Public School History of England and Canada/England/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
HOUSE OF TUDOR.—THE REFORMATION.
1. Henry VII.—The first king of the House of Tudor was a cautious, intelligent man, with little love for anything or anybody but himself. In France he had studied the methods of foreign kings in ruling without parliaments, and when he became king of England he tried to get as much power as he could. He saw that the best way to do this was to lessen the power and influence of the few nobles left after the Wars of the Roses, and to gather as much money as possible, so that he could do without parliaments. To break down the power of the nobles, he had a law passed against liveries and maintenance; that is, a law forbidding nobles to keep more than a certain number of men in livery or uniform. He knew that these men would, if occasion arose, take up arms against the king in the interests of their lords. The law was strictly put in force; and Henry went so far as to have his friend, the Earl of Oxford, fined £10,000, because when Henry visited him, Oxford, to do the King honor when he left his castle, drew up in line a large number of men in livery. Henry had a court formed of some of the leading men in his Privy Council, to punish powerful offenders for breaches of the law. The ordinary courts did not dare to put the law in force against great nobles, who with their retainers, overawed judges and juries. This new court was called the ‘‘Court of the Star Chamber,” because it met in a room whose ceiling had star-like decorations. For a time it did good service in punishing men for such offences as maintenance, forgery, and breach of the peace. It however, became a very tyrannical body, and took away from the ordinary courts many of their rightful duties.
Henry also revived Edward IV.’s practice of raising money by “benevolences” or forced gifts. Cardinal Morton was the chief instrument he used for this purpose. If a man made a great show of wealth, the Cardinal told him he certainly must be able to give a rich gift to the king. On the other hand, if he lived in a poor house, and kept few servants, he was told that since he lived so frugally he must be hoarding money, and therefore was well able to grant the king a goodly sum. This artifice was known as “Morton’s fork,” for if a man escaped one tine of the fork, he would certainly be caught on the other. Henry also took advantage of the confusion due to the civil wars, and of the defects in titles of property, to seize the estates of landowners, or else make them pay heavily to keep them. By such means and by forcing the French king to pay him a large sum to withdraw his troops from Boulogne, Henry gathered so much wealth that when he died he left nearly £2,000,000 in his treasury.
2. Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck.—Although Henry had married Elizabeth of York in the hope of satisfying the Yorkists, there were still many who were dissatisfied with his rule. Henry had taken the precaution to put in the Tower the Earl of Warwick, the son of the Duke of Clarence, Edward IV’s brother. This, however, did not prevent an impostor, Lambert Simnel, from coming forward as the Earl of Warwick, and claiming the throne. He found many Yorkists ready to support him, but in a battle at Stoke, Simnel was defeated, and being taken prisoner was made a scullion in the King’s kitchen.
A more serious rebellion arose when Perkin Warbeck, a native of Tournay, claimed the crown as Richard, Duke of York, second son of Edward IV. The Yorkists said this boy had escaped when his brother Edward V. was murdered in the Tower. A great many believed that Warbeck was the Duke of York. The kings of France and Scotland acknowledged his claim; the latter, James IV., going so far as to give him in marriage his cousin, the beautiful Catharine Gordon, the ‘‘White Rose of Scotland.” James, also, helped him to invade England in 1496; but the invasion failed, and Perkin went to Ireland. Thence he made another attempt to get a footing in England, this time in Cornwall. His courage, however, failed as Henry’s army approached, and he tried to escape. He was taken prisoner, put in the Tower, and a few years later, with Warwick, was executed.
3. Foreign Alliances.—Henry saw that the kings of France, Aragon, and other nations had much power over their subjects, and he sought to secure their support by making alliances with them. His elder daughter, Margaret, he gave in marriage to James IV. of Scotland, to keep that country from molesting his northern frontier. Then to secure the friendship of Ferdinand, the crafty king of Aragon, he arranged that his elder son, Arthur, should marry Katharine, Ferdinand’s daughter. Arthur died a few months after the marriage, and then, Henry and Ferdinand, not to lose the benefit of the alliance, got the Pope’s consent to Katharine marrying Henry, Arthur’s brother, a lad six years younger than his bride.
4. Other Important Events of Henry VII's reign.—In this reign an important law affecting Ireland was passed. This was Poyning’s Act (1497) which said that English laws should have force in Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament should not make any new law without the consent of the King’s Council. We must remember that only a small portion of Ireland along the Eastern coast, called the ‘‘Pale,” was much under the control of the English at this time. The greater portion of Ireland was still unconquered, and was ruled by Irish chieftains.
In this reign, too, Columbus discovered America (1492); and the Cabots, John and Sebastian, sailed from Bristol and discovered Newfoundland and Labrador. About the same time Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese, made the first voyage to India from Europe around the Cape of Good Hope.
Not less important than these discoveries was the learning brought to Italy, and thence to England, by the Greeks who fled from Constantinople when that city was taken by the Turks in 1453. English students went to Italy to study Greek literature, and returning introduced the study of Greek into the great English Universities, Oxford and Cambridge. The New Testament was now read in Greek, whereas formerly it was read in Latin only. Among the great scholars of this time who loved this “New Learning” were Colet, Erasmus, and Sir Thomas More.
5. Henry VIII.—Henry VII. died in 1509, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Henry, a young man of eighteen years of age. Besides Henry there were two daughters, Margaret, married to James IV. of Scotland, and Mary, who married, first, Louis XII., the aged king of France, and after his death, the Duke of Suffolk. The descendants of these princesses were to play an important part in English history.
Henry VIII. was a handsome youth, fond of pleasure and outdoor sports, and frank and hearty in his manner. He was well-educated and an excellent musician; but withal, vain, self-willed, and extravagant. His selfishness grew with his years until all the good qualities of his youth were lost. Nevertheless, outside of his own court, the people loved him and “Bluff King Hal” was to the very last popular in England. Henry’s first acts as king were for the good of the country. He encouraged ship-building, established dock-yards, and punished the miserable instruments of his father’s exactions.
6. Foreign Wars.—Henry loved display and flattery, and he longed to play a great part in European politics. At that time France and Spain were the most powerful nations in Europe, and a keen rivalry existed between them. Henry was anxious to hold the balance of power, and much of his’ reign is taken up with the intrigues of the French and Spanish kings to win his favour. Almost at the beginning of the reign, he joined Spain and Germany in a war to defend the Pope against France. He accomplished nothing, however, beyond wasting the treasure his father had so carefully stored up for him.
A more successful war was carried on against Scotland, whose king, James IV., to help his ally, the King of France, attacked England in 1513. He was met at Flodden Field by the Earl of Surrey, and, with many of his nobles and knights, killed. This was not the only war with Scotland in this reign, for in 1542, James V. the nephew of Henry, attacked England; but like his father, he met with a disastrous defeat.
7. Wolsey.—During many years Henry was much guided by Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey had risen step by step by humoring the king and falling in with his pleasures till he became Chancellor, or chief law officer, Archbishop of York, papal legate, and a Cardinal of the Church. He was a man of great ability and shrewdness, strongly attached to Henry, and desirous of making him all-powerful; but at the same time vain, proud, and fond of money and show. Wolsey was a friend of the ‘‘New Learning” and showed his interest in education by founding a college at Oxford. He, however, tried to rule without parliaments, and to fill the king’s treasury by fines and forced loans. Wolsey himself grew rich and built great palaces, Whitehall and Hampton Court, with money given by the king.
In his dealings with the courts of Spain and France, Wolsey sought to gratify his own ambition. At this time Charles V., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain, was the strongest ruler in Europe. He was the nephew of Henry’s queen, Katharine, and Wolsey hoped through his influence to become Pope. For this reason, he for a time kept Henry on the side of Charles in his contests with Francis I. of France, for the chief power in Europe. Wolsey, however, was not appointed Pope, and then he encouraged Henry to make friends with Francis against Charles. This displeased the English people, for Charles was the ruler of Flanders, and they did not want their trade with that country injured.
8. Fall of Wolsey.—In the meantime, Henry, who had been married eighteen years, grew tired of Katharine and wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, a young and beautiful maid of honour at the court. Henry pretended to think he had done wrong in marrying his brother's widow, and found in this an explanation why all his children had died in infancy except the Princess Mary. He now asked the Pope to grant him a divorce from Katharine, and expected his request would be granted, as he had written in defence of the Roman Catholic religion against the German reformer, Luther, and had received from the Pope the title, ‘‘Defender of the Faith,” a title still borne by the monarchs of England. The Pope sent Cardinal Campeggio to England to inquire into the matter, and he tried to persuade Katharine to go into a nunnery. This Katharine would not do, but stood firm for her own rights and those of her child. Wolsey and Campeggio heard Katharine’s plea for justice and mercy, but came to no decision. The case was left in the hands of the Pope, who called upon Henry to go to Rome, and there have the case decided. Henry knew what the decision would be and he refused to go to Rome. Wolsey was known to favour a marriage between the King and a French princess, and Anne Boleyn found no difficulty in persuading Henry that the reason why the divorce was not granted was his hostility. Seeing Henry’s change of feeling, Wolsey made haste to win his favour by giving him his palaces and by retiring to York. Sir Thomas More now became Chancellor. But Wolsey’s enemies were active, and induced Henry to have him arrested for high treason, because he had broken a law made in the reign of Edward III. and Richard II., against bringing any foreign authority into the realm. This Wolsey had done by acting as papal legate, and by holding a court for the Pope in England. Broken-hearted at the loss of the King’s favour, Wolsey began his journey to London. When he reached Leicester he was so ill that he had to take shelter in the Abbey there. ‘‘Had I served my God as diligently as I have served the King,” he said to the lieutenant of the Tower, “He would not have given me over in my gray hairs.” His sickness was unto death, and the man who had served the king so faithfully, and loved him so truly, only escaped the penalty of treason by dying Nov, 30th, 1530.
9. Act of Supremacy.—Henry found a new and able minister in Thomas Cromwell, one of Wolsey’s retainers. He advised the King to make himself Head of the Church, and then procure a divorce from his own courts. At first Henry did not like to act on this advice, but when he found that it was the only way by which he could marry Anne Boleyn, he determined to carry out Cromwell’s suggestion. Parliament was called in 1529, and because it was willing to do the king’s bidding it lasted for seven years. During its existence many important laws were passed, mostly at the command of Cromwell and Henry.
Henry’s first step in throwing off the Pope’s authority over the English Church was to force the clergy to acknowledge him ‘‘Head of the Church,” by threatening them with the loss of their goods and lives for having recognized the authority of Wolsey as papal legate. Then Parliament passed three laws, one of which forbade the clergy from sending ‘‘first fruits” to Rome; a second, forbade the taking of appeals to Rome; and the third called the “Act of Supremacy,” made Henry ‘‘Head of the Church.” The latter Act was passed in 1535.
Before this, however, in 1533, Cranmer, who had been made Archbishop of Canterbury, granted in the council of bishops the coveted divorce, and Henry immediately married Anne Boleyn. In the same year Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, was born. Parliament, to please Henry, declared the Princess Mary illegitimate, and settled the succession on Anne’s children.
10. Cromwell’s Rule.—Cromwell and Cranmer were now Henry’s chief advisers. Cromwell was a stern man, and had been employed by Wolsey to suppress some of the smaller monasteries on account of the evil lives of their inmates. Now that he was the king’s minister he bent all his energies to make him an absolute ruler in both Church and State. Parliament was forced to pass the most infamous laws. One of these forbade people accused of treason the right to be heard in their own defence. Cromwell himself was the first to suffer under this wicked law. He also employed spies to let him know what the people were doing and saying; and by telling the king tales of plots against his life, made him cruel and unjust. None were too good, or too high in rank, to escape Cromwell’s vengeance, if he thought by taking their lives the king’s power would be increased. He had an Act passed by which any man might be called upon to take an oath that he believed the divorce was right and valid. Among those who were asked to take the oath was Sir Thomas More, the king’s Chancellor, and at one time the king’s trusted favourite. More was a great and pure-minded man, perhaps the greatest in his day, and had written a book called “Utopia” in which he advocated many reforms, for which the labouring men of England had to wait centuries. Now when asked to swear that he believed that the divorce was right and to accept the Supremacy he refused. He was sent to the Tower, and later on, with Bishop Fisher, was beheaded. He died as he had lived, bravely and cheerfully.
11. State of the People.—These were sad days for the poor of England, and for those who could not make their consciences bend to the king’s tyranny. Much land had gone out of cultivation, as landowners had found it more profitable to raise sheep than to till the soil. Landowners, too, were enclosing the common land, and thus taking away from the poor one means of making a livelihood. The retainers of the nobles were now cast adrift, and, with other men out of work, took to robbing and plundering. As the punishment for theft and robbery was death, many criminals, to escape detection, murdered their victims.
The minds of the people were unsettled by the religious changes going on in Europe. Martin Luther, a German priest, had begun to write and preach against some of the practices and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. He soon had many followers in Germany. The movement spread rapidly, and the Protestants (as they were called in 1529) became numerous in Switzerland, Germany, Scotland, France, and other countries. In England they were few in number, until Henry broke away from the Pope; after that many began to follow Luther’s teachings. Henry himself did not believe all that Luther taught: he still clung to many of the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. With the help of Cranmer and Cromwell he drew up articles of belief for the English Church, and allowed the Bible to be translated into English and read in the churches. Both Cromwell and Cranmer were prepared to go much further than Henry in making religious changes. The monasteries had much wealth, and some of the monks in the smaller ones were ignorant and licentious. Cromwell and the King made this an excuse for destroying many of the monasteries, and for seizing their lands and money. Henry gave away much of this spoil to his nobles and favourites: the rest he put in his own treasury. One effect of this spoliation was that now there were no places where the poor could be fed and sheltered, or nursed when sick. Another was the arousing of a strong feeling of discontent in the north and west, where the adherents of the Roman Catholic faith were very numerous. A rebellion, known as ‘‘The Pilgrimage of Grace,” broke out to restore the old religion and to get rid of Cromwell. Henry promised to remove their grievances, and the rebellion came to an end; but after the rebels had gone home, troops were sent among them, and their leaders were put to death.
12. Death of Cromwell,—Meanwhile, a sad fate had befallen Anne Boleyn. The crown she so eagerly coveted was not long in her possession. Gay, frivolous, fond of pleasure and admiration, her levity excited Henry’s jealousy. At last, in 1536, he accused her of unfaithfulness, and had her executed. The next day, Henry married Jane Seymour, a young lady at court. It was now the turn of Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, to be declared illegitimate by Parliament.
Jane Seymour died in 1537, leaving an infant son, Edward. She had been a Protestant, and her brother, the Earl of Hertford, was also a Protestant. He soon became the leader of the Protestant party at court, while the Duke of Norfolk and his son, Earl Surrey, were at the head of the Roman Catholic party. Cromwell, to strengthen the Protestant cause, made a match between Henry and the Princess Anne of Cleves, a German Protestant. In this way he hoped to bring the Protestant States of Germany into a closer alliance with England. Anne was very awkward and homely, and Henry, as soon as he saw her, took a strong dislike to her. In a few months he had put her away by a divorce, and had made Cromwell feel the fierceness of his disappointment and anger. Cromwell had so many enemies in the King’s council, that he knew his fate was sealed when the King deserted him. Charged with treason, he flung his cap on the ground, exclaiming, “This, then, is the guerdon for the services I have done.” He was at once attainted, and without being given'a chance of making a defence, was hurried to the block.
13. Last Days of Henry.—Twice more was Henry married. His fifth wife was a beautiful girl, Catharine Howard, niece of the Duke of Norfolk. In a little while she was shown to have been unchaste before her marriage, and, like Anne Boleyn, she was beheaded. Then he married Katharine Parr, a widow, who by her tact managed to outlive him.
Meantime, a great change had come over Henry since his accession. The joyous, frank, handsome young king, had become cold, selfish, suspicious, and cruel. His very form had changed; he was now coarse, unwieldy, and disfigured by a grossness that was repulsive and disgusting. His temper was so uncertain, and he changed his views so often, that his subjects seldom knew what they were expected to do or believe. When the Duke of Norfolk was in his favor, laws were passed against Protestants; and when Cromwell and Cranmer guided him, laws were passed against Roman Catholics. So we find in this reign men and women executed, some because they did not believe Henry's Protestant opinions, others because they were opposed to the Roman Catholic creed, part of which Henry retained in his laws. Towards the close of his reign the Earl of Hertford, Jane Seymour’s brother, had great influence, and he induced the king to put Norfolk’s son, the accomplished Surrey, to death. Norfolk himself was sent to the Tower and would have lost his head, had not Henry, to the great relief of his court, died in 1547.
Parliament had given Henry great power, and among other things allowed him to name in his will who should succeed him. He seemed to have repented of his unjust treatment of the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, for while leaving the crown to his son Edward, he named Mary as Edward’s successor in case he died without heirs; while Elizabeth in turn was to follow Mary. In case all of Henry’s children died without heirs, then the descendants of Henry’s younger sister Mary were to succeed. Thus we see that the Scotch descendants of Margaret, the elder sister, were left out of the line of succession.