The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.Prescott, Thomas H.
History
The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.
Prescott, Thomas H.
Biography; World history
After the death of Jane Seymour, Henry married Anne of Cleves, a
German princess, with whose person, however, he was not pleased; and
he therefore divorced her by an act of Parliament. He next married
Catherine Howard, niece to the Duke of Norfolk; but had not been long
united to her when he discovered that she had committed a serious
indiscretion before marriage. This was considered a sufficient reason
for beheading the unfortunate queen, and attainting all her relations.
Though Henry had thus murdered two wives, and divorced other two, and
become, moreover, a monster in form as well as in his passions and
mind, he succeeded in obtaining for his sixth wife (1543) Catherine
Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, who, it is certain, only contrived to
escape destruction by her extraordinary prudence. Almost all who ever
served Henry VIII as ministers, either to his authority or to his
pleasures, were destroyed by him. Wolsey was either driven to suicide,
or died of a broken heart. Thomas Cromwell, who succeeded that
minister, and chiefly aided the king in bringing about the
Reformation――Sir Thomas More, lord chancellor, the most virtuous, most
able and most consistent man of his time――the Earl of Surrey, who was
one of the most accomplished knights of the age, and the first poet
who wrote the English language with perfect taste――all suffered the
same fate with Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.
When James IV died at Flodden, in 1513, the Scottish crown fell to his
infant son JAMES V, who struggled through a turbulent minority, and
was now a gay, and, upon the whole, an amiable prince. His uncle,
Henry VIII, endeavored to bring him into his views respecting
religion; but James, who was much in the power of the Catholic clergy,
appears to have wished to become the head of the Popish party in
England, in the hope of succeeding, by their means, to the throne of
that country. A war latterly broke out between the two monarchs, and
the Scottish army having refused to fight, from a dislike to the
expedition, James died (December 1542) of a broken heart, leaving an
only child, MARY, who was not above a week old. Henry immediately
conceived the idea of marrying his son Edward to this infant queen, by
which he calculated that two hostile nations should be united under
one sovereignty, and the Protestant church in England be supported by
a similar establishment in Scotland. This project, however, was
resisted by the Scots, of whom very few as yet were inclined to the
Protestant doctrines. Henry, enraged at their hesitation, sent a fleet
and army, in 1544, to inflict vengeance upon them. The Scots endured
with great patience the burning of their capital city, and many other
devastations, but still refused the match. The government of Scotland
was now chiefly in the hands of Cardinal Beaton, a man of bold and
decisive intellect, who zealously applied himself to suppress the
reforming preachers, and regarded the English match as likely to bring
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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