daughter of Sir Thomas Parr, who survived her tyrannical husband, but, like her two predecessors, had by him no children. Thus the whole issue of Henry and his six wives amounted but to four-and those four proved issueless. The character of Henry VIII. is so well denoted by his actions, that we may truly say with lord Herbert, his history is his best description.' Love of sway and of sensual gratification were his grand incentives to action; and whenever either of these were checked, all sentiments of humanity were extinguished in him, and he became a monster of injustice and sanguinary fury. His vigorous rule, coming after the wars of the Roses, is allowed to have been serviceable to the internal police of the country; but lamentable must have been the state of society, irrational indeed the human mind in the mass of his people, when we find him not more hated than feared by his subjects, and when we note the slavish disposition of his parliament-ever ready to do his behest, and to carry into immediate execution his unjust, unholy, and most cruel decrees. The royal prerogative being then of a most extensive nature, we may suppose how it was abused by Henry, when he could, as king, compel a man to serve in any office, imprison any one during pleasure, without judge or jury, and extort loans, or as he was pleased to style them benevolences,' to the extent of his necessities, from his people.

POLITICAL HISTORY.-No prince could succeed to a throne under happier circumstances than did Henry VIII. (upon the decease of his father, Henry VII., 1509,) at the age of 18, possessing an undisputed title, a full treasury, and a kingdom flourishing in the bosom of peace. He began by establishing a council, consisting of his father's ablest ministers; and put to death as traitors Empson and Dudley, whose extortion had deservedly excited popular odium. His turn of magnificence soon dissipated the hoards of his parent; and his openness and vanity made him the easy dupe of foreign artifice. Instigated by his father-in-law, Ferdinand the Catholic, and pope Julius II. to attack Louis XII., his only rewards were the trifling success of his troops at the battle of the Spurs (so called from the flight of the French at Guinegaste, wherein spurs were more used than swords), and the taking of Tournay, 1513.

But while Henry was thus wasting time in France, his general, the earl of Surrey, obtained the important victory of Flodden over the Scots, killing their king, James IV., the brother-in-law of Henry, in the battle, Sept. 9, 1513. And here it should be observed that the Scots, from the time of our second Henry, had been in constant alliance with the French; insomuch that whole regiments of that people were to be found in the armies of the latter, and no war could commence between England and France, without an immediate invasion of Northumberland by the Scots. On news of this success, Henry granted peace to the queen of Scots, his sister, and established an influence in her kingdom which long rendered his own secure on

that side.

The career of Wolsey is the most striking feature of this reign, productive as it was of the most important consequences to the kingdom. That talented man, whose father had been a butcher, had been rapidly elevated by Henry to the highest honours in church and state; and neither the king of France, the emperor of Germany, nor the king of England, appear to have proceeded with any great measure in their respective states, without his advice and interference. The pope made him a cardinal, and the young emperor, Charles V., promised him the popedom. At his solicitation, Henry not only restored Tournay to France, but crossed over to Calais to hold a conference with Francis I., for the purpose of cementing an eternal amity between the nations, 1520. The field whereon they met was ever after called the field of the cloth of gold,' as well it might; for very many of the English nobles

were ruined by their extravagant expenditure amid the tilts and tournaments, the spectacles and feasts, which consumed day after day.

6

But however disposed the mind of Henry might be to court foreign alliances, and extend his dominions, a matter of domestic interest interfered to turn the current of his thoughts. His plan of education had made him a great casuist; and delighted at the notion of entering into the religious disputes then raging in Germany, he wrote a treatise in Latin against the principles of Luther, entitled Assertio septem Sacramentorum, adversus Martyn Luther,' on sending which to Leo X., the pontiff conferred on him the title of Defender of the Faith,' an appellation which he retained even when he had thrown off the papal yoke, and which his successors have to this day thought proper to retain. By a singular felicity,' says Mr. Walpole, 'the title suited Henry equally well when he burned either papists or protestants; it suited each of his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth; it fitted the martyr Charles, and the profligate Charles; the Romish James and the Calvinist William; and at last seemed peculiarly adapted to high-church Anne.' Charles V. hereupon had address enough, by visiting England, 1522, to induce Wolsey and Henry to break again with France, which was accordingly again invaded by an English and Flemish army, under the earl of Surrey. The defeat and capture, however, of Francis I. at Pavia, gave such a preponderance to the power of Charles, that Henry, in alarm, (and instigated by Wolsey, who saw that the emperor was only amusing him on the subject of the papacy,) made peace with Francis, and declared war against Charles. The latter being the great opponent of Luther, Henry, little caring about his own recent publication against the reformers, now became their champion; a course to which he was secretly inclined at the moment by the influence of mere sensual passion. He had been more than 20 years the husband of Catherine, the aunt of Charles, when, struck with the personal charms of Anne Boleyn, one of her maids of honour, he sought a divorce from her, under the guise of religious scruples; and as Clement VII., then a prisoner of the emperor, 1527, with the hope of bringing over the English to his side, and thus obtaining his release, affected to feel for so tender a conscience, Wolsey was employed to debate the matter with other casuists. When, after considerable delay, the king's inability to procure a divorce was declared, the royal ire fell upon the cardinal, who was accused of leaguing with the pope, deprived of his offices, and threatened with an impeachment. Wolsey's death of a broken heart put an end to his calamities, 1530; and Henry, in despite of papal injunctions, married Anne Boleyn 1533, after his separation by archbishop Cranmer from Catherine. The emperor having released Clement, that pope treated Henry's scruples in the manner he ought to have done at first; and Charles, incensed at Henry's repudiation of his aunt, in spite of all his attempts to prevent such an insult to his house, now sought how best he might punish the aggressor. Clement's excommunication of Henry having closely followed, the infuriated king at once broke with Rome, declared himself supreme head of the Church in England, and pronounced his daughter by Catherine illegitimate.

Thus began the English Reformation, but the monarch still adhered to the old faith; and while persecuting even to death such excellent characters as bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More for denying his supremacy, he not only displayed a rooted aversion to the Lutherans, but brought a great many of them to the stake for heresy. The rupture of Henry, therefore, with Rome, affected only church-government in temporal matters; and what we understand by the term Reformation, referring as it does to the change of religion from catholic to protestant, is by no means applicable to the schism which he originated. Henry cared not, so long as his concupiscent and

irascible passions were gratified, either for Romanists or reformers; and the Church of England, which by God's providence alone sprung out of the ruin he effected, was begun by the able ministers of his son Edward, and completed by the able divines who flourished in the reign of his daughter, Elizabeth.

As Henry advanced in years, his temper grew more stern; and his reign was at length that of a despot, who sacrificed without scruple every obstacle of his capricious will. As the monks and friars were necessarily the most direct advocates of papal authority, he suppressed the monasteries, and seizing their revenues, divided them between the crown and his courtiers, giving small pensions to the abbots; he also ordered the Scriptures to be translated into English, though the gentry alone were permitted to read them. Tiring of his wife, Anne Boleyn, he listened to the reports of her indiscreet conduct in petty matters, and after sacrificing several who had been noticed by her, brought her also to the scaffold, 1536. On the day after her execution, he espoused Jane Seymour, presenting to the world a solecism in morals-a Christian king marrying another woman while the body of her, but lately, though in defiance of all religious and ethical law, the object of his dearest affections, and the wife of his bosom, was yet warm and quivering and reeking from the axe of the executioner, directed by his murderous will. There is nothing in the whole histories of Nebuchadnezzars, Alexanders, Herods, Neros, Attilas, Jenghizkhans, Nadirs, nay of savage nations, comparable in barbarity to this.

Henry now declared his daughter (Elizabeth) by Anne Boleyn illegitimate, as he had before declared her sister Mary; and the utmost rigour was exercised towards the remaining catholic institutions. Stories were by royal authority propagated respecting the detestable lives of the friars; the reliques of the monasteries were exposed to public ridicule; and the shrine of Thomas-à-Becket, which had been an object of reverence for centuries, was pillaged by command, the bones of the saint burned, and the ashes scattered to the winds. The trial and death of Lambert followed, for denying the corporal presence, 1538; and soon after, a committee of parliament was employed in drawing up six articles of uniformity, which were formed into an act called 'the bloody bill,' in consequence of its severity against protestants.

Queen Jane Seymour died two days after giving birth to her son Edward, 1537. To the protestant party her decease was a great calamity, as she had secretly favoured the reformers; and here it may be well to show, in confirmation of what we have before advanced, that the rupture with Rome had done nothing beyond opening a door for the Reformation. Although Cranmer was in the place of Wolsey, and, as it were, a half-formed protestant, the greater portion of the bishops were what even Henry himself called 'orthodox people.' Gardiner, in heart a staunch advocate for the hierarchy, was consulted by the king on most occasions, after queen Jane's death; and though bishop Fox had sided with Cranmer, his decease had made way for the promotion of Bonner, a prelate similar in sentiments to Gardiner. Both these, it was believed, had given a secret promise to the pope and the emperor to preserve as much as possible the ancient faith and worship in England.

Henry took for his fourth wife, 1540, Anne, daughter of John, duke of Cleve; but immediately after the marriage, he accused the Earl of Essex of treason for having proposed the match, put him to death, divorced his consort, and married Catherine Howard. As the Howard family were inimical to protestantism, the most determined persecution of the protestants followed; and crowds were daily brought to the axe of such as had been only

supposed to deny the king's supremacy. It was no uncommon thing now to see a rigid catholic and a firm protestant tied together, and so brought to execution, for the one great offence: even the aged countess of Salisbury, the mother of cardinal Pole, and the only relique of the Plantagenets, was on this plea put to death, though it was but the tyrant's pretext to get rid of a member of the house his family had supplanted. Charges of infidelity were soon after brought against Catherine Howard; and she was summarily beheaded, 1542, and her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, and his son, the accomplished earl of Surrey, were sent to the Tower, simply because they were her relations. In the same year, Henry sent a force northwards, which put the Scots to flight near Solway, and, without a blow, made many of their nobles prisoners; a disaster which caused James V. to die of grief for his dishonour, leaving an only child, the yet more unfortunate Mary. The failure of Henry's negotiation to unite his son Edward to this heiress, through the intrigues of cardinal Beatoun, then primate of Scotland, and of Francis I. of France, produced a new war with both those countries, 1543; and Charles V. once more joined Henry against the latter. The Scottish contest consisted chiefly of mutual inroads and devastations, without any important issue; but the French war induced Henry to cross to Calais, 1544, at the head of 50,000 men, when, in conjunction with a force of Netherlanders, he took Boulogne. A desultory species of conflict continued until 1546, when peace was made with France, and Scotland, as its ally, was comprehended in the same; and Henry received from France by way of compensation scarcely a third of the large sum of 1,340,000l., which the double war had cost him. Meanwhile the king had married, 1543, his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, widow of lord Latimer, who, soon after becoming queen, fell into danger of her life, as related in her brief memoir.

The king began now to feel his health decline: he had become immensely corpulent, and so extremely irritable, that no one either of his court or family dared to thwart him in any way. It was at this juncture that he put to death the earl of Surrey, for having quartered the royal arms with his own coat-armour; and he expressed a hope that he might not himself die before he had brought that nobleman's father also, the duke of Norfolk, to the scaffold. The latter was also formerly earl of Surrey, and the general whose skill and valour had gained the important victory of Flodden. The king's end, however, approached so rapidly, that he could not carry his bloodthirsty design into execution, although the parliament obsequiously passed sentence on the duke; but such was the dread of him even now in the hearts of his courtiers, that no one could readily be found bold enough to intimate to him his impending dissolution. Several during his tyrannical reign had undergone the punishment of traitors, for foretelling his death; all about his person, therefore, were afraid lest, when told of its immediate on-coming, he might, in the transports of his fury, give orders for the execution of the author of the intelligence. Cranmer and others absolutely refused to be messengers on the occasion; but at last Sir Anthony Denny took courage, and assured the monarch he had not long to live. To that knight's surprise, fear overcame him on receiving the information, and he desired that the archbishop might be sent for. Before Cranmer, however, could arrive, Henry became speechless, and the prelate was only in time to receive a pressure from his hand, in reply to his question if he died in the faith of Christ', before he expired, in his 57th year, January 28, 1547. His disorder was dropsy; and he had long dabbled in medical recipes, with the hope of curing himself, unaided by physicians. He was buried at Windsor, in a vault near the altar in St. George's chapel, near his queen Jane. In his will he restored his daughters to a place in the succession, in case of his son Edward's death without issue.

EVENTS.

THE RUPTURE WITH ROME.-The | A denial of the corporal presence abolition of papal power in England subjected the person to death by by Henry was effected 1533, and fire, and admitted not the privilege thus the foundation of the English of abjuring a severity unknown to Reformation was laid. But when the Inquisition itself; a denial of the clergy in convocation at Canter- any of the other five articles, even bury were called to acknowledge the though recanted, was punishable by king supreme head of the church and the forfeiture of goods and chattels, clergy of England, they unequivocally and imprisonment during the king's refused compliance, save on the con- pleasure: an obstinate adherence to dition of being allowed to qualify error, or a relapse, was to be punishtheir assent. They agreed to own able with death. Abstaining from him singularem protectorem et uni- confession, or from the eucharist at cum et supremum dominum, et the accustomed times, subjected the quantùm per Christi legem licet, etiam person to fine and imprisonment dursupremum caput;' and thus alone as ing the king's pleasure-and to death far as the law of Christ allowed' and forfeiture, in case of a relapse did they acknowledge his supre- after conviction. The Six Articles macy, denying his right to interfere proving a bar to the changes intended with the spiritual jurisdiction of bi- by such bishops as were inclined to shops, or with any of the laws, liber- the Reformation, a convocation (sumties, doctrines, or rites of the Church moned by royal mandate 1543,) drew Catholic. The supremacy therefore up fresh directions, which were pubwas understood to apply to tem- lished in a book entitled The Neporals alone; and the assembling of cessary Doctrine or Erudition;' and convocations and confirmation of their this work, whose object will be found laws, the appointment of bishops and under 'Seventeenth Century of the abbots, and the cognizance of causes Church,' was of authority in the in criminal matters, were the powers English church during the remainder consequently vested in the regal office, of Henry's reign. as contra-distinguished from those exercised by the priestly.

THE SIX ARTICLES.-A new parliament being opened 1539, the chancellor told the lords that as it was his majesty's earnest desire to extirpate from his kingdom all diversity of opinions with regard to religion, he called on them to frame certain articles, to which all men should adhere. The result was the bill of the Six Articles, or, as the protestants called it the bloody bill,' which Henry joyfully signed; a measure which abundantly shows how little the king intended the nation to gain by being placed under pope Henry, instead of pope Clement. In this law the doctrine of the corporal presence was established, the communion in one kind, the perpetual obligation of vows of chastity, the utility of private masses, the celibacy of the clergy, the necessity of auricular confession.

THE SIX ROYAL MARRIAGES.-The first wife of Henry was CATHERINE OF ARAGON, youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, born 1483. In 1501, she was betrothed, and betrothed only, to Arthur, son of Henry VII., who dying in five months after the contract, the king, with his usual avarice, rather than return her dower, betrothed her (æt. 19) to his second son Henry (æt. 10); and pope Julius II. granted a dispensation for the purpose, 1503. In 1505, the young Henry, then 14, made a public protest against the marriage, not much caring for a-bride so much older than himself; but, taking the advice of his council at his accession, 1509, he ratified the contract by marrying her, and was crowned with her by archbishop Warham. In the next year she brought him a son, who died in three months, and in 1516 a daughter, Mary, afterwards queen. Nothing but the fine tem