That sun, I pray, may never set: I have told him What, and how true thou art: he will advance thee: (I know his noble nature), not to let Thy hopeful service perish too: Good Cromwell, Cromwell. Wolsey. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear Love thyself last cherish those hearts that hate thee; Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: Let all the ends thou aim'st at, be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, There take an inventory of all I have, To the last penny; 'tis the king's; my robe, A.D. 1535.] A BIBLE IN EVERY PARISH. 113 And my integrity to Heaven, is all I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell, I served my king, he would not in mine age Sir Thomas More, who took rank amongst the foremost of the great scholars and noble characters that then shone like lights in the different countries of Europe, succeeded Wolsey in the office of Chancellor. Cranmer, when made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533, formally pronounced Henry's marriage with Catherine to have been null and void from the beginning; but Catherine refused to submit to a sentence which disgraced herself and rendered her daughter illegitimate. Henry, however, had, a few months previously, secretly married Anne Boleyn. Catherine had a large party in the country, who identified her cause with the maintenance of the old religious system. The famous Elizabeth Barton, called the Nun of Kent, was the prophetess of this party. Ireland too was up in arms under the Fitzgeralds, and every one looked with impatience for the publication of the Pope's bull excommunicating Henry, to be followed, as all zealous Roman Catholics hoped, by an invasion of the Catholic Powers to compel him to return to his allegiance to the Church. In 1534 Parliament conferred on Henry the title of Supreme Head of the Church, and orders were issued to blot out the Pope's name from all mass-books. Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and the great Sir Thomas More, were beheaded in 1535, for having refused to take the oath acknowledging the king's supremacy. Then followed an Act of Parliament for the dissolution and suppression of all monasteries and religious houses and orders; while every parish church was required to provide itself with a Bible for the free use of all men. The English translation of the Bible was due to Tyndale and Coverdale. Thomas Cromwell, who had been Wolsey's secretary, and like him, of humble birth and kingly intellect, ruled the destinies of England during the first eight stormy years of the H Reformation. His eye alone saw the medium course between the two extreme parties, and he laboured to realize it in the constitution of the Church of England. Anne Boleyn, whose early days were passed at the court of Francis I., had brought back with her the graces and accomplishments, and perhaps the frivolity of that brilliant society. She had been the companion of Francis' sister, the queen of Navarre, who openly favoured the reformers. During the six years that the divorce question was pending, and the three years that Anne shared his throne, Henry carried with a strong hand the several measures necessary for throwing off the Papal yoke. Yet, while breaking up the long-established Roman organization, which had lost its vitality, the king clung with the tenacity of his powerful will to the hope of preserving the unity of the Catholic faith and doctrines. In lieu of the Pope's authority, he had given the Word of God; but seeing that in indiscreet hands it became a source of discord, animosity, and schism, he resolved to crush the leaders of extreme opinions rather than suffer the conflict to ripen into civil war, as in Germany, and which was threatening to spread over all Europe. To carry out these views, Henry was declared supreme Head of the Church—the spiritual legislator, prescribing, under pain of death, the doctrines necessary to salvation. But as he was alternately swayed by the chiefs of the two contending faiths, Cranmer, Latimer, and Cromwell representing the Protestants; Gardiner, Bonner, and the Duke of Norfolk the Roman Catholics, the noblest and purest men on both sides were sacrificed by turns—some hanged at Tyburn, others burned at Smithfield. Two noble female martyrs also paid the penalty for holding to convictions they prized above life-Anne Ascue the Protestant, and Elizabeth Barton the Roman Catholic martyr. In 1533, Henry's queen, Anne Boleyn, had given birth to a daughter, afterwards the illustrious Elizabeth. Catherine of Arragon died in January 1536, and in May of the same year Anne Boleyn was brought to trial on a charge of adultery before the peers of Eng A.D. 1537.] BIRTH OF EDWARD VI. 115 land, her uncle the Duke of Norfolk presiding. In spite of her own eloquent defence and denial, she was condemned and executed within the walls of the Tower, on Friday, May 19, 1538. The following day Henry married Jane Seymour, his third wife. In the course of the same year, a serious insurrection broke out in Lincolnshire, which, spreading into Yorkshire, and being there supported by many powerful and influential families, under the direction of an able and energetic leader, Robert Aske, gave much uneasiness to the government. The object of the insurrection was to restore the old order of things, to crush the Reformation, and to bring the Protestant bishops to punishment, and above all Cromwell. After much trouble and anxiety, the insurrection was put down and the leaders hanged. The old forms of religion were gone. The old charities and hospitalities associated with the monasteries and abbeys were extinct, and it accordingly required all Henry's energies and vigilance to provide a substitute for what he had taken away. Among other measures which he adopted, he published a book entitled the Institution of a Christian Man, and he became constant in his exhortations to both parties to study the spirit of charity and holiness that breathed through the pages of the Bible, which now for the first time freely circulated among the people. Meanwhile he was not blind to his danger from foreign powers, and as he was well aware that the Pope's dearest wish was to bring about a reconciliation between Charles and Francis, that they might unite their forces for the invasion of England, he was active in the erection of fortresses along the coast, and attended unremittingly to his navy. In October 1537, the queen, Jane Seymour, gave birth to a prince, afterwards Edward VI. She survived but a week. On the day of her death, the Privy Council urged on the king the necessity of a fresh marriage. At first a Catholic princess was thought of, but as orders were just then issued for the destruction of the costly shrine of Thomas à Becket, and for the burning of the bones of that martyr and champion of Romanism, this proposal was not likely to be acceptable to any; and Cromwell, whose favourite idea was the union of the nations of the Teutonic race in defence of the Reformation, suggested Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, and sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. The famous Holbein had painted a flattering portrait of the princess, and when the king hastened to meet her when she landed in England in December 1539, he was dismayed to find her clumsy, coarse, and corpulent. He would willingly have sent her back, but he feared to offend the Protestant powers, as he had done the Roman Catholics by his divorce from Catherine; and, accordingly, with the utmost reluctance, he married her on the 6th January 1540. The Parliament of 1539 conferred on the king's proclamations the force of Acts of Parliament. The Catholic party meanwhile were gaining ground once more, and inspiring Henry's legislation, while Cromwell's influence was waning. The bill called by the Protestants "the Bloody Act of the six Articles," was published, enjoining, under penalty of death and confiscation, six articles of belief :-The real presence in the bread and wine of the Lord's supper; that communion in both kinds was not necessary to salvation; the celibacy of priests; that vows of chastity were of perpetual obligation; that private masses were essential; and auricular confession expedient and necessary. Cromwell showed himself too lenient, in Henry's opinion, to infractions of this "bloody" bill. Besides, it was he who, for the sake of the Teutonic Protestant League, had counselled Henry's union with the plain, clumsy Dutch princess. Accordingly, this great and wise man, and zealous and faithful minister, was arrested at the table of the Privy Council, by his old enemy the Duke of Norfolk, and, in July 1540, passed from the Tower to the scaffold. In the same month Convocation and Parliament dissolved the king's marriage with Anne of Cleves, on the pretext that there had existed a pre-contract. The executions on account of religious opinions were meanwhile continued with undiminished vigour; Protestants at one time suffering for heresy, Roman Catholics at another for denying the king's headship. Previously to the marriage with Anne of Cleves, |