of those scoundrels the secrets they disclosed or invented. Some
arrests and executions took place in consequence. In the end, the
King, on a promise of not taking his life, obtained possession of
the person of Edmund de la Pole, and shut him up in the Tower.
This was his last enemy. If he had lived much longer he would have
made many more among the people, by the grinding exaction to which
he constantly exposed them, and by the tyrannical acts of his two
prime favourites in all money-raising matters, EDMUND DUDLEY and
RICHARD EMPSON. But Death - the enemy who is not to be bought off
or deceived, and on whom no money, and no treachery has any effect
- presented himself at this juncture, and ended the King's reign.
He died of the gout, on the twenty-second of April, one thousand
five hundred and nine, and in the fifty-third year of his age,
after reigning twenty-four years; he was buried in the beautiful
Chapel of Westminster Abbey, which he had himself founded, and
which still bears his name.
It was in this reign that the great CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, on behalf
of Spain, discovered what was then called The New World. Great
wonder, interest, and hope of wealth being awakened in England
thereby, the King and the merchants of London and Bristol fitted
out an English expedition for further discoveries in the New World,
and entrusted it to SEBASTIAN CABOT, of Bristol, the son of a
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Venetian pilot there. He was very successful in his voyage, and
gained high reputation, both for himself and England.
CHAPTER XXVII - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH, CALLED BLUFF KING
HAL AND BURLY KING HARRY
PART THE FIRST
WE now come to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been too much the
fashion to call 'Bluff King Hal,' and 'Burly King Harry,' and other
fine names; but whom I shall take the liberty to call, plainly, one
of the most detestable villains that ever drew breath. You will be
able to judge, long before we come to the end of his life, whether
he deserves the character.
He was just eighteen years of age when he came to the throne.
People said he was handsome then; but I don't believe it. He was a
big, burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double-chinned,
swinish-looking fellow in later life (as we know from the
likenesses of him, painted by the famous HANS HOLBEIN), and it is
not easy to believe that so bad a character can ever have been
veiled under a prepossessing appearance.
He was anxious to make himself popular; and the people, who had
long disliked the late King, were very willing to believe that he
deserved to be so. He was extremely fond of show and display, and
so were they. Therefore there was great rejoicing when he married
the Princess Catherine, and when they were both crowned. And the
King fought at tournaments and always came off victorious - for the
courtiers took care of that - and there was a general outcry that
he was a wonderful man. Empson, Dudley, and their supporters were
accused of a variety of crimes they had never committed, instead of
the offences of which they really had been guilty; and they were
pilloried, and set upon horses with their faces to the tails, and
knocked about and beheaded, to the satisfaction of the people, and
the enrichment of the King.
The Pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, had
mixed himself up in a war on the continent of Europe, occasioned by
the reigning Princes of little quarrelling states in Italy having
at various times married into other Royal families, and so led to
THEIR claiming a share in those petty Governments. The King, who
discovered that he was very fond of the Pope, sent a herald to the
King of France, to say that he must not make war upon that holy
personage, because he was the father of all Christians. As the
French King did not mind this relationship in the least, and also
refused to admit a claim King Henry made to certain lands in
France, war was declared between the two countries. Not to perplex
this story with an account of the tricks and designs of all the
sovereigns who were engaged in it, it is enough to say that England
made a blundering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken in by
that country; which made its own terms with France when it could
and left England in the lurch. SIR EDWARD HOWARD, a bold admiral,
son of the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself by his bravery
against the French in this business; but, unfortunately, he was
more brave than wise, for, skimming into the French harbour of
Brest with only a few row-boats, he attempted (in revenge for the
defeat and death of SIR THOMAS KNYVETT, another bold English
admiral) to take some strong French ships, well defended with
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batteries of cannon. The upshot was, that he was left on board of
one of them (in consequence of its shooting away from his own
boat), with not more than about a dozen men, and was thrown into
the sea and drowned: though not until he had taken from his breast
his gold chain and gold whistle, which were the signs of his
office, and had cast them into the sea to prevent their being made
a boast of by the enemy. After this defeat - which was a great
one, for Sir Edward Howard was a man of valour and fame - the King
took it into his head to invade France in person; first executing
that dangerous Earl of Suffolk whom his father had left in the
Tower, and appointing Queen Catherine to the charge of his kingdom
in his absence. He sailed to Calais, where he was joined by
MAXIMILIAN, Emperor of Germany, who pretended to be his soldier,
and who took pay in his service: with a good deal of nonsense of
that sort, flattering enough to the vanity of a vain blusterer.
The King might be successful enough in sham fights; but his idea of
real battles chiefly consisted in pitching silken tents of bright
colours that were ignominiously blown down by the wind, and in
making a vast display of gaudy flags and golden curtains. Fortune,
however, favoured him better than he deserved; for, after much
waste of time in tent pitching, flag flying, gold curtaining, and
other such masquerading, he gave the French battle at a place
called Guinegate: where they took such an unaccountable panic, and
fled with such swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called by the
English the Battle of Spurs. Instead of following up his
advantage, the King, finding that he had had enough of real
fighting, came home again.
The Scottish King, though nearly related to Henry by marriage, had
taken part against him in this war. The Earl of Surrey, as the
English general, advanced to meet him when he came out of his own
dominions and crossed the river Tweed. The two armies came up with
one another when the Scottish King had also crossed the river Till,
and was encamped upon the last of the Cheviot Hills, called the
<
br /> Hill of Flodden. Along the plain below it, the English, when the
hour of battle came, advanced. The Scottish army, which had been
drawn up in five great bodies, then came steadily down in perfect
silence. So they, in their turn, advanced to meet the English
army, which came on in one long line; and they attacked it with a
body of spearmen, under LORD HOME. At first they had the best of
it; but the English recovered themselves so bravely, and fought
with such valour, that, when the Scottish King had almost made his
way up to the Royal Standard, he was slain, and the whole Scottish
power routed. Ten thousand Scottish men lay dead that day on
Flodden Field; and among them, numbers of the nobility and gentry.
For a long time afterwards, the Scottish peasantry used to believe
that their King had not been really killed in this battle, because
no Englishman had found an iron belt he wore about his body as a
penance for having been an unnatural and undutiful son. But,
whatever became of his belt, the English had his sword and dagger,
and the ring from his finger, and his body too, covered with
wounds. There is no doubt of it; for it was seen and recognised by
English gentlemen who had known the Scottish King well.
When King Henry was making ready to renew the war in France, the
French King was contemplating peace. His queen, dying at this
time, he proposed, though he was upwards of fifty years old, to
marry King Henry's sister, the Princess Mary, who, besides being
only sixteen, was betrothed to the Duke of Suffolk. As the
inclinations of young Princesses were not much considered in such
matters, the marriage was concluded, and the poor girl was escorted
to France, where she was immediately left as the French King's
bride, with only one of all her English attendants. That one was a
pretty young girl named ANNE BOLEYN, niece of the Earl of Surrey,
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who had been made Duke of Norfolk, after the victory of Flodden
Field. Anne Boleyn's is a name to be remembered, as you will
presently find.
And now the French King, who was very proud of his young wife, was
preparing for many years of happiness, and she was looking forward,
I dare say, to many years of misery, when he died within three
months, and left her a young widow. The new French monarch,
FRANCIS THE FIRST, seeing how important it was to his interests
that she should take for her second husband no one but an
Englishman, advised her first lover, the Duke of Suffolk, when King
Henry sent him over to France to fetch her home, to marry her. The
Princess being herself so fond of that Duke, as to tell him that he
must either do so then, or for ever lose her, they were wedded; and
Henry afterwards forgave them. In making interest with the King,
the Duke of Suffolk had addressed his most powerful favourite and
adviser, THOMAS WOLSEY - a name very famous in history for its rise
and downfall.
Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in Suffolk
and received so excellent an education that he became a tutor to
the family of the Marquis of Dorset, who afterwards got him
appointed one of the late King's chaplains. On the accession of
Henry the Eighth, he was promoted and taken into great favour. He
was now Archbishop of York; the Pope had made him a Cardinal
besides; and whoever wanted influence in England or favour with the
King - whether he were a foreign monarch or an English nobleman -
was obliged to make a friend of the great Cardinal Wolsey.
He was a gay man, who could dance and jest, and sing and drink; and
those were the roads to so much, or rather so little, of a heart as
King Henry had. He was wonderfully fond of pomp and glitter, and
so was the King. He knew a good deal of the Church learning of
that time; much of which consisted in finding artful excuses and
pretences for almost any wrong thing, and in arguing that black was
white, or any other colour. This kind of learning pleased the King
too. For many such reasons, the Cardinal was high in estimation
with the King; and, being a man of far greater ability, knew as
well how to manage him, as a clever keeper may know how to manage a
wolf or a tiger, or any other cruel and uncertain beast, that may
turn upon him and tear him any day. Never had there been seen in
England such state as my Lord Cardinal kept. His wealth was
enormous; equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the Crown. His
palaces were as splendid as the King's, and his retinue was eight
hundred strong. He held his Court, dressed out from top to toe in
flaming scarlet; and his very shoes were golden, set with precious
stones. His followers rode on blood horses; while he, with a
wonderful affectation of humility in the midst of his great
splendour, ambled on a mule with a red velvet saddle and bridle and
golden stirrups.
Through the influence of this stately priest, a grand meeting was
arranged to take place between the French and English Kings in
France; but on ground belonging to England. A prodigious show of
friendship and rejoicing was to be made on the occasion; and
heralds were sent to proclaim with brazen trumpets through all the
principal cities of Europe, that, on a certain day, the Kings of
France and England, as companions and brothers in arms, each
attended by eighteen followers, would hold a tournament against all
knights who might choose to come.
CHARLES, the new Emperor of Germany (the old one being dead),
wanted to prevent too cordial an alliance between these sovereigns,
and came over to England before the King could repair to the place
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of meeting; and, besides making an agreeable impression upon him,
secured Wolsey's interest by promising that his influence should
make him Pope when the next vacancy occurred. On the day when the
Emperor left England, the King and all the Court went over to
Calais, and thence to the place of meeting, between Ardres and
Guisnes, commonly called the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Here, all
manner of expense and prodigality was lavished on the decorations
of the show; many of the knights and gentlemen being so superbly
dressed that it was said they carried their whole estates upon
their shoulders.
There were sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains running wine,
great cellars full of wine free as water to all comers, silk tents,
gold lace and foil, gilt lions, and such things without end; and,
in the midst of all, the rich Cardinal out-shone and out-glittered
all the noblemen and gentlemen assembled. After a treaty made
between the two Kings with as much solemnity as if they had
intended to keep it, the lists - nine hundred feet long, and three
hundred and twenty broad - were opened for the tournament; the
Queens of France and England looking on with great array of lords
and ladies. Then, for ten days, the two sovereigns fough
t five
combats every day, and always beat their polite adversaries; though
they DO write that the King of England, being thrown in a wrestle
one day by the King of France, lost his kingly temper with his
brother-in-arms, and wanted to make a quarrel of it. Then, there
is a great story belonging to this Field of the Cloth of Gold,
showing how the English were distrustful of the French, and the
French of the English, until Francis rode alone one morning to
Henry's tent; and, going in before he was out of bed, told him in
joke that he was his prisoner; and how Henry jumped out of bed and
embraced Francis; and how Francis helped Henry to dress, and warmed
his linen for him; and how Henry gave Francis a splendid jewelled
collar, and how Francis gave Henry, in return, a costly bracelet.
All this and a great deal more was so written about, and sung
about, and talked about at that time (and, indeed, since that time
too), that the world has had good cause to be sick of it, for ever.
Of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy
renewal of the war between England and France, in which the two
Royal companions and brothers in arms longed very earnestly to
damage one another. But, before it broke out again, the Duke of
Buckingham was shamefully executed on Tower Hill, on the evidence
of a discharged servant - really for nothing, except the folly of
having believed in a friar of the name of HOPKINS, who had
pretended to be a prophet, and who had mumbled and jumbled out some
nonsense about the Duke's son being destined to be very great in
the land. It was believed that the unfortunate Duke had given
offence to the great Cardinal by expressing his mind freely about
the expense and absurdity of the whole business of the Field of the
Cloth of Gold. At any rate, he was beheaded, as I have said, for
nothing. And the people who saw it done were very angry, and cried
out that it was the work of 'the butcher's son!'
The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey invaded
France again, and did some injury to that country. It ended in
another treaty of peace between the two kingdoms, and in the
discovery that the Emperor of Germany was not such a good friend to
England in reality, as he pretended to be. Neither did he keep his
promise to Wolsey to make him Pope, though the King urged him. Two
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