Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

better understand the affection and disposition of these Scots in this case. And even as they said it followed for bye and bye, after the treaty was ratified, the governor and nobility of Scotland revolted from it, contrary to their oath, like false forsworn Scots; whereupon the wars ensued, whereof they worthily feel the smart unto this day. Now if these proud, beggarly Scots did so much disdain to yield to the superiority of England, and that they choose rather to be perjured and abide the extremity of the wars and force of England, than they would consent to have an Englishman to be their king by such lawful means of marriage-why should we for any respect yield unto their Scottish superiority, or consent to establish a Scot in succession to the crown of this realm, contrary to the laws of this realm; and thereby do so great an injury as to disinherit the nearest heir of our own nation? Surely, for my part, I cannot consent to it; and I fear, lest I may say with the Scot, that though we do all agree to it, yet our common people and the stones in the street would rebel against it. Thus I have declared my affection concerning the regiment of a strange prince over us, wherein, whatsoever may be gathered of my words, I mean as well to my country as becometh a natural and a good Englishman."*

In these words, however the special circumstances under which they were delivered may appear to be different from the circumstances of the period with which we are now engaged, and the point of objection to be raised upon a matter which arose subsequent to it, a thoughtful reader will nevertheless discover the presence of feelings which would have soon risen into a storm if a Scotch king had been proposed as Henry's successor; and the support which James would have desired and obtained from France would have alienated the slight favor, which he might have looked for from the more calm and reasonable of the English statesmen. So it stood with respect to the nearest claimant. ⚫Turning to the others, who would have presented themselves at home, all hope of a unanimous choice was at once lost in their number; nothing could be looked for but a renewal of the civil wars in all their horrors: the opportunity would be eagerly seized for an invasion from France and Scotland; and with England torn by faction, and uncertain where her allegiance was due, the result of a wellconcerted attack upon her would be doubtful indeed. The claims of the Duke of Buckingham had descended through his daughter to the Norfolk Howards. The duke of Norfolk would have claimed in right of his wife (as the Earl of Surrey showed actual intention

*Sadler's Papers, vol. iii. p. 325-6.

of doing twenty years later.) Richard de la Pole had been killed at Pavia; but his right was represented by the fierce and haughty Countess of Salisbury, and her sons, Reginald and Geoffrey Pole. The Duke of Suffolk, who had married Henry's sister, would have unquestionably claimed in right of her; and there was not the slightest probability that either of these aspirants would have waived his pretensions in favor of a rival. To such elements of faction, let us only add the powerful animosity of the Protestants, with whom one party or another would have unquestionably identified itself; and what a future, in the judgment of any rational statesmen, must have appeared to await England, if Henry's family failed! To this family he would have turned as his only hope; and the condition in which it was standing must have been little calculated to reassure him. Henry, immediately on coming to the throne, had married his brother's wife. A connection with England had been so anxiously desired by Ferdinand that, on the death of Prince Arthur, when Henry was not yet fourteen, he had sued at Rome for a dispensation which would preserve it unbroken; and this dispensation had been granted by Julius the Second, although granted with great unwillingness. When, however, further pressed for the completion of the marriage, the mind of Henry the Seventh misgave him. A large party in the English council, at the head of which was the Archbishop of Canterbury, believed it to be incestuous, and the old king obliged his son by a formal act, which is still extant, to renounce an intention which might Catherine was permitted to remain in Engprovoke the anger of God. Unfortunately, land; and on the death of Henry the Seventh, the new monarch being but a boy of eighteen at the time, was persuaded by the majority of the privy council that his father's scruples were without foundation and that the marriage was for the interests of the country.

The doubt, however, which had thus from undispelled. Whether the dispensing power the first clung about the connection remained of the Pope extended within the degrees of prohibition laid down absolutely in the Levitical law, was a question as yet undecided; and it was a matter the after judgment upon which would depend upon the effects which followed it. If the issue had been fortunate, if Catherine's sons had lived, and the Tudor family had thus been confirmed upon the throne, it would have been thought that Providence had pronounced in its favor, and all uncertainty would have been removed.

Unhappily, the issue was every thing which was most unfortunate; and the deaths of three princes successively, within a few days of their birth, appeared as significantly to mark Gods displeasure, as their lives would have evinced his favor. The time was once in which the direct government of God by special providence was believed by everybody; and the significance of these judgments as an expression of the Divine will was in proportion to the importance of what depended on them. We see no reason, therefore, to doubt Henry's word when, at the first opening of the question, he stated that he had for seven years (i. e. from 1520) been uneasy in conscience; that he had for all this period abstained from the queen's bed, and that he had no intention of returning to it. It is not with Henry, however, that we are at present concerned, but with the statesmen, and especially with Wolsey, whose duty it was to advise him. Under such circumstances there was no prospect (even if her age had not placed it out of the question on other grounds) that Catherine would bear any more children; and the hopes of the nation rested solely on the life of the Princess Mary. The right of a woman to succeed, being a novel feature in English history, would undoubtedly be challenged; but it was hoped, especially if her position could be strengthened by a well-chosen and popular marriage, that it would be possible to sustain it without serious opposition. It was doubtful, but it was not an impossibility.

This precarious hope, however, appeared to be wholly destroyed when, on the proposal to marry her, first to her cousin Charles the Fifth, and then to one or other of the sons of the French king, her legitimacy was openly called in question, both in the Cortes and in the French Council.

Obviously, as matters stood in the year 1527, when, if this question of the succession could be decided, England, and England only, of all the countries in Europe, seemed likely to ride out the storm which was bursting everywhere; England would lose her chance also, if the stability of that succession depended on any assistance either from France, Germany, or Spain; obviously, the cloud which hung over Mary's birth would be made use of by any or by all of the foreign powers, if an opportunity presented itself to wound or humble England by its means. James of Scotland had his own hopes to maintain, and had Flodden to revenge. France had been twice invaded by Henry; in repeated engagements by land and sea, the French

VOL. XXXIII. NO. I.

had been defeated; but two years before, it seemed as if there might be another Agincourt, and Paris itself would fall-and these scores remained to be paid. Of what Charles might do, so much only was certain, that his relationship with Mary would cease to bind him to her, when to support her had ceased to be to his advantage.

In such a state of things, what was the duty of an adviser of the English king, when it was proposed that he should take another wife, and thus, since it was not otherwise possible, to provide an heir whose legitimacy could not be challenged for the throne? When the sovereign power of a kingdom, either by divine law, or from political necessity, decends in order of birth from father to child, the marriages of princes, on which so much depends, have been ever determined by considerations beyond those which concern the rest of us. A king

May not, as unvalued persons do, Carve for himself; for on his choice depends The safety and the health of the whole state; And therefore must his choice be circumscribed Unto the voice and yielding of that body Whereof he is the head:

and the same respects which influence the first entrance into such connections remain in force to affect the continuance of them, to loose as well as to bind, to dissolve as well as to bring together. That dispensing power of the popes to permit marriages within the forbidden degrees, or to dissolve the most unexceptionable marriages when formed, was vested in them expressly to provide for the extraordinary contingencies which must and will, from time to time, arise in human things; and the question for us only is, whether the conditions of the times which we are describing were, or were not, such as called for the exercise of that power, or justified Wolsey in advising Henry to seek for it. It is not whether a kingdom's welfare is, under any circumstances, a reason for a dissolution of marriage; that is conceded in the existence of the power to dissolve; it is only whether the welfare of England, in the year 1527, required the dissolution of the marriage between Henry VIII. and Catherine of Arragon? And as soon as this is fairly considered among us, it will be answered again, as Hall tells us it was answered at the time: All the men will answer one way, and all the women the other. No doubt it is a very sad and a very tragic thing, that a noble and innocent lady should thus be sacrificed on the altar of a nation's prosperity-unhappily a liability to

2

such misfortunes is the price which kings and queens have paid, and must ever pay, for their great place, while they remain more than shadows. In the balance of the Fates, power and responsibility weigh even one. against the other; and a debt is scored against them for all which they receive, which may never be required of them, but if it be required, the Fates are cruel creditors. When the interests of a nation lie on one side, and the interests of a single person on the other, it is not hard to say on which side the sacrifice will fall; where it ought to fall may remain a question; but there is no question where it will. The case of Queen Catherine was rendered peculiarly painful by her foreign birth. From an English woman, the country would have had a right to demand a cheer ful acquiescence in what the country required of her. But such disinterested patriotism could not be expected from a stranger, who had entered it in a private relation, and who depended in a distinct and peculiar manner on the good faith, the honor, and affection of the prince whom she had married. Considerations of this kind, however, are matters of feeling, and of feeling only they will deepen, as they ought to deepen, our sympathy with the undeserved sufferings of an unfortunate princess; but they cannot affect the course of action which the necessities of the state prescribe. A lady accepts in marriage whatever is contingent upon her new position, whether for happiness or sorrow; and we are not to ask ourselves what degree of compassion we ought to feel for Queen Catherine, for we cannot feel too much; but what was the right course for a minister of state to pursue when called upon to advise his sovereign?

of his correspondence with the ambassador at Rome. Laying out the condition of the kingdom with utmost perspicacity, the diorce, he says, ought to be granted, and must be granted; if it be not granted freely, the nation will take it, and worse will follow. And Clement knew as well as he, that he did not exaggerate the danger, for the English Parliament, finding him backward, had sent him, suo mero motu, a message from themselves to sharpen his resolution, more than confirming Wolsey. "Causa Regia Majestatis (so it ran) nostra eujusque propria est a capite in membra derivata. Dolor ad omnes atque injuria ex æquo pertinet;" and if his Holiness will not give his consent, "nostri nobis curam esse relictam ut aliunde nobis remedia conquiramus."* Nor was the Pope himself at all slow to acknowledge the justice of so evident a cause He too, in his own way, is not the least tragical figure in this most tragic story; his poor infallibility called on suddenly to exert itself on a matter where divine guidance was specially clamored for, the English ambassador at one ear with Henry's imperious "You shaH ;" and Charles's German army at the other with an equally significant "You shall not:"-in his own poor breast no voice but the whispering of fear and imbecility, and no refuge anywhere, except in his own most human wit, which, to do him justice, never failed him. "True," he said once to Gardiner, who was vulgarly taunting him with his infallibility, "there is a saying in the canon law that God has placed all knowledge in the writing-desk of the Pope's breast, (in scrinio Papæ pectoris,) but I am afraid he forgot to let him have the key." It was a dumb oracle

muto Parnassus hiatu Conticuit pressitque Deum.

From such a Pope little was to be looked for. In a weak moment, however, he granted signed a formal note allowing the justice of a commission to try the cause in England: he the king's cause, promising at the same time not to admit an appeal to himself from the jurisdiction of the legate; and at Wolsey's French army at Naples being brought to bear earnest demand, some slight successes of the upon him at the same moment, he even granted an absolute decree in Henry's favor, and a promise was given that it should never though it was drawn up in a private manner,

We are speaking of the question in its more early stages as an ordinary political difficulty, and before it had connected itself with those other momentous matters with which it became afterwards involved. In its political aspect it was regarded by Wolsey; and the necessity of a divorce was perceived by him with such intense clearness, that nothing which man could do was left undone by him to accomplish it. Not only he saw that it was essential to the prospects of England, but he saw also that the English nation themselves knew it to be essential, and that so determined were they to protect themselves from a fresh war of succession, cost what it might, they would carry it through. This is what he insists upon to the Pope. This is the one string on which he harps, without change of journals. It was mentioned in the Succession Denote, in the vast mass which remains to us

*This curious fact will be found in D' Ewe's bate under Elizabeth.

be produced except in the event of his recalling the commission. In the choice of the legate, too, who was to be joined with Wolsey, there seemed to be a desire, at least outwardly, to gratify Henry for Cardinal Campeggio was intimately connected with the English party in the conclave, and Henry himself was entirely. pleased with the selection of him. At the time of Campeggio's arrival, indeed, Clement must have hoped that some arrangement was possible without coming to extremities with either Henry or with Charles for the instructions to the legate were to dissuade Henry from persisting, but in the Pope's name to entreat Catherine to consent to be separated from him, and to retire into a nunnery. And well it would have been for Catherine, well it would have been for the Pope, for Europe, for Charles the Fifth, perhaps for England, if she had consented. Parliament would have declared her daughter legitimate; and she herself might have passed what remained to her of life in comparative happiness, carrying with her into her retirement the admiration and the gratitude of the Catholic world. Yet we can neither be surprised at her refusal, nor can we blame her for it. She was a right noble woman; but her nobleness was of the Spanish, not the English kind. Proud, imperious, and inflexible, by no act of her own would she stoop to acknowledge that any shadow lay either on her good name or on her child's, though England, Europe, and the world was wrecked for it. Narrow she was; without broad or genial sympathies, without heroism in its highest sense; but from the thing which she believed to be right, threats could not terrify her, persuasions bend, or promises cajole her. She resisted: the Emperor (it was perhaps the only fatal blunder of his life) supported and encouraged her; and what followed we all know.*

* Sir H. Ellis (Letters, 1st Series, vol. i., p. 274) has printed a letter which he considers to be a joint composition of Henry and Queen Catherine, addressed to Wolsey. The signature is mutilated by fire; Henry's name can be read, the writer of the other portion of the letter is identified by the handwriting. He does not seem to be aware, however, that the same letter was found and printed by Burnet; and that in Burnet's time the signature was to be read in full, the two writers being not Henry and Queen Catherine, but Henry and Anne Boleyn. Whatever is to be said about the handwriting, it is impossible to doubt that Burnet gives the name of the second writer correctly, and Sir H. Ellis is mistaken. Queen Catherine would not have written for "news of the legate, which she hopes shall be very good," neither would she have addressed Wolsey "in the most humblest wyse that her heart can

The feelings with which Wolsey regarded the failure of all his hopes, it is not difficult to conjecture. Before the legate's court was opened, the course which the proceedings were to follow, had already been determined between the Pope, the Emperor, and the Queen; and among the inevitable consequences which he foresaw, his own ruin we can well believe was that which caused him least anxiety. If he had cared only for his individual interests, it was easy for him to secure them: he had only to do what was done by the vast majority of the English bishops, abbots, and clergy-to go along with the English party-and he would have endeared himself to Henry for ever. But he found himself with a divided allegiance, owing obedience to two authorities, both of whom it was no longer possible to obey; and he did not hesitate to make his choice, though involving, as he well knew, his certain destruction. He had advised the divorce: he had labored for it with all his strength so long as there were a chance that it could be obtained without separation from Rome. When the Pope had made his final decision, ruinous as he knew that decision was to himself, ruinous as he believed it to be to the earthly interests of the Church, he submitted to his spiritual superior, and obeyed a command which he knew to be madness, sooner than violate his duty. We have looked to find any other account of his conduct, and we have looked in vain. One fact we have found indeed, and a most curious one, which has never we believe been noticed hitherto, throwing remarkable light upon his character. The agitation of these two trying years had harassed him beyond his strength, and his mind must have lost something of its natural power. He was old, nearly approaching sixty. His life had been enormously laborious: he was infirm in body, and failing already under the influence of the disease of which he soon after died. It is easy to understand, therefore, that he may have been less equal to the crisis than he would have been twenty years before; and more susceptible of influences which in better times would have touched him little. There are many traditions of Wolsey's superstition. Cavendish mentions various instances of it in the last year of his life and it is even said that he possessed a crystal. In this business of the divorce, it is beyond doubt that he allowed himself to be worked think." She was not the person to feel humble towards Wolsey, or to pretend to be so when she was

not.

upon by the celebrated nun of Kent. Her | declaration "that he would damn his soul story may or may not be familiar to our for no potentate in Europe," and leaving readers it is long, and in this place we can | Wolsey to face as he best might the anger do no more than allude to it. She was a of the king. And now the long-gathering woman subject to fits, in which she displayed storm burst at last; and on all sides hands those peculiar powers, whatever they are, were raised to strike the falling favorite. with which we are now familiar in mesmeric Whatever his faults had been, there was not patients. There was sufficient reality in one of them but it found him out; every these powers to deceive the woman herself; slighting word, every 'neglect of courtesy, unadulterated imposition is never an adequate every fancied act of injury, came back like account of such cases; and as animal magnet poisoned arrows to overwhelm him. The ism and the odyle fluid were as yet undis- ecclesiastics had their shame to revenge: the covered forces, half a dozen profligate monks lawyers their practice ruined by an arbitrary were able to persuade her that she possess equity: the nobles the insolence of the uped supernatural gifts. Under their tuition start who had dared to overbear them with she gave herself out as a prophetess; and his genius. The soldiers, with the Duke of for ten years she professed to have visions Suffolk at their head, had not forgiven the from Heaven, and to communicate the judg- minister who had prevented them from takments of the Higher Powers on weighty ing Paris; (Letter of the Bishop of Bayonne, matters of state. Once launched upon such printed in Singer's ed. of Cavendish, p.. a course, self-deception soon ceased to be 482;) and Anne Boleyn, who had fawned possible; and she became entangled as a upon him as long as she hoped that he would matter of course in conscious and palpable assist her to the high place for which she falsehoods: so much so that when she was was longing, now hated him as bitterly for detected and condemned to be executed, the her disappointment. The night-crow, as poor thing believed herself never to have Wolsey called her, was for ever croaking in been more than a deceiver; and the last the king's ear against him: distrusting falsehood which she told was probably an Henry's feelings, she even made him promise exaggerated confession of her own guilt. that he would never see Wolsey more. noble lords spoke openly at their dinnertables of the good times which now were coming. La fantaisie de ces seigneurs," writes the French ambassador, “est que luy mort ou ruiné, ils defferent incontinent icy l'estat de l'Eglise, et prendront tous leurs biens-qu'il seroit ja besoing (sic) que je misse en chiffre, car ils le crient en plaine table."

In the days of her fame, however, while the divorce was still pending, she declared that she had received the clearest revelations in condemnation of it; and among other great persons whose opinions upon it she influenced, it is without surprise, but with no little compassion, that we find Wolsey. She was introduced to him by Archbishop Wareham, whose letter to the Cardinal upon the subject has been printed by Sir H. Ellis; and in another record of the proceedings connected with her, we find this singular entry :

Likewise the late Cardinal of England, and the late Archbishop of Canterbury, as well minded to further and set at an end the marriage which the king's grace now enjoyeth according to their spiritual duty, were perverted by the false

revelations of the said nun.

It had come to that; and the keen and sagacious Wolsey, the shrewdest and the cleverest statesman in Europe, had become the dupe of the dupe of a nest of charlatans. What remains of the story of the divorce, as far at least as it concerns us here, is soon told. Catherine appealed from the legate's court to the Pope; the appeal was admitted against the solemn promise which had been given, and Campeggio left England, with a

66

The

On the seventeenth of October, 1529, Wolsey presided in the Court of Chancery for the last time-on the eighteenth he received a message from the king that he was to deliver up the seals. His palace at Westmincommanded to retire to an unfurnished house ster was laid under sequestration; and he was which belonged to him at Esher, and there wait the decision of the council upon his fate. His crime was yet to be ascertained; but in the general torrent of indignation, no one cared to remember so trifling a difficulty. On receiving the king's message, he desired the various officers of his household, in order to prevent pillage, to take an inventory of his property, which he at once despatched to the court; and then with his train he entered bis barge, to go up the river to Putney, where horses waited for him.

"At the taking of his barge," says Cavendish,

« ПредишнаНапред »