honour. The 1st day of May, she was, it seems, informed against; the 2nd, imprisoned; the 15th, condemned; the 17th, deprived of her brother and friends, who suffered in her cause; and the 19th, executed. On the 20th the king married Jane Seymour, who, on the 29th, was publicly showed as queen."
But what marks how thoroughly Henry VIII. was by this time sunk from the grade and spirit of the man he was into a gross and ferocious animal, destitute it would seem of humanity, and even the consciousness of decency, was the manner in which he watched for and observed the solemnity of his wife's death. On the morning appointed for her execution, he clad himself in white, and went to hunt in Epping Forest. During breakfast, he was observed by his attendants to be silent, fidgety, and impatient. At length they heard the preconcerted signal, the report of a gun at the Tower—when he started up, crying, "Ha! it is done! The business is done! Uncouple the dogs, and let us follow the sport!" In the evening he returned gaily from the chase, and on the following morning he married Jane Seymour!
His conduct was quite uniform throughout. His daughter Mary, now a young lady of twenty years of age, thought the removal of Queen Anne, who had shown no liking to her, was a good opportunity to endeavour to escape from her confinement at Hunsdon, and obtain more indulgence from her father. Lady Kingston, as we have seen, was charged by Anne Boleyn with a sacred message to the princess, and, through her, she sent a letter to Cromwell, begging to be allowed to write to her father. This Cromwell permitted, on condition that the letter should be first submitted to him. The consequence was that a deputation from the council soon appeared at Hunsdon, who required her, as the price of the king's favour, to subscribe a paper admitting that the marriage of her mother with Henry had been unlawful and incestuous; and, moreover, that Henry was the head of the Church. The poor girl recoiled from so revolting a proposal with horror, but Cromwell wrote a most base and cruel letter on her refusal, telling her that "she was an obstinate and obdurate woman, deserving the reward of malice in the extremity of mischief," and that if she did not submit he would take his leave of her presence, "reputing her the most ungrateful, unnatural, and obstinate person living, both to God and her father." He told her by her disobedience she had rendered herself "unfit to live in a Christian congregation, of which he was so convinced, that he refused the mercy of Christ if it were not true."
We are amazed beyond expression in contemplating the moral condition of this Court; its hardness and insensibility to every honourable feeling. What a master and what a man! The poor confounded princess, overwhelmed by such terrible denunciations, submitted in affright, and signed the paper, branding her mother with disgrace, and herself with illegitimacy. But that did not satisfy this tender father—he demanded who they were who had advised her former obstinacy, and her present submission. This the princess, spite of her recent vow of obedience in everything, refused to disclose, declaring that she would sooner die than expose others to injury. Henry was obliged to be content, and gave her an establishment more suited to her years and rank. But he was in no degree disposed to do her or any one essential justice. He repealed the late act of settlement, and passed a new one through the compliant Parliament, entailing the crown on the issue by Jane Seymour. He obtained, moreover, a power to bequeath the succession by letters patent, or by his last will, in case of having no fresh issue of his own, on any person that he thought proper. In life and in death he demanded the absolute power over every principle of the constitution, and this Parliament, which would have granted him anything, conceded it. It was well understood that he meant to cut off his daughters, and to confer the crown on his illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond. But as if Providence would punish him in the very act, this son died before he could give his Royal assent to the bill.
But if Henry had found a very submissive body in the Parliament, there was much discontent amongst the people, who were encouraged in their murmurs by the monks who had been dispossessed of their monasteries, or who feared the approach of their fall, and the clergy, who were equally alarmed at the progress of the opinions of the Reformers in the nation. There were two great factions in the Church and the Government, the opposed members of which were denominated the men of the old and the new learning. At the head of the old or Romanist faction were Leo, Archbishop of York; Stokesley, Bishop of London; Tunstall, Bishop of Durham; Gardiner, of Winchester; Sherbourne, of Chichester; Nix, of Norwich; and Kite, of Carlisle. These received the countenance and support of the Duke of Norfolk and of Wriothesley, the premier secretary. The leaders of the reforming faction were Cranmer, the primate; Latimer, Bishop of Worcester; Shaxton, of Salisbury; Hilsey, of Rochester; Fox, of Hereford; and Barlow, of St. David's. These were especially patronised by Cromwell, whose power as Vicar-General was great, and who was now made Lord Cromwell by the king.
Each of these parties, supported by a great body in the nation, endeavoured to make their way by flattering the vanity or the love of power of the capricious king. The Papist party swayed him to their side, by his love of all the old doctrines and rites; and Reformers, by his pride in opposing the Pope, and the gratification of his love of power as the independent head of the Church. As they applied these different forces, so the king oscillated to one side or the other, but they were never sure of him. Some particular circumstance would make him start off at a tangent, and fill all those with terror who the moment before felt most secure. Each party was continually compelled to sacrifice its own opinions outwardly, and act the hypocrite. Gardiner and the Papal party submitted to renounce the Papal supremacy, and subscribe to every Royal innovation in the ancient Church; Cranmer and his adherents, on the other hand, submitted to teach the doctrines which they disapproved, to practice the rites and ceremonies that they deemed idolatrous, and to send men to the stake for the declaration of opinions which they themselves secretly entertained.
In this transition state of things, the doctrines of the English Church, as settled by the Convocation, exhibited
