Henry VIII.

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[Footnote 1125: For relations with Scotland see the
_Hamilton Papers_, 2 vols., 1890-92; Thorp's
_Scottish Calendar_, vol. i., 1858, and the much
more satisfactory _Calendar_ edited by Bain, 1898.
A few errors in the _Hamilton Papers_ are pointed
out in _L. and P._, vols. xvi.-xix.]

[Footnote 1126: This had been asserted by Henry as
early as 1524; Scotland was only to be included in
the peace negotiations of that year as "a fief of
the King of England"; it was to be recognised that
_supremum ejus dominium_ belonged to Henry, as did
the guardianship of James and government of the
kingdom during his minority (_Sp. Cal._, ii., 680).
For the assertion of supremacy in 1543 see the
present writer's _England under Somerset_, p. 173;
_L. and P._, xvii., 1033. In 1527 Mendoza declared
that all wise people in England preferred a project
for marrying the Princess Mary to James V. to her
betrothal to Francis I. or the Dauphin (_Sp. Cal._,
iii., 156) and that the Scots match was the one
really intended by Henry (_ibid._, p. 192; _cf. L.
and P._, v., 1078, 1286).]

The negotiations lasted throughout the summer of 1542. In October
Norfolk crossed the Borders. The transport broke down; the commissariat
was most imperfect; and Sir George Lawson of Cumberland was unable to
supply the army with sufficient beer.[1127] Norfolk had to turn back
at Kelso, having accomplished nothing beyond devastation.[1128] James
now sought his revenge. He replied to Norfolk's invasion on the East
by throwing the Scots across the Borders on the West. The Warden was
warned by his spies, but he had only a few hundreds to meet the
thousands of Scots. But, if Norfolk's invasion was an empty parade,
the Scots attempt was a fearful rout. Under their incompetent leader,
Oliver Sinclair, they got entangled in Solway Moss; enormous numbers
were slain or taken prisoners, and among them were some of the greatest
men in Scotland. James died broken-hearted at the news, leaving his
kingdom to the week-old infant, Mary, Queen of Scots.[1129] The triumph
of Flodden Field was repeated; a second Scots King had fallen; (p. 408)
and, for a second time in Henry's reign, Scotland was a prey to the
woes of a royal minority.

[Footnote 1127: _L. and P._, xvii., 731, 754, 771.]

[Footnote 1128: _Ibid._, xvii., 996-98, 1000-1,
1037.]

[Footnote 1129: See _Hamilton Papers_, vol. i., pp.
lxxxiii.-vi.; and the present writer in _D.N.B.,
s.v._ "Wharton, Thomas," who commanded the
English.]

Within a few days of the Scots disaster, Lord Lisle (afterwards Duke
of Northumberland) expressed a wish that the infant Queen were in
Henry's hands and betrothed to Prince Edward, and a fear that the
French would seek to remove her beyond the seas.[1130] To realise the
hope and to prevent the fear were the main objects of Henry's foreign
policy for the rest of his reign. Could he but have secured the
marriage of Mary to Edward, he would have carried both England and
Scotland many a weary stage along the path to Union and to Empire.
But, unfortunately, he was not content with this brilliant prospect
for his son. He grasped himself at the Scottish crown; he must be not
merely a suzerain shadow, but a real sovereign. The Scottish peers,
who had been taken at Solway Moss, were sworn to Henry VIII., "to set
forth his Majesty's title that he had to the realm of Scotland".[1131]
Early in 1543 an official declaration was issued, "containing the just
causes and considerations of this present war with the Scots, wherein
also appeareth the true and right title that the King's most royal
Majesty hath to the sovereignty of Scotland"; while Parliament
affirmed that "the late pretensed King of Scots was but an usurper of
the crown and realm of Scotland," and that Henry had "now at this
present (by the infinite goodness of God), a time apt and propice for
the recovery of his said right and title to the said crown and realm
of Scotland".[1132] The promulgation of these high-sounding pretensions
was fatal to the cause which Henry had at heart. Henry VII. had (p. 409)
pursued the earlier and wiser part of the Scottish policy of Edward
I., namely, union by marriage; Henry VIII. resorted to his later
policy and strove to change a vague suzerainty into a defined and
galling sovereignty. Seeing no means of resisting the victorious
English arms, the Scots in March, 1543, agreed to the marriage between
Henry's son and their infant Queen. But to admit Henry's extravagant
claims to Scottish sovereignty was quite a different matter. The mere
mention of them was sufficient to excite distrust and patriotic
resentment. The French Catholic party led by Cardinal Beton was
strengthened, and, when Francis declared that he would never desert
his ancient ally, and gave an earnest of his intentions by sending
ships and money and men to their aid, the Scots repudiated their
compact with England, and entered into negotiations for marrying their
Queen to a prince in France.[1133]

[Footnote 1130: _L. and P._, xvii., 1221, 1233.]

[Footnote 1131: Wriothesley, _Chron._, i., 140.]

[Footnote 1132: 35 Hen. VIII., c. 27.]

[Footnote 1133: _L. and P._, vol. xviii.,
_passim_.]

Such a danger to England must at all costs be averted. Marriages
between Scots kings and French princesses had never boded good to
England; but the marriage of the Queen of Scotland to a French prince,
and possibly to one who might succeed to the French throne, transcended
all the other perils with which England could be threatened. The union
of the Scots and French crowns would have destroyed the possibility of
a British Empire. Henry had sadly mismanaged the business through
vaulting ambition, but there was little fault to be found with his
efforts to prevent the union of France and Scotland; and that was the
real objective of his last war with France. His aim was not mere
military glory or the conquest of France, as it had been in his (p. 410)
earlier years under the guidance of Wolsey; it was to weaken or
destroy a support which enabled Scotland to resist the union with
England, and portended a union between Scotland and France. The
Emperor's efforts to draw England into his war with France thus met
with a comparatively ready response. In May, 1543, a secret treaty
between Henry and Charles was ratified; on the 22nd of June a joint
intimation of war was notified to the French ambassador; and a
detachment of English troops, under Sir John Wallop and Sir Thomas
Seymour, was sent to aid the imperialists in their campaign in the
north of France.

Before hostilities actually broke out, Henry wedded his sixth and last
wife. Catherine Parr was almost as much married as Henry himself.
Thirty-one years of age in 1543, she had already been twice made a
widow; her first husband was one Edward Borough, her second, Lord
Latimer. Latimer had died at the end of 1542, and Catherine's hand was
immediately sought by Sir Thomas Seymour, Henry's younger brother-in-law.
Seymour was handsome and won her heart, but he was to be her fourth,
and not her third, husband; her will "was overruled by a higher
power," and, on the 12th of July, she was married to Henry at Hampton
Court.[1134] Catherine was small in stature, and appears to have made
little impression by her beauty; but her character was beyond
reproach, and she exercised a wholesome influence on Henry during his
closing years. Her task can have been no light one, but her tact
overcame all difficulties. She nursed the King with great devotion,
and succeeded to some extent in mitigating the violence of his (p. 411)
temper. She intervened to save victims from the penalties of the
Act of Six Articles; reconciled Elizabeth with her father; and was
regarded with affection by both Henry's daughters. Suspicions of her
orthodoxy and a theological dispute she once had with the King are
said to have given rise to a reactionary plot against her.[1135] "A
good hearing it is," Henry is reported as saying, "when women become
such clerks; and a thing much to my comfort to come in mine old days
to be taught by my wife!" Catherine explained that her remarks were
only intended to "minister talk," and that it would be unbecoming in
her to assert opinions contrary to those of her lord. "Is it so,
sweetheart?" said Henry; "then are we perfect friends;" and when Lord
Chancellor Wriothesley came to arrest her, he was, we are told, abused
by the King as a knave, a beast and a fool.

[Footnote 1134: _D.N.B._, ix., 309.]

[Footnote 1135: Foxe, ed. Townsend, v., 553-61.]

* * * * *

The winter of 1543-44 and the following spring were spent in preparations
for war on two fronts.[1136] The punishment of the Scots for repudiating
their engagements to England was entrusted to the skilful hands of
Henry's brother-in-law, the Earl of Hertford; while the King himself
was to renew the martial exploits of his youth by crossing the Channel
and leading an army in person against the French King. The Emperor was
to invade France from the north-east; the two monarchs were then to
effect a junction and march on Paris. There is, however, no instance
in the first half of the sixteenth century of two sovereigns (p. 412)
heartily combining to secure any one object whatever. Charles and
Henry both wanted to extract concessions from Francis, but the
concessions were very different, and neither monarch cared much for
those which the other demanded. Henry's ultimate end related to
Scotland, Charles's to Milan and the Lutherans. The Emperor sought to
make Francis relinquish his claim to Milan and his support of the
German princes; Henry was bent on compelling him to abandon the cause
of Scottish independence. If Charles could secure his own terms, he
would, without the least hesitation, leave Henry to get what he could
by himself; and Henry was equally ready to do Charles a similar turn.
His suspicions of the Emperor determined his course; he was resolved
to obtain some tangible result; and, before he would advance any
farther, he sat down to besiege Boulogne. Its capture had been one of
the objects of Suffolk's invasion of 1523, when Wolsey and his imperialist
allies had induced Henry to forgo the design. The result of that folly
was not forgotten. Suffolk, his ablest general, now well stricken in
years, was there to recall it; and, under Suffolk's directions, the
siege of Boulogne was vigorously pressed. It fell on the 14th of
September. Charles, meanwhile, was convinced that Boulogne was all
Henry wanted, and that the English would never advance to support him.
So, five days after the fall of Boulogne, he made his peace with
Francis.[1137] Henry, of course, was loud in his indignation; the
Emperor had made no effort to include him in the settlement, and
repeated embassies were sent in the autumn to keep Charles to the (p. 413)
terms of his treaty with England, and to persuade him to renew the war
in the following spring.

[Footnote 1136: See for the Scottish war the
_Hamilton Papers_, and for the war in France
_Spanish Cal._, vol. vii., and _L. and P._, vol.
xix., pt. ii. (to December, 1544).]

[Footnote 1137: For Charles's motives see the
present writer in _Cambridge Modern History_, ii.,
245, 246.]

His labours were all in vain, and Henry, for the first time in his
life was left to face an actual French invasion of England. The horizon
seemed clouded at every point. Hertford, indeed, had carried out his
instructions in Scotland with signal success. Leith had been burnt and
Edinburgh sacked. But, as soon as he left for Boulogne, things went
wrong in the North, and, in February, 1545, Evers suffered defeat from
the Scots at Ancrum Moor. Now, when Henry was left without an ally,
when the Scots were victorious in the North, when France was ready to
launch an Armada against the southern coasts of England, now, surely,
was the time for a national uprising to depose the bloodthirsty
tyrant, the enemy of the Church, the persecutor of his people.
Strangely enough his people did, and even desired, nothing of the
sort. Popular discontent existed only in the imagination of his
enemies; Henry retained to the last his hold over the mind of his
people. Never had they been called to pay such a series of loans,
subsidies and benevolences; never did they pay them so cheerfully. The
King set a royal example by coining his plate and mortgaging his
estates at the call of national defence; and, in the summer, he went
down in person to Portsmouth to meet the threatened invasion. The
French attack had begun on Boulogne, where Norfolk's carelessness had
put into their hands some initial advantages. But, before dawn, on the
6th of February, Hertford sallied out of Boulogne with four thousand
foot and seven hundred horse. The French commander, Marechal du Biez,
and his fourteen thousand men were surprised, and they left their (p. 414)
stores, their ammunition and their artillery in the hands of their
English foes.[1138]

[Footnote 1138: Herbert, ed. 1672, p. 589; Hall, p.
862.]

Boulogne was safe for the time, but a French fleet entered the Solent,
and effected a landing at Bembridge. Skirmishing took place in the
wooded, undulating country between the shore and the slopes of
Bembridge Down; the English retreated and broke the bridge over the
Yar. This checked the French advance, though a force which was stopped
by that puny stream could not have been very determined. A day or two
later the French sent round a party to fill their water-casks at the
brook which trickles down Shanklin Chine; it was attacked and cut to
pieces.[1139] They then proposed forcing their way into Portsmouth
Harbour, but the mill-race of the tide at its mouth, and the mysteries
of the sandbanks of Spithead deterred them; and, as a westerly breeze
sprang up, they dropped down before it along the Sussex coast. The
English had suffered a disaster by the sinking of the _Mary Rose_ with
all hands on board, an accident repeated on the same spot two
centuries later, in the loss of the _Royal George_. But the Admiral,
Lisle, followed the French, and a slight action was fought off
Shoreham; the fleets anchored for the night almost within gunshot,
but, when dawn broke, the last French ship was hull-down on the
horizon. Disease had done more than the English arms, and the French
troops landed at the mouth of the Seine were the pitiful wreck of an
army.[1140]

[Footnote 1139: Du Bellay, _Memoirs_, pp. 785-9.]

[Footnote 1140: _State Papers_, ed. 1830-51, i.,
794, 816.]

France could hope for little profit from a continuance of the war, (p. 415)
and England had everything to gain by its conclusion. The terms of
peace were finally settled in June, 1546.[1141] Boulogne was to remain
eight years in English hands, and France was then to pay heavily for
its restitution. Scotland was not included in the peace. In September,
1545, Hertford had revenged the English defeat at Ancrum Moor by a
desolating raid on the Borders;[1142] early in 1546 Cardinal Beton,
the soul of the French party, was assassinated, not without Henry's
connivance; and St. Andrews was seized by a body of Scots Protestants
in alliance with England. Throughout the autumn preparation was being
made for a fresh attempt to enforce the marriage between Edward and
Mary;[1143] but the further prosecution of that enterprise was
reserved for other hands than those of Henry VIII. He left the
relations between England and Scotland in no better state than he
found them. His aggressive imperialism paid little heed to the
susceptibilities of a stubborn, if weaker, foe; and he did not, like
Cromwell, possess the military force to crush out resistance. He would
not conciliate and he could not coerce.

[Footnote 1141: _State Papers_, ed. 1830-51, i.,
877, 879; Odet de Selve, pp. 31, 34.]

[Footnote 1142: _State Papers_, v., 448-52;
_Harleian MS._, 284; _Original Letters_, i., 37.]

[Footnote 1143: Odet de Selve, _Corresp.
Politique_, 1886, pp. 50-120, _passim_.]

* * * * *

Meanwhile, amid the distractions of his Scottish intrigues, of his
campaign in France, and of his defence of England, the King was engaged
in his last hopeless endeavour to secure unity and concord in religious
opinion. The ferocious Act of Six Articles had never been more than
fitfully executed; and Henry refrained from using to the full the powers
with which he had been entrusted by Parliament. The fall of (p. 416)
Catherine Howard may have impaired the influence of her uncle, the
Duke of Norfolk, who had always expressed his zeal for the burning of
heretics; and the reforming party was rapidly growing in the nation at
large, and even within the guarded precincts of the King's Privy
Council. Cranmer retained his curious hold over Henry's mind; Hertford
was steadily rising in favour; Queen Catherine Parr, so far as she
dared, supported the New Learning; the majority of the Council were
prepared to accept the authorised form of religion, whatever it might
happen to be, and, besides the Howards, Gardiner was the only convinced
and determined champion of the Catholic faith. Even at the moment of
Cromwell's fall, there was no intention of undoing anything that had
already been done; Henry only determined that things should not go so
fast, especially in the way of doctrinal change, as the Vicegerent
wished, for he knew that unity was not to be sought or found in that
direction. But, between the extremes of Lutheranism and the _status
quo_ in the Church, there was a good deal to be done, in the way of
reform, which was still consistent with the maintenance of the Catholic
faith. In May, 1541, a fresh proclamation was issued for the use of
the Bible.[1144] He had, said the King, intended his subjects to read
the Bible humbly and reverently for their instruction, not reading
aloud in time of Holy Mass or other divine service, nor, being laymen,
arguing thereon; but, at the same time, he ordered all curates and
parishioners who had failed to obey his former injunctions to provide
an English Bible for their Church without delay. Two months later
another proclamation followed, regulating the number of saints' (p. 417)
days; it was characteristic of the age that various saints' days were
abolished, not so much for the purpose of checking superstition, as
because they interfered with the harvest and other secular business.[1145]
Other proclamations came forth in the same year for the destruction of
shrines and the removal of relics. In 1543 a general revision of
service-books was ordered, with a view to eradicating "false legends"
and references to saints not mentioned in the Bible, or in the
"authentical doctors".[1146] The Sarum Use was adopted as the standard
for the clergy of the province of Canterbury, and things were steadily
tending towards that ideal uniformity of service as well as of
doctrine, which was ultimately embodied in various Acts of Uniformity.
Homilies, "made by certain prelates," were submitted to Convocation,
but the publication of them, and of the rationale of rites and
ceremonies, was deferred to the reign of Edward VI.[1147] The greatest
of all these compositions, the Litany, was, however, sanctioned in
1545.[1148]

[Footnote 1144: _L. and P._, xvi., 819; Burnet,
iv., 509.]

[Footnote 1145: _L. and P._, xvi., 978, 1022,
1027.]

[Footnote 1146: _Ibid._, xvi., 1262; xvii., 176.]

[Footnote 1147: See the present writer's _Cranmer_,
pp. 166-72.]

[Footnote 1148: _Ibid._, pp. 172-75.]

The King had more to do with the _Necessary Doctrine_, commonly called
the "King's Book" to distinguish it from the Bishops' Book of 1537,
for which Henry had declined all responsibility. Henry, indeed, had
urged on its revision, he had fully discussed with Cranmer the
amendments he thought the book needed, and he had brought the bishops
to an agreement, which they had vainly sought for three years by
themselves. It was the King who now "set forth a true and perfect
doctrine for all his people".[1149] So it was fondly styled by (p. 418)
his Council. A modern high-churchman[1150] asserts that the King's
Book taught higher doctrine than the book which the bishops had
drafted six years before, but that "it was far more liberal and better
composed". Whether its excellences amounted to "a true and perfect
doctrine" or not, it failed of its purpose. The efforts of the old and
the new parties were perpetually driving the Church from the _Via
Media_, which Henry marked out. On the one hand, we have an act
limiting the use of the Bible to gentlemen and their families, and
plots to catch Cranmer in the meshes of the Six Articles.[1151] On the
other, there were schemes on the part of some of the Council to entrap
Gardiner, and we have Cranmer's assertion[1152] that, in the last
months of his reign, the King commanded him to pen a form for the
alteration of the Mass into a Communion, a design obviously to be
connected with the fact that, in his irritation at Charles's desertion
in 1544, and fear that his neutrality might become active hostility,
Henry had once more entered into communication with the Lutheran
princes of Germany.[1153]

[Footnote 1149: _L. and P._, XVIII., i., 534.]

[Footnote 1150: Canon Dixon.]

[Footnote 1151: See the present writer's _Cranmer_,
pp. 144-60.]

[Footnote 1152: Foxe, on the authority of Cranmer's
secretary, Morice, in _Acts and Monuments_, v.,
563, 564; it receives some corroboration from
Hooper's letter to Bullinger in _Original Letters_,
i., 41.]

[Footnote 1153: See Hasenclever, _Die Politik der
Schmalkaldener vor Ausbruch des Schmalkaldischen
Krieges_, 1901.]

The only ecclesiastical change that went on without shadow of turning
was the seizure of Church property by the King; and it is a matter of
curious speculation as to where he would have stayed his hand had he
lived much longer. The debasement of the coinage had proceeded apace
during his later years to supply the King's necessities, and, (p. 419)
for the same purpose, Parliament, in 1545, granted him all chantries,
hospitals and free chapels. That session ended with Henry's last
appearance before his faithful Lords and Commons, and the speech he
then delivered may be regarded as his last political will and
testament.[1154] He spoke, he said, instead of the Lord Chancellor,
"because he is not so able to open and set forth my mind and meaning,
and the secrets of my heart, in so plain and ample manner, as I myself
am and can do". He thanked his subjects for their commendation,
protested that he was "both bare and barren" of the virtues a prince
ought to have, but rendered to God "most humble thanks" for "such
small qualities as He hath indued me withal.... Now, since I find such
kindness in your part towards me, I cannot choose but love and favour
you; affirming that no prince in the world more favoureth his subjects
than I do you, nor no subjects or Commons more love and obey their
Sovereign Lord, than I perceive you do; for whose defence my treasure
shall not be hidden, nor my person shall not be unadventured. Yet,
although I wish you, and you wish me, to be in this perfect love and
concord, this friendly amity cannot continue, except both you, my
Lords Temporal and my Lords Spiritual, and you, my loving subjects,
study and take pains to amend one thing, which surely is amiss and far
out of order; to the which I most heartily require you. Which is, that
Charity and Concord is not amongst you, but Discord and Dissension
beareth rule in every place. Saint Paul saith to the Corinthians, the
thirteenth chapter, _Charity is gentle, Charity is not envious,_
_Charity is not proud_, and so forth. Behold then, what love and (p. 420)
charity is amongst you, when one calleth another heretic and
anabaptist, and he calleth him again papist, hypocrite and Pharisee?
Be these tokens of Charity amongst you? Are these signs of fraternal
love amongst you? No, no, I assure you that this lack of charity among
yourselves will be the hindrance and assuaging of the perfect love
betwixt us, except this wound be salved and clearly made whole.... I
hear daily that you of the Clergy preach one against another, without
charity or discretion; some be too stiff in their old _Mumpsimus_,
others be too busy and curious in their new _Sumpsimus_. Thus all men
almost be in variety and discord, and few or none preach truly and
sincerely the Word of God.... Yet the Temporalty be not clear and
unspotted of malice and envy. For you rail on Bishops, speak
slanderously of Priests, and rebuke and taunt preachers, both contrary
to good order and Christian fraternity. If you know surely that a
Bishop or Preacher erreth, or teacheth perverse doctrine, come and
declare it to some of our Council, or to us, to whom is committed by
God the high authority to reform such causes and behaviours. And be
not judges of yourselves of your fantastical opinions and vain
expositions.... I am very sorry to know and to hear how unreverently
that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung,
and jangled in every Ale-house and Tavern.... And yet I am even as
much sorry that the readers of the same follow it in doing so faintly
and so coldly. For of this I am sure, that charity was never so faint
amongst you, and virtuous and godly living was never less used, nor
God Himself among Christians was never less reverenced, honoured, (p. 421)
or served. Therefore, as I said before, be in charity one with another
like brother and brother; love, dread, and serve God; to which I, as
your Supreme Head and Sovereign Lord, exhort and require you; and then
I doubt not but that love and league, that I spake of in the
beginning, shall never be dissolved or broke betwixt us."

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