Constitutional History of England Volume I Part 4

[33] Several letters that pa.s.sed between the council and Duke of Norfolk (_Hardwicke State Papers_, i. 28, etc.) tend to confirm what some historians have hinted, that he was suspected of leaning too favourably towards the rebels. The king was most unwilling to grant a free pardon.

Norfolk is told, "If you could, by any good means or possible dexterity, reserve a very few persons for punishments, you should a.s.suredly administer the greatest pleasure to his highness that could be imagined, and much in the same advance your own honour."--P. 32. He must have thought himself in danger from some of these letters, which indicate the king's distrust of him. He had recommended the employment of men of high rank as lords of the marches, instead of the rather inferior persons whom the king had lately chosen. This called down on him rather a warm reprimand (p. 39); for it was the natural policy of a despotic court to restrain the ascendency of great families; nor were there wanting very good reasons for this, even if the public weal had been the sole object of Henry's council. See also, for the subject of this note, the State Papers and MSS., H. 8, 1830, p. 518 _et alibi_. They contain a good deal of interesting matter as to the northern rebellion, which gave Henry a pretext for great severities towards the monasteries in that part of England.

[34] Pole, at his own solicitation, was appointed legate to the Low Countries in 1537, with the sole object of keeping alive the flame of the northern rebellion, and exciting foreign powers as well as the English nation to restore religion by force, if not to dethrone Henry.

It is difficult not to suspect that he was influenced by ambitious views in a proceeding so treasonable, and so little in conformity with his polished manners and temperate life. Philips, his able and artful biographer, both proves and glories in the treason. _Life of Pole_, sect. 3.

[35] c.o.ke's 4th Inst.i.tute, 37. It is, however, said by Lord Herbert and others, that the Countess of Salisbury and the Marchioness of Exeter were not heard in their defence. The acts of attainder against them were certainly hurried through parliament; but whether without hearing the parties, does not appear.

[36] Burnet observes, that Cranmer was absent the first day the bill was read, 17th June 1540; and by his silence leaves the reader to infer that he was so likewise on 19th June, when it was read a second and third time. But this, I fear, cannot be a.s.serted. He is marked in the journal as present on the latter day; and there is the following entry; "Hodie lecta est pro secundo et tertio, billa attincturae Thomae Comitis Ess.e.x, et communi omnium procerum tunc praesentium concessu nemine discrepante, expedita est." And at the close of the session, we find a still more remarkable testimony to the unanimity of parliament, in the following words: "Hoc animadvertendum est, quod in hac sessione c.u.m proceres darent suffragia, et dicerent sententias super actibus praedictis, ea erat concordia et sententiarum conformitas, ut singuli iis et eorum singulis a.s.senserint, nemine discrepante. Thomas de Soulemont, Cleric.

Parliamentorum." As far therefore as entries on the journals are evidence, Cranmer was placed in the painful and humiliating predicament of voting for the death of his innocent friend. He had gone as far as he dared in writing a letter to Henry, which might be construed into an apology for Cromwell, though it was full as much so for himself.

[37] Burnet has taken much pains with the subject, and set her innocence in a very clear light (i. 197 and iii. 114). See also Strype, i. 280, and Ellis's _Letters_, ii. 52. But Anne had all the failings of a vain, weak woman, raised suddenly to greatness. She behaved with unamiable vindictiveness towards Wolsey, and perhaps (but this worst charge is not fully authenticated) exasperated the king against More. A remarkable pa.s.sage in Cavendish's _Life of Wolsey_, p. 103, edit. 1667, strongly displays her indiscretion.

A late writer, whose acuteness and industry would raise him to a very respectable place among our historians, if he could have repressed the inveterate partiality of his profession, has used every oblique artifice to lead his readers into a belief of Anne Boleyn's guilt, while he affects to hold the balance, and state both sides of the question without determining it. Thus he repeats what he must have known to be the strange and extravagant lies of Sanders about her birth; without vouching for them indeed, but without any reprobation of their absurd malignity. Lingard's _Hist. of England_, vi. 153 (8vo. edit). Thus he intimates that "the records of her trial and conviction have perished, perhaps by the hands of those who respected her memory" (p. 316); though, had he read Burnet with any care, he would have found that they were seen by that historian, and surely have not perished since by any unfair means; not to mention that the record of a trial contains nothing from which a party's guilt or innocence can be inferred. Thus he says that those who were executed on the same charge with the queen, neither admitted nor denied the offence, for which they suffered; though the best informed writers a.s.sert that Norris constantly declared the queen's innocence and his own.

Dr. Lingard can hardly be thought serious, when he takes credit to himself, in the commencement of a note at the end of the same volume, for not "rendering his book more interesting, by representing her as an innocent and injured woman, falling a victim to the intrigues of a religious faction." He well knows that he could not have done so, without contradicting the tenor of his entire work, without ceasing, as it were, to be himself. All the rest of this note is a pretended balancing of evidence, in the style of a judge who can hardly bear to put for a moment the possibility of a prisoner's innocence.

I regret very much to be compelled, in this edition, to add the name of Mr. Sharon Turner to those who have countenanced the supposition of Anne Boleyn's guilt. But Mr. Turner, a most worthy and painstaking man, to whose earlier writings our literature is much indebted, has, in his history of Henry VIII., gone upon the strange principle of exalting that tyrant's reputation at the expense of every one of his victims, to whatever party they may have belonged. _Odit d.a.m.natos._ Perhaps he is the first, and will be the last, who has defended the attainder of Sir Thomas More. A verdict of a jury, an a.s.sertion of a statesman, a recital of an act of parliament, are, with him, satisfactory proofs of the most improbable accusations against the most blameless character.

[38] The lords p.r.o.nounced a singular sentence, that she should be burned or beheaded at the king's pleasure. Burnet says the judges complained of this as unprecedented. Perhaps in strictness the king's right to _alter_ a sentence is questionable, or rather would be so, if a few precedents were out of the way. In high treason committed by a man, the beheading was part of the sentence, and the king only remitted the more cruel preliminaries. Women, till 1791, were condemned to be burned. But the two queens of Henry, the Countess of Salisbury, Lady Rochford, Lady Jane Grey, and, in later times, Mrs. Lisle, were beheaded. Poor Mrs. Gaunt was not thought n.o.ble enough to be rescued from the fire. In felony, where beheading is no part of the sentence, it has been subst.i.tuted by the king's warrant in the cases of the Duke of Somerset and Lord Audley.

I know not why the latter obtained this favour; for it had been refused to Lord Stourton, hanged for murder under Mary, as it was afterwards to Earl Ferrers.

[39] It is often difficult to understand the grounds of a parliamentary attainder, for which any kind of evidence was thought sufficient; and the strongest proofs against Catherine Howard undoubtedly related to her behaviour before marriage, which could be no legal crime. But some of the depositions extend further.

Dr. Lingard has made a curious observation on this case. "A plot was woven by the industry of the reformers, which brought the young queen to the scaffold, and weakened the ascendency of the reigning party."--P.

407. This is a very strange a.s.sertion; for he proceeds to admit her ante-nuptial guilt, which indeed she is well known to have confessed, and does not give the slightest proof of any plot. Yet he adds, speaking of the queen and Lady Rochford: "I fear [_i.e._ wish to insinuate] both were sacrificed to the manes of Anne Boleyn."

[40] Stat. 26 H. 8, c. 13.

It may be here observed, that the act attainting Catherine Howard of treason proceeds to declare that the king's a.s.sent to bills by commission under the great seal is as valid as if he were personally present; any custom or use to the contrary notwithstanding. 33 H. 8, c.

21. This may be presumed therefore to be the earliest instance of the king's pa.s.sing bills in this manner.

[41] 22 H. 8, c. 18.

[42] 28 H. 8, c. 7.

[43] 35 H. 8, c. 1.

[44] 28 H. 8, c. 17.

[45] 31 H. 8, c. 8; Burnet, i. 263, explains the origin of this act.

Great exceptions had been taken to some of the king's ecclesiastical proclamations, which altered laws, and laid taxes on spiritual persons.

He justly observes that the restrictions contained in it gave great power to the judges, who had the power of expounding in their hands. The preamble is full as offensive as the body of the act; reciting the contempt and disobedience of the king's proclamations by some "who did not consider _what a king by his royal power might do_, which if it continued would tend to the disobedience of the laws of G.o.d, and the dishonour of the king's majesty, who might full ill bear it," etc. See this act at length in the great edition of the statutes. There was one singular provision; the clause protecting all persons, as mentioned, in their inheritance or other property, proceeds, "nor shall by virtue of the said act suffer any pains of death." But an exception is afterwards made for "such persons which shall offend against any proclamation to be made by the king's highness, his heirs or successors, for or concerning any kind of heresies against Christian doctrine." Thus it seems that the king claimed a power to declare heresy by proclamation, under penalty of death.

[46] Gray has finely glanced at this bright point of Henry's character, in that beautiful stanza where he has made the founders of Cambridge pa.s.s before our eyes, like shadows over a magic gla.s.s:

"the majestic lord, Who broke the bonds of Rome."

In a poet, this was a fair employment of his art; but the partiality of Burnet towards Henry VIII. is less warrantable; and he should have blushed to excuse, by absurd and unworthy sophistry, the punishment of those who refused to swear to the king's supremacy. P. 351.

After all, Henry was every whit as good a king and man as Francis I., whom there are still some, on the other side of the Channel, servile enough to extol; not in the least more tyrannical and sanguinary, and of better faith towards his neighbours.

[47] 1 Edw. 6, c. 12. By this act it is provided that a lord of parliament shall have the benefit of clergy though he cannot read. Sect.

14. Yet one can hardly believe, that this provision was necessary at so late an aera.

[48] 2 Strype, 147, 341, 491.

[49] _Id._ 149. Dr. Lingard has remarked an important change in the coronation ceremony of Edward VI. Formerly, the king had taken an oath to preserve the liberties of the realm, and especially those granted by Edward the Confessor, etc., before the people were asked whether they would consent to have him as their king. See the form observed at Richard the Second's coronation in Rymer, vii. 158. But at Edward's coronation, the archbishop presented the king to the people, as rightful and undoubted inheritor by the laws of G.o.d and man to the royal dignity and crown imperial of this realm, etc., and asked if they would serve him and a.s.sent to his coronation, as by their duty of allegiance they were bound to do. All this was before the oath. 2 Burnet, Appendix, p.

93.

Few will pretend that the coronation, or the coronation oath, were essential to the legal succession of the crown, or the exercise of its prerogatives. But this alteration in the form is a curious proof of the solicitude displayed by the Tudors, as it was much more by the next family, to suppress every recollection that could make their sovereignty appear to be of popular origin.

[50] Haynes's state papers contain many curious proofs of the incipient amour between Lord Seymour and Elizabeth, and show much indecent familiarity on one side, with a little childish coquetry on the other.

These doc.u.ments also rather tend to confirm the story of our elder historians, which I have found attested by foreign writers of that age (though Burnet has thrown doubts upon it), that some differences between the queen-dowager and the d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset aggravated at least those of their husbands. P. 61, 69. It is alleged with absurd exaggeration, in the articles against Lord Seymour, that, had the former proved immediately with child after her marriage with him, it might have pa.s.sed for the king's. This marriage, however, did not take place before June, Henry having died in January. Ellis's _Letters_, ii. 150.

[51] Journals, Feb. 27, March 4, 1548-9. From these I am led to doubt whether the commons actually heard witnesses against Seymour, which Burnet and Strype have taken for granted.

[52] Stat. 5 and 6 Edw. VI., c. 11, s. 12.

[53] Burnet, ii. 243. An act was made to confirm deeds of private persons, dated during Jane's ten days, concerning which some doubt had arisen. 1 Mary, sess. 2, c. 4. It is said in this statute, "her highness's most lawful possession was for a time disturbed and disquieted by traiterous rebellion and usurpation."

It appears that the young king's original intention was to establish a modified Salic law, excluding females from the crown, but not their male heirs. In a writing drawn by himself, and ent.i.tled "My Device for the Succession," it is entailed on the heirs male of the lady queen, if she have any before his death; then to the _Lady Jane and her heirs male_; then to the heirs male of Lady Katharine; and in every instance, except Jane, excluding the female herself. Strype's _Cranmer_, Append. 164. A late author, on consulting the original MS., in the king's handwriting, found that it had been at first written, "the Lady Jane's heirs male,"

but that the words "and her" had been interlined. Nares's _Memoirs of Lord Burghley_, i. 451. Mr. Nares does not seem to doubt but that this was done by Edward himself: the change, however, is remarkable, and should probably be ascribed to Northumberland's influence.

[54] Burnet, Strype, iii. 50, 53; Carte, 290. I doubt whether we have anything in our history more like conquest than the administration of 1553. The queen, in the month only of October, presented to 256 livings, restoring all those turned out under the acts of uniformity. Yet the deprivation of the bishops might be justified probably by the terms of the commission they had taken out in Edward's reign, to hold their sees during the king's pleasure, for which was afterwards subst.i.tuted "during good behaviour." Burnet, App. 257; Collier, 218.

[55] Burnet, ii. 278; Stat. 1 Mary, sess. 3, c. 1. Dr. Lingard rather strangely tells this story on the authority of Father Persons, whom his readers probably do not esteem quite as much as he does. If he had attended to Burnet, he would have found a more sufficient voucher.

[56] Carte, 330.

[57] Haynes, 195; Burnet, ii. Appendix, 256, iii. 243.

[58] Burnet, ii. 347. Collier, ii. 404, and Lingard, vii. 266 (who, by the way, confounds this commission with something different two years earlier) will not hear of this allusion to the inquisition. But Burnet has said nothing that is not perfectly just.

[59] Strype, iii. 459.

[60] See Stafford's proclamation from Scarborough Castle, Strype, iii.

Appendix, No. 71. It contains no allusion to religion, both parties being weary of Mary's Spanish counsels. The important letters of Noailles, the French amba.s.sador, to which Carte had access, and which have since been printed, have afforded information to Dr. Lingard, and with those of the imperial amba.s.sador, Renard, which I have not had an opportunity of seeing, throw much light on this reign. They certainly appear to justify the restraint put on Elizabeth, who, if not herself privy to the conspiracies planned in her behalf (which is, however, very probable), was at least too dangerous to be left at liberty. Noailles intrigued with the malcontents, and instigated the rebellion of Wyatt, of which Dr. Lingard gives a very interesting account. Carte, indeed, differs from him in many of these circ.u.mstances, though writing from the same source, and particularly denies that Noailles gave any encouragement to Wyatt. It is, however, evident from the tenor of his despatches that he had gone great lengths in fomenting the discontent, and was evidently desirous of the success of the insurrection (iii. 36, 43, etc.). This critical state of the government may furnish the usual excuse for its rigour. But its unpopularity was brought on by Mary's breach of her word as to religion, and still more by her obstinacy in forming her union with Philip against the general voice of the nation, and the opposition of Gardiner; who, however, after her resolution was taken, became its strenuous supporter in public. For the detestation in which the queen was held, see the letters of Noailles, _pa.s.sim_; but with some degree of allowance for his own antipathy to her.

[61] Burnet, i. 117. The king refused his a.s.sent to a bill which had pa.s.sed both houses, but apparently not of a political nature. _Lords'

Journals_, p. 162.

[62] Burnet, 190.

[63] _Id._ 195, 215. This was the parliament, in order to secure favourable elections for which the council had written letters to the sheriffs. These do not appear to have availed so much as they might hope.

[64] Carte, 311, 322; Noailles, v. 252. He says that she committed some knights to the Tower for their language in the house. _Id._ 247. Burnet, p. 324, mentions the same.

[65] Burnet, 322; Carte, 296. Noailles says, that a third part of the Commons in Mary's first parliament was hostile to the repeal of Edward's laws about religion, and that the debates lasted a week. ii. 247. The journals do not mention any division; though it is said in Strype, iii.