14. Henry VIII

Some 500 years ago England's King, Henry VIII, was a monarch deeply admired by many of his subjects. In addition to being remembered today for having six wives. Henry VIII did much to establish England's strength as an independent nation. What qualities did he possess? And what contributions did he actually make? This extract gives you the answers.

When the eighteen-year-old Henry VIII became King he was extremely popular, for he had all the qualities that his people admired. Foreigners reported that he was the best-dressed King in Europe and that his chief interests were "girls and hunting", but this was only half the truth. He distrusted foreigners, as most Englishmen did at that time; but he spoke three foreign languages. He was a first-class horseman and musician. He could discuss religion and ship-building with equal skill. He was a clever politician who trusted Parliament and made full use of it. Most important of all, he thoroughly understood the hearts and minds of his people. He ruled through the House of Commons, without an army, and his people remained loyal to him through all the difficult years of the Reformation.

For the first twenty years of his rule, Henry was content to enjoy life and to leave all government business to his chief minister, Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey was the son of a small trader, but he was clever, and the most ambitious churchman in all England's history. In his fine houses at Hampton Court and Whitehall he lived more grandly than the King himself. He was not content to be chief minister and archbishop; his aim was to become Pope.

At first all went well. He kept a balance of power in Europe, so that no country should become strong enough to threaten his shores; and this has been England's official aim ever since.

During the early years, both Henry and Wolsey had kept a firm hold on church affairs. They supported the Pope, but they saw that reforms were needed. Wolsey warned all bishops and abbey leaders to improve their discipline. He stopped the appointment of any more unofficial churchmen—those clerks who had no religious duty, but who claimed freedom from the public courts. He closed thirty abbeys with the Pope's approval and used their wealth to build Christ Church College at Oxford.

Henry took no action against the Church, but he was ready to support those who did. When Parliament declared that criminal clerks must be tried in public courts, Wolsey wanted to refer the case to Rome. Henry refused. The kings of England, he said, had never had any master but God alone.

When Henry became King he married Catherine, the daughter of the King of Spain and widow of his elder brother. The Pope had given special permission for him to marry his brother's widow, as this was against the laws of the Church. She gave Henry a daughter, Mary, but all her sons died at birth, and Henry badly needed a son to follow him. He began to feel that God had not approved of his marriage and that the Pope had been wrong to allow it.

There was only one possible remedy. The Pope must declare that the marriage had been allowed by mistake and was unlawful; Henry would then be free to marry again. Wolsey and his bishops supported this view. The Pope could easily have agreed, as he had done for two recent Kings of France in similar cases. But Emperor Charles V was Catherine's nephew, and his army had seized Rome. The Pope was in his power and did not dare to annoy him by helping Henry. Instead he asked Henry to visit him.

Henry was extremely angry. He dismissed Wolsey and made More his chief minister, then he called a new parliament. He still had no wish to break away from the Roman Church, which is now commonly called the Catholic Church. He wanted a reformed national Church within the Catholic framework. For the next five years he did his best to persuade the Pope to accept his ideas; but the Pope remained under Charles's influence, and all Henry's efforts were in vain. He began to listen instead to the Cambridge reformers, Cranmer and Latimer, Ridley and Coverdale.

Henry's trouble over his marriage made him realize something that most English people had known for years: that foreign interference in English affairs had gone on too long and must be stopped for ever. The parliament of 1529 felt this most strongly. In seven years it destroyed the feudal power of the Church completely. The Church Council accepted Henry as its head. Archbishop Cranmer declared that his marriage to Catherine was unlawful and accepted his new wife, Ann Boleyn, as Queen. And at last, when all attempts at agreement failed Parliament passed laws which cut its last ties with Rome.

Most of the bishops accepted these changes without difficulty. They had always been appointed by the King, and many had served as state officials. There was no change of faith; only a change of leadership.

It was different for the abbeys. They had always taken their orders direct from Rome. Now few of them served any useful purpose. They no longer supplied the only books or teachers, for the printing-press and the grammar school had taken their place. Most of them were too far from a town to provide religious services for the people. Yet they still had six hundred separate houses, and the yearly profit from their land was worth two million pounds in modern money. Some monks were holy men and some were wicked, but most were just comfortably lazy and useless. Half their houses were now closed by order of Parliament; the rest closed one by one.

The old monks were given enough to live on in retirement. The best of the young ones became parish priests. Female education suffered the most serious loss, for religious women ran the only girls' schools, and these were now closed. The best boys' schools were kept open by the King, and abbey money was set aside to pay for them. Some modern public schools, like the King's School at Canterbury, were ancient abbey schools before Henry gave them new life and a new title.

Two-thirds of the abbey lands were sold, the rest was kept by the crown. An immense amount came into the possession of the middle classes. New teachers replaced the old monks at the universities, and new colleges were built for the rapidly increasing number of students. Most of these came to be trained for the public service, which was no longer under church control. Church services went on as usual, except that they were in English instead of Latin. Those who wanted to change any part of the faith were called Protestants, but they had little influence yet. The King and Parliament wanted the old faith under new rule. They killed some Protestants who attacked the faith, and they killed some Catholics who attacked the new rule. They even hanged a man for eating meat on Friday. But in general the changes were made without violence.

Henry's trust in Parliament allowed the House of Commons to develop rapidly. During these busy years, its members gained experience which helped them to form good customs for the future. One of these customs demanded that the king should always listen to their complaints before they allowed his requests for money. If the council proposed bad laws, the House of Commons was ready to change them or to refuse them entirely. Its members were free from arrest, and speech was free, for Henry knew the value of sincere critics.

The House of Lords also made progress, for its church members no longer outnumbered the others. It often changed the Commons' laws or reduced their taxes. Acts of Parliament were printed and then sold in every village, so that all the people should know what was happening.

The only objections to the Reformation came from the north, where some of the abbeys still did good work among the poor. A rising of northern lords was quickly put down by an unpaid force of royal supporters. They were not against the King but they disliked the rough ways of his secretary, Thomas Cromwell, who was responsible for carrying out Parliament's orders.

Henry kept no army, but he worked hard to provide defence for his island. He encouraged the villagers to learn how to shoot with guns instead of bows. He protected the southern ports with heavy guns. The navy was his special interest and he helped to plan a new type of battleship. The old kind of ship was good enough for the old kind of sea fight, when they charged each other and their men fought hand-to-hand on board; but such ships did not suit Henry's new ideas of war at sea. Their length was only twice their breadth, which made them awkward to steer and hard to turn quickly in battle.

Instead of grouping the guns at each end, as the Spaniards did, Henry put them in a long row down each side. They fired through special holes in the ship's side, and the gunners were protected by the boards above them. This was the secret of English sea power for the next three hundred years, and the empire could hardly have been won without it. The ships and guns, however, were only half the secret; the other half was their men. Most countries used sailors to sail their ships and soldiers to fight on them, with frequent quarrels between the two. But the English royal navy had a single service of fighting seamen.

Before Henry died he had built fifty-three of these new ships, with over 2 000 heavy guns on board. His navy was ready for battle.

Henry's family troubles did not end with his marriage to Ann Boleyn. She bore him a daughter, Elizabeth, but was unfaithful to her husband. After three years Henry cut off her head. His next wife, Jane Seymour, died in giving birth to his son Edward. His secretary Cromwell then brought him a foreign wife, Anne of Cleves, to please his German friends. Unfortunately she was neither well-educated nor beautiful. He sent her home, cut off Cromwell's head, and married a beautiful girl called Catherine Howard. But she too was unfaithful, so her head followed Cromwell's. His sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, was a wise and gentle girl but she had no children.

By January 1547 Henry knew that his end was near. He appointed Protestant teachers to educate young Edward, and a mainly Protestant council to rule until Edward was old enough. This was not a sign that he specially favoured the Protestants. He had killed extreme protestants as often as extreme Catholics. He wanted a moderate council to keep the peace between the two extremes, but he knew that the Catholic party were a greater danger to England's future independence. He died holding Cranmer's hand and was buried in his own church in Windsor Castle.

In spite of his trouble with his wives. Henry was a great king. His courage and political wisdom left England strong and free to make her way in a new world. She was no longer tied to Europe. Her wealth had passed from the dead hand of the feudal Church to men who would use it boldly for developing trade across the world.

From An Outline History of England, by A. G. Eyre,

Longman Group Ltd., 1971.