Chapter XXXIII: Henry VIII (1)

{1542.} Henry, being determined to avenge himself on the king of Scots for slighting the advances which he had made him, would gladly have obtained a supply from parliament, in order to prosecute that enterprise; but as he did not think it prudent to discover his intentions, that assembly, conformably to their frugal maxims, would understand no hints; and the king was disappointed in his expectations. He continued, however, to make preparations for war; and as soon as he thought himself in a condition to invade Scotland, he published a manifesto, by which he endeavored to justify hostilities. He complained of James’s breach of word in declining the promised interview, which was the real ground of the quarrel;[*] but in order to give a more specious coloring to the enterprise, he mentioned other injuries; namely, that his nephew had granted protection to some English rebels and fugitives, and had detained some territory which, Henry pretended, belonged to England. He even revived the old claim to the vassalage of Scotland, and he summoned James to do homage to him as his liege lord and superior. He employed the duke of Norfolk, whom he called the scourge of the Scots, to command in the war: and though James sent the bishop of Aberdeen, and Sir James Learmont of Darsay, to appease his uncle, he would hearken to no terms of accommodation.

* Buchanan lib xiv. Drummond in Ja. V.

While Norfolk was assembling his army at Newcastle, Sir Robert Bowes, attended by Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Ralph Evers, Sir Brian Latoun, and others, made an incursion into Scotland, and advanced towards Jedburgh, with an intention of pillaging and destroying that town. The earl of Angus, and George Douglas, his brother, who had been many years banished their country, and had subsisted by Henry’s bounty, joined the English army in this incursion, and the forces commanded by Bowes exceeded four thousand men. James had not been negligent in his preparations for defence, and had posted a considerable body, under the command of the earl of Huntley, for the protection of the borders. Lord Hume, at the head of his vassals, was hastening to join Huntley, when he met with the English army; and an action immediately ensued. During the engagement, the forces under Huntley began to appear; and the English, afraid of being surrounded and overpowered, took to flight, and were pursued by the enemy. Evers, Latoun, and some other persons of distinction, were taken prisoners. A few only of small note fell in the skirmish.[*]

The duke of Norfolk, meanwhile, began to move from his camp at Newcastle; and being attended by the earls of Shrewsbury, Derby, Cumberland, Surrey, Hertford, Rutland, with many others of the nobility, he advanced to the borders. His forces amounted to above twenty thousand men; and it required the utmost efforts of Scotland to resist such a formidable armament. James had assembled his whole military force at Fala and Sautrey, and was ready to advance as soon as he should be informed of Norfolk’s invading his kingdom. The English passed the Tweed at Berwick, and marched along the banks of the river as far as Kelso; but hearing that James had collected near thirty thousand men, they repassed the river at that village, and retreated into their own country.[**] The king of Scots, inflamed with a desire of military glory, and of revenge on his invaders, gave the signal for pursuing them, and carrying the war into England. He was surprised to find that his nobility, who were in general disaffected on account of the preference which he had given to the clergy, opposed this resolution, and refused to attend him in his projected enterprise. Enraged at this mutiny, he reproached them with cowardice, and threatened vengeance; but still resolved, with the forces which adhered to him, to make an impression on the enemy. He sent ten thousand men to the western borders, who entered England at Solway Frith; and he himself followed them at a small distance, ready to join them upon occasion. Disgusted, however, at the refractory disposition of his nobles, he sent a message to the army depriving Lord Maxwel, their general, of his commission, and conferring the command on Oliver Sinclair, a private gentleman, who was his favorite. The army was extremely disgusted with this alteration, and was ready to disband, when a small body of English appeared, not exceeding five hundred men, under the command of Dacres and Musgrave. A panic seized the Scots, who immediately took to flight, and were pursued by the enemy. Few were killed in this rout; for it was no action; but a great many were taken prisoners, and some of the principal nobility: among these, the earls of Cassilis and Glencairn, the lords Maxwel, Fleming, Somerville, Oliphant, Grey, who were all sent to London, and given in custody to different noblemen.

* Buchanan, lib. xiv.

** Buchanan, lib. xiv.

The king of Scots, hearing of this disaster, was astonished; and being naturally of a melancholic disposition, as well as endowed with a high spirit, he lost all command of his temper on this dismal occasion. Rage against his nobility, who, he believed, had betrayed him; shame for a defeat by such unequal numbers; regret for the past, fear of the future; all these passions so wrought upon him, that he would admit of no consolation, but abandoned himself wholly to despair. His body was wasted by sympathy with his anxious mind; and even his life began to be thought in danger. He had no issue living; and hearing that his queen was safely delivered, he asked whether she had brought him a male or a female child. Being told the latter, he turned himself in his bed: “The crown came with a woman,” said he, “and it will go with one: many miseries await this poor kingdom: Henry will make it his own either by force of arms or by marriage.” A few days after, he expired, in the flower of his age: a prince of considerable virtues and talents; well fitted, by his vigilance and personal courage, for repressing those disorders to which his kingdom, during that age, was so much exposed. He executed justice with impartiality and rigor; but as he supported the commonalty and the church against the rapine of the nobility, he escaped not the hatred of that order. The Protestants also, whom he opposed, have endeavored to throw many stains on his memory; but have not been able to fix any considerable imputation upon him.[*]

{1543.} Henry was no sooner informed of his victory and of the death of his nephew, than he projected, as James had foreseen, the scheme of uniting Scotland to his own dominions by marrying his son Edward to the heiress of that kingdom.[**] [18]

* See note R, at the end of the volume.

** Stowe, p. 584. Herbert. Burnet. Buchanan.

He called together the Scottish nobles who were his prisoners and after reproaching them, in severe terms, for their pretended breach of treaty, he began to soften his tone, and proposed to them this expedient, by which, he hoped, those disorders so prejudicial to both states, would for the future be prevented. He offered to bestow on them their liberty without ransom; and only required of them engagements to favor the marriage of the prince of Wales with their young mistress. They were easily prevailed on to give their assent to a proposal which seemed so natural and so advantageous to both kingdoms; and being conducted to Newcastle, they delivered to the duke of Norfolk hostages for their return, in case the intended nuptials were not completed; and they thence proceeded to Scotland, where they found affairs in some confusion.

The pope, observing his authority in Scotland to be in danger from the spreading of the new opinions, had bestowed on Beaton, the primate, the dignity of cardinal, in order to confer more influence upon him; and that prelate had long been regarded as prime minister to James, and as the head of that party which defended the ancient privileges and property of the ecclesiastics. Upon the death of his master, this man, apprehensive of the consequences both to his party and to himself, endeavored to keep possession of power; and for that purpose he is accused of executing a deed which required a high degree of temerity. He forged, it is said, a will for the king, appointing himself and three noblemen more regents of the kingdom during the minority of the infant princess:[*] at least,--for historians are not well agreed in the circumstances of the fact,--he had read to James a paper of that import, to which that monarch, during the delirium which preceded his death, had given an imperfect assent and approbation.[**] By virtue of this will, Beaton had put himself in possession of the government; and having united his interests with those of the queen dowager, he obtained the consent of the convention of states, and excluded the pretensions of the earl of Arran.

* Sadler’s Letters, p. 161. Spotswood, p. 71. Buchanan, lib.
xv.

** John Knox, Hist. of the Reformation.

James, earl of Arran, of the name of Hamilton, was next heir to the crown by his grandmother, daughter of James III.; and on that account seemed best entitled to possess that high office into which the cardinal had intruded himself. The prospect also of his succession after a princess who was in such tender infancy, procured him many partisans; and though his character indicated little spirit, activity, or ambition, a propensity which he had discovered for the new opinions had attached to him all the zealous promoters of those innovations. By means of these adherents, joined to the vassals of his own family, he had been able to make opposition to the cardinal’s administration; and the suspicion of Beaton’s forgery, with the accession of the noblemen who had been prisoners in England, assisted too by some money sent from London, was able to turn the balance in his favor. The earl of Angus and his brother, having taken the present opportunity of returning into their native country, opposed the cardinal with all the credit of that powerful family; and the majority of the convention had now embraced opposite interests to those which formerly prevailed. Arran was declared governor; the cardinal was committed to custody under the care of Lord Seton; and a negotiation was commenced with Sir Ralph Sadler, the English ambassador, for the marriage of the infant queen with the prince of Wales. The following conditions were quickly agreed on: that the queen should remain in Scotland till she should be ten years of age; that she should then be sent to England to be educated; that six Scottish noblemen should immediately be delivered as hostages to Henry; and that the kingdom, notwithstanding its union with England, should still retain its laws and privileges.[*] By means of these equitable conditions, the war between the nations, which had threatened Scotland with such dismal calamities, seemed to be fully composed, and to be changed into perpetual concord and amity.

But the cardinal primate, having prevailed on Seton to restore him to his liberty, was able, by his intrigues, to confound all these measures, which appeared so well concerted. He assembled the most considerable ecclesiastics; and having represented to them the imminent danger to which their revenues and privileges were exposed, he persuaded them to collect privately from the clergy a large sum of money, by which, if intrusted to his management, he engaged to overturn the schemes of their enemies.[**] Besides the partisans whom he acquired by pecuniary motives, he roused up the zeal of those who were attached to the Catholic worship; and he represented the union with England as the sure forerunner of ruin to the church and to the ancient religion.

* Sir Ralph Sadler’s Letters.

** Buchanan, lib. xv.

The nations antipathy of the Scots to their southern neighbors was also an infallible engine by which the cardinal wrought upon the people; and though the terror of Henry’s arms, and their own inability to make resistance, had procured a temporary assent to the alliance and marriage proposed, the settled habits of the nation produced an extreme aversion to those measures. The English ambassador and his retinue received many insults from persons whom the cardinal had instigated to commit those violences, in hopes of bringing on a rupture; but Sadler prudently dissembled the matter, and waited patiently till the day appointed for the delivery of the hostages. He then demanded of the regent the performance of that important article; but received for answer, that his authority was very precarious, that the nation had now taken a different impression, and that it was not in his power to compel any of the nobility to deliver themselves as hostages to the English. Sadler, foreseeing the consequence of this refusal, sent a summons to all those who had been prisoners in England, and required them to fulfil the promise which they had given of returning into custody. None of them showed so much sentiment of honor as to fulfil their engagements, except Gilbert Kennedy, earl of Cassilis. Henry was so well pleased with the behavior of this nobleman, that he not only received him graciously, but honored him with presents, gave him his liberty, and sent him back to Scotland, with his two brothers, whom he had left as hostages.[*]

* Buchanan, lib. xv.

This behavior of the Scottish nobles, though it reflected dishonor on the nation, was not disagreeable to the cardinal, who foresaw that all these persons would now be deeply interested to maintain their enmity and opposition to England. And as a war was soon expected with that kingdom, he found it necessary immediately to apply to France, and to crave the assistance of that ancient ally, during the present distresses of the Scottish nation. Though the French king was fully sensible of his interest in supporting Scotland, a demand of aid could not have been made on him at a more unseasonable juncture. His pretensions on the Milanese, and his resentment against Charles, had engaged him in a war with that potentate; and having made great, though fruitless efforts during the preceding campaign, he was the more disabled at present from defending his own dominions, much more from granting any succor to the Scots. Matthew Stewart, earl of Lenox, a young nobleman of a great family, was at that time in the French court; and Francis, being informed that he was engaged in ancient and hereditary enmity with the Hamiltons, who had murdered his father, sent him over to his native country, as a support to the cardinal and the queen mother: and he promised that a supply of money, and, if necessary, even military succors, should soon be despatched after him. Arran, the governor, seeing all these preparations against him, assembled his friends, and made an attempt to get the person of the infant queen into his custody; but being repulsed, he was obliged to come to an accommodation with his enemies, and to intrust that precious charge to four neutral persons, the heads of potent families, the Grahams, Areskines, Lindseys, and Levingstones. The arrival of Lenox, in the midst of these transactions, served to render the victory of the French party over the English still more undisputable.[*]

The opposition which Henry met with in Scotland from the French intrigues, excited his resentment, and further confirmed the resolution which he had already taken of breaking with France, and of uniting his arms with those of the emperor. He had other grounds of complaint against the French king; which, though not of great importance, yet being recent, were able to overbalance those great injuries which he had formerly received from Charles. He pretended that Francis had engaged to imitate his example in separating himself entirely from the see of Rome, and that he had broken his promise in that particular. He was dissatisfied that James, his nephew, had been allowed to marry, first Magdalene of France, then a princess of the house of Guise; and he considered these alliances as pledges which Francis gave of his intentions to support the Scots against the power of England.[**] He had been informed of some railleries which the French king had thrown out against his conduct with regard to his wives. He was disgusted that Francis, after so many obligations which he owed him, had sacrificed him to the emperor; and, in the confidence of friendship, had rashly revealed his secrets to that subtle and interested monarch. And he complained that regular payments were never made of the sums due to him by France, and of the pension which had been stipulated. Impelled by all these motives, he alienated himself from his ancient friend and confederate, and formed a league with the emperor, who earnestly courted his alliance.

* Buchanan, lib. xv. Drummond.

** Pere Daniel.

This league, besides stipulations for mutual defence, contained a plan for invading France; and the two monarchs agreed to enter Francis’s dominions with an army, each of twenty-five thousand men; and to require that prince to pay Henry all the sums which he owed him, and to consign Boulogne, Montreuil, Terouenne, and Ardres, as a security for the regular payment of his pension for the future: in case these conditions were rejected, the confederate princes agreed to challenge, for Henry, the crown of France, or, in default of it, the duchies of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Guienne; for Charles the duchy of Burgundy, and some other territories.[*] That they might have a pretence for enforcing these claims, they sent a message to Francis, requiring him to renounce his alliance with Sultan Solyman, and to make reparation for all the prejudice which Christendom had sustained from that unnatural confederacy. Upon the French king’s refusal, war was declared against him by the allies. It may be proper to remark, that the partisans of France objected to Charles’s alliance with the heretical king of England, as no less obnoxious than that which Francis had contracted with Solyman: and they observed, that this league was a breach of the solemn promise which he had given to Clement VII., never to make peace or alliance with England.

While the treaty with the emperor was negotiating, the king summoned a new session of parliament, in order to obtain supplies for his projected war with France. The parliament granted him a subsidy, to be paid in three years; it was levied in a peculiar manner; but exceeded not three shillings in the pound upon any individual.[**]

* Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 768; vol. xv. p. 2.

** They who were worth, in goods, twenty shillings and
upwards to five pounds, paid fourpence of every pound; from
five pounds to ten pounds, eightpence; from ten pounds to
twenty pounds, sixteen pence; from twenty and upwards, two
shillings. Lands, fees, and annuities, from twenty shillings
to five pounds, paid eightpence in the pound; from five
pounds to ten pounds, sixteen pence; from ten pounds to
twenty pounds, two shillings; from twenty pounds and
upwards, three shillings.

The convocation gave the king six shillings in the pound, to be levied in three years. Greater sums were always, even during the establishment of the Catholic religion, exacted from the clergy than from the laity; which made the emperor Charles say, when Henry dissolved the monasteries, and sold their revenues, or bestowed them on his nobility and courtiers, that he had killed the hen which brought him the golden eggs.[*]

The parliament also facilitated the execution of the former law by which the king’s proclamations were made equal to statutes: they appointed that any nine counsellors should form a legal court for punishing all disobedience to proclamations. The total abolition of juries in criminal causes, as well as on all parliaments, seemed, if the king had so pleased, the necessary consequence of this enormous law. He might issue a proclamation enjoining the execution of any penal statute, and afterwards try the criminals, not for breach of the statute, but for disobedience to his proclamation. It is remarkable, that Lord Mountjoy entered a protest against this law; and it is equally remarkable that that protest is the only one entered against any public bill during this whole reign.[**]

It was enacted[***] this session, that any spiritual person who preached or taught contrary to the doctrine contained in the king’s book, the Erudition of a Christian Man, or contrary to any doctrine which he should thereafter promulgate, was to be admitted on the first conviction to renounce his error; on the second, he was required to carry a fagot; which if he refused to do, or fell into a third offence, he was to be burnt. But the laity, for the third offence, were only to forfeit their goods and chattels, and be liable to perpetual imprisonment. Indictments must be laid within a year after the offence, and the prisoner was allowed to bring witnesses for his exculpation. These penalties were lighter than those which were formerly imposed on a denial of the real presence: it was, however, subjoined in this statute, that the act of the six articles was still in force. But in order to make the king more entirely master of his people, it was enacted, that he might hereafter, at his pleasure, change this act, or any provision in it. By this clause, both parties were retained in subjection: so far as regarded religion, the king was invested, in the fullest manner, with the sole legislative authority in his kingdom; and all his subjects were, under the severest penalties, expressly bound to receive implicitly whatever doctrine he should please to recommend to them.

* Collier, vol. ii. p. 176.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 322.

*** 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 1.

The reformers began to entertain hopes that this great power of the crown might still be employed in their favor. The king married Catharine Par, widow of Nevil, Lord Latimer; a woman of virtue, and somewhat inclined to the new doctrine. By this marriage Henry confirmed what had formerly been foretold in jest, that he would be obliged to espouse a widow. The king’s league with the emperor seemed a circumstance no less favorable to the Catholic party; and thus matters remained still nearly balanced between the factions.

The advantages gained by this powerful confederacy between Henry and Charles, were inconsiderable during the present year. The campaign was opened with a victory gained by the duke of Cleves, Francis’s ally, over the forces of the emperor:[*] Francis, in person, took the field early; and made himself master, without resistance, of the whole duchy of Luxembourg: he afterwards took Landrecy, and added some fortifications to it. Charles, having at last assembled a powerful army, appeared in the Low Countries; and after taking almost every fortress in the duchy of Cleves, he reduced the duke to accept of the terms which he was pleased to prescribe to him. Being then joined by a body of six thousand English, he sat down before Landrecy, and covered the siege with an army of above forty thousand men. Francis advanced at the head of an army not much inferior; as if he intended to give the emperor battle, or oblige him to raise the siege: but while these two rival monarchs were facing each other, and all men were in expectation of some great event, the French king found means of throwing succor into Landrecy; and having thus effected his purpose, he skilfully made a retreat. Charles, finding the season far advanced, despaired of success in his enterprise, and found it necessary to go into winter quarters.

* Mém. du Bellai, lib. x.

The vanity of Henry was flattered by the figure which he made in the great transactions on the continent; but the interests of his kingdom were more deeply concerned in the event of affairs in Scotland. Arran, the governor, was of so indolent and unambitious a character, that, had he not been stimulated by his friends and dependants, he never had aspired to any share in the administration; and when he found himself overpowered by the party of the queen dowager, the cardinal, and the earl of Lenox, he was glad to accept of any terms of accommodation, however dishonorable. He even gave them a sure pledge of his sincerity, by renouncing the principles of the reformers, and reconciling himself to the Romish communion in the Franciscan church at Stirling. By this weakness and levity, he lost his credit with the whole nation, and rendered the Protestants, who were hitherto the chief support of his power, his mortal enemies. The cardinal acquired an entire ascendant in the kingdom: the queen dowager placed implicit confidence in him: the governor was obliged to yield to him in every pretension: Lenox alone was become an obstacle to his measures, and reduced him to some difficulty.

The inveterate enmity which had taken place between the families of Lenox and Arran, made the interests of these two noblemen entirely incompatible; and as the cardinal and the French party, in order to engage Lenox the more in their cause, had flattered him with the hopes of succeeding to the crown after their infant sovereign, this rivalship had tended still further to rouse the animosity of the Hamiltons. Lenox, too, had been encouraged to aspire to the marriage of the queen dowager, which would have given him some pretensions to the regency; and as he was become assuming, on account of the services which he had rendered the party, the cardinal found that, since he must choose between the friendship of Lenox and that of Arran, the latter nobleman, who was more easily governed, and who was invested with present authority, was in every respect preferable. Lenox, finding that he was not likely to succeed in his pretensions to the queen dowager, and that Arran, favored by the cardinal, had acquired the ascendant, retired to Dunbarton, the governor of which was entirely at his devotion; he entered into a secret correspondence with the English court; and he summoned his vassals and partisans to attend him. All those who were inclined to the Protestant religion, or were on any account discontented with the cardinal’s administration, now regarded Lenox as the head of their party, and they readily made him a tender of their services. In a little time he had collected an army of ten thousand men, and he threatened his enemies with immediate destruction. The cardinal had no equal force to oppose to him; but as he was a prudent man, he foresaw that Lenox could not long subsist so great an army, and he endeavored to gain time by opening a negotiation with him. He seduced his followers by various artifices; he prevailed on the Douglases to change party; he represented to the whole nation the danger of civil wars and commotions; and Lenox, observing the unequal contest in which he was engaged, was at last obliged to lay down his arms, and to accept of an accommodation with the governor and the cardinal. Present peace was restored; but no confidence took place between the parties. Lenox, fortifying his castles, and putting himself in a posture of defence, waited the arrival of English succors, from whose assistance alone he expected to obtain the superiority over his enemies.

{1544.} While the winter season restrained Henry from military operations, he summoned a new parliament, in which a law was passed, such as he was pleased to dictate, with regard to the succession of the crown. After declaring that the prince of Wales, or any of the king’s male issue, were first and immediate heirs to the crown, the parliament restored the two princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, to their right of succession. This seemed a reasonable piece of justice, and corrected what the king’s former violence had thrown into confusion; but it was impossible for Henry to do any thing, how laudable soever, without betraying, in some circumstance, his usual extravagance and caprice: though he opened the way for these two princesses to mount the throne, he would not allow the acts to be reversed which had declared them illegitimate; he made the parliament confer on him a power of still excluding them, if they refused to submit to any conditions which he should be pleased to impose; and he required them to enact, that, in default of his own issue, he might dispose of the crown as he pleased, by will or letters-patent. He did not probably foresee that, in proportion as he degraded the parliament, by rendering it the passive instrument of his variable and violent inclinations, he taught the people to regard all its acts as invalid, and thereby defeated even the purposes which he was so bent to attain.

An act passed, declaring that the king’s usual style should be “king of England, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, and on earth the supreme head of the church of England and Ireland.” It seemed a palpable inconsistency to retain the title of defender of the faith, which the court of Rome had conferred on him for maintaining its cause against Luther; and yet subjoin his ecclesiastical supremacy, in opposition to the claims of that court.

An act also passed for the remission of the debt which the king had lately contracted by a general loan levied upon the people. It will easily be believed, that after the former act of this kind, the loan was not entirely voluntary.[*] But there was a peculiar circumstance attending the present statute, which none but Henry would have thought of; namely, that those who had already gotten payment, either in whole or in part, should refund the money to the exchequer.

The oaths which Henry imposed for the security of his ecclesiastical model, were not more reasonable than his other measures. All his subjects of any distinction had already been obliged to renounce the pope’s supremacy; but as the clauses to which they swore had not been deemed entirely satisfactory, another oath was imposed; and it was added, that all those who had taken the former oaths should be understood to have taken the new one;[**] a strange supposition to represent men as bound by an oath which they had never taken.

* 35 Henry VII. c. 12.

** 35 Henry VII c. 1.

The most commendable law to which the parliament gave their sanction, was that by which they mitigated the law of the six articles, and enacted, that no person should be put to his trial upon an accusation concerning any of the offences comprised in that sanguinary statute, except on the oath of twelve persons before commissioners authorized for the purpose; and that no person should be arrested or committed to ward for any such offence before he was indicted. Any preacher accused of speaking in his sermon contrary to these articles, must be indicted within forty days.

The king always experienced the limits of his authority whenever he demanded subsidies, however moderate, from the parliament; and therefore, not to hazard a refusal, he made no mention this session of a supply: but as his wars both in France and Scotland, as well as his usual prodigality, had involved him in great expense, he had resource to other methods of filling his exchequer. Notwithstanding the former abolition of his debts, he yet required new loans from his subjects; and he enhanced gold from forty-five shillings to forty-eight an ounce, and silver from three shillings and nine-pence to four shillings. His pretence for this innovation was, to prevent the money from being exported; as if that expedient could anywise serve the purpose. He even coined some base money, and ordered it to be current by proclamation. He named commissioners for levying a benevolence, and he extorted about seventy thousand pounds by this expedient. Read, alderman of London,[*] a man somewhat advanced in years, having refused to contribute, or not coming up to the expectation of the commissioners, was enrolled as a foot soldier in the Scottish wars, and was there taken prisoner. Roach, who had been equally refractory, was thrown into prison, and obtained not his liberty but by paying a large composition.[**] These powers of the prerogative, (which at that time passed unquestioned,) the compelling of any man to serve in any office, and the imprisoning of any man during pleasure, not to mention the practice of extorting loans, rendered the sovereign in a manner absolute master of the person and property of every individual.

Early this year the king sent a fleet and army to invade Scotland. The fleet consisted of near two hundred vessels, and carried on board ten thousand men. Dudley, Lord Lisle, commanded the sea forces; the earl of Hertford the land. The troops were disembarked near Leith; and after dispersing a small body which opposed them, they took that town without resistance, and then marched to Edinburgh. The gates were soon beaten down, (for little or no resistance was made,) and the English first pillaged, and then set fire to the city. The regent and cardinal were not prepared to oppose so great a force, and they fled to Stirling. Hertford marched eastward; and being joined by a new body under Evers, warden of the east marches, he laid waste the whole country, burned and destroyed Haddington and Dunbar, then retreated into England; having lost only forty men in the whole expedition. The earl of Arran collected some forces; but finding that the English were already departed, he turned them against Lenox, who was justly suspected of a correspondence with the enemy. That nobleman, after making some resistance, was obliged to fly into England, where Henry settled a pension on him, and even gave him his niece, lady Margaret Douglas, in marriage. In return, Lenox stipulated conditions, by which, had he been able to execute them, he must have reduced his country to total servitude.[***]

* Herbert. Stowe, p. 588. Baker, p. 292.

** Goodwin’s Annals. Stowe, p. 588.

*** Rymer, vol. xv. p. 28, 29.

Henry’s policy was blamed in this sudden and violent incursion, by which he inflamed the passions of the Scots, without subduing their spirit; and it was commonly said, that he did too much, if he intended to solicit an alliance, and too little, if he meant a conquest.[*] But the reason of his recalling the troops so soon, was his eagerness to carry on a projected enterprise against France, in which he intended to employ the whole force of his kingdom. He had concerted a plan with the emperor, which threatened the total ruin of that monarchy, and must, as a necessary consequence, have involved the ruin of England. These two princes had agreed to invade France with forces amounting to above a hundred thousand men: Henry engaged to set out from Calais; Charles from the Low Countries: they were to enter on no siege; but leaving all the frontier towns behind them, to march directly to Paris, where they were to join their forces, and thence to proceed to the entire conquest of the kingdom. Francis could not oppose to these formidable preparations much above forty thousand men.

* Herbert. Burnet.

Henry, having appointed the queen regent during his absence, passed over to Calais with thirty thousand men, accompanied by the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, Fitzalan earl of Arundel, Vere earl of Oxford, the earl of Surrey, Paulet Lord St. John, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, Lord Mountjoy, Lord Grey of Wilton, Sir Anthony Brown, Sir Francis Bryan, and the most flourishing nobility and gentry of his kingdom. The English army was soon joined by the count de Buren, admiral of Flanders, with ten thousand foot and four thousand horse; and the whole composed an army which nothing on that frontier was able to resist. The chief force of the French armies was drawn to the side of Champagne, in order to oppose the imperialists.

The emperor, with an army of near sixty thousand men, had taken the field much earlier than Henry; and not to lose time while he waited for the arrival of his confederate, he sat down before Luxembourg, which was surrendered to him: he thence proceeded to Commercy, on the Meuse, which he took: Ligny met with the same fate: he next laid siege to St. Disier, on the Marne, which, though a weak place, made a brave resistance under the count of Sancerre, the governor, and the siege was protracted beyond expectation.

The emperor was employed before this town at the time the English forces were assembled in Picardy. Henry either tempted by the defenceless condition of the French frontier, or thinking that the emperor had first broken his engagement by forming sieges, or, perhaps, foreseeing at last the dangerous consequences of entirely subduing the French power, instead of marching forward to Paris, sat down before Montreuil and Boulogne. The duke of Norfolk commanded the army before Montreuil; the king himself that before Boulogne. Vervin was governor of the latter place, and under him Philip Corse, a brave old soldier, who encouraged the garrison to defend themselves to the last extremity against the English. He was killed during the course of the siege, and the town was immediately surrendered to Henry by the cowardice of Vervin, who was afterwards beheaded for this dishonorable capitulation.

During the course of this siege, Charles had taken St. Disier; and finding the season much advanced, he began to hearken to a treaty of peace with France, since all his schemes for subduing that kingdom were likely to prove abortive. In order to have a pretence for deserting his ally, he sent a messenger to the English camp, requiring Henry immediately to fulfil his engagements, and to meet him with his army before Paris. Henry replied, that he was too far engaged in the siege of Boulogne to raise it with honor, and that the emperor himself had first broken the concert by besieging St. Disier. This answer served Charles as a sufficient reason for concluding a peace with Francis at Crepy, where no mention was made of England. He stipulated to give Flanders as a dowry to his daughter, whom he agreed to marry to the duke of Orleans, Francis’s second son; and Francis, in return, withdrew his troops from Piedmont and Savoy, and renounced all claim to Milan, Naples, and other territories in Italy. This peace, so advantageous to Francis, was procured partly by the decisive victory obtained in the beginning of the campaign by the count of Anguyen over the imperialists at Cerisolles in Piedmont, partly by the emperor’s great desire to turn his arms against the Protestant princes in Germany. Charles ordered his troops to separate from the English in Picardy; and Henry, finding himself obliged to raise the siege of Montreuil, returned into England. This campaign served to the populace as matter of great triumph; but all men of sense concluded, that the king had, as in all his former military enterprises, made, at a great expense, an acquisition which was of no importance.

The war with Scotland, meanwhile, was conducted feebly and with various success. Sir Ralph Evers, now Lord Evers and Sir Bryan Latoun, made an inroad into that kingdom; and having laid waste the counties of Tiviotdale and the Merse, they proceeded to the abbey of Coldingham, which they took possession of, and fortified. The governor assembled an army of eight thousand men, in order to dislodge them from this post; but he had no sooner opened his batteries before the place, than a sudden panic seized him; he left the army, and fled to Dunbar. He complained of the mutiny of his troops, and pretended apprehensions lest they should deliver him into the hands of the English; but his own unwarlike spirit was generally believed to have been the motive of this dishonorable flight. The Scottish army, upon the departure of their general, fell into confusion; and had not Angus, with a few of his retainers, brought off the cannon, and protected their rear, the English might have gained great advantages over them. Evers, elated with this success, boasted to Henry, that he had conquered all Scotland to the Forth; and he claimed a reward for this important service. The duke of Norfolk, who knew with what difficulty such acquisitions would be maintained against a warlike enemy, advised the king to grant him, as his reward, the conquests of which he boasted so highly. The next inroad made by the English showed the vanity of Evers’s hopes.

{1545.} This general led about five thousand men into Tiviotdale, and was employed in ravaging that country; when intelligence was brought him that some Scottish forces appeared near the abbey of Melross. Angus had roused the governor to more activity; and a proclamation being issued for assembling the troops of the neighboring counties, a considerable body had repaired thither to oppose the enemy. Norman Lesly, son of the earl of Rothes, had also joined the army with some volunteers from Fife; and he inspired courage into the whole, as well by this accession of force, as by his personal bravery and intrepidity. In order to bring their troops to the necessity of a steady defence, the Scottish leaders ordered all their cavalry to dismount, and they resolved to wait, on some high grounds near Ancram, the assault of the English. The English, whose past successes had taught them too much to despise the enemy, thought, when they saw the Scottish horses led off the field, that the whole army was retiring; and they hastened to attack them. The Scots received them in good order; and being favored by the advantage of the ground, as well as by the surprise of the English, who expected no resistance, they soon put them to flight, and pursued them with considerable slaughter. Evers and Latoun were both killed, and above a thousand men were made prisoners. In order to support the Scots in this war, Francis some time after sent over a body of auxiliaries, to the number of three thousand five hundred men, under the command of Montgomery, lord of Lorges.[*] Reënforced by these succors, the governor assembled an army of fifteen thousand men at Haddington, and marched thence to ravage the east borders of England. He laid all waste wherever he came; and having met with no considerable resistance, he retired into his own country, and disbanded his army. The earl of Hertford, in revenge, committed ravages on the middle and west marches; and the war on both sides was signalized rather by the ills inflicted on the enemy, than by any considerable advantage gained by either party.

The war likewise between France and England was not distinguished this year by any memorable event. Francis had equipped a fleet of above two hundred sail, besides galleys; and having embarked some land forces on board, he sent them to make a descent in England.[**] They sailed to the Isle of Wight, where they found the English fleet lying at anchor in St. Helen’s. It consisted not of above a hundred sail; and the admiral thought it most advisable to remain in that road, in hopes of drawing the French into the narrow channels and the rocks, which were unknown to them. The two fleets cannonaded each other for two days; and except the sinking of the Mary Rose, one of the largest ships of the English fleet, the damage on both sides was inconsiderable.

* Buchanan, lib. xv. Drummond.

** Beleair. Mém. du Bellai.

Francis’s chief intention in equipping so great a fleet, was to prevent the English from throwing succors into Boulogne, which he resolved to besiege; and for that purpose he ordered a fort to be built, by which he intended to block up the harbor. After a considerable loss of time and money, the fort was found so ill constructed, that he was obliged to abandon it; and though he had assembled on that frontier an army of near forty thousand men, he was not able to effect any considerable enterprise. Henry, in order to defend his possessions in France, had levied fourteen thousand Germans who, having marched to Fleurines, in the bishopric of Liege, found that they could advance no farther. The emperor would not allow them a passage through his dominions: they received intelligence of a superior army on the side of France ready to intercept them: want of occupation and of pay soon produced a mutiny among them; and having seized the English commissaries as a security for arrears, they retreated into their own country. There seems to have been some want of foresight in this expensive armament.

The great expense of these two wars maintained by Henry, obliged him to summon a new parliament. The commons granted him a subsidy, payable in two years, of two shillings a pound on land.[*] The spirituality voted him six shillings a pound. But the parliament, apprehensive lest more demands should be made upon them, endeavored to save themselves by a very extraordinary liberality of other people’s property; by one vote they bestowed on the king all the revenues of the universities, as well as of the chauntries, free chapels,[**] and hospitals. Henry was pleased with this concession, as it increased his power; but he had no intention to rob learning of all her endowments; and he soon took care to inform the universities that he meant not to touch their revenues. Thus these ancient and celebrated establishments owe their existence to the generosity of the king, not to the protection of this servile and prostitute parliament.

The prostitute spirit of the parliament further appeared in the preamble of a statute;[***] in which they recognize the king to have always been, by the word of God, supreme head of the church of England; and acknowledge that archbishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastical persons, have no manner of jurisdiction but by his royal mandate; to him alone, say they, and such persons as he shall appoint, full power and authority is given from above to hear and determine all manner of causes ecclesiastical, and to correct all manner of heresies, errors, vices, and sins whatsoever. No mention is here made of the concurrence of a convocation, or even of a parliament. His proclamations are in effect acknowledged to have not only the force of law, but the authority of revelation; and by his royal power he might regulate the actions of men, control their words, and even direct their inward sentiments and opinions.

* Those who possessed goods or money above five pounds, and
below ten, were to pay eightpence a pound; those above ten
pounds, a shilling.

** A chauntry was a little church, chapel, or particular
altar in some cathedral church, etc., endowed with lands or
other revenues for the maintenance of one or more priests
daily to say mass or perform divine service, for the use of
the founders, or such others as they appointed: free chapels
were independent on any church, and endowed for much the
same purpose as the former. Jacob’s Law Dict.

*** 37 Henry VIII. c. 17.

The king made in person a speech to the parliament on proroguing them; in which, after thanking them for their loving attachment to him, which, he said, equalled what was ever paid by their ancestors to any king of England, he complained of their dissensions, disputes, and animosities in religion. He told them, that the several pulpits were become a kind of batteries against each other; and that one preacher called another heretic and Anabaptist, which was retaliated by the opprobrious appellations of Papist and hypocrite: that he had permitted his people the use of the Scriptures, not in order to furnish them with materials for disputing and railing, but that he might enable them to inform their consciences and instruct their children and families: that it grieved his heart to find how that precious jewel was prostituted, by being introduced into the conversation of every alehouse and tavern, and employed as a pretence for decrying the spiritual and legal pastors: and that he was sorry to observe, that the word of God, while it was the object of so much anxious speculation, had very little influence on their practice; and that, though an imaginary knowledge so much abounded, charity was daily going to decay.[*] The king gave good advice; but his own example, by encouraging speculation and dispute, was ill fitted to promote that peaceable submission of opinion which he recommended.

* Hall, fol. 261. Herbert, p. 534.

{1546.} Henry employed in military preparations the money granted by parliament; and he sent over the earl of Hertford and Lord Lisle, the admiral, to Calais, with a body of nine thousand men, two thirds of which consisted of foreigners. Some skirmishes of small moment ensued with the French; and no hopes of any considerable progress could be entertained by either party. Henry, whose animosity against Francis was not violent, had given sufficient vent to his humor by this short war; and finding that, from his great increase in corpulence and decay in strength, he could not hope for much longer life, he was desirous of ending a quarrel which might prove dangerous to his kingdom during a minority. Francis likewise, on his part, was not averse to peace with England; because, having lately lost his son, the duke of Orleans, he revived his ancient claim upon Milan, and foresaw that hostilities must soon, on that account, break out between him and the emperor. Commissioners, therefore, having met at Campe, a small place between Ardres and Guisnes, the articles were soon agreed on, and the peace signed by them. The chief conditions were, that Henry should retain Boulogne during eight years, or till the former debt due by Francis should be paid. This debt was settled at two millions of livres, besides a claim of five hundred thousand livres, which was afterwards to be adjusted. Francis took care to comprehend Scotland in the treaty. Thus all that Henry obtained by a war which cost him above one million three hundred and forty thousand pounds sterling,[*] was a bad and a chargeable security for a debt, which was not a third of the value.

* Herbert. Stowe.

The king, now freed from all foreign wars, had leisure to give his attention to domestic affairs; particularly to the establishment of uniformity in opinion, on which he was so intent. Though he allowed an English translation of the Bible, he had hitherto been very careful to keep the mass in Latin; but he was at last prevailed on to permit that the litany, a considerable part of the service, should be celebrated in the vulgar tongue; and by this innovation he excited anew the hopes of the reformers, who had been somewhat discouraged by the severe law of the six articles. One petition of the new litany was a prayer to save us “from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, and from all his detestable enormities.” Cranmer employed his credit to draw Henry into further innovations; and he took advantage of Gardiner’s absence, who was sent on an embassy to the emperor: but Gardiner having written to the king, that, if he carried his opposition against the Catholic religion to greater extremities, Charles threatened to break off all commerce with him, the success of Cranmer’s projects was for some time retarded. Cranmer lost this year the most sincere and powerful friend that he possessed at court, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk; the queen dowager of France, consort to Suffolk, had died some years before. This nobleman is one instance that Henry was not altogether incapable of a cordial and steady friendship; and Suffolk seems to have been worthy of the favor which, from his earliest youth, he had enjoyed with his master. The king was sitting in council when informed of Suffolk’s death; and he took the opportunity both to express his own sorrow for the loss, and to celebrate the merits of the deceased. He declared, that during the whole course of their friendship, his brother-in-law had never made one attempt to injure an adversary, and had never whispered a word to the disadvantage of any person. “Is there any of you, my lords, who can say as much?” When the king subjoined these words, he looked round in all their faces, and saw that confusion which the consciousness of secret guilt naturally threw upon them.[*]

* Coke’s Inst. cap. 99.