A. D. 1531. cation, to meet: in which he was acknowledged, "the Protector and supreme Head of the Church "and Clergy of England." And being now fully determined in his own mind relative to a matter which had long engaged his thoughts, and resolved to administer ecclesiastical affairs without having farther recourse to Rome, as well as to abide all consequences, he privately celebrated his marriage with Anne Boleyn, whom he had previously created marchioness of Pembroke. A. D. 1532. Cranmer, now become archbishop of Canterbury, annulled soon after the king's marriage with Catherine (a step which ought to have preceded his second nuptials), and ratified that with Anne, who was publicly crowned queen, with all the pomp and dignity suited to such a ceremony9. And, to complete the satisfaction of Henry, on the conclusion of this troublesome business, the queen was safely delivered of a daughter, who received the name of Elizabeth, and whom we shall afterwards see swaying the English sceptre with equal glory to herself and happiness to her people. A. D. 1533. When intelligence was conveyed to Rome of these transactions, the conclave was all in a rage, and the pope was urged by the cardinals of the imperial faction, to dart his spiritual thunders against Henry. But Clement was still unwilling to proceed to extremities: he only declared Cranmer's sentence null, and threatened the king with excommunication, if he did not put things in their former condition, before a day named. In the mean time Henry was prevailed upon, by the mediation of the king of France, to submit his cause to the Roman consistory, provided the cardinals of the Imperial faction were excluded from it. The pope consented; and promised, that if the king would sign a written agreement to this purpose, his demands should be fully complied with. But on what slight incidents 9. Heylin. often often depend the greatest events! The courier appointed to carry the king's written promise, was detained beyond the day fixed; news arrived at Rome, that a libel had been published in London against the Holy See, and a farce acted before the king in derision of the apostolic body. The pope and cardinals entered into the consistory inflamed with rage; the marriage between Henry and Catharine was pronounced valid; the king was declared excommunicated, if he refused to adhere to it, and the rupture with England was rendered final. A. D. 1534. The English parliament, assembled soon after this decision of the court of Rome, conferred on the king the title of "The only supreme HEAD of "the Church of England upon Earth," as they had already invested him with all the real power belonging to it; a measure of the utmost consequence to the kingdom, whether considered in a civil or ecclesiastical view, and which forms a memorable æra in our constitution. The legislature, by thus acknowledging the king's supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, and uniting the spiritual with the civil power, introduced greater simplicity into government, and prevented all future disputes about the limits of contending jurisdictions. A door was also opened for checking the exorbitances of superstition, and breaking those shackles by which human reason, policy, and industry had so long been circumscribed; for, as a profound historian has justly observed, the prince being head of the religious, as well as of the temporal jurisdiction of the kingdom, though he might sometimes be tempted to employ the former as an engine of government, could have no interest, like the Roman pontiff, in encouraging its usurpations". But England, though thus happily released from the oppressive jurisdiction of the pope, was far from enjoying religious freedom. Liberty of conscience was, if possible, 11. Hume, Hist. Eng. chap. xxx. 10. Father Paul, lib. i. more more confined than ever. Henry not only retained his aversion against Luther and his doctrines, but so many of his early prejudices hung about him, that the idea of heresy still filled him with horror. Separate as he stood from the Catholic church, he continued to value himself on maintaining its dogmas, and on guarding with fire and sword the imaginary purity of his speculative opinions. All who denied the king's supremacy, the legitimacy of his daughter Elizabeth, or who embraced the tenets of the reformers, were equally the objects of his vengeance. Among the latter were many unhappy persons, who had greedily imbibed the Lutheran doctrines, during Henry's quarrel with Rome, in hopes of a total change of worship; and who, having gone too far to recede, fell martyrs to their new faith. Among the former were Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and sir Thomas More, late chancellor, who refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy, and died upon the A. D. 1535. scaffold with heroic constancy. More, who was a man of a gay humour, retained even his facetiousness to the last. When he laid his head on the block, and saw the executioner ready with his weapon, "Stay, friend," said he, "till I put aside my beard;" for, added he, it never com"mitted treason2." What pity, and what an instance of the inconsistency of human nature, that the man who could make a jest of death, should make a matter of conscience of the pope's supremacy! Although Henry thus punished both Protestants and Catholics, his most dangerous enemies, he was sensible, were the zealous adherents to the ancient religion, and more especially the monks, who, having their immediate dependence on the Roman pontiff, apprehended their own ruin to be the certain consequence of abolishing his authority in England. The king therefore determined to suppress the monasteries, as so many nurseries of rebellion, as well as of idleness, superstition, and folly, and to put himself in 12. Life of sir Thomas More. Fox. Herbert. possession In order to effectuate possession of their ample revenues. this robbery with some colour of justice, he appointed commissioners to visit all religious houses; and these men, acquainted with the king's design, brought reports, whether true or false, of such frightful disorders, lewdness, ignorance, priest-craft, and unnatural lusts, as filled the nation with horror against institutions held sacred by their ancestors, and lately objects of the most profound veneration. The lesser monasteries, said to have been the most corrupted, to the number of three hundred and seventy-six, were at once suppressed by parliament: and their revenues, goods, chattels, and plate, were granted to the king'3. A. D. 1536. The convocation, which sat at the same time with the parliament, passed a vote for a new translation of the Bible, none being yet published, by authority, in the English language; and the Reformation seemed fast gaining ground in the kingdom, though the king still declared himself its enemy, when its promoters, Cranmer, Latimer, and others, met with a severe mortification, which seemed to blast all their hopes, in the untimely fate of their patroness, Anne Boleyn. This lady now began to experience the decay of the king's affections, and the capriciousness of his temper. That heart, whose allegiance she had withdrawn from another, revolted at last against herself. Henry's passion, which had subsisted in full force, during the six years that the prosecution of the divorce lasted, and seemed only to increase under difficulties, had scarcely obtained possession of its object, when it sunk into languor, succeeded by disgust. His love was suddenly transferred to a new mistress. The charms of Jane Seymour, maid of honour to the queen, a young lady of exquisite beauty, had entirely captivated him; and as he appeared to have had little idea of any other connexion than that of marriage, he thought of nothing but how to raise her to his bed and throne. 13. Burnet. This peculiarity in Henry disposition, proceeding from an indolence of temper, or an aversion against the vice of gallantry, involved him in crimes of a blacker dye, and in greater anxieties, than those which he sought to avoid by forming a legal connection. Before he could marry Jane, it was necessary to get rid of his once beloved Anne, now become a bar in the way of his felicity. That obstacle, however, was soon removed. The heart is not more ingenious in suggesting apologies for its deviations, than courtiers in finding expedients for gratifying the inclinations of their prince. The queen's enemies, among Henry's courtiers, immediately sensible of the alienation of the king's affections, accomplished her ruin by flattering his new passion. They represented that freedom of manner, which Anne had acquired in France, as a dissolute levity: they indirectly accused her of a criminal correspondence with several gentlemen of the bedchamber, and even with her own brother! and they extolled the virtues of Jane Seymour14 Henry believed all, because he wished to be convinced. The queen was committed to the Tower; impeached, brought to trial; condemned without evidence, and executed without remorse. History affords us no reason to call her innocence in question; and the king, by marrying her known rival the day after her execution, made the motives of his conduct sufficiently evident, and left the world in little doubt about the iniquity of her sentence. If farther arguments, my dear Philip, should be thought necessary in support of the innocence of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, her serenity, and even cheerfulness, while under confinement and sentence of death, ought to have its weight, as it is perhaps unexampled in a woman, and could not well be the associate of guilt. "Never prince," says she, in a letter to Henry, "had wife more loyal in all duty, "and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Anne VOL. II. 14. Strype. Burnet. Rr Boleyn; |