Henry viii

Albert Pollard

• Publisher: Ozymandias Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781531279387
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Renaissance History
• Index: History

It is perhaps a matter rather for regret than for surprise that so few attempts have been made to describe, as a whole, the life and character of Henry VIII. No ruler has left a deeper impress on the history of his country, or done work which has been the subject of more keen and lasting contention. Courts of law are still debating the intention of statutes, the tenor of which he dictated; and the moral, political, and religious, are as much in dispute as the legal, results of his reign. He is still the Great Erastian, the protagonist of laity against clergy. His policy is inextricably interwoven with the high and eternal dilemma of Church and State; and it is well-nigh impossible for one who feels keenly on these questions to treat the reign of Henry VIII. in a reasonably judicial spirit. No period illustrates more vividly the contradiction between morals and politics. In our desire to reprobate the immorality of Henry's methods, we are led to deny their success; or, in our appreciation of the greatness of the ends he achieved, we seek to excuse the means he took to achieve them. As with his policy, so with his character. There was nothing commonplace about him; his good and his bad qualities alike were exceptional. It is easy, by suppressing the one or the other, to paint him a hero or a villain. He lends himself readily to polemic; but to depict his character in all its varied aspects, extenuating nothing nor setting down aught in malice, is a task of no little difficulty...

FOOTNOTES

~

Footnote 1: The edition cited in the text is that of 1672.(back)

Footnote 2: This series, unlike the Calendars of State Papers, includes documents not preserved at the Record Office; it is often inaccurately cited as Calendar of State Papers, but the word “Calendar” does not appear in the title and it includes much besides State papers; such a description also tends to confuse it with the eleven volumes of Henry VIII.’s State papers published in extenso in 1830-51. The series now extends to Dec., 1544, and is cited in the text as L. and P. (back)

Footnote 3: Cited as Spanish Calendar; the volume completing Henry’s reign was published in 1904.(back)

Footnote 4: Cited as Ven. Cal.; this correspondence diminishes in importance as the reign proceeds, and also, after 1530, the documents are epitomised afresh in L. and P. (back)

Footnote 5: Three series, viz., that edited by Thorp (2 vols., 1858), a second edited by Bain (2 vols., 1898) and the Hamilton Papers (2 vols., 1890-92).(back)

Footnote 6: Vol. i. of the Irish Calendar, and also of the Carew MSS.; see also the Calendar of Fiants published by the Deputy-Keeper of Records for Ireland.(back)

Footnote 7: Correspondance de MM. Castillon et Marillac, edited by Kaulek, and of Odet de Selve, 1888.(back)

Footnote 8: The most important of these is vol. i. of Lord Salisbury’s MSS.; other papers of Henry VIII.’s reign are scattered up and down the Appendices to a score and more of reports.(back)

Footnote 9: E.g., Wriothesley’s Chronicle, Chron. of Calais, and Greyfriars Chron. (back)

Footnote 10: E.g., Leadam, Domesday of Inclosures, and Transactions, passim.(back)

Footnote 11: Paderborn, 1893; cf. Engl. Hist. Rev., xix., 632-45.(back)

Footnote 12: Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, 2 vols., 1888.(back)

Footnote 13: Of these the most important are Polydore Vergil (Basel, 1534), Hall’s Chronicle (1548) and Fabyan’s Chronicle (edited by Ellis, 1811). Holinshed and Stow are not quite contemporary, but they occasionally add to earlier writers on apparently good authority.(back)

Footnote 14: I have in this edition added references to those which seem most important; for a collected bibliography see Dr. Gairdner in Cambridge Modern History, ii., 789-94. I have also for the purpose of this edition added references to the original sources—a task of some labour when nearly every fact is taken from a different document. The text has been revised, some errors removed, and notes added on special points, especially those on which fresh light has recently been thrown.(back)

Footnote 15: In Lectures on Mediæval and Modern History, 1887.(back)

Footnote 16: Bainbridge, Wolsey, Fisher, Pole. Bainbridge was a cardinal after Julius II’s own heart, and he received the red hat for military services rendered to that warlike Pope (Ven. Cal., ii., 104).(back)

Footnote 17: There were two Dukes of Norfolk, the second of whom was attainted, as was the Duke of Buckingham; the fourth Duke was Henry’s brother-in-law, Suffolk.(back)

Footnote 18: Empson and Dudley.(back)

Footnote 19: “Sua cuique civitati religio est, nostra nobis.” Cicero, Pro Flacco, 28; cf. E. Bourre, Des Inequalités de condition resultant de la religion en droit Romain, Paris, 1895.(back)

Footnote 20: Cf. Bishop Scory to Edward VI. in Strype, Eccl. Mem., II., ii., 482; Fortescue, ed. Plummer, pp. 137-142.(back)

Footnote 21: E.g., L. and P., i., 679.(back)

Footnote 22: Archæologia Cambrensis, 1st ser., iv., 267; 3rd ser., xv., 278, 379.(back)

Footnote 23: See the present writer in D.N.B., lii., 261.(back)

Footnote 24: Perkin was the first of Lady Catherine Gordon’s four husbands; her second was James Strangways, gentleman-usher to Henry VIII., her third Sir Matthew Cradock (d. 1531), and her fourth Christopher Ashton, also gentleman-usher; she died in 1537 and was buried in Fyfield Church (L. and P., ii., 3512).(back)

Footnote 25: See the present writer in Dict. Nat. Biog., lxiii., 172.(back)

Footnote 26: Sp. Cal., i., No. 249; see below, p. 179.(back)

Footnote 27: There is no definite evidence that he had more.(back)

Footnote 28: Ven. Cal., i., 833.(back)

Footnote 29: Cf. Skelton, Works, ed. Dyce. vol. i., pp. ix-xi.(back)

Footnote 30: L. and P., Henry VII., i., 413-415; L...