REIGN OF HENRY VIII. (continued).

The Maid of Kent and Her Accomplices—Act of Supremacy and Consequent Persecutions—The "Bloody Statute"—Deaths of Fisher and More—Suppression of the Smaller Monasteries—Trial and Death of Anne Boleyn—Henry Marries Jane Seymour—Divisions in the Church—The Pilgrimage of Grace—Birth of Prince Edward—Death of Queen Jane—Suppression of the Larger Monasteries—The Six Articles—Judicial Murders—Persecution of Cardinal Pole—Cromwell's Marriage Scheme—Its Failure and his Fall.

The discontent aroused in the country amongst those attached to the church of Rome, by the separation, and by the seizure of church property, with the fear of still greater spoliation, excited many murmurings. The king, aware that his proceedings were regarded with disapprobation by a vast body of people both at home and abroad, grew suspicious of every rumour, jealous, and vindictive. Amongst the singular conspiracies against the royal transactions, one of the earliest arose out of the visions of a young woman of Addington, in Surrey, of the name of Elizabeth Barton, who was of a nervous temperament, and whose mind was greatly excited by the sufferings of Queen Catherine. The rector of the parish, struck by many of the words which fell from her in her trances, regarded her as a religiously inspired person, and recommended her to quit the village, and enter the convent of St. Sepulchre at Canterbury. There her ecstacies and revelations, probably strengthened by the atmosphere of the place, became more frequent and strong. The nuns regarded her declarations as prophecies, and the fame of her soon spread round the country, where she acquired the name of the "Holy Maid of Kent." It was observed that her visions had all a tendency to exalt the power of the Pope and the clergy, and to denounce the vengeance of Heaven on all who disobeyed or attempted to injure them. At length Henry considered that the words of the maid, which were sedulously taken down and circulated through the press, were a powerful means of stirring up the popular feeling against him, and he therefore ordered the arrest of herself and the chief of her accomplices.

In November they were brought into the Star Chamber and carefully examined by Cranmer, the archbishop, Cromwell, and Hugh Latimer, who soon after was made Bishop of Worcester. This tribunal appears to have intimidated both the maid and her abettors into a confession of the imposture, and they were condemned to stand during the sermon on Sunday at St. Paul's Cross, and there acknowledge the fraud. After that they were remanded to prison, and it was thought that, having disarmed these people by this exposure, he would be satisfied with the punishment they had received. But Henry was now become every day more and more addicted to blood, and ready to shed it for any infringement of those almost Divine rights which the supremacy of the Church had conferred on him. On the 21st of February, 1534, therefore, a bill of attainder was brought into the House of Lords against the maid and her abettors, on the plea that their conspiracy tended to bring into peril the king's life and crown. The bill, notwithstanding that it was regarded with horror by the public as a strange and cruel stretch of authority, was passed by the slavish Parliament; and on the 21st of April, 1534, the seven accused were drawn to Tyburn and hanged. Besides the persons who suffered immediately with her, there were also accused of corresponding with her, Edward Thwaites, gentleman, Thomas Lawrence, registrar to the Archdeacon of Canterbury, the venerable Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More.

Fisher, who was in his seventy-sixth year, confessed that he had seen and conversed with Elizabeth Barton; that he had heard her utter her prophecies concerning the king; and that he had not mentioned them to the sovereign, because her declarations did not refer to any violence against him, but merely to a visitation of Providence; and because, also, he knew that the king had received the communication of the prophecies from the maid herself, who had had for that purpose a private audience with Henry. He was, therefore, he said, guiltless of any conspiracy, and as he would answer it before the throne of Christ, knew not of any malice or evil that was intended by her or by any other earthly creature unto the king's highness.

The name of Sir Thomas More was erased from this bill, though he could not be more innocent than Fisher, but not more than a fortnight passed before the bloodthirsty tyrant had contrived a more deadly snare for them both. He had them summoned, and commanded to take the new oath of allegiance. They were both of them ready to swear to the king's full temporal authority, and to the succession of his children, but they could not conscientiously take the oath which declared Henry the supreme head of the English Church, and the marriage with Anne Boleyn lawful. Cranmer, who on this occasion showed more mildness and liberality than he had shown honest principles in his elevation, would fain have admitted these illustrious men to take the oath so far as it applied to temporal, and to dispense with it as regarded spiritual matters. But he pleaded in vain, and they were both committed to the Tower.

Henry, having got the Acts of Parliament for the Supremacy and the Succession, was not of a temper to let them become a dead letter. Whether it was owing to the carelessness of Parliament or the carefulness of the Crown, the oath of the Succession had not been verbally defined, and Henry now availed himself of this emission to alter and add to it so as to please himself. From the clergy he took care to obtain an oath including the full recognition of his supremacy in the Church, omitting the qualifying clause in the former one; and an assertion that the Bishop of Rome had no more authority within the realm than any other bishop. He spent the summer in administering this oath to the monks, friars, and nuns, also to all clergymen and clerical bodies whatever, and in obtaining decisions against the papal authority from the two convocations and the universities. The oath to the laity was administered to men and women alike. Remembering the mental reservation of Cranmer when he swore obedience to the Pope, he now demanded from every prelate an oath of renunciation of every protest previously or secretly made contrary to the oath of supremacy. He ordered that the very word Pope should be obliterated carefully out of all books used in public worship.

If Henry had been a zealous Reformer, a disciple of the new creed, we might have attributed his proceedings to an arbitrary and uncharitable earnestness for what he deemed the truth; but he was just as bigoted in the old faith as ever. His Bloody Statute, as it was called, the Statute of Six Articles, maintained that the actual presence was in the sacramental bread and wine; that priests were forbidden to marry; that vows of chastity were to be observed; and that mass and auricular confession were indispensable. Those who opposed any of these dogmas were to suffer death; no doctrine was to be believed contrary to the Six Articles; no persons were to sing or rhyme contrary to them; no book was to be possessed by any one against the Holy Sacrament; no annotations or preambles were to exist in Bibles or Testaments in English; and nothing was to be taught contrary to the king's command. In fact, the country had only got rid of an Italian Pope and got an English one in his stead—Pope Henry VIII.

The first-fruits of this awful concession to a vain and selfish man of the usurpation of God's own dominion in the soul, were an indiscriminating mass of Lollards, Lutherans, Anabaptists, and Roman Catholics committed to the flames. On the 22nd of July, during the prorogation of Parliament, Firth, a young man of singular learning, who had written a book against purgatory, transubstantiation, and consubstantiation, was burnt in Smithfield; and a poor tailor, Andrew Hewett, who simply affirmed that he thought Firth was right, was burnt with him. Several Anabaptists underwent the same fate.

As that year closed in blood, so the next opened. The priors of the then Charterhouses of London, Axholm, and Belleval, waited on Cromwell to explain their conscientious scruples; but Cromwell, who was become the harsh and unhesitating instrument of Henry's despotism, instead of listening to them, committed them to the Tower on a charge of high treason, for refusing the king "the dignity, style, and name of his Royal estate." When he brought them to trial the jury shrank from giving such a verdict against men of their acknowledged virtue and character. Cromwell hastened to the court in person, and threatened to hang them instead of the prisoners, if they did not without further delay pronounce them guilty. Five days later these three dignitaries were executed at Tyburn, with Richard Reynolds, a doctor of divinity and monk of Sion, and John Hailes, Vicar of Thistleworth. They were all treated with savage barbarity, being hanged, cut down alive, embowelled, and dismembered. On the 18th of June, nearly a fortnight afterwards, Exmew, Middlemore, and Newdigate, three Carthusian monks from the Charterhouse, were executed, with the same atrocities.

Whilst these horrors struck with consternation all at home, Henry proceeded to a deed which extended the feeling of abhorrence all over Europe. He shed the blood of Fisher and More. We have stated that Parliament had not enacted the precise oath for the refusal of which Fisher and More were arraigned. But this made no difference: the king willed it, and the submissive legislature passed a bill of attainder for misprision of treason against them both. On this they and their families were stripped of everything they had. The poor old bishop was left in a complete state of destitution, and had not even clothes to cover his nakedness. Sir Thomas More was dependent wholly for the support of his life on his married daughter, Margaret Roper. They were repeatedly called up after their attainder, and treacherously examined as to any act or word that they might have done or uttered contrary to the king's supremacy, as if to aggravate their crime and justify a more rigorous sentence. The Pope Clement was dead, and was succeeded by Paul III., who, hearing of the sad condition of the venerable Fisher, sent him a cardinal's hat, thinking it might make Henry less willing to proceed to extremities with him. But the effect on the tyrant was quite the contrary. On hearing of the Pope's intention, he exclaimed, "Ha! Paul may send him a hat, but I will take care that he have never a head to wear it on."

Accordingly, the aged prelate was brought out of the Tower on the 22nd of June, 1535, and beheaded. His head was stuck upon London Bridge, with his face turned towards the Kentish hills, amid which he had spent so many pleasant years. The body of the old bishop was stripped, and left naked on the spot till evening, when it was carried away by the guards, and buried in Allhallows churchyard at Barking. Such was the manner in which this supreme head of the Church treated his former tutor, and one of the most accomplished and pious men in Christendom.

More, the scholar, the wit, the genius, raised reluctantly to the chancellorship, had there so far deteriorated from the noble mood in which he had written his "Utopia" as to have become, contrary to all its doctrines and spirit, a persecutor. On the 14th of June he was visited in the Tower by Doctors Aldridge, Layton, Curwen, and Mr. Bedle, and there strictly interrogated in the presence of Pelstede, Whalley, and Rice, as to whether he had held any correspondence since he came into the Tower with Bishop Fisher, or others, and what had become of the letters he had received. He replied that George, the lieutenant's servant, had put them into the fire, against his wish, saying there was no better keeper than the fire. He was then asked whether he would not acknowledge the lawfulness of the king's marriage, and his headship of the Church. He declined to give an answer.

At length, on the 1st of July, he was brought out of the Tower, and was conducted on foot through the streets of London to Westminster. He was wrapped only in a coarse woollen garment, his hair had grown grey, his face was pale and emaciated, for he had been nearly a year a close prisoner. This was thought well calculated to teach a lesson of obedience to the people; when they saw how the king handled even ex-chancellors and cardinals. When he arrived, bowed with suffering, and supporting himself on a staff, in that hall where he had presided with so much dignity, all who saw him were struck with astonishment. In order to confound him, and prevent the dreaded effect of his eloquence, his enemies had caused the indictment against him to be drawn out an immense length, and the charges to be grossly exaggerated and enveloped in clouds of words. Sentence of death was pronounced upon him, and he rose to address the Court. In the rudest manner they attempted to silence him, and twice, by their clamour, they succeeded; but the firmness of the noble victim at length triumphed, and he told them that he could now openly avow what he had before concealed from every human being, that the oath of supremacy was contrary to English law. He declared that he had no enmity against his judges. There would, he observed, have always been a scene of contention, and he prayed that as Paul had consented to the death of Stephen, and yet was afterwards called to tread in the same path, and ascend to the same heaven, so might he and they yet meet there. "And so," he added, in conclusion, "may God preserve you all, and especially my lord the king, and send him good counsel."

As he turned from the bar, his son rushed through the hall, fell upon his knees, and implored his blessing; and, on approaching the Tower Wharf, his daughter, Margaret Roper, forced her way through the guard which surrounded him, and, clasping him round the neck, wept and sobbed aloud. The noble man, now clothed with all the calm dignity of the Christian philosopher, summoned fortitude enough to take a loving and a final farewell of her; but as he was moved on, the distracted daughter turned back, and, flying once more through the crowd, hung on his neck in the abandonment of grief. This was too much for his stoicism; he shed tears, whilst with deep emotion he repeated his blessing, and uttered words of Christian consolation. The people and the guards were so deeply affected, that they too burst into tears, and it was some time before the officers could summon resolution to part the father and his child.

On the 6th of July he was summoned to execution, and informed that the king, as an especial favour, had commuted his punishment from hanging, drawing, and quartering, to decapitation. On this Sir Thomas, who had now taken his leave of the world, and met death with the cheerful humour of a man who is well assured that he is on the threshold of a better, replied with his wonted promptitude of wit, "God preserve all my friends from such favour." As he was about to ascend the scaffold, some one expressed a fear lest it should break down, for it appeared weak. "Mr. Lieutenant," said More, smiling, "see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself." The executioner then approached, and asked his forgiveness. More embraced him, and said, "Friend, thou wilt render me the greatest service in the power of any mortal; but," putting an angel into his hand, "my neck is so short, that I fear thou wilt gain little credit in the way of thy profession." The same fear of the eloquence of the illustrious victim which had attempted to stop his mouth on the trial, now forbade him to address the multitude; he therefore contented himself with saying that he died a faithful subject to the king, and a true Catholic before God. He then prayed, and, laying his head upon the block, bade the executioner stay his hand a moment while he put back his beard. For "that," said he, "has never committed any treason." His head was severed at a single blow, and was, like Fisher's, fixed on London Bridge.

But it was not merely in lopping off the heads of honest statesmen and prelates that Henry VIII. now displayed the powers of supreme head over the Church. There was a more tempting prey which allured his avaricious soul, and promised to recruit his exhausted treasury. These were the monasteries, convents, and abbeys. These institutions had grown excessively corrupt through time. Without depending on the reports of Henry's commissioners, whose business it was to make out a case for him against them, there is abundant evidence in contemporary writings that the monks, nuns, and friars were grown extremely sensual and corrupt. Rage and cupidity alike urged Henry to imitate the Reformers of Germany, and seize the spoils of this wealthy body. Cromwell—whom he had appointed Vicar-General, a strange office for a layman—went the whole length with him in those views; nay, he was the man who first turned his eyes on this great attractive mass of wealth, and hallooed him to the spoil. He had told him that, if once he was established by Parliament as head of the Church, all that opulence was his. There can be no doubt that it was to carry out this seizure that Cromwell was put into that very office of Vicar-General, as the only man to do the business, and he went to work upon it with right good will.

The first thing was to appoint a commission, and to obtain such a report as should induce Parliament to pass an act of suppression of the religious houses, and the forfeiture of all their property to the Crown. The Archbishop of Paris, years before, had confidently affirmed, that whenever Wolsey should fall, the spoliation of the Church would quickly follow. To expedite this matter as much as possible, the whole kingdom was divided into districts, and to each district was appointed a couple of commissioners, who were armed with eighty-six questions to propound to the monastic orders. As acknowledgment of the supremacy of the king and approbation of his marriage were made requisites of compliance, there was little chance of escape for any monastery, be its morals what they might.

The visitors had secret instructions to seek, in the first place, the lesser houses, and to exhort the inmates voluntarily to surrender them to the king, and, where they did not succeed, to collect such a body of evidence as should warrant the suppression of those houses; but after zealously labouring at this object through the winter, they could only prevail on seven small houses to surrender. A report was then prepared, which considerably surprised the public by stating that the lesser houses were abandoned to the most shameful sloth and immorality, but that the large and more opulent ones, contrary to all human experience, were more orderly. The secret of this representation was, that the abbots and priors of the great houses were lords of Parliament, and were, therefore, present to expose any false statement.

On the 4th of March, 1536, a bill was passed hastily through both Houses, transferring to the king and his heirs all monastic establishments the clear value of which did not exceed £200 per annum. It was calculated that this bill—which, however, did not pass the Commons till Henry had sent for them, and told them that he would apply his favourite remedy for stiff necks—would dissolve no less than 380 communities, and add £32,000 to the annual income of the Crown, besides the presents received of £100,000 in money, plate, and jewels. The cause of these presents was a clause in the Act of Parliament, which left it to the discretion of the king to found any of these houses anew; a clause which was actively worked by Cromwell and his commissioners, and, by the hopes they inspired, drew large sums from the menaced brethren, part of which lodged in the pockets of the minister and his agents, and part reached the Crown. Cromwell amassed a large fortune from such sources.

The Parliament, which had now sat seven years, and which was one of the most slavish and base bodies that ever were brought together—having yielded every popular right and privilege which the imperious monarch demanded, and augmented the Royal prerogative to a pitch of actual absolutism; having altered the succession, changed the system of ecclesiastical government, abolished a great number of the ancient religious houses without thereby much benefiting the Crown—was now dismissed, having done that for this worthless king which should cost some of his successors their thrones or their heads, and a braver and more honourable generation the blood of its best men to undo again.

Anne Boleyn, on hearing of Catherine's death, which occurred in January, 1536, was so rejoiced that she could not help crying out, "Now I am indeed a queen!" And yet, in truth, never had she less cause for triumph. Already the lecherous eye of her worthless husband had fallen on one of her maids, as it had formerly fallen on one of Catherine's in her own person. This was Jane Seymour, a daughter of a knight of Wiltshire, who was not only of great beauty, but was distinguished for a gentle and sportive manner, equally removed from the Spanish gravity of Catherine and the French levity of Anne Boleyn. Before the death of Catherine, this fresh amour of Henry's was well known in the palace to all but the reigning queen; and, according to Wyatt, Anne only became aware of it by entering a room one day, and beholding Jane Seymour seated on Henry's knee, in a manner the most familiar, and as if accustomed to that indulgence. She saw at once that not only was Henry ready to bestow his regards on another, but that other was still more willing to step into her place than she had been to usurp that of Catherine. Anne was far advanced in pregnancy, and was in great hopes of riveting the king's affections to her by the birth of a prince; but the shock which she now received threw her into such agitation that she was prematurely delivered—of a boy, indeed, but dead. Henry, the moment that he heard of this unlucky accident, rushed into the queen's chamber, and upbraided her savagely "with the loss of his boy." Anne, stung by this cruelty, replied that he had to thank himself and "that wench Jane Seymour" for it. The fell tyrant retired, muttering his vengeance, and the die was now cast irrevocably for Anne Boleyn, if it were not before.

It was a great misfortune for Anne that she had never been able to lay aside that levity of manner which she had acquired by spending her juvenile years at the French Court. After her elevation to the throne, she was too apt to forget, with those about her, the sober dignity which belonged to the queen, and to converse with the officers about her more in the familiar manner of the maid-of-honour which she had once been. This freedom and gaiety had been caught at by the Court gossips, and now scandals were whispered abroad, and, as soon as the way was open by the anger and fresh love affair of the king, carried to him. Such accusations were precisely what he wanted, as a means to rid himself of her. A plot was speedily concocted, in which she was to be charged with criminal conduct towards not only three officers of the Royal household—Brereton, Weston, and Norris—but also with Mark Smeaton, the king's musician, and, still more horrible, with her own brother, the Viscount Rochford. A court of inquiry was at once appointed, in which presided Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, Anne's determined enemies. On the 28th of April they began with Brereton, and committed him to the Tower. On Sunday, the 31st, they examined Smeaton, and sent him also to the same prison. The following day, being the 1st of May, the court was suspended to celebrate the gaieties usual on that day; and these were used for the purpose of obtaining a public cause of accusation against Sir Henry Norris. There was to be held a tournament at Greenwich that day, in which the Viscount Rochford was to be opposed by Norris as the principal defendant.

In the midst of the tournament, Henry, who, no doubt, was watching for some opportunity to entrap his victims, suddenly found one. The queen, leaning over the balcony, witnessing the tournament, accidentally let fall her handkerchief. Norris took it up, and, it was said, presumptuously wiped his face with it, and then handed it to the queen on his spear. The thing is wholly improbable, the true version most likely being that the courtly Norris kissed the handkerchief on taking it up—an ordinary knightly usage—and that this was seized upon as a pretended charge against him. Henry, however, suddenly frowned, rose abruptly from his seat, and, black as a thunder-cloud, marched out of the gallery, followed by his six attendants. Every one was amazed; the queen appeared terror-stricken, and immediately retired. Sir Henry Norris, and not only Norris but Lord Rochford, who had had nothing whatever to do with the handkerchief (showing, therefore, that the matter was preconcerted), was arrested at the barriers on a charge of high treason. The queen herself was taken to her lodgings in the Tower.

Left alone in her prison, Anne's affliction seemed to actually disturb her intellect. She would sit for hours plunged in a stupor of melancholy, shedding torrents of tears, and then she would abruptly burst into wild laughter. To her attendants she would say that she should be a saint in heaven; that no rain would fall on the earth till she was delivered from prison; and that the most grievous calamities would oppress the nation in punishment for her death. At other times she became calm and devotional, and requested that a consecrated host might be placed in her closet.

But the unhappy queen was not suffered to enjoy much retirement. It was necessary for Henry to establish a charge against her sufficiently strong to turn the feeling of the nation against her, and from him; and for this purpose no means were neglected which tyranny and harshness of the intensest kind could suggest. Whilst the accused gentlemen were interrogated, threatened, cajoled, and even put to the torture in their cells, to force a confession of guilt from them, two women were set over Anne to watch her every word, look, and act, to draw from her in her unguarded conversation everything they could to implicate her, and, no doubt, to invent and colour where the facts did not sufficiently answer the purpose required. These were Lady Boleyn, the wife of Anne's uncle, Sir Edward Boleyn, a determined enemy of hers, and Mrs. Cosyns, the wife of Anne's master of the horse, a creature of the most unprincipled character.

Mrs. Cosyns asked her why Norris had told his almoner on the preceding Saturday "that he could swear the queen was a good woman?" "Marry," replied Anne, "I bade him do so, for I asked him why he did not go on with his marriage, and he made answer that he would tarry awhile. 'Then,' said I, 'you look for dead men's shoes. If aught but good should come to the king [who was then afflicted with a dangerous ulcer], you would look to have me.' He denied it, and I told him I could undo him if I would." Again, the queen expressed some apprehension of what Weston might say in his examination, for he had told her on Whit Monday last that Norris came into her chamber more for her sake than for Madge, one of her maids of honour. She had told him he did love her kinswoman, Mrs. Skelton, and that he loved not his wife; and he answered again that he loved one in his house better than them both. She asked him who, and he said, "Yourself," on which she defied him. Such was the stuff which Kingston gathered at the hands of these wretched spies, to be used against the queen, who was to be got rid of.

Anne exhorted Kingston to convey a letter from her to Cromwell, but he declined such a responsibility; she contrived, however, by some means, on the fourth day of her imprisonment, to forward a letter, which conveys a very different impression from the conversation reported by the female spies, through Cromwell to the king.

"Never," she wrote, "did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least alteration was fit and sufficient (I knew) to draw that fancy to some other object.

"Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and as my judges; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame. Then shall you see either mine innocency cleared, your suspicions and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared."

This letter, a copy of which was found amongst the papers of Cromwell, when his turn came to pay the penalty of serving that remorseless tyrant, is the letter of an innocent woman, and forms a strange contrast to the dubious language put into her mouth by those who reported her speech on the scaffold.

On the 10th of May an indictment for high treason was found by the grand jury of Westminster against Anne and the five gentlemen accused; and on the same day the four commoners were put upon their trial in Westminster Hall, for the alleged offences against the honour and life of their sovereign lord. A true bill was also found against them by the grand juries of Kent and Middlesex, some of the offences being laid in those counties, at Greenwich, Hampton Court, &c. Smeaton, the musician, was the only one who could be brought to confess his guilt; and it is declared by Constantyne, who was in attendance on the trials, and wrote an account of the proceedings, that he "had been grievously racked" to bring him to that confession. According to Grafton's chronicle, he was beguiled into signing the deposition which criminated the queen as well as himself, by an offer of pardon like that so repeatedly made to Norris. The weak man fell into the snare; the rest of the accused stood firmly by their innocence, and neither threats nor promises could move them from it. Norris was a great favourite with the king, who still appeared anxious to save his life, and sent to him, offering him again full pardon if he would confess his guilt. But Norris nobly declared that he believed in his conscience that the queen was wholly innocent of the crimes charged upon her; but whether she were so or not, he could not accuse her of anything, and that he would rather die a thousand deaths than falsely accuse the innocent. On this being told to Henry, he exclaimed, "Let him hang then! hang him up then!" All the four were condemned to death.

On the 16th of May Queen Anne and her brother, Lord Rochford, were brought to trial in the great hall in the Tower, a temporary court being erected within it for the purpose. The Duke of Norfolk, a known and notorious enemy of the accused, was created Lord High Steward for the occasion, and presided—a sufficient proof, if any were needed, that no justice was intended. His son, the Earl of Surrey, sat as Deputy Earl-Marshal beneath him. Twenty-six peers, as "lords-triers," constituted the court, and amongst these appeared the Duke of Suffolk, a nobleman still more inveterate in his hatred of the queen than the chief judge himself. The Earl of Northumberland, Anne's old lover, was one of the lords-triers; but he was seized with such a disorder, no doubt resulting from his memory of the past, that he was obliged to quit the court before the arraignment of Lord Rochford, and did not live many months. Henry, by his tyranny, had forcibly rent asunder his engagement with Anne; had embittered his life; and tired of the treasure which would have made Northumberland happy, he now called upon that injured man to assist in destroying one whom he had already lost.

Lord Rochford defended himself with such courage and ability that even in that packed court there were many who, by their sense of justice, were led to brave the vengeance of the terrible king, and voted for his acquittal. The chief witness against him was his own wife, who had hated Anne Boleyn from the moment that she became the king's favourite; and now with a most monstrous violation of all nature and decency, strove to destroy her queen and her own husband together. Spite of the impression which the young viscount made on some of his judges, he was condemned, for Henry willed it, and that was enough.

When he was removed Anne, Queen of England, was summoned into court, and appeared attended by her ladies and Lady Kingston, and was conducted to the bar by the Constable and Lieutenant of the Tower. She stood alone, without counsel or adviser; yet in that trying moment she displayed a dignified composure worthy of her station and of the character of an innocent woman. Crispin, Lord of Milherve, who was present, says that "she presented herself at the bar with the true dignity of a queen, and curtsied to her judges, looking round upon them all without any signs of fear." When the indictment against her, charging her with adultery and incest, had been read, she held up her hand and pleaded not guilty.

Anne seems to have shown great ability and address on the occasion. She is said to have spoken with extraordinary force, wit, and eloquence, and so completely scattered all the vile tissue of lies that was brought against her, that the spectators imagined that there was nothing for it but to acquit her. "It was reported without doors," says Wyatt, "that she had cleared herself in a most wise and noble speech." But, alas! it was neither wisdom, wit, truth, innocence, eloquence, nor all the powers and virtues which could be assembled in one soul, which could draw an acquittal from that assembly of slaves bound by selfish terror to the yoke of the remorseless despot who now disgraced the throne. "Had the peers given their verdict, according to the expectation of the assembly," says Bishop Godwin, "she had been acquitted." But they knew they must give it according to the expectation of their implacable master, and she was condemned.

Henry lost no time in getting rid of the woman, to obtain whom he had moved heaven and earth for years—threatening the peace of kingdoms, and rending the ancient bonds of the Church. The very day on which she was condemned, he signed her death-warrant, and sent Cranmer to confess her. There is something rather hinted at than proved in this part of these strange proceedings. Anne, when she was conveyed from Greenwich to the Tower, told her enemies proudly that nothing could prevent her dying their queen; and now, when she had seen Cranmer, she was in high spirits, and said to her attendants that she believed she should be spared after all, and that she understood that she was to be sent to Antwerp. The meaning of this the event of next day sufficiently explained. In the morning, on a summons from Archbishop Cranmer, she was conveyed privately from the Tower to Lambeth, where she voluntarily submitted to a judgment that her marriage with the king had been invalid, and was, therefore, from the first null and void. Thus she consented to dethrone herself, to unwife herself, and to bastardise her only child. Why? Undoubtedly from the promise of life, and from fear of the horrid death by fire. As she had received the confident idea of escape with life from the visit of Cranmer, there can be no rational doubt that he had been employed by the king to tamper with her fears of death and the stake, and draw this concession from her. Does any one think this impossible or improbable in Cranmer—the great Reformer of the Church? Let him weigh his very next proceeding.

Cranmer had formerly examined the marriage of Henry and Anne carefully by the canon law, and had pronounced it good and valid. He now proceeded to contradict every one of his former arguments and decisions, and pronounced the same marriage null and void. A solemn mockery of everything true, serious, and Divine was now gone through. Henry appointed Dr. Sampson his proctor in the case; Anne had assigned her the Drs. Wotton and Barbour. The objections to the marriage were read over to them in the presence of the queen. The king's proctor could not dispute them; the queen's were, with pretended reluctance, obliged to admit them, and both united in demanding a judgment. Then the great Archbishop and Reformer, "having previously invoked the name of Christ, and having God alone before his eyes," pronounced definitively that the marriage formally contracted, solemnised, and consummated between Henry and Anne was from the first illegal, and, therefore, no marriage at all; and the poor woman, who had been induced to submit to this deed of shame and of infamous deception, was sent back, not to life, not to exile at Antwerp—but to the block!

Friday, the 19th of May, was the day fixed for her execution, and on that morning she rose at two o'clock and resumed her devotions with her almoner. She sent for Sir William Kingston to be witness to her last solemn protest of her innocence before taking the sacrament. A few minutes before twelve o'clock she was led forth by the Lieutenant of the Tower to the scaffold. "Never," said a foreign gentleman present, "had the queen looked so beautiful before." Her composure was equal to her beauty. She removed her hat and collar herself, and put a small linen cap upon her head, saying, "Alas! poor head, in a very brief space thou wilt roll in the dust on the scaffold; and as in life thou didst not merit to wear a crown, so in death thou deserved not better doom than this." She then took a very affectionate farewell of her ladies. Having given to Mary Wyatt, the sister of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who attended her through all her trouble, the little book of devotions which she held in her hand, and whispered to her some parting words, she laid her head on the block. One of the ladies then covered her eyes with a bandage, and as the poor queen was saying, "O Lord, have mercy on my soul," the executioner, who had been sent for from Calais, severed her head from her body at one stroke of the sword. Her body was thrust into a chest used for keeping arrows in, and buried in the same grave with that of her brother, Lord Rochford, no coffin being provided.

But if Henry had found a very submissive body in the Parliament, there was much discontent amongst the people, who were encouraged in their murmurs by the monks who had been dispossessed of their monasteries or who feared the approach of their fall, and by the clergy, who were equally alarmed at the progress of the opinions of the Reformers in the nation. There were two great factions in the Church and the Government, the opposed members of which were denominated the men of the Old and the New learning. At the head of the Old or Romanist faction were Lee, Archbishop of York; Stokesley, Bishop of London; Tunstal, Bishop of Durham; Gardiner, of Winchester; Sherbourne, of Chichester; Nix, of Norwich; and Kite, of Carlisle. These received the countenance and support of the Duke of Norfolk and of Wriothesley, the premier secretary. The leaders of the Reforming faction were Cranmer, the Primate; Latimer, Bishop of Worcester; Shaxton, of Salisbury; Hilsey, of Rochester; Fox, of Hereford; and Barlow, of St. David's. These were especially patronised by Cromwell, whose power as Vicar-General was great, and who was now made Lord Cromwell by the king.

Each of these parties, supported by a large body in the nation, endeavoured to make their way by flattering the vanity or the love of power of the capricious king. The Papist party swayed him to their side by his love of the old doctrines and rites; the Reformers, by his pride in opposing the Pope, and the gratification of his love of power as the independent head of the Church. In this transition state of things, the doctrines of the English Church, as settled by Convocation, exhibited a singular medley, and were liable at any moment to be disturbed by the momentary bias of the king, whose word was the only law of both Church and State. The Reformers succeeded in having the standard of faith recognised as existing in the Scriptures and the three creeds—the Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian; but then the Romanists had secured the retention of auricular confession and penance. As to marriage, extreme unction, confirmation, or holy orders, it was found that there could be no agreement in the belief in them as sacraments, and, therefore, they remained unmentioned, every one following his own fancy. The Real Presence was admitted in the sacrament of the Supper. The Roman Catholics asserted the warrant of Scripture for the use of images; but the Protestants denied this, and warned the people against idolatry in praying to them. The use of holy water, the ceremonies practised on Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and other Festivals, were still maintained, but Convocation, yielding to the Reformers, admitted that they had no power to remit sin.

The Church being in this divided state, each party pushed its own opinions and practice where it could, with the certain consequence that there was much feud and heart-burning, and the people were pulled hither and thither. In those places where the Reformers prevailed, they saw the images thrown down or removed, the ancient rites neglected or despised; and they felt themselves aggrieved, but more especially with the ordinances of Cromwell as Vicar-General, who retrenched many of their ancient holidays. He also incensed the clergy, by prohibiting the resort to places of pilgrimage, and the exhibition of relics. These greatly reduced the emoluments of the clergy, whom he on the other hand compelled to lay aside a considerable portion of their revenues for the repairs of the churches, and the assistance of the poor. This caused them to foment the discontents of the people, and the thousands of monks now wandering over the country, without home or subsistence, found ready listeners in the vast population which had been accustomed to draw their main support from the daily alms of the convents and monasteries. The people, seeing all these ancient sources of a lazy support suddenly cut off by Government, grew furious; and their disaffection was strengthened by observing that many of the nobility and gentry were equally malcontent, whose ancestry had founded monasteries, and who, therefore, looked upon them with feelings of family pride, and, moreover, regarded them as a certain provision for some of their younger children. There were many of all classes who thought with horror of the souls of their ancestors and friends, who, they believed, would now remain for ages in all the torments of purgatory, for want of masses to relieve them.

All these causes operating together produced formidable insurrections, both in the north and south. The first rising was in Lincolnshire. It was headed by Dr. Mackrel, the Prior of Barlings, who was disguised like a mechanic, and by another man in disguise, calling himself Captain Cobbler. The first attack was occasioned by the demand of a subsidy for the king, but the public mind was already in a state of high excitement, and this was only the spark that produced the explosion. Twenty thousand men quickly rose in arms, and forced several lords and gentlemen to be their leaders. Such as refused, they either threw into prison or killed on the spot. Amongst the latter was the Chancellor of Longland, an ecclesiastic by no means popular. The king sent a force against them under the Duke of Suffolk, attended by the Earls of Shrewsbury, Kent, Rutland, and Huntingdon.

Suffolk found the insurgents in such force that he thought it best to temporise, and demanded of them what they had to complain of. Thereupon the men of Lincolnshire drew up and presented to him a list of six articles of grievance. These consisted, first and foremost, of the suppression of the monasteries, by which they said great numbers of persons were put from their livings, and the poor of the realm were left unrelieved. Another complaint was of the fifteenth voted by Parliament, and of having to pay fourpence for a beast, and twelvepence for every twenty sheep. They affirmed that the king had taken into his councils personages of low birth and small reputation, who had got the forfeited lands into their hands, "most especial for their singular lucre and advantage." This was aimed by name, and with only too much justice, at Cromwell and Lord Rich, who had grown wealthy on the spoils of the abbeys. To these men they added the names of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Rochester, Salisbury, St. David's, and Dublin, whom they accused of having perverted the faith of the realm; and they especially attributed the severe exactions on the people to the Bishop of Lincoln and the officers of Cromwell, of whom it was rumoured that they meant to take the plate, jewels, and ornaments of the parish churches, as they had taken those of the religious houses.

The king answered by flatly refusing their petition, bidding them meddle no more in the affairs of their undoubted prince, but deliver up their ringleaders, and leave governing to him and his counsellors and noblemen. This bluster appears to have frightened the simple clodhoppers of the Fens; for we have, a few days later, another letter from the same swelling hand, telling them that he has heard from the Earl of Shrewsbury that they have shown a fitting repentance and sorrow for their folly and their heinous crimes; and assuring them that in any other Christian country they, their wives and children, would have been exterminated with fire and sword. He orders them to pile their arms in the market-place of Lincoln, and get away to their proper habitations and business, or, if they remain a day longer in arms, he will execute on them, their wives and children, the most terrible judgments that the world had ever known.

On the 30th of October, this frightened rabble, which seems to have been led on and then deserted by the clergy and gentry, dispersed, having first delivered up to the king's general fifteen of their ringleaders, amongst whom were Dr. Mackrel, the Prior of Barlings, and Captain Cobbler, said to have been a man of the name of Melton. These prisoners were afterwards executed as traitors, with all the barbarities of the age.

Scarcely, however, was the disturbance in Lincolnshire suppressed, when a far more formidable one broke out in the north. The people there were much more accustomed to arms, and their vicinity to the Scots created alarm at Court, lest the latter should take advantage of the rising to make an inroad into the country. The insurrection quickly spread over Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Westmoreland, and Lancashire. The Lord Darcy was conspicuous in it on the Borders, and there were calculated to be not less than 40,000 men in arms. Henry was this time seriously aroused, and sent Cromwell to the Jewel-house in the Tower to take as much plate as he thought could possibly be spared, and have it coined to pay troops, for he had no money in his coffers, notwithstanding all the monasteries which he had seized. Wriothesley, the Secretary of State, wrote from Windsor to Cromwell to expedite this business, superscribing his letter, "In haste—haste for thy life;" and telling him that the king appeared to fear much this matter, especially if he should want money, "for on the Lord Darcy his Grace had no great trust."

As soon as money could be coined, a good sum was sent to the Duke of Suffolk, who was posted at Newark, and who made free use of it in buying over some of the ringleaders, and in sowing dissensions among the insurgents. Meanwhile the Earl of Shrewsbury was made the king's Lord-Lieutenant north of the Trent, and the Duke of Norfolk was despatched into Yorkshire, to command there with 5,000 men. Robert Aske, a gentleman of ability, was at the head of the rebel forces, and he had given a religious character to the movement by styling it "The Pilgrimage of Grace." Priests marched in the van, in the habits of their various orders, carrying crosses and banners, on which were emblazoned the figure of Christ on the cross, the sacred chalice, and the five wounds of the Saviour. On their sleeves, too, were embroidered the five wounds, and the name of Christ on their centre. They had all sworn an oath that they had entered into the pilgrimage from no other motive than the love of God, the care of the king's person and issue, the desire of purifying the nobility, of driving base persons from the king, of restoring the Church, and suppressing heresy.

Wherever they came, they compelled the people to join their ranks, as they would answer it at the day of judgment, as they would bear the pulling down of their houses, and the loss of their goods and of their lives. They restored the monks and nuns to their houses as they went along. The cities of York, Hull, and Pontefract had opened their gates, and taken the prescribed oaths. The Archbishop of York, the Lords Darcy, Lumley, Latimer, and Neville, with a vast number of knights and gentlemen, gathered to their standard, either by free will or compulsion, and the army presented a formidable aspect. But there was already disunion in the host. The money of the Duke of Suffolk was doing its work, and Wriothesley soon wrote that the insurgents were falling to talking amongst themselves, and, if that went on, a pair of light heels would soon be worth five pairs of hands to them. The Earl of Cumberland repulsed them from his castle of Skipton; Sir Ralph Evers defended Scarborough against them; Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, the Earls of Huntingdon, Derby, and Rutland, took the field against them; and they only managed to take Pomfret Castle, because the Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York, lying there, were supposed to be secretly in league with them, and only made a show of force, which they might plead in case of failure.

The insurgents, quite aware that the Government, which was attempting to sow dissension among them by pretended negotiations, was but waiting to seize and crush the leaders, again took the field in the very midst of winter. On the 23rd of January, 1537, bills were stuck on the church doors by night, calling on the commoners to come forth and to be true to one another, for the gentlemen had deceived them, yet they should not want for captains. There was great distrust lest the gentlemen had been won over by the pardon and by money. The rebels, however, marched out under two leaders of the name of Musgrave and Tilby, and, 8,000 strong, they laid siege to Carlisle, where they were repulsed; and, being encountered in their retreat by Norfolk, they were defeated and put to flight. All their officers, except Musgrave, were taken and put to death, to the number of seventy. Sir Francis Bigot and one Hallam attempted to surprise Hull, but failed; and other risings in the north proving equally abortive, the king now bade Norfolk spread his banner, march through the northern counties with martial law, and, regardless of the pardon he had issued, punish the rebels without mercy.

As the monks had obviously been at the bottom of this commotion, Henry let loose his vengeance especially upon them. He ordered Norfolk to go to Sawley, Hexham, Newminster, Lanercost, St. Agatha, and all other places that had made resistance, and there seize certain priors and canons and send them up to him, and immediately to hang up "all monks and canons that be in any wise faulty, without further delay or ceremony." He ordered the Earl of Surrey and other officers in the north to charge the monks there with grievous offences, to try their minds, and see whether they would not submit themselves gladly to his will. Under these sanguinary orders the whole of England north of the Trent became a scene of horror and butchery, and ghastly heads and mangled bodies, or corpses swinging from the trees. Nor did this admirable reformer of religion neglect to look after the property of his victims. Their lands and goods were all to be forfeited and taken possession of; "for we are informed," he says, "that there were amongst them divers freeholders and rich men, whose lands and goods, well looked unto, will reward others that with their truth have deserved the same."

Besides Aske, Sir Thomas Constable, Sir John Bulmer, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Stephen Hamilton, Nicholas Tempest, William Lumley, and others, though they had taken the benefit of the pardon, were found guilty, and most of them were executed. Lord Hussey was found guilty of being an accomplice in the Lincolnshire rising, and was executed at Lincoln. Lord Darcy, though he pleaded compulsion, and a long life spent in the service of the Crown, was executed on Tower Hill. Lady Bulmer, the wife of Sir John Bulmer, was burnt in Smithfield; and Robert Aske was hung in chains on one of the towers of York. Having thus satiated his vengeance, and struck a profound terror into all the disaffected, Henry once more published a general pardon, to which he adhered; and even complied with one of the demands which the insurgents had made, that of erecting by patent a court of justice at York, for deciding lawsuits in the northern counties.

On the 12th of October, 1537, Jane Seymour gave birth to the long-desired prince, so well known afterwards as King Edward VI. This event took place at the palace of Hampton Court, and the infant was immediately proclaimed Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester. The joy on so greatly desired an occurrence may be imagined, though it was somewhat dashed by the death of the queen, which took place only twelve days afterwards. During the confinement there was some question whether the life of the mother or of the child should be sacrificed, and on the question being put to the king, which should be spared, he characteristically replied, "The child by all means, for other wives can be easily found." The queen's death, however, was occasioned by the absurd exposure which the pompous christening necessitated. Henry appeared to be grieved when her death really took place, and put on mourning, which he had never done for his wives before, and never did again. He wore it three months.

THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. (See p. 171.)