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It was the subject of debate among the king’s counsellors, whether the marriage could not yet be dissolved, and the princess be sent back to her own country. Henry’s situation seemed at that time very critical. After the ten years’ truce concluded between the emperor and the king of France, a good understanding was thought to have taken place between these rival monarchs; and such marks of union appeared, as gave great jealousy to the court of England. The emperor, who knew the generous nature of Francis, even put a confidence in him which is rare to that degree among great princes. An insurrection had been raised in the Low Countries by the inhabitants of Ghent, and seemed to threaten the most dangerous consequences. Charles, who resided at that time in Spain, resolved to go in person to Flanders, in order to appease those disorders; but he found great difficulties in choosing the manner of his passing thither. The road by Italy and Germany was tedious: the voyage through the channel dangerous, by reason of the English naval power: he asked Francis’s permission to pass through his dominions; and he entrusted himself into the hands of a rival, whom he had so mortally offended. The French monarch received him at Paris with great magnificence and courtesy; and though prompted both by revenge and interest, as well as by the advice of his mistress and favorites, to make advantage of the present opportunity, he conducted the emperor safely out of his dominions and would not so much as speak to him of business during his abode in France, lest his demands should bear the air of violence upon his royal guest.

Henry, who was informed of all these particulars, believed that an entire and cordial union had taken place between these princes; and that their religious zeal might prompt them to fall with combined arms upon England.[*] An alliance with the German princes seemed now more than ever requisite for his interest and safety; and he knew that if he sent back the princess of Cleves, such an affront would be highly resented by her friends and family.

* Stowe, p. 579.

1540.

He was therefore resolved, notwithstanding his aversion to her, to complete the marriage; and he told Cromwell, that, since matters had gone so far, he must put his neck into the yoke. Cromwell, who knew how much his own interests were concerned in this affair, was very anxious to learn from the king, next morning after the marriage, whether he now liked his spouse any better. The king told him, that he hated her worse than ever; and that her person was more disgusting on a near approach; he was resolved never to meddle with her: and even suspected her not to be a true maid: a point about which he entertained an extreme delicacy. He continued, however, to be civil to Anne; he even seemed to repose his usual confidence in Cromwell; but though he exerted this command over himself, a discontent lay lurking in his breast, and was ready to burst out on the first opportunity.

A session of parliament was held; and none of the abbots were now allowed a place in the house of peers. The king, by the mouth of the chancellor, complained to the parliament of the great diversity of religions which still prevailed among his subjects; a grievance, he affirmed, which ought the less to be endured, because the Scriptures were now published in English, and ought universally to be the standard of belief to all mankind. But he had appointed, he said, some bishops and divines to draw up a list of tenets to which his people were to assent; and he was determined, that Christ, the doctrine of Christ, and the truth, should have the victory. The king seems to have expected more effect in ascertaining truth from this new book of his doctors, than had ensued from the publication of the Scriptures. Cromwell, as vicar-general, made also in the king’s name a speech to the upper house; and the peers, in return, bestowed great flattery on him, and in particular said, that he was worthy, by his desert, to be vicar-general of the universe. That minister seemed to be no less in his master’s good graces: he received, soon after the sitting of the parliament, the title of earl of Essex, and was installed knight of the garter.

There remained only one religious order in England; the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the knights of Malta, as they are commonly called. This order, partly ecclesiastical, partly military, had by their valor done great service to Christendom; and had very much retarded, at Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, the rapid progress of the barbarians. During the general surrender of the religious houses in England, they had exerted their spirit, and had obstinately refused to yield up their revenues to the king; and Henry, who would endure no society that professed obedience to the pope, was obliged to have recourse to parliament for the dissolution of this order. Their revenues were large; and formed an addition nowise contemptible to the many acquisitions which the king had already made. But he had very ill husbanded the great revenue acquired by the plunder of the church: his profuse generosity dissipated faster than his rapacity could supply; and the parliament was surprised this session to find a demand made upon them of four tenths, and a subsidy of one shilling in the pound during two years: so ill were the public expectations answered, that the crown was never more to require any supply from the people. The commons, though lavish of their liberty, and of the blood of their fellow-subjects, were extremely frugal of their money; and it was not without difficulty so small a grant could be obtained by this absolute and dreaded monarch. The convocation gave the king four shillings in the pound to be levied in two years. The pretext for these grants was, the great expense which Henry had undergone for the defence of the realm, in building forts along the seacoast, and in equipping a navy. As he had at present no ally on the continent in whom he reposed much confidence, he relied only on his domestic strength, and was on that account obliged to be more expensive in his preparations against the danger of an invasion.

The king’s favor to Cromwell and his acquiescence in the marriage with Anne of Cleves, were both of them deceitful appearances: his aversion to the queen secretly increased every day; and having at last broken all restraint, it prompted him at once to seek the dissolution of a marriage so odious to him, and to involve his minister in ruin, who had been the innocent author of it. The fall of Cromwell was hastened by other causes. All the nobility hated a man who, being of such low extraction, had not only mounted above them by his station of vicar-general, but had engrossed many of the other considerable offices of the crown: besides enjoying that commission, which gave him a high and almost absolute authority over the clergy, and even over the laity, he was privy seal, chamberlain, and master of the wards: he had also obtained the order of the garter, a dignity which had ever been conferred only on men of illustrious families, and which seemed to be profaned by its being communicated to so mean a person. The people were averse to him, as the supposed author of the violence on the monasteries; establishments which were still revered and beloved by the commonalty. The Catholics regarded him as the concealed enemy of their religion: the Protestants, observing his exterior concurrence with all the persecutions exercised against them, were inclined to bear him as little favor; and reproached him with the timidity, if not treachery, of his conduct. And the king, who found that great clamors had on all hands arisen against the administration, was not displeased to throw on Cromwell the load of public hatred; and he hoped, by making so easy a sacrifice, to regain the affections of his subjects.