A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  kneeled down to receive it. But, when he got to the Tower Wharf on

  his way back to his prison, and his favourite daughter, MARGARET

  ROPER, a very good woman, rushed through the guards again and

  again, to kiss him and to weep upon his neck, he was overcome at

  last. He soon recovered, and never more showed any feeling but

  cheerfulness and courage. When he was going up the steps of the

  scaffold to his death, he said jokingly to the Lieutenant of the

  Tower, observing that they were weak and shook beneath his tread,

  'I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up; and, for my coming

  down, I can shift for myself.' Also he said to the executioner,

  after he had laid his head upon the block, 'Let me put my beard out

  of the way; for that, at least, has never committed any treason.'

  Then his head was struck off at a blow. These two executions were

  worthy of King Henry the Eighth. Sir Thomas More was one of the

  most virtuous men in his dominions, and the Bishop was one of his

  oldest and truest friends. But to be a friend of that fellow was

  almost as dangerous as to be his wife.

  When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the Pope raged

  against the murderer more than ever Pope raged since the world

  began, and prepared a Bull, ordering his subjects to take arms

  against him and dethrone him. The King took all possible

  precautions to keep that document out of his dominions, and set to

  work in return to suppress a great number of the English

  monasteries and abbeys.

  This destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, of whom

  Cromwell (whom the King had taken into great favour) was the head;

  and was carried on through some few years to its entire completion.

  There is no doubt that many of these religious establishments were

  religious in nothing but in name, and were crammed with lazy,

  indolent, and sensual monks. There is no doubt that they imposed

  upon the people in every possible way; that they had images moved

  by wires, which they pretended were miraculously moved by Heaven;

  that they had among them a whole tun measure full of teeth, all

  purporting to have come out of the head of one saint, who must

  indeed have been a very extraordinary person with that enormous

  allowance of grinders; that they had bits of coal which they said

  had fried Saint Lawrence, and bits of toe-nails which they said

  belonged to other famous saints; penknives, and boots, and girdles,

  which they said belonged to others; and that all these bits of

  rubbish were called Relics, and adored by the ignorant people.

  But, on the other hand, there is no doubt either, that the King's

  officers and men punished the good monks with the bad; did great

  injustice; demolished many beautiful things and many valuable

  libraries; destroyed numbers of paintings, stained glass windows,

  fine pavements, and carvings; and that the whole court were

  ravenously greedy and rapacious for the division of this great

  spoil among them. The King seems to have grown almost mad in the

  ardour of this pursuit; for he declared Thomas a Becket a traitor,

  though he had been dead so many years, and had his body dug up out

  of his grave. He must have been as miraculous as the monks

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  pretended, if they had told the truth, for he was found with one

  head on his shoulders, and they had shown another as his undoubted

  and genuine head ever since his death; it had brought them vast

  sums of money, too. The gold and jewels on his shrine filled two

  great chests, and eight men tottered as they carried them away.

  How rich the monasteries were you may infer from the fact that,

  when they were all suppressed, one hundred and thirty thousand

  pounds a year - in those days an immense sum - came to the Crown.

  These things were not done without causing great discontent among

  the people. The monks had been good landlords and hospitable

  entertainers of all travellers, and had been accustomed to give

  away a great deal of corn, and fruit, and meat, and other things.

  In those days it was difficult to change goods into money, in

  consequence of the roads being very few and very bad, and the

  carts, and waggons of the worst description; and they must either

  have given away some of the good things they possessed in enormous

  quantities, or have suffered them to spoil and moulder. So, many

  of the people missed what it was more agreeable to get idly than to

  work for; and the monks who were driven out of their homes and

  wandered about encouraged their discontent; and there were,

  consequently, great risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. These

  were put down by terrific executions, from which the monks

  themselves did not escape, and the King went on grunting and

  growling in his own fat way, like a Royal pig.

  I have told all this story of the religious houses at one time, to

  make it plainer, and to get back to the King's domestic affairs.

  The unfortunate Queen Catherine was by this time dead; and the King

  was by this time as tired of his second Queen as he had been of his

  first. As he had fallen in love with Anne when she was in the

  service of Catherine, so he now fell in love with another lady in

  the service of Anne. See how wicked deeds are punished, and how

  bitterly and self-reproachfully the Queen must now have thought of

  her own rise to the throne! The new fancy was a LADY JANE SEYMOUR;

  and the King no sooner set his mind on her, than he resolved to

  have Anne Boleyn's head. So, he brought a number of charges

  against Anne, accusing her of dreadful crimes which she had never

  committed, and implicating in them her own brother and certain

  gentlemen in her service: among whom one Norris, and Mark Smeaton

  a musician, are best remembered. As the lords and councillors were

  as afraid of the King and as subservient to him as the meanest

  peasant in England was, they brought in Anne Boleyn guilty, and the

  other unfortunate persons accused with her, guilty too. Those

  gentlemen died like men, with the exception of Smeaton, who had

  been tempted by the King into telling lies, which he called

  confessions, and who had expected to be pardoned; but who, I am

  very glad to say, was not. There was then only the Queen to

  dispose of. She had been surrounded in the Tower with women spies;

  had been monstrously persecuted and foully slandered; and had

  received no justice. But her spirit rose with her afflictions;

  and, after having in vain tried to soften the King by writing an

  affecting letter to him which still exists, 'from her doleful

  prison in the Tower,' she resigned herself to death. She said to

  those about her, very cheerfully, that she had heard say the

  executioner was a good one, and that she had a little neck (she

  laughed and clasped it with her hands as she said that), and would

  soon be out of her pain. And she WAS soon out of her pain, poor

  creature, on the Green inside the Tower, and her body was flung

  into an old box and put away in the ground under the
chapel.

  There is a story that the King sat in his palace listening very

  anxiously for the sound of the cannon which was to announce this

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  new murder; and that, when he heard it come booming on the air, he

  rose up in great spirits and ordered out his dogs to go a-hunting.

  He was bad enough to do it; but whether he did it or not, it is

  certain that he married Jane Seymour the very next day.

  I have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just long

  enough to give birth to a son who was christened EDWARD, and then

  to die of a fever: for, I cannot but think that any woman who

  married such a ruffian, and knew what innocent blood was on his

  hands, deserved the axe that would assuredly have fallen on the

  neck of Jane Seymour, if she had lived much longer.

  Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the Church property

  for purposes of religion and education; but, the great families had

  been so hungry to get hold of it, that very little could be rescued

  for such objects. Even MILES COVERDALE, who did the people the

  inestimable service of translating the Bible into English (which

  the unreformed religion never permitted to be done), was left in

  poverty while the great families clutched the Church lands and

  money. The people had been told that when the Crown came into

  possession of these funds, it would not be necessary to tax them;

  but they were taxed afresh directly afterwards. It was fortunate

  for them, indeed, that so many nobles were so greedy for this

  wealth; since, if it had remained with the Crown, there might have

  been no end to tyranny for hundreds of years. One of the most

  active writers on the Church's side against the King was a member

  of his own family - a sort of distant cousin, REGINALD POLE by name

  - who attacked him in the most violent manner (though he received a

  pension from him all the time), and fought for the Church with his

  pen, day and night. As he was beyond the King's reach - being in

  Italy - the King politely invited him over to discuss the subject;

  but he, knowing better than to come, and wisely staying where he

  was, the King's rage fell upon his brother Lord Montague, the

  Marquis of Exeter, and some other gentlemen: who were tried for

  high treason in corresponding with him and aiding him - which they

  probably did - and were all executed. The Pope made Reginald Pole

  a cardinal; but, so much against his will, that it is thought he

  even aspired in his own mind to the vacant throne of England, and

  had hopes of marrying the Princess Mary. His being made a high

  priest, however, put an end to all that. His mother, the venerable

  Countess of Salisbury - who was, unfortunately for herself, within

  the tyrant's reach - was the last of his relatives on whom his

  wrath fell. When she was told to lay her grey head upon the block,

  she answered the executioner, 'No! My head never committed

  treason, and if you want it, you shall seize it.' So, she ran

  round and round the scaffold with the executioner striking at her,

  and her grey hair bedabbled with blood; and even when they held her

  down upon the block she moved her head about to the last, resolved

  to be no party to her own barbarous murder. All this the people

  bore, as they had borne everything else.

  Indeed they bore much more; for the slow fires of Smithfield were

  continually burning, and people were constantly being roasted to

  death - still to show what a good Christian the King was. He

  defied the Pope and his Bull, which was now issued, and had come

  into England; but he burned innumerable people whose only offence

  was that they differed from the Pope's religious opinions. There

  was a wretched man named LAMBERT, among others, who was tried for

  this before the King, and with whom six bishops argued one after

  another. When he was quite exhausted (as well he might be, after

  six bishops), he threw himself on the King's mercy; but the King

  blustered out that he had no mercy for heretics. So, HE too fed

  the fire.

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  All this the people bore, and more than all this yet. The national

  spirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom at this time.

  The very people who were executed for treason, the very wives and

  friends of the 'bluff' King, spoke of him on the scaffold as a good

  prince, and a gentle prince - just as serfs in similar

  circumstances have been known to do, under the Sultan and Bashaws

  of the East, or under the fierce old tyrants of Russia, who poured

  boiling and freezing water on them alternately, until they died.

  The Parliament were as bad as the rest, and gave the King whatever

  he wanted; among other vile accommodations, they gave him new

  powers of murdering, at his will and pleasure, any one whom he

  might choose to call a traitor. But the worst measure they passed

  was an Act of Six Articles, commonly called at the time 'the whip

  with six strings;' which punished offences against the Pope's

  opinions, without mercy, and enforced the very worst parts of the

  monkish religion. Cranmer would have modified it, if he could;

  but, being overborne by the Romish party, had not the power. As

  one of the articles declared that priests should not marry, and as

  he was married himself, he sent his wife and children into Germany,

  and began to tremble at his danger; none the less because he was,

  and had long been, the King's friend. This whip of six strings was

  made under the King's own eye. It should never be forgotten of him

  how cruelly he supported the worst of the Popish doctrines when

  there was nothing to be got by opposing them.

  This amiable monarch now thought of taking another wife. He

  proposed to the French King to have some of the ladies of the

  French Court exhibited before him, that he might make his Royal

  choice; but the French King answered that he would rather not have

  his ladies trotted out to be shown like horses at a fair. He

  proposed to the Dowager Duchess of Milan, who replied that she

  might have thought of such a match if she had had two heads; but,

  that only owning one, she must beg to keep it safe. At last

  Cromwell represented that there was a Protestant Princess in

  Germany - those who held the reformed religion were called

  Protestants, because their leaders had Protested against the abuses

  and impositions of the unreformed Church - named ANNE OF CLEVES,

  who was beautiful, and would answer the purpose admirably. The

  King said was she a large woman, because he must have a fat wife?

  'O yes,' said Cromwell; 'she was very large, just the thing.' On

  hearing this the King sent over his famous painter, Hans Holbein,

  to take her portrait. Hans made her out to be so good-looking that

  the King was satisfied, and the marriage was arranged. But,

  whether anybody had paid Hans to touch up the picture; or whether

  Hans, like one or two other painters, flattered a princess in the

  ordinary way of bu
siness, I cannot say: all I know is, that when

  Anne came over and the King went to Rochester to meet her, and

  first saw her without her seeing him, he swore she was 'a great

  Flanders mare,' and said he would never marry her. Being obliged

  to do it now matters had gone so far, he would not give her the

  presents he had prepared, and would never notice her. He never

  forgave Cromwell his part in the affair. His downfall dates from

  that time.

  It was quickened by his enemies, in the interests of the unreformed

  religion, putting in the King's way, at a state dinner, a niece of

  the Duke of Norfolk, CATHERINE HOWARD, a young lady of fascinating

  manners, though small in stature and not particularly beautiful.

  Falling in love with her on the spot, the King soon divorced Anne

  of Cleves after making her the subject of much brutal talk, on

  pretence that she had been previously betrothed to some one else -

  which would never do for one of his dignity - and married

  Catherine. It is probable that on his wedding day, of all days in

  the year, he sent his faithful Cromwell to the scaffold, and had

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  his head struck off. He further celebrated the occasion by burning

  at one time, and causing to be drawn to the fire on the same

  hurdles, some Protestant prisoners for denying the Pope's

  doctrines, and some Roman Catholic prisoners for denying his own

  supremacy. Still the people bore it, and not a gentleman in

  England raised his hand.

  But, by a just retribution, it soon came out that Catherine Howard,

  before her marriage, had been really guilty of such crimes as the

  King had falsely attributed to his second wife Anne Boleyn; so,

  again the dreadful axe made the King a widower, and this Queen

  passed away as so many in that reign had passed away before her.

  As an appropriate pursuit under the circumstances, Henry then

  applied himself to superintending the composition of a religious

  book called 'A necessary doctrine for any Christian Man.' He must

  have been a little confused in his mind, I think, at about this

  period; for he was so false to himself as to be true to some one:

  that some one being Cranmer, whom the Duke of Norfolk and others of

  his enemies tried to ruin; but to whom the King was steadfast, and

  to whom he one night gave his ring, charging him when he should