Page 64 of 131

* Herbert, p. 384*[**missing period]

** Heylin, p. 94.

The queen now prepared for suffering the death to which she was sentenced. She sent her last message to the king, and acknowledged the obligations which she owed him, in thus uniformly continuing his endeavors for her advancement: from a private gentlewoman, she said, he had first made her a marchioness, then a queen, and now, since he could raise her no higher in this world, he was sending her to be a saint in heaven. She then renewed the protestations of her innocence, and recommended her daughter to his care. Before the lieutenant of the Tower, and all who approached her, she made the like declarations; and continued to behave herself with her usual serenity, and even with cheerfulness. “The executioner,” she said to the lieutenant, “is, I hear, very expert; and my neck is very slender:” upon which she grasped it in her hand, and smiled. When brought, however, to the scaffold, she softened her tone a little with regard to her protestations of innocence. She probably reflected, that the obstinacy of Queen Catharine, and her opposition to the king’s will, had much alienated him from the lady Mary: her own maternal concern, therefore, for Elizabeth prevailed in these last moments over that indignation which the unjust sentence by which she suffered naturally excited in her. She said that she was come to die, as she was sentenced, by the law: she would accuse none, nor say any thing of the ground upon which she was judged. She prayed heartily for the king; called him a most merciful and gentle prince; and acknowledged that he had always been to her a good and gracious sovereign; and if any one should think proper to canvass her cause, she desired him to judge the best.[*] She was beheaded by the executioner of Calais, who was sent for as more expert than any in England. Her body was negligently thrown into a common chest of elm-tree, made to hold arrows, and was buried in the Tower.

* Burnet. vol. i. p. 205.

The innocence of this unfortunate queen cannot reasonably be called in question. Henry himself, in the violence of his rage, knew not whom to accuse as her lover; and though he imputed guilt to her brother, and four persons more, he was able to bring proof against none of them. The whole tenor of her conduct forbids us to ascribe to her an abandoned character, such as is implied in the king’s accusation: had she been so lost to all prudence and sense of shame, she must have exposed herself to detection, and afforded her enemies some evidence against her. But the king made the most effectual apology for her, by marrying Jane Seymour the very day after her execution.[*] His impatience to gratify this new passion caused him to forgot all regard to decency; and his cruel heart was not softened a moment by the bloody catastrophe of a person who had so long been the object of his most tender affections.

The lady Mary thought the death of her step-mother a proper opportunity for reconciling herself to the king, who, besides other causes of disgust, had been offended with her on account of the part which she had taken in her mother’s quarrel. Her advances were not at first received; and Henry exacted from her some further proofs of submission and obedience: he required this young princess, then about twenty years of age, to adopt his theological tenets; to acknowledge his supremacy; to renounce the pope; and to own her mother’s marriage to be unlawful and incestuous. These points were of hard digestion with the princess; but after some delays, and even refusals, she was at last prevailed on to write a letter to her father,[**] containing her assent to the articles required of her; upon which she was received into favor. But notwithstanding the return of the king’s affection to the issue of his first marriage, he divested not himself of kindness towards the lady Elizabeth; and the new queen, who was blessed with a singular sweetness of disposition, discovered strong proofs of attachment towards her.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 297.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 207. Strype, vol. i. p. 285.

The trial and conviction of Queen Anne, and the subsequent events, made it necessary for the king to summon a new parliament; and he here, in his speech, made a merit to his people, that, notwithstanding the misfortunes attending his two former marriages, he had been induced for their good to venture on a third. The speaker received this profession with suitable gratitude; and he took thence occasion to praise the king for his wonderful gifts of grace and nature: he compared him, for justice and prudence, to Solomon; for strength and fortitude, to Samson; and for beauty and comeliness, to Absalom. The king very humbly replied, by the mouth cf the chancellor, that he disavowed these praises; since, if he were really possessed of such endowments, they were the gift of Almighty God only. Henry found that the parliament was no less submissive in deeds than complaisant in their expressions, and that they would go the same lengths as the former in gratifying even his most lawless passions. His divorce from Anne Boleyn was ratified;[*] that queen and all her accomplices were attainted; the issue of both his former marriages were declared illegitimate, and it was even made treason to assert the legitimacy of either of them; to throw any slander upon the present king, queen, or their issue, was subjected to the same penalty; the crown was settled on the king’s issue by Jane Seymour, or any subsequent wife; and in case he should die without children, he was empowered, by his will or letters patent, to dispose of the crown; an enormous authority, especially when intrusted to a prince so violent and capricious in his humor. Whoever, being required, refused to answer upon oath to any article of this act of settlement, was declared to be guilty of treason; and by this clause a species of political inquisition was established in the kingdom, as well as the accusations of treason multiplied to an unreasonable degree. The king was also empowered to confer on any one, by his will or letters patent, any castles, honors, liberties, or franchises; words which might have been extended to the dismembering of the kingdom, by the erection of principalities and independent jurisdictions. It was also, by another act, made treason to marry, without the king’s consent, any princess related in the first degree to the crown. This act was occasioned by the discovery of a design formed by Thomas Howard, brother of the duke of Norfolk, to espouse the lady Margaret Douglas, niece to the king, by his sister the queen of Scots and the earl of Angus. Howard, as well as the young lady, was committed to the Tower. She recovered her liberty soon after; but he died in confinement. An act of attainder passed against him this session of parliament.

* The parliament, in annulling the king’s marriage with Anne
Boleyn, gives this as a reason, “For that his highness had
chosen to wife the excellent and virtuous Lady Jane, who,
for her convenient years, excellent beauty, and pureness of
flesh and blood, would be apt, God willing, to conceive
issue by his highness.”

Another accession was likewise gained to the authority of the crown; the king or any of his successors was empowered to repeal or annul, by letters patent, whatever act of parliament had been passed before he was four and twenty years of age. Whoever maintained the authority of the bishop of Rome by word or writ, or endeavored in any manner to restore it in England, was subjected to the penalty of a premunire that is, his goods were forfeited, and he was put out of the protection of law. And any person who possessed any office, ecclesiastical or civil, or received any grant or charter from the crown, and yet refused to renounce the pope by oath, was declared to be guilty of treason. The renunciation prescribed runs in the style of, “So help me God, all saints, and the holy evangelists.”[*] The pope, hearing of Anne Boleyn’s disgrace and death, had hoped that the door was opened to a reconciliation, and had been making some advances to Henry: but this was the reception he met with. Henry was now become indifferent with regard to papal censures; and finding a great increase of authority, as well as of revenue, to accrue from his quarrel with Rome, he was determined to persevere in his present measures. This parliament also, even more than any foregoing, convinced him how much he commanded the respect of his subjects, and what confidence he might repose in them. Though the elections had been made on a sudden, without any preparation or intrigue, the members discovered an unlimited attachment to his person and government.[**]