РефератыИностранный языкHeHenry Viii 2 Essay Research Paper Henry

Henry Viii 2 Essay Research Paper Henry

Henry Viii 2 Essay, Research Paper


Henry VIII


King of England, born 28 June, 1491; died 28 January, 1547.


He was the second son and third child of his father, Henry VII. His elder


brother Arthur died in April, 1502, and consequently Henry became heir


to the throne when he was not yet quite eleven years old. It has been


asserted that Henry’s interest in theological questions was due to the bias


of his early education, since he had at first been destined by his father for


the Church. But a child of eleven can hardly have formed lifelong


intellectual tastes, and it is certain that secular titles, such as those of Earl


Marshal and Viceroy of Ireland, were heaped upon him when he was


five. On the other hand there can be no question as to the boy’s great


precocity and as to the liberal scope of the studies which he was made to


pursue from his earliest years.


After Arthur’s death a project was at once formed of marrying him to his


brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon, who, being born in December,


1485, was more than five years his senior. The negotiations for a papal


dispensation took some little time, and the Spanish Queen Isabella, the


mother of Catherine, then nearing her end, grew very impatient. Hence a


hastily drafted Brief containing the required dispensation was privately


sent to Spain in 1504, to be followed some months later by a Bull to the


same effect which was of a more public character. The existence of these


two instruments afterwards caused complications. Owing, however, to


some political scheming of Henry VII who was trying to outwit his


rival Ferdinand Prince Henry, on attaining the age of fourteen, was


made to record a formal protest against the proposed marriage with


Catherine, as a matter arranged without his consent. Still, when his father


died in 1509, Henry carried out the marriage nine weeks after his


accession, he being then eighteen, and showing from the first a thorough


determination to be his own master. Great popularity was won for the


new reign by the attainder and execution of Empson and Dudley, the


instruments of the late king’s extortion. Besides this, it is unanimously


attested by contemporaries that the young sovereign possessed every gift


of mind and person which could arouse the enthusiasm of his people. His


skill in manly sports was almost equalled by his intelligence and his


devotion to letters. Of the complicated foreign policy which marked the


beginning of his reign no detail can be given here. Thanks partly to


Henry’s personality, but still more to the ability of Wolsey, who soon took


the first place in the council chamber, England for the first time became a


European power. In 1512 Henry joined Pope Julius II, Ferdinand of


Spain, and the Venetians in forming the “Holy League” against the King of


France. Julius was feverishly bent on chasing the “barbarians” (i.e. the


French and other foreigners) out of Italy, and Henry cooperated by


collecting ships and soldiers to attack the French king in his own


dominions. No very conspicuous success attended his arms, but there


was a victory at Guinegate outside Therouanne, and the Scotch, who, as


the allies of France, had threatened invasion, were disastrously defeated


at Flodden in 1513. During all this time Henry remained on excellent


terms with the Holy See. In April, 1510, Julius sent him the golden rose,


and in 1514 Leo X bestowed the honorific cap and sword, which were


presented with much solemnity at St. Paul’s.


The League having been broken up by the selfish policy of Ferdinand,


Henry VIII now made peace with France and for some years held the


balance of power on the Continent, though not without parting with a


good deal of money. Wolsey was made a cardinal in 1515 and exercised


more influence than ever, but it was somewhat against his advice that


Henry, in 1519, secretly became a candidate for the succession to the


empire, though pretending at the same time to support the candidature of


Francis, his ally. When, however, Charles V was successful, the French


king could not afford to quarrel with Henry, and a somewhat hollow and


insincere renewal of their friendship took place in June, 1520, at the


famous “Field of the Cloth of Gold”, when the most elaborate courtesies


were exchanged between the two monarchs. The prospect of this


rapprochement had so alarmed the Emperor Charles that, a month


before it took place, he visited Henry in England. In point of fact a


continuous game of intrigue was being played by all three monarchs,


which lasted until the period when Henry’s final breach with Rome led him


to turn his principal attention to domestic concerns. Meanwhile the


strength of Henry’s position at home had been much developed by


Wolsey’s judicious diplomacy, and, despite the costliness of some of


England’s demonstrations against France, before the French king became


the emperor’s prisoner at Pavia, the odium of the demand for money fell


upon the minister, while Henry retained all his popularity. Indeed,


whatever disaffection might be felt, the people had no leader to make


rebellion possible. The old nobility, partly as a result of the Wars of the


Roses, and partly owing to the repressive policy dictated by the dynastic


fears of Henry VII, had been reduced to impotence. In 1521 the most


prominent noble in England, the Duke of Buckingham, was condemned to


death for high treason by a subservient House of Peers, simply because


the king suspected him of aiming at the succession and had determined


that he must die. At the same period Henry’s prestige in the eyes of the


clergy, and not the clergy only, was strengthened by his famous book, the


Assertio Septem Sacramentorum. This book was written against Luther


and in vindication of the Church’s dogmatic teaching regarding the


sacraments and the Sacrifice of the Mass, while the supremacy of the


papacy is also insisted upon in unequivocal terms. There is no reason to


doubt that the substance of the book was really Henry’s. Pope Leo X


was highly pleased with it and conferred upon the king the title of Fidei


Defensor (Defender of the Faith), which is maintained to this day as part


of the royal style of the English Crown. All this success and adulation


were calculated to develop the natural masterfulness of Henry’s character.


He had long shown to discerning eyes, like those of Sir Thomas More,


that he would contradiction in nothing. Without being guilty of notable


profligacy in comparison with the other monarchs of his time, it is doubtful


if Henry’s married life had ever been pure, even from the first, and we


know that in 1519 he had, by Elizabeth Blount, a son whom, at the age of


six, he made the Duke of Richmond. He had also carried on an intrigue


with Mary Boleyn which led to some complications at a later date.


Such was Henry when, probably about the beginning of the year 1527,


he formed a violent passion for Mary’s younger sister, Anne. It is possible


that the idea of the divorce had suggested itself to the king much earlier


than this (see Brown, “Venetian Calendars”, II, 479), and it is highly


probable that it was motivated by the desire of male issue, of which he


had been disappointed by the death in infancy of all Catherine’s children


save Mary. Anne Boleyn was restrained by no moral scruples, but she


saw her opportunity in Henry’s infatuation and determined that she would


only yield as his acknowledged queen. Anyway, it soon became the one


absorbing object of the king’s desires to secure a divorce from Catherine,


and in the pursuit of this he condescended to the most unworthy means.


He had it put about that the Bishop of Tarbes, when negotiating an


alliance in behalf of the French king, had raised a doubt as to the Princess


Mary’s legitimacy. He also prompted Wolsey, as legate, to hold with


Archbishop Warham a private and collusive inquiry, summoning Henry to


prove before them that his marriage was valid. The only result was to give


Catherine an inkling of what was in the king’s mind, and to elicit from her


a solemn declaration that the marriage had never been consummated.


From this it followed that there had never been any impediment of


“affinity” to bar her union with Henry, but only the much more easily


dispensed impediment known as publicae honestatis. The best canonists


of the time also held that a papal dispensation which formally removed the


impediment of affinity also involved by implication that of publicae


honestatis, or “public decency.” The collective suit was thereupon


dropped, and Henry now set his hopes upon a direct appeal to the Holy


See, acting in this independently of Wolsey, to whom he at first


communicated nothing of his design so far as it related to Anne. William


Knight, the king’s secretary, was sent to Pope Clement VII to sue for the


declaration of nullity of his union with Catherine, on the ground that the


dispensing Bull of Julius II was obreptitious i.e. obtained by false


pretences. Henry also petitioned, in the event of his becoming free, a


dispensation to contract a new marriage with any woman even in the first


degree of affinity, whether the affinity was contracted by lawful or


unlawful connexion. This clearly had reference to Anne Boleyn, and the


fictitious nature of Henry’s conscientious scruples about his marriage is


betrayed by the fact that he himself was now applying for a dispensation


of precisely the same nature as that which he scrupled about, a


dispensation which he later on maintained the pope had no power to


grant.


As the pope was at that time the prisoner of Charles V, Knight had some


difficulty in obtaining access to him. In the end the king’s envoy had to


return without accomplishing much, though the (conditional) dispensation


for a new marriage was readily accorded. Henry had now no choice but


to put his great matter into the hands of Wolsey, and Wolsey, although


the whole divorce policy ran counter to his better judgment, strained


every nerve to secure a decision in his master’s favour. An account of the


mission of Gardiner and Foxe and of the failure of the divorce


proceedings before the papal commissioners, Wolsey and Campeggio,


mainly on account of the production of the Brief, has been given in some


detail in the article CLEMENT VII, to which the reader is referred. The


revocation of the cause to Rome in July, 1529, owing, no doubt, in part


to Queen Catherine’s most reasonable protests against her helplessness in


England and the compulsion to which she was subjected, had many


important results. First among these we must count the disgrace and fall


of Wolsey, hitherto the only real check upon Henry’s wilfulness. The


incredible meanness of the praemunire, and consequent confiscation,


which the cardinal was pronounced to have incurred for obtaining the


cardinalate and legateship from Rome though of course this had been


done with the king’s full knowledge and consent would alone suffice to


stamp Henry as one of the basest of mankind. But, secondly, we may


trace to this same crisis the rise of both Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell,


the two great architects of Henry’s new policy. It was Cranmer who, in


the autumn of 1529, made the momentous suggestion that the king should


consult the universities o

f Europe upon the question of the nullity of his


marriage, a suggestion which at once brought its author into favour.


The project was carried out as soon as possible with a lavish expenditure


of bribes, and the use of other means of pressure. The result was naturally


highly favourable to the king’s wishes, though the universities which lay


within the dominions of Charles V were not consulted. The answers were


submitted to Parliament, where the king still kept the pretense of having


no personal interest in the matter. He professed to be suffering from


scruples of conscience, now rendered more acute by such a weight of


learned opinion. With the same astuteness he persuaded the leading


nobility of the kingdom to write to the pope praying him to give sentence


in Henry’s favour for fear that worse might follow. All this drew the king


into closer relations with Cranmer, who was made ambassador to the


emperor, and who, a year or two afterwards, despite the fact that he had


just married Osiander’s niece (his second wife), was summoned home to


become Archbishop of Canterbury. The necessary Bulls and the pallium


were obtained from Rome under threat that the law (referred to again


below) for the abolition of annates and first-fruits would be made


permanent. The vacillating Clement who probably hoped that by


making every other kind of concession he might be able to maintain the


position he had assumed upon the more vital question of the divorce


conceded Bulls and pallium. But to benefit by them it was necessary that


Cranmer should take certain prescribed oaths of obedience to the Holy


See. He took the oaths, but committed to writing a solemn protest that he


considered the oaths in no way binding in conscience, a procedure which


even so prejudiced a historian as Mr. H.A. Fisher cannot refrain from


describing as a “signal dishonesty.” “If”, asks Dr. Lingard, “it be simony to


purchase spiritual office by money, what is it to purchase the same by


perjury?” The father of the new Church of England, and future compiler


of its liturgy, was not entering upon his functions under very propitious


auspices.


But the Church which was soon to be brought into being probably owes


even more to Thomas Cromwell than to its first archbishop. It is


Cromwell who seems to have suggested to Henry as a deliberate policy


that he should abolish the imperium in imperio, throw off the papal


supremacy, and make himself the supreme head of his own religion. This


was in fact the course which from the latter part of 1529 Henry


undeviatingly followed, though he did not at first go to lengths from which


there was no retreat. The first blow was struck at the clergy by involving


them in Wolsey’s praemunire. Some anti-clerical disaffection there had


always been, partly, no doubt, the remnants of Lollardy, as was instanced


in the case of Richard Hunne, 1515. This, of late years, had been a good


deal aggravated by the importation into England of Tyndale’s annotated


New Testament and other books of heretical tendency, which, though


prohibited and burnt by authority, still made their way among the people.


Henry and his ministers had, therefore, some popular support upon which


they could fall back, if necessary, in their campaign to reduce the clergy


to abject submission. At the beginning of 1531 the Convocation of


Canterbury were informed that they could purchase a pardon for the


praemunire they had incurred by presenting the king with the enormous


sum of 100,000 pounds. Further, they were bidden to recognize the king


as “Protector and Supreme Head of the Church of England.”


Convocation struggled desperately against the demand, and in the end


succeeded in inserting the qualification “so far as is allowed by the law of


Christ.” But this was only a brief respite. A year later Parliament under


pressure passed an edict forbidding the payment to the Holy See of


Annates or first-fruits, but the operation of it was for the present


suspended at the sovereign’s pleasure, and the king was meanwhile


solicited to come to an amicable understanding with “His Holiness” on the


subject of the divorce. The measure amounted to a decently veiled threat


to withdraw this source of income from the Holy See altogether if the


divorce was refused. Still the pope held out, and so did the queen. Only a


little time before, a deputation of lords and bishops of course by the


king’s order had visited Catherine and had rudely urged her to


withdraw the appeal in virtue of which the king, contrary to his dignity,


had been cited to appear personally at Rome; but though deprived of all


counsel, she stood firm. In the May of 1532 further pressure was brought


to bear upon Convocation, and resulted in the so-called “Submission of


the Clergy”, by which they practically renounced all right of legislation


except in dependence upon the king.


An honest man like Sir Thomas More could no longer pretend to work


with the Government, and he resigned the chancellorship, which he had


held since the fall of Wolsey. The situation was too strained to last, and


the end came through the death of Archbishop Warham in August, 1532.


In the appointment of Cranmer as his successor, the king knew that he


had secured a subservient tool who desired nothing better than to see the


papal authority overthrown. Anne Boleyn was then enceinte, and the


king, relying, no doubt, on what Cranmer when consecrated would be


ready to do for him, went through a form of marriage with her on 25


January, 1533. On 15 April Cranmer received consecration. On 23 May,


Parliament having meanwhile forbidden all appeals to Rome, Cranmer


pronounced Henry’s former marriage invalid. On 28 May he declared the


marriage with Anne valid. On 1 June Anne was crowned, and on 7


September she gave birth to a daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth.


Clement, who had previously sent to Henry more than one monition upon


his desertion of Catherine, issued a Bull of excommunication on 11 July,


declaring, also, his divorce and remarriage null. In England Catherine was


deprived of her title of Queen, and Mary her daughter was treated as a


bastard. Much sympathy was aroused among the populace, to meet


which severe measures were taken against the more conspicuous of the


disaffected, particularly the “Nun of Kent”, who claimed to have had


revelations of God’s displeasure at the recent course of events.


In the course of the next year the breach with Rome was completed.


Parliament did all that was required of it. Annates, Peter’s Pence, and


other payments to Rome were finally abolished. An Act of Succession


entailed the crown on the children of Anne Boleyn, and an oath was


drawn up to be exacted of every person of lawful age. It was the refusal


to take this oath, the preamble of which declared Henry’s marriage with


Catherine null from the beginning, which sent More and Fisher to the


Tower, and eventually to the block. A certain number of Carthusian


monks, Brigittines, and Observant Franciscans imitated their firmness and


shared their fate. All these have been beatified in modern times by Pope


Leo XIII. There were, however, but a handful who were thus true to their


convictions. Declarations were obtained from the clergy in both provinces


“that the Bishop of Rome hath no greater jurisdiction conferred upon him


by God in this kingdom of England than any other foreign bishop”, while


Parliament, in November, declared the king “Supreme Head of the


Church of England”, and shortly afterwards Cromwell, a layman, was


appointed vicar-general to rule the English Church in the king’s name.


Though the people were cowed, these measures were not carried out


without much disaffection, and, to stamp out any overt expression of this,


Cromwell and his master now embarked upon a veritable reign of terror.


The martyrs already referred to were most of them brought to the


scaffold in the course of 1535, but fourteen Dutch Anabaptists also


suffered death by burning in the same year. There followed a visitation of


the monasteries, unscrupulous instruments like Layton, Legh, and Price


being appointed for the purpose. They played, of course, into the king’s


hand and compiled comperta abounding in charges of disgraceful


immorality, which have been shown to be at least grossly exaggerated. In


pursuance of the same policy Parliament, in February, 1536, acting under


great pressure, voted to the king the property of all religious houses with


less than 200 pounds a year of annual income, recommending that the


inmates should be transferred to the larger houses where “religion happily


was right well observed.” The dissolution, when carried out, produced


much popular resentment, especially in Lincolnshire and the northern


counties. Eventually, in the autumn of 1536, the people banded together


in a very formidable insurrection known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. The


insurgents rallied under the device of the Five Wounds, and they were


only induced to disperse by the deceitful promises of Henry’s


representative, the Duke of Norfolk. The suppression of the larger


monasteries rapidly followed, and with these were swept away


numberless shrines, statues, and objects of pious veneration, on the


pretext that these were purely superstitious. It is easy to see that the lust


of plunder was the motive which prompted this wholesale confiscation.


(See SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES.)


Meanwhile, Henry, though taking advantage of the spirit of religious


innovation now rife among the people whenever it suited his purpose,


remained still attached to the sacramental system in which he had been


brought up. In 1539 the Statute of the Six Articles enforced, under the


severest penalties, such doctrines as transubstantiation, Communion


under one kind, auricular confession, and the celibacy of the clergy.


Under this act offenders were sent to the stake for their Protestantism just


as ruthlessly as the aged Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, was attainted


by Parliament and eventually beheaded, simply because Henry was


irritated by the denunciations of her son Cardinal Pole. Neither was the


king less cruel towards those who were nearest to him. Anne Boleyn and


Catherine Howard, his second and fifth wives, perished on the scaffold,


but their whilom lord only paraded his indifference regarding the fate to


which he had condemned them. On 30 July, 1540, of six victims who


were dragged to Smithfield, three were Reformers burnt for heretical


doctrine, and the other three Catholics, hanged and quartered for denying


the king’s supremacy. Of all the numerous miserable beings whom Henry


sent to execution, Cromwell, perhaps, is the only one who fully deserved


his fate. Looking at the last fifteen years of Henry’s life, it is hard to find


one single feature which does not evoke repulsion, and the attempts made


by some writers to whitewash his misdeeds only give proof of the


extraordinary prejudice with which they approach the subject. Henry’s


cruelties continued to the last, and so likewise did his inconsistencies. One


of the last measures of confiscation of his reign was an act of suppression


of chantries, but Henry by his last will and testament established what


were practically chantries to have Masses said for his own sou

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