerset, Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England, who suffered death by the sentence of his own brother, she died of a broken heart. 14. Death, at last, was about to put an end to Henry's crimes; he was now fifty-seven years of age, and had grown to such an enormous size that he could not almost pass through the doorway of his palace, and was obliged to be carried by servants up and down stairs (45). A deep-rooted sadness and remorse now seized him; all his crimes, sacrileges, and scandals stared him in the face. To establish the sacrilegious doctrine of his primacy over the English Church he had put to death two cardinals, three archbishops, eighteen bishops and archdeacons, five hundred priests, sixty superiors of religious houses, fifty canons, twenty-nine peers, three hundred and sixty-six knights, and an immense number both of the gentry and people. Ulcers in one of his legs, together with fever, now plainly told him that his end was nigh, and some writers assert that he then spoke to some of the bishops of his intention of being again reconciled to the Church, but not one among them had the courage to tell him plainly the course he should take. All dreaded his anger; and none were willing to brave the danger of death, by plainly telling him that his only chance of salvation was to repent of his evil deeds-to repair the scandal he had given-and humbly return to the Church he had abandoned. No one was courageous enough to tell him this; one alone suggested to him that he ought to convoke Parliament, as he had done when about to make the changes, to set things again to rights. He ordered, it is said, the Secretaries of State to convoke it, but they feared they should be obliged to disgorge the plunder of the Church, and put off the convocation, and thus he left the Church in the greatest confusion; and soon, as we shall see, irreparable ruin overtook it (46). 15. Just before Henry's death he opened a church belonging to the Franciscans, and had Mass again said in it (now Christ Church Hospital), but this was but little reparation for so much mischief. He then made his will, leaving his only son, Edward, heir to the throne, then only nine years of age, appointing sixteen guardians (42) Gotti, s. 2, n. 29; Hermant, t. 2, c. 266; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 7. loc. cit. p. 575. (44) Varill. t. 2, l. 13, n. 575; Nat. Alex. a. 3, n. 7. (43) Varill. (45) Varill. to him, ordering that he should be brought up in the Catholic Faith, but never resign the primacy of the English Church, so that he was unchanged even in death. In case that Edward died without issue, he left the crown to Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine, and should she likewise die without issue, to Elizabeth, daughter of Anna Boleyn (47). He caused Mass to be celebrated several times in his chamber, and wished that the Viaticum should be administered to him in the one kind alone. When the Viaticum was brought in he received it kneeling, and when it was told, that, considering the state he was in, that was unnecessary, he said: "If I could bury myself under the earth, I could not show sufficient respect to the God I am about to receive" (48). How could he, however, expect to please the Almighty by such acts of reverence, after trampling on his Church, and dying out of her communion? He endeavoured, by these external acts, to quiet that remorse of conscience he felt, but, withal, he could not recover the Divine grace, nor the peace he sought. He called for some Religious to attend him at his last moments, after banishing them out of the kingdom (49); he next called for something to drink, and having tasted it he said to those around him, in a loud tone, "So this is the end of it, and all is lost for me," and immediately expired. He died on the 1st of February, 1547, at the age of fifty-six, according to Noel Alexander, or in his fifty-seventh year, according to others, and in the thirty-eighth year of his reign (50). SECT. II.-REIGN OF EDWARD VI. 16. The Duke of Somerset, as Guardian of Edward VI., governs the Kingdom. 17. He declares himself a Heretic, and gives Leave to the Heretics to preach; invites Bucer, Vermigli, and Ochino to England, and abolishes the Roman Catholic Religion. 18. He beheads his Brother, the Lord High-Admiral. 19. He is beheaded himself. 20. Death of Edward; the Earl Warwick makes an Attempt to get Possession of the Kingdom, and is beheaded, but is converted, and dies an edifying Death. 16. EDWARD SEYMOUR, Earl of Hertford, was one of the guardians appointed by Henry to his son; he was maternal uncle to the young King, being brother to Jane Seymour, his mother. Although he passed all along as a Catholic, he was a Zuinglian, and as the majority of Edward's guardians were Catholics, he intrigued with some of the principal nobility of the kingdom, and pointed out how dangerous it would be to their interests that the young King should be left in the hands of those gentlemen; that the consequence would be that they should have, sooner or later, to surrender again the ecclesiastical property given them by Henry; that the suppressed and ruined churches should be again repaired and rebuilt, to the great impoverishing of the Royal treasury; and that the only way (47) Gotti, s. 2, n. 31; Varillas, t. 2, p. 99. (48) Nat. Alex. a. 3, n. 9; Gotti, 8. 2, n. 30; Varillas, loc. cit. (49) Bart. Ist, d'Inghil. l. 1, c. 1, p. 4. (50) Natal. loc. cit.; Varill. p. 100; Bartol. p. 3. |