Anonymous

REIGN OF HENRY VIII. (concluded).

Divorce of Anne of Cleves—Catherine Howard's Marriage and Death—Fresh Persecutions—Welsh Affairs—The Irish Insurrection and its Suppression—Scottish Affairs—Catholic Opposition to Henry—Outbreak of War—Battle of Solway Moss—French and English Parties in Scotland—Escape of Beaton—Triumph of the French Party—Treaty between England and Germany—Henry's Sixth Marriage—Campaign in France—Expedition against Scotland—Capture of Edinburgh—Fresh Attempt on England—Cardinal Beaton and Wishart—Death of the Cardinal—Struggle between the Two Parties in England—Death of Henry.

The death of Cromwell was quickly followed by the divorce of Anne of Cleves. The queen was ordered to retire to Richmond, on pretence that the plague was in London. Marillac, the French ambassador, writing to Francis I., said that the reason assigned was not the true one, for if there had been the slightest rumour of the plague, nothing would have induced Henry to remain; "for the king is the most timid person in the world in such cases." It was the preliminary step to the divorce, and as soon as she was gone, Henry put in motion all his established machinery for getting rid of wives. The Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Norfolk, and others of the king's ministers, procured a petition to be got up and presented to his Majesty, stating that the House had doubts of the validity of the king's marriage, and consequently were uneasy as to the succession, and prayed the king to submit the question to Convocation. Of course, Henry could refuse nothing to his faithful peers, and Convocation, accordingly, took the matter into consideration. The marriage was declared—like his two former ones with Catherine and Anne Boleyn—to be null and void; and the same judgment of high treason was pronounced on any one who should say or write to the contrary. The queen being a stranger to the English laws and customs, was not called upon to appear personally, or even by her advocates, before Convocation.

All this being settled, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Southampton, and Wriothesley proceeded to Richmond, to announce the decision to the queen. On the sight of these ministers, and on hearing their communication, that the marriage was annulled by Parliament, the poor woman, supposing that she was going to be treated like Anne Boleyn, fainted, and fell on the floor. On her return to consciousness, the messengers hastened to assure her that there was no cause of alarm; that the king had the kindest and best intentions towards her; that, if she would consent to resign the title of queen, he proposed to give her the title of his sister; to grant her precedence of every lady except the future queen and his daughters, and to endow her with estates to the value of £3,000 per annum.

Anne received some of the spoils of the fallen Cromwell in different estates which were made over to her for life, including Denham Hall, in Essex. She resided principally at her palace of Richmond, and at Ham House; but we find her living at different times at Bletchingley, Hever Castle, Penshurst, and Dartford. Though she was queen only about six months, she continued to live in England for seventeen years—seeing two queens after her, and Edward VI. and Queen Mary on the throne—greatly honoured by all who knew her, and much beloved by both the princesses Mary and Elizabeth. Not in seventeen years, but in sixteen months, she saw the fall and tragedy of the queen who supplanted her; so that one of her maids of honour, Elizabeth Bassett, could not help exclaiming at the news, "What a man the king is! how many wives will he have?" For which very natural expression the poor girl was very near getting into trouble. As for Anne herself, she appeared quite a new woman when she had got clear of her terrible and coarse-minded tyrant, so that the French ambassador, Marillac, wrote to his master that "Madame of Cleves has a more joyous countenance than ever. She wears a great variety of dresses, and passes all her time in sports and recreations." No sooner was she divorced than Henry paid her a visit, and was so delighted by her pleasant and respectful reception of him, that he supped with her merrily, and not only went often again to see her, but invited her to Hampton, whither she went, not at all troubling herself that another was acting the queen.

Anne's marriage was annulled by Parliament on the 9th of July, and on the 8th of August Catherine Howard appeared at Court as the acknowledged queen. For twelve months all went on well, and the king repeatedly declared that he had never been happy in love or matrimony till now; that the queen was the most perfect of women, and the most affectionate of wives. To gratify his new queen, and to accomplish some objects of importance, Henry this summer made a progress into the north, and took Catherine with him. One object was to judge for himself of the state of the northern counties, where the late insurrections in favour of the old religion had broken out. He promised himself that his presence would intimidate the disaffected; that he should be able to punish those who remained troublesome, and make all quiet; but still more was he anxious for an interview with his nephew, James V. of Scotland. The principles of the Reformation had been making rapid progress in that country, and the fires of persecution had been lit up by the clergy. Patrick Hamilton, a young man of noble family, who had imbibed the new doctrines abroad, and Friar Forrest, a zealous preacher of the same, had suffered at the stake. But far more dangerous to the stability of the Catholic Church, was the fact that the Scottish nobility, poor and ambitious, had learnt a significant lesson from what had been going on in England. The seizure of the monastic estates there by the king, and their liberal distribution amongst the nobility, excited their cupidity, and they strongly urged James to follow the example of his royal uncle. In this counsel they found a staunch coadjutor in Henry, who never ceased exciting James to follow his example, and, to make sure of his doing so, invited him to an interview at York, to which he consented.

Notwithstanding great preparations had been made, the King of Scots excused his coming. The very first announcement of such a project had struck the clergy of Scotland with consternation. They hastened to point out to James the dangers of innovation—the certain mischief of aggrandising the nobility, already too powerful, with the spoils of the Church—the jeopardy of putting himself into the hands of Henry and the English, and the loss of the friendship of all foreign powers, if he was induced by Henry to attack the Church, which would render him almost wholly dependent on England. They added force to these arguments by presenting him with a gratuity of £50,000; promised him a continuance of their liberality, and pointed out to him a certain source of income of at least £100,000 per annum in the confiscations of heretics. These representations and gifts had the desired effect. James sent an excuse to Henry for not being able to meet him at York; and the disappointed king turned homeward in great disgust. The fascinations of the young queen, however, soon restored his good humour, and they arrived at Windsor, on the 26th of October, in high spirits.

Little did the uxorious monarch dream that he was at this moment standing on a mine that would blow all his imagined happiness into the air and send his idolised wife to the block. But at the very time that he and Catherine had been showing themselves as so beautifully conjugal a couple to the good people of the north, the mine had been preparing. It was the misfortune of all the queens of Henry VIII. that they had not only to deal with one of the most vindictive and capricious tyrants that ever existed, but that they were invariably, and necessarily, the objects of the hatred of a powerful and merciless party, which was ready to destroy its antagonist, and, as the first and telling stroke in that progress, to pull down the queen. Catherine Howard was now the hope of the Romanists. She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, the most resolute lay-Papist in the kingdom, and the political head of that party. The public evidences of the growing influence of Catherine with the king in the northern progress, had been marked by the Catholics with exultation, and by the Protestants with proportionate alarm. Both Rapin and Burnet assert that Cranmer felt convinced, from what he saw passing, that unless some means were found to lessen the influence of the queen, and thus dash the hopes of the Catholics, he must soon follow Cromwell to the block. A most ominous circumstance which reached him was, that the royal party took up their quarters for a night at the house of Sir John Gorstwick, who, but in the preceding spring, had denounced Cranmer in open Parliament, as "the root of all heresies," and that at Gorstwick's there had been held a select meeting of the Privy Council, at which Gardiner, the unhesitating leader of the Romanists, presided. It was the signal for the Protestants to bring means of counter-action into play, and such means, unfortunately for the queen, were already stored up and at hand.

It was discovered that the queen had been guilty of numerous improprieties before marriage, chiefly with a man called Derham, and it was now alleged that an intrigue had been going on between Catherine and her cousin, Thomas Culpepper, in the northern progress, at Lincoln and York, and that one night Culpepper was in the same room with the queen and Lady Rochford for three hours. But when it was attempted to establish this fact on the evidence of women in attendance, Catherine Tylney and Margaret Morton, this evidence dwindled to mere surmise. Tylney deposed that on two nights at Lincoln, the queen went to the room of Lady Rochford, and stayed late, but affirmed "on her peril that she never saw who came unto the queen and my Lady Rochford, nor heard what was said between them." Morton's evidence amounted only to this, that, at Pontefract, Lady Rochford conveyed letters between the queen and Culpepper, as was supposed; and one night when the king went to the queen's chamber, the door was bolted, and it was some time before he could be admitted. This circumstance must have been satisfactorily accounted for to Henry at the time, jealous person as he was, yet on such paltry grounds was it necessary to build the charge of criminal conduct in the queen.

CATHERINE HOWARD BEING CONVEYED TO THE TOWER. (See p. 185.)

On the 21st of January, 1542, a bill of attainder of Catherine Howard, late Queen of England, and of Jane, Lady Rochford, for high treason; of Agnes, Duchess of Norfolk, Lord William Howard, the Lady Bridgewater, and four men and five women, including Derham and Culpepper, already executed, was read in the Lords. On the 28th, the Lord Chancellor, impressed with a laudable sense of justice, proposed that a deputation of Lords and Commons should be allowed to wait on the queen to hear what she had to say for herself. He said it was but just that a queen, who was no mean or private person, but a public and illustrious one, should be tried by equal laws like themselves and thought it would be acceptable to the king himself if his consort could thus clear herself. But that did not suit Henry: he was resolved to be rid of his lately beloved model queen; and as there was no evidence whatever of any crime on her part against him, he did not mean that she should have any opportunity of being heard in her defence. The bill was, therefore, passed through Parliament, passing the Lords in three and the Commons in two days. On the 10th of February the queen was conveyed by water to the Tower, and the next day Henry gave his assent to the bill of attainder. The persons sent to receive the queen's confession were Suffolk, Cranmer, Southampton, Audley, and Thirlby. "How much she confessed to them," Burnet says, "is not very clear, neither by the journal nor the Act of Parliament, which only say she confessed." If she had confessed the crime alleged after marriage, that would have been made fully and officially known. Two days afterwards, February 12th, she was brought to the block.

Thus fell Catherine Howard in the bloom of her youth and beauty, being declared by an eye-witness to be the handsomest woman of her time, paying for youthful indiscretions the forfeit of her life to the king, though some think she had not sinned against him. So conscious was Henry of this, that he made it high treason, in the Act of Attainder, for any one to conceal any such previous misconduct in a woman whom the sovereign was about to marry. With Catherine fell the odious Lady Rochford, who had long deserved her fate, for her false and murderous evidence against her own husband and Anne Boleyn.

Having thus destroyed his fifth wife, Henry now turned his attention to the regulation of religious affairs and opinions. In 1539 he had attempted to set up a standard of orthodoxy by the publication of "The Institution of a Christian Man," or "The Bishops' Book," as it was called, because compiled by the bishops under his direction. After that he published his "Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man," which was called "The King's Book." In this it was observable that, instead of approaching nearer to the Protestant creed, he was going fast back into the strictest principles of Romanism. He had allowed the people to read the Bible, but he now declared that, though the reading of it was necessary to the teachers of religion, it was not so necessary for the learners; and he decreed, by Act of Parliament, that the Bible should not be read in public, or be seen in any private families but such as were of noble or gentle birth. It was not to be read privately by any but householders and women who were well-born. If any woman of the ordinary class, any artificer, apprentice, journeyman, servant, or labourer dared to read the Bible, he or she was to be imprisoned for one month.

Gardiner and the Papist party were more and more in the ascendant, and the timid Cranmer and the more liberal bishops were compelled not only to wink at these bigoted rules, but to order "The King's Book," containing all the dogmas which they held to be false and pernicious, to be published in every diocese, and to be the guide of every preacher. By this means it was hoped to quash the numerous new sects which were springing from the reading of the Bible, and the earnest discussions consequent upon it. Such a flood of new light had poured suddenly into the human mind, that it was completely dazzled by it. Opinion becoming in some degree free, ran into strange forms. There were Anabaptists, who held that every man ought to be guided by the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and that, consequently, there was no need of king, judge, magistrate, or civil law, or war, or capital punishment. There were Antinomians, who contended that all things were free and allowable to the saints without sin. There were Fifth-Monarchy men; members of the Family of Love, or Davidians, from one David George, their leader; Arians, Unitarians, Predestinarians, Libertines, and other denominations, whom we shall find abundant in the time of the Commonwealth. What was strangest of all was to see King Henry, who would allow no man's opinion to be right but his own, and who burnt men for daring to differ from him, lecturing these contending sects on their animosities in his speech in Parliament, and bidding them "behold what love and charity there was amongst them, when one called another heretic and Anabaptist, and he called him again Papist, hypocrite, and pharisee;" and the royal peacemaker threatened to put an end to their quarrellings by punishing them all. During the four remaining years of his reign, he burnt or hanged twenty-four persons for religion—that is, six annually—fourteen of them being Protestants. During these years "The King's Book" was the only authorised standard of English orthodoxy.

It is now necessary to take a brief glance at the proceedings of Henry's government in Ireland and Wales, and towards Scotland. In the Principality of Wales the measures of the king were marked by a far wiser spirit than those which predominated in religion. Being descended from the natives of that country, it was natural that it should claim his particular attention. Wales at that time might be divided into two parts, one of which had been subjected by the English monarchs, and divided into shires, the other which had been conquered by different knights and barons, thence called the lords-marchers. The shires were under the royal will, but the hundred and forty-one small districts or lordships which had been granted to the petty conquerors, excluded the officers and writs of the king altogether. The lords, like so many counts palatine, exercised all sovereign rights within their own districts, had their own courts, appointed their own judges, and punished or pardoned offenders at pleasure. This opened up a source of the grossest confusion and impunity from justice; for criminals perpetrating offences in one district had only to move into another, and set the law at defiance. Henry, by enacting, in 1536, that the whole of Wales should thenceforth be incorporated with England, should obey the same laws and enjoy the same rights and privileges, did a great work. The Welsh shires, with one borough in each, were empowered to send members to Parliament, the judges were appointed solely by the Crown, and no lord was any longer allowed to pardon any treason, murder, or felony in his lordship, or to protect the perpetrators of such crimes. The same regulations were extended to the county palatine of Chester.

The proceedings of Henry in Ireland were equally energetic, if they were not always as just; and in the end they produced an equally improved condition of things there. Quiet and law came to prevail, though they prevailed with severity. On the accession of Henry to the throne, the portion of the island over which the English authority really extended was very limited indeed. It included merely the chief sea-ports, with the five counties of Louth, Westmeath, Dublin, Kildare, and Wexford. The rest of the country was almost independent of England, being in the hands of no less than ninety chieftains—thirty of English origin, and the rest native—who exercised a wild and lawless kind of sway, and made war on each other at will. Wolsey, in the height of his power, determined to reduce this Irish chaos to order. He saw that the main causes of the decay of the English authority lay in the perpetual feuds and jealousies of the families of Fitzgerald and Butler, at the head of which were the Earls of Kildare and of Ormond. The young Earl of Kildare, the chief of the Fitzgeralds, who succeeded his father in 1520, was replaced by the Earl of Surrey, afterwards the Duke of Norfolk, whom we have seen so disgracefully figuring in the affairs of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, his nieces. During the two years that he held the Irish government, he did himself great credit by the vigour of his administration, repressing the turbulence of the chiefs, and winning the esteem of the people by his hospitality and munificence.

Unfortunately for Ireland, Surrey had acquired great renown by his conduct under his father at Flodden, and when Henry, in 1522, declared war against France, he was deemed the only man fitted to take command of the army. The government of Ireland, on his departure, was placed in the hands of Butler, Earl of Ormond. In the course of ten years it passed successively from Ormond again to Kildare, from Kildare to Sir William Skeffington, and back for the third time to Kildare.

Kildare, relieved from the fear of Wolsey, who had now fallen, gave way to the exercise of such acts of extravagance, that his own friends attributed them to insanity. At the earnest recommendations, therefore, of his hereditary rivals, the Butlers, he was called to London in 1534, and sent to the Tower. Still, he had left his Irish government in the hands of his son, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald—a young man of only one-and-twenty, brave, generous, but with all the impetuosity of Irish blood. Hearing a false report that his father was beheaded in the Tower, young Fitzgerald flew to arms. He appeared at the head of 140 followers before the council, resigned the sword of State, and demanded war against Henry of England.

Cromer, the Archbishop of Armagh, earnestly entreated him not to plunge himself into a quarrel so hopeless as that with England; but in vain. The strains of an Irish minstrel, uttered in his native tongue, had more influence with him, for they called on him to revenge his father, to free Ireland; and the incensed youth flew to arms. For a time success attended him. He overran the rich district of Fingal; the natives flocked to his standard; the Irish minstrels, in wild songs, stirred the people to frenzy; and surprising Allen, the Archbishop of Dublin, on the very point of escaping to England, and supposed to be one of the accusers of the Earl of Kildare, they murdered him in presence of the young chief and his brothers. He then sent a deputation to Rome, offering, on condition that the Pope should give him the support of his sanction, to defend Ireland against an apostate prince, and to pay a handsome annual tribute to the Holy See. He sent ambassadors also to the Emperor, demanding assistance against the prince who had so grossly insulted him by divorcing his aunt, Queen Catherine. Five of his uncles joined him, but he was repulsed from the walls of Dublin. The strong castle of Maynooth was carried by assault by the new deputy, Sir William Skeffington; and in the month of October Lord Leonard Gray, the son of the Marquis of Dorset, arriving from England at the head of fresh forces, chased him into the fastnesses of Munster and Connaught. On hearing of this ill-advised rebellion, the poor Earl of Kildare, already stricken with palsy, sickened and died in the Tower.

Lord Gray did not trust simply to his arms in the difficult country into which the Fitzgeralds had retired; he employed money freely to bribe the natives, who led him through the defiles of the mountains, and the passable tracks of the morasses, into the retreats of the enemy. He found the county of Kildare almost entirely desolated. Six out of the eight baronies were burnt; and where this was not the case, the people had fled, leaving the corn in the fields. Meath also was ravaged; and the towns throughout the south of Ireland, besides the horrors of civil war, found fever and pestilence prevailing, Dublin itself being more frightfully decimated than the provincial towns. The English Government sent very little money to the troops, and left them to subsist by plunder; and they first seized all the cattle, corn, and provisions, and then laid waste the country by fire. By March, 1535, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald was reduced to such extremity that he wrote to Lord Gray, begging him to become intercessor between the king and himself. Lord Gray, there can be little doubt, promised Fitzgerald a full pardon, on which he surrendered. But Skeffington wrote to the king that, finding that O'Connor, his principal supporter, had come in and yielded, "the young traitor, Thomas Fitzgerald, had done the same, without condition of pardon of life, lands, and goods."

But this assertion is clearly contradicted by the council in Dublin, who wrote entreating the king to be merciful to the said Thomas, to whom they had given comfortable promises. O'Connor had been too wise to put himself into the power of Henry on the strength of any promises: he delivered only certain hostages as security for his good behaviour; but Lord Thomas was carried over to England by Lord Gray, where he was committed to the Tower. Gray was immediately sent back to Ireland, with the full command of the army there, and he was instructed above all things to secure the persons of the five uncles of Lord Fitzgerald. Accordingly, on the 14th of February, 1536, the council of Ireland sent to Cromwell, then minister, an exulting message, that Lord Gray, the chief justice, and others, had captured the five brethren, which they pronounced to be the "first deed that ever was done for the weal of the king's poor subjects of that land." They added, "We assure your mastership that the said lord justice, the treasurer of the king's wars, and such others as his grace put in trust in this behalf, have highly deserved his most gracious thanks for the politic and secret conveying of the matter." But the truth was, that this politic and secret management was one of the most disgraceful pieces of treachery which ever was transacted—the Fitzgeralds being seized at a banquet to which both parties had proceeded under the most solemn pledges of mutual faith. They were conveyed at once to London, and in February, 1537, the young earl and his five uncles were beheaded, after a long and cruel imprisonment in the Tower. Their unprincipled betrayer, however, did not long enjoy the fruits of his treachery. He was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland as a reward for his dishonourable service, but was soon removed on charges of misconduct, committed to one of the very cells which his victims had occupied, and was beheaded on Tower Hill, as a traitor, on the 28th of June, 1541, ending his life, according to Godwin, very quietly and godlily. Gray certainly deserved better treatment from Henry; for, though his conduct was infamous to the Fitzgeralds, it was most useful to the English king. The rival factions of Fitzgeralds and Butlers continuing to resist the English power, Gray contended against them till, by his brilliant victory at Bellahoe, he broke the power of O'Neill, the northern chieftain, and confirmed the power of England. Yet, being uncle, by his sister, to the last surviving male heir of the Fitzgeralds—Gerald, the youngest brother of the unfortunate Lord Thomas, a boy of only twelve years of age—he was accused of favouring his escape, and all his services were forgotten by his ungrateful sovereign. The young Gerald Fitzgerald escaped to the Continent by the aid of a sea captain of St. Malo, and ultimately to Italy, where he lived under the patronage and protection of his kinsman, Cardinal Pole, till he eventually recovered the honours and estates of his ancestors, in the reign of Queen Mary, at the suggestion of the cardinal.

After the recall of Lord Gray, O'Connor, O'Neill, M'Murdo, and the O'Tooles excited fresh insurrections, but they were speedily put down, and in 1541 Anthony St. Leger found both the Irish chiefs and the lords of the pale eagerly outstripping each other in professions of loyalty. In 1541 Henry raised Ireland from the rank of a lordship to that of a kingdom, and granted letters patent to the Irish chiefs, by the advice of Sir Thomas Cusake, though unwillingly. Thus, by securing them in possession of their lands, and raising them to new honours, he gained their devoted attachment. Henry gave them houses in Dublin, which they were to inhabit when summoned as peers of the Irish Parliament. Ulick Burke was made Earl of Clanricarde, Murroch O'Brien Earl of Thomond, and the great O'Neill became henceforth known by his new title of Earl of Tyrone. The Irish council was instructed to proceed with the suppression of the monasteries, though cautiously, not urging the monks too rigorously, lest they stirred up opposition, but desirably persuading them that "the lands of the Church were his proper inheritance." These matters were so well carried out, that the ascendency of England had never appeared so firmly established since the first invasion of the island by Henry II.

In Scotland the French and Catholic party was all powerful. James V. married a French wife, Mary of Guise, in 1538, and in 1539 David Beaton succeeded his uncle, James Beaton, in the primacy, when the Pope, to add additional honours to so devoted a servant, presented him with a cardinal's hat. It was at this crisis that the Pope, acting in concert with France and Spain, sent Cardinal Pole to co-operate with the Scots in annoying Henry, and James being applied to by the Pontiff Paul, declared himself willing to unite with Francis I. and the Emperor in the endeavour to convert or punish the heretical English king. As if to show Henry that there was no prospect of any co-operation of James with him, the fires of persecution were kindled by Beaton and his coadjutors against the Protestants in that kingdom, and this again drove the Reformers to make common cause with the Earl of Angus and other Scottish exiles in England. Henry, to encourage the Protestants, and to warn James if possible, sent to him his rising diplomatist, Sir Ralph Sadler, who represented to James that Henry was much nearer related to him than were any of the Continental sovereigns, and who endeavoured to prevent there the publication of the bill of excommunication.

But it became necessarily a pitched battle between the Papist party in Scotland and Henry. They beheld with natural alarm his destruction of the Papal Church in England, an example of the most terrible kind to all other national churches of the same creed; and Henry, on the other hand, knew that so long as that faith was in the ascendant in Scotland, there would be no assured quiet in his own kingdom. It was the one proximate and exposed quarter through which the Pope and his abettors on the Continent could perpetually assail him. From this moment, therefore, Henry spared no money, no negotiation, no pains to break down the Roman Catholic ascendency in Scotland.

In the spring of 1541 Cardinal Beaton, and Panter, the Royal secretary, were despatched to Rome with secret instructions. This alarmed Henry, and yet afforded him a hope of making an impression on his nephew whilst the cardinal was away. Once more, therefore, he invited James to meet him at York. Lord William Howard, who was his envoy on the occasion, induced James to promise to meet Henry there, and we have seen him on his way accompanied by his bride, Catherine Howard, to the place of rendezvous. But James came not; and Henry, enraged, vowed that he would compel James by force to do that which he would not concede to persuasion.

The Romanist party in Scotland were better pleased with a hostile than a pacific position, for they greatly dreaded that Henry might at length warp the king's mind towards his own views. The leaders on both sides were, in fact, never at peace. On the one side, the exiled Douglases were always on the watch to recover their estates by their swords, and the fugitives in Scotland, on account of the Pilgrimage of Grace, were equally ready to fight their way back to their homes and fortunes. In the August of 1542, accordingly, there were sharp forays, first from one side of the Border, and then from the other. Sir James Bowes, the warden of the east marches, accompanied by Sir George Douglas, the Earl of Angus, and other Scottish exiles, and 3,000 horsemen, rushed into Teviotdale, when they were met at Haddenrig by the Earl of Huntly and Lord Home, who defeated them, and took 600 prisoners.

Henry, having issued a proclamation declaring the Scots the aggressors, ordered a levy of 40,000 men, and appointed the Duke of Norfolk the commander of this army. He was attended by the Earls of Shrewsbury, Derby, Cumberland, Surrey, Hertford, Rutland, with many others of the nobility. This imposing force was joined by the Earl of Angus and the rest of the banished Douglases who had escaped the slaughter at Haddenrig. After some delay at York the royal army, issuing a fresh proclamation, in which Henry claimed the crown of Scotland, advanced to Berwick, where it crossed into Scotland, and, advancing along the northern bank of the Tweed as far as Kelso, burned two towns and twenty villages. Norfolk did not venture to advance farther into the country, as he heard that James had assembled a powerful force, whilst Huntly, Home, and Seton were hovering on his flanks. He therefore contented himself with ravaging the neighbourhood, and then crossed again at Kelso into England.

James, indignant at the invasion and the injuries inflicted on his subjects, marched from the Burghmuir at Edinburgh, where he was encamped at the head of 30,000 men, in pursuit of the English. But he soon found that different causes paralysed his intended chastisement. Many of the nobles were in favour of the Reformation, and held this martial movement as a direct attempt to maintain the Papal power and the influence of Beaton and his party. Others were in secret league with the banished Douglases, who were on the English side; and there were not wanting those who sincerely advised a merely defensive warfare, and pointed out the evils which had always followed the pursuit of the English into their own country. They urged the fact that Norfolk and his army, destitute of provisions and suffering from the inclemency of the weather, were already in full retreat homewards. But James would not listen to these arguments; he burned to take vengeance on the English, and after halting on Fala Muir, and reviewing his troops, he gave the order to march in pursuit of Norfolk; but, to his consternation, he found that nearly every nobleman refused to cross the Border. They pleaded the lateness of the season, the want of provisions for the army, and the rashness of following the English into the midst of their own country, where another Flodden Field might await them.

James was highly exasperated at this defection, and denounced the leaders as traitors and cowards, pointing out to them their unpatriotic conduct, when they saw all around them the towns and villages burnt, the farms ravaged, and the people expelled or exterminated along the line of Norfolk's march. It was in vain that he exhorted or reproved them; they stole away from his standard, and the indignant king found himself abandoned by the chief body of his army. For himself, however, he disdained to give up the enterprise. He despatched Lord Maxwell with a force of 10,000 men to burst into the western marches, ordering him to remain in England laying waste the country as long as Norfolk had remained in Scotland. James himself awaited the event at Caerlaverock Castle; but, discontented with the movements of Lord Maxwell, whom he suspected of being infected by the spirit of the other insubordinate nobles, he sent his favourite, Oliver Sinclair, to supersede Lord Maxwell in the command.

This was an imprudent step, calculated to excite fresh discontent, as it very effectually did. The proud nobles who surrounded Maxwell threw down their arms, swearing that they would not serve under any such royal minion; the troops broke out into open mutiny; and in the midst of this confusion, a body of 500 English horse riding up under the Lords Dacre and Musgrave, the Scots believed it to be the vanguard of Norfolk's army, and fled in precipitate confusion. The English, charging furiously at this unexpected advantage, surrounded great numbers of the fugitives, and took 1,000 of them prisoners. All these were sent to London, and given into the custody of different English noblemen. Many of the prisoners were believed to surrender willingly, as disaffected men who were ready to sell their country to England; and others are said to have been seized by border freebooters, and sold to the enemy. This was the battle of Solway Moss.

The king was so overwhelmed with grief and resentment at this disgraceful defeat, through the disloyalty of his nobility, that he returned to Edinburgh in deep dejection. From Edinburgh he proceeded to the palace of Falkland, where he shut himself up, brooding on his misfortunes; and such hold did this take upon him, that he began to sink rapidly in health. He was in the prime of his life, being only in his thirty-first year; of a constitution hitherto vigorous, having scarcely known any sickness; but his agonised mind producing fever of body, he seemed hastening rapidly to the grave. At this crisis his wife was confined. She had already borne him two sons, who had died in their infancy, and an heir might now have given a check to his melancholy; but it proved a daughter—the afterwards celebrated and unfortunate Queen of Scots. On hearing that it was a daughter, he turned himself in his bed, saying, "The crown came with a woman, and it will go with one. Many miseries await this poor kingdom. Henry will make it his own, either by force of arms or by marriage." On the seventh day after the birth of Mary, he expired, December 14th, 1542.

No sooner did Cardinal Beaton and his party learn that the king had expired than, guessing all that Henry and his party in Scotland would attempt, they took measures to secure the young queen and the sovereign power. Beaton produced a will as that of James, appointing him regent and guardian of the young queen, assisted by a council of the Earls of Argyll, Huntly, and Murray. The Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, on the other hand, declared this will to be a forgery, and being himself the next heir to the throne, after the infant queen, he assumed the right to make himself her guardian, and to order the kingdom for her. By means of the Protestant nobles, as well as the vassals of his own house, and the prevailing opinion that Beaton had forged the will, Arran succeeded in establishing himself as regent on the 22nd of December, 1542, and the Protestant influence was in the ascendant. It was now conceded that Angus and the Douglases should be recalled from their exile, and they quitted England in the following January, the Earl of Arran giving them a safe-conduct.

It was a deadly warfare between the Protestant and Papal parties. A list of 360 of the nobles and gentry was produced by Arran, which was said to have been found on the person of the king, all of whom were proscribed as heretics, and doomed to confiscation of their estates and other punishments. This list, which the Romanists in their turn denounced as forged, was vehemently charged on Beaton, who was said to have drawn it up when the heads of the army refused to march into England. The Earl of Arran himself stood at the head of the list. The cardinal, who saw the imminent danger of his cause and party, despatched trusty agents to France to solicit instant aid in money and troops, to defend the interests and guard the persons of the queen-dowager, Mary of Guise, and the royal infant. To hasten the movements of the house of Guise, he represented the certain dependence of Scotland on England if the king of England succeeded in accomplishing the marriage of the infant queen with his son.

To silence the cardinal, he was seized and incarcerated in the castle of Blackness, under the care of Lord Seton; and a negotiation was actively carried on through Sir Ralph Sadler for the marriage of the infant queen and the Prince of Wales. It was agreed that Mary should remain in Scotland till she was ten years of age; that she should then be sent to England to be educated; that six Scottish noblemen should be at once delivered to Henry as hostages for the fulfilment of the contract; and when the union of the two kingdoms should take place, Scotland should retain all its own laws and privileges.

But though Beaton was in prison, his spirit was abroad. The clergy had the highest faith in the talents and influence of the cardinal. They considered his liberation as necessary to avert the ruin of their party, and they put in motion all their machinery for rousing the people. They shut up the churches, and refused to administer the sacraments or bury the dead; and the priests and monks were thus set at liberty from all other duties to harangue and influence the passions of the people. Everywhere it was declared that Arran, the regent, had formed a league with Angus and the Douglases, who had been so long in England, to sell the country and the queen to England under the pretence of a marriage; that this was what the English monarchs had long been seeking; and that not only the Douglases, but Arran himself, were pensioned by Henry for the purpose. That this was but too true, the State Papers amply prove. Henry and his successors spared no money for this end; and the traitorous bargaining of a great number of the Scottish nobles with the English monarchs stands too well evidenced under their own hands.

At this juncture Cardinal Beaton managed to escape from his prison, from which he had never ceased to correspond with and inspirit his party. How he came to escape has been considered a mystery; but perhaps that mystery is not very deep when we reflect that Lord Seton, in whose custody he was, was a man, though related to the Hamiltons, yet of a most loyal temper, and a decided Romanist. Seton negotiated with Beaton to give up his castle of St. Andrews; and, as if this could not be accomplished without the cardinal's presence on the spot, Seton allowed him to accompany him, but with so small a force, that the moment the cardinal stood in his own castle he declared himself at liberty, and Seton had no power to say nay had he wished it. As no punishment or even censure befell Lord Seton on this account, it is most probable that Arran himself was cognisant of the scheme. What makes this more likely is that Hamilton, the abbot of Paisley, the natural brother of Arran, the Regent, had returned just before from France; and that he was at the bottom of the plot may not unreasonably be supposed, from the fact that he very soon exercised a powerful influence over the weaker mind of the Regent. Through the means of the abbot, Beaton even attempted to accommodate matters with Henry. He declared that he was sincerely desirous of the union of the young queen and the Prince of Wales, so that there should be peace between the countries, yet a peace preserving the independence of each. But this independence of Scotland was the very thing which Henry was determined to annihilate, and he pressed his desires for it with such violence that all hopes of an amicable arrangement vanished.

To induce Henry to pause in his fatal career, Sir George Douglas hastened to London, and prevailed on him to abate the extravagance of his demands. The immediate delivery of the infant queen, the surrender of the fortresses and of the Government into the hands of Henry, were waived, and Douglas returned to Scotland, bearing proposals of marriage of a more reasonable kind. Henry, however, did not abandon his schemes in secret. In the Public Record office there is a memorandum in the hand of Wriothesley, saying that "the articles be so reasonable, that if the ambassadors of Scotland will not agree to them, then it shall be mete the king's majesty follow out his purpose by force." Sir George Douglas renewed the offer formerly made by Henry to Arran, of marrying the Princess Elizabeth and his eldest son, and Sir George and Glencairn were sent to London to assist the ambassadors in bringing the negotiation to a close.

But Arran was assailed as vehemently on the other side by the cardinal, and the queen-dowager, who was the real head of the party. They sent Lennox to endeavour to win him over to their side, so that all Scotland might unite against Henry. Lennox delivered a very flattering message from Francis I. to the Regent, offering him both men and money to resist any attempt of invasion by the English; but this failing, the queen-dowager and Beaton prosecuted the negotiation with France, and it was agreed that 2,000 men, under Montgomerie, Sieur de Lorges, should be sent to Scotland. The queen and cardinal called on their partisans to assemble their followers and garrison their castles, whilst Grimani, the Pope's legate, was entreated to hasten to Scotland with a formidable store of anathemas and excommunications. The clergy assembled in convention at St. Andrews, and so ardent were they in the cause which they believed to be that of the very existence of the Church, that they pledged themselves to raise the sum required for the war against England, and, if necessary, not only to melt down the church plate, and to sacrifice their private fortunes, but to fight in person.

Whilst public opinion was in this state of fermentation, Henry VIII., irritated at the conduct of the cardinal and a large body of the nobles, committed one of those rash and foolish acts, into which the wild fury of his temper often precipitated him. After the proclamation of peace, a fleet of Scottish merchant vessels, driven by a storm, took refuge in an English port, where, under the recent treaty, they deemed themselves safe. But Henry had just proclaimed war on France and, making that a pretence, he accused them of carrying provisions to his enemies, and detained them. At this outrage the people of Edinburgh surrounded the house of Sadler the English ambassador, and threatened to burn him in it if the ships were not restored. Arran, the governor, came in for his share of the odium as the staunch ally of Henry; and the common friends of Arran and Henry, the traitorous faction of Angus, Cassillis, Glencairn, and the other barons under secret bond to England, proposed to call out their forces for immediate war. These base sons of a brave country asserted that the time was come for Henry to send a great army into Scotland, with which they would co-operate, "for the conquest of the realm."

Everything boded the immediate outbreak of a bloody war, when a surprising revolution took place. On the 3rd of September, Arran declared to Sir Ralph Sadler that he was devotedly attached to the interests of Henry, and within a week afterwards he met the cardinal at Callender House, the seat of Lord Livingston, and entered into a complete reconciliation with him. A short time before Beaton had refused to hold any intercourse with him for fear of his life, and now he was seen riding amicably with him towards Stirling. This singular exhibition was followed by Arran's renunciation of Protestantism; his return, with full absolution, into communion with the Roman Church; his surrender of the treaties with England, and the delivery of his son as a pledge of his sincerity. So marvellous a conversion must have had powerful causes, and they are only to be explained by the weakness of Arran's character, and the artful and alarming representations of his more able brother, the abbot of Paisley. This zealous partisan of both France and the cardinal is said to have persuaded him that by renouncing the Papal supremacy, and allying himself with the arch-enemy of Rome, Henry of England, he was running imminent danger of the total loss of his titles, estates, and claim to the Regency, which could only be maintained by the Pope declaring valid the divorce of his father from his former wife. All Scotland was now united in its enmity to England.

The year 1544 found Henry bent on war both with Scotland and France. Francis had deeply offended him by disapproving of his divorce and murder of Anne Boleyn, and by his refusal to follow his advice in repudiating his allegiance to the Pope. Francis had declared that he was Henry's friend, but only as far as the altar. Charles V., aggravated as had been the conduct of Henry towards him, by his divorce of his aunt Catherine, and the stigma of illegitimacy which he had cast on her daughter the Princess Mary, was yet by no means displeased to observe the growing differences between Henry and his rival Francis. He, therefore, like a genuine politician, dropped his resentment on account of Catherine, and professed to believe that it was time to bury these remembrances in oblivion. The only obstacle to peace between them was the declared illegitimacy and exclusion from the succession of Mary. Henry lost no time in getting over this point. He had no need to confess himself wrong; he had a staunch Parliament who would do anything he required. Parliament, therefore, passed an Act restoring both Mary and Elizabeth to their political rights. Nothing was said of their illegitimacy, but they were restored to their place in the succession. Thus the Parliament had gone backward and forward at Henry's bidding to such an extent that now it was treason to assert the legitimacy of the princesses, and it was treason to deny it; for if they were illegitimate they could not claim the throne. It was treason to be silent, according to the former Act on this head, and it was now treason to refuse to take an oath on it when required. To such infamy did honourable members of Parliament stoop under this extraordinary despot.

This sorry compromise having been accepted by the necessities rather than the will of the Emperor, Henry and he now made a treaty on these terms: 1st, That they should jointly require the French king to renounce his alliance with the Turks, and to make reparation to the Christians for all the losses which they had sustained in consequence of that alliance; 2nd, That Francis should be compelled to pay up to the King of England the arrears of his pension, and give security for a more punctual payment in future; 3rd, That if Francis did not comply with these terms within forty days, the Emperor should seize the duchy of Burgundy, Henry all the territories of France which had belonged to his ancestors, and that both monarchs should be ready to enforce their claims at the head of a competent army.

As Francis refused to listen to these terms, and would not even permit the messengers of the newly allied sovereigns to cross his frontiers, the Emperor, who was now desirous of recovering the towns which he had lost in Flanders, obtained from Henry a reinforcement of 6,000 men under Sir John Wallop, who laid siege to Landrecies; whilst Charles himself, with a still greater force, overran the duchy of Cleves, and compelled the duke, the devoted partisan of France, to acknowledge the Imperial allegiance. Charles then marched to the siege of Landrecies, and Francis approached at the head of a large army. A great battle now appeared inevitable; but Francis, manoeuvring as for a fight, contrived to throw provisions into the town and withdrew. Imperialists and English pursued the retiring army; and the English, by too much impetuosity, suffered considerable loss. Henry promised himself more decided advantage in the next campaign, which he intended to conduct in person. This he had not been able to make illustrious by his presence; for he had been busily engaged with his approaching marriage to a sixth wife.

The lady who had this time been elevated to this perilous eminence was the Lady Catherine Latimer, the widow of Lord Latimer, already mentioned for his concern in the Pilgrimage of Grace. She was born Catherine Parr, a daughter of Sir Thomas Parr. She was fourth cousin to Henry himself, and had been twice married previous to his wedding her. She was the widow of Lord Borough, of Gainsborough, at fifteen, and was about thirty when Henry married her, only a few months after the death of her second husband, Lord Latimer.

Catherine Parr, as she still continues to be called, was educated under the care of her mother at Kendal Castle, and received a very learned education for a woman of those times. She read and wrote Latin fluently, had some knowledge of Greek, and was mistress of several modern languages. She is said to have been handsome, but of very small and delicate features. At all times she appears to have been of remarkable thoughtfulness and prudence, extremely amiable, and became thoroughly devoted to Protestantism; and she may, indeed, justly be styled the first Protestant Queen of England, for Anne of Cleves, though educated in the Protestant faith, became a decided Papist in this country. It was not till after the death of Lord Latimer that her Protestant tendencies, however, were known; yet then, she seems to have made no secret of them, for her house became the resort of Coverdale, Latimer, Parkhurst, and other eminent Reformers, and sermons were frequently preached in her chamber of state, which it is surprising did not attract the attention of the king. The marriage took place on the 12th of July, 1543, in the queen's closet at Hampton Court.

The spring of 1544 opened with active preparations for Henry's campaign in France. During the winter, Gonzaga, the viceroy of Sicily, was despatched to London by Charles, to arrange the plan of operations. An admirable one was devised, had Henry been the man to assist in carrying it out. The emperor was to enter France by Champagne, and Henry by Picardy, and, instead of staying to besiege the towns on the route, they were to dash on to Paris where, their forces uniting, they might consider themselves masters of the French capital, or in a position to dictate terms to Francis. In May the Imperialists were in the field, and Henry landed at Calais in June, and by the middle of July he was within the bounds of France, at the head of 20,000 English and 15,000 Imperialists.

But neither of the invaders kept to the original plan. Charles stopped by the way to reduce Luxembourg, Ligne, and St. Didier. Had Henry, however, pushed on with his imposing army to Paris, Francis would have been at the mercy of the allies. But Henry, ambitious to rival the military successes of Charles, and take towns too, instead of making the capital his object, turned aside to besiege Boulogne and Montreuil. The Imperial ambassador, sensible of the fatality of this proceeding, urged Henry with all his eloquence during eleven days to push on: and Charles, to take from him any further excuse for delay, hastened forward along the right bank of the Marne, avoiding all the fortified towns. But when once Henry had undertaken an object, opposition only increased his resolution, and he lost all consciousness of everything but the one idea of asserting his mastery. In vain, therefore, did Charles send messengers imploring him to advance; for more than two months he continued besieging Boulogne, and the golden opportunity was lost.

Francis seized on the delay to make terms with Charles. He sent to him a Spanish monk of the name of Guzman, and a near relative of Charles's confessor, proposing terms of accommodation. Charles readily listened to them, and sent to Henry to learn his demands. These demands were something enormous, and whilst Francis demurred, Charles continued his march, and arrived at ChÂteau-Thierry, almost in the vicinity of Paris. The circumstances of both Francis and Charles now mutually inclined them to open separate negotiations. Francis saw a foreign army menacing his capital, but Charles, on the other hand, saw the French army constantly increasing between him and his strange ally, whom nothing could induce to move from the walls of Boulogne. Under these circumstances Charles consented to offer Francis the terms which he had demanded before the war, and which he had refused; but now came the news that the English had taken Boulogne, and the French king at once accepted them. The Treaty of CrÉpy, as this was called, bound the two sovereigns to unite for the defence of Christendom against the Turks, and to unite their families by the marriage of the second son of Francis with a daughter of Charles. Henry, on his part, having placed a strong garrison in Boulogne, raised the siege of Montreuil, and returned to England, like a great conqueror, as he always did, from his distant campaigns.

By the end of April a scheme to assassinate Cardinal Beaton, of which Henry was cognisant, having failed, he was prepared to pour on Scotland the vial of his murderous wrath. A fleet of a hundred sail, under the command of Lord Lisle, the High Admiral of England, appeared suddenly in the Forth. The Scots seem to have by no means been dreaming of such a visitant, and it threw the capital into the greatest consternation. In four days, such was the absence of preparation, such the public paralysis, that Hertford was permitted to land his troops and his artillery without the sight of a single soldier. He had advanced from Granton to Leith when Arran and the cardinal threw themselves in his way with a miserable handful of followers, who were instantly dispersed and Leith was given up to plunder.

The citizens of Edinburgh, finding themselves deserted by the governor, flew to arms, under the command of Otterburn of Redhall, the provost of the city. Otterburn proceeded to the English camp and, obtaining an interview with Lord Hertford, complained of this unlooked-for invasion, and offered to accommodate all differences. But Hertford returned a haughty answer that he was not come to negotiate, for which he had no power, but to lay waste town and country with fire and sword unless the young queen were delivered to him. The people of Edinburgh, on hearing this insolent message, vowed to perish to a man rather than condescend to such baseness. They set about to defend their walls and sustain the attack of the enemy; but they found that Otterburn, who had tampered secretly with the English before this, had stolen unobserved away. They appointed a new provost, and manned their walls so stoutly that they compelled Hertford to fetch up his battering ordnance from Leith. Seeing very soon that it was impossible to defend their gates from this heavy ordnance, they silently collected as much of their property as they could carry, and abandoned the town. Hertford took possession of it; and then sought to reduce the castle. But finding this useless, he set fire to the city; and, reinforced by 4,000 horse, under Lord Eure, he employed himself in devastating the surrounding country with a savage ferocity, which no doubt had been commanded by the bitter malice of the English king.

FRANCIS I.

(From the Portrait in the Louvre, attributed to the Elder Clouet.)