Read The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 Online
Authors: David Hume
“But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander must bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness; then I desire of God, that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof, and that he will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general judgment-seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear, and in whose judgment I doubt not (whatsoever the world may think of me) mine innocence shall be openly known, and sufficiently cleared.”
My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of your grace’s displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen, who (as I understand) are likewise in strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favour in your sight, if ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any further, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, this sixth of May;
“Your most loyal and ever faithful wife, Anne Boleyn.”
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[w]Burnet, vol. i. p. 207. Strype, vol. i. p. 285.
[x]The parliament, in annulling the king’s marriage with Anne Boleyn, gives this as a
reason, “For that his highness had chosen to wife the excellent and virtuous lady Jane, who for her convenient years, excellent beauty, and pureness of flesh and blood, would be apt, God willing, to conceive issue by his highness.”
[b]Collier, vol. ii. p. 122, & seq. Fuller. Burnet, vol. i. p. 215.
[NOTE [K]]
A proposal had formerly been made in the convocation for the abolition of the lesser monasteries; and had been much opposed by bishop Fisher, who was then alive. He told his brethren, that this was fairly showing the king the way, how he might come at the greater monasteries. “An ax,” said he, “which wanted a handle, came upon a time into the wood, making his moan to the great trees, that he wanted a handle to work withal, and for that cause he was constrained to sit idle; therefore he made it his request to them, that they would be pleased to grant him one of their small saplings within the wood to make him a handle; who, mistrusting no guile, granted him one of their smaller trees to make him a handle. But now becoming a complete ax, he fell so to work, within the same wood, that, in process of time, there was neither great nor small trees to be found in the place, where the wood stood. And so, my lords, if you grant the king these smaller monasteries, you do but make him a handle, whereby, at his own pleasure, he may cut down all the cedars within your Lebanons.” Dr. Bailie’s life of bishop Fisher, p. 108.
[i]Stowe, p. 574. Baker, p. 258.
[m]Collier, vol. ii. p. 145. from the Cott. Lib. Cleopatra, E. 5. fol. 173.
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[o]Herbert, p. 431, 432. Stowe, p. 575.
[p]Goodwin’s Annals. Stowe, p. 575. Herbert. Baker, p. 286.
[r]Lord Herbert, Camden, Speed.
[NOTE [L]]
There is a curious passage, with regard to the suppression of monasteries, to be found in Coke’s institutes, 4th Inst. chap. 1. p. 44. It is worth transcribing, as it shews the ideas of the English government, entertained during the reign of Henry VIII. and even in the time of Sir Edward Coke, when he wrote his Institutes. It clearly appears, that the people had then little notion of being jealous of their liberties, were desirous of making the crown quite independent, and wished only to remove from themselves, as much as possible, the burthens of government. A large standing army, and a fixed revenue, would, on these conditions, have been regarded as great blessings; and it was owing entirely to the prodigality of Henry, and to his little suspicion that the power of the crown could ever fail, that the English owe all their present liberty. The title of the chapter in Coke is,
Advice concerning new and
plausible Projects and Offers in Parliament.
“When any plausible project,” says he,
“is made in parliament, to draw the lords and commons to assent to any act, (especially in matters of weight and importance) if both houses do give upon the matter projected and promised their consent, it shall be most necessary, they being trusted for the commonwealth, to have the matter projected and promised (which moved the houses to consent) to be established in the same act, lest the benefit of the act be taken, and the matter projected and promised never performed, and so the houses of parliament perform not the trust reposed in them, as it fell out (taking one example for many) in the reign of Henry the eighth: On the king’s behalf, the members of both houses were informed in parliament, that no king or kingdom was safe, but where the king had three abilities; 1. To live of his own, and able to defend his kingdom upon any sudden invasion or insurrection. 2. To aid his confederates, otherwise they would never assist him. 3. To reward his well deserving servants. Now the project was, that if the parliament would give unto him all the abbies, priories, friories, nunneries, and other monasteries, that, for ever in time then to come, he would take order that the same should not be converted to private uses: but first, that his exchequer for the purposes aforesaid should be enriched; secondly, the kingdom strengthened by a continual maintenance of forty thousand well- trained soldiers, with skilful captains and commanders; thirdly, for the benefit and ease of the subject, who never afterwards, (as was projected) in any time to come, should be charged with subsidies, fifteenths, loans, or other common aids; fourthly, lest the honour of the realm should receive any diminution of honour by the dissolution of the said monasteries, there being twenty-nine lords of parliament of the abbots and priors, (that held of the king
perbaronium,
whereof more in the next leaf) that the king would create a number of nobles, which we omit. The said monasteries were given to the king by authority of divers acts of parliament, but no provision was therein made for the said project, or any part thereof.”
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[u]Dugdale’s Warwickshire, p. 800.
[NOTE [M]]
Collier, in his ecclesiastical history, vol. ii. p. 152. has preserved an account which Cromwel gave of this conference, in a letter to Sir Thomas Wyat, the king’s embassador in Germany. “The king’s majesty,” says Cromwel, “for the reverence of the holy sacrament of the altar, did sit openly in his hall, and there presided at the disputation, process and judgment of a miserable heretic sacramentary, who was burned the 20th of November. It was a wonder to see how princely, with how excellent gravity, and inestimable majesty his highness exercised there the very office of supreme head of the church of England. How benignly his grace essayed to convert the miserable man: How strong and manifest reasons his highness alledged against him. I wish the princes and potentates of Christendom to have had a meet place to have seen it. Undoubtedly they should have much marvelled at his majesty’s most high wisdom and judgment, and reputed him no otherwise after the same, than in a manner the mirror and light of all other kings and princes in Christendom.” It was by such flatteries, that Henry was engaged to make his sentiments the standard to all mankind; and was determined to enforce, by the severest penalties, his
strong
and
manifest
reasons for transubstantiation.
[f]Fox’s Acts and Monuments, p. 427. Burnet.
[h]31 Hen. VIII. c. 14. Herbert in Kennet, p. 219.
[NOTE [N]]
There is a story, that the duke of Norfolk, meeting, soon after this act was passed, one of his chaplains, who was suspected of favouring the reformation, said to him, “Now, Sir, what think you of the law to hinder priests from having wives?”
“Yes, my lord,” replies the chaplain, “you have done that; but I will answer for it, you cannot hinder men’s wives from having priests.”
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[k]Burnet, vol. i. p. 249, 270. Fox, vol. ii. p. 1037.
[n]Coke’s 4th Inst. p. 37, 38.
[p]Collier, vol. ii. p. 158. & seq.
[s]Le Grand, vol. iii. p. 638.
[w]Burnet, vol. i. p. 281, 282.
[NOTE [O]]
To show how much Henry sported with law and common sense; how servilely the parliament followed all his caprices; and how much both of them were lost to all sense of shame; an act was passed this session, declaring, that a precontract should be no ground for annulling a marriage; as if that pretext had not been made use of both in the case of Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves. But the king’s intention in this law is said to be a design of restoring the princess Elizabeth to her right of legitimacy; and it was his character never to look farther than the present object, without regarding the inconsistency of his conduct. The parliament made it high treason to deny the dissolution of Henry’s marriage with Anne of Cleves. Herbert.
[b]Burnet, vol. i. p. 298. Fox.
[f]Spotswood’s Hist. church of Scotland, p. 62.
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[h]Buchanan, lib. xiv. Drummond in ja. 5. Pitscotie, ibid. Knox.
[i]Henry had sent some books, richly ornamented, to his nephew, who, as soon as he
saw by the titles, that they had a tendency to defend the new doctrines, threw them into the fire, in the presence of the person who brought them: Adding, it was better he should destroy them, than they him. See Epist. Reginald. Pole. part i. p. 172.
[NOTE [P]]
It was enacted by this parliament, that there should be trial of treason in any county where the king should appoint by commission. The statutes of treason had been extremely multiplied in this reign; and such an expedient saved trouble and charges in trying that crime. The same parliament erected Ireland into a kingdom; and Henry henceforth annexed the title of king of Ireland to his other titles. This session, the commons first began the practice of freeing any of their members, who were arrested, by a writ issued by the speaker. Formerly it was usual for them to apply for a writ from chancery to that purpose. This precedent encreased the authority of the commons, and had afterwards important consequences. Hollingshed, p. 955, 956.
Baker, p. 289.
[o]Which met on the 22d of January, 1543.
[p]33 Hen. VIII. c. i. The reading of the Bible, however, could not, at that time, have
much effect in England, where so few persons had learned to read. There were but 500 copies printed of this first authorized edition of the Bible; a book of which there are now several millions of copies in the kingdom.
[q]Parliamentary history, vol. iii. p. 113.
[s]Buchanan, lib. 14. Drummond in James the Fifth.
[NOTE [Q]]
The persecutions, exercised during James’s reign, are not to be ascribed to his bigotry, a vice, of which he seems to have been as free as Francis the first or the emperor Charles, both of whom, as well as James, shewed, in different periods of their lives, even an inclination to the new doctrines. The extremities, to which all these princes were carried, proceeded entirely from the situation of affairs, during that age, which rendered it impossible for them to act with greater temper or moderation, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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after they had embraced the resolution of supporting the ancient establishments. So violent was the propensity of the times towards innovation, that a bare toleration of the new preachers was equivalent to a formed design of changing the national religion.