Page 72 of 131

* Coke’s 4th Inst. p. 37, 38.

Cromwell showed to the house of peers a banner, on which were embroidered the five wounds of Christ, the symbol chosen by the northern rebels; and this banner he affirmed, was found in the countess’s house.[*] No other proof seems to have been produced in order to ascertain her guilt: the parliament, without further inquiry, passed a bill of attainder against her; and they involved in the same bill, without any better proof, as far as appears, Gertrude marchioness of Exeter, Sir Adrian Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley. These two gentlemen were executed; the marchioness was pardoned and survived the king; the countess received a reprieve.

The only beneficial act passed this session, was that by which the parliament confirmed the surrender of the monasteries; yet even this act contains much falsehood, much tyranny, and, were it not that all private rights must submit to public interest, much injustice and iniquity. The scheme of engaging the abbots to surrender their monasteries had been conducted, as may easily be imagined, with many invidious circumstances: arts of all kinds had been employed; every motive that could work on the frailty of human nature had been set before them; and it was with great difficulty that these dignified conventuals were brought to make a concession, which most of them regarded as destructive of their interests, as well as sacrilegious and criminal in itself.[**] Three abbots had shown more constancy than the rest, the abbots of Colchester, Reading, and Glastenbury; and in order to punish them for their opposition, and make them an example to others, means had been found to convict them of treason, they had perished by the hands of the executioner, and the revenue of the convents had been forfeited.[***] Besides, though none of these violences had taken place, the king knew that a surrender made by men who were only tenants for life, would not bear examination; and he was therefore resolved to make all sure by his usual expedient, an act of parliament. In the preamble to this act, the parliament asserts, that all the surrenders made by the abbots had been “without constraint, of their own accord, and according to due course of common law.” And in consequence, the two houses confirm the surrenders, and secure the property of the abbey lands to the king and his successors forever.[****] It is remarkable, that all the mitred abbots still sat in the house of peers, and that none of them made any protests against this injurious statute.

* Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 652.

** Collier, vol. ii. p. 158 et see

*** 31 Henry VIII. c. 10.

**** 31 Henry VIII. c. 13.

In this session, the rank of all the great officers of state was fixed: Cromwell, as vicegerent, had the precedency assigned him above all of them. It was thought singular, that a blacksmith’s son, for he was no other, should have place next the royal family; and that a man possessed of no manner of literature should be set at the head of the church.

As soon as the act of the six articles had passed, the Catholics were extremely vigilant in informing against offenders; and no less than five hundred persons were in a little time thrown into prison. But Cromwell, who had not had interest enough to prevent that act, was able for the present to elude its execution. Seconded by the duke of Suffolk and Chancellor Audley, as well as by Cranmer, he remonstrated against the cruelty of punishing so many delinquents; and he obtained permission to set them at liberty. The uncertainty of the king’s humor gave each party an opportunity of triumphing in its turn. No sooner had Henry passed this law, which seemed to inflict so deep a wound on the reformers, than he granted a general permission for every one to have the new translation of the Bible in his family; a concession regarded by that party as an important victory.

But as Henry was observed to be much governed by his wives while he retained his fondness for them, the final prevalence of either party seemed much to depend on the choice of the future queen. Immediately after the death of Jane Seymour, the most beloved of all his wives, he began to think of a new marriage. He first cast his eye towards the duchess dowager of Milan, niece to the emperor; and he made proposals for that alliance. But meeting with difficulties, he was carried by his friendship for Francis rather to think of a French princess. He demanded the duchess dowager of Longueville, daughter of the duke of Guise, a prince of the house of Lorraine; but Francis told him, that the lady was already betrothed to the king of Scotland. The king, however, would not take a refusal: he had set his heart extremely on the match: the information which he had received of the duchess’s accomplishments and beauty, had prepossessed him in her favor; and having privately sent over Meautys to examine her person, and get certain intelligence of her conduct, the accounts which that agent brought him served further to inflame his desires. He learned that she was big made; and he thought her on that account the more proper match for him who was now become somewhat corpulent. The pleasure, too, of mortifying his nephew, whom he did not love, was a further incitement to his prosecution of this match; and he insisted that Francis should give him the preference to the king of Scots. But Francis, though sensible that the alliance of England was of much greater importance to his interests, would not affront his friend and ally; and to prevent further solicitation, he immediately sent the princess to Scotland. Not to shock, however, Henry’s humor, Francis made him an offer of Mary of Bourbon, daughter of the duke of Vendme; but as the king was informed that James had formerly rejected this princess he would not hear any further of such a proposal. The French monarch then offered him the choice of the two younger sisters of the queen of Scots; and he assured him, that they were nowise inferior either in merit or size to their elder sister, and that one of them was even superior in beauty. The king was as scrupulous with regard to the person of his wives, as if his heart had been really susceptible of a delicate passion; and he was unwilling to trust any relations, or even pictures, with regard to this important particular. He proposed to Francis, that they should have a conference at Calais on pretence of business; and that this monarch should bring along with him the two princesses of Guise, together with the finest ladies of quality in France, that he might make a choice among them. But the gallant spirit of Francis was shocked with the proposal: he was impressed with too much regard, he said, for the fair sex, to carry ladies of the first quality like geldings to a market, there to be chosen or rejected by the humor of the purchaser.[*] Henry would hearken to none of these niceties, but still insisted on his proposal; which, however, notwithstanding Francis’s earnest desire of obliging him, was finally rejected.

* Le Grand, vol. iii. p. 638

The king then began to turn his thoughts towards a German alliance; and as the princes of the Smalcaldic league were extremely disgusted with the emperor on account of his persecuting their religion, he hoped, by matching himself into one of their families, to renew a connection which he regarded as so advantageous to him. Cromwell joyfully seconded this intention; and proposed to him Anne of Cleves, whose father, the duke of that name, had great interest among the Lutheran princes, and whose sister, Sibylla, was married to the elector of Saxony, the head of the Protestant league. A flattering picture of the princess, by Hans Holben, determined Henry to apply to her father; and after some negotiation, the marriage, notwithstanding the opposition of the elector of Saxony was at last concluded; and Anne was sent over to England. The king, impatient to be satisfied with regard to the person of his bride, came privately to Rochester and got a sight of her. He found her big, indeed, and tall as he could wish; but utterly destitute both of beauty and grace; very unlike the pictures and representations which he had received: he swore she was a great Flanders mare; and declared that he never could possibly bear her any affection. The matter was worse when he found that she could speak no language but Dutch, of which he was entirely ignorant; and that the charms of her conversation were not likely to compensate for the homeliness of her person. He returned to Greenwich very melancholy; and he much lamented his hard fate to Cromwell, as well as to Lord Russel, Sir Anthony Brown, and Sir Anthony Denny. This last gentleman, in order to give him comfort, told him, that his misfortune was common to him with all kings, who could not, like private persons, choose for themselves, but must receive their wives from the judgment and fancy of others.