Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History

by Bucholz, Robert

  The second prong of Cromwell’s strategy was to arrange a diplomatic marriage for Henry with Anne of Cleves (1515–57), the sister of a powerful Catholic but anti-Imperial and anti-papal prince in the west of Germany, the duke of Cleves. In order to interest the king, Cromwell commissioned Hans Holbein, the great portraitist of the Tudor court, to travel to Germany to paint the potential bride. According to legend, Holbein followed the practice of most court painters: he flattered Anne. When Henry saw the portrait, he professed himself enchanted and signed a treaty in October 1539. But when his bride arrived in January 1540 the king was repulsed, nicknaming her “the Flanders mare.” Realizing that more was at stake than his marital happiness, Henry went through with the ceremony. But by July the political and diplomatic situation changed again, as explained below. As a result, Henry was able to divorce Anne on the entirely plausible grounds of non-consummation. He granted her lands and a generous financial settlement and the former couple seem to have maintained a regard for each other for the rest of their lives. In the end, Anne was, perhaps, the luckiest of Henry’s wives.

  Obviously, Cromwell’s failure to work out a successful Protestant marriage and foreign policy left him badly exposed to his enemies in the spring of 1540. Despite his elevation as earl of Essex in April, events were beginning to overtake him. A Catholic party led by Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, and the Howard family opposed Cromwell. While this group was less numerous in Henry’s court and government than Cromwell’s followers, they did have the king’s ear. This was not least because, as we have seen, Henry was naturally attracted to Catholicism so long as it did not involve the pope. Moreover, in the spring of 1540, Henry fell in love with the young Catherine Howard (ca. 1518/24–42), niece of the Catholic duke of Norfolk. While Cromwell ran the king’s government in London, Norfolk, Gardiner, and Catherine attended his person at Greenwich. As the first two poisoned Henry’s mind against his secretary and principal minister, Catherine won his heart.

  Perhaps as a result of this influence, perhaps out of his own conservative convictions, perhaps in hopes of placating the Catholic powers, the king now began to distance himself from Cromwell’s reforms. As early as November 1538 he had issued a proclamation condemning Anabaptists, clerical marriage, and attacks on Church ceremonies. In May 1539, over Cromwell’s objections, he forced his secretary to steer through Parliament the Act of Six Articles, which denounced clerical marriage and upheld the efficacy of all seven sacraments as well as masses for the dead. Finally, to ensure that there would be no pretender in the wings for an invader to place on the throne, the king rounded up and executed every important Yorkist claimant within his obsessive grasp. During the summer of 1540 he went further, divorcing Anne of Cleves, marrying Catherine Howard in secret, and (in June and July) imprisoning, attainting, and then executing Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, on charges of abetting heresy and misusing his authority. In August, the marriage to Queen Catherine was made public. With a Catholic queen sharing the throne, the Catholic faction ascendant at court, the mass defended in the churches, and the architect of the Royal Supremacy dead, the Catholic triumph was complete.

  But it was also short-lived, for Henry soon had reason to doubt the loyalty of his Catholic subjects and even his Catholic queen. In the spring of 1541 he put down a number of Catholic plots in the North. That autumn, the Privy Council acquired evidence that Catherine Howard had been sexually indiscreet with several young men, both before and after her royal marriage. After some hesitation on Henry’s part, Parliament passed a bill of attainder against her on February 7, 1542. Catherine was taken to the Tower on February 10 and beheaded on the 13th. To save himself and what was left of the Catholic party, Norfolk joined in the accusations against his niece.

  In the summer of 1541 France and the Empire once again resumed hostilities, thus ending all fears of invasion, and relieving the pressure on Henry to appear more “Catholic.” Both sides courted the English king, who eventually joined his old ally, the emperor. His first move was to invade France’s ally, Scotland, in the autumn of 1542 after its ruler, James V, had spurned a summit meeting. This campaign resulted in a crushing victory over the Scots at Solway Marsh in November. The dejected James V died within the month. He was succeeded by his infant daughter, Mary, known to history as “Queen of Scots” (1542–87; reigned 1542–67). Henry, negotiating from strength, forced her diplomats to promise that she would marry the 5-year-old Prince Edward in July 1543. But after Henry went further and attempted to reassert feudal sovereignty over the northern kingdom, a pro-French, pro-Catholic Scottish government under David, Cardinal Beaton (1494?–1546), repudiated the treaty and resumed the “Auld Alliance.” In response, Henry dispatched another invasion force, placing it under the command of the late Queen Jane’s brother, Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford (ca. 1500–52). Hertford sacked Edinburgh in May 1544, but at the cost of over £1 million on the English side, much life on both sides, and the last shreds of good will which might have led to a peaceful union of the two kingdoms.

  In the meantime, Henry VIII began his last French campaign in July 1544. By this stage, the king was prematurely aged, suffering from obesity, gout, dropsy, and, possibly, syphilis. As a consequence, the English Colossus had to be carried about the French countryside on a litter. From this position he commanded a huge army of 48,000 men. This force managed to capture the French port of Boulogne, but at the astronomical cost of £1.3 million. To this should be added another £1 million for the navy and coastal garrisons, and, of course, the above-noted cost of the Scottish campaigns. To pay for all this, Henry could draw on an annual revenue of perhaps £160,000. With Cromwell off the stage, he lacked an effective minister and parliamentary manager to reduce expenses or raise revenue. While Parliament did its best, raising well over £1 million in the 1540s, this was obviously not enough to cover all of Henry’s military adventures. So the king resorted to selling vast quantities of monastic lands, extorting forced loans and illegal benevolences from his subjects, taking out foreign loans at the rate of 14 percent, and debasing the coinage. These last two expedients, in particular, emptied the treasury, increased the royal debt (Henry would die owing his foreign creditors over £750,000), and exacerbated an economic situation that was already inflationary. The price of food rose 85 percent, that of labor 50 percent. In short, the king’s diplomatic and fiscal irresponsibility undid many of Cromwell’s reforms, wrecked royal finances for a hundred years, and weakened the English economy as a whole for at least twenty.

  Henry VIII’s Last Years

  It is often difficult to tell precisely what the declining king had in mind during his last years. Perhaps, in his supreme self-centeredness, he felt betrayed by all those who surrounded him. Certainly he was suspicious of the Protestants for their doctrinal heterodoxy and rejection of hierarchy; and of the Catholics for their loyalty to the pope. It is typical of the hot-tempered king that, in July 1540, two days after executing Cromwell, he had three Catholic priests hanged as traitors and three Protestant preachers burned as heretics in Smithfield, London’s meat market, simultaneously. It is equally characteristic that in his last speech to Parliament in December 1545, he – of all people – called for charity and tolerance.

  But gradually, the king seems to have realized that some decision had to be made, not so much for himself as for his son. In the end, he appears to have concluded that, whatever his personal feelings about Protestantism, Catholics could not be trusted to maintain their allegiance to the dynasty and its achievements. That is, only Protestants, whether reform-minded theologians or lukewarm gentry who had purchased monastic lands, owed everything to a Tudor succession and had everything to fear from a usurpation or revolution. Subsequent actions by English Catholics confirmed his inclinations. Henry was annoyed when, three times between 1543 and 1545, the Catholic party attempted to pry Cranmer out of his archbishopric by accusing him of heresy. The king was alarmed when, in 1546, Henry Howard, earl of Surrey (b. 1516/17), son of Norfolk, a
descendant of Edward I, and a Catholic, began to include the royal arms in his personal crest. The king interpreted this as a threat to Prince Edward’s succession. He had Surrey executed in January 1547 and condemned his father, Norfolk, to follow. In a final blow to the Catholic party, Bishop Gardiner was stricken from the roll of privy councilors.

  In fact, as the reign came to a close, the king was increasingly isolated, relying for his domestic service and advice on a circle of Protestant courtiers led by his former brother-in-law, the earl of Hertford, and his first gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Sir Anthony Denny (1501–49). Henry’s Protestant family connections were further strengthened when, in July 1543, he married for the last time. The new queen was a middle-aged widow of reformist sympathies named Catherine Parr, Lady Latimer (1512–48). She knew how to handle, even mother, the aging monarch, and she proved to be a good mother to his three children as well. Finally, in 1547 the king buttressed the Protestant circle around the prince by naming Protestant peers to his Regency Council and humanist scholars as his tutors.

  It is thus with no little irony that Henry VIII died in January 1547, his hand in Cranmer’s, convinced that he did so a good Catholic to his God and a good king to his people. These two fond beliefs are open to question. Because he broke with Rome, destroyed the Church’s institutional structure, and failed to erect a clear religious system in its place, Henry inadvertently encouraged debate and dissent. New, reformist ideas flooded into port cities, especially London, from Europe. Bible study groups and Protestant cells at the universities proliferated. The country at large was not yet Protestant by 1547. But the old Catholic monopoly on English religious life had been broken. Henry’s decisions about his son’s councilors and tutors ensured that the next king would go even further.

  As for Henry’s concern for his people, he did leave them a male heir, albeit a very young one. Moreover, his use of Parliament to secure both the religious settlement and new kinds of social and economic legislation served to establish that body as a public venue for religious debate and redressing popular grievance – sometimes to the chagrin of his successors. His domestic policies strengthened royal authority and increased State power in other areas, while diminishing that of an aristocracy prone to feuding and rebellion. This led, in many cases, to a safer, more secure realm, including Wales. But his policy toward the other Celtic lands only embittered the Irish and drove independent Scotland back into the arms of France. Worse, his foreign policy adventures had done little to increase English prestige abroad, but everything to wreck royal finances and the national economy at home. The government’s inability to pay its bills would eventually weaken the English Crown and impoverish its subjects beyond his wildest imagination. This, too, would lead to an expansion of Parliament’s responsibilities. Thus, Henry created or exacerbated a series of problems, including those of sovereignty, royal finance, foreign policy, religion, and central vs. local control, that would plague his successors for decades. In many ways, for good or ill, the story told in the rest of this book is the working out of the ramifications of decisions first made by Henry VIII.

  The New King, the Lord Protector, and the Legacy of Henry VIII

  In short, when King Henry departed this life for what he hoped was a better one, he left his people a raft of problems, many of his own making. These included a massive government debt, widespread economic distress, religious uncertainty, and hostilities with England’s three most proximate neighbors, Scotland, Ireland, and France. Perhaps his only real achievement, the road to which had been paved with these problems, was the peaceful accession of his son, Edward VI (reigned 1547–53). In keeping with the imperious personality of Henry VIII, he actually disposed of his kingdom via his last will and testament.3 This document bequeathed the throne to, first, Edward. Should the new king die without heirs, Henry’s eldest daughter, Mary, would follow; if she should die childless, she would be succeeded by Elizabeth (see genealogy 2, p. 430). It is a measure of Henry’s power and prestige that, even in death, his wishes were not seriously questioned even though: (1) they reversed previous legislation delegitimizing the two princesses; and (2) Edward VI was only 9 years of age when he came to the throne. The example of England’s last child-king, Edward V, was just about within living memory and yet, remarkably, no one seems to have challenged the right or the ability of Henry’s little boy to reign. If the young king lacked his predecessor’s physical strength and vigor, he at least possessed the same quick mind and strong will. As a child, the new sovereign proved himself an accomplished scholar in Greek, Latin, and French. He also played the lute and demonstrated an interest in astronomy.

  Despite his precocious intelligence, Edward’s age dictated that he could not yet rule in his own right. Henry VIII had foreseen the problem and provided a Regency Council made up of prominent Protestant peers and clergymen. But within days of Edward’s accession one of the new king’s uncles, the earl of Hertford, persuaded his nephew and the Privy Council to set aside this part of Henry’s wishes and name him lord protector of the realm and duke of Somerset. So, despite the late king’s best efforts, the history of the last King Edward had repeated itself in at least one way: a royal uncle had seized effective power over a boy-king and his realm. This is not to say that Somerset (as he will be called henceforth) was another Richard III. Unlike that unfortunate monarch, he wanted to dominate the boy-king, not usurp him. This was obviously a less ruthless and more prudent policy than Richard’s, but it would leave him exposed to rivals for the king’s ear. In power, Somerset fancied himself a reformer, issuing some 76 proclamations in just two years. In particular, he was a patron of writers like Henry Brinkelow (d. 1545/6) and Robert Crowley (ca. 1517–88), a new generation of Commonwealthmen, who sought social and economic justice. But this sympathy for the poor played badly with the nobility and gentry who exploited them. Moreover, the new lord protector was imperious toward his fellow councilors, bull-headed in maintaining policies that were manifestly unpopular with the ruling class, and “looked down upon by everybody as a dry, sour, opinionated man,” according to one foreign observer.4 He was, in short, a poor politician.

  Somerset demonstrated his political ineptitude in the first task he set himself, that of pacifying Scotland. As lord protector he continued Henry VIII’s policy of “rough wooing,” that is, of pressuring the Scots into marrying their new young Queen Mary to England’s new young King Edward – and wreaking havoc upon them if they refused. Upon the latest such refusal he invaded, winning the battle of Pinkie Cleugh (just outside Edinburgh) in September 1547. But it is one thing to defeat an enemy, quite another to subdue him. Because Somerset did not possess enough troops to occupy Scotland, his victory, and the subsequent establishment of English garrisons in the south, only succeeded in further alienating the Scots – and driving them into the arms of the French. In 1548, Mary Queen of Scots fled to France where she eventually married the dauphin. Thus, Henry and Somerset had managed to drive England’s two bitterest enemies even more deeply into an alliance which would vex their successors for the next half-century.

  One reason for the failure of Somerset’s strong-arm tactics was a growing sense of Scottish nationalism. A second was that Mary Queen of Scots was a Catholic and Edward was an increasingly pronounced Protestant. At least this was the impression created by Somerset’s religious policy. Almost immediately upon coming to power, he asked Parliament to repeal the Treason Act, the Act for Burning Heretics, the Six Articles, and all restrictions on printing and reading the Bible. English men and women were now more free to discuss religion and religious alternatives than they had been for centuries. Vernacular Bibles and Protestant tracts flooded into England, where they were read and debated avidly, especially at the two universities and among urban professionals and merchants. On a more popular level, a rash of image-breaking only accelerated with the passage of the Chantries Act in 1547. This statute denounced the doctrine of Purgatory and the efficacy of prayers for the dead and dissolved and confiscated
the property of chantries, almshouses, schools, and hospitals. This further reduced the Church’s institutional presence in English lives. By 1549, half of the 500 or so pre-Reformation charitable institutions for the poor had been closed. From henceforward, local government and private initiatives took responsibility for poor relief, education, and healthcare. The Act also abolished the religious guilds, brotherhoods, and fraternities which had provided so many town and village social activities. Even parties, festivals, and wedding receptions would now take place somewhere other than the village church.

  These measures were essentially negative in that they abolished old restrictions and institutions. Somerset’s regime also made positive moves toward Protestantism. In 1548, Archbishop Cranmer produced the first Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer’s first Prayer Book was a compromise. For example, it retained altars, vestments, private confession, and prayers for the dead. But it denied transubstantiation and increased the role of the laity. Above all, it was written, magnificently, in English. For the first time, all English men and women could worship God in their own language. In 1549 Parliament passed the first Act of Uniformity, which ordered parishes to use the Prayer Book. In the same year, priests were allowed to marry; about 1 in 10 did so. Most parts of the country received these changes with little overt resistance. Some localities – London, the Thames Valley, the Southeast and East Anglia seem to have embraced them. But in the remote west, especially Cornwall, many people resented the loss of hospitals, saints’ days, and beloved rituals. On Whit Monday, June 10 (the Monday after Pentecost, seven weeks after Easter, and the day after the introduction of the new Prayer Book), the villagers of Sampford Courtenay, Devonshire, forced the priest to say a Latin mass. The ensuing rebellion soon spread throughout the West Country, the rebels laying siege to its most populous city, Exeter. Somerset offered a general pardon if the rebels would disband. Instead, they demanded a return to the religious arrangements of Henry VIII’s Six Articles, the suppression of the English Bible, and the restoration of the Latin mass and some monasteries.