England under Henry VIII
ENGLAND
UNDER
HENRY VIII
EXAMINATIONAL ESSAY BY
NOVIKOV SERGEI
10th "B" GRADE, SCHOOL NO. 1276
MOSCOW - 1996
ENGLAND UNDER
HENRY THE EIGHTH.
Henry VIII Tudor (1491-1547)
was the second son of Henry VII.
His brother Arthur, being only 15, married to Catherine,
the daugter of the Spanish monarch.
But in a very few month he sickened and died.
Henty VII arranged that the young widow
should marry his second son Henry,
then 12 years of age, when he too should be 15.
A few years after settling this marriage, in 1509,
the King died of the gout.
King Henry the Eighth was just eighteen
years of age when he came to the throne.
People said he was a handsome boy, but
in later life he did not seem handsome at
all. He was a big, burly, noisy, small-eyed,
large-faced, double-chinned fellow, as we
know from the portraits of him, painted by
the famous Hans Holbein*.
The king was anxious to make himself
popular, and the people, who had long dis-
liked the late king, believed to believe that
he deserved to be so.
He was extremely fond of show and display, and so were they. There-fore
there was great rejoicing when he married the Princess Catherine, and when
they were both crowned. And the King fought at tournaments and always came
off victorious - for the courtiers took care of that - and there was a
general outcry that he was a wonderful man.
The prime favourites of the late King, who were engaged in money-
raising matters, Empson, Dudley, and their supporters, were accused of a
variety of crimes they really had been guilty; and they were pilloried, and
then beheaded, to the satisfaction of the people, and the enrichment of the
King.
The Pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, had mixed
himself up in a war on a continent of Europe, occasioned by the reigning
Princes of little quarrelling states in Italy having at various times
married
into other royal families, and so led to their claiming a share in those
petty
Governments. The King, who discovered that he was very fond of the Pope,
sent a herald to the King of France, to say he must not make war
upon the father of all Christians. As the French King did not mind this
relationship in the least, and also refused to admit a claim King Henry
made to certain lands in France, war was declared between the two coun-
tries.
England made a blundering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken
in by that country, which made its own terms with France when it could,
and left England in the lurch. Sir Edward Howard, a bold admiral, son of
the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself by his bravery against the French
in this business; but, unfortunately, he was more brave than wise, for,
skimming into the French harbour of Brest with only a few row-boats, he
attempted to take some strong French ships, well defended with cannons.
The upshot was, that he was left on board of one of them with not more than
about a dozen man, and was thrown into the sea and drowned.
***
After this great defeat the King took it into his head to invade France
in
person, first executing that dangerous Earl of Suffolk whom his father had
left in the Tower, and appointing Queen Catherine to charge of his king-dom
in his absence. He sailed to Calais, where he was joined by Maximi-lian,
Emperor of Germany, who pretended to be his soldier, and who took
pay in his service. The King might be successful enough in sham fights, but
his idea of real battles chiefly consisted in pitching silken tents of
bright colours that were ignominiously blown down by the wind, and in
making a vast display of a gaudy flags and golden curtains. Fortune,
however, flavoured him better than he deserved: he gave the French battle,
and they took such an anaccountable panic, and fled with such
swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called by the English the Battle of
Spurs**. Instead of following up his advantage, the King, finding that he
had had enough of real fighting, came home again.
The Scottish King, though nearly related to Henry by marriage, had
taken part against him in this war. The Earl of Surrey, as the English gene-
ral, advanced to meet him when he came out of his own dominions and crossed
the river Tweed. The two armies came up with one another when
the Scottish King had also crossed the river Till, and was encamped upon
the Hill of Flodden. Along the plain below it, the English, when the hour
of battle came, advanced. The Scottish army, which had been drawn up in
five great bodies, then came steadily down in perfect silence. So they, in
their turn, advanced to meet the English army, which came on the one long
line; and they attacked it with a body of spearman, under Lord Home.
At first they had the best of it; but the English fought with such valour,
that, when the Scottish King had almost made his way up to the Royal
standart, he was slain, and the whole Scottish power routed. Ten thousand
Scottish men lay dead that day on Flodden Field. For a long time after-
wards, the Scottish peasantry used to believe that their king had not been
really killed in this battle, because no Englishman had found an iron belt
he wore about his body as a penance for having been an undutiful son. But,
whatever became of his belt, the English had his sword and dagger, and the
ring from his finger, and his body was recognized by English gent-lemen who
had known the Scottish King well.
***
When King Henry was making ready to renew the war in France, the French
King was contemplating peace. His Queen, dying at this time, he proposed,
though he was upwards of fifty years old, to marry King Henry's sister,
Princess Mary, who, becides, being only sixteen, was bet-
rothed to the Duke of Suffolk. As the inclinations of young Princesses were
not too much considered in such matters, the marriage was conclu-ded , and
the poor girl was escorted to France, where she was immidiately left as the
French King's bride, with only one of her English attendants. That one was
a pretty young girl named Anna Boleyn, niece of the Earl of
Surrey, who had been made Duke of Norfolk after the victory of Flodden
Field.
The French King died within three month, and left the young Queen a
young widow. The new French monarch, Francis I, seeing how important
it was to his interests that she should take for her second husband no one
but an Englishman, adviced her first lover, the Duke of Suffolk, when King
Henry sent him over to France to fetch her home, to marry her. The
Princess being herself so fond of that Duke, as to tell him that he must
either do so then, or lose her forever, they were wedded; and Henry after-
wards forgave them. In making interest with King, the Duke of Suffolk had
addressed his most powerful favourite and adviser, Thomas Wol-sey*** - a
name very famous in history for its rise and downfall.
Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in Suffolk, and
recieved so exellent education that he became a tutor to the family of Mar-
qius of Dorset, who afterwards got him appointed one of the late King's
chaplains. On the accession of Henry VIII, he was promoted and taken into
great favour with the King - whether he were a foreign monarch or an
English nobleman - was obliged to make a friend of the great Cardinal
Wolsey.
He was a gay man, who could dance and jest, and sing and drink. He was
wonderfully fond of pomp and glitter, and so was the King. He knew a good
deal of the Church learning of that time, much of which consisted of
finding artful excuses and pretences for almost any wrong thing, and in
arguing that black was white, or any other colour. This kind of learning
pleased the King too. For many such reasons, the Cardinal was high in
estimation with the King, and, being a man of greater ability, knew how to
manage him. Never had there been seen in England such state as that Lord
Cardinal kept. His wealth was equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the
Crown. His palaces were as splendid as the King's, and his retinue was
eight hundred strong. He held his Court, dressed out from top to toe in
flaming scarlet; and his very shoes were golden, set with precious stones.
His followers tode on blood-horses, while he, with wonderful affectation of
humility in the midst of his great splendour, ambled on a mule.
Though the influence of his stately priest, a grand meeting was
arranged to take place between the French and English Kings in France, but
on ground belonging to England. A prodigious show of friendship was to be
made on the occation, and heralds were sent to proclaim with brazen
trumplets through all the principal cities of Europe, that, on a certain
day, the Kings of France and England, as companions and brothers in arms,
each attended by 18 followers, would hold a tournament against all knights
who might choose to come.
Charles, a new Emperor of Germany (the old one being dead), wanted to
prevent that aliance between the two sovereigns, and came over to Eng-
land and secured Wolsey's interest by promising that his influence should
make him Pope when the next vacancy occured. On the day when the Em-
peror left England, the King and the Court went over to Calais, and thence
to the place of meeting, commonly called the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
There were sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains running wine,
great cellars full of wine free as water to all comers, silk tents, gold
