Chapter VIII: REIGN OF HENRY VIII. (continued) (2)

The insurgents, quite aware that the Government, which was attempting to sow dissension among them by pretended negotiations, was but waiting to seize and crush the leaders, again took the field in the very midst of winter. On the 23rd of January, 1537, bills were stuck on the church doors by night, calling on the commoners to come forth and to be true to one another, for the gentlemen had deceived them, yet they should not want for captains. There was great distrust lest the gentlemen had been won over by the pardon and by money. The rebels, however, marched out under two leaders of the name of Musgrave and Tilby, and, 8,000 strong, they laid siege to Carlisle, where they were repulsed; and, being encountered in their retreat by Norfolk, they were defeated and put to flight. All their officers, except Musgrave, were taken and put to death, to the number of seventy. Sir Francis Bigot and one Hallam attempted to surprise Hull, but failed; and other risings in the north proving equally abortive, the king now bade Norfolk spread his banner, march through the northern counties with martial law, and, regardless of the pardon he had issued, punish the rebels without mercy.

As the monks had obviously been at the bottom of this commotion, Henry let loose his vengeance especially upon them. He ordered Norfolk to go to Sawley, Hexham, Newminster, Lanercost, St. Agatha, and all other places that had made resistance, and there seize certain priors and canons and send them up to him, and immediately to hang up "all monks and canons that be in any wise faulty, without further delay or ceremony." He ordered the Earl of Surrey and other officers in the north to charge the monks there with grievous offences, to try their minds, and see whether they would not submit themselves gladly to his will. Under these sanguinary orders the whole of England north of the Trent became a scene of horror and butchery, and ghastly heads and mangled bodies, or corpses swinging from the trees. Nor did this admirable reformer of religion neglect to look after the property of his victims. Their lands and goods were all to be forfeited and taken possession of; "for we are informed," he says, "that there were amongst them divers freeholders and rich men, whose lands and goods, well looked unto, will reward others that with their truth have deserved the same."

Besides Aske, Sir Thomas Constable, Sir John Bulmer, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Stephen Hamilton, Nicholas Tempest, William Lumley, and others, though they had taken the benefit of the pardon, were found guilty, and most of them were executed. Lord Hussey was found guilty of being an accomplice in the Lincolnshire rising, and was executed at Lincoln. Lord Darcy, though he pleaded compulsion, and a long life spent in the service of the Crown, was executed on Tower Hill. Lady Bulmer, the wife of Sir John Bulmer, was burnt in Smithfield; and Robert Aske was hung in chains on one of the towers of York. Having thus satiated his vengeance, and struck a profound terror into all the disaffected, Henry once more published a general pardon, to which he adhered; and even complied with one of the demands which the insurgents had made, that of erecting by patent a court of justice at York, for deciding lawsuits in the northern counties.

On the 12th of October, 1537, Jane Seymour gave birth to the long-desired prince, so well known afterwards as King Edward VI. This event took place at the palace of Hampton Court, and the infant was immediately proclaimed Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester. The joy on so greatly desired an occurrence may be imagined, though it was somewhat dashed by the death of the queen, which took place only twelve days afterwards. During the confinement there was some question whether the life of the mother or of the child should be sacrificed, and on the question being put to the king, which should be spared, he characteristically replied, "The child by all means, for other wives can be easily found." The queen's death, however, was occasioned by the absurd exposure which the pompous christening necessitated. Henry appeared to be grieved when her death really took place, and put on mourning, which he had never done for his wives before, and never did again. He wore it three months.

By the accession of Queen Jane a new family, greedy and insatiable of advancement, was brought forward, whom we shall soon find figuring on the scene. The queen's brothers, sisters, uncles, and cousins presently filled every great and lucrative office at Court; closely imitating the unpopular precedent of the relations of Elizabeth Woodville. Her eldest brother, Edward Seymour, was immediately made Lord Beauchamp and Earl of Hertford; and, in the joy of having an heir, Henry created Sir William Paulet Lord St. John and Sir John Russell Lord Russell. Sir William Fitzwilliam was made Earl of Southampton, and High-Admiral. Russell and Paulet were sworn of the Privy Council; and John Russell, now in high favour with the king, attended the wedding, flattered the bride, and became, in the next reign, Earl of Bedford. Queen Jane received all the rites of the Roman Catholic Church on her death-bed; thus clearly denoting that neither she nor her husband was of the Protestant faith.

Any grief which might have affected Henry for his wife's death did not prevent him from prosecuting his favourite design of seizing rich monasteries and destroying heretics. The great amount of property which Henry had obtained from the dissolution of monastic houses only stimulated him and his courtiers to invade the remainder. The insurrections laid the inmates of these houses open to a general charge that they had everywhere fomented, and in many places taken public part in, these attempts to resist Government. Prosecutions for high treason and menaces of martial law induced many of the more timid abbots and priors to resign their trusts into the hands of the king and his heirs for ever. Others--like the prior of Henton, in Somersetshire--resisted, declaring that it did not become them "to be light and hasty in giving up those things which were not theirs to give, being dedicated to Almighty God, for service to be done unto His honour continually, with many other good deeds of charity which be daily done in their houses to their Christian brethren."

To grapple the more effectually with these sturdy remonstrants, a new visitation was appointed of all the monasteries in England; and, as a pretence only was wanted for their suppression, it was not difficult to find one where so many great men were eager to share in the spoils. But, while the destruction of the monasteries found many advocates, there were not wanting some who recommended the retention of those convents for women which had maintained order and a good reputation. But the king would hear of nothing but that all should be swept away together; and the better to prepare the public mind for so complete a revolution in social life, every means was employed to represent these establishments as abodes of infamy, and to expose the relics preserved in their shrines to ridicule, as impostures which deluded the ignorant people.

The work of suppressing the monasteries and convents went on briskly, for, says Bishop Godwin, "the king continued much prone to reformation, especially if anything might be gotten by it." The Earl of Sussex and a body of Commissioners were despatched to the north, to inquire into the conduct of the religious houses there, and great stress was laid on the participation of the monks in the insurrection of the Pilgrimage of Grace. The abbeys of Furness and Whalley were particularly rich; and though little concern with the rebellion could be traced to the inmates, yet the Commissioners never rested till, by persuasion and intimidation, they had induced the abbots to surrender these houses into their hands. The success of the Earl of Sussex and his associates led to similar Commissions in the south, and for four years the process was going on without an Act of Parliament.

The system generally adopted was this:--First, tempting offers of pensions were held out to the superiors and the monks or nuns, and in proportion to the obstinacy in complying was the smallness of the pension. The pensions to superiors varied, according to the wealth and rank of their houses, from £266 to £6 per annum. The priors of cells received generally £13. A few, whose services merited the distinction, £20. The monks received from £2 to £6 per annum, with a small sum in hand for immediate need. Nuns got about £4. That was the first and persuasive process; but, if this failed, intimidation was resorted to. The superior and his monks, tenants, servants, and neighbours, were subjected to a rigorous and vexatious examination. The accounts of the house were called for, and were scrutinised minutely, and all moneys, plate, and jewels ordered to be produced. There was a severe inquiry into the morals of the members, and one was encouraged to accuse another. Obstinate and refractory members were thrown into prison, and many died there--amongst them, the monks of the Charterhouse, London.

In 1539 a bill was brought into Parliament, vesting in the Crown all the property, movable and immovable, of the monastic establishments which were already, or which should be hereafter, suppressed, abolished, or surrendered, and, by 1540, the whole of this branch of the ecclesiastical property was in the hands of the king, or of the courtiers and parasites who surrounded him, like vultures, gorging themselves with the fallen carcase. The total number of such establishments suppressed from first to last by Henry was 655 monasteries--of which 28 had abbots enjoying a seat in Parliament--90 colleges, 2,374 chantries and free chapels, and 110 hospitals. The whole of the revenue of this property, as paid to superiors of these houses, was £161,000. The whole income of the kingdom at that period was rated at £4,000,000, so that the monastic property was apparently one twenty-fifth of the national estate; but as the monastic lands were let on long leases, and at very low rents, in the hands of the new proprietors it would prove of vastly higher value.

Henry distributed the property among his greedy courtiers as fast as it came, and never was so magnificent a property so speedily dissipated. What did not go amongst the Seymours, the Essexes, the Howards, the Russells, and the like, went in the most lavish manner on the king's pleasures and follies. He is said to have given a woman who introduced a pudding to his liking the revenue of a whole convent. Pauperism, instead of being extinguished, was increased to a degree which astonished every one. Such crowds had been supported by the monks and nuns as the public had no adequate idea of, till they were thrown destitute and desperate into the streets and the highways, and at length became such a national burden and nuisance as in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth to cause the introduction of the poor-law system. The aristocracy, in fact, usurped the fund for the support of the poor, and threw them on the nation at large.

Education received an equal shock. The schools supported by the monasteries fell with them. The new race of noblemen who got the funds did nothing to continue them. Religion suffered also, for the wealth which might have founded efficient incomes for good preachers was gone into private hands, and such miserable stipends were paid to the working clergy, that none but poor and unlettered men would accept them.

It is only justice to Cranmer to say that he saw this waste of public property with concern, and would have had it appropriated to the purposes of education and religion, and the relief of the poor; but he was too timid to lay the matter before the Royal prodigal. Yet the murmurs of the people induced Henry to think of establishing a number of bishoprics, deaneries, and colleges, with a portion of the lands of the suppressed monasteries. He had an act passed through Parliament for the establishment of eighteen bishoprics, but it was found that the property intended for these was cleverly grasped by some of his courtiers, and only six out of the eighteen could be erected, namely, Westminster, Oxford, Peterborough, Bristol, Chester, and Gloucester; and some of these were so meagrely endowed that the new prelates had much ado for a considerable time to live. At the same time Henry converted fourteen abbeys and priories into cathedral and collegiate churches, attaching to each a deanery and a certain number of prebendaries. These were Canterbury, Rochester, Westminster, Winchester, Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, Chester, Burton-upon-Trent, Carlisle, Durham, Thornton, Peterborough, and Ely. But he retained a good slice of the property belonging to them, and, at the same time, imposed on the chapters the obligations of paying a considerable sum to the repair of the highways, and another sum to the maintenance of the poor.

At the same time that Henry had been squandering the monastic property, and had falsified his promises of making the Crown independent of taxation, by coming to Parliament within twelve months for a subsidy of two-tenths and two-fifteenths, he had all along been riveting the doctrines of the Church of Rome faster on the nation, and persecuting those who questioned them. The Lower House of Convocation drew up a list of fifty-nine propositions, which it denounced as heresies, extracted from the publications of different Reformers, and presented it to the Upper House. On this, Henry, who believed himself a greater theologian than any in either house of Convocation, drew up, with the aid of some of the prelates, a book of "Articles" which was presented by Cromwell to Convocation, and there subscribed. This was then carried through Parliament, and became termed too justly the "Bloody Statute," for a more terrible engine of persecution never existed.

No sooner had the statute of the Six Articles passed, than Latimer and Shaxton, the Bishops of Worcester and Salisbury, resigned their sees; and Cranmer, who had been living openly with his wife and children, seeing the king's determination to enforce the celibacy of the clergy, sent off his family to Germany, and made himself outwardly conformable to the law. At the end of the year 1539, the king put to death, in Smithfield, three victims of his intolerance. The first two were a man and a woman who were Anabaptists. The third was John Lambert, formerly a priest, who had become a schoolmaster in London. He was a Reformer, and denied the doctrine which Henry was now enforcing under the penalty of death, that the Real Presence existed in the bread and wine.

During the whole of the years 1538 and 1539 Henry was, nevertheless, not only grown suspicious of his subjects, but greatly alarmed at the rumours of a combination between the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of France against him. It was rumoured that Cardinal Pole, his relative, who had rigorously opposed the divorce, was assisting in this scheme, and as Henry could not reach him, on account of Pole's flight to the Continent, he determined to take vengeance on his relatives and friends in England. A truce for ten years was concluded under the Papal mediation, between Charles and Francis, at Nice, in June, 1538. The two monarchs urged Paul to publish his bull of excommunication against Henry, which had been reserved so long, and Henry, whose spies soon conveyed to him these tidings, immediately ordered his fleet to be put in a state of activity, his harbours of defence strengthened, and the whole population to be called under arms, in expectation of a combined attack.

But at this conference Cardinal Pole had been present, and Henry directly attributed the scheme of invasion to him. At once, therefore, he let loose his fury on his relatives and friends in England. Becket, the usher, and Wrothe, server of the Royal chamber, were despatched into Cornwall to collect some colour of accusation against Henry Courtenay, the Marquis of Exeter, and his adherents and dependents. The marquis and marchioness were soon arrested, as well as Sir Geoffrey Pole and Lord Montagu, brothers of the cardinal, and Sir Edward Neville, a brother of Lord Abergavenny. Two priests, Croft and Collins, and Holland, a mariner, were also arrested, and lodged in the Tower. On the last day of 1538 the marquis and Lord Montagu were tried before some of the peers, but not before their peers in Parliament, for Parliament was not sitting. The commoners were brought to trial before juries; and all on a charge of having conspired to place Reginald Pole, late Dean of Exeter, the king's enemy, on the throne. The king's ministers declared that the charge was well proved, but no such proofs were ever published, which, we may be sure, would have been had they existed.

The fact was, those noblemen were descended directly from the old Royal line of England: Courtenay was grandson to Edward IV., through his daughter Catherine, and the Poles were grandsons to George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward. All had a better title to the throne than Henry, and this, combined with their connection with the cardinal, was the cause of the tyrant's enmity. If these prisoners had been inclined to treason, they had had the fairest opportunity of showing it during the northern insurrection, but they had taken no part in it whatever. But Henry had determined to wreak his vengeance, which could not reach the cardinal, on them; and the servile peers and courts condemned them. It was said that Sir Geoffrey Pole, to save his own life, consented to give evidence against the rest--secretly it must have been, for it was never produced. His life, therefore, was spared, but the rest were executed. Lord Montagu, the Marquis of Exeter, and Sir Edward Neville were beheaded on Tower Hill on the 9th of January, 1539, and Sir Nicholas Carew, master of the king's horse, was also beheaded on the 3rd of March, on a charge of being privy to the conspiracy. The two priests and the mariner were hanged and quartered at Tyburn. A commission was then sent down into Cornwall, which arraigned, condemned, and put to death two gentlemen of the names of Kendall and Quintrell, for having said, some years before, that Exeter was the heir apparent, and should be king, if Henry married Anne Boleyn, or it should cost a thousand lives.

But the sanguinary fury of Henry was not yet sated. The cardinal was sent by the Pope to the Spanish and French courts to concert the carrying out of the scheme of policy against England. Henry defeated this by means of his agents, and neither Charles nor Francis would move: but not the less did Henry determine further to punish the hostile cardinal. Judgment of treason was pronounced against him; the Continental sovereigns were called upon to deliver him up; and he was constantly surrounded by spies, and, as he believed, ruffians hired to assassinate him. Meanwhile it was said that a French vessel had been driven by stress of weather into South Shields, and in it had been taken three emissaries--an English priest of the name of Moore, and two Irishmen, a monk and a friar, who were said to be carrying treasonable letters to the Pope and to Pole. The Irish monks were sent up to London, and tortured in the Tower--a very unnecessary measure, if they really possessed the treasonable letters alleged. On the 28th of April Parliament was called upon to pass bills of attainder against Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the mother of Cardinal Pole; Gertrude, the widow of the Marquis of Exeter; the son of Lord Montagu, a boy of tender years; Sir Adam Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley. This was a device of Cromwell's, who demanded of the judges whether persons accused of treason might not be attainted and condemned by Parliament without any trial! The judges--who, like every one else under this monster of a king, had lost all sense of honour and justice in fears for their own safety--replied that it was a nice question, and one that no inferior tribunal could entertain, but that Parliament was supreme, and that an attainder by Parliament would be good in law! Such a bill was accordingly passed through the servile Parliament, condemning the whole to death without any form of trial whatever.

The two knights were beheaded on the 10th of July; the Marchioness of Exeter was kept in prison for six months, and then dismissed; the son of Lord Montagu, the grandson of the countess, was probably, too, allowed to escape, for no record of his death appears; but the venerable old lady herself, the near relative of the king, and the last direct descendant of the Plantagenets, after having been kept in prison for nearly two years, was brought out, and on the 27th of May, 1541, was condemned to the scaffold. There she still showed the determination of her character. Unlike many who had fallen there before her, so far from making any ambiguous speech, or giving any hypocritical professions of reverence for the king, she refused to do anything which appeared consenting to her own death. When told to lay her head on the block, she replied, "No, my head never committed treason; if you will have it, you must take it as you can." The executioner tried to seize her, but she moved swiftly round the scaffold, tossing her head from side to side. At last, covered with blood, for the guards struck her with their weapons, she was seized, and forcibly held down, and whilst exclaiming, "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake," the axe descended, and her head fell.

But, the time of Cromwell himself was coming. The block was the pretty certain goal of Henry's ministers. The more he caressed and favoured them, the more certain was that result. Reflecting anxiously on the critical nature of his position, the deep and unprincipled minister came to the conclusion that the only mode of regaining his influence with the king was to promote a Protestant marriage. For a time at least Henry allowed himself to be governed by a new wife, and that time gained might prove everything to Cromwell. Circumstances seemed to favour him at this moment. The king was in constant alarm at the combination between France and Spain; and a new alliance with the Protestant princes of Germany, if accomplished, would equally serve the purposes of the king and of Cromwell. Now was the time for Cromwell, while Henry was chagrined by these difficulties. He informed him that Anne, daughter of John III., Duke of Cleves, Count of Mark, and Lord of Ravenstein, was greatly extolled for her beauty and good sense; that her sister Sybilla, the wife of Frederick, Duke of Saxony, the head of the Protestant confederation of Germany, called the Schmalkaldic League, was famed for her beauty, talents, and virtues, and universally regarded as one of the most distinguished ladies of the time. He pointed out to Henry the advantages of thus, by this alliance, acquiring the firm friendship of the princes of Germany, in counterpoise to the designs of France and Spain; and he assured him that he heard that the sisters of the Electress of Saxony, educated under the same wise mother, were equally attractive in person and in mind, and waited only a higher position to give them greater lustre, especially the Princess Anne.

The Duke of Cleves died on the 6th of February, 1539, and Henry despatched Hans Holbein to take the lady's portrait. Being delighted with the portrait--which agreed so well with the many praises written of the lady by his agents--he acceded to the match; and in the month of September the count palatine and ambassadors from Cleves arrived in London, where Cromwell received them with real delight, and the king bade them right welcome. The treaty was soon concluded; and Henry, impatient for the arrival of his wife, despatched the Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, to receive her at Calais, and conduct her to England.

On the 27th of December, 1539, Anne landed at Deal, having been escorted across the Channel by a fleet of fifty ships. She was a thorough Protestant, going into the midst of as thoroughly Papist a faction, and to consort with a monarch the most fickle and dogmatic in the world. She could speak no language but German, and of that Henry did not understand a word. It would have required a world of charms to have reconciled all this to Henry, even for a time, and of these poor Anne of Cleves was destitute. That she was not ugly, many contemporaries testify; but she was at least plain in person, and still plainer in manners. Both she and her maidens, of whom she brought a great train, are said to have been as homely and as awkward a bevy as ever came to England in the cause of royal matrimony.

The impatient though unwieldy lover, accompanied by eight gentlemen of his privy chamber, rode to Rochester to meet the bride. They were all clad alike, in coats "of marble colour;" for Henry, with a spice of his old romance, was going incognito, to get a peep at his queen without her being aware which was he. He told Cromwell that "he intended to visit her privily, to nourish love." On his arrival, he sent Sir Anthony Browne, his master of the horse, to inform Anne that he had brought her a new year's gift, if she would please to accept it. Sir Anthony, on being introduced to the lady who was to occupy the place of the two most celebrated beauties of the day, the Boleyn and the Seymour, was, he afterwards confessed, "never so much dismayed in his life," but of course said nothing. So now the enamoured king, whose eyes were dazzled with the recollection of what his queens had been, and what Holbein and his ambassadors had promised him should again be, entered the presence of Anne of Cleves, and was thunderstruck at the first sight of the reality. Lord John Russell, who was present, declared "that he had never seen his highness so marvellously astonished and abashed as on that occasion."

Instead of presenting himself the new year's gift which he had brought--a muff and tippet of rich sables--he sent them to her with a very cold message, and rode back to Greenwich in high dudgeon. There, the moment that he saw Cromwell, he burst out upon him for being the means of bringing him, not a wife, but "a great Flanders mare." Cromwell excused himself by not having seen her, and threw the blame on Fitzwilliam, the lord admiral, who, he said, when he found the princess at Calais so different from the pictures and reports, should have detained her there till he knew the king's pleasure; but the admiral replied brusquely that he had not had the choosing of her, but had simply executed his commission; and if he had in his dispatches spoken of her beauty, it was because she was reckoned beautiful, and it was not for him to judge of his queen.

No way out of the marriage being found, orders were given for the lady to proceed from Dartford, and at Greenwich she was received outwardly with all the pomp and rejoicings the most welcome beauty could have elicited. But still the mind of the mortified king revolted at the completion of the wedding, and once more he summoned his council, and declared himself unsatisfied about the contract, and required that Anne should make a solemn protestation that she was free from all pre-contracts. Probably Henry hoped that, seeing that she was far from pleasing him, she might be willing to give him up; but though her just pride as a woman must have been wounded by his treatment, and her fears excited by the recollection of the fates of Catherine and Anne Boleyn, the princess could be no free agent in the matter. The ambassadors would urge the impossibility of her going back, thus insulting all Protestant Germany, and her own pride would second their arguments on that side too. The ignominy of being sent back, rejected as unattractive and unwelcome, was not to be thought of. She made a most clear and positive declaration of her freedom from all pre-contracts. On hearing this, the surly monarch fell into such a humour that Cromwell got away from his presence as quickly as he could. Seeing no way out of it, the marriage was celebrated on the 6th of January, 1540, but nothing could reconcile Henry to his German queen. He loathed her person, he could not even talk with her without an interpreter; and he soon fell in love with Catherine Howard, niece to the Duke of Norfolk, a young lady who was much handsomer than Anne, but not well educated, and greatly wanting in principle. From the moment that Henry cast his eyes on this new favourite, the little remains of outward courtesy towards the queen vanished. He ceased to appear with her in public. He began to express scruples about having a Lutheran wife. He did not hesitate to propagate the most shameful calumnies against her, declaring that she had not been virtuous before her marriage.

Anne, in need of counsel, could find none in those who ought to have stood by her. Cranmer, the Reformer, and Cromwell, the advocate of Protestantism, and who had, in fact, brought about the marriage, kept aloof from her. She sent expressly to Cromwell, and repeatedly, but in vain; he refused to see her, for he knew that he stood on the edge of a precipice already; that he had deeply offended the choleric monarch by promoting this match; and that he was surrounded by spies and enemies, who were watching for occasion for his ruin. There is no doubt whatever that his ruin was already determined, but Cromwell was an unhesitating tool of the quality which Henry needed; for it was just at this time that Henry executed the relatives of Cardinal Pole, and probably it was an object of his to load that minister with as much of the odium of that measure as he could before he cast him down. Cromwell still, then, apparently retained the full favour of the king, notwithstanding this unfortunate marriage, but the conduct of his friends precipitated his fate.

Bishop Gardiner, a bigoted Papist, and one who saw the signs of the times as quickly as any man living, did not hear Henry's scruples about a Lutheran wife with unheeding ears. On the 14th of February, 1540, he preached a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, in which he unsparingly denounced as a damnable doctrine the Lutheran tenet of justification by faith without works. Dr. Barnes, a dependent of Cromwell's, but clearly a most imprudent one, on the 28th of February, just a fortnight afterwards, mounted the same pulpit, and made a violent attack on Gardiner and his creed. Barnes could never have intimated to Cromwell his intention to make this assault on a creed which was as much the king's as Gardiner's, or he would have shown him the fatality of it. But Barnes, like a rash and unreflecting zealot, not only attacked Gardiner's sermon, but got quite excited, and declared that he himself was a fighting-cock, and Gardiner was another fighting-cock, but that the _garden_-cock lacked good spurs. As was inevitable, Henry, who never let slip an opportunity to champion his own religious views, summoned Barnes forthwith before a commission of divines, compelled him to recant his opinion, and ordered him to preach another sermon, in the same place, on the first Sunday after Easter, and there to read his recantation, and beg pardon of Gardiner. Barnes obeyed. He read his recantation, publicly asked pardon of Gardiner, and then, getting warm in his sermon, reiterated in stronger terms than ever the very doctrine he had recanted.

The man must have made up his mind to punishment for his religious faith, for no such daring conduct was ever tolerated for a moment by Henry. He threw the offender into the Tower, together with Garret and Jerome, two preachers of the same belief, who followed his example.

The enemies of Cromwell rejoiced in this event, believing that his connection with Barnes would not fail to influence the king. So confidently did they entertain this notion, that they already talked of the transfer of his two chief offices, those of Vicar-General and Keeper of the Privy Seal, to Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, and Clarke, Bishop of Bath. But the king had not yet come to his own point of action. Cromwell's opponents were, therefore, astonished to see him open Parliament on the 12th of April, as usual, when he announced the king's sorrow and displeasure at the religious dissensions which appeared in the nation, his subjects branding each other with the opprobrious epithets of Papists and heretics, and abusing the indulgence which the king had granted them of reading the Scriptures in their native tongue. To remedy these evils his Majesty had appointed two committees of prelates and doctors--one to set forth a system of pure doctrine, and the other to decide what ceremonies and rites should be retained in the Church or abandoned; and, in the meantime, he called on both houses to assist him in enacting penalties against all who treated with irreverence, or rashly and presumptuously explained, the Holy Scriptures.

Never did Cromwell appear so fully to possess the favour of his sovereign. He had obtained a grant of thirty manors belonging to suppressed monasteries; the title of Earl of Essex was revived in his favour, and the office of Lord-Chamberlain was added to his other appointments. He was the performer of all the great acts of the State. He brought in two bills, vesting the property of the Knights Hospitallers in the king, and settling an adequate jointure on the queen. He obtained from the laity the enormous subsidy of four-tenths and fifteenths, besides ten per cent. of their income from lands, and five per cent. on their goods; and from the clergy two-tenths, and twenty per cent. of their incomes for two years. So little did there appear any prospect of the fall of Cromwell, that his own conduct augured that he never felt himself stronger in his monarch's esteem. He dealt about his blows on all who had offended himself or the king, however high. He committed to the Tower the Bishop of Chichester and Dr. Wilson, for relieving prisoners confined for refusing to take the oath of supremacy; and menaced with the royal displeasure his chief opponents, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Bishops of Durham, Winchester, and Bath.

Yet all this time Henry had determined, and was preparing for his fall. He appointed Wriothesley and Ralph Sadler Secretaries of State, and divided the business between them. The king had met Catherine Howard, it is said, at dinner at Gardiner's, who was Bishop of Winchester. As she was a strict Papist, and niece to Norfolk, it was believed that this had been concerted by the Catholic party; and they were not mistaken. She at once caught the fancy of Henry. Every opportunity was afforded the king of meeting her at Gardiner's; and no sooner did that worldly prelate perceive the impression she had made, than he informed Henry that Barnes, whom neither Gardiner nor Henry could forget, had been Cromwell's agent in bringing about the marriage of Anne of Cleves; that Cromwell and Barnes had done this, without regard to the feelings of the king, merely to bring in a queen pledged to German Protestantism; and that, instead of submitting to the king's religious views, they were bent on establishing in the country the detestable heresies of Luther.

Henry, whose jealousy was now excited, recollected that when he proposed to send Anne of Cleves back, Cromwell had strongly dissuaded him, and as Anne had now changed her insubordinate behaviour to him, he immediately suspected that it was at the suggestion of Cromwell. No sooner had this idea taken full possession, than down came the thunderbolt on the head of the great minister. The time was come, all was prepared, and, without a single note of warning--without the change of look or manner in the king--Cromwell was arrested at the council-board on a charge of high treason. In the morning he was in his place in the House of Lords, with every evidence of power about him; in the evening he was in the Tower.

In his career, from the shop of the fuller to the supreme power in the State, next to the king, Cromwell had totally forgotten the wise counsel of Wolsey. He had not avoided, but courted, ambition. He had leaned to the Reformed doctrines secretly, but he had taken care to enrich himself with the spoils of the suppressed monasteries, and many suspected that these spoils were the true incentives to his system of reformation. The wealth he had accumulated was, no doubt, a strong temptation to Henry, as it was in all such cases, and thus Cromwell's avarice brought its own punishment. In his treatment of the unfortunate Romanists whom he had to eject from their ancient houses and lands, his conduct had been harsh and unsparing; and by that party, now in power, he was consequently hated with an intense hatred; and this was a second means of self-punishment. But above all, in the days of his power, he had been perfectly reckless of the liberties and securities of the subject. He had broken down the bulwarks of the Constitution, and advised the king to make his own will the sole law, carrying for him through Parliament the monstrous doctrine embodied in the enactment that the royal proclamation superseded Parliamentary decrees, and that the Crown could put men to death without any form of trial. Under the monstrous despotism which he had thus erected, he now fell himself, and had no right whatever to complain. Yet he did complain most lamentably. The men who never feel for others, concentrate all their commiseration on themselves; and Cromwell, so ruthless and immovable to the pleadings of his own victims, now sent the most abject and imploring letters to Henry, crying, "Mercy, mercy!"

His experience might have assured him that, when once Henry seized his victim, he never relented; and there was no one except Cranmer who dared to raise a voice in his favour, and Cranmer's interference was so much in his own timid style, that it availed nothing. His papers were seized, his servants interrogated, and out of their statements, whatever they were--for they were never produced in any court--the accusations were framed against him. These consisted in the charges of his having, as minister, received bribes, and encroached on the royal authority by issuing commissions, discharging prisoners, pardoning convicts, and granting licences for the exportation of prohibited merchandise. As Vicar-General, he was charged with having not only held heretical opinions himself, but also with protecting heretical preachers, and promoting the circulation of heretical books. Lastly, there was added one of those absurd, gratuitous assertions, which Henry always threw in to make the charge amount to high treason, namely, that Cromwell had expressed his resolve to fight against the king himself, if necessary, in support of his religious opinions; and Mount was instructed to inform the German princes that Cromwell had threatened to strike a dagger into the heart of the man who should oppose the Reformation, which, he said, meant the king. He demanded a public trial, but was refused, being only allowed to face his accusers before the Commissioners. Government then proceeded against him by bill of attainder, and thus, on the principle that he had himself established, he was condemned without trial, even Cranmer voting in favour of the attainder. His fate was delayed for more than a month, during which time he continued to protest his innocence, with a violence which stood in strong contrast to his callousness to the protestations of others, wishing that God might confound him, that the vengeance of God might light upon him, that all the devils in hell might confront him, if he were guilty. He drew the most lamentable picture of his forlorn and miserable condition, and offered to make any disclosures demanded of him; but though nothing would have saved him, unluckily for him, Henry discovered among his papers his secret correspondence with the princes of Germany. He gave the royal assent to the bill of attainder, and in five days--namely, on the 28th of July--Cromwell was led to the scaffold, where he confessed that he had been in error, but had now returned to the truth, and died a good Catholic. He fell detested by every man of his own party, exulted over by the Papist section of the community, and unregretted by the people, who were just then smarting under the enormous subsidy he had imposed. As if to render his execution the more degrading, Lord Hungerford, a nobleman charged with revolting crimes, was beheaded with him.