1502-1509 despotism of one man was no doubt better than the despotism of many, but the price paid for the change was a heavy one. On the death of Prince Arthur in 1502, Ferdinand and Isabella proposed that their daughter Catharine should marry her brother-in-law, Henry, the only surviving son of the king of England, though the boy was six years younger than herself. They had already paid half their daughter's marriage portion, and they believed, probably with truth, that they had little chance of recovering it from Henry VII., and that it would therefore be more economical to re-marry their daughter where they would get off with no more expense than the payment of the other half. Henry on the other hand feared lest the repayment of the first half might be demanded of him, and consequently welcomed the proposal. In 1503 a dispensation for the marriage was obtained from Pope. Julius II., but in 1505, when the time for the betrothal arrived, the young Henry protested, no doubt at his father's instigation, that he would proceed no farther. Various other marriage plans were discussed, but in 1509, before any of these plans could take effect, Henry VII. died. He deserves to be reckoned among the kings who have accomplished much for England. If he was not chivalrous or imaginative, neither was the age in which he lived. His contemporaries needed a chief constable to keep order, and he gave them what they needed. Architecture, which in England, as upon the Continent, had been the one great art of the Middle Ages, was already, though still instinct with beauty, giving signs in its over-elaboration of approaching decadence. Art in this direction could go no farther. To the town of Fotheringhay Church had succeeded the town of St. Mary's, Taunton, in pretentious height losing much of the beauty of proportion. To the roof of the nave of Winchester Cathedral had succeeded the roof of the Divinity School at Oxford, and of the chapel of King's College, Cambridge. The lancet and geometric styles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had been entirely superseded by the perpendicular-the change in the character of the stone traceries in the window openings giving name to the whole of each period. The new conditions in which the following age was to move were indicated by the discovery of America and the invention of printing. New objects of knowledge presented themselves, and a new mode of spreading knowledge was at hand. In the reign of Edward IV., Caxton, the earliest English 1509 printer, set up his press at Westminster, in 1476, and a year later appeared what is thought to be the first book printed in Englandthe "Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers." The king and his nobles came to gaze at the press as at some new toy, little knowing how profoundly it was to modify their methods of government. Henry VII. had enough to do without troubling himself with such matters. It was his part to close an epoch of English history, not to open a fresh one. cess. Chapter XXIV HENRY VIII AND WOLSEY. 1509—1527 LEADING DATES REIGN OF HENRY VIII., A.D. 1509-1547-ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII., ENRY VIII. inherited the handsome face, the winning presence, and the love of pleasure which distinguished his mother's father, Edward IV., as well as the strong will of his own father, Henry VII. He could ride better than his grooms, and shoot better than the archers of his guard. Yet, though he had a ready smile and a ready jest for everyone, he knew how to preserve his dignity. Though he seemed to live for amusement alone, and allowed others to toil at the business of administration, he took care to keep his ministers under control. He was no mean judge of character, one of the chief secrets of his sucHe was well aware that the great nobles were his only possible rivals, and that his main support was to be found in the country gentry and the townsmen. Partly because of his youth, and partly because the result of the political struggle had already been determined when he came to the throne, he thought less than his father had done of the importance of possessing stored up wealth by which armies might be equipped and maintained, and more of securing that popularity which at least for the purposes of internal government made armies unnecessary. The first act of the new reign was to send Empson and Dudley to the Tower, and it was significant of Henry's policy that they were tried and executed, not on a charge of having extorted money illegally from subjects, but on a trumped-up charge of conspiracy against the king. It was for the king to see that offenses were not committed against the people, but the people must be taught that the most serious crimes were those committed against the king. Henry's next act was to marry Catharine. Though he was but nineteen, while |