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REFORMATION
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REFORMATION (1497-1528)
The last twelve years of the reign of See also: Henry allied himself with See also: His chicanery need not, how-
ever, be censured over much, for the princes with whom
he had to See also:deal, and notably See also: The See also:mere suppression of insur- rule' rections like those of See also:Simnel and Warbeck was a small part of his task. The harder part was to recreate a spirit of See also:order and subordination among a nation accustomed to long See also:civil strife. His See also:instruments were ministers of ability chosen from the See also:clergy and the gentry—he seems to have been equally averse to trusting the baronage at the one end of the social See also:scale, or mere upstarts at the other, and it is notable that no one during his reign can be called a See also:court favourite. The best-known names among his servants were his great See also:chancellor, See also:Archbishop See also:Morton, See also:Foxe, See also:bishop of See also:Winchester, See also:Sir Reginald See also:Bray, and the lawyers See also:Empson and See also:Dudley. These two last See also:bore the brunt of the unpopularity of the See also:financial policy of the king during the latter See also:half of his reign, when the See also:vice of avarice seems to have grown upon him beyond all See also:reason. But Henry was such a hard-working monarch, and so See also:familiar with all the details of See also:administration, that his ministers cannot be said to have had any See also:independent authority, or to have directed their See also:master's course of See also:action. The machinery employed by the first of the Tudors for the suppression of domestic disorder is well known. The most important See also:item added by him to the administrative machinery of the realm was the famous See also:Star Chamber, The Star which was licensed by the GYlamher. See also:parliament of 1487. It consisted of a small See also:committee of ministers, privy councillors and See also:judges, which sat to deal with offences that seemed to See also:lie outside the See also:scope of the See also:common See also:law, or more frequently with the misdoings of men who were so powerful that the local courts could not be trusted to execute See also:justice upon them, such as great landowners, sheriffs and other royal officials, or turbulent individuals who were the terror of their native districts. The need for a strong central court directly inspired by the king, which could administer justice without respect of persons, was so great, that the constitutional danger of establishing an autocratic judicial committee, untrammelled by the See also:ordinary rules of law, escaped See also:notice at the time. It was not till much later that the nation came to look upon the Star Chamber as the See also:special See also:engine of royal tyranny and to loathe its name. In 1500 it was for the common profit of the realm that there should exist such a court, which could reduce even the most powerful offender to order. One of the most notable parts of the king's policy was his long-continued and successful See also:assault on the abuse of " See also:livery and See also:maintenance," which had been at its height during Suppresthe Wars of the See also:Roses. We have seen the part which See also:Sion of it had taken in strengthening the See also:influence of those livery and who were already too powerful, and weakening the maintenordinary operation of the law. Henry put it down ance. with a strong hand, forbidding all liveries entirely, See also:save for the mere domestic retainers of each See also:magnate. His determination to end the See also:system was well shown by the fact that he heavily fined even the See also:earl of See also:Oxford, the See also:companion of his See also:exile, the Commercial treaties. English navigators. Foreign policy of Henry Vll. Marriage of James IV. of Scotland and Margaret Tudor. 1509-15131 See also:victor of See also:Bosworth, and the most notoriously loyal peer in the realm, for an ostentatious violation of the See also:statute. Where Oxford was punished, no less favoured See also:person could See also:hope to See also:escape. By the end of the reign the little hosts of badged adherents which had formed the See also:nucleus for the armies of the Wars of the Roses had ceased to exist. Edward IV., as has been already remarked, had many of the opportunities of the autocrat, if only he had cared to use them; but his See also:sloth and self-See also:indulgence stood in the way. Henry VII., the most laborious and systematic of men, turned them to See also:account. He formed his See also:personal See also:opinion on every problem of administration and intervened himself in every detail. In many respects he was his own See also:prime See also:minister, and nothing was done without his knowledge and consent. A consistent policy may be detected in all his acts—that of gathering all the machinery of See also:government into his own hands. Under the later Plantagenets and the Lancastrian See also:kings the great check on the power of the See also:crown had been that financial difficulties were continually compelling the See also:sovereign to summon parliaments. The estates had interfered perpetually in all the details of governance, by means of the power of the See also:purse. Edward IV., first among English sovereigns, had been able to dispense with parliaments for periods of many years, because he did not need their grants save at long intervals. Henry was in the same position; by strict See also:economy, by the use of foreign subsidies, by the automatic growth of his revenues during a time of peace and returning prosperity, by See also:confiscation and forfeitures, he built himself up a financial position which rendered it unnecessary for him to make frequent appeals to parliament. Not the least fertile of his expedients was that regular exploitation of the law as a source of See also:revenue, which had already been seen in the time of his father-in-law. This part of Henry's policy is connected with the name of his two extortionate " fiscal judges " Empson and Dudley, who " turned law and justice into rapine " by their See also:minute See also:inquisition into all technical breaches of legality, and the See also:nice See also:fashion in which they adapted the See also:fine to the See also:wealth of the misdemeanant, without any reference to his moral See also:guilt or any regard_for extenuating circumstances. The king must take the responsibility for their unjust doings; it was his coffers which mainly profited by their See also:chicane. In his later years he See also:fell into the vice of hoarding See also:money for its own See also:sake; so necessary was it to his policy that he should be free, as far as possible, from the need for applying to parliament for money, that he became morbidly anxious to have great hoards in readiness for any possible See also:day of financial stress. At his death he is said to have had 1,800,000 in hard See also:cash laid by. Hence it is not See also:strange to find that he was able to dispense with parliaments in a fashion that would have seemed incredible to a 14th-century king. In his whole reign he only asked them five times for grants of See also:taxation, and three of the five See also:requests were made during the first seven years of his reign. In the eyes of many men parliament lost the main reason for its existence when it ceased to be the habitual provider of funds for the ordinary expenses of the realm. Those who had a better conception of its proper functions could see that it had at any See also:rate been stripped of its See also:chief power when the king no longer required its subsidies. There are traces of a want of public See also:interest in its proceedings, very different from the anxiety with which they used to be followed in See also:Plantagenet and Lancastrian times. Legislation, which only incidentally affects him, is very much less exciting to the ordinary See also:citizen than taxation, which aims directly at his See also:pocket. It is at any rate clear that during the latter years of his reign, when the time of impostures and rebellions had ended, Henry was able to dispense with parliaments to a great extent, and incurred no unpopularity by doing so. Indeed he was accepted by the English people as the benefactor who had delivered them from anarchy; and if they murmured at his love of hoarding, and cursed his inquisitors Empson and Dudley, they had no wish to See also:change the Tudor rule, and were far from regarding the times of the " Lancastrian experiment " as a lost See also:golden age. The present king might be unscrupulous and avaricious, but he was cautious,527 intelligent and economical; no one would have wished to recall the regime of that " crowned See also:saint " Henry VI. Nevertheless when the first of the Tudors died, on the 21st of See also:April 1509, there were few who regretted him. He was not a monarch to rouse See also:enthusiasm, while much was ex- Henry pected from his brilliant, See also:clever and handsome son ym Henry VIII., whose magnificent presence and manly vigour recalled the See also:early prime of Edward IV. Some years later England realized that its new king had inherited not only the See also:physical beauty and strength of his grandfather, but also every one of his faults, with the See also:sole exception of his tendency to sloth. Henry VIII. indeed may be said, to sum up his character in brief, to have combined his father's brains with his grandfather's passions. Edward IV. was selfish and cruel, but failed to become a See also:tyrant because he lacked the See also:energy for continuous work. Henry VII. was unscrupulous and untiring, but so cautious and wary that he avoided violent action and dangerous risks. Their descendant had neither Edward's sloth nor Henry's moderation; he was capable of going to almost any lengths in pursuit of the gratification of his ambition, his passions, his resentment or his See also:simple love of self-assertion. Yet, however far he might go on the road to tyranny, Henry had sufficient cunning, versatility and power of cool reflection, to know precisely when he had reached the edge of the impossible. He had his father's See also:faculty for gauging public opinion, and estimating dangers, and though his more venturous temperament led him to See also:press on far beyond the point at which the seventh Henry would have halted, he always stopped short on the hither See also:side of the gulf. It was the most marvellous See also:proof of his ability that he died on his See also:throne after nearly See also:forty years of autocratic rule, during which he had roused more enmities and done more to change the See also:face of the realm than any of the kings that were before him. But it was long before the nation could estimate all the features of the magnificent but sinister figure which was to dominate England from 1509 to 1547. At his See also:accession Henry VIII. was only eighteen years of age, and, if his character was already formed, it was only the attractive side of it that was yet visible. His personal beauty, his keen intelligence, his scholarship, his love of See also:music and the arts, his kingly ambition, were all obvious enough. His selfishness, his See also:cruelty, his ingratitude, his fierce hatred of See also:criticism and opposition, his sensuality, had yet to be discovered by his subjects. A suspicious observer might have detected something ominous in the first See also:act of his reign—the See also:arrest and See also:attainder of his father's unpopular ministers, Empson and Dudley, whose heads he flung to the people in order to win a moment's See also:applause. Whatever their faults, they had served the house of Tudor well, and it was a See also:grotesque perversion of justice to send them to the See also:scaffold on a See also:charge of high See also:treason. A similar piece of cruelty was the See also:execution, some time later, of the earl of See also:Suffolk, who had been languishing long years in the See also:Tower; he was destroyed not for any new plots, but simply for his Yorkist descent. But in Henry's earlier years such acts were still unusual; it was not till he had grown older, and had learnt how much the nation would endure, that judicial See also:murder became part of his established policy. Henry's first outburst of self-assertion took the See also:form of See also:reversing his father's thrifty and peaceful policy, by plunging into the midst of the continental wars from which England had been held back by his cautious See also:parent. The See also:adventure was wholly unnecessary, and also unprofitable. But while France was engaged in the " See also:Holy War " against the See also:pope, See also:Venice, the emperor, and Ferdinand of Spain, Henry renewed the old claims of the Plantagenets, and hoped, if not to win back the position of Edward III., at least to recover the duchy of See also:Aquitaine, or some parts of it. He See also:lent an See also:army to Ferdinand for the invasion of See also:Gascony, and landed himself at See also:Calais with 25,000 men, to See also:beat up the northern border of France. Little good came of his efforts. The Spanish king gave no assistance, and the northern See also:campaign, though it included the brilliant See also:battle of the Spurs (See also:August 16th, 1513), accomplished nothing more than the See also:capture of See also:Tournai and Therouanne. It was soon See also:borne in upon Personal rule. Contlneatal projects of Henry Vlll. King Henry that France, even when engaged with other enemies, was too strong to be overrun in the old See also:style. Moreover, his
See also:allies were giving him no aid, though they had eagerly accepted
his great subsidies. With a sudden revulsion of feeling Henry
offered peace to France, which King See also: The See also:queen See also:dowager, Margaret Tudor, aided by a party that favoured peace and alliance with England, was strong enough to See also:balance the See also:faction under the duke of See also:Albany which wished for perpetual war and asked for aid from France.
W With the peace of 1514 ended the first period of King Henry's
reign. He was now no longer a boy, but a See also:man of twenty-three,
with his character fully See also:developed; he had gradually
sey got rid of his father's old councillors, and had chosen
for himself a minister as ambitious and energetic as
himself, the celebrated See also: Things indifferent might be trusted to him, but the main lines of English diplomacy and foreign policy show rather the influence of the king's personal desires of the moment than that of a statesman seeking See also:national ends. It has often been alleged that Henry, under the guidance of Wolsey, followed a consistent See also:scheme for aggrandizing England, by making her the state which kept the balance of power of See also:Europe in her hands. And it is pointed out that during the years of the cardinal's ascendancy the alliance of England was sought in turn by the great princes of the See also:continent, and proved the make-See also:weight in the scales. This is but a superficial view of the situation. Henry, if much courted, was much deceived by his contemporaries. They borrowed his money and his armies, but fed him with vain promises and illusory treaties. He and his minister were alternately gulled by France and by the emperor, and the See also:net result of all their activity was See also:bankruptcy and discontent at See also:home and ever-frustrated hopes abroad. It is hard to build up a reputation for statecraft for either Henry or Wolsey on the sum See also:total of English political achievement during their collaboration. During the first few years of the cardinal's ascendancy the elder See also:race of See also:European sovereigns, the kings with whom Henry VII. had been wont to haggle, disappeared one after the other. Louis of France died in 1515, Ferdinand of Aragon in 1516, the emperor Maximilian—the last survivor of his See also:generation—in 1519. Louis was succeeded by the active, warlike and shifty See also:Francis I.; the heritage of both Ferdinand and Maximilian—his maternal and paternal grandfathers—fell to Charles of See also:Habsburg, who already possessed the Netherlands in his father's right and Castile in that of his See also:mother. The enmity of the house of See also:Valois and the house of Habsburg, which had first appeared in the wars of Charles VIII. and Maximilian, took a far more See also:bitter shape under Francis I. and Charles V., two young princes who were rivals from their youth. Their wars were almost perpetual, their peaces never honestly carried out. Their powers were very equally balanced; if Charles owned broader lands than Francis, they were more scattered and in some cases less loyal. The solid and wealthy realm of France proved able to make See also:head against Spain and the Netherlands, even when they were backed by the emperor's See also:German vassals. Charles was also distracted by many stabs in the back from the See also:Ottoman See also:Turks, who were just beginning their attack on Christendom along the line of the See also:Danube. To each of the combatants it seemed that the English alliance would turn the scale in his own favour. Henry was much courted, and wooed with promises of lands to be won from the other side by his ally of the moment. But neither Charles nor Francis wished him to be a real gainer, and he himself was a most untrustworthy friend, for he was quite ready to turn against his ally if he seemed to be growing too powerful, and threatened to dominate all Europe; the complete success of either party would mean that England would sink once more into a second-rate power. How faithless and insincere was Henry's policy may be gauged from the fact that in 1520, after all the pageantry of the " Field of the Cloth of See also:Gold " and his vows of undying friendship for Francis, he met Charles a few See also:weeks later at See also:Gravelines, and concluded with him a treaty which pledged England to a defensive alliance against the king's " good See also:brother " of France. Such things happened not once nor twice during the years of Wolsey's See also:ministry. It was hardly to be wondered at, therefore, if Henry's allies regularly endeavoured to cheat him out of his share of their See also:joint profits. Failure of What use was there in rewarding a friend who might Henry's become an enemy to-morrow? The greatest decep- diplotion of all was in 1522, when Charles V., who had macs. made the extraordinary promise that he would get Wolsey made pope, and lend Henry an army to conquer northern France, failed to redeem his word in both respects. He caused his own old See also:tutor, See also:Adrian of See also:Utrecht, to be crowned with the papal See also:tiara, and left the English to invade See also:Picardy entirely unassisted. But this was only one of many such disappointments. Henry VIM and the rivalry of Francis I. and Charles V. The result of some twelve years of abortive alliances and See also:ill-kept treaties was that Henry had obtained no single one Begin- of the advantages which he had coveted, and that he aings of had lavished untold wealth and many English lives pmrfia- upon phantom schemes which crumbled between his mentary fingers. His subjects had already begun to murmur; resistance. the early parliaments of his reign had been passive and complaisant; but by 1523 the Commons had been goaded into resistance. They granted only half the subsidies asked from them, See also:pleading that three summers more of such taxation as the cardinal demanded for his master would leave the realm drained of its last See also:penny, and reduced to fall back on See also:primitive forms of See also:barter, " clothes for victuals and See also:bread for See also:cheese," out of mere want of See also:coin. Fortunately for the king his subjects laid all the blame upon his See also:mouthpiece the cardinal, instead of placing it where it was due. On Wolsey's back also was saddled the most iniquitous of Henry's acts of tyranny against individuals—the judicial murder of the duke of See also:Buckingham, the highest head among the English nobility. For some hasty words, amplified by the doubtful See also:evidence of treacherous retainers, together with a foolish charge of dabbling with astrologers, the See also:heir of the royal line 81 Thomas of See also:Woodstock had been tried and executed with scandalous haste. His only real See also:crime was that, commenting on the lack of male heirs to the crown—for after many years of wedlock with Catherine of Aragon Henry's sole issue was one sickly daughter—he had been foolish enough to remark that if anything should happen to the king he himself was See also:close in See also:succession to the crown. The cardinal bore the blame, because he and Buckingham had notoriously disliked each other; but the See also:deed had really been of the king's own contriving. He was roused to implacable wrath by anyone who dared to speak on the for-bidden topic of the succession question. In the later years of Wolsey's ascendancy, nevertheless, that same question was the subject of many anxious thoughts. Question From Henry's own mind it was never long absent; he
of the yearned for a male heir, and he was growing tired of
king's his wife Catherine, who was some years older than
See also:divorce, himself, had few personal attractions, and was growing somewhat of an invalid. Somewhere about the end of 1526 those who were in the king's intimate confidence began to be aware that he was meditating a divorce—a thing not lightly to be taken in hand, for the queen was the aunt of the emperor Charles V., who would be vastly offended at such a proposal. But Henry's doubts had been marvellously stimulated by the fact that he had become enamoured of another See also:lady—the beautiful, ambitious and cunning See also:Anne See also:Boleyn, a niece of the duke of See also:Norfolk, who had no intention of becoming merely the king's See also:mistress, but aspired to be his See also:consort.
The question of the king's divorce soon became inextricably confused with another problem, whose first beginnings go back England to a slightly earlier date. What was to be the attitude and the of England towards the Reformation? It was now Reforma- nearly ten years since See also: All through the reign of Henry VII. and the early years of Henry VIII. the intermittent burning of " heretics," and their far more frequent recantations, had borne See also:witness to thefact that the See also:sect still lingered on. The Wycliffites were a feeble folk, compelled to subterraneous ways, and destitute of learned leaders or powerful supporters. But they survived to see Luther's day, and to See also:merge themselves in one See also:body with the first English travelling scholars and merchants who brought back from the continent the doctrines of the German Reformation. The origins of a Protestant party, who were not mere Wycliffites, but had been first interested in dogmatic controversy by coming upon the works of Luther, can be traced back to the year 1521 and to the university of See also:Cambridge. There a See also:knot of scholars, some of whom were to perish early at the stake, See also: It was not hard to attack the system under which Rodrigo See also:Borgia wore the tiara, while See also:Girolamo See also:Savonarola went to the stake; or in which See also:Julius II. exploited the name of See also:Christianity to serve his territorial policy in See also:Italy, and Leo X. hawked his indulgences See also:round Europe to raise funds which would enable him to gratify his See also:artistic tastes. At no period had the See also:official See also:hierarchy of the Western Church been more out of See also:touch with common righteousness and piety. Moreover, they were sinning under the eyes of a laity which was far more intelligent and educated, more able to think and See also:judge for itself, less the slave of immemorial tradition, than the old public of the middle ages. In Italy the Renaissance might be purely concerned with things intellectual or artistic, and seem to have little or no touch with things moral. Beyond the See also:Alps it was otherwise; among the See also:Teutonic nations at least the revolt against the scholastic See also:philosophy, the rout of the obscurantists, the eager pursuit of Hellenic culture, had a religious aspect. The same generation which refused to take thrice-translated and thrice-garbled screeds from See also:Aristotle as the sum of human knowledge, and went back to the See also:original See also:Greek, was also studying the Old and New Testaments in their original See also:tongues, and See also:drawing from them conclusions as unfavourable to the intelligence as to the See also:scholar-See also:ship of the orthodox See also:medieval divines. Such a discovery as that which showed that the " False See also:Decretals," on which so much of the power of the papacy rested, were mere 9th-century forgeries struck deep at the roots of the whole traditional relation between church and state. The first English scholars of the Renaissance, like See also:Erasmus on the continent, did not see the logical outcome of their own discoveries, nor realize that the campaign against obscurantism would develop into a campaign against See also:Roman orthodoxy. Sir Thomas More, the greatest of them, was actually driven into reaction by the violence of Protestant controversialists, and the fear that the new doctrines would rend the church in See also:twain. He became himself a persecutor, and a writer of abusive execution of the duke of Bucking-See also:ham. See also:pamphlets unworthy of the author of the See also:Utopia. But to the younger generation the irreconcilability of See also:modern scholar-ship and medieval formulae of faith became more and more evident. One after another all the cardinal doctrines were challenged by writers who were generally acute, and almost invariably vituperative. For the controversies of the Reformation were conducted by both sides, from kings and prelates down to See also:gutter pamphleteers, in See also:language of the most unseemly violence. But, as has been already said, the scholars and theologians had less influence in the beginning of the English Reformation than the mere See also:lay politicians, whose anti-clerical tendencies chanced to See also:fit in with King Henry's convenience when he quarrelled with the papacy. It is well to See also:note that the first attacks of parliament on the church date back to two years before Luther published his famous theses. The contention began in 1515 with the fierce assault by the Commons on the old abuse of benefit of clergy, and the See also:immunity of clerical criminals from due See also:punishment for See also:secular crimes—a question as old as the times of Henry II. and See also:Becket. But the discussion spread in later years from this particular point into a See also:general criticism of the church and its relations to the state, embracing local grievances as well as the questions which turned on the dealings of the papacy with the crown. The old complaints which had been raised against the Church of England in the days of Edward I. or See also:Richard II. had lost none of their force in 1526. The higher clergy were more than ever immersed in affairs of state, " Caesarean " as Wycliffe would have. called them. It was only necessary to point to the great cardinal himself, and to ask how far his spiritual duties at York were properly discharged while he was acting as the king's prime minister. The cases of Foxe and Morton were much the same; the former passed for a well-meaning man, yet had been practically absent from his See also:diocese for twenty years. See also:Pluralism, nepotism, See also:simony and all the other See also:ancient abuses were more rampant than ever. The monasteries had ceased to be even the nurseries of literature; their See also:chronicles had run dry, and secular priests or laymen had taken up the pens that the monks had dropped. They were wealthier than ever, yet did little to justify their existence; indeed the spirit of the age was so much set against them that they found it hard to keep up the See also:numbers of their inmates. Truculent pamphleteers like See also:Simon See also:Fish, who wrote Beggars' Supplication, were already demanding " that these sturdy boobies should be set abroad into the See also:world, to get wives of their own, and See also:earn their living by the sweat of their brows, according to the commandment of See also:God; so might the king be better obeyed, See also:matrimony be better kept, the See also:gospel better preached, and none should rob the poor of his See also:alms." It must be added that monastic scandals were not rare; though the See also:majority of the houses were decently ordered, yet the unexceptionable testimony of archiepiscopal and episcopal visitations shows that in the years just before the Reformation there was a certain number of them where chastity of life and honesty of administration were equally unknown. But above all things the church was being criticized as an imperium in imperio, a privileged body not amenable to ordinary See also:jurisdiction, and subservient to a foreign See also:lord—the pope. And it was true that, much as English churchmen might grumble at papal exactions, they were generally ready as a body to support the pope against the crown; the traditions of the medieval church made it impossible for them to do otherwise. That there would in any See also:case have been a new outbreak of anti-clerical and anti-papal agitation in England, under the influence of the Protestant impulse started by Luther in Germany, is certain. But two special causes gave its particular See also:colour to the opening of the English Reformation; the one was that the king fell out with the papacy on the question of his divorce. The other was that the nation at this moment was chafing bitterly against a clerical minister, whom it (very unjustly) made responsible for the exorbitant taxation which it was enduring, in consequence of the king's useless and unsuccessful foreign wars. The See also:irony of the situation lay in the facts that Henry was, so far as dogmatic views were concerned,a perfectly orthodox See also:prince; he had a considerable knowledge of the old theological literature, as he had shown in his pamphlet against Luther, and though he was ready to repress clerical immunities and privileges that were inconvenient to the crown, he had no sympathy whatever with the doctrinal side of the new revolt against the system of the medieval church. Moreover, Wolsey, whose fall was to synchronize with the commencement of the reforming movement, was if anything more in sympathy with change than was his master. He was an enlightened See also:patron of the new learning, and was inclined to take vigorous See also:measures in hand for the pruning away of the abuses of the church. It is significant that his great See also:college at Oxford—" Cardinal's College " as he designed to See also:call it, " See also:Christ Church " as it is named to-day—was endowed with the revenues of some See also:score of small monasteries which he had suppressed on the ground that they were useless or ill-conducted. His master turned the See also:lesson to account a few years later; but Henry's wholesale destruction of religious houses was carried out not in the interests of learning, but mainly in those of the royal exchequer. (C. W. C. O.) (1528–1603) Wolsey did not fall through any opposition to reform; nor was he opposed to the See also:idea of a divorce. Indeed, both in France and Spain he was credited with the authorship of the project. But he differed from Henry on the question of Catherine's successor. Wolsey desired a French marriage to consummate the See also:breach upon which he was now See also:bent with the emperor; and war, in fact, was precipitated with Spain in 1528. This is said to have been done without Henry's consent; he certainly wished to avoid war with Charles V., and peace was made after six months of passive hostility. Nor did Henry want a French princess; his affections were fixed for the time on Anne Boleyn, and she was the hope of the anti-clerical party. The crisis was brought to a head by the failure of Wolsey's See also:plan to obtain a divorce. Originally it had been suggested that the ecclesiastical courts in England were competent without recourse to See also:Rome. Wolsey deprecated this See also:procedure, and application was made to See also:Clement VII. Wolsey relied upon his French and See also:Italian allies to exert the necessary powers of persuasion; and in 1528 a French army crossed the Alps, marched through Italy and threatened to drive Charles V. out of See also:Naples. Clement was in a position to listen to Henry's See also:prayer; and See also:Campeggio was commissioned with Wolsey to hear the suit and See also: He had interested the king, and to some extent the nation, in a spirited Fall of Wolsey. foreign policy, had diverted their attention from domestic questions, and had staved off that See also:parliamentary attack on the church which had been threatened fifteen years before. Now he was doomed, and both Campeggio and Cardinal du Bellay were able to send their governments accurate outlines of the future policy of Henry VIII. The church was to be robbed of its wealth, its power and its privileges, and the papal jurisdiction was to be abolished. In See also:October Wolsey was deprived of the great See also:seal, and surrendered many of his ecclesiastical preferments, though he was allowed to retain his archbishopric of York which he now visited for the first time. The first lay ministry since Edward the See also:Confessor's time came into See also:office; Sir Thomas More became lord chancellor, and Anne Boleyn's father lord privy seal; the only prominent cleric who remained in office was See also:Stephen See also:Gardiner, who succeeded Wolsey as bishop of Winchester. Parliament met in See also:November 1529 and passed many acts against clerical exactions, mortuaries, See also:probate dues and Attack on pluralities, which evoked a passionate protest from the church Bishop See also:Fisher: " Now, with the Commons," he cried in paella- in the House of Lords, " is nothing but ` Down with See also:meat, the Church.' " During 1530 Henry's agents were busy abroad making that See also:appeal on the divorce to the See also:universities which See also:Cranmer had suggested. In 1531 the clergy in See also:convocation, terrified by the charge of praemunire brought against them for recognizing Wolsey's legatine authority, paid Henry a See also:hundred and eighteen thousand pounds and recognized him as supreme head of the church so far as the law of Christ would allow. The details of this surrender were worked out by king and Commons in 1532; but Gardiner and More secured the rejection by the Lords of the See also:bill in which they were embodied, and it was not till 1533, when More had ceased to be chancellor and Gardiner to be secretary, that a parliamentary statute annihilated the independent legislative authority of the church. An act was, however, passed in 1532 empowering the king, if he thought fit, to stop the See also:payment of See also:annates to Rome. Henry suspended his consent in order to induce the pope to grant Cranmer his bulls as archbishop of See also:Canterbury where he succeeded See also:Warham See also:late in 1532. The stratagem was successful, and Henry See also:cast off all disguise. The act of annates was confirmed; another prohibiting appeals to Rome and providing for the See also:appointment of bishops without recourse to the papacy was passed; and Cranmer declared Henry's marriage with Catherine Henry null and void and that with Anne Boleyn, which had vm, taken place about See also:January 25, 1533, valid. Anne marries was crowned in June, and on the 7th of September the Anne future Queen Elizabeth was See also:born. At length in 1534 Boleyn. Clement VII. concluded the case at Rome, pronouncing in favour of Catherine's marriage, and drawing up a See also:bull of ex-communication against Henry and his abettors. But he did not venture to publish it; public opinion in England, while hostile to the divorce, was not in favour of the clergy or the pope, and the rivalry between Charles V. and Francis I. was too bitter to permit of joint, or even isolated, action against Henry. Charles was only too anxious to avoid the See also:duty of carrying out the pope's commands, and a year later he was once more involved in war with France. Henry was able to deal roughly with such manifestations as Elizabeth See also:Barton's visions, and in the autumn of 1534 to obtain from parliament the Act of Supremacy shPremof which transferred to him the juridical, though not the acy, spiritual, powers of the pope. No penalties were attached to this act, but another passed in the same session made it treason to See also:attempt to deprive the king of any of his titles, of which supreme head of the church was one, being incorporated in the royal style by letters patent of January 1535. Fisher and More were executed on this charge; they had been imprisoned in the previous year for objecting to take the form of See also:oath to the succession as vested in Anne Boleyn's See also:children which the commissioners prescribed. But their lives could only be forfeit on the supposition that they sought to deprive the king of his royal supremacy. Many of the friars observant of See also:Greenwich and monks of the See also:Charterhouse were involved in asimilar fate, but there was no general resistance, and Henry, now inspired or helped by Thomas See also:Cromwell, was able to proceed with the next step in the Reformation, the See also:dissolution of the monasteries. It was See also:Cecil's opinion twenty-five years later that, but for the dissolution, the cause of the Reformation could not have succeeded. Such a reason could hardly be avowed, Dissofuand See also:justification had to be sought in the See also:condition of Hon of the the monasteries themselves. The action of Wolsey and monasother bishops before 1529, the See also:report of a See also:commission tortes. of cardinals appointed by See also:Paul III. in 1535, the subsequent experience of other, even See also:Catholic, countries give See also:collateral support to the conclusions of the visitors appointed by Cromwell, although they were dictated by a See also:desire not to deal out impartial justice, but to find reasons for a policy already adopted in principle. That they exaggerated the evils of monastic life hardly admits of doubt; but even a Henry VIII. and a Thomas Cromwell would not have dared to attack, or succeeded in destroying, the monasteries had they retained their original purity and influence. As it was their doubtful reputation and financial embarrassments enabled Henry to offer them as a gigantic bribe to the upper classes of the laity, and the Reformation parliament met for its last session early in 1536 to give effect to the reports of the visitors and to the king's and their own desires. But it had barely been dissolved in April when it became necessary to call another. In January the death of Catherine had rejoiced the See also:hearts of Henry and Anne Boleyn, but Anne's happiness was short-lived. Two miscarriages and the failure to produce the requisite male heir linked her in Henry's mind and in misfortune to Catherine; unlike Catherine she was unpopular and not above suspicion. The See also:story of her tragedy is still one of the most horrible and mysterious pages in English See also:history. It is certain that Henry was tired and wanted to get rid of her; but if she were See also:innocent, why were charges brought against her which were not brought against Catherine of Aragon and Anne of See also:Cleves? and why were four other victims sacrificed when one would have been enough? The peers a year before could acquit Lord Dacre; would they have condemned the queen without some show of evidence? and unless there was suspicious evidence, her daughter was inhuman in making no effort subsequently to clear her mother's character. However that may be, Anne was not only condemned and executed, but her Execution marriage was declared invalid and her daughter a of Queen See also:bastard. Parliament was required to establish the Anne succession on the new basis of Henry's new queen, Bofeyn. Jane See also:Seymour. It also empowered the king to leave the crown by will if he had no legitimate issue; but the illegitimate son, the duke of See also:Richmond, in whose favour this See also:provision is said to have been conceived, died shortly afterwards. Fortunately for Henry, Queen Jane roused no domestic or foreign animosities; Charles V. and Francis I. were at war; and the pope's and See also:Pole's attempt to profit by the See also:Pilgrimage of See also:Grace came too late to produce any effect The hgrlmage except the ruin of Pole's family. The two risings of of Grace. 1536 in See also:Lincolnshire and See also:Yorkshire were provoked partly by the dissolution of the monasteries, partly by the collection of a See also:subsidy and fears of fresh taxation on births, marriages and burials, and partly by the protestantizing Ten Articles of 1536 and Cromwell's Injunctions. They were conservative demonstrations in favour of a restoration of the old order by means of a change of ministry, but not a change of dynasty. The Lincolnshire rising was over before the middle of October, the more serious revolt in Yorkshire under See also:Aske lasted through the See also:winter. Henry's lieutenants were compelled to temporize and make concessions. Aske was invited to come to London and hoodwinked by Henry into believing that the king was really bent on restoration and reform. But an impatient outburst of the insurgents and a foolish attempt to seize Hull and Scar-See also:borough gave Henry an excuse for repudiating the concessions made in his name. He could afford to do so because England See also:south of the See also:Trent remained stauncher to him than England north of it did to the Pilgrimage. Aske and other leaders were tried and executed, and See also:summary vengeance was wreaked on the northern counties, especially on the monasteries. The one satisfactory outcome was the See also:establishment of the See also:Council of the North, which gave the shires between the Border and the Trent a stronger and more efficient government than they had ever had before. Probably the Pilgrimage had some effect in moderating Henry's progress. The monasteries did not benefit and in 1538—1539 the greater were involved in the fate which Tne si" Articles." had already overtaken the less. But no further ad- vances were made towards Protestantism after the publication and authorization of the " Great " See also:Bible in English. The Lutheran divines who came to England in 1538 with a project for a theological See also:union were rebuffed; the parliament elected in 1539 was Catholic, and only the reforming bishops in the House of Lords offered any resistance to the Six Articles which reaffirmed the chief points in Catholic See also:doctrine and practice. The alliance between pope, emperor and French king induced Henry to acquiesce in Cromwell's scheme for a political understanding with Cleves and the Schmalkaldic League, which might threaten Charles V.'s position in Germany and the Netherlands, but could not be of much See also:direct advantage to England. Cromwell rashly sought to wed Henry to this policy, proposed Anne of Cleves as a See also:bride for Henry, now once more a widower, and represented the marriage as England's sole See also:protection against a Catholic league. Henry put his See also:neck under the yoke, but soon discovered that there was no See also:necessity; for Charles and Francis were already beginning to See also:quarrel and had no thought of a joint attack on England. The dis-Faliof covery was fatal to Cromwell; after a severe struggle Thomas . cromwem in the council he was abandoned to his enemies, attainted of treason and executed. Anne's marriage was declared null, and Henry found a fifth queen in Catherine See also:Howard, a niece of Norfolk, a protegee of Gardiner, and a friend of the Catholic church. Nevertheless there was no reversal of what had been done, only a check to the rate of progress. Cranmer remained See also:arch-bishop and compiled an English See also:Litany,'while Catherine Howard soon ceased to be queen; charges of loose conduct, which in her case at any rate were not instigated by the king, were made against her and she was brought to the See also:block; she was succeeded by Catherine See also:Parr, a mild patron of the new learning. The Six Articles were only fitfully put in execution, especially in 1543 and 1546; all the plots against Cranmer failed; and before he died Henry was even considering the advisability of further steps in the religious reformation, apart from mere spoliation like the confiscation of the See also:chantry lands. But Scotland, See also:Ireland and foreign affairs concerned him most. Something substantial was achieved in Ireland; the papal Policy in See also:sovereignty was abolished and Henry received from Ireland the Irish parliament the title of king instead of lord of and Ireland. The See also:process was begun of converting Irish 'and- chieftains into English peers which eventually divorced the Irish people from their natural leaders; and principles of English law and government were spread beyond the See also:Pale. In Scotland Henry was less fortunate. He failed to win over James V. to his anti-papal policy, revived the feudal claim to See also:suzerainty, won the battle of Solway See also:Moss (1542), and then after James's death bribed and threatened the Scots estates into concluding a treaty of marriage between their infant queen and Henry's son. The church in Scotland led by See also:Beaton, and the French party led by James V.'s widow, Mary of See also:Guise, soon reversed this decision, and See also:Hertford's heavy hand was (1544) laid on See also:Edinburgh in revenge. France was at the root of the evil, and Henry was thus induced once more to join Charles V. in war (1543)• The joint invasion of 1544 led to the capture of See also:Boulogne, but the emperor made peace in order to deal with the See also:Lutherans and left Henry at war with France. The French attempted to retaliate in 1S45, and burnt some villages in the Isle of See also:Wight and on the coast of See also:Sussex. But their expedition was a failure. and peace was made in 1546, by which Henry undertook to restore Boulogne in eight years' time on payment of eight hundred thousand crowns. Scotland was not included in the pacification, and when Henry died (January 28, 1547) he was busy preparing to renew his attempt on Scotland's See also:independence. He left a council of sixteen to rule during his son's minority. The balance of parties which had existed since Cromwell's fall had been destroyed in the last months of the reign by the attainder of Norfolk and his son Surrey, and Edward the exclusion of Gardiner and See also:Thirlby from the council of regency. Men of the new learning prevailed, and Hertford (later duke of See also:Somerset), as See also:uncle to Edward VI., was made See also:protector of the realm and See also:governor of the king's person. He soon succeeded in removing the trammels imposed upon his authority, and made himself king in everything but name. He used his arbitrary power to modify the despotic system of the Tudors; all treason See also:laws since Edward III., all See also:heresy laws, all restrictions upon the publication of the Scriptures were removed in the first parliament of the reign, and various securities for See also:liberty were enacted. The administration of the See also:sacrament of progress the See also:altar in both elements was permitted, the Catholic of the See also:interpretation of the See also:mass was rendered optional, Reforimages were removed, and English was introduced matron. into nearly the whole of the church service. In the following session (1548—1549) the first Act of Uniformity authorized the first See also:Book of Common Prayer. It met with strenuous resistance in See also:Devon and in See also:Cornwall, where rebellions added to the thickening troubles of the protector. His administration was singularly unsuccessful. In 1547 he won the great but barren victory of Pinkie Cleugh over the Scots, and attempted to push on the marriage and Adminisunion by a mixture of conciliation and See also:coercion. He tration made genuine and considerable concessions to Scottish of the feeling, guaranteeing See also:autonomy and freedom of trade, protector and suggesting that the two realms should adopt the Somerset. indifferent style of the empire of Great See also:Britain. But he also seized See also:Haddington in 1548, held by force the greater part of the Lowlands, and, when Mary was transported to France, revived the old feudal claims which he had dropped in 1547. France was, as ever, the backbone of the Scots resistance; men and money poured into Edinburgh to assist Mary of Guise and the French faction. The protector's offer to restore Boulogne could not purchase French acquiescence in the union of England and Scotland; and the bickerings on the See also:borders in France and open fighting in Scotland led the French to declare was on England in August 1549. They were encouraged by dissensions in England. Somerset's own brother, Thomas Seymour, jealous of the protector, intrigued against the government; he sought to secure the hand of Elizabeth, the favour of Edward VI. and the support of the Suffolk line, secretly married Catherine Parr, and abused his office as lord high See also:admiral to make See also:friends with pirates and othe- enemies of order. Foes of the family, such as See also:Warwick and Southampton, saw in his factious conduct the means of ruining both the See also:brothers. Seymour was brought to the block, and the weak consent of the protector seriously damaged him in the public See also:eye. His notorious sympathy with the peasantry further alienated the official classes and landed gentry, and his campaign against enclosures brought him into conflict with the strongest forces of the time. The remedial measures which he favoured failed; and the rising of See also:Ket in Norfolk and others less important in nearly all the counties of England, made Somerset's position impossible. See also:Bedford and See also:Herbert suppressed the See also:rebellion in the west, Warwick that in Norfolk (See also:July—August 1549). They then combined with the majority of the council and the discontented Catholics to remove the protector from office and imprison him in the Tower (October). The Catholics hoped for reaction, the restoration of the mass, and the See also:release of Gardiner and See also:Bonner, who had been imprisoned for resistance to the protector's ecclesiastical Adminispolicy. But Warwick meant to rely on the Protestant tration of extremists; by January r55o the Catholics had been the duke of expelled from the council, and the See also:pace of the Ref orma- IVorthumtion increased instead of diminishing. Peace was made berlana. with France by the surrender of Boulogne and See also:abandonment
of the policy of union with Scotland (See also: Mary entered London amid unparalleled popular rejoicings, and Northumberland was sent to a well-deserved death on the scaffold.
Mary was determined from the first to restore papalism as well as Catholicism, but she had to go slowly. The papacy Queen had few friends in England, and even Charles V., on
anticipated that Mary would do more than restore religion as it had been left by her father. She did not attempt anything further in 1553 than the See also:repeal of Edward VI.'s legislation and the accomplishment of the Spanish marriage. The latter project provoked fierce resistance; various risings were planned for the opening months of 1554, and See also:Wyat's nearly proved successful. Only his arrogance and procrastination and Mary's own courage saved her throne. But the failure of this protest enabled Mary to carry through the Spanish marriage, which was consummated in July; and in the ensuing parliament (Oct.-See also:Jan. 1554-1555) all anti-papal legislation was repealed; Pole was received as See also:legate; the realm was reconciled to Rome; and, although the holders of See also:abbey lands were carefully protected against attempts at restitution, the church was empowered to work its will with regard to heresy. The Lollard statutes were revived, and between See also:February 1555 and November 1558 some three hundred Protestants were burnt at the stake. They began with john See also:Rogers and See also:Rowland See also: But in the Protestant districts neither age nor See also:sex was spared; even the dead were dug up and burnt. The result was to turn the hearts of Mary's people from herself, her church and her creed. Other causes helped to convert their enthusiastic See also:loyalty into bitter hatred. The Spanish marriage was a failure from _ every point of view. In spite of Mary's repeated de- lusions, she bore no See also:child, and both parliament and of the people resisted every attempt to deprive Elizabeth of Spanish her right to the succession. Philip did all he could to mPhl/ip II. arriage. conciliate English affections, but they would not have Spanish control at any See also:price. They knew that his blandishments were dictated by ulterior designs, and that the absorption of England in the Habsburg empire was his ultimate aim. As it was, the Spanish connexion checked England's aspirations; her adventurers were warned off the Spanish Main, and even trade with the colonies of Philip's ally See also:Portugal was prohibited. They had to content themselves with the See also:Arctic Ocean and Muscovy; and they soon found themselves at war in Philip's interests. Philip himself refused to declare war on Scotland on England's behalf, but he induced Mary to declare war on France on his own (1557). The See also:glory of the war fell to the Spaniards at St Quentin (1557) and Gravelines (1558), but the shame to England by the loss of Calais (Jan. 1558). Ten months later Mary died (Nov. 17), deserted by her See also:husband and broken-hearted at the loss of Calais and her failure to win English hearts back to Rome. The Spanish and Venetian ambassadors in London were shocked at what they regarded as the indecent rejoicings over Elizabeth's accession. The nation, indeed, breathed a new life. Papal control of its ecclesiastical, and Spanish control of its foreign policy ceased, and it had a queen who gloried in being " mere English." There was really no possible rival sovereign, and no possible alternative policy. The English were tugging at the See also:chain and Elizabeth had to follow; her efforts through-out were aimed at checking the pace at which her people wanted to go. She could not have married Philip had she wished to, and she could not have kept her sea-See also:dogs off the Spanish Main. They were willing to take all the risks and relieve her of all responsibility; they filled her coffers with Spanish gold which they plundered as pirates, knowing that they might be hanged if caught; and they fought Elizabeth's enemies in France and in the Netherlands as irregulars, taking their See also:chance of being shot if taken prisoners. While Elizabeth nursed prosperity in peace, her subjects sapped the strength of England's rivals by attacks which were none the less damaging because they escaped the name of war. It required all Elizabeth's finesse to run with the See also:hare and See also:hunt with the hounds; but she was, as Henry III. of France said, la plus fine femme du monde, and she was ably seconded by Cecil who had already proved himself an See also:adept in the See also:art of taking See also:cover. Nevertheless, English policy in their hands was essentially aggressive. It could not be otherwise if England was to emerge from the See also:slough in which Mary had left it. The first step was to assert the principle of England for the English; the queen would have no foreign husband, though she found suitors useful as well as attractive. Spanish counsels were applauded and neglected, and the Spaniards soon departed. Elizabeth was glad of Philip's support at the negotiations for peace at Cateau Cambresis (1559), but she took care to assert the independence of her diplomacy and of England's interests. At Triumph home the church was made once more English. All ofthenew foreign jurisdiction was repudiated, and under the religion. style " supreme governor " Elizabeth reclaimed nearly The Act of all the power which Henry VIII. had exercised as miiy r " supreme head." The Act of Uniformity (1559) restored with a few modifications the second prayer-book of ary whom Mary chiefly relied for guidance, was not eager Restore- to see the papal jurisdiction restored. He wanted See also:don of England to be first firmly tied to the Habsburg interests the olds by Mary's marriage with Philip. Nor was it generally religio. Accession of Elisabeth. English national struggle with Spain. Edward VI. The bishops almost unanimously refused to conform, and a clean sweep was made of the episcopal See also:bench. An eminently safe and scholarly archbishop was found in See also:Matthew See also:Parker, who had not made himself notorious by resistance to authority even under Mary. The lower clergy were more amenable; the two hundred who alone are said to have been ejected should perhaps be multiplied by five; but even so they were not one in seven, and these seven were clergy who had been promoted in Mary's reign, or who had stood the celibate and other tests of 1553-1554. Into the balance must be thrown the hundreds, if not thousands, of zealots who had fled abroad and returned in 1558-1559. The net result was that a few years later the lower house of convocation only rejected by one See also:vote a very puritanical See also:petition against See also:vestments and other " popish dregs." The next step was to expand the principle of England for the English into that of Britain for the British, and See also:Knox's reformation in 1559-1560 provided an opportunity Elizabeth for its application. By timely and daring intervention and Scotland. in Scotland Elizabeth procured the See also:expulsion of the French bag and baggage from North Britain, and that French See also:avenue to England was closed for ever. The See also:logic of this plan was not applied to Ireland; there it was to be Ireland for the English for many a generation yet to come; and so Ireland remained See also:Achilles' See also:heel, the vulnerable part of the See also:United King-dom. The Protestant religion was forced upon the Irish in a foreign See also:tongue and garb and at the point of foreign pikes; and national sentiment supported the ancient faith and the ancient habits in resistance to the Saxon innovations. In other directions the expansion of England, the third See also:stage in the development of Elizabeth's policy, was more successful. The attractions of the Spanish Main converted the seafaring folk of south-west Eng- See also:land into See also:hardy Protestants, who could on conscientious the line; and although, as far as actual colonies went, the results of Elizabeth's reign were singularly meagre, the idea had taken root and the ground had been prepared. In every direction English influence penetrated, and Englishmen before 1603 might be found in every See also:quarter of the globe, following See also:Drake's See also:lead into the Pacific, painfully breaking the See also:ice in See also:search of a north-east or a north-west passage, See also:hunting for slaves in the wilds of See also:Africa, journeying in caravans across the See also:steppes of See also:Russia into central See also:Asia, bargaining with the Turks on the shores of the Golden See also:Horn, or with the Greeks in the See also:Levant, laying the See also:foundations of the East See also:India See also:Company, or of the colonies of See also:Virginia and Newfoundland. This expansion was mainly at the expense of Spain; but at first Spain was regarded as Elizabeth's friend, not France. France had a rival See also:candidate for Elizabeth's throne See also:mare of in Mary See also:Stuart, the wife of the dauphin who soon scats. (1559) became king as Francis II.; and Spanish favour was sought to neutralize this See also:threat. Fortunately for Elizabeth, Francis died in 1560, and the French government passed into the hands of Catherine de' Medici, who had no cause to love her daughter-in-law and the Guises. France, too, was soon paralysed by the wars of religion which Elizabeth judiciously fomented with anything but religious motives. Mary Stuart returned to Scotland with nothing but her brains and her charms on which to rely in her struggle with her people and her rival. She was well equipped in both respects, but human passions spoilt her chance; her See also:heart turned her head. Elizabeth's head was stronger and she had no heart at all. When Mary married See also:Darnley she had the See also:ball at her feet; the pair had the best claims to the English succession and enjoyed the united affections of the Catholics. But they soon ceased to love one another, and could not control their jealousies. There followed rapidly the murders of See also:Rizzio and Darnley, the See also:Bothwell marriage, Mary's defeat, captivity, and See also:flight into England (1568). It was a difficult problem for Elizabeth to solve; to let Mary go to France was presenting a good deal more than a See also:pawn to her enemies; to restore her by force to her Scottish throne might have been heroic, but it certainly was not politics; to hand her over to her Scottish foes was too mean even for Elizabeth; and to keep her in England was to See also:nurse a spark in a See also:powder-See also:magazine. Mary was detained in the hope that the spark might be carefully isolated. But there was too much inflammable material about. The duke of Norfolk was a Protestant, but his convictions were weaker than his ambition, and he fell a victim to Mary's unseen charms. The Catholic north of England was to rise under the earls of See also:Westmorland and Northumberland, who objected to Elizabeth's seizure of their mines and jurisdictions as well as to her proscription of their faith; and the pope was to assist with a bull of deposition. Norfolk, however, played the See also:coward; the bull came nearly a year too late, and the rebellion of the earls (1569) was easily crushed. But the conspiracies did not end, and Spain began to take a hand. Elizabeth, partly in revenge for the treatment of See also:Hawkins and Drake at See also:San Juan de Ulloa, seized some Spanish treasure on its way to the Netherlands (Dec. 1569). See also:Alva's operations were fatally handicapped by this disaster, but Philip was too much involved in the Nether-lands to declare war on England. But his friendship for Elizabeth had received a See also:shock, and henceforth his See also:finger maybe traced in most of the plots against her, of which plots the See also:Ridolfi See also:conspiracy was the first. It cost Norfolk Elizabeth. zabeth. his head and Mary more of her scanty liberty. Eliza- Relations beth also began to look to France, and in 1572, by the With treaty of See also:Blois, France instead of Spain became Eng- See also:Spa France and 1n. land's ally, while Philip constituted himself as Mary's patron. The See also:massacre of St See also:Bartholomew placed a severe See also:strain upon the new alliance, but was not fatal to it. A See also:series of prolonged but hollow marriage negotiations between Elizabeth and first See also:Anjou (afterwards Henry III.) and then See also:Alencon (afterwards duke of Anjou) served to keep up appearances. But the friendship was never warm; Elizabeth's relations with the See also:Huguenots on the one hand and her fear of French designs on the Netherlands on the other prevented much cordiality. But the alliance stood in the way of a Franco-Spanish agreement, limited Elizabeth's sympathy with the French Protestants, and enabled her to give more countenance than she otherwise might have done to the Dutch. Gradually Philip See also:grew more hostile under provocation; slowly he came to the conclusion that he could never subdue the Dutch or check English attacks on the Spanish Main without a See also:conquest of England. Simultaneously Jesuit the See also:counter-Reformation began its attacks; the See also:missions. " Jesuit invasion " took place in 1580, and See also:Campion went to the block. A papal and Spanish attempt upon Ireland in the same year was foiled at Smerwick. But more important was Philip's acquisition of the throne of Portugal with its harbours, its colonies and its marine. This for the first time gave him a real command of the sea, and at least doubled the chances of a successful attack upon England. But Philip's mind moved slowly and only on provocation. It took a year or two to satisfy him that Portugal was really his; not until 1583 was the See also:fleet of the pretender Don See also:Antonio destroyed in the See also:Azores. The victor, See also:Santa Cruz, then suggested an See also:armada against England, but the English Catholics could not be brought into line with a Spanish invasion. The various attempts to square James VI. of Scotland had not been successful, and events in the Nether-lands and in France disturbed Philip's calculations. But his purpose was now probably fixed. After the murder of William the Silent (1584) Elizabeth sided more openly with the Dutch; the Spanish See also:ambassador See also:Mendoza was expelled from England for his intrigues with Elizabeth's enemies (1586); and Execution on the discovery of See also:Babington's plot Elizabeth yielded of Mary, to the demand of her parliament and her ministers queen of for Mary's execution (1587) ; her death removed the iss" only possible centre for a Catholic rebellion in case of a Spanish attack. It also removed Philip's last doubts; Struggle as well as other grounds contest a papal allocation against the of new worlds to Spain and Portugal. Their monopoly Spanish was broken up by Hawkins, Drake, See also:Frobisher, See also:Raleigh, dominion and scores of others who recognized no peace beyond at sea. Rebellion of 1569 and See also:excommunication of Elizabeth. Mary had left him her claims to the English throne, and he might, now that she was out of his path, hope to treat England like Portugal. Drake's "singeing of Philip's See also:beard" in See also:Cadiz See also:harbour in 1587 delayed the expedition for a year, and a See also:storm again postponed it in the early summer of 1588. At length the armada sailed in July under the incompetent duke of See also:Medina Sidonia; its See also:object was to secure command of the narrow seas and facilitate the transport of See also:Parma's army from the Nether-lands to England. But Philip after his twenty years' experience in the Netherlands can hardly have hoped to conquer a bigger and richer See also:country with scantier means and forces. He relied in fact upon a domestic See also:explosion, and the armada The See also:area' was only to be the See also:torch. This miscalculation made Armada, 1588. it a hopeless enterprise from the first. Scarcely an English Catholic would have raised a finger in Philip's favour; and when he could not subdue the two provinces of Holland and See also:Zeeland, it is absurd to suppose that he could have simultaneously subdued them and England as well. English armies were not perhaps very efficient, but they were as good as the material with which William of See also:Orange began his task. Philip, however, was never given the opportunity. His armada was severely handled in a See also:week's fighting on its way up the Channel, and was driven off the English ports into the German Ocean ; there a south-west See also:gale drove it far from its See also:rendezvous, and completed the havoc which the English ships had begun. A miserable remnant alone escaped destruction in its perilous flight round the north and west of Scotland. The defeat of the armada was the beginning and not the end of the war; and there were moments between 1588 and 1603 when England was more seriously alarmed than in 1588. The Spaniards seized Calais in 1596; at another time they threatened England from See also:Brest, and the " invisible " armada of 1599 created a greater panic than the " invincible " armada of 1588. It was not till the very end of the reign that what was in some ways the most dangerous of Spanish aggressions was foiled at See also:Kinsale. Nor were the English. counter-attacks very happy; the attempt on Portugal in 1589 under Drake and See also:Norris proved a complete failure. The See also:raid on Cadiz under Essex and Raleigh in 1596 was attended with better results, but the " Islands " voyage to the Azores in 1597 was a very partial success. Still it was now a war upon more or less equal terms, and there was little more likelihood that it would end with England's than with Spain's loss of national independence. The subjection of the Netherlands was now almost out of the question, and although Elizabeth's help had not enabled the Protestant cause to win in France, Henry IV. built up a national See also:monarchy which would be quite as effectual a See also:bar to the ambitions of Spain. Elizabeth had in fact safely piloted England through the struggle to assert its national independence in religion and politics and its claim to a share in the new See also:inheritance Last which had been opened up for the nations of Europe; years of Eand the passionate loyalty which had supported her as Elizabeth. l the embodiment of England's aspirations somewhat cooled in her declining years. She herself grew more cautious and conservative than ever, and was regarded as an obstacle by the hotheads in war and religion. She sided with the " See also:scribes," See also:Burghley and Sir See also:Robert Cecil, against the men of war, Essex and Raleigh; and she abetted See also:Whitgift's rigorous persecution of the Puritans whose discontent with her via See also:media was rancorously expressed in the Martin Marprelate tracts. Essex's folly and failure to crush See also:Hugh O'See also:Neill's rebellion (1599), the most serious effort made in the reign to throw off the English yoke in Ireland, involved him in treason and brought him to he block. Parliament was beginning to quarrel with the royal See also:prerogative, particularly when expressed in the grant of mono-polies, and even See also:Mountjoy's success in Ireland (1602-1603) failed to revive popular enthusiasm for the dying queen. Strange as it may seem, the accession of James I. was hailed as heralding a new and gladder age by See also:Shakespeare, and See also:minor writers (March 24, 1603). (A. F. 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