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Ir it be a misfortune to be overpraised, | neither the men nor the women who played prominent parts in English history during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, will have reason to complain of the manner in which their reputations have been dealt with by their countrymen. To have accomplished any thing remarkable, throughout this period, appears to be a ground rather for suspicion than for admiration; and a certain uniformity of failure, like that which marks the career of Mary Queen of Scots, alone commands a general interest. It is not enough to have died tragically; the wise and the unwise came too often to a common end at the stake or on the scaffold: we have but to run over in our own minds the most conspicuous names of those centuries, and to consider the position which they occupy in the popular estimation, to be at once aware, that only those among them who have effected nothing, who have been sufferers merely, are regarded with

Life of Cardinal Wolsey. By John Galt. Third Edition, with additional Illustrations from Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, and other sources. London: David Bogue. 1846.

VOL. XXXIII. NO. I.

tenderness; the actors are held to have been sufficiently rewarded with success, and at our hands deserve only to be restored to their proper place by a judicious scrutiny of their faults. We are not lenient to Henry the Eighth, or to Mary Tudor, or to Elizabeth. Oliver Cromwell's reputation has the taint still of the Tyburn gallows upon it. Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, Gardiner, the Seymours, the Dudleys, the Cecils, Sir Francis Walsingham, or Francis Bacon-these names, once illustrious, are now tarnished over with every most unworthy imputation; and Sir Thomas More is, perhaps, the only really remarkable man who still remains a favorite with us; rather, probably, because he was the greatest of the victims of a falling side, than because we essentially value either his character or his actions.

This unprosperous condition of public opinion, however, is not maintained without partial remonstrance; people who have cared to examine the authentic accounts of the times, having perceived very clearly on how slight a foundation the popular judgments of them are based, and raising their voices with more effect or less, in behalf of this person

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or that, as their knowledge or their sympathies lead. Sharon Turner finds virtue in Henry VIII: Oliver Cromwell is a hero to Carlyle; and Miss Strickland pleads well and wisely for Mary Tudor. There are still persons who, in spite of Mr. Macaulay, believe that something may be said for Cranmer; and Gardiner and Bonner, Dr. Maitland tells us, were no such bad fellows after all. So too, a fresh edition of Galt's "Life of Wolsey," is a witness that there are readers who can tolerate an approving word, even of the great Cardinal; a witness, indeed, more than usually credible, since, of all honest books of history, this of Mr. Galt's is the most difficult to read; and only the obvious integrity of the writer, and a very strong interest in the subject, enables us, though the volume is a short one, to labor to the end of it. It is satisfactory, indeed, that this book continues to be read; but Wolsey has certainly not been fortunate in his champion; and in the various histories of England which swarm out, year after year, there are no traces of any change of opinion produced by it. He remains where fortune flung him, to point a moral of fallen ambition; in fact, as Shakespeare left him a vulgar, unlovely figure, arrogant in prosperity, and mean in his ruina person in whose elevation no one takes pleasure, and whom no one pities in his disgrace, and such, notwithstanding Mr. Galt's well-meant effort, he is likely to remain for ever. The impression of such a portrait, drawn by such a hand, whether it be or be not a representation of the man as he really lived and was, will not again be effaced from the imagination of mankind; and wherever English history is read, the name of Wolsey will still continue shadowed over with pride, injustice, falsehood, and profligacy; with a character from end to end essentially odious, which not all the pathos of his fall, nor the tender "Chronicling" of Griffith, can induce one to forgive, or even to pity.

And yet it is singular, that not any one of the accusations most offensive in Shakespeare's description will bear examination. Some are unquestionably false: and the evidences of the rest are so slight, that it would, not cloud the reputation of a living man. Shakespeare followed Hall and Cavendish (as indeed, he might have fairly thought himself safe in following them) without hesitation; vet it is quite certain, from recent discoveries, however the fact be explained, that not Hall only, but Cavendish also, whenever he is speaking of any thing which lay beyond his own personal observation, is, in many in

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stances, glaringly wrong and unjust. Authentic records have come to light, of the Duke of Buckingham's trial; and no one who carefully reads them, if he is in the least acquainted with the temper of the times, can doubt either the reality of his treason, or the necessity of his punishment. He was tried by his peers, fairly and honorably; his guilt, not a thing of the moment, but carefully premeditated for years, was proved beyond possibility of question; and, under the existing circumstances of the country, no honest minister could have advised the remission of the penalty. Still more without ground is the accusation brought against Wolsey about the "benevolences," which he is represented as having originated without consulting the king; which Henry is made so grandly to remit, and Wolsey basely to claim credit for the remission. The money was required to carry out the war in France, at the moment at which it was crippled by the defeat and imprisonment of Francis I.; and the war itself was one which Wolsey regarded as disastrous alike to England, to Europe, and to Christendom; a war against which his influence had been strained to its utmost. The Commons mutinied-but not against him; and he used the opportunity to prevail on Henry to give way. It is true, that when it was the fashion to lay the odium of every unpopular measure upon him, those who were really responsible for it endeavored to escape their fault, and make him answer for it; but Henry's own words are sufficient to bear him clear, who expressly told Anne Boleyn, when she spoke of it to him, that he knew more of that matter than she, and the Cardinal was not to blame."*

In the story of the French princess, whom Shakespeare makes Wolsey intend for Henry, after the divorce had been completed, he follows Hall, who relates it elaborately. But Cavendish furnishes so complete a refutation of Hall, that we are surprised to find Shakespeare repeating him. Cavendish was with Wolsey in France at the time when the negotiation was supposed to be going forward; and as the story did at that time actually originate, it is worth while to extract what he says about it.

In this time of my lord's being in France, over and his nobles, he sustained divers displeasure of and beside his noble entertainment with the king the French slave (sic) that devised a certain book

*The servants, who were waiting at supper in the King's room, heard him say so, and informed Cavendish of it.

which was set forth in articles upon the cause of my lord being there, which should be, as they surmised, that my lord was come thither to conclude two marriages-the one between the king our sovereign lord, and Madame Renée, of whom I spake heretofore, [the divorce of Queen Catharine had not at this time been mooted in England, but the legitimacy of the Princess Mary had been publicly called in question in the French Chambers; the suggestion of a second marriage, for the king was, therefore, an additional insolence,] the other between my Lady Mary and the Duke of Orleans, with divers other conclusions and agreements touching the same. Of this book many were imprinted and conveyed into England unknown to my lord, he being then in France, to the great slander of the realm of England and of my lord cardinal. But whether they were devised of policy to pacify the mutterings of the people, which had divers communications and imaginations of my lord being there, or whether they were devised of some malicious person, as the disposition of the common people are accustomed to do, whatever the occasion or cause was, this I am well assured of, that, after my lord was thereof advertised, and had perused one of the said books, he was not a little offended, and as sembled all the privy council of France together, to whom he spoke his mind thus-that it was not only a suspicion in them but also a great rebuke and defamation of the king's honor to see and know any such seditions untruths openly divulged and set forth by any malicious and subtle traitor of this realm; saying furthermore, that if the like had been attempted within the realm of England, he doubted not but to see it punished according to the traitorous demeanor and deserts of the author thereof.*

In the presence of evidence such as this, it is scarcely possible to maintain the story any longer. And it is not so unimportant as it may seem to ascertain whether there be truth in it or not, since it is commonly represented as an essential feature in Wolsey's scheme of policy. He encouraged, we are told, the divorce of Queen Catharine because he desired to revenge himself on the Emperor Charles for a personal affront; and in marrying Henry to the Princess Renée, he would bind him in a close connection with Charles's most dangerous enemy.

Of his actual conduct in the matter of the divorce, we shall speak at length presently. In the mean time, to proceed with Shakespeare's charges: there is another matter in which a most unfavorable impression is left against him, on which it is desirable to say something. He is said to have shared deeply in the prevailing vice of the celibate ecclesiastics, and to have been a person of profligate

*Cavendish. Singen edition, p. 181.

habits. Shakespeare accuses him, through the mouth of Queen Catharine; and from the manner in which the accusation is brought out, forming part of a judicial estimate of Wolsey's character, it is clear that Shakespeare himself believed it to be just, and desired his readers to believe it. On reviewing the evidence, however,-and we believe that we possess all which Shakespeare had before him, and much which he had not,-it does not warrant any such conclusion. A charge of the kind is included in the articles of impeachment against Wolsey, which were drawn up by the Lords, and to which Hall most strangely represents him as having pleaded guilty; but these articles, when sent down to the Commons, were dismissed as unworthy of notice; while, at the same time, a fact comes out, which explains the manner in which the impression may have arisen about him, among persons ready to judge hardly, and yet have arisen unfairly. It is certain, that Wolsey had two children, and that both they and their mother were supported by him up to the last year of his life. There is no evidence to show when they were born; and as he was twenty-five years old, at least, before he was in priest's orders, it is quite possible that he broke no vow in his relation with their mother. But if he did,-if, in the days of his early manhood, those iron vows failed to crush in him the instincts and cravings of humanity, and he fell before the temptation,-let it pass for what it is worth. It was a sin, perhaps a great one; yet not an infinite sin, nor one, we hope, for which there is no pardon. Doubtless, it furnished occasion for scandal. The single act admitted easily of being represented as a habit; and the maintenance of the mother might have borne a hard complexion; yet the connection, in itself, may, for all we know, have been of the briefest duration; and while those who bore Wolsey ill-will may have believed that he was keeping a mistress, he may have been but fulfilling the honest duty of an honestly penitent man. We are aware that this is only hypothesis; and that, on the other side, there are the positive assertions of the articles of impeachment, and certain angry words which Hall ascribes to Catherine; but there is no subject in which greater because there is none in which persons are caution is required in forming an opinion, more ready to generalize a habit out of an act. And if we are to believe the fact of the habit, it implies an amount of hypocrisy and insincerity in Wolsey, which it is difficult to believe could have existed in any man who

was occupying so conspicuous a position. No common hypocrite, indeed, he was, if, being himself consistently profligate, he was so loud against the similar sins of the clergy, and so eager to reform them; yet it is surely possible that a man may have known what sin was by his own experience, and may yet have hated it without hypocrisy,-may honestly have labored to save others from falling into it. If it be not so, God help us all! Let us summon up our own lives before us, and call others hypocrites, if we dare. Once for all, the one fact which we know about the matter is, that he was the father of two children, who were born at some period long preceding his disgrace, and, perhaps, his ordination; the remainder being only inferencewhile, to set against it, we have positive evidence that, in the midst of all his splendor, he was apparently an earnest and devout man-a man in whom, whatever of life was yet remaining in the perishing faith of Catholicism, was present in more than ordinary measure, and to whom God and duty were very meaning and living words.

So it stands with these particular charges; and if we consent to let them drop, it must be acknowledged that the shadows in Shakespeare lose not a little of their depth of hue. Nor, if the discovery, in these instances, of so much rhetorical exaggeration, leads us to look more closely into the narratives of Shakespeare's authorities, and to test them, as we are well able to do, by the State Papers which have since his time been brought to light, will they in any degree regain our confidence. Hall, indeed, except when his personal dislike to Wolsey gets the better of him, (and then he can be incredibly wrong,) is generally accurate. Taken as a whole, we should be inclined to rate Hall's Chronicle among the very best historical works in the language. But Cavendish, with whom, in the subject before us, we are now most concerned, is not to be trusted at all beyond the range of his own actual observation; and with the exception, perhaps, of Sir James Melville, has introduced more elaborate falsehoods into English history, than any other single writer. He was one of those men who, unhappily, are ready with an opinion upon every thing, whether they have or have not a right to have formed one, and guessing with the utmost facility, almost always guess wrong. Brought up as a page in Wolsey's household, he knew as much, perhaps, of the affairs of the state, which were passing through Wolsey's hands, as young gentlemen in similar situations might be supposed to know; that is, such views and

such stories as were current at the pages' dinner table. These, at a distance of twentyfive years from his master's death, he composed into a book, at a time when it was creditable to him to have dared to speak well of Wolsey at all; but when the many years which had intervened of clamor and prejudice had impaired his real knowledge, and had even injured partially his good feeling. Thus his book is full of inconsistency; and, at the first perusal, it is hard to know with what feelings he really regarded Wolsey. At one time he speaks of him with tender affection; at another, he imputes actions to him which would justly have forfeited all affection. Now, he gives him credit for devout and genuine piety; now, he insinuates that he wore but the hypocritical show of piety, writing in fact with one eye on the truth which he knew, with the other on Queen Mary, whom it was dangerous to offend.

Hence a large clearance will have to be made out of our history books, and many favorite stories for which Cavendish has made himself responsible. We have been told. much about Henry's carelessness in matters of business during the first years of his reign; and that it was encouraged by an artifice of Wolsey's. "As the ancient councillors," says Cavendish, "advised the king to leave his pleasure and to attend to the affairs of the realm, so busily did the Almoner persuade him to the contrary." And now we have the clearest proof from letters of Henry's own and from authentic correspondence of the members of his council, that at no time after his accession, not even when he was a mere boy, was the king less than his own first minister. His very coronation oath was interlined with his own hand, and in words which he erased, and in the words which he substituted, it is easy to read the spirit of the same Henry who broke the Papal power. Again, Cavendish tells us that Wolsey illtreated Archbishop Wareham, and that in order to secure his own elevation to the chancellorship he contrived to have Wareham dismissed from it-while we find in the contemporary correspondence that Wareham, so far from being dismissed, with difficulty obtained permission to resign; and Sir Thomas More, when afterwards imitating his example, expressly wrote to him in praise and admiration of so great magnanimity.

Possessing such uncommon facilities for going wrong, it is not to be wondered at that Cavendish should also miss his way among the complications of the Anne Boleyn story. Yet here he goes even beyond our expecta

tions, and he represents himself as having been perfectly cognizant of facts which cannot possibly have taken place, at least in the manner in which he relates them. He declares that Anne Boleyn was contracted* to Lord Percy, one of the young noblemen then residing under Wolsey's care; that Wolsey separated them by the king's order, and that Anne Boleyn never forgave him for the loss of her lover. He introduces conversations

between Wolsey and Lord Percy, in which the latter acknowledges and defends his engagement, declaring that he had entered into it before many witnesses." He brings the

reason.

Earl of Northumberland to London on this express occasion, and introduces a long harangue which the earl is supposed to have addressed to his son in the presence of the assembled members of Wolsey's household; he declares that he forced Lord Percy's obedience under a threat of disinheritance, and married him in haste to a daughter of Lord Shrewsbury in order to prevent future difficulties. Now it is possible that something may have pased between Lord Percy and Anne Boleyn; but Percy could not have defended an engagement which could not have existed, and Lord Northumberland, if he really interfered, could not have said what Cavendish gives as his words, and for a very simple We have evidence in a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, (Lodge's Illustrations, vol. 1. p. 20,) that Lord Percy was contracted to Lady Mary Talbot, the lady whom he actually married, before he ever saw Anne Boleyn, and that, therefore, no second contract with the latter could have been entered into by him; while it is again impossible that, supposing him to have attempted it, his father, in his supposed address to him, should have made no allusion to the previous engagement which was immediately afterwards fulfilled. But we have stronger proof than this of Cavendish's mistake. Something, indeed, must have passed; for at the time when Queen Anne's prematrimonial proceedings were undergoing investigation, Lord Percy was examined upon oath before the Privy Council, but if he had so openly acknowledged his engagement with her to Wolsey, he would scarcely have ventured to swear as he did on that occasion, or to have written such a letter as the following to Cromwell :

"I perceive," the letter runs, "that there is a supposed precontract between the queen and me, whereupon I was not only heretofore examined upon mine oath before the Archbishops of Can

*Cavendish, p. 120-129.

terbury and York, but also received the blessed sacrament upon the same before the Duke of Norfolk and others the king's council learned in the spiritual law, assuring you, Mr. Secretary, by the said oath and blessed body which afore I received, and hereafter intend to receive, that the same may be to my damnation, if ever there were any contract or promise of marriage between her and me."

Equally remote from the truth is the account which the same writer gives us of the Duke of Bourbon's campaigns in Italy, of the battle of Pavia, and of the double policy which he ascribes to Wolsey; for if he is right in his account of the policy itself, he is so hopelessly wrong in the facts with which he interweaves it, as to oblige us to distrust him wholly, What opportunity, indeed, is he likely to have had of knowing more about the matter than any other Englishman? He could but know the floating rumors of the palace, and if we may interpret the past by our present experience, the amount of truth in such rumors is generally rather below of entire falsehood. zero than above it-a plain negative quantity

But the saddest of all Cavendish's errors

It is the

is in the version which Shakespeare has copied so literally of the great scene before the legates, between Queen Catharine and Henry, in the Hall of the Black Friars. saddest, not because it is the most incorrect, but because, under Shakespeare's treatment, the beautiful story has woven itself into the very heart of our national traditions; and to question the truth of it is almost to bring history itself into discredit. Cavendish, as we said, wrote at the time of the reaction under Queen Mary: he was possessed strongly with the Catholic detestation of the Reformation, and of all which had arisen out of it; and Queen Catharine's treatment-so justly felt to be the central injury of the Catholics, as if her real figure was not sad enough or her story pathetic enough in its grand simplicity

shaped itself out in his recollection into an ideal and dramatized form, beautiful indeed, exceedingly, but which is not a real picture of the wrongs of Catharine of Arragon. It was Burnet* who first discovered that the fine speeches attributed both to the king and to her could never have been delivered. He found the original register of the proceedings of the court, from which it appears, with the utmost clearness, that the king and queen were not present together before the legates at all. His statement has since that time, been called eagerly in question; and no wonder when such a treasure is being wrested

* Burnet. Nares ed. vol. iii. p. 64.

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