HENRY
222
HENRY
three houses established in commutation of his vow.
Moreover, at the very end of his hfe he seems to have
been sincere in his interest in the crusade, while his
organization of the "Saladin Tithe", like that of the
"Scutage" at the beginning of the reign, marked an
epoch in the history of English taxation. The con-
quest of Ireland which Henry had projected in 1156
and for which he obtained a Bull from Pope Adrian
IV (q.v.) was carried out later with the full sanction
of Pope Alexander III, preserved to us in letters of
unquestionable authenticity which concede in sub-
stance all that was granted by the disputed Bull of
Adrian. The death of Henry was sad and tragic, em-
bittered as it was by the rebellion of his sons Richard
and John, but he received the last sacraments before
the end came. " I think ", says William of Newburgh,
" that God wished to punish him severely in this life
in order to show mercy to liim in the next."
All histories of Engkind and notably Lingahd's contain a de- tailed account of Henry's important reign, but Lingard's esti- mate of his character seems unnecessarily severe. The prefaces to Stubbs' editions of various chronicles in the Rolls Series are important and have been printed together in a separate volume, .^mong more recent works Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins (London, 1905), and Adams, History of England from lOtX to 1216 (London, 1905) may be specially recom- mended. See also Delisle, articles on Henry's Charters in the Bibliolheque de I'Eeole des Charles, 1906, 1907, and 1909, and Round in the Archceological Journal, 190S: Eyton, Itinerary of Henry II (London, 1878); Norgate, England under the Angei'in Kings (London, 18S7): Thurston, Life of St. Huoh of Lineoln (London, 1898); Hardegen, I mperialpolitik Konig Heinriehs II. von England (Heidelberg, 1905). Fuller bibli- ographies are given in Gross, Sources of Eng. Hist., and by Norgate in Diet. Nat, Biog., s. v.
Herbert Thitrstgn.
Henry VIII, King of England, b. 28 June, 1491 ; d. 28 January, 1.5-17. He was the second son and third child of his father, Henry VII. His elder brother Arthur died in ."^pril, 1.502, and consequently Henry became heir to the throne when he was not yet quite eleven years old. It has been asserted that Henry's interest in theological questions was due to the bias of his early education, since he had at first been destined by his father for the Church. But a child of eleven can hardly have formed lifelong intel- lectual tastes, and it is certain that secular titles, such as those of Earl Marshal and Viceroy of Ireland, were heaped upon him before he was five. On the other hand there can be no question as to the boy's great precocity and as to the liberal scope of the studies which he was made to pursue from his earliest years. After Arthur's death a project was at once formed of marrying him to his brother's wiflow, Catherine of Aragon, who, being born in Decemljer, 148.5, was more than five years his .senior. The negotiations for a papal dispensation took some little time, and the Spanish Queen Isabella, the mother of Catherine, then nearing her end, grew very impatient. Hence a hastily drafted Brief containing the required dispen- sation was privately sent to Spain in 1504, to be fol- lowed some months later by a Bull to the same effect which was of a more public cliaractcr. The existence of these two instruments afterwards caused compli- cations. Owing, however, to some political scheming of Henry VII, who was trying to outwit his rival Fer- dinand, Prince Henry, on attaining the age of fourteen, was made to record a formal protest against the pro- posed marriage with Catherine, as a matter arranged without his consent. Still, when his father died in 1509, Henry carried out the marriage nine weeks after his accession, he being then eighteen, and showing from the first a thorough determination to l)e his own master. Great popularity was won for the new reign by the attainder and execution of Empson and Dudley, the instruments of the late king's extortion. Besides this, it is unanimously attested by contemporaries that the young sovereign pos.se.ssed every gift of mind and person which could arouse the enthusiasm of his people. His skill in manly sports was almost equalled
by his intelligence and his devotion to letters. Of the
complicated foreign policy which marked the begin-
ning of his reign no detail can be given here. Thanks
partly to Henry's personality, but still more to the
ability of Wolsey, who soon took the first place in the
council chamber, England for the first time became
a European power. In 1512 Henry joined Pope Ju-
lius II, f>rdinand of Spain, and the Venetians in form-
ing the "Holy League" against the King of France.
Julius was feverishly bent on chasing the "barba-
rians" (i. e. the French and other foreigners) out of
Italy, and Henry co-operated by collecting ships and
soldiers to attack the French king in his own domin-
ions. No very conspicuous success attended his arms,
but there was a victory at Guinegate outside Therou-
anne, and the Scotch, who, as the allies of France,
had threatened invasion, w-ere disastrously defeated
at Flodden in 1513. During all this time Henry re-
mained on excellent terms with the Holy See. In
April, 1510, Julius sent him the golden ro.se, and in
1514 Leo X bestowed the honorific cap and sword,
which were presented with much solemnity at St.
Paul's.
The League having been broken up by the selfish policy of Ferdinand, Henry VIII now made peace with France and for some years held the balance be- tween the great powers on the Continent, though not without parting with a good deal of money. Wolsey was made a cardinal in 1515 and exercised more influ- ence than ever, but it was somewhat against his advice that Henry, in 1519, secretly became a candidate for the succession to the empire, though pretending at the same time to support the candidature of Francis, his ally. When, however, Charles V was successful, the French king could not afford to quarrel with Henry, and a somewhat hollow and insincere renewal of their friendship took place in June, 1520, at the famous "Field of the Cloth of Gold", when the most elaborate courtesies were exchanged between the two monarchs. The prospect of this rapprochement had so alarmed the Emperor Charles that, a month before it took place, he visited Henry in England. In point of fact a continuous game of intrigue was being played by all three monarchs, which lasted until the period when Henry's final breach with Rome led him to turn his principal attention to domestic concerns. Mean- while the strength of Henry's position at home had been much developed by Wolsey'sjvidiciousdiplomacy, and, despite the costliness of some of England's demonstrations against France, before the French king became the emperor's prisoner at Pavia, the odium of the demand for money fell upon the minister, while Henry retained almost all his popularity. In- deed, whatever disaffection might be felt, the people had no leader to make rebellion possible. The old nobility, partly as the result of the Wars of the Roses, and partly owing to the repressive policy dictated by the ilyna.stic fears of Henry VII, had been reduced to impotence. In 1.521 the most prominent noble in England, the Duke of Buckingham, was condemned to death for high treason by a subservient House of Peers, simply because the king suspected him of aim- ing at the succession and had determined that he must die. At the same period Henry's prestige in the eyes of the clergy, and not the clergy only, was strength- ened by his famous book, the "Assertio Septem Sacramentorum". This was written against Luther and in vindication of the Church's dogmatic teaching regarding the sacraments and the Sacrifice of the Mass, while the supremacy of the papacy is also insisted upon in unequivocal terms. There is no reason to doubt that the substance of the book was really Henry's. Pope Leo X was highly plea.sed with it and conferred upon tlie king the title of Fidei DrjenKor (Defender of the Faith), which is maintained to this day as part of the royal style of the English Crown. .Ml this suc- cess and adulation were calculated to develop the
