Though her subsequent misfortunes excite our commiseration, we cannot avoid observing some degree of insolence in her triumph. At this distance of time, when the fury of religious wars no longer disturbs the peace of nations, and polemical disputes are confined to colleges and schools, the conduct of the court of Rome, proverbially renowned for its cautious and able policy, will naturally excite our surprise. Instead of a prudent acquiescence in a divorce which it could not prevent-an acquiescence which might have stifled, or, at least, retarded the effects of a reformation so fatal to its influence; Clement thundered out an anathema against Henry, and hastened the accomplishment of a design which he had, perhaps, long meditated, of separating his kingdom from the dominion of the church. The parliament which recognized no laws but the will of its imperious master, ratified a schism so advantageous to the state, and the people ea gerly subscribed to a measure which promised so material an alleviation of the miseries they endured. Those who are accustomed to venerate the authority and useful controul of a British parliament, can form but a very inadequate idea of what such an assembly was under the reign of Henry. To the wild dictates of this arbitrary monarch, it constantly sacrificed the interests of religion, the scruples of conscience, and the blood of its fellow-citizens. His proclamations had the force of law; his theological decisions were regarded as the emanations of divinity; and this absurd voluptuary and capricious tyrant maintained over his people, an influence which has been denied to the founders of empires. Al ways ridiculous and inconsistent in his proceedings, he indiscriminately punished the defenders of the pope's supremacy, and the partizans of Luther. The stake or the scaffold equally awaited those who adhered to their ancient faith, and the more rigid reformers who denied the necessity of ecclesiastical celibacy, the efficacy of the mass, and the advantages of auricular confession. The religious opinions of the parliament and people were guided by the capricious decrees of the sovereign, and their faith was narrowed or enlarged in proportion as he retrenched or extended the articles of his creed. When his passion for Boleyn had subsided by possession, the parliament readily undertook to invent, and punish her imaginary crimes. She was accused of adultery and incest, and expatiated, on the scaffold, the occasional levity of her conduct, and the errors of mistaken ambition. With her perished Norris, Brereton, and Smeton, who had roused the cruel jealousy of the king by their respectful attention and tender admiration, which her rank exacted, and which beauty seldom fails to command. Her singular fortune had excited envy; but it was lost in the sweetness of her temper, and the benevolence of her disposition. Jane Seymour received the hand of Henry on the day which followed the death of her predecessor; and she herself expired, the next year, another victim, perhaps, to the injurious treatment of her husband, But the impressions of horror and of pity which the death of Boleyn excited, were weakened by the fate of the numerous victims who daily fell under the axe of the executioner. Some were condemned as Papists, others as Lutherans. A few years witnessed the death of Cromwell, who, by his great talents, and the favour of the king, had attained the dangerous honours of the ministry; of More, the chancellor, a philosophic writer, and upright in the administration of justice; but a zealous papist and an intolerant bigot: of Fisher, the intrepid defender of ecclesiastical immunities; of Lambert, who was daring enough to enter into the list with Henry in theological discussion; of Barnes, Gerard, Philpot, and innumerable others, who died martyrs to their respective tenets. In the midst of these persecutions, the north of England experienced some commotions, which were soon quelled by the activity of the Duke of Norfolk; yet that nobleman had nearly, some years after, experienced the fate of so many others; and his son, the incomparable Earl of Surry, who, in a barbarous court, united the accomplishments of a soldier and a poet, fell a lamented sacrifice to the unfounded suspicions of the tyrant. The spoliation of the clergy, so far from rendering the monarch popular, had more particularly alienated from him the affections of his nobility. They saw, with grief, that the numerous religious foundations of their ancestors had suddenly become the property of the king. They regretted the destruction of those ecclesiastical establishments which secured to their younger children an easy and certain independence. The lower classes, who seldom search into futurity for the effect of measures, and prefer those which more immediately promote their comforts, felt the removal of the eleemosynary supplies from convents and monasteries, by which they were daily supported and nourished. Thus self-interest and fanaticism threatened to obstruct the first progress of the reformation. Perhaps some factious spirit might then have excited a religious war in this island, and thrown the government into confusion; but no such disturber appeared, and Henry enjoyed a prosperity which has seldom been granted even to the most virtuous of princes. After the death of Jane Seymour, he espoused the Lady Anne, of Cleves. The disgust with which her want of personal charms soon inspired him, insured to that princess the happy security of a divorce. Catherine Howard was not so fortunate: she was convicted, not of adultery, but of criminal intrigues previous to her marriage; and this crime, committed at a time when she little expected to share the honours of royalty, conducted her to the scaffold; and with her, her still more unfortunate parents, who were condemned for not having revealed the errors of their child, but they were afterwards pardoned. It was then that the parliament passed the whimsical act which enjoined every person who was privy to the gallantries of any future queen, to reveal them to the king, under the pains of treason; and that every maiden who should be married to a king of England, should previously make oath of her virginity. Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife, had the good fortune to survive him. It would require the discrimination and energetic pencil of Tacitus to delineate the character of this prince, and to describe, in their true colours, the meanness of his courtiers, the baseness of his senate, and the servility of the people. The temper of Henry was naturally despotic; flattery aggravated his bad qualities; and towards the end of his life, he became a monster of cruelty. Many of his acts would seem to denote some degree of mental derangement. He was an utter stranger to every sentiment of humanity. Love was, in him, a mere sensual gratification, in which the heart had no share. His religion was compounded of fanaticism and pride; his policy had no other aim but to inspire terror and dismay. His ferocity increased with his infirmities. Immured in his palace, like a lion within his den, his existence was notified only by the sentences of death which daily issued from his council. Edward II., Richard II., and Henry VI., had been dethroned, imprisoned, and assassinated for some arbitrary acts, or to expiate the crimes of their wives, and the turbulence of their barons; while the Eighth Henry maintained the quiet possession of his throne, and died in his bed. He left three children, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, who successively reigned after him. The short and innocent life of Edward VI. appeared to promise a happier reign; but Mary displayed a cruelty even more intolerable than that of her father, as it was more the effect of deliberation than of passion; and many of the acts which signalized the reign of Elizabeth, may convince us that humanity was not her predominating quality. Henry died on the 28th of January, 1547, after a life of fifty-seven years, and a reign of thirty-eight. The influence of this king has extended itself over all the revolutions which have since occurred in England :the good and the evil which they have alternately produced, may, in some measure, be equally attributed to him. The reformation which he began, and which Mary endeavoured to destroy, occasioned those proscriptions and bloody executions, which sullied their reigns. But the theological discussions he encouraged, |