rose the sad story of the noble, whom they owe their existence, to scrutinize taken Carthusians, and to make faithfully and patiently every fact concerning Nun of Kent interesting, because them, with a proud trust, that search as they anly, in her very folly and deceit, may, they will not find much of which to be I him likewise to shew us the ashamed. he early martyrs as they never hown before. His sketch of the rothers, and his little true ronthony Dalaber, the Oxford stums of writing; while his concepmer, on whom he looks as the movement, and all but an Engis as worthy of Latimer as it f. Written as history should atingly, patiently, and yet lovnially, rejoicing not in evil, but , and rejoicing still more in here goodness can honestly be

Lastly, Mr. Froude takes a view of Henry's character, not, indeed, new, (for it is the ori ginal one,) but obsolete for now two hundred years. Let it be well understood, that he makes no attempt (he has been accused thereof) to white-wash Henry: all that he does is, to remove as far as he can, the modern layers of "black-wash," and to let the man himself, fair or foul, be seen. For the result he is not responsible: it depends on facts; and unless Mr. Froude has knowingly concealed facts, to an amount of which even a Lingard might be ashamed, the result is, that Henry the Eighth was actually very lesiastical and political elements much the man which he appeared to be to h Reformation, Mr. Froude de- the English nation in his own generation, and portion of his book. We shall for two or three generations after his death, to the questions which he dis- -a result which need not astonish us, if we n. That aspect of the move- will only give our ancestors credit for havoreign and a delicate subject, ing, at least, as much common sense as ouring which a Scotch periodical selves, and believe (why should we not?) used. North Britain had a that, on the whole, they understood their fferent problem to solve from own business better than we are likely to do. sister, and solved it in an alto- The "bloated tyrant," it is confessed, connt way: but this we must say, trived, somehow or other, to be popular , and still more, the State-Pa- enough. Mr. Froude tells us the reasons. ly the petition of the Commons, He was not born a bloated tyrant, any more with the utterly benighted an- than Queen Elizabeth (though the fact is not Bishops,) which Mr. Froude generally known) was born a wizened old h as to raise our opinion of the woman. He was, from youth, till he was ich the English part of the Re-long past his grand climacteric, a very hands conducted, and make us be- some, powerful, and active man, temperate his, as in other matters, both in his habits, good humoured, frank and s Parliament, though still doc- honest in his speech, (as even his enemies ists, were sound-headed prac- are forced to confess.) He seems to have been, (as his portraits prove sufficiently,) is of the same kind as most of for good and for evil, a thorough John Bull; Mr. Froude arrives. They a thorough Englishman; but one of the very r a general justification of our highest type. enry the Eighth's time, if not Eighth himself, which frees Mr. "Had he died," says Mr. Froude, "previous to that charge of irreverence to the first agitation of the divorce, his loss would ations, against which we pro- have been deplored as one of the heaviest misforeginning of this Article. We tunes which had ever befallen this country, and that he may be as successful he would have left a name which would have taken imes as he has been in these, its place in history by the side of the Black the worthies of the 16th cen- the most trying age, with his character unformed, Prince, or the Conqueror of Agincourt. Left at er he shall fail or not, and with the means of gratifying every inclination, he has altogether succeeded, and married by his ministers, when a boy, to an before us, his book marks a unattractive woman, far his senior, he had lived d, we trust, a healthier and for thirty-six years almost without blame, and English history. We trust bore through England the reputation of an upgurate a time in which the right and virtuous king. Nature had been prodigal to him of her rarest gifts. refathers shall be looked on his intellectual ability we are not left to judge oms; their sins as our shame, from the suspicious panegyrics of his cotempora is bequests to us; when men ries. His State Papers and letters may be placed icient confidence in those to by the side of those of Wolsey, or of Cromwell,

nen.

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 Mr. Froude and other Liberals; and, therewith the condescending incapacity of a royal amateur, 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 Mr. Hallam's name is so venerable, and his religious duties,' being present at the services his work so important, that, to set ourselves in chapel two or three times a day with unfailing up as judges in this, or in any matter, beregularity, and showing, to outward appearance, tween him and Mr. Froude, would be mere a real sense of religious obligation in the energy and purity of his life. In private he was good impertinence: but speaking merely as learnhumoured and good-natured. His letters to his ers, we have surely a right to inquire, why secretaries, though never undignified, are simple, Mr. Hallam has entered on the whole queseasy, and unrestrained, and the letters written by tion of Henry's relations to his Parliament them to him are similarly plain and business-like, with a præjudicium against them; for which as if the writers knew that the person whom they Mr. Froude finds no ground whatsoever in were addressing disliked compliments, and chose fact. All acts both of Henry and his Parliato be treated as a man. He seems to have been always kind, always considerate; inquiring into ment are to be taken in malam partem. They their private concerns, with genuine interest, and were not Whigs, certainly: neither were winning, as a consequence, their sincere and un- Socrates and Plato, nor even St. Paul and affected attachment. As a ruler, he had been St. John. They may have been honest men, eminently popular. All his wars had been suc- as men go, or they may not: but why is cessful. He had the splendid tastes in which the there to be a feeling against them, rather English people most delighted; 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 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."

had more than once been tried with insurrection, 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."

should rise above epithets; or, if he uses them, should corroborate them by facts. Why should not Mr. Hallam be as fair and as cautious 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

A large army

f France. If the document does] England immense sums. r. Hallam has surely stepped was maintained on the Scotch border, and of the historian into that of other army invaded France; and Wolsey, à la Scott or Dumas. The not venturing to call Parliament,-because sometimes grants Henry's de- he was, as Pope's legate, liable to a præetimes it refuses them, and he munire,-raised money by contributions mself by other means. Why and benevolences, which were levied, it s to be interpreted in malam seems, on the whole, uniformly and equally, y is the Parliament's granting (save that they weighed more heavily on a proof of its servility?-its the rich than on the poor, if that be a fault,) ys a proof of Henry's tyranny and differed from taxes only in not having Both views are mere præju- received the consent of Parliament. Doubtole perhaps, and possible: but less, this was not the best way of raising udicium of the opposite kind as money: but what if, under the circumstanis possible? Why has not a ces, it were the only one? What if, too, at to start, as Mr. Froude does, on the whole, the money so raised was granted, that both parties may really given willingly by the nation? The the whole right; that the Par- sequel alone could decide that. d certain sums, because Henry king for them; refused others y was wrong; even that, in enry may have been right in rliament wrong in refusing; h a case, under the pressure es, Henry was forced to get, Then the tide turned. The danger, then, e money, which he saw that was not from Francis, but from the Empeuse required? Let it be as ror. Francis was taken prisoner at Pavia; t Henry be sometimes right, and shortly after, Rome was sacked by nent sometimes likewise; or Bourbon. always right, or Henry alor anything else, save this I theory, that both must have rong, and that, evidence to g, motives must be insinuatasserted, from the writer's on. This may be a dream: to imagine as the other, and also. It will probably be gh not by Mr. Hallam him; "You do not seem to know orld, Sir. So would Figaro we said, Sir; and on exactly Is as you do."

The first contribution for which Wolscy 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.

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 ne a stock instance of Henry's finding it all such as the nation on the whole his Parliament's servility, approved, legalized the taxation by benevoctions in 1524 and 1525, and lences, retrospectively; and this is the whole release of the king's debts," mare's nest of the first payment of Henry's ter,—in a Review conducted debts; if at least, any faith is to be put in en, and therefore, one would the preamble of the Act for the release of superior to the stale and the King's Debts, 21 Hen. VIII. c. 24. of reviewing one book by "The King's loving subjects, the Lords d the other day, second-hand, Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in sa "settler" to Mr. Froude's this present Parliament assembled, calling and his Parliament. What to remembrance the inestimable costs, he case? France and Scot- charges, and expenses which the King's d England in 1514. The Highness hath necessarily been compelled ten at Flodden. The French to support and sustain since his assumption nd Therounne, and, when to his crown, estate, and dignity royal, as agreed to pay the expenses well for the extinction of a right dangerous es changed, and the expenses and damnable schism, sprung in the Church, as for the modifying the insatiable r 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 But to return. What proof is there in all from all these inconvenients, &c. this, of that servility which most histo"Considering, 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 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 enor mous necessary expenses which must be

met.

In 1543, a million crowns were to have

raising some fresh tax or benevolence; and 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 public faith was broken, we must prove that Henry compelled the Parliament to release him; if the act was of their own free will,

was broken, for they were it an offence against the people to agree with tatives of the nation, and a monarch, even when he agrees with the the nation forgave its own people himself? Simple as these questions what evidence have we that are, one must really stop to ask them. epresent the nation, and that , we must suppose, as we case of any other men, that their own business? May to this case, and to others, lis, the argument which Mr. boldly and well in the case n's trial-"The English nadeserves just

ell as

8."

does: but it is a disagreeable ethod on which we have been write the history of our own t Mr. Froude should find it cate formally so very simple

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? we ask again, is there that Take an instance from the Parliament of ment was "servile?" IIad 1539, one in which there is no doubt GovWolsey would not have been ernment influence was used, in order to prenon it. The specific reason vent as much as possible the return of memoning a Parliament for six bers favourable to the clergy-for the good at of 1524, was, that they reason, that the clergy were no doubt on e; that when (here we are their own side intimidating voters by all allam, and not Mr. Froude) those terrors of the unseen world, which had d the House of Commons so long been to them a source of boundless in, seemingly for the pur- profit and power.

ation, they "made no other Cromwell writes to the King to say that arangues, than it was their he has secured a seat for a certain Sir Richonly among themselves." ard Morrison, but for what purpose? As this occasion lasted fifteen one who no doubt "should be ready to anduring which, says an eye-swer and take up such as should crack has been the greatest and or face with literature of learning, if any e Lower House, 'the matter such should be." There was, then, free disaten;' such hold that the cussion; they expected clever and learned to have been dissevered;" speakers in the opposition, and on subjects of fighting (and why not hon- the deepest import, not merely political but etween the court party and spiritual; and the Government needed men "which ended," says Mr. to answer such. What more natural, than court party obtaining, with that so close on the "pilgrimage of grace," ulty, a grant much inferior and in the midst of so great dangers, at original requisition." What home and abroad, the Government should ✓ is here? have done their best to secure a well-disonable to suppose, that after posed House, (one would like to know when quered, and a comparatively they would not?) but surely the very effort, had succeeded, and that (confessedly exceptional) and the acknowiament of 1529, (which Mr. | ledged difficulty, prove that Parliament were stly, thinks more memora no mere "registrars of edicts."

g Parliament itself,) began But the strongest argument against the ith a high hand, backed not tyranny of the Tudors, and especially of King, but by the public Henry VIII., in his "benevolences," is deajority of England, their rived from the state of the people themly to have been more ser-selves. If these benevolences had been real? If they resisted the ly unpopular, they would not have been disagreed with him, are paid. In one case, we have seen, a benevoed of servility because they lence was not paid for that very reason. 1 when they agreed with For the method of the Tudor sovereigns, osition always in the right; like that of their predecessors, was the very y always in the wrong? Is opposite to that of ty rants, in every age and