In this session, the rank of all the great officers of state was fixed: Cromwell, as vicegerent, had the precedency assigned him above all of them. It was thought singular, that a blacksmith's son, for he was no other, should have place next the royal family; and that a man possessed of no manner of liter ature should be set at the head of the church.

As soon as the act of the six articles had passed, the Catholics were extremely vigilant in informing against offenders; and no less than five hundred persons were in a little time thrown into prison. But Cromwell, who had not had interest enough to prevent that act, was able for the present to elude its execution. Seconded by the duke of Suffolk and Chancellor Audley, as well as by Cranmer, he remonstrated against the cruelty of punishing so many delinquents; and he obtained permission to set them at liberty. The uncertainty of the king's humor gave each party an opportunity of triumphing in its turn. No sooner had Henry passed this law, which seemed to inflict so deep a wound on the reformers, than ho granted a general permission for every one to have the new translation of the Bible in his family; a concession regarded by that party as an important victory.

But as Henry was observed to be much governed by his wives while he retained his fondness for them, the final prevalence of either party seemed much to depend on the choice of the future queen. Immediately after the death of Jane Seymour, the most beloved of all his wives, he began to think of a new marriage. He first cast his eye towards the duchess dowager of Milan, niece to the emperor; and he made proposals for that alliance. But meeting with difficulties, he was carried by his friendship for Francis rather to think of a French princess. He demanded the duchess dowager of Longueville, daughter of the duke of Guise, a prince of the house of Lorraine; but Francis told him, that the lady was already betrothed to the king of Scotland. The king, however, would not take a refusal: he had set his heart extremely on the match: the information which he had received of the duchess's accomplishments and beauty, had prepossessed him in her favor; and having privately sent over Meautys to examine her person, and get certain intelligence of her conduct, the accounts which that agent brought him served further to inflame his desires. He learned that she was big made; and he thought her on that account the more proper match for him, who was now become somewhat corpulent. The pleas

ure, too, of mortifying his nephew, whom he did not love, was a further incitement to his prosecution of this match; and he insisted that Francis should give him the preference to the king of Scots. But Francis, though sensible that the alliance of England was of much greater importance to his interests, would not affront his friend and ally; and to prevent further solicitation, he immediately sent the princess to Scotland. Not to shock, however, Henry's humor, Francis made him an offer of Mary of Bourbon, daughter of the duke of Vendôme; but as the king was informed that James had formerly rejected this princess he would not hear any further of such a proposal. The French monarch then offered him the choice of the two younger sisters of the queen of Scots; and he assured him, that they were nowise inferior either in merit or size to their elder sister, and that one of them was even superior in beauty. The king was as scrupulous with regard to the person of his wives, as if his heart had been really susceptible of a delicate passion; and he was unwilling to trust any relations, or even pictures, with regard to this important particular. He proposed to Francis, that they should have a conference at Calais on pretence of business; and that this monarch should bring along with him the two princesses of Guise, together with the finest ladies of quality in France, that he might make a choice among them. But the gallant spirit of Francis was shocked with the proposal: he was impressed with too much regard, he said, for the fair sex, to carry ladies of the first quality like geldings to a market, there to be chosen or rejected by the humor of the purchaser.* Henry would hearken to none of these niceties, but still insisted on his proposal; which, however, notwithstanding Francis's earnest desire of obliging him, was finally rejected.

The king then began to turn his thoughts towards a German alliance; and as the princes of the Smalcaldic league were extremely disgusted with the emperor on account of his persecuting their religion, he hoped, by matching himself into one of their families, to renew a connection which he regarded as so advantageous to him. Cromwell joyfully seconded this intention; and proposed to him Anne of Cleves, whose father, the duke of that name, had great interest among the Lutheran princes, and whose sister, Sibylla, was married to the elector of Saxony, the head of the Protestant league. A flattering

*Le Grand, vol. iii. p. 638

picture of the princess, by Hans Holben, determined Henry to apply to her father; and after some negotiation, the marriage, notwithstanding the opposition of the elector of Saxony, was at last concluded; and Anne was sent over to England. The king, impatient to be satisfied with regard to the person of his bride, came privately to Rochester and got a sight of her. He found her big, indeed, and tall as he could wish; but utterly destitute both of beauty and grace; very unlike the pictures and representations which he had received: he swore she was a great Flanders mare; and declared that he never could possibly bear her any affection. The matter was worse when he found that she could speak no language but Dutch, of which he was entirely ignorant; and that the charms of her conversation were not likely to compensate for the homeliness of her person. He returned to Greenwich very melancholy; and he much lamented his hard fate to Cromwell, as well as to Lord Russel, Sir Anthony Brown, and Sir Anthony Denny. This last gentleman, in order to give him comfort, told him, that his misfortune was common to him with all kings, who could not, like private persons, choose for themselves, but must receive their wives from the judgment and fancy of others.

It was the subject of debate among the king's counsellors, whether the marriage could not yet be dissolved, and the princess be sent back to her own country. Henry's situation seemed at that time very critical. After the ten years' truce concluded between the emperor and the king of France, a good understanding was thought to have taken place between these rival monarchs; and such marks of union appeared, as gave great jealousy to the court of England. The emperor, who knew the generous nature of Francis, even put a confidence in him which is rare to that degree among great princes. An insurrection had been raised in the Low Countries by the inhabitants of Ghent, and seemed to threaten the most dangerous consequences. Charles, who resided at that time in Spain, resolved to go in person to Flanders, in order to appease those disorders; but he found great difficulties in choosing the manner of his passing thither. The road by Italy and Germany was tedious: the voyage through the channel dangerous, by reason of the English naval power: he asked Francis's permission to pass through his dominions; and he entrusted himself into the hands of a rival, whom he had so mortally offended. The French monarch received him at Paris with

great magnificence and courtesy; and though prompted both by revenge and interest, as well as by the advice of his mistress and favorites, to make advantage of the present opportunity, he conducted the emperor safely out of his dominions; and would not so much as speak to him of business during his abode in France, lest his demands should bear the air of violence upon his royal guest.

Henry, who was informed of all these particulars, believed that an entire and cordial union had taken place between these princes; and that their religious zeal might prompt them to fall with combined arms upon England.* An alliance with the German princes seemed now more than ever requisite for his interest and safety; and he knew that if he sent back the princess of Cleves, such an affront would be highly resented by her friends and family. [1540.] He was therefore resolved, notwithstanding his aversion to her, to complete the marriage; and he told Cromwell, that, since matters had gone so far, he must put his neck into the yoke. Cromwell, who knew how much his own interests were concerned in this affair, was very anxious to learn from the king, next morning after the marriage, whether he now liked his spouse any better. The king told him, that he hated her worse than ever; and that her person was more disgusting on a near approach; he was resolved never to meddle with her: and even suspected her not to be a true maid: a point about which he entertained an extreme delicacy. He continued, however, to be civil to Anne; he even seemed to repose his usual confidence in Cromwell; but though he exerted this command over himself, a discontent lay lurking in his breast, and was ready to burst out on the first opportunity.

A session of parliament was held; and none of the abbots were now allowed a place in the house of peers. The king, by the mouth of the chancellor, complained to the parliament of the great diversity of religions which still prevailed among his subjects; a grievance, he affirmed, which ought the less to be endured, because the Scriptures were now published in English, and ought universally to be the standard of belief to all mankind. But he had appointed, he said, some bishops and divines to draw up a list of tenets to which his people were to assent; and he was determined, that Christ, the doctrine of Christ, and the truth, should have the victory. The

* Stowe, p. 579.

king seems to have expected more effect in ascertaining truth, from this new book of his doctors, than had ensued from the publication of the Scriptures. Cromwell, as vicar-general, made also in the king's name a speech to the upper house; and the peers, in return, bestowed great flattery on him, and in particular said, that he was worthy, by his desert, to be vicar-general of the universe. That minister seemed to be no less in his master's good graces: he received, soon after the sitting of the parliament, the title of earl of Essex, and was installed knight of the garter.

There remained only one religious order in England; the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the knights of Malta, as they are commonly called. This order, partly ecclesiastical, partly military, had by their valor done great service to Christendom; and had very much retarded, at Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, the rapid progress of the barbarians. During the general surrender of the religious houses in England, they had exerted their spirit, and had obstinately refused to yield up their revenues to the king; and Henry, who would endure no society that professed obedience to the pope, was obliged to have recourse to parliament for the dissolution of this order. Their revenues were large; and formed an addition nowise contemptible to the many acquisitions which the king had already made. But he had very ill husbanded the great revenue acquired by the plunder of the church: his profuse generosity dissipated faster than his rapacity could supply; and the parliament was surprised this session to find a demand made upon them of four tenths, and a subsidy of one shilling in the pound during two years: so ill were the public expectations answered, that the crown was never more to require any supply from the people. The commons, though lavish of their liberty, and of the blood of their fellow-subjects, were extremely frugal of their money; and it was not without difficulty so small a grant could be obtained by this absolute and dreaded monarch. The convocation gave the king four shillings in the pound to be levied in two years. The pretext for these grants was, the great expense which Henry had undergone for the defence of the realm, in building forts along the seacoast, and in equipping a navy. As he had at present no ally on the continent in whom he reposed much confidence, he relied only on his domestic strength, and was on that account obliged to be more expensive in his preparations against the danger of an invasion.