affecting prose the sad story of the noble, whom they owe their existence, to scrutinize though mistaken Carthusians, and to make faithfully and patiently every fact concerning even the Nun of Kent interesting, because them, with a proud trust, that search as they truly womanly, in her very folly and deceit, may, they will not find much of which to be has enabled him likewise to shew us the ashamed. hearts of the early martyrs as they never Lastly, Mr. Froude takes a view of Henry's have been shown before. His sketch of the character, not, indeed, new, (for it is the oriChristian brothers, and his little true ro- ginal one,) but obsolete for now two hundred mance of Anthony Dalaber, the Oxford stu- years. Let it be well understood, that he dent, are gems of writing; while his concep- makes no attempt (he has been accused tion of Latimer, on whom he looks as the thereof) to white-wash Henry: all that he hero of the movement, and all but an Eng- does is, to remove as far as he can, the molish Luther, is as worthy of Latimer as it dern layers of "black-wash," and to let the is of himself. Written as history should man himself, fair or foul, be seen. For the be, discriminatingly, patiently, and yet lov-result he is not responsible: it depends on ingly and genially, rejoicing not in evil, but facts; and unless Mr. Froude has knowingly in the truth, and rejoicing still more in concealed facts, to an amount of which even goodness, where goodness can honestly be a Lingard might be ashamed, the result is, found. that Henry the Eighth was actually very much the man which he appeared to be to the English nation in his own generation, and for two or three generations after his death, —a result which need not astonish us, if we will only give our ancestors credit for having, at least, as much common sense as ourselves, and believe (why should we not?) that, on the whole, they understood their own business better than we are likely to do.

To the ecclesiastical and political elements in the English Reformation, Mr. Froude devotes a large portion of his book. We shall not enter into the questions which he discusses therein. That aspect of the movement is a foreign and a delicate subject, from discussing which a Scotch periodical may be excused. North Britain had a somewhat different problem to solve from her southern sister, and solved it in an alto- The "bloated tyrant," it is confessed, congether different way: but this we must say, trived, somehow or other, to be popular that the facts, and still more, the State-Pa- enough. Mr. Froude tells us the reasons. pers, (especially the petition of the Commons, He was not born a bloated tyrant, any more as contrasted with the utterly benighted an- than Queen Elizabeth (though the fact is not swer of the Bishops,) which Mr. Froude generally known) was born a wizened old gives, are such as to raise our opinion of the woman. He was, from youth, till he was method on which the English part of the Re-long past his grand climacteric, a very handformation was conducted, and make us be- some, powerful, and active man, temperate lieve, that in this, as in other matters, both in his habits, good humoured, frank and Henry and his Parliament, though still doc- honest in his speech, (as even his enemies trinal Romanists, were sound-headed practical Englishmen.

are forced to confess.) He seems to have been, (as his portraits prove sufficiently,) for good and for evil, a thorough John Bull; a thorough Englishman; but one of the very highest type.

This result is of the same kind as most of those at which Mr. Froude arrives. They form altogether a general justification of our ancestors in Henry the Eighth's time, if not of Henry the Eighth himself, which frees Mr. Had he died," says Mr. Froude, "previous to Froude from that charge of irreverence to the first agitation of the divorce, his loss would the past generations, against which we pro- have been deplored as one of the heaviest misfortested in the beginning of this Article. We tunes which had ever befallen this country, and hope honestly that he may be as successful be would have left a name which would have taken in his next volumes as he has been in these, its place in history by the side of the Black in vindicating the worthies of the 16th cen- the most trying age, with his character unformed, Prince, or the Conqueror of Agincourt. Left at tury. Whether he shall fail or not, and with the means of gratifying every inclination, whether or not he has altogether succeeded, and married by his ministers, when a boy, to an in the volumes before us, his book marks a unattractive woman, far his senior, he had lived new epoch, and, we trust, a healthier and for thirty-six years almost without blame, and loftier one, in English history. We trust bore through England the reputation of an upthat they inaugurate a time in which the right and virtuous king. Nature had been prodideeds of our forefathers shall be looked on his intellectual ability we are not left to judge gal to him of her rarest gifts. as sacred heirlooms; their sins as our shame, from the suspicious panegyrics of his cotempora their victories as bequests to us; when men ries. His State-Papers and letters may be placed shall have sufficient confidence in those to by the side of those of Wolsey, or of Cromwell,

Of

and they lose nothing by the comparison. Though the hearts of his subjects, is what needs exthey are broadly different, the perception is equal-planation; and Mr. Froude's opinions on ly clear, the expression equally powerful; and this matter, novel as they are, and utterly they breathe throughout an irresistible vigour of purpose. In addition to this he had a fine musi- opposed to that of the standard modern hiscal taste, carefully cultivated; he spoke and wrote torians, require careful examination. Now in four languages; and his knowledge of a multi- we are not inclined to debate Henry the tude of subjects, with which his versatile ability Eighth's character, or any other subject, as made him conversant, would have formed the re- between Mr. Froude, and an author of the putation of any ordinary man. He was among obscurantist or pseudo-conservative school. the best physicians of his age. He was his own Mr. Froude is a Liberal; and so are we. engineer, inventing improvements in artillery, and We wish to look at the question as between new constructions in shipbuilding; and this not with the condescending incapacity of a royal Mr. Froude and other Liberals; and, thereamateur, but with thorough workmanlike under- fore, of course, first, as between Mr. Froude standing. His reading was vast, especially in and Mr. Hallam. theology. He was attentive,' as it is called, to his religious duties,' being present at the services in chapel two or three times a day with unfailing regularity, and showing, to outward appearance, a real sense of religious obligation in the energy and purity of his life. In private he was good humoured and good-natured. His letters to his secretaries, though never undignified, are simple, easy, and unrestrained, and the letters written by them to him are similarly plain and business-like, as if the writers knew that the person whom they were addressing disliked compliments, and chose to be treated as a man. He seems to have been always kind, always considerate; inquiring into their private concerns, with genuine interest, and winning, as a consequence, their sincere and unaffected attachment. As a ruler, he had been eminently popular. All his wars had been successful. He had the splendid tastes in which the English people most delighted; . had more than once been tried with insurrection,

.. he

Mr. Hallam's name is so venerable, and his work so important, that, to set ourselves up as judges in this, or in any matter, between him and Mr. Froude, would be mere impertinence: but speaking merely as learners, we have surely a right to inquire, why Mr. Hallam has entered on the whole question of Henry's relations to his Parliament with a præjudicium against them; for which Mr. Froude finds no ground whatsoever in fact. All acts both of Henry and his Parliament are to be taken in malam partem. They were not Whigs, certainly: neither were Socrates and Plato, nor even St. Paul and St. John. They may have been honest men, as men go, or they may not: but why is there to be a feeling against them, rather than for them? Why is Henry always called a tyrant, and his Parliament servile? The epithets have become so common and unquestioned, that our interrogation may seem startling. Still we make it. Why was Henry a tyrant? That may be true, but must be proved by facts. Where are they? Is the mere fact of a monarch's asking for money a crime in him and in his ministers? The question would rather seem to be, Were the monies for which Henry Mr. Froude has, of course, not written asked needed or not, and when granted, were these words without having facts whereby they rightly or wrongly applied? And on to prove them. One he gives in an import- these subjects we want much more informaant note containing an extract from a letter tion than we obtain from Mr. Hallam's epiof the Venetian ambassador in 1515. At thets. The author of a constitutional history least, if his conclusions be correct, we must should rise above epithets; or, if he uses think twice ere we deny his assertion, that "the man best able of all living Englishmen, to govern England, had been set to do it by the conditions of his birth."

which he had soothed down without bloodshed, and extinguished in forgiveness.

And it is certain, that if he had died before the divorce was mooted, Henry VIII, like the Roman emperor said by Tacitus to have been consensu omnium dignus imperii nisi imperasset, would have been considered, by posterity, as formed by Providence for the conduct of the Reformation, and his loss would have been deplored as a perpetual calamity."

them, should corroborate them by facts. Why should not Mr. Hallam be as fair and as cau-tious in accusing Henry and Wolsey, as he would be in accusing Queen Victoria and "We are bound," as Mr. Froude says, Lord Palmerston? What right, allow us to "to allow him the benefit of his past career, ask, has a grave constitutional historian to and be careful to remember it, in interpret say, that "We cannot, indeed, doubt, that ing his later actions." "The true defect in the unshackled and despotic condition of his his moral constitution, that 'intense and im- friend, Francis I., afforded a mortifying conperious will,' common to all princes of the trast to Henry?" What document exists, Plantagenet blood, had not yet been tested." in which Henry is represented as regretting That he did, in his later years, act in many that he is the king of a free people?-for ways neither wisely or well, no one such Mr. Hallam confesses, just above, Engdenies; that this conduct did not alienate land was held to be, and was actually, in

The first contribution for which Wolsey asked was paid. The second was resisted, and was not paid, proving thereby that the nation need not pay unless it chose. The Court gave way; and the war became defensive only, till 1525.

comparison of France. If the document does England immense sums. A large army not exist, Mr. Hallam has surely stepped was maintained on the Scotch border, anout of the field of the historian into that of other army invaded France; and Wolsey, the novelist, à la Scott or Dumas. The not venturing to call Parliament,-because Parliament sometimes grants Henry's de- he was, as Pope's legate, liable to a præmands; sometimes it refuses them, and he munire,-raised money by contributions has to help himself by other means. Why and Why and benevolences, which were levied, it are both cases to be interpreted in malam seems, on the whole, uniformly and equally, partem? Why is the Parliament's granting (save that they weighed more heavily on to be always a proof of its servility?-its the rich than on the poor, if that be a fault,) refusing, always a proof of Henry's tyranny and differed from taxes only in not having and rapacity? Both views are mere praju- received the consent of Parliament. Doubtdicia, reasonable perhaps, and possible: but less, this was not the best way of raising why is a præjudicium of the opposite kind as money: but what if, under the circumstanrational and as possible? Why has not a ces, it were the only one? What if, too, historian a right to start, as Mr. Froude does, on the whole, the money so raised was by taking for granted, that both parties may really given willingly by the nation? The have been on the whole right; that the Par- sequel alone could decide that. liament granted certain sums, because Henry was right in asking for them; refused others because Henry was wrong; even that, in some cases, Henry may have been right in asking, the Parliament wrong in refusing; and that in such a case, under the pressure of critical times, Henry was forced to get, as he could, the money, which he saw that the national cause required? Let it be as folks will. Let Henry be sometimes right, and the Parliament sometimes likewise; or the Parliament always right, or Henry always right; or anything else, save this strange diseased theory, that both must have been always wrong, and that, evidence to that effect failing, motives must be insinuated, or openly asserted, from the writer's mere imagination. This may be a dream: but it is as easy to imagine as the other, and more pleasant also. It will probably be answered (though not by Mr. Hallam himself) by a sneer; "You do not seem to know much of the world, Sir. So would Figaro and Gil Blas have said, Sir; and on exactly the same grounds as you do."

Then the tide turned. The danger, then, was not from Francis, but from the Emperor. Francis was taken prisoner at Pavia; and shortly after, Rome was sacked by Bourbon.

The effect of all this in England is told at large in Mr. Froude's second chapter. Henry became bond for Francis's ramsom, to be paid to the Emperor. He spent 500,000 crowns more in paying the French army; and in the terms of peace made with France, a sum-total was agreed on for the whole debt, old and new, to be paid as soon as possible; and an annual pension of 500,000 crowns beside. The French exchequer, however, still remained bankrupt, and again the money was not paid.

Parliament, when it met in 1529, reviewed the circumstances of the expenditure, and Let us examine a stock instance of Henry's finding it all such as the nation on the whole "rapacity" and his Parliament's servility, approved, legalized the taxation by benevo namely, the exactions in 1524 and 1525, and lences, retrospectively; and this is the whole the subsequent" release of the king's debts," mare's nest of the first payment of Henry's which a late writer,-in a Review conducted debts; if at least, any faith is to be put in by University men, and therefore, one would the preamble of the Act for the release of have supposed, superior to the stale and the King's Debts, 21 Hen. VIII. c. 24. dangerous habit of reviewing one book by "The King's loving subjects, the Lords another, quoted the other day, second-hand, Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in out of Hallam, as a "settler" to Mr. Froude's this present Parliament assembled, calling view of Henry and his Parliament. What to remembrance the inestimable costs, are the facts of the case? France and Scot- charges, and expenses which the King's land had attacked England in 1514. The Highness hath necessarily been compelled Scotch were beaten at Flodden. The French to support and sustain since his assumption lost Tournay and Therounne, and, when to his crown, estate, and dignity royal, as peace was made, agreed to pay the expenses well for the extinction of a right dangerous of the war. Times changed, and the expenses and damnable schism, sprung in the were not paid. Church, as for the modifying the insatiable A similar war arose in 1524, and cost and inordinate ambition of them, who,

while aspiring to the monarchy of Christen- | been paid by Francis the First, as part of dom, did put universal troubles and divi- his old debt. And it was not paid, but, on sions in the same, intending, if they might, the contrary, Henry had to go to war for it. not only to have subdued this realm, but The nation again relinquished their claim, also all the rest, unto their power and sub- and allowed Henry to raise another benevojection-for resistance whereof, the King's lence in 1545, concerning which Mr. Hallam Highness was compelled to marvellous tells us a great deal, but not one word of charges both for the supportation of sundry the political circumstances which led to it armies by sea and land, and also for divers or to the release, keeping his sympathies and manifold contribution on hand, to save and his paper for the sorrows of refractory and keep his own subjects at home in Alderman Reed, who, refusing (alone of all rest and repose--which hath been so politi- the citizens) to contribute to the support of cally handled, that when the most part of troops on the Scotch border or elsewhere, all Christian lands have been invested with was sent down, by a sort of rough justice, cruel wars, the great Head and Prince of to serve on the Scotch border himself, and the world [the Pope !] brought into captiv-judge of the "perils of the nation" with his ity, cities and towns taken, spoiled, burnt, own eyes; and being (one is pleased to say) and sacked-the King's said subjects, in all taken prisoner by the Scots, had to pay a this time, by the high providence and poli- great deal more as ransom than he would tic means of his Grace, have been never- have paid as benevolence. theless preserved, defended, and maintained from all these inconvenients, &c.

66

But to return. What proof is there in all this, of that servility which most histoConsidering, furthermore, that his High- rians, and Mr. Hallam among the rest, are ness, in and about the premises, hath been fain wont to attribute to Henry's Parliaments? to employ not only all such sums of money What feeling appears on the face of this as hath risen and grown by contributions document, which we have given and quoted, made unto his Grace by his loving subjects but one honourable to the nation? Through --but also, over and above the same, sundry the falsehood of a foreign nation, the King other notable and excellent sums of his own is unable to perform his engagements to the treasure and yearly revenues, among which manifold great sums so employed, his Highness, also, as is notoriously known, and as doth evidently appear by the ACCOUNTS OF THE SAME, hath to that use, and none other, converted all such money as by any of his subjects hath been advanced to his Grace by way of prest or loan, either particularly, or by any taxation made of the same-being things so well collocate and bestowed, seeing the said high and great fruits and effects thereof insured to the surety and commodity and tranquillity of this realm-of our mind and consent, do freely, absolutely, give and grant to the King's Highness all and every sum or sums of money," &c.

people. Is not the just and generous course in such a case, to release him from those engagements? Does this preamble, does a single fact of the case, justify historians in talking of these "king's debts" in just the same tone as that in which they would have spoken of George the Fourth's or the Duke of York's? as if the King had squandered the money on private pleasures? Perhaps most people who write small histories, believe that this really was the case. They certainly would gather no other impression from the pages of Mr. Hallam. No doubt, the act must have been burdensome on some people. Many, we are told, had bequeathed their promissory notes to their children, The second release of the King's debts, in used their reversionary interest in the loan in 1544, is very similar. The King's debts many ways; and these, of course, felt the and necessities were really, when we come change very heavily. No doubt: but why to examine them, those of the nation: in have we not a right to suppose that the Par1538-40 England was put in a thorough liament were aware of that fact; but chose it state of defence from end to end. Fortress- as the less of the two evils? The King had es were built along the Scottish border, and spent the money; he was unable to recover all along the coast opposite France and it from Francis, could only refund it by Flanders. The people were drilled and raising some fresh tax or benevolence; and armed, the fleet equipped; and the nation, for the time, became one great army. And nothing but this, as may be proved by an overwhelming mass of evidence, saved the country from invasion. Here were enormous necessary expenses which must be

met.

In 1543, a million crowns were to have

why may not the Parliament have considered the release of old taxes likely to offend fewer people than the imposition of new ones? It is, certainly, an ugly thing to break public faith; but to prove that publie faith was broken, we must prove that Henry compelled the Parliament to release him; if the act was of their own free will,

no public faith was broken, for they were it an offence against the people to agree with the representatives of the nation, and a monarch, even when he agrees with the through them, the nation forgave its own people himself? Simple as these questions debt. And what evidence have we that are, one must really stop to ask them. they did not represent the nation, and that on the whole, we must suppose, as we should in the case of any other men, that they best knew their own business? May we not apply to this case, and to others, mutatis mutandis, the argument which Mr. Froude uses so boldly and well in the case of Anne Boleyn's trial-"The English nation also, as well as deserves just ice at our hands." Certainly it does but it is a disagreeable token of the method on which we have been accustomed to write the history of our own forefathers that Mr. Froude should find it necessary to state formally so very simple a truth.

No doubt, pains were often taken to secure elections favourable to the Government. Are none taken now? Are not more taken now? Will any historian shew us the documents which prove the existence, in the sixteenth century, of Reform Club, Carlton Club, whippers-in and nominees, governmental and opposition, and all the rest of the beautiful machinery which protects our Reformed Parliament from the evil influences of bribery and corruption? Pah!-We have somewhat too much glass in our modern House, to afford to throw stones at our forefathers' old St. Stephen's. At the worst, what was done then but that without which it is said to be impossible to carry on a government now? What proof, we ask again, is there that Take an instance from the Parliament of this old parliament was "servile?" Had 1539, one in which there is no doubt Govthat been so, Wolsey would not have been ernment influence was used, in order to preafraid to summon it. The specific reason vent as much as possible the return of memfor not summoning a Parliament for six bers favourable to the clergy-for the good years after that of 1524, was, that they reason, that the clergy were no doubt on were not servile; that when (here we are their own side intimidating voters by all quoting Mr. Hallam, and not Mr. Froude) those terrors of the unseen world, which had Wolsey entered the House of Commons so long been to them a source of boundless with a great train, seemingly for the pur- profit and power. pose of intimidation, they "made no other Cromwell writes to the King to say that answer to his harangues, than it was their he has secured a seat for a certain Sir Richusage to debate only among themselves." ard Morrison, but for what purpose? As The debates on this occasion lasted fifteen one who no doubt" should be ready to anor sixteen days, during which, says an eye, swer and take up such as should crack ' witness, "there has been the greatest and or face with literature of learning, if any sorest hold in the Lower House, 'the matter such should be." There was, then, free disdebated and beaten;' such hold that the cussion; they expected clever and learned House was like to have been dissevered;" speakers in the opposition, and on subjects of in a word, hard fighting (and why not hon- the deepest import, not merely political but est fighting?) between the court party and spiritual; and the Government needed men the opposition, "which ended," says Mr. to answer such. What more natural, than Hallam, "in the court party obtaining, with that so close on the "pilgrimage of grace, the utmost difficulty, a grant much inferior and in the midst of so great dangers, at to the Cardinal's original requisition." What token of servility is here?

home and abroad, the Government should have done their best to secure a well-disposed House, (one would like to know when they would not?) but surely the very effort, (confessedly exceptional) and the acknowledged difficulty, prove that Parliament were no mere "registrars of edicts.”

And is it reasonable to suppose, that after Wolsey was conquered, and a comparatively popular ministry had succeeded, and that memorable Parliament of 1529, (which Mr. Froude, not unjustly, thinks more memorable than the Long Parliament itself,) began But the strongest argument against the its great work with a high hand, backed not tyranny of the Tudors, and especially of merely by the King, but by the public Henry VIII., in his "benevolences," is deopinion of the majority of England, their rived from the state of the people themdecisions are likely to have been more ser- selves. If these benevolences had been realvile than before? If they resisted the ly unpopular, they would not have been King when they disagreed with him, are paid. In one case, we have seen, a benevothey to be accused of servility because they lence was not paid for that very reason. worked with him when they agreed with For the method of the Tudor sovereigns, him? Is an opposition always in the right; like that of their predecessors, was the very a ministerial party always in the wrong? Is opposite to that of tyrants, in every age

and