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each man as he pleased, nor "disputed and jangled in every alehouse and tavern." Thus did Henry, while pointing to the true source of knowledge, claim to subject its use to his own will, and teach, as the remedy for all evils, the charity which he never learnt. Here, too, is the key to the perplexities of his character,-qualities of the highest order, intentions of the best aim, overmastered by self-will. During the remainder of his reign, that one "tyrant passion had full play. Yet we must not ascribe to him all the blame of the measures urged on by bad advisers. Gardiner and Norfolk, seconded by BONNER bishop of London, renewed their persecution of the Protestants. Latimer again escaped, by the favour of the king; but they sent other victims to the flames, and the fate of the young and beautiful Anne Ascue, who suffered, with more than manly firmness, for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation, deserves perpetual pity (July, 1546). At this very time Henry proposed to the reformed princes of Germany a new "League Christian;" and we have the best assurance of his intention to have carried on the work of the reformation.

But his career was run. A wound in his leg grew worse, and confined him to his couch (Nov. 1546). All thoughts were turned towards the succession. By a third and final act of succession (1544) the claims of the princesses Mary and Elizabeth had been admitted, next in order after their brother Edward. The prince of Wales was a delicate child of nine years old, and there must be a protector during his minority. The most likely candidate was Edward Seymour, lord Hertford, the young prince's uncle, who had distinguished himself in the late wars, but was wanting in sound judgment. As the head of the Protestants, he was obnoxious to the Catholics, to whose leaders he had given personal offence. Those leaders were the veteran duke of Norfolk and his celebrated son, Henry Howard earl of Surrey, who was the most accomplished man of his age, and whose writings have given him a high place in English literature. His splendid virtues have cast into the shade his faults of imprudence, haughtiness, and ambition; and it was in part owing to those faults that he now fell a victim to the jealous fears of Henry. On the charge of his aspiring to marry the princess Mary and succeed to the crown he was arrested and committed to the Tower, with his father (Dec. 7). They were also charged with intrigues with Gardiner for the restoration of the papacy. Surrey was tried and found guilty by a special commission, Jan. 13, 1547, and executed Jan. 19. The parliament, meeting on Jan. 14, passed an act of attainder against Norfolk, the king urging on the proceedings from the desire, as he told them in his message, to provide a successor to the dignities of Norfolk at the coronation of the

prince of Wales. But this last victim was snatched from him by a power to which even kings must yield. On Thursday, Jan. 27, the royal assent was given by commission to the bill of attainder, and two hours after midnight Henry was no more. In his last moments he had sent for Cranmer, but when he reached Whitehall the king was speechless. Cranmer, "speaking comfortably to him, desired him to give some token that he put his trust in God through Jesus Christ; therewith the king wrung the archbishop's hand” and expired. He died on Jan. 28, 1547, in the 56th year of his age and the 38th of his reign.

He was buried on Feb. 16 in St. George's chapel, Windsor, in accordance with the directions of his will, which also bade the remains of queen Jane to be interred beside him. The masses, which he ordered to be said for ever, combine with his prayers to the Virgin and other expressions in the will to mark it as that of a doctrinal Catholic. The same instrument arranged the succession in accordance with the last act of parliament, but added that, in case of the failure of his children and their issue, the crown should pass to the issue of his sister the princess Mary and the duke of Suffolk, thus excluding the Scottish royal family. A council of fifteen executors" was named to administer the government during his son's minority.

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Henry's reign was one of the most, if not the most, memorable for its acts in English history. Besides all its ecclesiastical reforms, and notwithstanding the increased power of the crown, parliament gained a vast addition to its importance by Henry's constant appeals to it to sanction his acts, and by the use he made of the commons to overcome resistance in the lords. Of Henry himself it has been well said that his history is his best character and description. The popular tradition vacillates between admiration of "bluff king Hal" and execration of a blood-stained tyrant; and, while one historian holds him up as all but "the ideal model of perfect wickedness," another ingeniously hammers out the treasures of our old records into leaves to gild over his idol. In his own time it was said of him that "Harry loved a man"—and it was because he was a man himself-not a hero, nor a saint, nor a monster, but a man-whose fierce temper exaggerated human faults and vices, but whose reign bears witness to many manly virtues; and after both have been judged with the severest impartiality, it remains to be recorded, even of him, that

"The man s the man, for a' that.'

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HENRY VIII. left three children: MARY, the daughter of Catherine of Arragon; ELIZABETH, the daughter of Anne Boleyn; and EDWARD, the son of Jane Seymour. Mary was in her 32nd year, Elizabeth

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in her 14th, and Edward in his 10th; the first being the hope of the Catholics, and the other two of the Protestants. With Norfolk in the Tower, where he remained during Edward's reign, none were so rash as to move in Mary's favour, and Edward became king by the title of Edward VI.

EDWARD VI. was born at Hampton Court, Oct. 12, 1537. We learn from his own diary of his reign that "he was brought up till he came to six years old among the women." He had then for tutors Dr. Cox, afterwards his almoner, and John Cheke, one of the first cultivators of Greek learning in England. He had a competent knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, and was able to converse intelligently on questions of philosophy and religion, nor was he deficient in manly exercises. His sincere piety ever showed itself in the desire to do right. After all allowance has been made for the language of flattery and for the promises of hope, we may accept the praises of the great men who knew him as proofs of his rare virtue and attainments.

During most of his reign, however, Edward was in the hands of statesmen who were little fit to be the advisers of such a prince. His uncle, the earl of Hertford, postponing the announcement of Henry's death till the third day, conducted Edward from Hertford to his sister Elizabeth at Enfield, and brought him to the Tower (Feb. 1, 1547), his proclamation having been made in London the day before. The council of executors appointed by Henry only met to subvert the principles of the late king's will. He had desired that there should be no protector, and that no new measures of importance should be taken during his son's minority. But Hertford obtained his own nomination as protector, and he was at the same time created duke of Somerset; the chancellor, Wriothesley, being made earl of Southampton, and John Dudley viscount Lisle, earl of Warwick. Wriothesley was the head of the Catholic party and the great opponent of Somerset, who very soon obtained his dismissal and imprisonment for an irregularity in his office of chancellor (March 6). Dudley, whose name soon becomes and remains in his descendants so conspicuous, was the son of Edmund Dudley, the creature of Henry VII. For his bravery in the Scotch wars he had been favoured by Henry VIII. and created viscount Lisle. Gardiner bishop of Winchester had been originally nominated among the executors, but Henry had struck out his name for his treasonable practices with Norfolk. Cranmer was there as the moderating spirit between the extreme parties.

Edward was crowned on Feb. 28, and on March 13 he granted a new commission to Somerset with enlarged powers, the body of

executors being transformed into a council and placed under Somerset's control. His administration may be regarded as the temporary triumph of the Protestant party, to be followed by the reaction under Mary, before the final settlement of the Reformation by the firmness of Elizabeth.

The state of affairs was such as to demand the utmost prudence, but to tempt a man like Somerset to rashness. On the continent the Reformation seemed in danger. Luther had died shortly before Henry VIII. (1546). The Council of Trent had assembled in 1545 to relay the foundations of the Catholic Church. The emperor Charles V. had defeated the Protestant princes at Mühlberg (April 22, 1547). Francis I. died March 22nd, and was succeeded by HENRY II., who began his reign by assisting the Scottish Catholics, and encouraging them to break off the projected marriage of their young queen to Edward VI. He was prompted to this course by the princes of Lorraine, whose sister, Mary of Guise, was the widow of James V. and mother of the queen of Scots.

The castle of St. Andrews, where the slayers of cardinal Beaton had taken refuge, surrendered to a French force, Aug. 1547, whereupon Somerset invaded Scotland and gained a great victory at Pinkie, near Musselburgh, Sept. 10. But the humiliation of this defeat, and the cruelty of the English after the battle, only the more alienated the Scotch Catholics, who very soon sent the infant queen to France and betrothed her to the dauphin, afterwards Francis II.

Meanwhile the Reformation had been pushed forward at home. The zeal of onę London parish had purged its church of images, pictures, and even the crucifix; a general ecclesiastical visitation had been instituted for the removal of images, the assertion of the royal supremacy, and the use of the English tongue in the church services; and Bonner and Gardiner had been imprisoned for protesting against these measures (Sept.), though they were soon released. The parliament, which met Nov. 4, placed all offices, including bishoprics, in the king's hands, and the bishops were reappointed, during pleasure, without even the show of a congé d'élire. They repealed the statutes of Henry IV. and Henry V. against the Lollards, with the Six Articles, and other penal measures of the last reign. They enjoined communion in both kinds, and imposed severe penalties for speaking irreverently of the Eucharist. They vested all the remaining property of ecclesiastical corporations in the crown, to be employed for uses of learning and religion; but much of it was diverted to the enrichment of the new nobility. They abolished the many treasons created in the last reign, restoring the statute of Edward III., and they increased

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