History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth Volume II Part 48

[Sidenote: Elizabeth now illegitimate.]

[Sidenote: Lord Thomas Howard and Lady Margaret Douglas.]

No sooner had the result of the trial appeared to be certain, than the prospects of the succession to the throne were seen to be more perplexed than ever. The prince so earnestly longed for had not been born. The disgrace of Anne Boleyn, even before her last confession, strengthened the friends of the Princess Mary. Elizabeth, the child of a doubtful marriage which had terminated in adultery and incest, would have had slight chance of being maintained, even if her birth had suffered no further stain; and by the Lambeth sentence she was literally and legally illegitimate. The King of Scotland was now the nearest heir; and next to him stood Lady Margaret Douglas, his sister, who had been born in England, and was therefore looked upon with better favour by the people.

As if to make confusion worse confounded, in the midst of the uncertainty Lord Thomas Howard, taking advantage of the moment, and, as the act or his attainder says,[608] "being seduced by the devil, and not having the fear of G.o.d before his eyes," persuaded this lady into a contract of marriage with him; "The presumption being," says the same act, "that he aspired to the crown by reason of so high a marriage; or, at least, to the making division for the same; having a firm hope and trust _that the subjects of this realm[609] would incline and bear affection to the said Lady Margaret, being born in this realm; and not to the King of Scots, her brother, to whom this realm hath not, nor ever had, any affection; but would resist his attempt to the crown of this realm to the uttermost of their powers_."[610]

[Sidenote: The council and the peers urge the king to an instant re-marriage.]

Before the discovery of this proceeding, but in antic.i.p.ation of inevitable intrigues of the kind, the privy council and the peers, on the same grounds which had before led them to favour the divorce from Catherine, pet.i.tioned the king to save the country from the perils which menaced it, and to take a fresh wife without an hour's delay.

Henry's experience of matrimony had been so discouraging, that they feared he might be reluctant to venture upon it again. Nevertheless, for his country's sake, they trusted that he would not refuse.[611]

[Sidenote: He marries Jane Seymour.]

Henry, professedly in obedience to this request, was married, immediately after the execution, to Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour.

The indecent haste is usually considered a proof entirely conclusive of the cause of Anne Boleyn's ruin.[612] Under any aspect it was an extraordinary step, which requires to be gravely considered. Henry, who waited seven years for Anne Boleyn, to whom he was violently attached, was not without control over his pa.s.sions; and if appet.i.te had been the moving influence with him, he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the world upon him, have pa.s.sed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of which he was the sovereign. If Jane Seymour had really been the object of a previous unlawful attachment, her conduct in accepting so instantly a position so frightfully made vacant, can scarcely be painted in too revolting colours. Yet Jane Seymour's name, at home and abroad, by Catholic and Protestant, was alike honoured and respected. Among all Henry's wives she stands out distinguished by a stainless name, untarnished with the breath of reproach.

If we could conceive the English nation so tongue-tied that they dared not whisper their feelings, there were Brussels, Paris, Rome, where the truth could be told; yet, with the exception of a single pa.s.sage in a letter of Mary of Hungary,[613] there is no hint in the correspondence, either in Paris, Simancas, or Brussels, that there was a suspicion of foul play. If Charles or Francis had believed Henry really capable of so deep atrocity, no political temptation would have induced either of them to commit their cousins or nieces to the embrace of a monster, yet no sooner was Jane Seymour dead, than we shall find them competing eagerly with each other to secure his hand.

It is quite possible that when Anne Boleyn was growing licentious, the king may have distinguished a lady of acknowledged excellence by some in no way improper preference, and that when desired by the council to choose a wife immediately, he should have taken a person as unlike as possible to the one who had disgraced him. This was the interpretation which was given to his conduct by the Lords and Commons of England. In the absence of any evidence, or shadow of evidence, that among contemporaries who had means of knowing the truth, another judgment was pa.s.sed upon it, the deliberate a.s.sertion of an act of parliament must be considered a safer guide than modern unsupported conjecture.[614]

[Sidenote: June 8. Parliament meets.]

This matter having been accomplished, the king returned to London to meet parliament. The Houses a.s.sembled on the 8th of June; the peers had hastened up in unusual numbers, as if sensible of the greatness of the occasion. The Commons were untried and unknown; and if Anne Boleyn was an innocent victim, no king of England was ever in so terrible a position as Henry VIII. when he entered the Great Chamber fresh from his new bridal. He took his seat upon the throne; and then Audeley, the Lord Chancellor, rose and spoke:[615]

[Sidenote: The Lord Chancellor's speech at the opening.]

[Sidenote: The succession must be reconsidered.]

[Sidenote: And the king desires the parliament to name an heir apparent.]

"At the dissolution of the late parliament, the King's Highness had not thought so soon to meet you here again. He has called you together now, being moved thereunto by causes of grave moment, affecting both his own person and the interests of the commonwealth. You will have again to consider the succession to the crown of this realm. His Highness knows himself to be but mortal, liable to fall sick, and to die.[616] At present he perceives the peace and welfare of the kingdom to depend upon his single life; and he is anxious to leave it, at his death, free from peril. He desires you therefore to nominate some person as his heir apparent, who, should it so befall him (which G.o.d forbid!) to depart out of this world without children lawfully begotten, may rule in peace over this land, with the consent and the good will of the inhabitants thereof.

"You will also deliberate upon the repeal of a certain act pa.s.sed in the late parliament, by which the realm is bound to obedience to the Lady Anne Boleyn, late wife of the king, and the heirs lawfully begotten of them twain, and which declares all persons who shall, by word or deed, have offended against this lady or her offspring, to have incurred the penalties of treason.

[Sidenote: The Lord Chancellor's advice to the Houses.]

"These are the causes for which you are a.s.sembled; and if you will be advised by me, you will act in these matters according to the words of Solomon, with whom our most gracious king may deservedly be compared.

The "wise man" counsels us to bear in mind such things as be past, to weigh well such things as be present, and provide prudently for the things which be to come. And you I would bid to remember, first, those sorrows and those burdens which the King's Highness did endure on the occasion of his first unlawful marriage--a marriage not only judged unlawful by the most famous universities in Christendom, but so determined by the consent of this realm; and to remember further the great perils which have threatened his most royal Majesty from the time when he entered on his second marriage.

[Sidenote: The grat.i.tude due to the king for his third adventure into marriage.]

"Then, turning to the present, you will consider in what state the realm now standeth with respect to the oath by which we be bound to the Lady Anne and to her offspring; the which Lady Anne, with her accomplices, has been found guilty of high treason, and has met the due reward of her conspiracies. And then you will ask yourselves, what man of common condition would not have been deterred by such calamities from venturing a third time into the state of matrimony. Nevertheless, our most excellent prince, not in any carnal concupiscence, but at the humble entreaty of his n.o.bility, hath consented once more to accept that condition, and has taken to himself a wife who in age and form is deemed to be meet and apt for the procreation of children.

"Lastly, according to the third injunction, let us now do our part in providing for things to come. According to the desire of his most gracious Highness, let us name some person to be his heir; who, in case (_quod absit_) that he depart this life leaving no offspring lawfully begotten, may be our lawful sovereign. But let us pray Almighty G.o.d that He will graciously not leave our prince thus childless; and let us give Him thanks for that He hath preserved his Highness to us out of so many dangers; seeing that his Grace's care and efforts be directed only to the ruling his subjects in peace and charity so long as his life endures, and to the leaving us, when he shall come to die, in sure possession of these blessings."

[Sidenote: The speech digested into a statute.]

[Sidenote: July 1. Rea.s.sertion of the independence of the realm.]

Three weeks after Anne Boleyn's death and the king's third marriage, the chancellor dared to address the English legislature in these terms: and either he spoke like a reasonable man, which he may have done, or else he was making an exhibition of effrontery to be paralleled only by Seneca's letter to the Roman Senate after the murder of Agrippina. The legislature adopted the first interpretation, and the heads of the speech were embodied in an act of parliament. While the statute was in preparation, they made use of the interval in continuing the business of the Reformation. They abolished finally the protection of sanctuary in cases of felony, extending the new provisions even to persons in holy orders:[617] they calmed the alarms of Cranmer and the Protestants by re a.s.serting the extinction of the authority of the pope;[618] and they pa.s.sed various other laws of economic and social moment. At length, on the 1st of July, in a crowded house, composed of fourteen bishops,[619]

eighteen abbots, and thirty-nine lay peers,[620] a bill was read a first time of such importance that I must quote at length its own most noticeable words.

[Sidenote: Second great Act of Succession. The parliament endorse all the proceedings in the late trials.]

The preamble commenced with reciting those provisions of the late acts which were no longer to remain in force. It then proceeded, in the form of an address to the king, to adopt and endorse the divorce and the execution. "Albeit," it ran, "most dread Sovereign Lord, that these acts were made, as it was then thought, upon a pure, perfect, and clear foundation; your Majesty's n.o.bles and commons, thinking the said marriage then had between your Highness and the Lady Anne in their consciences to have been pure, sincere, perfect, and good, and so was reputed and taken in the realm; [yet] now of late G.o.d, of his infinite goodness, from whom no secret things can be hid, hath caused to be brought to light evident and open knowledge of certain just, true, and lawful impediments, unknown at the making of the said acts; and since that time confessed by the Lady Anne, before the Most Reverend Father in G.o.d, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, sitting judicially for the same; by the which it plainly appeareth that the said marriage was never good, nor consonant to the laws, but utterly void and of none effect; by reason whereof your Highness was and is lawfully divorced from the bonds of the said marriage in the life of the said Lady Anne:

"And over this, most dread Lord, albeit that your Majesty, not knowing of any lawful impediments, entered into the bonds of the said unlawful marriage, and advanced the same Lady Anne to the honour of the sovereign estate of the queen of this realm; yet she, nevertheless, inflamed with pride and carnal desires of her body, putting apart the dread of G.o.d and excellent benefits received of your Highness, confederated herself with George Boleyn, late Lord Rochfort, her natural brother, Henry Norris, Esq., Francis Weston, Esq., William Brereton, Esq., gentlemen of your privy chamber, and Mark Smeton, groom of your said privy chamber; and so being confederate, she and they most traitorously committed and perpetrated divers detestable and abominable treasons, to the fearful peril and danger of your royal person, and to the utter loss, disherison, and desolation of this realm, if G.o.d of his goodness had not in due time brought their said treasons to light; for the which, being plainly and manifestly proved, they were convict and attainted by due course and order of your common law of this realm, and have suffered according to the merits:"

[Sidenote: The late queen declared attainted.]

In consequence of these treasons, and to lend, if possible, further weight to the sentence against her, the late queen was declared attainted by authority of parliament, as she already was by the common law. The Act then proceeded:

[Sidenote: Opinion of parliament upon the king's third marriage.]

"And forasmuch, most gracious Sovereign, as it hath pleased your royal Majesty--(notwithstanding the great intolerable perils and occasions which your Highness hath suffered and sustained, as well by occasion of your first unlawful marriage, as by occasion of your second); at the most humble pet.i.tion and intercession of us your n.o.bles of this realm, for the ardent love and fervent affection which your Highness beareth to the conservation of the peace and amity of the same, and of the good and quiet governance thereof, of your most excellent goodness to enter into marriage again; and [forasmuch as you] have chosen and taken a right n.o.ble, virtuous, and excellent lady, Queen Jane, to your true and lawful wife; who, for her convenient years, excellent beauty, and pureness of flesh and blood, is apt to conceive issue by your Highness; which marriage is so pure and sincere, without spot, doubt, or impediment, that the issue presented under the same, when it shall please Almighty G.o.d to send it, cannot be truly, lawfully, nor justly interrupted or disturbed of the right and t.i.tle in the succession of your crown: May it now please your Majesty, for the extinguishment of all doubts, and for the pure and perfect unity of us your subjects, and all our posterities, that inasmuch as the marriage with the Lady Catherine having been invalid, the issue of that marriage is therefore illegitimate; and the marriage with the Lady Anne Boleyn having been upon true and just causes deemed of no value nor effect, the issue of this marriage is also illegitimate; the succession to the throne be now therefore determined to the issue of the marriage with Queen Jane."[621]

[Sidenote: The succession determined to the issue of the king by Queen Jane.]

[Sidenote: A reason for demurring to the popular judgment in this matter.]

Thus was every step which had been taken in this great matter deliberately sanctioned[622] by parliament. The criminality of the queen was considered to have been proved; the sentence upon her to have been just. The king was thanked in the name of the nation for having made haste with the marriage which has been regarded as the temptation to his crime. It is wholly impossible to dismiss facts like these with a few contemptuous phrases; and when I remember that the purity of Elizabeth is an open question among our historians, although the foulest kennels must be swept to find the filth with which to defile it; while Anne Boleyn is ruled to have been a saint, notwithstanding the solemn verdict of the Lords and Commons, the clergy, the council, judges, and juries, p.r.o.nounced against her,--I feel that with such a judgment caprice has had more to do than a just appreciation of evidence.

[Sidenote: The contingency to be provided for, of the last marriage proving unfruitful.]

The parliament had not yet, however, completed their work. It was possible, as the lord chancellor had said, that the last marriage might prove unfruitful, and this contingency was still unprovided for. The king had desired the Lords and Commons to name his successor; they replied with an act which showed the highest confidence in his patriotism; they conferred a privilege upon him unknown to the const.i.tution, yet a power which, if honestly exercised, offered by far the happiest solution of the difficulty.

Henry had three children. The Duke of Richmond was illegitimate in the strictest sense, but he had been bred as a prince; and I have shown that, in default of a legitimate heir, the king had thought of him as his possible successor. Mary and Elizabeth were illegitimate also, according to law and form; but the illegitimacy of neither the one nor the other could be pressed to its literal consequences. They were the children, each of them, of connexions which were held legal at the period of their birth. They had each received the rank of a princess; and the instincts of justice demanded that they should be allowed a place in the line of inheritance. Yet, while this feeling was distinctly entertained, it was difficult to give effect to it by statute, without a further complication of questions already too complicated, and without provoking intrigue and jealousy in other quarters. The Princess Mary also had not yet receded from the defiant att.i.tude which she had a.s.sumed. She had lent herself to conspiracy, she had broken her allegiance, and had as yet made no submission. To her no favour could be shown while she remained in this position; and it was equally undesirable to give Elizabeth, under the altered circ.u.mstances, a permanent preference to her sister.

[Sidenote: The parliament grant the king a power to bequeath the crown by will.]

The parliament, therefore, with as much boldness as good sense, cut the knot, by granting Henry the power to bequeath the crown by will. He could thus advance the Duke of Richmond, if Richmond's character as a man fulfilled the promise of his youth; and he could rescue his daughters from the consequences of their mother's misfortunes or their mother's faults. It was an expression of confidence, as honourable to the country as to the king; and if we may believe, as the records say, that the tragedy of the past month had indeed grieved and saddened Henry, the generous language in which the legislature committed the future of the nation into his hands, may have something soothed his wounds.

[Sidenote: The reasons alleged for this measure.]

"Forasmuch as it standeth," they said, "in the only pleasure and will of Almighty G.o.d, whether your Majesty shall have heirs begotten and procreated from this (late) marriage, or else any lawful heirs or issues hereafter of your own body, begotten by any other lawful wife; and if such heirs should fail (as G.o.d defend), and no provision be made in your life who should rule and govern this realm, then this realm, after your transitory life, shall be dest.i.tute of a governor, or else percase [be]

enc.u.mbered with a person that would count to aspire to the same, whom the subjects of this realm shall not find in their hearts to love, dread, and obediently serve[623] as their sovereign lord; and if your Grace, before it be certainly known whether ye shall have heirs or not, should suddenly name and declare any person or persons to succeed after your decease, then it is to be doubted that such person so named might happen to take great heart and courage, and by presumption fall to in.o.bedience and rebellion; by occasion of which premises, divisions and dissensions are likely to arise and spring in this realm, to the great peril and destruction of us, your most humble and obedient servants, and all our posterities: For reformation and remedy hereof, we, your most bounden and loving subjects, most obediently acknowledging that your Majesty, prudently, victoriously, politicly, and indifferently, hath maintained this realm in peace and quietness during all the time of your most gracious reign, putting our trust and confidence in your Highness, and nothing doubting but that your Majesty, if you should fail of heirs lawfully begotten, for the love and affection that ye bear to this realm, and for avoiding all the occasions of divisions afore rehea.r.s.ed, so earnestly mindeth the wealth of the same, that ye can best and most prudently provide such a governour for us and this your realm, as will succeed and follow in the just and right tract of all your proceedings, and maintain, keep, and defend the same and all the laws and ordinances established in your Grace's time for the wealth of the realm, which we all desire, do therefore most humbly beseech your Highness, that it may be enacted, for avoiding all ambiguities, doubts, and divisions, that your Highness shall have full and plenary power and authority to dispose, by your letters patent under your great seal, or else by your last will made in writing, and signed with your hand, the imperial crown of this realm, and all other the premises thereunto belonging, to such person or persons as shall please your Highness.

"And we, your humble and obedient subjects, do faithfully promise to your Majesty, by one common a.s.sent, that after your decease, we, our heirs and successors, shall accept and take, love, dread, and only obey such person or persons, male or female, as your Majesty shall give your imperial crown unto; and wholly to stick to them as true and faithful subjects ought to do."[624]

NOTES:

[536] Speech of the Lord Chancellor: _Lords' Journals_, p. 84

[537] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 370.

[538] Sir Edmund Bedingfield to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p.

451.