6. Allegiance.-The uncertainty of Henry's title caused the passing of an important statute, by which it was declared to be the duty of a subject to serve the sovereign for the time being, and that no one, for so doing, should be convict or attaint of treason. This was to prevent the recurrence of the state of things which had existed during the Wars of the Roses, when men were punished at one time for following York, and at another for following Lancaster. In legal phrase, it protected those who served the King de facto (King by fact, actual King) even though he might not be King de jure (King by right).

7. The Cabots.-There was now springing up a spirit of maritime enterprise which moved men to go in search of new lands beyond the ocean. The best navigators of the time were the Italians and Portuguese; and the first European who is known for certain to have sailed to the mainland of America was of Italian origin, though born at Bristol. This was Sebastian Cabot, who, accompanied probably by his father John Gabotto or Cabot, a citizen of Venice, sailed in 1497 from Bristol on a voyage of discovery, and found out some part of North America, seemingly Labrador and the coast north of Maryland. Some think that the Cabots had already, in 1494, made a voyage to America, and that the first land they saw was the island of Cape Breton.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

HENRY VIII.

Henry VIII.; beheading of Empson and Dudley (1)— Battle of the Spurs; battle of Flodden; marriages of Mary Tudor; Field of the Cloth of Gold (2)-Cardinal Wolsey; beheading of Buckingham; taxation; divorce of Katharine of Aragon; marriage with Anne Boleyn; fall and death of Wolsey; separation from Rome; the

Reformation, religious and political (3)-the King's marriages (4)—Thomas Cromwell; suppression of the monasteries; the Pilgrimage of Grace; Reginald Pole; the Bible; the Six Articles; beheading of Cromwell; religious affairs (5)—wars with Scotland and France (6)-beheading of the Earl of Surrey; death and will of Henry (7)-Defender of the Faith (8)– Wales and Ireland (9)—the navy 10).

1. Henry VIII., 1509-1547.-The new King was a handsome youth of eighteen, fair, auburn-haired, and of unusual height and strength. He was a master of the national weapon, the bow, and was perfect in those knightly exercises with sword and lance, which, though they were ceasing to be of much use in real warfare, were still thought necessary accomplishments for a gentleman. His intellectual training had likewise been high; he was skilled in music, a good scholar, and able to enter into and appreciate the new learning and culture of his age. Frank in manner and good-humoured, though liable to bursts of passion, he seemed to have all the qualities that Englishmen admired in a ruler. But though he gave fair promise, Henry was of a fierce and tyrannical nature. Yet he had a regard for the letter of the law, even while he bent the law to his caprice; and thus, though there was little freedom under his rule, all the forms of free government remained. To satisfy the revenge of those whom they had injured, Empson and Dudley were beheaded on a frivolous charge of high treason, and thus, though bad men, they suffered unjustly for crimes which they had not committed.

2. War with France. Scottish Invasion.— Henry, being desirous of playing a great part in Europe, soon mixed himself up in continental wars, taking the side opposed to France. Joined by the Emperor-elect Maximilian, the King in 1513 routed the French at Guinegate, in what was jestingly called "the Battle of the Spurs," from the panic-stricken flight of the enemy's

cavalry. The Scots took advantage of this war to invade England, but were defeated by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, in a battle beneath the hill of Flodden, Sept. 9, 1513, where their King, James IV., together with the flower of their nation, were left dead on the field. The next year peace was made with the French, their King, Louis XII., marrying Henry's sister Mary, who, being left a widow in three months' time, at once gave her hand to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. In June, 1520, Henry had a series of friendly meetings with the new King of France, Francis I., between Guines and Ardres, in which such splendour was displayed that the meeting-place was called "the Field of the Cloth of Gold." But nothing came of these interviews, for Henry had already been won over to the interests of the Emperor Charles V., who ruled over Spain, the Two Sicilies, the Netherlands, and large Austrian dominions, besides being, as Emperor, the head of Germany. In alliance with Charles, the King, in 1522, undertook a new war against France. Peace was made in 1525, the French agreeing to pay Henry an annual pension.

3. Breach with Rome.-During this period the King had been guided by Thomas Wolsey, a royal chaplain, and son of a wealthy burgess of Ipswich. Able and ambitious, Wolsey had by his talents raised himself to the highest pitch of favour. Honours and promotion were showered upon him; he became Archbishop of York, Chancellor, a Cardinal, and the Papal Legate, in which position he was supreme over the English Church; and he even hoped to be Pope. The nobles could ill brook the rule of an ecclesiastic of no birth; but the days of their power were gone by, and the malcontents were cowed by the beheading, in 1521, of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, a descendant of Edward III., on charges of aiming at the throne. Wolsey also became unpopular through the heavy taxation rendered

necessary by war and the King's profuseness. In 1525, without sanction from Parliament, commissioners were sent into the counties to demand the sixth part of every man's substance. "If men should give their goods by a commission," the people cried, "then were it worse than the taxes of France, and so England should be bond and not free." The artisans and peasants of Norfolk and Suffolk almost rose in rebellion; and Henry had to withdraw his demand. At last a series of unforeseen circumstances brought about the downfall of the powerful minister. The King and his wife Katharine of Aragon, whom he had married in the first year of his reign, had only one child living, Mary, born in 1516. Anxious, according to his own story, for a male heir, the King began to think that the death of his sons in infancy showed that his marriage with his brother's widow was displeasing to Heaven. His scruples were quickened or suggested by his having pitched upon Katharine's successor, Anne Boleyn, a beautiful and lively maid of honour. He applied for a divorce to Pope Clement VII., who, equally unwilling to offend either Henry or Katharine's nephew the Emperor Charles, could not make up his mind what to do. He so far yielded to Henry as to send over a Legate, Cardinal Campeggio, who, together with Wolsey, in 1529 held a court to try the cause. It had been hoped that Katharine might be persuaded or frightened into withdrawing to a nunnery; but, being resolved to maintain her right, she appealed to Rome, and the proceedings in England came to an end without any sentence being given. At last, after the matter had been dragging on for five years, and the Universities and learned men at home and abroad had been consulted in hopes of obtaining opinions favourable to the divorce, Henry, regardless of the Pope's prohibition, privately married Anne Boleyn. The newly-appointed Primate, Thomas Cranmer, who owed his elevation to the zeal with which

he had advocated the King's cause, then, on the 23rd of May, 1533, pronounced the marriage between Henry and Katharine to have been null and void from the beginning. The marriage with Anne Boleyn was declared lawful; and a few days afterwards she was crowned with great pomp. The forsaken wife, who steadily refused to forego her title of Queen, died three years later. More however than the fortunes of Katharine or Anne had been concerned in this affair. Henry became dissatisfied with Cardinal Wolsey, who he thought had not served him well in the matter; and Wolsey's enemies, chief among whom was Anne, were therefore able to ruin him. He was charged with having, by the exercise of his authority as Legate, transgressed the Statute of Præmunire; the Chancellorship was taken from him, he was constrained to make over to the King the archiepiscopal palace of YorkPlace (now Whitehall), and his possessions were all forfeited. In 1530, the year after his fall, he was arrested on charges of high treason, and brought towards London; but, sickening on the way, he died at Leicester Abbey, saying on his deathbed, "If I had served God as diligently as I have served the King, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs." Nor was the fall of Wolsey all. Henry, at first only in hopes of frightening the Pope, went along with the general desire for a reform of ecclesiastical abuses; and as the breach between the King and Rome widened, step by step the English Church was withdrawn from the power of the Pope. A statute in "restraint of appeals" enacted that from Easter, 1534, there should be no appeals to the Bishop or See of Rome. All payments to Rome were stopped, and the King was declared to be Supreme Head of the Church of England. Denial of this title was one of the many matters which were now made high treason, and men had not even liberty to be silent, for suspected persons were liable to be called upon to express their acknowledgment of

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