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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36993-8.txt b/36993-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cd71ce --- /dev/null +++ b/36993-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2717 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Body, Parentage and Character in History, by +Furneaux Jordan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Body, Parentage and Character in History + Notes on the Tudor Period + +Author: Furneaux Jordan + +Release Date: August 7, 2011 [EBook #36993] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BODY, PARENTAGE, CHARACTER IN HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +BODY, PARENTAGE AND CHARACTER IN HISTORY. + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ + +Ready--New and Cheaper Edition, in great part Rewritten, 2/- + + CHARACTER AS SEEN IN BODY AND PARENTAGE, + with a Chapter on + EDUCATION, CAREER, MORALS, AND PROGRESS. + +A remarkable and extremely interesting book.--_Scotsman._ + +A delightful book, witty and wise, clever in exposition, charming in +style, readable and original.--_Medical Press._ + +Men and women are both treated under these heads (types of character) in +an amusing and observant manner.--_Lancet._ + +We cordially commend this volume.... A fearless writer.... Merits close +perusal.--_Health._ + +Mr. Jordan handles his subject in a simple, clear, and popular +manner.--_Literary World._ + +Full of varied interest.--_Mind._ + +KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, AND CO. LIMITED. + + + + + BODY, PARENTAGE AND + CHARACTER IN HISTORY: + + NOTES ON THE TUDOR PERIOD. + + + BY FURNEAUX JORDAN, F.R.C.S. + + + LONDON: + KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO. LIMITED, + 1890. + + + Birmingham: Printed by Hall and English. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +In my little work on "Character as Seen in Body and Parentage" I have put +forward not a system, but a number of conclusions touching the +relationship which I believe to exist between certain features of +character on the one hand and certain peculiarities of bodily +configuration, structure, and inheritance on the other. These conclusions, +if they are true, should find confirmation in historic narrative, and +their value, if they have any, should be seen in the light they throw on +historic problems. + +The incidents and characters and questions of the Tudor period are not +only of unfailing interest, but they offer singularly rich and varied +material to the student of body and character. + +If the proposal to connect the human body with human nature is distasteful +to certain finely-strung souls, let me suggest to them a careful study of +the work and aims and views of Goethe, the scientific observer and +impassioned poet, whom Madame de Staël described as the most accomplished +character the world has produced; and who was, in Matthew Arnold's +opinion, the greatest poet of this age and the greatest critic of any age. +The reader of 'Wilhelm Meister' need not be reminded of the close +attention which is everywhere given to the principle of +inheritance--inheritance even of 'the minutest faculty.' + +The student of men and women has, let me say in conclusion, one great +advantage over other students--he need not journey to a museum, he has no +doors to unlock, and no catalogue to consult; the museum is constantly +around him and on his shelves; the catalogue is within himself. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + NOTE I.--THE VARIOUS VIEWS OF HENRY VIII.'S CHARACTER. + Momentous changes in sixteenth century 1 + Many characters given to noted persons 3 + A great number given to Henry 3 + The character given in our time 6 + Attempt to give an impartial view 8 + Need of additional light 14 + + NOTE II.--THE RELATION OF BODY AND PARENTAGE TO CHARACTER. + Bodily organisation and temperaments 15 + Leading types in both 16 + Elements of character run in groups 17 + Intervening gradations 20 + + NOTE III.--HENRY'S FAMILY PROCLIVITIES. + Henry of unimpassioned temperament 21 + Took after unimpassioned mother 22 + Derived nothing from his father 23 + Character of Henry VII. 24 + Henry VIII., figure and appearance 26 + + NOTE IV.--THE WIVES' QUESTION. + Henry's marriages, various causes 27 + Passion not a marked cause 28 + Henry had no strong passions 30 + Self-will and self-importance 31 + Conduct of impassioned men 31 + + NOTE V.--THE LESS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. + Characteristics common to all temperaments 32 + Henry's cruelty 33 + Henry's piety 35 + + NOTE VI.--THE MORE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. + Always doing or undoing something 37 + Habitual fitfulness 38 + Self-importance 40 + Henry and Wolsey: Which led? 41 + Love of admiration 43 + + NOTE VII.--HENRY AND HIS COMPEERS. + Henry's political helpers superior to theological 45 + Cranmer 46 + Sir Thomas More 47 + Wolsey 49 + + NOTE VIII.--HENRY AND HIS PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT. + No act of constructive genius 51 + Parliament not abject, but in agreement 53 + Proclamations 54 + Liberty a matter of race 55 + + NOTE IX.--HENRY AND THE REFORMATION. + Teutonic race fearless, therefore truthful 56 + Outgrew Romish fetters 57 + French Revolution racial 58 + The essential and the accidental in great movements 60 + Wyclif 61 + Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Knox 62 + Henry's part in the Reformation 64 + No thought of permanent division 65 + The dissolution of the monasteries 66 + + NOTE X.--QUEEN ELIZABETH AND QUEEN MARY. + Henry VIII. and Elizabeth much alike 69 + Elizabeth less pious but more fitful 71 + Elizabeth and marriage 72 + Elizabeth's part in the Reformation 73 + Elizabeth and Mary Stuart very unlike 74 + Lofty characters with flaws 76 + Mary's environment and fate 79 + Bodily peculiarities of the two Queens 81 + + + + +THE VARIOUS VIEWS OF HENRY VIII.'S CHARACTER. + +NOTE I. + + +The progress of an individual, of a people, or even of a movement is never +up, and their decadence is never down, an inclined plane. Neither do we +see sudden and lofty flights in progress nor headlong falls in decadence. +Both move rather by steps--steps up or steps down. The steps are not all +alike; one is short another long; one sudden another gradual. They are all +moreover the inevitable sequences of those which went before, and they as +inevitably lead to those which follow. Our Fathers took a long step in the +Tudor epoch, but older ones led up to it and newer ones started from it. +The long step could not possibly be evaded by a Teutonic people. Rome lay +in the path, and progress must needs step over the body of Rome--not a +dead body then, though wounded from within, not a dead body yet, though +now deeply and irreparably wounded from without. Civilization must +everywhere step over the body of Rome or stand still, or turn backwards. + +Two factors are especially needed for progress: brain (racial brain), +which by organisation and inheritance tends to be large, free, capable; +and secondly, circumstance, which continually calls forth capability, and +freedom, and largeness. All the schools of supernaturalism, but above all +the Romish school, compress and paralyse at least a portion of the brain: +if a portion is disabled all is enfeebled. If a bodily limb even, a mere +hand or foot, be fettered and palsied, the body itself either dies or +droops into a smaller way of life. It is so with a mental limb--a mental +hand or foot in relation to the mental life. + +To the group of ever-present and subtle forces which make for progress, +there were added in the sixteenth century seemingly new and conspicuous +forces. The art of printing or writing by machinery sowed living seed +broadcast over a fertile soil; the "new learning" restored to us the +inspiring but long hidden thought of old Aryan friends and relatives, and +this again in some degree relaxed the grip of alien and enslaving Semitic +ideas which the exigencies of Roman circumstance had imposed on Europe +with the edge of the sword. New action trod on the heels of new thought. +New lands were traversed; new seas were sailed; new heavens were explored. +The good steed civilisation--long burdened and blindfolded and +curbed,--had lagged somewhat; but now the reins were loose, the spurs were +sharp, the path was clear and the leap which followed was long. + +While our fathers were taking, or were on the eve of taking, this long +step, a notable young man, the son of a capable and wise father and of a +not incapable but certainly unwise mother, stepped into the chief place in +this country. A student who was in training for an Archbishop was suddenly +called upon to be a King. What this King was, what he was not; what +organisation and parentage and circumstance did for him; how he bore +himself to his time--to its drift, its movements, its incidents, its men, +and, alas, to its women--is now our object to inquire. The study of this +theological monarch and of his several attitudes is deeply instructive and +of unfailing interest. + +The Autocrat of the breakfast table wittily comments on the number of +John's characters. John had three. Notable men have more characters than +"John." Henry VIII. had more characters than even the most notable of men. +A man of national repute or of high position has the characters given to +him by his friends, his enemies, and characters given also by parties, +sects, and schools. Henry had all these and two more--strictly, two groups +more--one given to him by his own time, another given to him by ours. + +If we could call up from their long sleep half a dozen representative and +capable men of Henry's reign to meet half a dozen of Victoria's, the jury +would probably not agree. If the older six could obtain all the evidence +which is before us, and the newer six could recall all which was familiar +to Henry's subjects at home and his compeers abroad; if the two bodies +could weigh matters together, discuss all things together--could together +raise the dead and summon the living--nevertheless in the end two voices +would speak--a sixteenth century voice and a nineteenth. + +The older would say in effect: "We took our King to be not only a striking +personality; not only an expert in all bodily exercises and mental +accomplishments; we knew him to be much more--to be industrious, pious, +sincere, courageous, and accessible. We believed him to be keen in vision, +wise in judgment, prompt and sagacious in action. We looked round on our +neighbours and their rulers, and we saw reason to esteem ourselves the +most prosperous of peoples and our King the first, by a long way the +first, of his fellow Kings. Your own records prove that long years after +Henry's death, in all time of trouble the people longed for Henry's good +sense and cried out for Henry's good laws. He was a sacrilegious +miscreant you say; if it were so the nation was a nation of sacrilegious +miscreants, for he merely obeyed the will of the people and carried out a +policy which had been called for and discussed and contrived and, in part, +carried out long before our Henry's time. Upwards of a century before, the +assembled knights of the shire had more than once proposed to take the +property of the Church (much of it gained by sinister methods) and hand it +over for military purposes. The spirit of the religious houses had for +some time jarred on the awakening spirit of a thinking people. Their very +existence cast a slur on a high and growing ideal of domestic life. Those +ancient houses detested and strove to keep down the knowledge which an +aroused people then, as never before, passionately desired to gain." + +"You say he was a 'monster of lust.' Lust is not a new sin: our generation +knew it as well as yours; detected it as keenly as yours; hated it almost +as heartily. But consider: No king anywhere has been, in his own time, so +esteemed, so trusted, nay even so loved and reverenced as our king. Should +we have loved, trusted, and reverenced a 'monster of lust'? If you examine +carefully the times before ours and the times since, you will find that +monsters of lust, crowned or uncrowned, do not act as Henry acted. The +Court, it is true, was not pure, but it was the least voluptuous Court +then existing, and Henry was the least voluptuous man in it. While still +in his teens the widow of an elder brother, a woman much older than he, +and who was also old for her years, was married to him on grounds of state +policy. Not Henry only, but wise and learned men, Luther and Melancthon +among others, came to believe that the marriage was not legal. Henry +himself, indeed, came to believe that God's curse was on it--in our time +we fervently believed in God's curse. A boy with promise of life and +health was the one eager prayer of the people. But boy after boy died and +of four boys not one survived. If one of Catharine's boys had lived: nay +more, if Ann Boleyn had been other than a scheming and faithless woman; or +if, later, Jane Seymour had safely brought forth her son (and perhaps +other sons), Henry would assuredly never have married six wives. You say +he should have seen beforehand the disparity of years, the illegality, the +incest--should have seen even the yet unfallen curse: in our time boys of +eighteen did not see so clearly all these things." "Alas," the juror might +have added, "marriage and death are the two supreme incidents in man's +life: but marriage comes before experience and judgment--these are absent +when they are most needed; experience and judgment attend on death when +they are needless." "Bear in mind, moreover," resumes the older voice, +"that in our time the marriage laws were obscure, perplexing, and +unsettled. High ideals of marriage did not exist. The first nobleman in +our Court was the Earl of Suffolk who twice committed bigamy and was +divorced three times; his first wife was his aunt, and his last his +daughter-in-law. Papal relaxations and papal permissions were cheap and +common--they permitted every sort of sexual union and every sort of +separation. Canon law and the curious sexual relationships of +ecclesiastics, high and low, shed no light but rather darkness on the +matter. The Pope, it is true, hesitated to grant Henry's divorce, but not, +as the whole world knew, on moral or religious grounds: at heart he +approved the divorce and rebuked Wolsey for not settling the matter +offhand in England. All the papal envoys urged the unhappy Catharine to +retire into a religious house; but Catharine insisted that God had called +her to her position"--forgetting, we may interpose, that if He called her +to it He also in effect deposed her from it. God called her daughter Mary, +so Mary believed, to burn Protestants; God called Elizabeth, so Elizabeth +exclaimed ('it was marvellous in her eyes'), to harass Romanists. + +"But the one paramount circumstance which weighed with us, and we remember +a thousand circumstances while you remember the 'six wives' only, was the +question of succession. If succession was the one question which more than +all others agitated your fathers in Anne's time, try to imagine what it +was to us. You, after generations of order, peace and security--you +utterly fail to understand our position. We had barely come out of a +lawless cruel time--a time born of the ferocity and hate of conflicting +dynasties. Fathers still lived to tell us how they ate blood, and drank +blood, and breathed blood. They and we were weary of blood, and our two +Henrys (priceless Henrys to us,) had just taken its taste out of our +mouths. No queen, be it well noted, had ruled over us either in peaceful +or in stormy times; we believed with our whole souls, rightly or wrongly, +that no queen could possibly preserve us from destruction and ruin. It was +our importunity mainly--make no mistake on this point,--which drove our +king, whenever he was wifeless, to take another wife. His three years of +widowhood after Jane Seymour's death was our gravest anxiety." + +The newer voice replies: "You were a foolish and purblind generation. The +simplicity of your Henry's subjects, and the servility of his parliament +have become a bye-word. It is true your king, although less capable than +you suppose, was not without certain gifts--their misuse only adds to his +infamy. It is true also that he had been carefully educated,--his father +was to be thanked for that. It would seem, moreover, that quite early in +life he was not without some attractiveness in person and manners, but you +forget that bodily grossness and mental irritability soon made him a +repulsive object. An eminent Englishman of our century says he was a big, +burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double-chinned and swinish-looking +fellow, and that indeed so bad a character could never have been veiled +under a prepossessing appearance. Your King was vain, ostentatious, and +extravagant. With measured words we declare that his hypocrisy, cruelty, +sacrilege, selfishness and lust, were all unbounded. He was above all an +unrivalled master of mean excuses: did he wish to humble and oppress the +clergy--they had violated the statute of premunire. Did his voluptuous eye +fall on a dashing young maid of honour--he suddenly discovered that he was +living in incest, and that his marriage was under God's curse. Did the +Pope hesitate to grant him a divorce--he began to see that the proper head +of the English Church was the English king. Was his exchequer empty--he +was convinced that the inmates of the wealthy religious houses led the +lives and deserved the fate of certain cities once destroyed by fire and +brimstone. Did a defiant Pole carry his head out of Harry's reach--it was +found that Pole's mother, Lady Salisbury, was the centre of Yorkist +intrigue, and that the mother's head could be lopped off in place of the +son's." + +The two voices it is clear have much to say for themselves. It is equally +clear that the two groups of jurymen will not agree on their verdict. + +It is commonly held and as a rule on good grounds, that the judgment of +immediate friends and neighbours is less just than the opinion of +foreigners and of posterity. This is so when foreigners and posterity are +agreed, and are free from the tumult, and passion, and personal bias of +time and place. It is not so in Henry's case. Curiously enough, foreign +observers, scholars, envoys, travellers, agree with--nay, outrun Henry's +subjects in their praise of Henry. Curiously too the tumult and passion +touching Henry's matrimonial affairs--touching all his affairs +indeed,--have grown rather than diminished with the progress of time. +Epochs, like men, have not the gift of seeing themselves as others see +them. Unnumbered Frenchmen ate and drank, and made merry, and bought and +sold; married their children and buried their parents, not knowing that +France was giving a shock to all mankind for all time to come. The +assassins of St. Bartholomew believed that in future a united Christendom +would bless them for performing a pious and uniting deed. We see all at +once the bare and startling fact of six wives. Henry's subjects saw and +became familiar with a slow succession of marriages, each of which had its +special cloud of vital yet confusing circumstance. So too the Reformation +has its different phases. In the sixteenth century it was looked on as a +serious quarrel, no doubt, but no one dreamed it was anything more. Then +each side thought the other side would shortly come to its senses and all +would be well; no one dreamt of two permanently hostile camps and lasting +combat. If personal hate and actual bloodshed have passed away, and at the +present moment the combat shews signs of still diminishing bitterness, it +is because a new and mysterious atmosphere is slowly creeping over +both--slowly benumbing both the armies. + +An attempt must be made here to sketch Henry's character with as much +impartiality as is possible. But no impartial sketch will please either +his older friends or his newer enemies. Although Henry came to the throne +a mere boy, he was a precocious boy. In the precocious the several stages +of life succeed each other more quickly than in others, and probably they +themselves do not wear so well. When Henry was twenty-five he was little +less wise and capable than he was at thirty-five or forty-five. At forty +he was probably wiser than he was at fifty. The young king's presence was +striking; he had a fresh rosy complexion, and an auburn though scanty +beard. His very limbs, exclaims one foreign admirer, "glowed with warm +pink" through his delicately woven tennis costume. He was handsome in +feature; large and imposing in figure; open and frank in manners; strong, +active, and skilled in all bodily exercises. He was an admirer of all the +arts, and himself an expert in many of them. Henry had indeed all the +qualities, whatever their worth may be, which make a favourite with the +multitude. Those qualities, no matter what change time brought to them, +preserved his popularity to the last. + +Henry was neither a genius nor a hero; but they who deny that he was a +singularly able man will probably misread his character; misread his +ideals, his conduct, and his various attitudes. Henry's education was +thorough and his learning extensive. His habit of mind tended perhaps +rather to activity and versatility and obedience to old authority than to +intensity or depth or independence. His father, who looked more favourably +on churchmen and lawyers than on noblemen, destined his second son for the +Church. At that time theology, scholastic theology--for Colet and Erasmus +and More had not then done their work--was the acutest mental discipline +known as well as the highest accomplishment. For when the "new learning" +reached this country it found theology the leading study, and therefore +it roused theology; in Italy on the other hand it found the arts the +predominant study, and there it roused the arts. Henry would doubtless +have made a successful bishop and escaped thereby much domestic turmoil; +but, on the whole, he was probably better fitted to be a King; while his +quiet, contemplative, and kindly father would at any rate have found life +pleasanter in lawn sleeves than he found it on a throne. + +It would be well if men and women were to write down in two columns with +all possible honesty the good and the evil items in the characters (not +forgetting their own) which interest them. The exercise itself would +probably call forth serviceable qualities, and would frequently bring to +light unexpected results. Probably in this process good characters would +lose something and the bad would gain. From such an ordeal Henry VIII. +would come out a sad figure, though not quite so sad as is popularly +considered. + +It is not proposed in this sketch of character to separate, if indeed +separation is possible, the good qualities which are held to be more or +less inborn from those which seem to be attainable by efforts of the will. +Freedom of the will must of course be left in its native darkness. Neither +can the attempt be made to estimate, even if such estimate were possible, +how much the individual makes of his own character and how much is made +for him. Some features of character, again, are neither good nor evil, or +are good or evil only when they are excessive or deficient or unsuitable +to time and place. Love of pageantry is one of these; love of pleasure +another; so, too, are the leanings to conservation or to innovation. + +In thought and feeling and action Henry was undoubtedly conservative. His +conservatism was modified by his self-will and self-confidence, but it +assuredly ranked with the leading features of his character--with his +piety his egotism and his love of popularity. To shine in well-worn paths +was his chief enjoyment: not to shine in these paths, or to get out of +them, or to get in advance of them, or to lag behind, was his greatest +dread. The innovator may or may not be pious, but conservatism naturally +leans to piety, and Henry's piety, if not deep or passionate, was at any +rate copious and sincere. Henry, it has been said, was not a hero, not a +genius, neither was he a saint. But if his ideals were not high, and if +his conduct was not unstained, his religious beliefs were unquestioning +and his religious observances numerous and stringent. + +The fiercer the light which beat upon his throne, the better pleased was +Henry. He had many phases of character and many gifts, and he delighted in +displaying his phases and in exercising his gifts. The use and place of +ceremony and spectacle are still matters of debate; but modern feeling +tends more and more to hand them over to children, May-day sweeps, and +Lord-mayors. In Henry's reign the newer learning and newer thought had it +is true done but little to undermine the love of gewgaws and glitter, but +Henry's devotion to them, even for his time, was so childish that it must +be written down in his darker column. + +We may turn now to the less debatable items in Henry's character, and say +which shall go into the black list and which into the white. We are all +too prone perhaps to give but one column to the men we approve, and one +only to the men we condemn. It is imperative in the estimation of +character that there be "intellect enough," as a great writer expresses +it, to judge and material enough on which to pronounce judgment. If we +bring the "sufficient intellect," especially one that is fair by habit and +effort, to the selection of large facts--for facts have many sizes and +ranks, large and small, pompous and retiring--and strip from these the +smaller confusing facts, strip off too, personal witcheries and deft +subtleties--then we shall see that all men (and all movements) have two +columns. The 'monster' Henry had two. In his good column we cannot refuse +to put down unflagging industry--no Englishman worked harder--a genuine +love of knowledge, a deep sense of the value of education, and devotion to +all the arts both useful and elevating--the art of ship-building +practically began with him. His courage, his sincerity, his sense of duty, +his frequent generosity, his placability (with certain striking +exceptions) were all beyond question. His desire for the welfare of his +people, although tempered by an unduly eager desire for their good +opinion, was surely an item on the good side. The good column is but +fairly good; the black list is, alas, very black. Henry was fitful, +capricious, petulant, censorious. His fitfulness and petulance go far to +explain his acts of occasional implacability. Failing health and premature +age explain in some degree the extreme irritability and absence of control +which characterised his later years. In his best years his love of +pleasure, or rather his love of change and excitement, his ostentation, +and his extravagance exceeded all reasonable limits. Ostentation and love +of show are rarely found apart from vanity, and Henry's vanity was +colossal. Vain men are not proud, and Henry had certainly not the pride +which checks the growth of many follies. A proud man is too proud to be +vain or undignified or mean or deceitful, and Henry was all these. Pride +and dignity usually run together; while, on the other hand, vanity and +self-importance keep each other company as a rule. Henry lacked dignity +when he competed with his courtiers for the smiles of Ann Boleyn in her +early Court days; he lacked it when he searched Campeggio's unsavoury +carpet-bag. He seemed pleased rather than otherwise that his petty gossip +should be talked of under every roof in Europe. It is true that in this +direction Catharine descended to a still lower level of bed-room scandal; +but her nature, never a high one, was deteriorated by a grievous +unhappiness and by that incessant brooding which sooner or later tumbles +the loftiest nature into the dust. + +Henry's two striking failings--his two insanities--were a huge +self-importance and an unquenchable thirst for notoriety and applause. I +have said 'insanities' designedly, for they were not passions--they were +diseases. The popular "modern voice" would probably not regard these as at +all grave defects when compared with others so much worse. This voice +indeed, we well know, declares him to have been the embodiment of the +worst human qualities--of gross selfishness, of gross cruelty, and of +gross lust. These charges are not groundless, but if we could believe them +with all the fulness and the vehemence with which they are made, we must +then marvel that his subjects trusted him, revered him, called (they and +their children) for his good sense and his good laws; we can but marvel +indeed that with one voice of execration they did not fell him lifeless to +the ground. He was unguarded and within reach. If the charges against +Henry come near to the truth, Nero was the better character of the two. +Nero knew not what he did; he was beyond question a lunatic and one of a +family of lunatics. Henry's enormities were the enormities of a fairly +sane and responsible man. + +In order to read Henry's character more correctly, if that be possible, +than it is read by the "two voices," more light is needed. Let us see what +an examination of Henry's bodily organisation, and especially of his +parentage, will do for us. In this light--if it be light, and attainable +light--it will be well to examine afresh (at the risk of some repetition) +the grave charges which are so constantly and so confidently laid at his +door and see what of vindication or modification or damning confirmation +may follow. Before looking specially at Henry's organisation and +inheritance, I purpose devoting a short chapter to a general view of the +principles which can give such an examination any value. It will be for +the most part a brief statement of views which I have already put forward +in my little work on character as seen in body and parentage. + + + + +THE RELATION OF BODY AND PARENTAGE TO CHARACTER. + +NOTE II. + + +It is unwise to turn aside from the investigation of any body of truths +because it can only be partial in its methods or incomplete in its +results. We do this however in the study of the science of character. It +is true that past efforts have given but little result--little result +because they ignored and avowedly ignored the connection which is coming +to be more and more clearly seen to exist between character on the one +hand and bodily organisation and proclivity, and especially the +organisation and proclivity of the nervous system, on the other hand. +Those who ignore the bearings of organisation and inheritance on character +are, for the most part, those who prefer that "truth should be on their +side rather than that they should be on the side of truth." + +It is contended here that much serviceable knowledge may be obtained by +the careful investigation, in given individuals, of _bodily_ +characteristics, and the union of these with _mental_ and _moral_ +characteristics. The relationship of these combined features of body and +mind to parentage, near and remote, and on both sides, should be traced as +far back as possible. The greater the number of individuals brought under +examination, the more exact and extensive will be the resulting knowledge. + +Very partial methods of classifying character are of daily utility. We +say, for example, speaking of the muscular system only, that men are +strong or weak. But this simple truth or classification has various +notable bearings. Both the strong and the weak may be dextrous, or both +may be clumsy; both may be slow, or both may be quick; but they will be +dextrous or clumsy, slow or quick, in different ways and degrees. So, +going higher than mere bodily organisation, we may say that some men are +bold and resolute while others are timid and irresolute; some again are +parsimonious and others prodigal. Now these may possibly be all +intelligent or all stupid, all good or all bad; but, nevertheless, +boldness and timidity, parsimony and generosity, modify other phases of +character in various ways. The irresolute man, for example, cannot be very +wise, or the penurious man truly good. It must always be remembered in +every sort of classification of bodily or of mental characteristics, that +the lines of division are not sharply defined. All classes merge into each +other by imperceptible degrees. + +One of the most, perhaps the most, fundamental and important +classification of men and women is that which puts them into two divisions +or two temperaments, the active, or tending to be active, on the one hand, +and the reflective, or tending to be reflective, on the other. To many +students of character this is not anew suggestion, but much more is +contended for here. It is contended that the more active temperament is +alert, practical, quick, conspicuous, and--a very notable +circumstance--less impassioned; the more reflective temperament is less +active, less practical, or perhaps even dreamy, secluded, and--also a very +notable circumstance--more impassioned. It is not so much that men of +action always desire to be seen, or that men of thought desire to be +hidden; action naturally brings men to the front; contemplation as +naturally hides them; when active men differ, the difference carries +itself to the housetops; when thinking men differ, they fight in the +closet and by quieter methods. Busy men, moreover, are given to detail, +and detail fills the eye and ear; men of reflection deal more with +principles, and these lie beyond the range of ordinary vision. + +The proposition which I here put forward, based on many years of +observation and study, is fundamental, and affects, more or less, a wide +range of character in every individual. The proposition is that in the +active temperament the intellectual faculties are disproportionately +strong--the passions are feebler and lag behind; in the reflective +temperament the passions are the stronger in proportion to the mental +powers. Character is dominated more by the intellect in one case, more by +the emotions in the other. In all sane and healthful characters (and only +these are considered here) the intellectual and emotional elements are +both distinctly present. The most active men think; the most reflective +men act. But in many men and women the intellect takes an unduly large +share in the fashioning of life; these are called here the "less +impassioned," the "unimpassioned," or for the sake of brevity, "the +passionless." In many others the feelings or emotions play a stronger +part; these are the "more impassioned" or the "passionate." + +Character is not made of of miscellaneous fragments, of thought and +feeling, of volition and action. Its elements are more or less homogeneous +and run in uniform groups. The less impassioned, or passionless, for +example, are apt to be changeable and uncertain; they are active, ready, +alert; they are quick to comprehend, to decide, to act; they are usually +self-confident and sometimes singularly self-important. They often seek +for applause but they are sparing in their approval and in their praise of +others. When the mental endowment is high, and the training and +environment favourable, the unimpassioned temperament furnishes some of +our finest characters. In this class are found great statesmen and great +leaders. A man's _public_ position is probably determined more by +intellectual power than by depth of feeling. Now and then, especially when +the mental gifts are slight, the less pleasing elements predominate: love +of change may become mere fitfulness; activity may become bustle; sparing +approval may turn to habitual detraction and actual censoriousness. Love +of approbation may degenerate into a mania for notoriety at any cost; +self-importance may bring about a reckless disregard of the well-being of +others. Fortunately the outward seeming of the passionless temperament is +often worse than the reality, and querulous speech is often combined with +generous action. Frequently, too, where there is ineradicable caprice +there is no neglect of duty. + +The elements of character which, in various ways and degrees, cluster +together in the more impassioned or passionate temperament are very +different in their nature. In this temperament we find repose or even +gentleness, quiet reflection, tenacity of purpose. The feelings--love, or +hate, or joy, or grief, or anger, or jealousy--are more or less deep and +enduring. In this class also there are fine characters, especially (as in +the unimpassioned) when the mental gifts are high and the training +refined. In this class too are found perhaps the worst characters which +degrade the human race. In all save the rarest characters, the customary +tranquillity may be broken by sullen cloud or actual storm. In the less +capable and less elevated, devotion may become fanaticism, and tenacity +may become blind prejudice, or sheer obstinacy. In this temperament too, +in its lower grades, we meet too often--not all together perhaps, +certainly not all in equal degree--with indolence, sensuality, +inconstancy; or morbid brooding, implacability, and even cruelty. + +I contend then that certain features of character, it may be in very +varying degrees of intensity, belong to the more active and passionless +temperament, and certain other features attend on the more reflective and +impassioned temperament. If it can be shown that there are two marked +groups of elements in character--the more impassioned group and the less +impassioned group--and that each group may be inferred to exist if but one +or two of its characteristic elements are clearly seen, why even then much +would be gained in the interpretation of history and of daily life. But I +contend for much more than this; the two temperaments have each their +characteristic bodily signs; the more marked the temperament, the more +striking and the more easily read are the bodily signs. In the +intermediate temperament--a frequent and perhaps the happiest +temperament--the bodily signs are also intermediate. The bodily +characteristics run in groups also, as well as the mental. The nervous +system of each temperament is enclosed in its own special organisation and +framework. In my work on "character as seen in body and parentage," I +treat this topic with some fulness, and what is stated there need not be +repeated now. It may be noted, however, that in the two temperaments there +are peculiarities of the skin--clearness or pigmentation; of the +hair--feebleness or sparseness, or closeness and vigour of growth; of the +configuration of the skeleton and consequent pose of the figure. + +If the conclusions here put forward are true, they give a key which opens +up much character to us. They touch, as I have already said, a great range +of character in every individual, but they make no pretension to be a +system. They have only an indirect bearing on many phases of character; +for in both the active and reflective temperaments there may be found, for +example, either wisdom or folly, courage or cowardice, refinement or +coarseness. + +It must always be remembered, too, that besides the more marked types of +character, whether bodily or mental, there are numberless intervening +gradations. When the temperaments, moreover, are distinctly marked, the +ordinary concurrent elements may exist in very unequal degrees and be +combined in very various ways. One or two qualities may perhaps absorb the +sum-total of nerve force. In the passionless man or woman extreme activity +may repress the tendency to disapprove; immense self-importance may impede +action. In the impassioned individual, inordinate love or hate may +enfeeble thought; deep and persistent thought may dwarf the affections. + +As I have said elsewhere: 'For the ordinary purposes of life, especially +of domestic and social life, the intervening types of character (combining +thought and action more equally, though probably each in somewhat less +degree) produce perhaps the most useful and the happiest results. But the +progress of the world at large is mainly due to the combined efforts of +the more extreme types--the supremely reflective and impassioned and the +supremely active and unimpassioned. Both are needed. If we had men of +action only, we should march straight into chaos; if we had men of thought +only, we should drift into night and sleep!' + + + + +HENRY'S FAMILY PROCLIVITIES. + +NOTE III. + + +If there is any truth in the views put forward in the foregoing chapter, +and if history has at all faithfully portrayed a character concerning +which it has had, at any rate, much to say, it is clear that Henry must be +placed in the less impassioned class of human beings. When I first called +attention to the three sorts of character--and the three groups of +characteristics--the active, practical, and more or less passionless on +the one hand; the less active, reflective, and impassioned on the other; +and, thirdly, the intermediate class, neither Henry nor his period was in +my mind. But when, at a later time (and for purposes other than the +special study of character), I came to review the Reformation with its +ideas, its men, its incidents, I saw at once, to my surprise, that Henry's +life was a busy, active, conspicuous, passionless life. He might have sat +for the portrait I had previously drawn. Markedly unimpassioned men tend +to be fitful, petulant, censorious, self-important, self-willed, and eager +for popularity--so tended Henry. The unimpassioned are frequently sincere, +conscientious, pious, and conservative--Henry was all these. They often +have, especially when capable and favourably encompassed, a high sense of +duty and a strong desire to promote the well-being of those around +them--these qualities were conspicuous in Henry's character. + +How much of inherited organisation, how much of circumstance, how much of +self-effort go to the making of character is a problem the solution of +which is yet seemingly far off. Mirabeau, with fine perception, declared +that a boy's education should begin, twenty years before he is born, with +his mother. Unquestionably before a man is born the plan of his character +is drawn, its foundations are laid, and its building is foreshadowed. Can +he, later, close a door here or open a window there? Can he enlarge this +chamber or contract that? He believes he can, and is the happier in the +belief; but in actual life we do not find that it is given to one man to +say, I will be active, I will be on the spot, I will direct here and +rebuke there; nor to another man to say, I will give myself up to thought, +to dreams, to seclusion. Henry never said, with unconscious impulse or +with conscious words, "I will be this, or I will not be that." + +Henry VIII. took altogether after his mother's side, and she, again, took +after her father. Henry was, in fact, his grandfather Edward IV. over +again. He had, however, a larger capacity than his mother's father, and he +lived in a better epoch. Edward, it was said in his time, was the +handsomest and most accomplished man in Europe. Henry was spoken of in +similar words by his compeers both at home and abroad. Both were large in +frame, striking in contour, rose-pink in complexion--then, as now, the +popular ideal of manly perfection--and both became exceedingly corpulent +in their later years. Both were active, courteous, affable, accessible; +both busy, conspicuous, vain, fond of pleasure, and given to display. Both +were unquestionably brave; but they were also (both of them) fickle, +capricious, suspicious, and more or less cruel. Both put self in the +foremost place; but Edward's selfishness drifted rather to +self-indulgence, while Henry's took the form of self-importance. Extreme +self-importance is usually based on high capacity, and Edward's capacity +did not lift him out of the region of pomposity and frequent indiscretion. + +Edward IV. was nevertheless an able man although less able than Henry. +Like Henry he belonged to the unimpassioned class; he was without either +deeply good or deeply evil passion, but probably he had somewhat stronger +emotions than his grandson. In other words Henry had more of intellect and +less of passion than his grandfather. Edward's early and secret marriage +was no proof of passion. Early marriages are not the monopoly of any +temperament; sometimes they are the product of the mere caprice, or the +self-will and the feeble restraint of the passionless, and sometimes the +product of the raw and immature judgment of the passionate. Edward +deserves our pity, for he had everything against him; he had no models, no +ideals, no education, no training. The occupation of princes at that time +brought good neither to themselves nor anyone else. They went up and down +the country to slay and be slain; to take down from high places the +severed heads of one worthless dynasty and put up the heads of another +dynasty equally worthless. + +The eighth Henry derived nothing from his father--the seventh,--nothing of +good, nothing of evil. One of the most curious errors of a purely literary +judgment on men and families is seen in the use of the epithet "Tudor." We +hear for example of the "Tudor" blood shewing itself in one, of the +"Tudor" spirit flashing out in another. Whether Henry VII. was a Tudor or +not we may not now stop to inquire. Henry VIII. we have seen took wholly +after his Yorkist mother. Of Henry's children, Mary was a repetition of +her dark dwarfish Spanish mother; the poor lad Edward, whether a Seymour +or a Yorkist, was certainly not a Tudor. The big comely pink Elizabeth was +her father in petticoats--her father in body, her father in mind. Henry +VIII. in fact while Tudor in name was Lancastrian in dynasty, and Yorkist +in blood. No two kings, no two men indeed could well have been more +unlike, bodily, mentally, and morally, than the two Henrys--father and +son. The eighth was communicative, confiding, open, frank; the seventh was +silent, reserved, mysterious. The son was active, busy, practical, +conspicuous; the father, although not indolent, and not unpractical, was +nevertheless quiet, dreamy, reflective, self-restrained, and unobtrusive. +One was prodigal, martial, popular; the other was prudent, peaceful, +steadfast, and unpopular. He is said indeed to have been parsimonious, but +the least sympathetic of his historians confess that he was generous in +his rewards for service, that his charities were numerous, and that his +state ceremonies were marked by fitting splendour. Henry VIII. changed (or +destroyed) his ministers, his bishops, his wives, and his measures also, +many times. Henry VII. kept his wife--perverse and mischievous as she +was,--till she died; kept his ministers and bishops till they died; kept +his policy and his peace till he died himself. + +Henry VII. is noteworthy mainly for being but little noticed. The scribe +of whatever time sees around him only that which is conspicuous and +exceptional and often for the most part foolish, and therefore the +documents of this Henry's reign are but few in number. The occupants of +high places who are careful and prudent are rarely popular. His +unpopularity was moreover helped on in various ways. Dynastic policy +thrust upon him a wife of the busy unimpassioned temperament--a woman in +whom deficient emotion and sympathy and affection were not compensated by +any high qualities; a woman who was restless, mischievous, vain, +intriguing, and fond of influence. Elizabeth of York had all the bad +qualities of her father and her son and had very few of their good ones. A +King Henry in feminine disguise without his virtues was not likely to love +or be loved. Domestic sourness is probably a not infrequent cause of +taciturnity and mystery and seclusion in the characters of both men and +women. It was well that Henry was neither angry nor morose. It says much +for him moreover that while he was the object of ceaseless intrigue and +hostility and rancour he yet never gave way to cynicism or revenge or +cruelty. + +With a tolerably happy marriage, an assenting and a helpful nobility, and +an unassailed throne, it is difficult to put a limit to the good which +Henry VII. might have done and which it lay in him to do. As it was he +smoothed the way for enterprise and discovery, for the printing press and +the new learning. He was the first of English monarchs who befriended +education--using the word in its modern sense. It is curious that the +acutest changes in our history--the death of a decrepit mediævalism, the +birth of the young giant modernism--happened in our so-called sleepiest +reign. Surely the "quiet" father had a smaller share of popular applause +than he deserved, and as surely the "dashing" son a much larger share. But +in all periods, old and new, popularity should give us pause: yesterday, +for example, inquisitors were knelt to, hailed with acclamation and pelted +with flowers, and heretics were spat upon, hissed at, and burnt, but +to-day's flowers are for the heretics and the execrations are for the +inquisitors. + +Thus then in all characteristics--intellectual, moral and bodily--Henry +VIII. must be placed in the unimpassioned class. It may be noted too in +passing that all the portraits of Henry show us a feeble growth of hair on +the face and signs of a convex back--convex vertically and convex +transversely. We do not see the back it is true, but we see both the head +and the shoulders carried forwards and the chin held down towards the +chest--held indeed so far downward that the neck seems greatly shortened. +It is interesting to observe the pose of the head and neck and shoulders +in the portraits of noted personages. The forward head and shoulders, the +downward chin (the products of a certain spinal configuration) are seen in +undoubtedly different characters but characters which nevertheless have +much in common: they are seen in all the portraits of Napoleon I. and, +although not quite so markedly, in those of our own General Gordon. +Napoleon and Gordon were unlike in many ways, and the gigantic +self-importance and self-seeking of Napoleon were absent in the simpler +and finer character. In other ways they were much alike. Both were brave +active busy men; but both were fitful, petulant, censorius, difficult to +please, and--which is very characteristic--both although changeable were +nevertheless self-willed and self-confident. Both were devoid of the +deeper passions. + + + + +THE WIVES QUESTION. + +NOTE IV. + + +It is affirmed that no one save a monster of lust would marry six wives--a +monster of lust being of course a man of over-mastering passion. It might +be asked, in passing, seeing that six wives is the sign of a perfect +"monster" if three wives make a semi-monster? Pompey had five wives, was +he five-sixths of a monster. To be serious however in this wife question, +it will probably never be possible to say with exactness how much in +Henry's conduct was due to religious scruples; how much to the urgent +importunity (state-born importunity) of advisers and subjects; how much to +the then existing confusion of the marriage laws; how much to misfortune +and coincidence; how much to folly and caprice; how much to colossal +self-importance, and how much to "unbounded license." + +History broadly hints that great delusions, like great revolutions, may +overcome--especially if the overcoming be not too sudden--both peoples and +persons without their special wonder. In such delusions and such +revolutions the actors and the victims are alike often unconscious actors +and unconscious victims. Neither Henry nor his people dreamt that the +great marriage question of the sixteenth century would excite the ridicule +of all succeeding centuries. Luther did not imagine that his efforts would +help to divide religious Europe into two permanently hostile camps. +Robespierre did not suspect that his name would live as an enduring +synonym for blood. But to marry six wives, solely on licentious grounds, +is a proceeding so striking and so uncomplicated that no delusion could +possibly come over the performer and certainly not over a watchful people. +Yet something akin to delusion there certainly was; its causes however +were several and complex, and lust was the least potent of them. The +statement may seem strange, but there was little of desire in Henry's +composition. A monster he possibly was of some sort of folly; but strange +as it may seem he was a monster of folly precisely because he was the +opposite of a monster of passion. Unhappily unbounded lust is now and then +a feature of the impassioned temperament. It is never seen however in the +less impassioned, and Henry was one of the less impassioned. The want of +dignity is itself a striking feature in the character of passionless and +active men, and want of dignity was the one conspicuous defect in Henry's +conduct in his marriage affairs. Perhaps too, dignity--personal or +national--is, like quietness and like kindliness, among the later growths +of civilisation. + +No incident or series of incidents illustrative of character in any of its +phases, no matter how striking the incidents, or how strong the character +or phase of character, have ever happened once only. If libertinism, for +example, had ever shown itself in the selection and destruction of +numerous wives, history would assuredly give information pertinent +thereto: it gives none. Nothing happens once only. Even the French +Revolution, so frequently regarded as a unique event, was only one of +several examples of the inherent and peculiar cruelty of the French +celt.[1] The massacre of Bartholomew was more revolting in its numbers +and in its character. The massacre of the commune, French military +massacres and various massacres in French history deprive the "great" +Revolution of its exceptional character. But to return. There were +licentious kings and princes before Henry, granting he was licentious, and +there have been notably licentious kings and princes since: their methods +are well known and they were wholly unlike his. + + [1] From historic comparison we may feel sure that no such cruelty was + found in the Gothic and Frankish and Norman blood of France. + +Certain incidents concerning Henry's marriages are of great physiological +interest: a fat, bustling, restless, fitful, wilful man approaching +mid-life--a man brim full of activity but deficient in feeling, waited +twenty years before the idea of divorce was seriously entertained; and +several more years of Papal shiftiness were endured, not without petulance +enough, but seemingly without storm or whirlwind. When Jane Seymour died, +three years of single life followed. It is true the three years were not +without marriage projects, but they were entirely state projects, and were +in no way voluptuous overtures. The marriage with Anne of Cleves was a +purely state marriage, and remained, so historians tell us, a merely +nominal and ceremonial marriage during the time the King and the German +princess occupied the same bed--a circumstance not at all indicative of +"monstrous" passion. The very unfaithfulness of Anne Boleyn and Catherine +Howard is not without its significance, for the proceedings of our Divorce +Court show that as a rule (a rule it is true not without exceptions) we do +not find the wives of lustful men to be unfaithful. In the case of a Burns +or a Byron or a King David it is not the wife who is led astray; it is the +wives of the Henrys and the Arthurs, strikingly dissimilar as they were in +so many respects, who are led into temptation. + +No _sane_ man is the embodiment of a single passion. Save in the wards of +a lunatic asylum a simple monster of voluptuousness, or monster of anger, +or monster of hate has no existence; and within those wards such monsters +are undoubted examples of nerve ailment. It is true one (very rarely one +only) passion may unduly predominate--one or more may be fostered and +others may be dwarfed; but as a very general rule the deeper passions run +together. One passion, if unequivocally present, denotes the existence of +other passions, palpable or latent--denotes the existence, in fact, of the +impassioned temperament. Henry VIII., startling as the statement may seem, +had no single, deep, unequivocal passion--no deep love, no profound pity, +no overwhelming grief, no implacable hate, no furious anger. The noisy +petulance of a busy, censorious, irritable man and the fretfulness of an +invalid are frequently misunderstood. On no single occasion did Henry +exhibit overmastering anger. Historians note with evident surprise that he +received the conclusion of the most insulting farce in history--the +Campeggio farce--with composure. When the Bishop of Rochester thrust +himself, unbidden, into the Campeggio Court in order to denounce the king +and the divorce, Henry's only answer was a long and learned essay on the +degrees of incestuous marriage which the Pope might or might not permit. +When his own chaplains scolded him, in coarse terms, in his own chapel, he +listened, not always without peevishness, but always without anger. +Turning to other emotions, no hint is given of Henry's grief at the loss +of son after son in his earlier married years. If a husband of even +ordinary affection _could_ ever have felt grief, it would surely show +itself when a young wife and a young mother died in giving birth to a +long-wished-for son and heir. Not a syllable is said of Henry's grief at +Jane Seymour's death; and three weeks after he was intriguing for a +Continental, state, and purely diplomatic marriage. It is true that he +paraded a sort of fussy affection for the young prince Edward--carried him +indeed through the state apartments in his own royal arms; but the less +impassioned temperament is often more openly demonstrative than the +impassioned, especially when the public ear listens and the public eye +watches. Those who caress in public attach as a rule but little meaning to +caresses. If Henry's affections were small we have seen that his +self-importance was colossal; and the very defections--terrible to some +natures--of Anne Boleyn and of Catherine Howard wounded his importance +much more deeply than they wounded his affections. + +If we limit our attention for a moment to the question of deep feeling, we +cannot but see how unlike Henry was to the impassioned men of history. +Passionate king David, for example, would not have waited seven years +while a commission decided upon his proposed relationship to Bathsheba; +and the cold Henry could not have flung his soul into a fiery psalm. The +impassioned Burns could not have said a last farewell to the mother of his +helpless babe without moistening the dust with his tears, while Henry +could never have understood why many strong men cannot read the second +verse of "John Anderson my Jo" with an unbroken voice. + + + + +THE LESS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. + +NOTE V. + + +It is well now, after considering the question of Henry's parentage and +organisation, to look again and a little more closely, at certain +significant features in his character--his caprice, his captiousness, his +love of applause, his self-will, self-confidence, and self-importance. +These elements of character frequently run together in equal or unequal +degrees, and they are extremely characteristic of the more markedly +passionless temperament. But before doing this it is well to look, in a +brief note, at some features of Henry's character which are found in the +less impassioned and the more impassioned temperaments alike. Both +temperaments, for example, may be cruel or kindly; both may tend to +conservatism or to innovation; pious persons or worldly may be found in +both. But the cruelty or kindliness, the conservatism or innovation, the +piety or worldliness differ in the different temperaments--they differ in +their motives, in their methods, in their aims. + +The cruelty of the unimpassioned man is, for the most part, a reckless +disregard for the happiness or well-being or (in mediæval times +especially) for the lives of those who stand in his way or thwart his +plans or lessen his self-importance. Such cruelty is more wayward +resentful and transitory than deliberative or implacable or persistent. +The cruelty of the impassioned man is perhaps the darkest of human +passions. It is the cruelty born of hate--cruelty contrived with +deliberation and watched with glee. Happily it is a kind which lessens +with the growth of civilisation. Often it attends on the strong +convictions of strong natures obeying strong commands--commands which are +always strongest when they are believed to have a supernatural origin; for +belief in supernaturalism is the natural enemy of mercy; it demands +obedience and forbids compassion. Cruelty was at its worst when +supernatural beliefs were strongest; for happily natural reason has grown, +and supernatural belief has dwindled. The unimpassioned and the +impassioned temperaments may alike scale the highest or descend to the +lowest levels of character, although probably the most hateful level of +human degredation is reached by the more impassioned nature. It cannot be +denied that, even for his time, Henry had a certain unmistakable dash of +cruelty in his composition. A grandson of Edward IV., who closely +resembled his grandfather, could not well be free from it. But the cruelty +of Henry, like that of Edward, was cruelty of the passionless type. He +swept aside--swept too often out of existence--those who defied his will +or lessened his importance. + +How much of Henry's cruelty was due to the resolve to put down opposition, +how much was due to passing resentment and caprice, and how much, if any, +to the delight of inflicting pain, not even Henry's compeers could easily +have said. His cruelty in keeping the solitary Mary apart from her +solitary mother was singularly persistent in so fickle a man; but even +here weak fear and a weak policy were stronger than cruel feeling. It was +Henry's way of meeting persistent obstinacy. It is needless to discuss +the cruelty of the executions on religious grounds during Henry's reign; +they were the order of the day and were sanctioned by the merciful and the +unmerciful alike. But Henry's treatment of high personages was a much +deeper stain--deeper than the stain of his matrimonial affairs. People and +parliament earnestly prayed for a royal son and heir, but no serious or +popular prayer was ever offered up for the heads of Fisher or More or Lady +Salisbury. Henry's cruelty had always practical ends in view. Great +officials who had failed, or who were done with, were officials in the +way, and _their_ heads might be left to the care of those who were at once +their rivals and their enemies. The execution of Lady Salisbury will never +fail to rouse indignation as long as history is history and men are men. +Henry might have learned a noble lesson from his father. Henry VII. put +his own intriguing mother-in-law into a religious house, and the proper +destination of a female Yorkist intriguer--no matter how high or +powerful--was a convent, not a scaffold. In the execution of Elizabeth +Barton meanness was added to cruelty, for the wretched woman confessed her +impostures and exposed the priests who contrived them for her. The cruelty +which shocked Europe most, and has shocked it ever since, was the +execution of Sir Thomas More. More's approval would have greatly consoled +the King, but More's approval fell far short of the King's demands. The +silence of great men does _not_ give consent, and More was silent. More +was, next to Erasmus, the loftiest intellect then living on this planet. +Throughout Europe men were asking what More thought of "the King's +matter." More's head was the only answer. But however indignant we may be, +let us not be unjust; Henry, cruel as he was, was less cruel than any of +his compeers--royal, imperial, or papal, or other. The cruelty of our +Tudor ruler has always been put under a fierce light; the greater cruelty +of distant rulers we are too prone to disregard. We are too prone also to +forget that the one thing new under the sun in _our_ time is greater +kindliness--kindliness to life, to opinion, to pocket. If fate had put a +crown on Luther's head, or Calvin's, or later, on Knox's, their methods +would have been more stringent than Henry's. Henry and his Parliament, it +is true, proposed an Act of Parliament "to abolish diversity of opinion in +matters of religion." But Luther and Calvin and Knox, nay even More +(Erasmus alone stood on a higher level), were each and all confident of +their possession of the _one_ truth and of their infallibility as +interpreters thereof; each and all were ready, had the power been theirs, +to abolish "diversity of religious opinion." + +There are two kinds of religion, or at any rate two varieties of religious +character--both are sincere--the religion of the active and passionless +and that of the reflective and impassioned. One is a religion of +inheritance, of training, of habit, of early and vivid perception; with +certain surroundings it is inevitable; if shaken off it returns. George +Eliot acutely remarks of one of her notably passionless characters, "His +first opinions remained unchanged, as they always do with those in whom +perception is stronger than thought and emotion." The other is a religion +(two extremes are spoken of here, but every intermediate gradation exists) +a religion of thought and emotion, of investigation and introspection. It +is marked by deep love of an ideal or real good, and deep hate of what may +also often be called an ideal or real evil. Henry's religion was of the +first sort. It would be deeply interesting to know the sort of religion +of the great names of Henry's time. We lack however the needful light on +their organisation, parentage, and circumstance. But in all the provinces +of life the men who have imprinted their names on history have been for +the most part active, practical, and unimpassioned men. They, in their +turn, have owed much to the impassioned, thinking, and often unpractical +men whose names history has not troubled itself to preserve. + +And now, in the light shed by organisation and inheritance, we may gain +further information on the more characteristic features of Henry's +character--his caprice, his captiousness, his uncertainty, and his +peevishness, his resolve never to be hidden or unfelt or forgotten. + + + + +THE MORE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. + +NOTE VI. + + +Henry was always doing something or undoing something. Whether he was +addressing Parliament, admonishing and instructing subordinates, or +exhorting heretics; whether he was restoring order in Northern England, or +(with much wisdom) introducing order into Wales, or (with much folly) +disorder into Scotland; whether he was writing letters to Irish chieftains +or Scottish councillors, or Northern pilgrims; whether he was defending +the Faith or destroying religious houses; whether he was putting together +six articles to the delight of Catholics, or dropping them in a few weeks +to the exultation of Protestants; whether burning those who denied the +miracle of the Real Presence, or hanging those who denied his headship of +the Church; whether he was changing a Minister, a Bishop, or a wife, his +hands were always full. And in Henry's case at least--probably in most +cases--Satan found much mischief for busy hands to do. + +The man who is never at rest is usually a fitful man. Constant change, +whether of ministers or of views or of plans, is in itself fitfulness. But +fitfulness is something more than activity: it implies an uncertainty of +thought or conduct which forbids calculation or prediction, and therefore +forbids confidence; it is an inborn proclivity. Happily vigorous reasoning +power often accompanies it and keeps it in check. In poorly endowed +intellects, whether in men or women, fitfulness and its almost constant +associate petulance harass many circles and many hearths. + +It is recorded that when the disgraced Wolsey took his departure from +Court, the King sent after him a hurried messenger with a valuable ring +and comforting words. The incident has excited much perplexity and comment +among historians. What was its meaning? what its object? Probably the +incident had no precise meaning; probably it was merely the involuntary +deed of an irresistible constitutional tendency; possibly, too, there +lurked in the motive which led to it some idea of future change and +exigency. The active, practical, serviceable man sows many seeds and keeps +on sowing them. Time and circumstance mainly decide which seeds shall grow +and which shall not. Caprice is not unfrequently associated with high +faculties. Sometimes it would seem to be due to the gift--not a common +one--of seeing many sides of a question, and of seeing these so vividly +that action is thereby enfeebled or frequently changed. Sometimes it is a +conservative instinct which sees that a given step is too bold and must be +retraced. It certainly is not selfishness: a long-pondered policy is often +dashed to the ground in an instant, or a long-sought friendship is ended +by a moment's insult. At root caprice is an inborn constitutional bias. +Henry was the first powerful personage who declared that the Papal +authority was Divine--declaring this, indeed, with so much fervour that +the good Catholic More expostulated with him. But Henry was also the first +high personage who threw Papal authority to the winds. It is on record +that Henry would have taken Wolsey into favour again had Wolsey lived. Not +Wolsey only but all Henry's Ministers would have been employed and +dismissed time after time could they but have contrived to keep their +heads on their shoulders. Henry might even have re-married his wives had +they lived long enough. One circumstance only would have lessened their +chances--attractive women were more numerous than experts in statecraft: +for one Wolsey there were a thousand fair women. + +Habitual fitfulness, it has already been noted, is not often found apart +from habitual petulance, and both these qualities were conspicuous in +Henry's character. There was something almost impish in the spirit which +led him to don gorgeous attire--men had not then got out of barbaric +finery, and women are still in its bondage--on the day of Anne Boleyn's +bloodshed. Nay more, there was undoubtedly a dash of cruelty in it, as +there was in the acerbity which led him to exclaim that the Pope might +send a Cardinal's hat to Fisher, but he would take care that Fisher had no +head to put it on. Now and then his whims were simply puerile; it was so +when he signalised some triumph over a Continental potentate by a dolls' +battle on the Thames. Two galleys, one carrying the Romish and the other +the English decorations, met each other. After due conflict, the royalists +boarded the papal galley and threw figures of the pope and sundry +cardinals into the water--king and court loudly applauding. But again, let +us not forget that those days were more deeply stained than ours with +puerility and cruelty and spite. More, it is true, rose above the +puerility of his time; Erasmus rose above both its cruelty and its +puerility; Henry rose above neither. + +No charge is brought against Henry with more unanimity and vehemence than +that of selfishness. And the charge is not altogether a baseless one; but +the selfishness which stained Henry's character is not the selfishness he +is accused of. When Henry is said to have been a monster of selfishness it +is implied that he was a monster of self-indulgence. He was not that--he +was the opposite of that. He was in reality a monster of self-importance, +and extreme personal importance is incompatible with gross personal +indulgence. Self-indulgence is the failing of the impassioned, especially +when the mental gifts are poor; while self-importance is the failing of +the passionless, especially when the mental gifts are rich. Let there be +given three factors, an unimpassioned temperament, a vigorous intellect, +and circumstance favourable to public life--committee life, municipal, +platform, Parliamentary, or pulpit life--and self-importance is rarely +wanting. This price we must sometimes pay for often quite invaluable +service. + +When Henry spoke--it is not infrequently so when the passionless and +highly gifted individual speaks--the one unpardonable sin on the part of +the listener was not to be convinced. A sin of a little less magnitude was +to make a proposal to Henry. It implied that he was unable to cope with +the problems which beset him and beset his time. He could not approve of +what he himself did not originate; at any rate he put the alien proposal +aside for the time--in a little time he _might_ approve of it and it might +then seem to be his own. The temperament which censured a matter yesterday +will often applaud it to-day and put it in action to-morrow. The +unimpassioned are prone to imitation, but they first condemn what they +afterwards imitate. When Cromwell made the grave proposal touching the +headship of the Church, Henry hesitated--nay, was probably shocked--at +first. Yet, for Henry's purposes at least, it was Cromwell (and not +Cranmer with his University scheme) who had "caught the right sow by the +ear." + +Henry had a boundless belief in the importance of the King; but this did +not hinder, nay it helped him to believe in the importance of the people +also--it helped him indeed to seek the more diligently their welfare, +seeing that the more prosperous a people is, the more important is its +King. True he always put himself first and the people second. How few +leaders of men or movements do otherwise. Possibly William III. would have +stepped down from his throne if it had been shown that another in his +place could better curb the ambition of France abroad, or better secure +the mutual toleration of religious parties at home. Possibly, nay +probably, George Washington would have retired could he have seen that the +attainment of American independence was more assured in other hands. Lloyd +Garrison would have gladly retired into private life if another more +quickly than he could have given freedom to the slave. John Bright would +have willingly held his tongue if thereby another tongue could have spoken +more powerfully for the good of his fellow-men. Such men can be counted on +the fingers and Henry is not one of them. Henry would have denied (as +would all his compeers in temperament) that he put himself first. He would +have said; "I desire the people's good first and above all things;" but he +would have significantly added; "Their good is safest in my hands." + +It is a moot point in history whether Henry was led by his high officials +or was followed by them. Did he, for example, direct Wolsey or did Wolsey +(as is the common view) in reality lead his King while appearing to follow +him. To me the balance of evidence, as well as the natural proclivities +of Henry's character, favour the view that he thought and willed and acted +for himself. Do we not indeed know too well the fate of those whose +thought and will ran counter to his? No man's opinion and conduct are +independent of his surroundings and his time; for every man, especially +every monarch, must see much through other eyes and hear much through +other ears. But if other eyes and other ears are numerous enough they will +also be conflicting enough, and will strengthen rather than diminish the +self-confidence and self-importance of the self-confident and +self-important ruler. + +Self-importance, as a rule, is built on a foundation of solid +self-confidence, and Henry's confidence in himself was broad enough and +deep enough to sustain any conceivable edifice. The Romish church was +then, and had been for a thousand years, the strongest influence in +Europe. It touched every event in men's bodily lives and decided also the +fate of their immortal souls. Henry nevertheless had no misgiving as to +his fitness to be the spiritual head of the Church in this country, or the +spiritual head of the great globe itself, if the great globe had had one +Church only. + +When I come to speak of the Reformation I shall have to remark that, had +the great European religious movement reached our island in any other +reign than Henry's, religion would not have been exactly what it now is. +Of all our rulers Henry was the only one who was at the same time willing +enough, educated enough (he had been trained to be an Archbishop), able +enough, and pious enough to be at any rate the _first_ head of a great +Church. + +Henry was so sagacious that he never forgot the superiority of sagacity +over force. He delighted in reasoning, teaching, exhorting; and he +believed that while any ruler could command, few could argue and very few +could convince. It is true, alas, that when individuals or bodies were not +convinced if he spoke, he became unreasonably petulant. When Scotland did +not accept a long string of unwise proposals he laid Leith in ashes. When +Ireland did not yield to his wishes, he knocked a castle to atoms with +cannon, and thereby so astonished Ireland, be it noted, that it remained +peaceful and prosperous during the remainder of his reign. + +Perhaps the happiest moments in Henry's life were those when he presided +over courts of theological inquiry. To confute heresy was his chief +delight; and his vanity was indulged to its utmost when the heretical +Lambert was tried. Clothed in white silk, seated on a throne, surrounded +by peers and bishops and learned doctors, he directed the momentous +matters of this world and the next; he elucidated, expounded, and laid +down the laws of both heaven and earth. It was a high day; one thing only +marred its splendour--he, the first living defender of orthodoxy, had +spoken and heterodoxy remained unconvinced. Heterodoxy must clearly be +left to its just punishment, for bishops, peers, and learned doctors were +astonished at the display of so much eloquence, learning, and piety. + +The physiological student of human nature who is much interested in the +question of martyrdom finds, indeed, that the martyr-burner and the martyr +(of whatever temperament) have much in common. Both believe themselves to +possess assured and indisputable truth; both are infallible; both +self-confident; both are prepared, in the interests of truth, to throw +their neighbours into the fire if circumstance is favourable; both are +willing to be themselves thrown into the fire if circumstance is adverse. +One day they burn, the next day they are burnt. + +The feature in Henry's character which as we have seen amounted to mania +was his love of popularity; it was a mania which saved him from many +evils. Even unbridled self-will does little harm if it be an unbridled +self-will to stand well with a progressive people. It has been a matter of +surprise to those who contend that Henry, seeing that he possessed--it is +said usurped--a lion's power, did not use it with lion-like licence. His +ingrained love of applause is the physiological explanation. Let it be +noted, too, that not everyone who thirsts for popularity succeeds in +obtaining it, for success demands several factors: behind popular applause +there must be action, behind action must be self-confidence, behind +self-confidence must be large capability. Henry had all these. In such a +chain love of applause is the link least likely to be missing. For, +indeed, what is the use of being active, capable, confident and important +in a closet? The crow sings as sweetly as the nightingale if no one is +listening, and importance is no better than insignificance if there is no +one "there to see." + +We shall gain further and not uninteresting knowledge of Henry's character +if we look at certain side lights which history throws upon it. We turn +therefore, in another note, to look for a few moments at the men, the +movements, the drift, the institutions of his time, and observe how he +bore himself towards them. + + + + +HENRY AND HIS COMPEERS. + +NOTE VII. + + +In Henry's time, and in every time, the art of judging women has been a +very imperfect one. It is an imperfect art still and, as long as it takes +for granted that women are radically unlike men, so long it will remain +imperfect. But Henry was a good judge of one sex at any rate, for he was +helped by the most capable men then living, and in reality he tolerated no +stupidity--except in his wives. In an era of theological change it was +perhaps an unfortunate circumstance that he was better helped in his +politics than in his theology. Wolsey, although a Cardinal and even a +candidate for the Papal chair, was to all intents and purposes a practical +statesman. Had he succeeded in becoming a Pope he would nevertheless have +remained a mere politician. Wolsey, then, and Cromwell and More were all +distinctly abler men than Cranmer or Latimer or Gardiner. + +But Henry himself, looking at him in all that he was and in all that he +did, was not unworthy of his helpers. There were then living in Europe +some of the most enduring names in history. More, it is true, was made of +finer clay than the king; Erasmus was not only the loftiest figure of his +time--he is one of the loftiest of any time; but Henry was also a great +personality and easily held his own in the front rank of European +personalities. As a ruler no potentate of his time--royal, imperial or +papal--could for a moment compare with him. Of all known Englishmen he +was the fittest to be King of England. Had it been Henry's fortune to have +had one or two or even three wives only, our school histories would have +contained a chapter entitled "How 'Henry the Good' steered his country +safely through its greatest storm." He played many parts with striking +ability. He was probably as great a statesman as Wolsey or More or +Cromwell. He would certainly have made a better archbishop than Cranmer; a +better bishop than Latimer or Gardiner; he was a better soldier than +Norfolk. What then might he have been had he been a statesman only, or a +diplomatist or an ecclesiastic or a soldier only? + +In all the parts he played, save the part of husband, his unimpassioned +temperament stood him in good stead. A man's attitudes to his fellow-men +and to the movements of his time are, on the whole, determined more by his +intellect than by his feeling. The emotions indeed are very disturbing +elements. They have, it is true, made or helped to make a few careers; but +they have destroyed many more. Very curiously, Henry's compeers were, most +of them, like himself--unimpassioned men. Latimer, who was perhaps an +exception, preached sermons at Paul's Cross brimful of a passion which +Henry admired but did not understand. Cranmer too was a man of undoubted +feeling and strong affection. It is said there is sometimes a magnetic +charm between the unlike in temperament; strong friendships certainly +exist between them; and it is to Henry's credit that to the last he kept +near to him a man so unlike himself. Cranmer was a kindly, sympathetic, +helpful, good soul, but not a saint. He was not one of those to whom +Gracian refers as becoming bad out of pure goodness. Cranmer was a +capable and a strong man, but he was not supremely capable or supremely +strong. He was free from the worst of human evils--'cocksureness.' The +acute Spaniard just named says that "every blockhead is thoroughly +persuaded that he is in the right;" Cranmer was less of a blockhead than +most of his compeers. Left to his own instincts, he preferred to live and +let others live. Cranmer had not the loftiness (nor the hardness and +inflexibility) of a More; not the genius and grace and scholarship of an +Erasmus; not the definite purpose and iron will of a Cromwell; not the +fire of a Latimer; not the clear sight and grasp of a Gardiner; not the +sagacity and varied gifts of a Henry; but for my part I would have chosen +him before all his fellows (certainly his English fellows) to advise with +and to confide in. Of all the tables and the roofs of that time I should +have preferred to sit at his table and sleep under his roof. The great +luminaries who guide in revolutions are rare, and the smaller lights of +smaller circumstance are not rare; but--the question is not easy to +answer--which could we best spare, if we were compelled to choose, the +towering lighthouse of exceptional storm or the cheery lamp of daily life? + +One figure of Henry's times which never fails to interest us is that of +Sir Thomas More. More was clearly one of the unimpassioned class; but his +commanding intellect, his quick response to high influences, his +capability of forming noble friendships, and his lofty ideals seemed to +dispense with the need of deep emotions. More and Henry, indeed, were much +alike in many ways. Both were precocious in early life; both were quick, +alert, practical; both were able; both, to the outside world at least, +were genial, affable, attractive; both also, alas, were fitful, +censorious, difficult to please; both were self-confident--one confident +enough to kill, the other confident enough to be killed. Had they changed +places in the greatest crisis of their lives Henry would have rejected +More's headship of the Church and More would have sent Henry to the block. + +In order to understand More's character correctly we must recognise the +changing waves of circumstance through which he passed. There were in fact +two Mores, the earlier and the later. The earlier More was an unembittered +and independent thinker; the seeming spirit of independence however was, +in a great degree, merely the spirit of contradiction. He was a friend of +education and the new learning. He advocated reform in religion; but +reform, be it noted, before the Reformation, reform gently and from +within; reform when kings and scholars and popes themselves all asked for +it. History, unhappily, tells of much reform on the lips which doggedly +refused to translate itself into practice. The earlier More was all for +reform in principle, but he invariably disapproved of it in detail. The +later and in some degree embittered More was thrown by temperament, by the +natural bias of increasing years and by the exigencies of combat, into the +ecclesiastical and reactionary camp, and in that camp his conduct was +stained by cruel inquisitorial methods. + +The deteriorating effects of conflict (which happily grow less in each +successive century) on individuals as well as on parties and peoples is +seen in another notable though very different character of More's century. +Savonarola, before his bitter fight with Florentine and Roman powers, was +a large, clear-sighted, sane reformer; after the fight he became blind, +fanatical, and insane. Why may we not combine all thankfulness for the +early More and the early Savonarola, and all compassion for the later More +and later Savonarola? Mary Stuart, Francis Bacon, Robert Burns, Napoleon +Buonapart, and Lord Byron were notable personalities; they--some of them +at least--did the world service which others did not and could not do. Yet +how many of us are there who, if admitting to the full their greatness, do +not belittle their follies? or, if freely admitting their follies, do not +belittle their greatness? + +Wolsey, holding aloof from religious strife, remained simply the scholar +and the politician--a politician moreover _before_ politics became in +their turn also a matter of hostile camps. Being a politician only, he +continued to be merciful while More drifted from politics and mercy into +ecclesiasticism and cruelty. More's change was in itself evidence of a +fitful and passionless temperament, of such evidence indeed there is no +lack. His first public action was one of petulance and self-importance. He +had been treated with continued and exceptional kindness by Cardinal +Morton and Henry VII.; but when Morton, on behalf of his king, asked +parliament for a subsidy, the newly-elected More, conscious of his powers, +and thinking too, may we not say, much more of a people's applause than of +a people's burdens, successfully urged its reduction to one half. + +More was by nature censorious, and never heartily approved of anything. +When Wolsey, on submitting a proposal to him with the usual result, told +him--told him it would seem in the unvarnished language of the time--that +he stood alone in his disapproval, and that he was a fool, More, with +ready wit and affected humility, rejoined that he thanked God that he was +the only fool on the King's Council. More, we may be quite sure, was not +conscious of a spirit of contradiction; he probably felt that his first +duty was to suggest to everybody some improvement in everything. This +spirit of antagonism nevertheless played a leading part in his changeful +life. In his early years he found orthodoxy rampant and defiant, +consequently he inclined to heresy; at a later period heresy became +rampant and defiant, and as inevitably he returned to the older faith and +views. A modern scholar and piquant censor, and--I gather from his own +writings, the only knowledge I have of him--an extreme specimen of the +unimpassioned temperament, Mark Pattison, says that he never saw anything +without suggesting how it might have been better; and that every time he +entered a railway carriage he worked out a better time table than the one +in use. If More had lived in his own Utopia he would have found fault with +it, and drawn in imagination another and a better land. The later More +was, as all unimpassioned and censorious temperaments are, a prophet of +evil; and as much evil did happen--was sure to happen--his wisdom has come +down to us somewhat greater in appearance than it was in reality. + +The cruelty of the Tudor epoch has already been spoken of. Catholics and +protestants, kings, popes, cardinals, ministers, Luthers, Calvins, Knoxes +were all stained by it. Henry and More, we know, were no exceptions. But +More's cruelty differed from Henry's in one important respect--there was +nothing appertaining to self in it, except self-confidence. Henry's +cruelty was in the interest of himself--his person, his family, and his +throne; More's cruelty, although less limited perhaps, and more dangerous, +was nevertheless in the interest of religion. + + + + +HENRY AND HIS PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT. + +NOTE VIII. + + +It is in his attitude to his people and his parliament that we see Henry +at his best. His sagacity did not show itself in any deliberate or deeply +reasoned policy, certainly not, we may allow with Dr. Stubbs, in any great +act of "constructive genius;" it showed itself in seeing clearly the +difficulties of the hour and the day, and in the hourly and daily success +with which they were met. Henry and his father presided over the +introduction of a new order of things, which new order, however, was a +step only, not a cataclysm. They themselves scarcely knew the significance +of the step or how worthily they presided over it. The world, indeed, +knows little--history says little--of great and sudden acts of +constructive genius. These gradually emerge from the growth of peoples; +they do not spring from the brains of individuals royal or otherwise. If +the vision of a ruler is clear and his aims good, he, more than others, +may help on organic and beneficent growth. Full-blown schemes and +policies, even if marked by genius, are rarely helpful and not +infrequently they end in hindrance or even in explosion. The Stuarts had a +large "scheme" touching church and king. It was a scheme of "all in all or +not at all;" for them and their dynasty it ended in "not at all." French +history is brimful of "great acts of constructive genius" and has none of +the products of development. For Celtic history is indeed a sad succession +of fits, and not a process of quiet growth. How a succession of fits will +end, and how growth will end, it is not difficult to foretel. + +The government of peoples is for the most part and in the long run that +which they deserve, that which they are best fitted for, and not at all +that which, it may be, they wish for and cry out for. A people +ready--fairly and throughout all strata ready--for that which they demand +will not long demand in vain. Our fathers, under the Tudor Henrys and the +Tudor Elizabeth, had the rule which was best fitted for them, which they +asked for, which they deserved--a significant morsel, by the bye, of +racial circumstance. It by no means follows, let it be noted, that what +people and king together approved of was the ideal or the wisest. It is +with policies as with all things else, the fittest, not the best, continue +to hold the field. + +Henry and Elizabeth had not only clearness of sight, but flexibility of +mind also, and would doubtless have ruled over Puritan England with +success; it lay in them to rule well over our modern England also. Charles +I., by organisation and proclivity, would have fared badly at the hands of +a Tudor parliament, and, again as a result of organisation and proclivity, +Henry VIII. and the Long Parliament would have been excellent friends. +Hand to mouth government, if it is also capable, is probably the best +government for a revolutionary time. Conflicting parties are often kept +quiet by mere suspense--by mingled hopes and fears. It has been well said +of Henry of Navarre that he kept France, the home of political whirlwinds, +tranquil for a time because the Protestants believed him to be a +Protestant and the Catholics believed he was about to become a Catholic. + +The majority of historians and all the compilers of history tell us that +Henry's parliaments were abject and servile. The statement is politically +misleading and is also improbable on the grounds of organisation and race. +It is one of many illustrations of the vice of purely literary judgments +on men and movements; a vice which takes no account of physiology, of +race, of organisation and proclivity. For we may be well assured that the +grandsons of brave men and the grandfathers of brave men are never +themselves cowards. One and the same people--especially a slow, steadfast, +and growing people--does not put its neck under the foot of one king +to-day and cut off the head of another king to-morrow. It is not difficult +to see how the misconception arose: in a time of great trial the king and +the people were agreed both in politics and in religion. The people held +the king's views; they admired his sagacity; they trusted in his honour. +If a brother is attached to his brother and does not quarrel with him, is +he therefore poor-spirited? If by rare chance a servant sees, possibly on +good grounds, a hero in his master, is he therefore a poltroon? If a +parliament and a king see eye to eye, is it just to label the parliament +throughout history as an abject parliament? + +Henry's epoch, moreover, was not one of marked political excitement, and +therefore the hasty observer jumps to the conclusion that it was not one +of political independence. In each individual, in each community, in each +people there is a sum-total of nerve force. In a given amount of brain +substance--one brain or many--in a given amount of brain nutriment of +brain vitality, there is a given quantity of nerve power. This totality of +power will show itself it may be in one way strongly or in several ways +less strongly; it cannot be increased, it cannot be lessened. On purely +physiological grounds it may be affirmed that Bacon could not have thought +and written all his own work and at the same time have also thought and +written the life-work of Shakspere. Shakspere could not have added Bacon's +investigations to his own 'intuitions.' In our own time Carlyle could not +have written "The French Revolution" and "The Descent of Man;" he could +not have gone through the two trainings, gained the two knowledges, and +lived the two lives which led to the two works. So it is with +universities: when scholarship is robust, theology limps; and during the +Tractarian excitement, so a great scholar affirms, learning in Oxford sank +to a lower level. So with peoples: in a literary age religious feeling is +less earnest; in a time of political excitement both religion and +literature suffer. Henry's era was one of abounding theological activity: +Luthers, Calvins, and (later) Knoxes came to the front, and the front +could not, never can, hold many dominant and also differing spirits. In +Elizabeth's time Marlowes and Shaksperes and Spensers were master spirits, +and master spirits are never numerous. No doubt as civilisation goes on +great men and great movements learn to move, never equally perhaps but +more easily, side by side: more leaders come to the front--but is the +front as brilliant? Choice spirits are more numerous--but are the spirits +quite as choice? Another and a less partial generation must decide. + +"But," say the few observers and the crowd of compilers, "only a servile +parliament would have given the king permission to issue proclamations +having the authority of law." But the people, it cannot be too +emphatically repeated, were neither creatures crawling in the mire nor +red-tapists terrified at every innovation; they trusted the king, and he +did not violate their trust. The proclamations, so it was stipulated, were +not to tamper with existing laws; they were to meet exigencies in an +epoch of exigencies, and they met them with a wisdom and a promptness +which parliament could not come near. It is physiological +proclivities--not red tape, not parchment clauses, not Magna +Chartas--which keep a people free. It is rather red tape, and not the +occasional snapping of red tape which enfeebles liberty. If the +non-conformists, who by the bye detested Romanism more than they loved +religion, had not rejected the declaration of indulgence of Charles II.--a +declaration which gave to Romanists leave of worship as well as to +non-conformists--does any sane person believe that English freedom would +have been less than it now is? In our time a body of men who hate England +more than they love Ireland have, of set purpose, tumbled parliament into +the dust: now, if a capable and firm authority were entrusted for twelve +months with exceptional yet absolute control over parliamentary procedure, +does any sane person suppose that the English passion for free parliaments +would be lulled to sleep? Rule has often to be cruel in order to be kind. +Alas, the multitude is made up not of Cromwells, is indeed afraid of +Cromwells. In total ignorance of racial proclivities, it foolishly +believes that a Cromwellian speaker for twelve months would mean a +Cromwellian speaker for ever. + + + + +NOTE ON HENRY AND THE REFORMATION. + +NOTE IX. + + +It is a singular misreading of history to say that Henry did much directly +or indirectly to help on the Reformation of the Church in this country, +although the part he played was not a small one. Neither was the +Reformation itself, grave and critical as it was, so sudden and volcanic +an upheaval as is generally believed. + +Luther himself did not put forward a single new idea. No man is thinker +and fighter at once; at any rate, no man thinks and fights at the same +moment. Luther struck his blows for already accomplished thought. Curious +ideas of unknown dates--for history reveals mergings only, not beginnings, +not endings, and the student of men and movements might well exclaim +"nothing begins and nothing ends,"--ideas of unknown dates and unknown +birth-places had slowly come into existence. In Teutonic Europe at least, +the older ideas were becoming trivial and inadequate. It was the northern +Europe, which from the earliest times had been dogged in its courage both +bodily and mental; the Europe strong in that reverence for truth which +rests on courage, which is inseparable from courage, which never exists +apart from courage; the Europe strong in its respect for women; strong in +its fearlessness of death, of darkness, of storm, of the sea-lion, the +land monster, the unearthly ghost, and which was strong therefore in its +fearlessness of hell-fire and priestly threats. Celtic Europe, especially +Celtic Ireland, slept then and sleeps now the unbroken slumber of +credulity. Credulity and fear are allied. Celtic Ireland was palsied then, +and is palsied still, by the fear of what we may now call Father Furniss's +hell. It is surely not difficult to recall and therefore not difficult to +foretell the history of so widely differing races. Everywhere throughout +Teutonic Europe, in castle and monastery, in mansion and cottage, the +old-new ideas were talked over, drunk over, quarrelled over, shaken hands +over, slept over. Everywhere the poets--the peoples' voices then, for the +printed sheet, the coffee house, the club, were yet far off,--the poets, +Lindsay, Barbour and others in Scotland; Langland, Skelton and others in +England had, long before, pelted preachers and preaching with their +bitterest gibes. Those poets little knew how narrowly they escaped with +their lives; they escaped because they shouted their fierce diatribes just +before not just after the strife of battle. They had flashed out the +signals of undying warfare, but before the signals could be interpreted +the signallers had died in their beds. Thought, inquiry, discussion, +printing, poetry, the new learning, the older Lollardry had moved on with +quiet steps. A less quiet step was at hand, but this also, if less quiet, +was as natural and as inevitable as the stealthiest of preceding steps. +Europe had gradually become covered with a network of universities, and +students of every nationality were constantly passing from one to another. +One common language, Latin, bound university to university and thinking +men to thinking men. He who spoke to one spoke to all. The time was a sort +of hot-house, and the growth of man was "forced." Reaction attends on +action, but in the main, studious men made the universities--not +universities the studious men; in like-manner good men have made +religions, not religions so much good men. Ideas and opinions quickly +became common property; sooner or later they filtered down from the Latin +phrase to home-spun talk; filtered down also from the university to the +town, village, and busy highway. + +The Papacy itself had made Papal rule impossible to vigorous peoples. With +curiously narrow ambition Popes have always preferred even limited +temporal importance to unlimited spiritual sway. Two Popes, nay at one +time three, had struggled not for the supremacy of religion but for merely +personal pre-eminence. Popes had fought Popes, councils had fought +councils, and each had called in the friendly infidel to fight the +catholic enemy. The catholic sack of catholic Rome had been accompanied by +greater lust and more copious bloodshed than the sack of Rome in olden +time by northern Infidels. The teachings, claims, and crimes native to +Rome, nay, even the imported refinements of the arts and letters and +elegancies of Paganism did what legions of full-blown Luthers could not +have done. + +The Reformation, with its complex causes, its complex methods, its complex +products, is, more than other great movements, brimful of matter for +observation, thought, and inference. + +The French Revolution was but one of a series of fierce uprisings of a +race which rises and slaughters whenever it has a chance. French history +teems with slaughters both in time of peace and time of war. Mediæval +French Kings dared not arm their peasants with bows and arrows, for +otherwise not a nobleman or a gentleman would have been left alive. At the +close of the eighteenth century in France the oppression was heavy, the +opportunity was large, and the uprising was ferocious. No other people +have ever shown such a spectacle, and it is therefore idle to compare +other great national movements with it. French history stands alone: no +oppressor can oppress like the French oppressor; no retaliator can +retaliate like the French retaliator. It is a question much less of +politics than of organisation and race. But to return. + +Mr. Carlyle, in his own rousing way and on a subject which deeply +interests him--Luther and the Reformation--mingles fine literary vigour +with an indifference to physiological teaching which is by no means +habitual with him. The heaven-born hero tells us what has become false and +unreal, and shows us--it is his special business--how we may _go back_ to +truth and reality. The humbler student believes that we are constantly +journeying _towards_ truth and reality--these lie not behind but in front +of us. The school of prophets tells us that the hero alights in front of +us and stands apart. The student declares that we all move together; that +we partly make our heroes, and partly they make us; that we have grades of +heroes; that they are not at all supernatural--we touch them, see them, +know them, send them to the front, keep them and dismiss them at our will, +or what seems our will. Carlyle affirms that modern civilisation took its +rise from the great scene at Worms. The truths of organisation, of body, +of brain, of race, of parentage would rather say that civilisation itself +was not born of but in reality gave rise to Luther and the scene at Worms. +The Reformation did not give private judgment; private judgment gave the +Reformation. + +In all revolutions there is a mixture of the essential and the accidental. +During the long succession of the ordinary efforts of growing peoples +there are also from time to time unusual efforts to bring to an end +whatever of accident is most at variance with essential truth and reason +and sanity and honour. In the reformations of a growing people, whatever +the age in which they happen, whatever the religion or policy or conduct +of the age, leading spirits rebel against what is most oppressive and +resent what is most arrogant in that age; they reject what is most false +and laugh out of court what is most ridiculous. In the sixteenth century +men felt no special or inherent resentment to arrogance because it lifted +its head in Rome; they looked on the so-called miracle of +transubstantiation with no special or peculiar incredulity; their sense of +humour was not necessarily tickled by the idea that a soul leaped out of +purgatory when a coin clinked in Tetzel's box. Those were matters of +accident and circumstance; they were simply the most intolerable or +incredible or preposterous items of the century. Given other preceding +accidents--another Deity, or one appearing in another century or arising +in another people; another emperor than Constantine; other soldiers than +Constantine's--and the sixteenth-century items of oppression and falsehood +would have been there, it is true, but they would have been other than +they were. + +We are often told that great movements come quickly, and are the peculiar +work of heroes. We are told, indeed, that from time to time mankind +degenerates into a mass of dry fuel, and that at the fitting moment a hero +descends, as a torch, and sets the mass on fire. Nay, moreover, if we +doubt this teaching we are dead to poetic feeling and have lost our +spiritual ideals. Happily, however, if phantasy dies, poetry still lives. +Leaders and led, teachers and taught, are all changing and always +changing; but no change brings a lessened poetic susceptibility or a +lessened poetic impulse. If, in future, historians and critics come to see +that the organisation and bodily proclivity and parentage of men have +really much to do with men, let us nevertheless be comforted--the ether +men breathe will be no less ample, the air no less divine. Every age is +transitional--not this or that--and the ages are bound together by +unbroken sequence. As with the movements so is it with the leaders: they +are in touch with each other as well as in touch with their followers. All +ages have some men who are bolder than others, or more reflective than +others, or more courageous, or more active. At certain epochs in history +there have been men who combined many high qualities, and who in several +ways stood in front of their time. Wyclif was not separated from his +fellows by any deep gulf, neither was he, as regards time, the first in +his movement, but no leader ever sprang so far in front of the led. +General leaders appear first, and afterwards, when the lines of cleavage +are clearer, special leaders arise. Wyclif was a general leader, and +therefore had many things to do. He did them all well. He was a scholar, a +theologian, a writer, a preacher. It is his attitude to his age and to all +ages, and to national growth, which interests us--not his particular +writing, or his preaching, or his detailed views. He propounded, he +defined, he lighted up, he animated, he fought. In one capacity or in two +Wyclif might have soared to a loftier height and have shone a grander +figure. But he did what was most needed to be done then and there. The +time was not ripe, and it did not lie in Wyclif to make it ripe, for the +Reformation, but he showed the way to the Reformation; he introduced its +introducers and led its leaders. The special leaders appeared in due time, +and they also were the product of their time. An Erasmus shed more light +than others on burning problems; a Calvin formulated more incisively than +his fellows; a Luther fought more defiantly; and, a little later, a Knox +roused the laggards with fiercer speech. It is interesting to note that +the fighters and the speakers in all movements and at all times come most +quickly to the front; it is for them that the multitude shouts its loudest +huzzas and the historian writes his brightest pages. But let us not forget +this one lesson from history and physiology: it is not given--or but +rarely given--to any one man to do all these things, to innovate, to +illuminate, to formulate, to fight, to rouse; it is certainly not given to +any one man to do all with equal power, and certainly not all at once. For +there is a sum-total of brain-force, not in the individual only, but in +the community and in the epoch. In one stream it is powerful; if it be +divided in several streams each stream is weaker. It was a theological +torrent at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a literary torrent at +the century's close. We have (perhaps it is for our good) several streams, +we have however, we all hope, a good total to divide. Curiously, too, the +most clear-sighted of leaders never see the end, never indeed see far into +the future of their movement. The matters and forces which go to form a +revolution are many and complex, reformers when striving to improve a +world often end in forming a party. If the leaders are clear-sighted, the +party will be continuous, large, long-lived; dim-sighted enthusiasts, even +when for the moment successful, lead a discontinuous, short-lived, +spasmodic crowd. Sometimes a leader steps forth clear and capable, but +the multitude continues to sleep. Wyclif, for example, called on his +generation to follow him in a new and better path. He seemed to call in +vain. In the sixteenth century men were awake, stirring, resolved; but no +leaders were ready. Fortunately the people marched well although they had +no captains to speak of. The age was heroic although it had no conspicuous +heroes. + +Although in its forms, its beliefs, its opinions, its policy, its conduct, +there was much that was accidental, it was nevertheless inevitable and +essential that the Reformation should come. It mattered not whether this +thing had been done or that; whether this particular leader led or that; +whether this or that concession had been made at Rome. If Erasmus could +not fight Luther could. If Rome could concede nothing, much could be torn +from her. There is, indeed, much fighting and tearing in history: +complacent persons, loftily indifferent to organisation, and race, and +long antecedent, are astonished that men should fight, or should fight +with their bodies, or that, when fighting they should actually kill each +other. In all times, alas, the fittest, not the wisest, has prevailed--and +the fittest, alas, has been cruel. In the seventeenth century Parliament +and Charles Stuart fought each other by roughest bodily methods, and +Parliament, proving victorious, killed Charles. Had Charles conquered, and +could Parliament have been reduced to one neck or a dozen, we may be quite +sure that the one neck or the dozen would have been severed on the block. + +When the thousand fermenting elements came together in the sixteenth +century cauldron, no number of men, certainly no one man, certainly not +Henry, could do much to hinder or to help on the seething process. This of +course was not Henry's view. He believed himself to be--gave himself out +to be--the fountain of truth. We know that he and an _admiring_ (not an +_abject_) Parliament proposed an Act to abolish diversity of opinion on +religious matters. We know too, that while he graciously permitted his +subjects to read the Word of God, he commanded them to adopt the opinions +of the king. It was indeed cheap compulsion, for he and the vast mass of +his subjects held similar opinions. Nevertheless, it is true that Henry, +with characteristic sagacity, turned to the right spot and at the right +moment when the cauldron threatened to boil over, or possibly to explode. +At a critical epoch he helped to avert bloodshed; for in this island there +was no war of peasants, or princes, or theologians. + +Those who say that the great divorce question brought about or even +accelerated the Reformation, are those who see or wish to see the bubbles +only, and cannot, or will not see the stream--its depth and strength,--on +which the bubbles float. For the six-wives matter was in reality a bubble, +large it is true, prismatic, many-coloured, interesting, visible +throughout Europe, minutely gossiped over on every hearth. If King Henry, +however, had had no wife at all, the Reformation would have come no more +slowly than it did; if he had had, like King Solomon, seven hundred wives, +it would have come no more quickly. Henry was not himself a reformer, and +but little likely to lead reformers. Under a fitful and petulant exterior +the king was a cold, calculating, self-remembering man. The reformers were +a self-forgetting, passionate, often a frenzied party, and as a rule, +firebrands do not follow icebergs. If imperious circumstance loosened +Henry's moorings to Rome, he had no more notion of drifting towards +Augsburg or Geneva, than, a little later, his daughter Elizabeth had of +drifting to Edinburgh and Knox. Henry had no deep attachment, but he clung +to the old religion, chiefly perhaps because it was old, as much as he +could cling to anything; he had no deep hatreds, but, as heartily as his +nature permitted, he detested the new. He would have disliked it all the +more, had that been possible, could he have looked with interpretative +glance backward to the seed-time of Wyclif's era, or forward to the ripe +harvest of the seventeenth century. Could it have been made plain to Henry +that he was helping to put a sword into a Puritan's hand and bring a +King's head to the block, he would have had himself whipped at the tomb of +Catharine of Aragon, and would have thrown his crown at the Pope's feet. + +He assumed the headship of the English Church, it is true; but even good +Catholics throughout Europe did not then so completely as now accept the +supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and central ideas had not then so +completely swallowed up the territorial. If Henry had not taken the +headship of the English Church when he did, the Church would probably have +had no head at all, and religious teaching in this country would have +fared much as it fared in Switzerland and Scotland and North Germany. As +it was, Henry simply believed himself to be another Pope, and London to be +another Rome. He, the English Pope, and the Pope at Rome would, for the +most part, work together like brothers--work for the diffusion of the +_one_ truth (which all sorts and conditions of Popes believe they +possess), and work therefore for the good of all people. + +Had the great European religious movement reached our island in any other +reign than Henry's it would not have run quite the same course it did. Of +all the Kings who have ruled over us Henry VIII. was the only King who was +at the same time willing enough, able enough, educated enough (he had +been trained to be an Archbishop), and pious enough to be, at any rate, +the first head of a great Church. + +But it is said: "Look at the destruction of the religious houses; surely +that was the work of heresy and greed." Henry had no heresy in his nature, +but he was not without greed, and as he was certainly extravagant, he had +therefore the stronger incentives to exaction. But in our history the +foible of a King avails but little when it clashes with the conscience, +the ideal, the will of a people. Henry's greed, moreover, whatever its +strength, was less strong than his conservatism, less strong than his +piety. Stronger, too, than all these combined was his boundless love of +popularity--a love which alone would have preserved the monasteries could +the monasteries have been preserved by any single man. But new ideas and +new religious ideals had come in, and the new religious ideals and the old +religious houses could not flourish together. The existence of those +houses had long been threatened. One hundred years before, Parliament had +more than once seriously discussed the appropriation of ecclesiastical +funds to military purposes. Cardinal Morton, after impartial inquiry, +contemplated sweeping changes. Wolsey, a good Catholic, had suppressed +numerous houses. It is interesting to know that at one period of his life +Sir Thomas More thought of retiring into a religious house, but after +carefully studying monastic life he gave up the project. It is not +necessary to sift and resift the evidence touching the morality of the +monasteries. Probably those institutions were not so black as their +enemies, new or old, have painted them, nor so white as they appear in the +eyes of their modern friends. But whether they were fragments of Hades +thrust up from below, or fragments of the celestial regions let down from +above, or whatever else they were, their end was come. Many causes were at +work. They were coming into collision with the rapidly growing modern +social life--a life more complex than at any time before, more complex in +its roots, its growths, its products, and its needs. The newer social life +had developed a passionate love of knowledge; it had formed a loftier +ideal of domestic life. It pondered too over our economic problems, and +disliked the ceaseless accumulation of land and wealth in ecclesiastical +hands. Does any one imagine that a close network of institutions, which +were at any rate not models of virtue; institutions which hated knowledge +and thrust it out of doors; which directly or indirectly cast a slur on +the growing domestic ideal; which told the awakening descendants of +Scandinavian and Norseman and Saxon, that their women were unclean--that +their mothers and daughters were "snares;" does anyone imagine that such a +network could be permitted to entangle and strangle modern life? It has +already been said that the newer social ideas were destined to arise, and +that therefore the older religious houses were doomed to fall. It mattered +little the particular year in which they fell; it mattered little who +seemed to deal the final blow. Many centuries before, human nature being +what it was, and social conditions what they were, quiet retreats had met +a want--they were fittest to live and they lived. But a succession of +centuries brought change--a little in human nature, much in social +conditions, very much in thought and opinion, and the retreats, the inner +life and opinions of which had not kept pace with life outside, were no +longer needed, no longer fittest, and they fell. Henry did not destroy +them. Catholicism, which neither made them pure nor made them impure, was +unable to preserve them. Could the long buried bones of their founders +have come to life again and have put on the newer flesh, thought, with +newer brain, the newer thought, they would have found quite other outlets +for their energy, leisure and wealth. It is so with all founders and all +institutions. It is so at this moment with the institutions which were +born of the Reformation itself. Naturalists tell us that the jelly-like +mass, the amæba, embraces everything, both the useful and the useless, +that comes in its way, but that in time it relaxes its embrace on the +useless. So the civilisation of a growing people is like a huge amæba, +which slowly enfolds men and ideas, and incidents, and systems, and then +sooner or later it disenfolds the unsuitable and the worn-out. + + + + +QUEEN ELIZABETH AND QUEEN MARY. + +NOTE X. + + +Few rulers, few persons indeed, have ever been so much alike as our two +rulers Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth. No man was ever so like +Henry as was the woman Elizabeth; no woman ever resembled Elizabeth so +closely as did the man Henry. Both father and daughter were extreme +examples of the intellectual and unimpassioned temperament. High capacity, +acute perception, clear insight, correct inference were present in both. +Both, too, were capricious, fault-finding, querulous and vain. Both, +moreover, had their preferences and their dislikes. Both, too, felt and +showed resentment when their vanity was wounded. But in neither of them, +it may be truly affirmed, was there any consuming passion--any fervent +love, or invincible hatred, or fierce jealousy, or overwhelming anger. + +Those who preach the doctrine of an essential difference between the sexes +and who, with the injustice which so frequently accompanies the abounding +self-importance of masculinity, would deprive women not only of "equality +of sphere" but "equality of opportunity," may study the character of Henry +and Elizabeth with great advantage. Human beings are first of all divided +(I have elsewhere contended) into certain types of character and only +afterwards into men and women. Many men are by nature devoted lovers and +parents and friends; many women are not. Elizabeth was one of a number--a +large number--of women who have, it may be, many of the qualities which +tell in practical and public life, and but little of the emotion which +wells up in true wifehood and motherhood and friendship. + +Henry and Elizabeth stand far above the average level of rulers. In +sagacity, in tact and in statesmanship only two of their successors can +compare with them. But the methods of Oliver Cromwell and William III. +were very different from the Tudor methods. Cromwell and William strove to +be guided by what they sincerely held to be lofty principles. Henry and +Elizabeth were guided merely, though wisely guided, by the fineness of +their instincts. Fine instincts were perhaps better fitted for the earlier +time, and lofty principles for the later. It is easier, alas, to bungle in +formulating and in applying principles than in trusting to adroitness and +intuitions. + +All the elements of character which Henry possessed were found also in +Elizabeth, and many of these elements, though not all, they possessed in +equal degree. They were alike in capacity, courage, sincerity, +versatility, industry; alike in their conservative proclivities and also +in their love of pageantry--for Elizabeth, like Henry, revelled in public +business and in public pleasures; she delighted in progresses, shows, +masks and plays. They were alike, too, in their sense of duty, in their +desire for the welfare of the people, and also in their thirst for the +people's good opinion. But Elizabeth, although she had immense +self-importance (she heartily approved of the queen and, heartily indeed, +of nothing else), was perhaps less self-confident than her father. She was +not quite comfortable in her headship of the Church--but then she had not +been educated for the Church as her father had been, and she did not +possess her father's devotional nature. Her conduct was however more +decorous than her father's, notwithstanding that she was distinctly less +religious than he--less religious in principle, in inward conviction and +in outward worship. If she was less devout than Henry she had however a +larger share of fitfulness than even he. The historian who more vividly +than any other has placed the Tudor time before us speaks of Elizabeth's +"ingrained insincerity;" the words "ingrained fitfulness" would perhaps be +more correct, for she was in truth as sincere as her fitfulness permitted +her to be. Although it is true she was not without--no one at that time +was quite without--insincerity and intrigue and duplicity and falsehood in +her diplomatic methods, she was fairly sincere in her views and aims and +conduct. But unfortunately her views and aims and conduct were constantly +changing. She was sincere too easily and too frequently. She had a dozen +fits of sincerity in a dozen hours. Whenever she sent a message, no matter +how carefully the message had been considered, a second was sent to recall +or change it, and very shortly a third messenger would be despatched in +pursuit of the second. Urgent and critical circumstance alone, and +frequently not even this, forced upon her any conclusive action. I am +compelled to agree with those who believe that the most distressing +incident of her life was the final decision touching Mary Stuart's death: +it was distressing on several grounds--she was not naturally cruel, or, +like her father, cruel to those only who stood in her path; she did not +like to kill a queen; and, above all, she hated to do anything which (like +marriage, to wit) could not be undone. Elizabeth was compelled by +temperament to be always doing something, but by temperament also she was +always reluctant to get anything done. In her two bushels of occupation +there were not two grains of performance. + +Her extreme fitfulness had at least one fortunate result--it saved many +lives. Henry's frequent change of view and of policy was unquestionable, +but the change was slow enough to give to the ever-watchful enemies of a +fallen minister time enough to tear the fallen minister to pieces. But if +a minister of Elizabeth's fell, his head was in little danger: if he fell +from favour to-day, he was restored to-morrow. He might trip twenty times, +and as many times his rivals would be on the alert; but twenty pardons +would be granted all in good time. + +Touching the question of marriage the queen was far wiser than her father. +Neither father nor daughter had the needful qualities which go to make +marriage happy, and both had certain other qualities which in many cases +make it an intolerable burden. Henry, unlike Elizabeth, did not discover +this, for his perceptive powers generally were less acute than hers. She +probably knew that in her inmost heart (her brain was sufficiently acute +to gain a glimpse of what was in her heart and what was not) she was a +stranger to the deep and sustained affections without which marriage is so +often a cruel deception. She had admirers and favourites it is true; and, +after the fashion of the time, was unseemly enough in her fits of romping +and her fits of pettishness. But there has not yet been anywhere, or at +any time, under the sun a healthful temperament which has objected to +admiration and entertainment, and probably there never will be. + +Elizabeth's attitude to the religious condition of her people marks a +decided movement, if not an onward movement: for we must never forget that +a multitude of high-minded and capable souls believe that the several +steps of the Reformation were downward steps. But what were the steps, and +what especially was Elizabeth's step? The popes (and their times) had +said, _in effect_, you need not read and you must not think or inquire; +your duty is to obey and believe. Henry (and his time) said, you may think +and you may read, especially if your reading enables you to understand the +King, but you must believe what the King believes and worship as the King +worships. Elizabeth (and her times), still more at the mercy of rising +Teutonic waves, exclaimed, you may think and read and inquire and believe +as you like--especially as you insist upon doing so--but you really must, +all of you, go to church with me on Sunday mornings. Elizabeth's +church-going act, by the bye, is still unrepealed. Long after, William +III. (and his time, though William was before his time) said, you may +think, read, believe, and publicly worship as you will, but you must +believe something and you must worship somewhere. John Milton, before +William in time and long before him in largeness of view, was the one +colossal figure who fought bravely and single-handed for freedom in every +domain of thought and speech and conduct. + +The Tudor time, more than any other in our history, lends itself to the +study of character; a study which, although difficult, is the less +difficult in that whatever of change may take place, old elements of +character do not altogether disappear and entirely new elements do not +make their appearance. These elements lie everywhere around us. A great +writer and an acute observer of men declares indeed that we all contain +the elements of a Luther and a Borgia (his ideal of the best and worst +elements), and that if a man cannot see these near at hand he will not +find them though he travel from Dan to Beersheba. The Tudor and the Stuart +periods alike present remarkable persons and remarkable incidents; but in +the earlier period the men and women were more striking than the events, +while events attract our attention more than individuals in the later. +With the Tudors men and women seemed to lead, for men and women were +proportionately the stronger; circumstance seemed to be the stronger in +the Stuart times. + +No century contains three royal figures so striking in themselves and so +clearly revealed to us as are the figures of Henry and Elizabeth and Mary +in the sixteenth. Their capability, their vitality and their attainments +would have made them striking persons in any position of life. Each, +indeed, possessed the three qualities which make a really interesting +personality--and such personalities are but a small proportion of the +neutral-tinted multitude who are good and kind and industrious--and +nothing more. They, the three personalities, could all see facts for +themselves; they could all see the relative value of facts (the rarest of +the three qualities); and they could all draw sound inferences from the +larger facts. + +The three individuals presented however but two types of character. Henry +and Elizabeth were examples of one type and Mary of another. The Tudor +father and daughter were, as we have already seen, not examples merely but +_extreme_ examples of the unimpassioned, ever active, ever visible class. +Mary was as extreme an example of the impassioned, meditative, persistent +and tenacious class. It was a remarkable coincidence that pitted two such +mental and bodily extremes against each other. All sane human beings have +much more of that which is common to the character of the race than they +have of that which is peculiar to the individual. There was not only this +common basis of human nature in Elizabeth and Mary, there was something +more: both were singularly capable, brilliant, witty and brave (Mary being +the braver and her bravery being the more tried). The two queens had +certain unusual advantages in common, for both were educated to the +highest ideal of female education--very curiously a higher ideal then than +at any other time before, or even since, until our own generation; both, +too, had much experience of life--the larger and the less elevating share +falling to Mary's lot. But here the resemblance ceases. What in Elizabeth +Tudor were slight though shrill rivulets of love and hate and anger and +scorn and jealousy, or of pity or gratitude, were mighty and rushing +torrents in Mary Stuart. We have seen what Elizabeth was: in many ways +Mary was the exact opposite, for she was not at all given to bustle or +change or acrimony or captiousness or suspicion. She was not, it is true, +without vanity; she had ample grounds for having it and she was deeply +human, but (it was not so with Elizabeth) her pride was even greater than +her vanity. + +The elements which met together in Mary were all of a finer quality than +those which were found in Elizabeth; but in Mary some troublous elements +were added to the choicer ones. In her high land there were ominous +volcanic peaks, while in the decorous plain of Elizabeth's character there +was a monotonous blending of vegetation and sand. In some of our greatest +characters (the truism is well-worn) there have been grave defects. Burns' +life never comes to any generous mind save with the deepest regret as well +as the keenest admiration. Bacon's was a great mind with a great fault. +Shakspere and Goethe--the two foremost spirits which time has yet given to +us--are not held to have led altogether stainless lives. Now the Queen of +Scots was not by any means one of the immortals, but she was nevertheless +and in truth a great woman. Yet in the splendid block out of which the +ever-pathetic figure of Mary was chiselled there came to light an +ineradicable flaw. The good and evil of all these characters were mainly, +though not wholly (for circumstance must not be forgotten), due to +organisation and inheritance. A little difference in their organisation, +and they would have been other individuals than they were, and would most +likely have remained unknown to us; but having the parentage they had, and +being what they were, a little difference in circumstance would probably +have mattered little. What there was in each of organisation, what of +circumstance, and what of volition, is a problem the solution of which is +still far off. In all of them volition, whatever that may be, did its +best; organisation, let us say, did its worst; circumstance looked on, +helping here and hindering there,--the compromise is history. + +As the six-wives business clings to Henry's name, so does the Darnley +matter, though curiously with less odium, cling to that of Mary. Henry has +had no friends save those who lived in or near his time. In our time an +inquirer, here or there, strives perhaps to gain for him something of +impartial judgment. Mary has never been without warm friends, and her +friends seem to grow in number and in warmth. The controversy still rages +touching Mary's part in the tragic event which inflicted so deep a wound +into her life. But although the controversy goes on at even fever heat, +the public judgment remains cool and is probably just. It is kept cool +and just by the weight of a few colossal truths which the deftest +manipulation of a cloud of smaller truths cannot hide. At critical moments +the physiological historian, who looks steadily at a few large incidents +in the light of human nature, discovers clues which escape the vision of +the purely literary historian, who is for ever diving--and usefully +diving--into the wells of parchment detail. In reality it matters little +whether this diver or that has dived most deeply; matters little whether +certain documents are spurious or genuine. Mary Stuart accepted--she +certainly did not reject--the passion of a certain man; that man was a +leader among a number of men who murdered her husband; after the murder +Mary Stuart married that particular man, and thereby most assuredly held a +candle to murder. This was Mary. Now if everything that has been said in +her favour could be proved, she would be but little better than this; if +everything that has been said against her could be proved, she would be +but little worse. + +The student of historic characters never forgets the time the country and +the circumstance in which his characters lived. We are now looking at a +time when not only noble and ignoble characters existed side by side, but +when noble and less noble elements existed together in one and the same +character. For indeed the good elements of a better time come in slowly, +and the evil elements of a bad past die a lingering death. The active +Scotland (there was, we know, a good quiet Scotland in the background), +the active Scotland of Tudor times was given over to factions, fanatics, +self-seekers and assassins. Life was taken and given with scant ceremony. +The highest personages of that time contrived murder, or sanctioned it, +or forgave it--the popes did, continental sovereigns did, Henry did, +Elizabeth did. The murders thus contrived or sanctioned or condoned were, +it is true, mainly on behalf of thrones or dominions or religions, while +the murder which Mary assuredly forgave, if she did not sanction, was on +behalf of her passions. The moral difference between murder for a crown +and murder for a love we may not now discuss. + +It was to this Scotland, the active and factious Scotland just described, +that the young queen of nineteen years was brought--brought from a +different atmosphere and with an unpropitious training. The more favoured +Elizabeth meanwhile was ruling over a quieter, a more united people, and +was helped at her council-table by high-minded and unselfish men. It is +useless now perhaps to ask if we may be allowed to admire the gifts, to +deplore the faults, and to pity the fate of the more unfortunate queen. We +can indeed, individually, do what we please, but the queen's posterity +with no uncertain voice has declared that we may. Emerson says that the +great soul of the world is just, and the great soul has kept Mary within +the territory of its favour. It would seem that the affection and devotion +which were given to Mary were not based on any single great or on any +group of great actions; they were based (it is to her credit) on daily +acts of kindliness and patience and unruffled grace. The sum of Mary's +qualities, whatever they were, endowed her with the rare gift of making +the world her friend; and the world does not, as a rule, make lasting +friendships on insufficient grounds. Mary indeed, with all her faults, +deserved a better country than Scotland; and England, it may be added, +deserved a more gracious queen than Elizabeth. But whatever she deserved +or whatever she was fitted for, Mary's fate was destined to be one of the +saddest of recorded time. Inward force and outer circumstance are so +commingled that mortal reason fails to disentangle them. To-day men _seem_ +to put a curb on circumstance, and to-morrow circumstance _seems_ to run +away with men. An ocean of complex and imperious circumstance surged +around two queens, one it lifted up and kept afloat and carried into a +secure haven, the other it tossed mercilessly to and fro and finally drew +her underneath its waves. + +A number of leading Scottish nobles gave out and probably believed that +the wretched Darnley's life was incompatible with the general good. +Bothwell was but one of this number. Yet how clear it has ever been to all +eyes, save to those of the blindly passionate actors themselves, that the +Scottish queen's fatal error, even if there were no grave error before, +was in marrying any one of the misguided band. But misguidance was in the +ascendant. Could she by some magic web have concealed the husbands from +each other and have married them all, she would at any rate have fared no +worse than she did. But, to be serious, if a queen marries one of half a +dozen ambitious assassins, the other five will assuredly make her life +intolerable and her rule impossible. + +In no aspect of character did the two queens differ more than in their +attitude to religion. Elizabeth's piety, like her father's, though less +deep than his, was of a similar passionless, perceptive, unreflective +order. Mary's religion, like Elizabeth's, like that of all individuals in +all parts of the world, was no doubt at first the product of her early +surroundings; but with the Scottish queen it was much more than this--it +was a profoundly passionate conviction and a deeply revered ideal. A +living writer, who is perhaps unrivalled in the historic art and who +rarely errs in his historic judgments, is less happy than is his wont in +his verdict on the catholic queen. He avers that she had no share "in the +deeper and nobler emotions;" yet almost in the same breath he states that +she had "a purpose fixed as the stars to trample down the Reformation." To +have a purpose "fixed as the stars" to trample down _one_ religion was, in +that age of the world, surely to have a purpose "fixed as the stars" to +strengthen and protect _another_; to yearn to put down the Reformation was +surely to yearn to bring in catholicism--catholic teaching and catholic +rites and catholic rule. We may not be catholics, but we are not entitled +to say that from an impassioned catholic woman's point of view this was +not a high ideal; it had been the ideal of the judicial mind, Sir Thomas +More, as well as the ideal of the enthusiast, Ignatius Loyola; it had been +for a thousand years the ideal of a multitude of noble natures both men +and women. Elizabeth, opportunely enough, had no ideals of any kind; +ideals indeed are often inconvenient in a ruler; but she had, despite her +acrimonious speech, plenty of sincerely good wishes and good intentions +for all the world. If the Queen of England had no ideals she had many +devices, and one was to check the flow of all sorts of zeal, especially +Protestant zeal. In the two lives religion told in different ways--the +difference was in the two natures, be it noted, not in the two religions. +Elizabeth, with a skin-deep religion only, was evenly and enduringly +virtuous. Mary had ardent and deep convictions, but her career was not one +of unbroken virtue. Elizabeth was certainly unfortunate in her religious +attitudes. She did not like the Protestants for she was not a good +Protestant; the Catholics did not like her for she was not a good +Catholic. In religion, indeed as in all things, she was greatly influenced +by her inborn spirit of "contrariness." If the Catholics had intrigued +less persistently against her throne and her life, and if (the idea is +sufficiently ludicrous) the Queen of Scotland had chanced to run in +harness with the hated John Knox (hated of both queens), she would gladly +have given the rein to her Catholic impulses. + +The two queens differed as much in body as in mind. I have elsewhere +sought to show not only that certain leading features of character tend to +run together (in itself a distinct contribution to our knowledge), but +also that these allied features are associated with a group of bodily +peculiarities, a contribution, if it really is a contribution, of greatly +additional interest. Elizabeth, large and pink-skinned like her father, +was by no means without impressiveness and even stateliness. She carried +her head a little forward and her chin a little downward, both these +positions being due to a slightly curved upper spine. Her hair was scanty +and her eyebrows were practically absent. All these bodily items, as well +as her mental items, she inherited from her father. Mary had a wholly +different figure and a different presence; her head was upright, her spine +straight; in her back there was no convexity either vertically or +transversely. Her eyebrows were abundant and her head of hair was long and +massive. All these peculiarities, too, we may be quite sure, she derived +from her parentage (not necessarily the nearest parents) on one side or +the other. In my little work on body and parentage in character I urge--it +is well to say here--that the bodily signs of certain classes of character +(two more marked and one intervening) are now and then subject to the +modifying influences of ailment and accident, and especially when these +happen in early life. In Elizabeth and Mary, however, no such influences +disturbed the development of two strongly-marked examples, both in body +and in character, of two large classes of women and, with but little +alteration, of two large classes of men also. + + +[FOR INDEX SEE FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS.] + + +HALL & ENGLISH, Printers, No. 71, High Street, Birmingham. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Body, Parentage and Character in +History, by Furneaux Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BODY, PARENTAGE, CHARACTER IN HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 36993-8.txt or 36993-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/9/36993/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/36993-8.zip b/36993-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8cfd0b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/36993-8.zip diff --git a/36993-h.zip b/36993-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..35d01c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/36993-h.zip diff --git a/36993-h/36993-h.htm b/36993-h/36993-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aae8ba1 --- /dev/null +++ b/36993-h/36993-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2777 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Body, Parentage and Character in History: Notes on the Tudor Period, by Furneaux Jordan. + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .giant {font-size: 200%} + .huge {font-size: 150%} + .large {font-size: 125%} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + .hang {margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;} + + .vertsbox {border: solid 2px; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Body, Parentage and Character in History, by +Furneaux Jordan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Body, Parentage and Character in History + Notes on the Tudor Period + +Author: Furneaux Jordan + +Release Date: August 7, 2011 [EBook #36993] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BODY, PARENTAGE, CHARACTER IN HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<p class="center"><span class="giant">BODY, PARENTAGE AND CHARACTER<br />IN HISTORY.</span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<div class="vertsbox"> +<p class="center"><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</i></p> +<p class="center">Ready—New and Cheaper Edition, in great part Rewritten, 2/-</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="large">CHARACTER AS SEEN IN BODY AND PARENTAGE,</span><br /> +with a Chapter on<br /> +<span class="smcap">Education, Career, Morals, and Progress</span>.</p> + +<p class="hang">A remarkable and extremely interesting book.—<i>Scotsman.</i></p> + +<p class="hang">A delightful book, witty and wise, clever in exposition, charming in +style, readable and original.—<i>Medical Press.</i></p> + +<p class="hang">Men and women are both treated under these heads (types of character) in +an amusing and observant manner.—<i>Lancet.</i></p> + +<p class="hang">We cordially commend this volume.... A fearless writer.... Merits close +perusal.—<i>Health.</i></p> + +<p class="hang">Mr. Jordan handles his subject in a simple, clear, and popular +manner.—<i>Literary World.</i></p> + +<p class="hang">Full of varied interest.—<i>Mind.</i></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, and Co. Limited.</span></p></div> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="large">BODY, PARENTAGE</span></p> +<p class="center"><small>AND</small></p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">CHARACTER</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="large">IN HISTORY:</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">NOTES ON THE TUDOR PERIOD.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><small>BY</small><br /> +<span class="large">FURNEAUX JORDAN, F.R.C.S.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">LONDON:<br /> +<span class="smcap">Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Limited</span>,<br /> +1890.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center">Birmingham:<br /> +Printed by Hall and English.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p>In my little work on “Character as Seen in Body and Parentage” I have put +forward not a system, but a number of conclusions touching the +relationship which I believe to exist between certain features of +character on the one hand and certain peculiarities of bodily +configuration, structure, and inheritance on the other. These conclusions, +if they are true, should find confirmation in historic narrative, and +their value, if they have any, should be seen in the light they throw on +historic problems.</p> + +<p>The incidents and characters and questions of the Tudor period are not +only of unfailing interest, but they offer singularly rich and varied +material to the student of body and character.</p> + +<p>If the proposal to connect the human body with human nature is distasteful +to certain finely-strung souls, let me suggest to them a careful study of +the work and aims and views of Goethe, the scientific observer and +impassioned poet, whom Madame de Staël described as the most accomplished +character the world has produced; and who was, in Matthew Arnold’s +opinion, the greatest poet of this age and the greatest critic of any age. +The reader of ‘Wilhelm Meister’ need not be reminded of the close +attention which is everywhere given to the principle of +inheritance—inheritance even of ‘the minutest faculty.’</p> + +<p>The student of men and women has, let me say in conclusion, one great +advantage over other students—he need not journey to a museum, he has no +doors to unlock, and no catalogue to consult; the museum is constantly +around him and on his shelves; the catalogue is within himself.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note I.—The Various Views of Henry VIII.’s Character.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Momentous changes in sixteenth century</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Many characters given to noted persons</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>A great number given to Henry</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>The character given in our time</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Attempt to give an impartial view</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Need of additional light</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note II.—The Relation of Body and Parentage to Character.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Bodily organisation and temperaments</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Leading types in both</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Elements of character run in groups</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Intervening gradations</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note III.—Henry’s Family Proclivities.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry of unimpassioned temperament</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Took after unimpassioned mother</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Derived nothing from his father</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Character of Henry VII.</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry VIII., figure and appearance</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note IV.—The Wives’ Question.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry’s marriages, various causes</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Passion not a marked cause</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry had no strong passions</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Self-will and self-importance</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Conduct of impassioned men</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note V.—The Less Characteristic Features of Henry’s Character.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Characteristics common to all temperaments</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry’s cruelty</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry’s piety</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note VI.—The More Characteristic Features of Henry’s Character.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Always doing or undoing something</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Habitual fitfulness</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Self-importance</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry and Wolsey: Which led?</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Love of admiration</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note VII.—Henry and his Compeers.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry’s political helpers superior to theological</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Cranmer</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Sir Thomas More</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Wolsey</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note VIII.—Henry and his People and Parliament.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>No act of constructive genius</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Parliament not abject, but in agreement</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Proclamations</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Liberty a matter of race</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note IX.—Henry and the Reformation.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Teutonic race fearless, therefore truthful</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Outgrew Romish fetters</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>French Revolution racial</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>The essential and the accidental in great movements</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Wyclif</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Knox</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry’s part in the Reformation</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>No thought of permanent division</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>The dissolution of the monasteries</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcap">Note X.—Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Henry VIII. and Elizabeth much alike</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Elizabeth less pious but more fitful</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Elizabeth and marriage</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Elizabeth’s part in the Reformation</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Elizabeth and Mary Stuart very unlike</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Lofty characters with flaws</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mary’s environment and fate</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Bodily peculiarities of the two Queens</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE VARIOUS VIEWS OF HENRY VIII.’S CHARACTER.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE I.</span></p> + +<p>The progress of an individual, of a people, or even of a movement is never +up, and their decadence is never down, an inclined plane. Neither do we +see sudden and lofty flights in progress nor headlong falls in decadence. +Both move rather by steps—steps up or steps down. The steps are not all +alike; one is short another long; one sudden another gradual. They are all +moreover the inevitable sequences of those which went before, and they as +inevitably lead to those which follow. Our Fathers took a long step in the +Tudor epoch, but older ones led up to it and newer ones started from it. +The long step could not possibly be evaded by a Teutonic people. Rome lay +in the path, and progress must needs step over the body of Rome—not a +dead body then, though wounded from within, not a dead body yet, though +now deeply and irreparably wounded from without. Civilization must +everywhere step over the body of Rome or stand still, or turn backwards.</p> + +<p>Two factors are especially needed for progress: brain (racial brain), +which by organisation and inheritance tends to be large, free, capable; +and secondly, circumstance, which continually calls forth capability, and +freedom, and largeness. All the schools of supernaturalism, but above all +the Romish school, compress and paralyse at least a portion of the brain: +if a portion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> is disabled all is enfeebled. If a bodily limb even, a mere +hand or foot, be fettered and palsied, the body itself either dies or +droops into a smaller way of life. It is so with a mental limb—a mental +hand or foot in relation to the mental life.</p> + +<p>To the group of ever-present and subtle forces which make for progress, +there were added in the sixteenth century seemingly new and conspicuous +forces. The art of printing or writing by machinery sowed living seed +broadcast over a fertile soil; the “new learning” restored to us the +inspiring but long hidden thought of old Aryan friends and relatives, and +this again in some degree relaxed the grip of alien and enslaving Semitic +ideas which the exigencies of Roman circumstance had imposed on Europe +with the edge of the sword. New action trod on the heels of new thought. +New lands were traversed; new seas were sailed; new heavens were explored. +The good steed civilisation—long burdened and blindfolded and +curbed,—had lagged somewhat; but now the reins were loose, the spurs were +sharp, the path was clear and the leap which followed was long.</p> + +<p>While our fathers were taking, or were on the eve of taking, this long +step, a notable young man, the son of a capable and wise father and of a +not incapable but certainly unwise mother, stepped into the chief place in +this country. A student who was in training for an Archbishop was suddenly +called upon to be a King. What this King was, what he was not; what +organisation and parentage and circumstance did for him; how he bore +himself to his time—to its drift, its movements, its incidents, its men, +and, alas, to its women—is now our object to inquire. The study of this +theological monarch and of his several attitudes is deeply instructive and +of unfailing interest.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>The Autocrat of the breakfast table wittily comments on the number of +John’s characters. John had three. Notable men have more characters than +“John.” Henry VIII. had more characters than even the most notable of men. +A man of national repute or of high position has the characters given to +him by his friends, his enemies, and characters given also by parties, +sects, and schools. Henry had all these and two more—strictly, two groups +more—one given to him by his own time, another given to him by ours.</p> + +<p>If we could call up from their long sleep half a dozen representative and +capable men of Henry’s reign to meet half a dozen of Victoria’s, the jury +would probably not agree. If the older six could obtain all the evidence +which is before us, and the newer six could recall all which was familiar +to Henry’s subjects at home and his compeers abroad; if the two bodies +could weigh matters together, discuss all things together—could together +raise the dead and summon the living—nevertheless in the end two voices +would speak—a sixteenth century voice and a nineteenth.</p> + +<p>The older would say in effect: “We took our King to be not only a striking +personality; not only an expert in all bodily exercises and mental +accomplishments; we knew him to be much more—to be industrious, pious, +sincere, courageous, and accessible. We believed him to be keen in vision, +wise in judgment, prompt and sagacious in action. We looked round on our +neighbours and their rulers, and we saw reason to esteem ourselves the +most prosperous of peoples and our King the first, by a long way the +first, of his fellow Kings. Your own records prove that long years after +Henry’s death, in all time of trouble the people longed for Henry’s good +sense and cried out for Henry’s good laws. He was a sacrilegious +miscreant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> you say; if it were so the nation was a nation of sacrilegious +miscreants, for he merely obeyed the will of the people and carried out a +policy which had been called for and discussed and contrived and, in part, +carried out long before our Henry’s time. Upwards of a century before, the +assembled knights of the shire had more than once proposed to take the +property of the Church (much of it gained by sinister methods) and hand it +over for military purposes. The spirit of the religious houses had for +some time jarred on the awakening spirit of a thinking people. Their very +existence cast a slur on a high and growing ideal of domestic life. Those +ancient houses detested and strove to keep down the knowledge which an +aroused people then, as never before, passionately desired to gain.”</p> + +<p>“You say he was a ‘monster of lust.’ Lust is not a new sin: our generation +knew it as well as yours; detected it as keenly as yours; hated it almost +as heartily. But consider: No king anywhere has been, in his own time, so +esteemed, so trusted, nay even so loved and reverenced as our king. Should +we have loved, trusted, and reverenced a ‘monster of lust’? If you examine +carefully the times before ours and the times since, you will find that +monsters of lust, crowned or uncrowned, do not act as Henry acted. The +Court, it is true, was not pure, but it was the least voluptuous Court +then existing, and Henry was the least voluptuous man in it. While still +in his teens the widow of an elder brother, a woman much older than he, +and who was also old for her years, was married to him on grounds of state +policy. Not Henry only, but wise and learned men, Luther and Melancthon +among others, came to believe that the marriage was not legal. Henry +himself, indeed, came to believe that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> God’s curse was on it—in our time +we fervently believed in God’s curse. A boy with promise of life and +health was the one eager prayer of the people. But boy after boy died and +of four boys not one survived. If one of Catharine’s boys had lived: nay +more, if Ann Boleyn had been other than a scheming and faithless woman; or +if, later, Jane Seymour had safely brought forth her son (and perhaps +other sons), Henry would assuredly never have married six wives. You say +he should have seen beforehand the disparity of years, the illegality, the +incest—should have seen even the yet unfallen curse: in our time boys of +eighteen did not see so clearly all these things.” “Alas,” the juror might +have added, “marriage and death are the two supreme incidents in man’s +life: but marriage comes before experience and judgment—these are absent +when they are most needed; experience and judgment attend on death when +they are needless.” “Bear in mind, moreover,” resumes the older voice, +“that in our time the marriage laws were obscure, perplexing, and +unsettled. High ideals of marriage did not exist. The first nobleman in +our Court was the Earl of Suffolk who twice committed bigamy and was +divorced three times; his first wife was his aunt, and his last his +daughter-in-law. Papal relaxations and papal permissions were cheap and +common—they permitted every sort of sexual union and every sort of +separation. Canon law and the curious sexual relationships of +ecclesiastics, high and low, shed no light but rather darkness on the +matter. The Pope, it is true, hesitated to grant Henry’s divorce, but not, +as the whole world knew, on moral or religious grounds: at heart he +approved the divorce and rebuked Wolsey for not settling the matter +offhand in England. All the papal envoys urged the unhappy Catharine to +retire into a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> religious house; but Catharine insisted that God had called +her to her position”—forgetting, we may interpose, that if He called her +to it He also in effect deposed her from it. God called her daughter Mary, +so Mary believed, to burn Protestants; God called Elizabeth, so Elizabeth +exclaimed (‘it was marvellous in her eyes’), to harass Romanists.</p> + +<p>“But the one paramount circumstance which weighed with us, and we remember +a thousand circumstances while you remember the ‘six wives’ only, was the +question of succession. If succession was the one question which more than +all others agitated your fathers in Anne’s time, try to imagine what it +was to us. You, after generations of order, peace and security—you +utterly fail to understand our position. We had barely come out of a +lawless cruel time—a time born of the ferocity and hate of conflicting +dynasties. Fathers still lived to tell us how they ate blood, and drank +blood, and breathed blood. They and we were weary of blood, and our two +Henrys (priceless Henrys to us,) had just taken its taste out of our +mouths. No queen, be it well noted, had ruled over us either in peaceful +or in stormy times; we believed with our whole souls, rightly or wrongly, +that no queen could possibly preserve us from destruction and ruin. It was +our importunity mainly—make no mistake on this point,—which drove our +king, whenever he was wifeless, to take another wife. His three years of +widowhood after Jane Seymour’s death was our gravest anxiety.”</p> + +<p>The newer voice replies: “You were a foolish and purblind generation. The +simplicity of your Henry’s subjects, and the servility of his parliament +have become a bye-word. It is true your king, although less capable than +you suppose, was not without certain gifts—their misuse only adds to his +infamy. It is true also that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> had been carefully educated,—his father +was to be thanked for that. It would seem, moreover, that quite early in +life he was not without some attractiveness in person and manners, but you +forget that bodily grossness and mental irritability soon made him a +repulsive object. An eminent Englishman of our century says he was a big, +burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double-chinned and swinish-looking +fellow, and that indeed so bad a character could never have been veiled +under a prepossessing appearance. Your King was vain, ostentatious, and +extravagant. With measured words we declare that his hypocrisy, cruelty, +sacrilege, selfishness and lust, were all unbounded. He was above all an +unrivalled master of mean excuses: did he wish to humble and oppress the +clergy—they had violated the statute of premunire. Did his voluptuous eye +fall on a dashing young maid of honour—he suddenly discovered that he was +living in incest, and that his marriage was under God’s curse. Did the +Pope hesitate to grant him a divorce—he began to see that the proper head +of the English Church was the English king. Was his exchequer empty—he +was convinced that the inmates of the wealthy religious houses led the +lives and deserved the fate of certain cities once destroyed by fire and +brimstone. Did a defiant Pole carry his head out of Harry’s reach—it was +found that Pole’s mother, Lady Salisbury, was the centre of Yorkist +intrigue, and that the mother’s head could be lopped off in place of the +son’s.”</p> + +<p>The two voices it is clear have much to say for themselves. It is equally +clear that the two groups of jurymen will not agree on their verdict.</p> + +<p>It is commonly held and as a rule on good grounds, that the judgment of +immediate friends and neighbours is less just than the opinion of +foreigners and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> posterity. This is so when foreigners and posterity are +agreed, and are free from the tumult, and passion, and personal bias of +time and place. It is not so in Henry’s case. Curiously enough, foreign +observers, scholars, envoys, travellers, agree with—nay, outrun Henry’s +subjects in their praise of Henry. Curiously too the tumult and passion +touching Henry’s matrimonial affairs—touching all his affairs +indeed,—have grown rather than diminished with the progress of time. +Epochs, like men, have not the gift of seeing themselves as others see +them. Unnumbered Frenchmen ate and drank, and made merry, and bought and +sold; married their children and buried their parents, not knowing that +France was giving a shock to all mankind for all time to come. The +assassins of St. Bartholomew believed that in future a united Christendom +would bless them for performing a pious and uniting deed. We see all at +once the bare and startling fact of six wives. Henry’s subjects saw and +became familiar with a slow succession of marriages, each of which had its +special cloud of vital yet confusing circumstance. So too the Reformation +has its different phases. In the sixteenth century it was looked on as a +serious quarrel, no doubt, but no one dreamed it was anything more. Then +each side thought the other side would shortly come to its senses and all +would be well; no one dreamt of two permanently hostile camps and lasting +combat. If personal hate and actual bloodshed have passed away, and at the +present moment the combat shews signs of still diminishing bitterness, it +is because a new and mysterious atmosphere is slowly creeping over +both—slowly benumbing both the armies.</p> + +<p>An attempt must be made here to sketch Henry’s character with as much +impartiality as is possible. But no impartial sketch will please either +his older friends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> or his newer enemies. Although Henry came to the throne +a mere boy, he was a precocious boy. In the precocious the several stages +of life succeed each other more quickly than in others, and probably they +themselves do not wear so well. When Henry was twenty-five he was little +less wise and capable than he was at thirty-five or forty-five. At forty +he was probably wiser than he was at fifty. The young king’s presence was +striking; he had a fresh rosy complexion, and an auburn though scanty +beard. His very limbs, exclaims one foreign admirer, “glowed with warm +pink” through his delicately woven tennis costume. He was handsome in +feature; large and imposing in figure; open and frank in manners; strong, +active, and skilled in all bodily exercises. He was an admirer of all the +arts, and himself an expert in many of them. Henry had indeed all the +qualities, whatever their worth may be, which make a favourite with the +multitude. Those qualities, no matter what change time brought to them, +preserved his popularity to the last.</p> + +<p>Henry was neither a genius nor a hero; but they who deny that he was a +singularly able man will probably misread his character; misread his +ideals, his conduct, and his various attitudes. Henry’s education was +thorough and his learning extensive. His habit of mind tended perhaps +rather to activity and versatility and obedience to old authority than to +intensity or depth or independence. His father, who looked more favourably +on churchmen and lawyers than on noblemen, destined his second son for the +Church. At that time theology, scholastic theology—for Colet and Erasmus +and More had not then done their work—was the acutest mental discipline +known as well as the highest accomplishment. For when the “new learning” +reached this country it found theology the leading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> study, and therefore +it roused theology; in Italy on the other hand it found the arts the +predominant study, and there it roused the arts. Henry would doubtless +have made a successful bishop and escaped thereby much domestic turmoil; +but, on the whole, he was probably better fitted to be a King; while his +quiet, contemplative, and kindly father would at any rate have found life +pleasanter in lawn sleeves than he found it on a throne.</p> + +<p>It would be well if men and women were to write down in two columns with +all possible honesty the good and the evil items in the characters (not +forgetting their own) which interest them. The exercise itself would +probably call forth serviceable qualities, and would frequently bring to +light unexpected results. Probably in this process good characters would +lose something and the bad would gain. From such an ordeal Henry VIII. +would come out a sad figure, though not quite so sad as is popularly +considered.</p> + +<p>It is not proposed in this sketch of character to separate, if indeed +separation is possible, the good qualities which are held to be more or +less inborn from those which seem to be attainable by efforts of the will. +Freedom of the will must of course be left in its native darkness. Neither +can the attempt be made to estimate, even if such estimate were possible, +how much the individual makes of his own character and how much is made +for him. Some features of character, again, are neither good nor evil, or +are good or evil only when they are excessive or deficient or unsuitable +to time and place. Love of pageantry is one of these; love of pleasure +another; so, too, are the leanings to conservation or to innovation.</p> + +<p>In thought and feeling and action Henry was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> undoubtedly conservative. His +conservatism was modified by his self-will and self-confidence, but it +assuredly ranked with the leading features of his character—with his +piety his egotism and his love of popularity. To shine in well-worn paths +was his chief enjoyment: not to shine in these paths, or to get out of +them, or to get in advance of them, or to lag behind, was his greatest +dread. The innovator may or may not be pious, but conservatism naturally +leans to piety, and Henry’s piety, if not deep or passionate, was at any +rate copious and sincere. Henry, it has been said, was not a hero, not a +genius, neither was he a saint. But if his ideals were not high, and if +his conduct was not unstained, his religious beliefs were unquestioning +and his religious observances numerous and stringent.</p> + +<p>The fiercer the light which beat upon his throne, the better pleased was +Henry. He had many phases of character and many gifts, and he delighted in +displaying his phases and in exercising his gifts. The use and place of +ceremony and spectacle are still matters of debate; but modern feeling +tends more and more to hand them over to children, May-day sweeps, and +Lord-mayors. In Henry’s reign the newer learning and newer thought had it +is true done but little to undermine the love of gewgaws and glitter, but +Henry’s devotion to them, even for his time, was so childish that it must +be written down in his darker column.</p> + +<p>We may turn now to the less debatable items in Henry’s character, and say +which shall go into the black list and which into the white. We are all +too prone perhaps to give but one column to the men we approve, and one +only to the men we condemn. It is imperative in the estimation of +character that there be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> “intellect enough,” as a great writer expresses +it, to judge and material enough on which to pronounce judgment. If we +bring the “sufficient intellect,” especially one that is fair by habit and +effort, to the selection of large facts—for facts have many sizes and +ranks, large and small, pompous and retiring—and strip from these the +smaller confusing facts, strip off too, personal witcheries and deft +subtleties—then we shall see that all men (and all movements) have two +columns. The ‘monster’ Henry had two. In his good column we cannot refuse +to put down unflagging industry—no Englishman worked harder—a genuine +love of knowledge, a deep sense of the value of education, and devotion to +all the arts both useful and elevating—the art of ship-building +practically began with him. His courage, his sincerity, his sense of duty, +his frequent generosity, his placability (with certain striking +exceptions) were all beyond question. His desire for the welfare of his +people, although tempered by an unduly eager desire for their good +opinion, was surely an item on the good side. The good column is but +fairly good; the black list is, alas, very black. Henry was fitful, +capricious, petulant, censorious. His fitfulness and petulance go far to +explain his acts of occasional implacability. Failing health and premature +age explain in some degree the extreme irritability and absence of control +which characterised his later years. In his best years his love of +pleasure, or rather his love of change and excitement, his ostentation, +and his extravagance exceeded all reasonable limits. Ostentation and love +of show are rarely found apart from vanity, and Henry’s vanity was +colossal. Vain men are not proud, and Henry had certainly not the pride +which checks the growth of many follies. A proud man is too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> proud to be +vain or undignified or mean or deceitful, and Henry was all these. Pride +and dignity usually run together; while, on the other hand, vanity and +self-importance keep each other company as a rule. Henry lacked dignity +when he competed with his courtiers for the smiles of Ann Boleyn in her +early Court days; he lacked it when he searched Campeggio’s unsavoury +carpet-bag. He seemed pleased rather than otherwise that his petty gossip +should be talked of under every roof in Europe. It is true that in this +direction Catharine descended to a still lower level of bed-room scandal; +but her nature, never a high one, was deteriorated by a grievous +unhappiness and by that incessant brooding which sooner or later tumbles +the loftiest nature into the dust.</p> + +<p>Henry’s two striking failings—his two insanities—were a huge +self-importance and an unquenchable thirst for notoriety and applause. I +have said ‘insanities’ designedly, for they were not passions—they were +diseases. The popular “modern voice” would probably not regard these as at +all grave defects when compared with others so much worse. This voice +indeed, we well know, declares him to have been the embodiment of the +worst human qualities—of gross selfishness, of gross cruelty, and of +gross lust. These charges are not groundless, but if we could believe them +with all the fulness and the vehemence with which they are made, we must +then marvel that his subjects trusted him, revered him, called (they and +their children) for his good sense and his good laws; we can but marvel +indeed that with one voice of execration they did not fell him lifeless to +the ground. He was unguarded and within reach. If the charges against +Henry come near to the truth, Nero was the better character of the two. +Nero<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> knew not what he did; he was beyond question a lunatic and one of a +family of lunatics. Henry’s enormities were the enormities of a fairly +sane and responsible man.</p> + +<p>In order to read Henry’s character more correctly, if that be possible, +than it is read by the “two voices,” more light is needed. Let us see what +an examination of Henry’s bodily organisation, and especially of his +parentage, will do for us. In this light—if it be light, and attainable +light—it will be well to examine afresh (at the risk of some repetition) +the grave charges which are so constantly and so confidently laid at his +door and see what of vindication or modification or damning confirmation +may follow. Before looking specially at Henry’s organisation and +inheritance, I purpose devoting a short chapter to a general view of the +principles which can give such an examination any value. It will be for +the most part a brief statement of views which I have already put forward +in my little work on character as seen in body and parentage.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE RELATION OF BODY AND PARENTAGE TO CHARACTER.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE II.</span></p> + +<p>It is unwise to turn aside from the investigation of any body of truths +because it can only be partial in its methods or incomplete in its +results. We do this however in the study of the science of character. It +is true that past efforts have given but little result—little result +because they ignored and avowedly ignored the connection which is coming +to be more and more clearly seen to exist between character on the one +hand and bodily organisation and proclivity, and especially the +organisation and proclivity of the nervous system, on the other hand. +Those who ignore the bearings of organisation and inheritance on character +are, for the most part, those who prefer that “truth should be on their +side rather than that they should be on the side of truth.”</p> + +<p>It is contended here that much serviceable knowledge may be obtained by +the careful investigation, in given individuals, of <i>bodily</i> +characteristics, and the union of these with <i>mental</i> and <i>moral</i> +characteristics. The relationship of these combined features of body and +mind to parentage, near and remote, and on both sides, should be traced as +far back as possible. The greater the number of individuals brought under +examination, the more exact and extensive will be the resulting knowledge.</p> + +<p>Very partial methods of classifying character are of daily utility. We +say, for example, speaking of the muscular system only, that men are +strong or weak.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> But this simple truth or classification has various +notable bearings. Both the strong and the weak may be dextrous, or both +may be clumsy; both may be slow, or both may be quick; but they will be +dextrous or clumsy, slow or quick, in different ways and degrees. So, +going higher than mere bodily organisation, we may say that some men are +bold and resolute while others are timid and irresolute; some again are +parsimonious and others prodigal. Now these may possibly be all +intelligent or all stupid, all good or all bad; but, nevertheless, +boldness and timidity, parsimony and generosity, modify other phases of +character in various ways. The irresolute man, for example, cannot be very +wise, or the penurious man truly good. It must always be remembered in +every sort of classification of bodily or of mental characteristics, that +the lines of division are not sharply defined. All classes merge into each +other by imperceptible degrees.</p> + +<p>One of the most, perhaps the most, fundamental and important +classification of men and women is that which puts them into two divisions +or two temperaments, the active, or tending to be active, on the one hand, +and the reflective, or tending to be reflective, on the other. To many +students of character this is not anew suggestion, but much more is +contended for here. It is contended that the more active temperament is +alert, practical, quick, conspicuous, and—a very notable +circumstance—less impassioned; the more reflective temperament is less +active, less practical, or perhaps even dreamy, secluded, and—also a very +notable circumstance—more impassioned. It is not so much that men of +action always desire to be seen, or that men of thought desire to be +hidden; action naturally brings men to the front; contemplation as +naturally hides<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> them; when active men differ, the difference carries +itself to the housetops; when thinking men differ, they fight in the +closet and by quieter methods. Busy men, moreover, are given to detail, +and detail fills the eye and ear; men of reflection deal more with +principles, and these lie beyond the range of ordinary vision.</p> + +<p>The proposition which I here put forward, based on many years of +observation and study, is fundamental, and affects, more or less, a wide +range of character in every individual. The proposition is that in the +active temperament the intellectual faculties are disproportionately +strong—the passions are feebler and lag behind; in the reflective +temperament the passions are the stronger in proportion to the mental +powers. Character is dominated more by the intellect in one case, more by +the emotions in the other. In all sane and healthful characters (and only +these are considered here) the intellectual and emotional elements are +both distinctly present. The most active men think; the most reflective +men act. But in many men and women the intellect takes an unduly large +share in the fashioning of life; these are called here the “less +impassioned,” the “unimpassioned,” or for the sake of brevity, “the +passionless.” In many others the feelings or emotions play a stronger +part; these are the “more impassioned” or the “passionate.”</p> + +<p>Character is not made of of miscellaneous fragments, of thought and +feeling, of volition and action. Its elements are more or less homogeneous +and run in uniform groups. The less impassioned, or passionless, for +example, are apt to be changeable and uncertain; they are active, ready, +alert; they are quick to comprehend, to decide, to act; they are usually +self-confident and sometimes singularly self-important. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> often seek +for applause but they are sparing in their approval and in their praise of +others. When the mental endowment is high, and the training and +environment favourable, the unimpassioned temperament furnishes some of +our finest characters. In this class are found great statesmen and great +leaders. A man’s <i>public</i> position is probably determined more by +intellectual power than by depth of feeling. Now and then, especially when +the mental gifts are slight, the less pleasing elements predominate: love +of change may become mere fitfulness; activity may become bustle; sparing +approval may turn to habitual detraction and actual censoriousness. Love +of approbation may degenerate into a mania for notoriety at any cost; +self-importance may bring about a reckless disregard of the well-being of +others. Fortunately the outward seeming of the passionless temperament is +often worse than the reality, and querulous speech is often combined with +generous action. Frequently, too, where there is ineradicable caprice +there is no neglect of duty.</p> + +<p>The elements of character which, in various ways and degrees, cluster +together in the more impassioned or passionate temperament are very +different in their nature. In this temperament we find repose or even +gentleness, quiet reflection, tenacity of purpose. The feelings—love, or +hate, or joy, or grief, or anger, or jealousy—are more or less deep and +enduring. In this class also there are fine characters, especially (as in +the unimpassioned) when the mental gifts are high and the training +refined. In this class too are found perhaps the worst characters which +degrade the human race. In all save the rarest characters, the customary +tranquillity may be broken by sullen cloud or actual storm. In the less +capable and less elevated, devotion may become fanaticism, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> tenacity +may become blind prejudice, or sheer obstinacy. In this temperament too, +in its lower grades, we meet too often—not all together perhaps, +certainly not all in equal degree—with indolence, sensuality, +inconstancy; or morbid brooding, implacability, and even cruelty.</p> + +<p>I contend then that certain features of character, it may be in very +varying degrees of intensity, belong to the more active and passionless +temperament, and certain other features attend on the more reflective and +impassioned temperament. If it can be shown that there are two marked +groups of elements in character—the more impassioned group and the less +impassioned group—and that each group may be inferred to exist if but one +or two of its characteristic elements are clearly seen, why even then much +would be gained in the interpretation of history and of daily life. But I +contend for much more than this; the two temperaments have each their +characteristic bodily signs; the more marked the temperament, the more +striking and the more easily read are the bodily signs. In the +intermediate temperament—a frequent and perhaps the happiest +temperament—the bodily signs are also intermediate. The bodily +characteristics run in groups also, as well as the mental. The nervous +system of each temperament is enclosed in its own special organisation and +framework. In my work on “character as seen in body and parentage,” I +treat this topic with some fulness, and what is stated there need not be +repeated now. It may be noted, however, that in the two temperaments there +are peculiarities of the skin—clearness or pigmentation; of the +hair—feebleness or sparseness, or closeness and vigour of growth; of the +configuration of the skeleton and consequent pose of the figure.</p> + +<p>If the conclusions here put forward are true, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> give a key which opens +up much character to us. They touch, as I have already said, a great range +of character in every individual, but they make no pretension to be a +system. They have only an indirect bearing on many phases of character; +for in both the active and reflective temperaments there may be found, for +example, either wisdom or folly, courage or cowardice, refinement or +coarseness.</p> + +<p>It must always be remembered, too, that besides the more marked types of +character, whether bodily or mental, there are numberless intervening +gradations. When the temperaments, moreover, are distinctly marked, the +ordinary concurrent elements may exist in very unequal degrees and be +combined in very various ways. One or two qualities may perhaps absorb the +sum-total of nerve force. In the passionless man or woman extreme activity +may repress the tendency to disapprove; immense self-importance may impede +action. In the impassioned individual, inordinate love or hate may +enfeeble thought; deep and persistent thought may dwarf the affections.</p> + +<p>As I have said elsewhere: ‘For the ordinary purposes of life, especially +of domestic and social life, the intervening types of character (combining +thought and action more equally, though probably each in somewhat less +degree) produce perhaps the most useful and the happiest results. But the +progress of the world at large is mainly due to the combined efforts of +the more extreme types—the supremely reflective and impassioned and the +supremely active and unimpassioned. Both are needed. If we had men of +action only, we should march straight into chaos; if we had men of thought +only, we should drift into night and sleep!’</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h2>HENRY’S FAMILY PROCLIVITIES.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE III.</span></p> + +<p>If there is any truth in the views put forward in the foregoing chapter, +and if history has at all faithfully portrayed a character concerning +which it has had, at any rate, much to say, it is clear that Henry must be +placed in the less impassioned class of human beings. When I first called +attention to the three sorts of character—and the three groups of +characteristics—the active, practical, and more or less passionless on +the one hand; the less active, reflective, and impassioned on the other; +and, thirdly, the intermediate class, neither Henry nor his period was in +my mind. But when, at a later time (and for purposes other than the +special study of character), I came to review the Reformation with its +ideas, its men, its incidents, I saw at once, to my surprise, that Henry’s +life was a busy, active, conspicuous, passionless life. He might have sat +for the portrait I had previously drawn. Markedly unimpassioned men tend +to be fitful, petulant, censorious, self-important, self-willed, and eager +for popularity—so tended Henry. The unimpassioned are frequently sincere, +conscientious, pious, and conservative—Henry was all these. They often +have, especially when capable and favourably encompassed, a high sense of +duty and a strong desire to promote the well-being of those around +them—these qualities were conspicuous in Henry’s character.</p> + +<p>How much of inherited organisation, how much of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> circumstance, how much of +self-effort go to the making of character is a problem the solution of +which is yet seemingly far off. Mirabeau, with fine perception, declared +that a boy’s education should begin, twenty years before he is born, with +his mother. Unquestionably before a man is born the plan of his character +is drawn, its foundations are laid, and its building is foreshadowed. Can +he, later, close a door here or open a window there? Can he enlarge this +chamber or contract that? He believes he can, and is the happier in the +belief; but in actual life we do not find that it is given to one man to +say, I will be active, I will be on the spot, I will direct here and +rebuke there; nor to another man to say, I will give myself up to thought, +to dreams, to seclusion. Henry never said, with unconscious impulse or +with conscious words, “I will be this, or I will not be that.”</p> + +<p>Henry VIII. took altogether after his mother’s side, and she, again, took +after her father. Henry was, in fact, his grandfather Edward IV. over +again. He had, however, a larger capacity than his mother’s father, and he +lived in a better epoch. Edward, it was said in his time, was the +handsomest and most accomplished man in Europe. Henry was spoken of in +similar words by his compeers both at home and abroad. Both were large in +frame, striking in contour, rose-pink in complexion—then, as now, the +popular ideal of manly perfection—and both became exceedingly corpulent +in their later years. Both were active, courteous, affable, accessible; +both busy, conspicuous, vain, fond of pleasure, and given to display. Both +were unquestionably brave; but they were also (both of them) fickle, +capricious, suspicious, and more or less cruel. Both put self in the +foremost place; but Edward’s selfishness drifted rather to +self-indulgence, while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Henry’s took the form of self-importance. Extreme +self-importance is usually based on high capacity, and Edward’s capacity +did not lift him out of the region of pomposity and frequent indiscretion.</p> + +<p>Edward IV. was nevertheless an able man although less able than Henry. +Like Henry he belonged to the unimpassioned class; he was without either +deeply good or deeply evil passion, but probably he had somewhat stronger +emotions than his grandson. In other words Henry had more of intellect and +less of passion than his grandfather. Edward’s early and secret marriage +was no proof of passion. Early marriages are not the monopoly of any +temperament; sometimes they are the product of the mere caprice, or the +self-will and the feeble restraint of the passionless, and sometimes the +product of the raw and immature judgment of the passionate. Edward +deserves our pity, for he had everything against him; he had no models, no +ideals, no education, no training. The occupation of princes at that time +brought good neither to themselves nor anyone else. They went up and down +the country to slay and be slain; to take down from high places the +severed heads of one worthless dynasty and put up the heads of another +dynasty equally worthless.</p> + +<p>The eighth Henry derived nothing from his father—the seventh,—nothing of +good, nothing of evil. One of the most curious errors of a purely literary +judgment on men and families is seen in the use of the epithet “Tudor.” We +hear for example of the “Tudor” blood shewing itself in one, of the +“Tudor” spirit flashing out in another. Whether Henry VII. was a Tudor or +not we may not now stop to inquire. Henry VIII. we have seen took wholly +after his Yorkist mother. Of Henry’s children, Mary was a repetition of +her dark dwarfish Spanish mother; the poor lad Edward,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> whether a Seymour +or a Yorkist, was certainly not a Tudor. The big comely pink Elizabeth was +her father in petticoats—her father in body, her father in mind. Henry +VIII. in fact while Tudor in name was Lancastrian in dynasty, and Yorkist +in blood. No two kings, no two men indeed could well have been more +unlike, bodily, mentally, and morally, than the two Henrys—father and +son. The eighth was communicative, confiding, open, frank; the seventh was +silent, reserved, mysterious. The son was active, busy, practical, +conspicuous; the father, although not indolent, and not unpractical, was +nevertheless quiet, dreamy, reflective, self-restrained, and unobtrusive. +One was prodigal, martial, popular; the other was prudent, peaceful, +steadfast, and unpopular. He is said indeed to have been parsimonious, but +the least sympathetic of his historians confess that he was generous in +his rewards for service, that his charities were numerous, and that his +state ceremonies were marked by fitting splendour. Henry VIII. changed (or +destroyed) his ministers, his bishops, his wives, and his measures also, +many times. Henry VII. kept his wife—perverse and mischievous as she +was,—till she died; kept his ministers and bishops till they died; kept +his policy and his peace till he died himself.</p> + +<p>Henry VII. is noteworthy mainly for being but little noticed. The scribe +of whatever time sees around him only that which is conspicuous and +exceptional and often for the most part foolish, and therefore the +documents of this Henry’s reign are but few in number. The occupants of +high places who are careful and prudent are rarely popular. His +unpopularity was moreover helped on in various ways. Dynastic policy +thrust upon him a wife of the busy unimpassioned temperament—a woman in +whom deficient emotion and sympathy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> and affection were not compensated by +any high qualities; a woman who was restless, mischievous, vain, +intriguing, and fond of influence. Elizabeth of York had all the bad +qualities of her father and her son and had very few of their good ones. A +King Henry in feminine disguise without his virtues was not likely to love +or be loved. Domestic sourness is probably a not infrequent cause of +taciturnity and mystery and seclusion in the characters of both men and +women. It was well that Henry was neither angry nor morose. It says much +for him moreover that while he was the object of ceaseless intrigue and +hostility and rancour he yet never gave way to cynicism or revenge or +cruelty.</p> + +<p>With a tolerably happy marriage, an assenting and a helpful nobility, and +an unassailed throne, it is difficult to put a limit to the good which +Henry VII. might have done and which it lay in him to do. As it was he +smoothed the way for enterprise and discovery, for the printing press and +the new learning. He was the first of English monarchs who befriended +education—using the word in its modern sense. It is curious that the +acutest changes in our history—the death of a decrepit mediævalism, the +birth of the young giant modernism—happened in our so-called sleepiest +reign. Surely the “quiet” father had a smaller share of popular applause +than he deserved, and as surely the “dashing” son a much larger share. But +in all periods, old and new, popularity should give us pause: yesterday, +for example, inquisitors were knelt to, hailed with acclamation and pelted +with flowers, and heretics were spat upon, hissed at, and burnt, but +to-day’s flowers are for the heretics and the execrations are for the +inquisitors.</p> + +<p>Thus then in all characteristics—intellectual, moral and bodily—Henry +VIII. must be placed in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> unimpassioned class. It may be noted too in +passing that all the portraits of Henry show us a feeble growth of hair on +the face and signs of a convex back—convex vertically and convex +transversely. We do not see the back it is true, but we see both the head +and the shoulders carried forwards and the chin held down towards the +chest—held indeed so far downward that the neck seems greatly shortened. +It is interesting to observe the pose of the head and neck and shoulders +in the portraits of noted personages. The forward head and shoulders, the +downward chin (the products of a certain spinal configuration) are seen in +undoubtedly different characters but characters which nevertheless have +much in common: they are seen in all the portraits of Napoleon I. and, +although not quite so markedly, in those of our own General Gordon. +Napoleon and Gordon were unlike in many ways, and the gigantic +self-importance and self-seeking of Napoleon were absent in the simpler +and finer character. In other ways they were much alike. Both were brave +active busy men; but both were fitful, petulant, censorius, difficult to +please, and—which is very characteristic—both although changeable were +nevertheless self-willed and self-confident. Both were devoid of the +deeper passions.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE WIVES QUESTION.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE IV.</span></p> + +<p>It is affirmed that no one save a monster of lust would marry six wives—a +monster of lust being of course a man of over-mastering passion. It might +be asked, in passing, seeing that six wives is the sign of a perfect +“monster” if three wives make a semi-monster? Pompey had five wives, was +he five-sixths of a monster. To be serious however in this wife question, +it will probably never be possible to say with exactness how much in +Henry’s conduct was due to religious scruples; how much to the urgent +importunity (state-born importunity) of advisers and subjects; how much to +the then existing confusion of the marriage laws; how much to misfortune +and coincidence; how much to folly and caprice; how much to colossal +self-importance, and how much to “unbounded license.”</p> + +<p>History broadly hints that great delusions, like great revolutions, may +overcome—especially if the overcoming be not too sudden—both peoples and +persons without their special wonder. In such delusions and such +revolutions the actors and the victims are alike often unconscious actors +and unconscious victims. Neither Henry nor his people dreamt that the +great marriage question of the sixteenth century would excite the ridicule +of all succeeding centuries. Luther did not imagine that his efforts would +help to divide religious Europe into two permanently hostile camps. +Robespierre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> did not suspect that his name would live as an enduring +synonym for blood. But to marry six wives, solely on licentious grounds, +is a proceeding so striking and so uncomplicated that no delusion could +possibly come over the performer and certainly not over a watchful people. +Yet something akin to delusion there certainly was; its causes however +were several and complex, and lust was the least potent of them. The +statement may seem strange, but there was little of desire in Henry’s +composition. A monster he possibly was of some sort of folly; but strange +as it may seem he was a monster of folly precisely because he was the +opposite of a monster of passion. Unhappily unbounded lust is now and then +a feature of the impassioned temperament. It is never seen however in the +less impassioned, and Henry was one of the less impassioned. The want of +dignity is itself a striking feature in the character of passionless and +active men, and want of dignity was the one conspicuous defect in Henry’s +conduct in his marriage affairs. Perhaps too, dignity—personal or +national—is, like quietness and like kindliness, among the later growths +of civilisation.</p> + +<p>No incident or series of incidents illustrative of character in any of its +phases, no matter how striking the incidents, or how strong the character +or phase of character, have ever happened once only. If libertinism, for +example, had ever shown itself in the selection and destruction of +numerous wives, history would assuredly give information pertinent +thereto: it gives none. Nothing happens once only. Even the French +Revolution, so frequently regarded as a unique event, was only one of +several examples of the inherent and peculiar cruelty of the French +celt.<small><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></small> The massacre of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>Bartholomew was more revolting in its numbers +and in its character. The massacre of the commune, French military +massacres and various massacres in French history deprive the “great” +Revolution of its exceptional character. But to return. There were +licentious kings and princes before Henry, granting he was licentious, and +there have been notably licentious kings and princes since: their methods +are well known and they were wholly unlike his.</p> + +<p>Certain incidents concerning Henry’s marriages are of great physiological +interest: a fat, bustling, restless, fitful, wilful man approaching +mid-life—a man brim full of activity but deficient in feeling, waited +twenty years before the idea of divorce was seriously entertained; and +several more years of Papal shiftiness were endured, not without petulance +enough, but seemingly without storm or whirlwind. When Jane Seymour died, +three years of single life followed. It is true the three years were not +without marriage projects, but they were entirely state projects, and were +in no way voluptuous overtures. The marriage with Anne of Cleves was a +purely state marriage, and remained, so historians tell us, a merely +nominal and ceremonial marriage during the time the King and the German +princess occupied the same bed—a circumstance not at all indicative of +“monstrous” passion. The very unfaithfulness of Anne Boleyn and Catherine +Howard is not without its significance, for the proceedings of our Divorce +Court show that as a rule (a rule it is true not without exceptions) we do +not find the wives of lustful men to be unfaithful. In the case of a Burns +or a Byron or a King David it is not the wife who is led astray; it is the +wives of the Henrys and the Arthurs, strikingly dissimilar as they were in +so many respects, who are led into temptation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>No <i>sane</i> man is the embodiment of a single passion. Save in the wards of +a lunatic asylum a simple monster of voluptuousness, or monster of anger, +or monster of hate has no existence; and within those wards such monsters +are undoubted examples of nerve ailment. It is true one (very rarely one +only) passion may unduly predominate—one or more may be fostered and +others may be dwarfed; but as a very general rule the deeper passions run +together. One passion, if unequivocally present, denotes the existence of +other passions, palpable or latent—denotes the existence, in fact, of the +impassioned temperament. Henry VIII., startling as the statement may seem, +had no single, deep, unequivocal passion—no deep love, no profound pity, +no overwhelming grief, no implacable hate, no furious anger. The noisy +petulance of a busy, censorious, irritable man and the fretfulness of an +invalid are frequently misunderstood. On no single occasion did Henry +exhibit overmastering anger. Historians note with evident surprise that he +received the conclusion of the most insulting farce in history—the +Campeggio farce—with composure. When the Bishop of Rochester thrust +himself, unbidden, into the Campeggio Court in order to denounce the king +and the divorce, Henry’s only answer was a long and learned essay on the +degrees of incestuous marriage which the Pope might or might not permit. +When his own chaplains scolded him, in coarse terms, in his own chapel, he +listened, not always without peevishness, but always without anger. +Turning to other emotions, no hint is given of Henry’s grief at the loss +of son after son in his earlier married years. If a husband of even +ordinary affection <i>could</i> ever have felt grief, it would surely show +itself when a young wife and a young mother died in giving birth to a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>long-wished-for son and heir. Not a syllable is said of Henry’s grief at +Jane Seymour’s death; and three weeks after he was intriguing for a +Continental, state, and purely diplomatic marriage. It is true that he +paraded a sort of fussy affection for the young prince Edward—carried him +indeed through the state apartments in his own royal arms; but the less +impassioned temperament is often more openly demonstrative than the +impassioned, especially when the public ear listens and the public eye +watches. Those who caress in public attach as a rule but little meaning to +caresses. If Henry’s affections were small we have seen that his +self-importance was colossal; and the very defections—terrible to some +natures—of Anne Boleyn and of Catherine Howard wounded his importance +much more deeply than they wounded his affections.</p> + +<p>If we limit our attention for a moment to the question of deep feeling, we +cannot but see how unlike Henry was to the impassioned men of history. +Passionate king David, for example, would not have waited seven years +while a commission decided upon his proposed relationship to Bathsheba; +and the cold Henry could not have flung his soul into a fiery psalm. The +impassioned Burns could not have said a last farewell to the mother of his +helpless babe without moistening the dust with his tears, while Henry +could never have understood why many strong men cannot read the second +verse of “John Anderson my Jo” with an unbroken voice.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE LESS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY’S CHARACTER.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE V.</span></p> + +<p>It is well now, after considering the question of Henry’s parentage and +organisation, to look again and a little more closely, at certain +significant features in his character—his caprice, his captiousness, his +love of applause, his self-will, self-confidence, and self-importance. +These elements of character frequently run together in equal or unequal +degrees, and they are extremely characteristic of the more markedly +passionless temperament. But before doing this it is well to look, in a +brief note, at some features of Henry’s character which are found in the +less impassioned and the more impassioned temperaments alike. Both +temperaments, for example, may be cruel or kindly; both may tend to +conservatism or to innovation; pious persons or worldly may be found in +both. But the cruelty or kindliness, the conservatism or innovation, the +piety or worldliness differ in the different temperaments—they differ in +their motives, in their methods, in their aims.</p> + +<p>The cruelty of the unimpassioned man is, for the most part, a reckless +disregard for the happiness or well-being or (in mediæval times +especially) for the lives of those who stand in his way or thwart his +plans or lessen his self-importance. Such cruelty is more wayward +resentful and transitory than deliberative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> or implacable or persistent. +The cruelty of the impassioned man is perhaps the darkest of human +passions. It is the cruelty born of hate—cruelty contrived with +deliberation and watched with glee. Happily it is a kind which lessens +with the growth of civilisation. Often it attends on the strong +convictions of strong natures obeying strong commands—commands which are +always strongest when they are believed to have a supernatural origin; for +belief in supernaturalism is the natural enemy of mercy; it demands +obedience and forbids compassion. Cruelty was at its worst when +supernatural beliefs were strongest; for happily natural reason has grown, +and supernatural belief has dwindled. The unimpassioned and the +impassioned temperaments may alike scale the highest or descend to the +lowest levels of character, although probably the most hateful level of +human degredation is reached by the more impassioned nature. It cannot be +denied that, even for his time, Henry had a certain unmistakable dash of +cruelty in his composition. A grandson of Edward IV., who closely +resembled his grandfather, could not well be free from it. But the cruelty +of Henry, like that of Edward, was cruelty of the passionless type. He +swept aside—swept too often out of existence—those who defied his will +or lessened his importance.</p> + +<p>How much of Henry’s cruelty was due to the resolve to put down opposition, +how much was due to passing resentment and caprice, and how much, if any, +to the delight of inflicting pain, not even Henry’s compeers could easily +have said. His cruelty in keeping the solitary Mary apart from her +solitary mother was singularly persistent in so fickle a man; but even +here weak fear and a weak policy were stronger than cruel feeling. It was +Henry’s way of meeting persistent obstinacy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> It is needless to discuss +the cruelty of the executions on religious grounds during Henry’s reign; +they were the order of the day and were sanctioned by the merciful and the +unmerciful alike. But Henry’s treatment of high personages was a much +deeper stain—deeper than the stain of his matrimonial affairs. People and +parliament earnestly prayed for a royal son and heir, but no serious or +popular prayer was ever offered up for the heads of Fisher or More or Lady +Salisbury. Henry’s cruelty had always practical ends in view. Great +officials who had failed, or who were done with, were officials in the +way, and <i>their</i> heads might be left to the care of those who were at once +their rivals and their enemies. The execution of Lady Salisbury will never +fail to rouse indignation as long as history is history and men are men. +Henry might have learned a noble lesson from his father. Henry VII. put +his own intriguing mother-in-law into a religious house, and the proper +destination of a female Yorkist intriguer—no matter how high or +powerful—was a convent, not a scaffold. In the execution of Elizabeth +Barton meanness was added to cruelty, for the wretched woman confessed her +impostures and exposed the priests who contrived them for her. The cruelty +which shocked Europe most, and has shocked it ever since, was the +execution of Sir Thomas More. More’s approval would have greatly consoled +the King, but More’s approval fell far short of the King’s demands. The +silence of great men does <i>not</i> give consent, and More was silent. More +was, next to Erasmus, the loftiest intellect then living on this planet. +Throughout Europe men were asking what More thought of “the King’s +matter.” More’s head was the only answer. But however indignant we may be, +let us not be unjust; Henry, cruel as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> was, was less cruel than any of +his compeers—royal, imperial, or papal, or other. The cruelty of our +Tudor ruler has always been put under a fierce light; the greater cruelty +of distant rulers we are too prone to disregard. We are too prone also to +forget that the one thing new under the sun in <i>our</i> time is greater +kindliness—kindliness to life, to opinion, to pocket. If fate had put a +crown on Luther’s head, or Calvin’s, or later, on Knox’s, their methods +would have been more stringent than Henry’s. Henry and his Parliament, it +is true, proposed an Act of Parliament “to abolish diversity of opinion in +matters of religion.” But Luther and Calvin and Knox, nay even More +(Erasmus alone stood on a higher level), were each and all confident of +their possession of the <i>one</i> truth and of their infallibility as +interpreters thereof; each and all were ready, had the power been theirs, +to abolish “diversity of religious opinion.”</p> + +<p>There are two kinds of religion, or at any rate two varieties of religious +character—both are sincere—the religion of the active and passionless +and that of the reflective and impassioned. One is a religion of +inheritance, of training, of habit, of early and vivid perception; with +certain surroundings it is inevitable; if shaken off it returns. George +Eliot acutely remarks of one of her notably passionless characters, “His +first opinions remained unchanged, as they always do with those in whom +perception is stronger than thought and emotion.” The other is a religion +(two extremes are spoken of here, but every intermediate gradation exists) +a religion of thought and emotion, of investigation and introspection. It +is marked by deep love of an ideal or real good, and deep hate of what may +also often be called an ideal or real evil. Henry’s religion was of the +first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> sort. It would be deeply interesting to know the sort of religion +of the great names of Henry’s time. We lack however the needful light on +their organisation, parentage, and circumstance. But in all the provinces +of life the men who have imprinted their names on history have been for +the most part active, practical, and unimpassioned men. They, in their +turn, have owed much to the impassioned, thinking, and often unpractical +men whose names history has not troubled itself to preserve.</p> + +<p>And now, in the light shed by organisation and inheritance, we may gain +further information on the more characteristic features of Henry’s +character—his caprice, his captiousness, his uncertainty, and his +peevishness, his resolve never to be hidden or unfelt or forgotten.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE MORE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY’S CHARACTER.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE VI.</span></p> + +<p>Henry was always doing something or undoing something. Whether he was +addressing Parliament, admonishing and instructing subordinates, or +exhorting heretics; whether he was restoring order in Northern England, or +(with much wisdom) introducing order into Wales, or (with much folly) +disorder into Scotland; whether he was writing letters to Irish chieftains +or Scottish councillors, or Northern pilgrims; whether he was defending +the Faith or destroying religious houses; whether he was putting together +six articles to the delight of Catholics, or dropping them in a few weeks +to the exultation of Protestants; whether burning those who denied the +miracle of the Real Presence, or hanging those who denied his headship of +the Church; whether he was changing a Minister, a Bishop, or a wife, his +hands were always full. And in Henry’s case at least—probably in most +cases—Satan found much mischief for busy hands to do.</p> + +<p>The man who is never at rest is usually a fitful man. Constant change, +whether of ministers or of views or of plans, is in itself fitfulness. But +fitfulness is something more than activity: it implies an uncertainty of +thought or conduct which forbids calculation or prediction, and therefore +forbids confidence; it is an inborn proclivity. Happily vigorous reasoning +power<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> often accompanies it and keeps it in check. In poorly endowed +intellects, whether in men or women, fitfulness and its almost constant +associate petulance harass many circles and many hearths.</p> + +<p>It is recorded that when the disgraced Wolsey took his departure from +Court, the King sent after him a hurried messenger with a valuable ring +and comforting words. The incident has excited much perplexity and comment +among historians. What was its meaning? what its object? Probably the +incident had no precise meaning; probably it was merely the involuntary +deed of an irresistible constitutional tendency; possibly, too, there +lurked in the motive which led to it some idea of future change and +exigency. The active, practical, serviceable man sows many seeds and keeps +on sowing them. Time and circumstance mainly decide which seeds shall grow +and which shall not. Caprice is not unfrequently associated with high +faculties. Sometimes it would seem to be due to the gift—not a common +one—of seeing many sides of a question, and of seeing these so vividly +that action is thereby enfeebled or frequently changed. Sometimes it is a +conservative instinct which sees that a given step is too bold and must be +retraced. It certainly is not selfishness: a long-pondered policy is often +dashed to the ground in an instant, or a long-sought friendship is ended +by a moment’s insult. At root caprice is an inborn constitutional bias. +Henry was the first powerful personage who declared that the Papal +authority was Divine—declaring this, indeed, with so much fervour that +the good Catholic More expostulated with him. But Henry was also the first +high personage who threw Papal authority to the winds. It is on record +that Henry would have taken Wolsey into favour again had Wolsey lived. Not +Wolsey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> only but all Henry’s Ministers would have been employed and +dismissed time after time could they but have contrived to keep their +heads on their shoulders. Henry might even have re-married his wives had +they lived long enough. One circumstance only would have lessened their +chances—attractive women were more numerous than experts in statecraft: +for one Wolsey there were a thousand fair women.</p> + +<p>Habitual fitfulness, it has already been noted, is not often found apart +from habitual petulance, and both these qualities were conspicuous in +Henry’s character. There was something almost impish in the spirit which +led him to don gorgeous attire—men had not then got out of barbaric +finery, and women are still in its bondage—on the day of Anne Boleyn’s +bloodshed. Nay more, there was undoubtedly a dash of cruelty in it, as +there was in the acerbity which led him to exclaim that the Pope might +send a Cardinal’s hat to Fisher, but he would take care that Fisher had no +head to put it on. Now and then his whims were simply puerile; it was so +when he signalised some triumph over a Continental potentate by a dolls’ +battle on the Thames. Two galleys, one carrying the Romish and the other +the English decorations, met each other. After due conflict, the royalists +boarded the papal galley and threw figures of the pope and sundry +cardinals into the water—king and court loudly applauding. But again, let +us not forget that those days were more deeply stained than ours with +puerility and cruelty and spite. More, it is true, rose above the +puerility of his time; Erasmus rose above both its cruelty and its +puerility; Henry rose above neither.</p> + +<p>No charge is brought against Henry with more unanimity and vehemence than +that of selfishness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> And the charge is not altogether a baseless one; but +the selfishness which stained Henry’s character is not the selfishness he +is accused of. When Henry is said to have been a monster of selfishness it +is implied that he was a monster of self-indulgence. He was not that—he +was the opposite of that. He was in reality a monster of self-importance, +and extreme personal importance is incompatible with gross personal +indulgence. Self-indulgence is the failing of the impassioned, especially +when the mental gifts are poor; while self-importance is the failing of +the passionless, especially when the mental gifts are rich. Let there be +given three factors, an unimpassioned temperament, a vigorous intellect, +and circumstance favourable to public life—committee life, municipal, +platform, Parliamentary, or pulpit life—and self-importance is rarely +wanting. This price we must sometimes pay for often quite invaluable +service.</p> + +<p>When Henry spoke—it is not infrequently so when the passionless and +highly gifted individual speaks—the one unpardonable sin on the part of +the listener was not to be convinced. A sin of a little less magnitude was +to make a proposal to Henry. It implied that he was unable to cope with +the problems which beset him and beset his time. He could not approve of +what he himself did not originate; at any rate he put the alien proposal +aside for the time—in a little time he <i>might</i> approve of it and it might +then seem to be his own. The temperament which censured a matter yesterday +will often applaud it to-day and put it in action to-morrow. The +unimpassioned are prone to imitation, but they first condemn what they +afterwards imitate. When Cromwell made the grave proposal touching the +headship of the Church, Henry hesitated—nay, was probably shocked—at +first. Yet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> for Henry’s purposes at least, it was Cromwell (and not +Cranmer with his University scheme) who had “caught the right sow by the +ear.”</p> + +<p>Henry had a boundless belief in the importance of the King; but this did +not hinder, nay it helped him to believe in the importance of the people +also—it helped him indeed to seek the more diligently their welfare, +seeing that the more prosperous a people is, the more important is its +King. True he always put himself first and the people second. How few +leaders of men or movements do otherwise. Possibly William III. would have +stepped down from his throne if it had been shown that another in his +place could better curb the ambition of France abroad, or better secure +the mutual toleration of religious parties at home. Possibly, nay +probably, George Washington would have retired could he have seen that the +attainment of American independence was more assured in other hands. Lloyd +Garrison would have gladly retired into private life if another more +quickly than he could have given freedom to the slave. John Bright would +have willingly held his tongue if thereby another tongue could have spoken +more powerfully for the good of his fellow-men. Such men can be counted on +the fingers and Henry is not one of them. Henry would have denied (as +would all his compeers in temperament) that he put himself first. He would +have said; “I desire the people’s good first and above all things;” but he +would have significantly added; “Their good is safest in my hands.”</p> + +<p>It is a moot point in history whether Henry was led by his high officials +or was followed by them. Did he, for example, direct Wolsey or did Wolsey +(as is the common view) in reality lead his King while appearing to follow +him. To me the balance of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> evidence, as well as the natural proclivities +of Henry’s character, favour the view that he thought and willed and acted +for himself. Do we not indeed know too well the fate of those whose +thought and will ran counter to his? No man’s opinion and conduct are +independent of his surroundings and his time; for every man, especially +every monarch, must see much through other eyes and hear much through +other ears. But if other eyes and other ears are numerous enough they will +also be conflicting enough, and will strengthen rather than diminish the +self-confidence and self-importance of the self-confident and +self-important ruler.</p> + +<p>Self-importance, as a rule, is built on a foundation of solid +self-confidence, and Henry’s confidence in himself was broad enough and +deep enough to sustain any conceivable edifice. The Romish church was +then, and had been for a thousand years, the strongest influence in +Europe. It touched every event in men’s bodily lives and decided also the +fate of their immortal souls. Henry nevertheless had no misgiving as to +his fitness to be the spiritual head of the Church in this country, or the +spiritual head of the great globe itself, if the great globe had had one +Church only.</p> + +<p>When I come to speak of the Reformation I shall have to remark that, had +the great European religious movement reached our island in any other +reign than Henry’s, religion would not have been exactly what it now is. +Of all our rulers Henry was the only one who was at the same time willing +enough, educated enough (he had been trained to be an Archbishop), able +enough, and pious enough to be at any rate the <i>first</i> head of a great +Church.</p> + +<p>Henry was so sagacious that he never forgot the superiority of sagacity +over force. He delighted in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> reasoning, teaching, exhorting; and he +believed that while any ruler could command, few could argue and very few +could convince. It is true, alas, that when individuals or bodies were not +convinced if he spoke, he became unreasonably petulant. When Scotland did +not accept a long string of unwise proposals he laid Leith in ashes. When +Ireland did not yield to his wishes, he knocked a castle to atoms with +cannon, and thereby so astonished Ireland, be it noted, that it remained +peaceful and prosperous during the remainder of his reign.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the happiest moments in Henry’s life were those when he presided +over courts of theological inquiry. To confute heresy was his chief +delight; and his vanity was indulged to its utmost when the heretical +Lambert was tried. Clothed in white silk, seated on a throne, surrounded +by peers and bishops and learned doctors, he directed the momentous +matters of this world and the next; he elucidated, expounded, and laid +down the laws of both heaven and earth. It was a high day; one thing only +marred its splendour—he, the first living defender of orthodoxy, had +spoken and heterodoxy remained unconvinced. Heterodoxy must clearly be +left to its just punishment, for bishops, peers, and learned doctors were +astonished at the display of so much eloquence, learning, and piety.</p> + +<p>The physiological student of human nature who is much interested in the +question of martyrdom finds, indeed, that the martyr-burner and the martyr +(of whatever temperament) have much in common. Both believe themselves to +possess assured and indisputable truth; both are infallible; both +self-confident; both are prepared, in the interests of truth, to throw +their neighbours into the fire if circumstance is favourable; both are +willing to be themselves thrown into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> fire if circumstance is adverse. +One day they burn, the next day they are burnt.</p> + +<p>The feature in Henry’s character which as we have seen amounted to mania +was his love of popularity; it was a mania which saved him from many +evils. Even unbridled self-will does little harm if it be an unbridled +self-will to stand well with a progressive people. It has been a matter of +surprise to those who contend that Henry, seeing that he possessed—it is +said usurped—a lion’s power, did not use it with lion-like licence. His +ingrained love of applause is the physiological explanation. Let it be +noted, too, that not everyone who thirsts for popularity succeeds in +obtaining it, for success demands several factors: behind popular applause +there must be action, behind action must be self-confidence, behind +self-confidence must be large capability. Henry had all these. In such a +chain love of applause is the link least likely to be missing. For, +indeed, what is the use of being active, capable, confident and important +in a closet? The crow sings as sweetly as the nightingale if no one is +listening, and importance is no better than insignificance if there is no +one “there to see.”</p> + +<p>We shall gain further and not uninteresting knowledge of Henry’s character +if we look at certain side lights which history throws upon it. We turn +therefore, in another note, to look for a few moments at the men, the +movements, the drift, the institutions of his time, and observe how he +bore himself towards them.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> +<h2>HENRY AND HIS COMPEERS.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE VII.</span></p> + +<p>In Henry’s time, and in every time, the art of judging women has been a +very imperfect one. It is an imperfect art still and, as long as it takes +for granted that women are radically unlike men, so long it will remain +imperfect. But Henry was a good judge of one sex at any rate, for he was +helped by the most capable men then living, and in reality he tolerated no +stupidity—except in his wives. In an era of theological change it was +perhaps an unfortunate circumstance that he was better helped in his +politics than in his theology. Wolsey, although a Cardinal and even a +candidate for the Papal chair, was to all intents and purposes a practical +statesman. Had he succeeded in becoming a Pope he would nevertheless have +remained a mere politician. Wolsey, then, and Cromwell and More were all +distinctly abler men than Cranmer or Latimer or Gardiner.</p> + +<p>But Henry himself, looking at him in all that he was and in all that he +did, was not unworthy of his helpers. There were then living in Europe +some of the most enduring names in history. More, it is true, was made of +finer clay than the king; Erasmus was not only the loftiest figure of his +time—he is one of the loftiest of any time; but Henry was also a great +personality and easily held his own in the front rank of European +personalities. As a ruler no potentate of his time—royal, imperial or +papal—could for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> moment compare with him. Of all known Englishmen he +was the fittest to be King of England. Had it been Henry’s fortune to have +had one or two or even three wives only, our school histories would have +contained a chapter entitled “How ‘Henry the Good’ steered his country +safely through its greatest storm.” He played many parts with striking +ability. He was probably as great a statesman as Wolsey or More or +Cromwell. He would certainly have made a better archbishop than Cranmer; a +better bishop than Latimer or Gardiner; he was a better soldier than +Norfolk. What then might he have been had he been a statesman only, or a +diplomatist or an ecclesiastic or a soldier only?</p> + +<p>In all the parts he played, save the part of husband, his unimpassioned +temperament stood him in good stead. A man’s attitudes to his fellow-men +and to the movements of his time are, on the whole, determined more by his +intellect than by his feeling. The emotions indeed are very disturbing +elements. They have, it is true, made or helped to make a few careers; but +they have destroyed many more. Very curiously, Henry’s compeers were, most +of them, like himself—unimpassioned men. Latimer, who was perhaps an +exception, preached sermons at Paul’s Cross brimful of a passion which +Henry admired but did not understand. Cranmer too was a man of undoubted +feeling and strong affection. It is said there is sometimes a magnetic +charm between the unlike in temperament; strong friendships certainly +exist between them; and it is to Henry’s credit that to the last he kept +near to him a man so unlike himself. Cranmer was a kindly, sympathetic, +helpful, good soul, but not a saint. He was not one of those to whom +Gracian refers as becoming bad out of pure goodness. Cranmer was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +capable and a strong man, but he was not supremely capable or supremely +strong. He was free from the worst of human evils—‘cocksureness.’ The +acute Spaniard just named says that “every blockhead is thoroughly +persuaded that he is in the right;” Cranmer was less of a blockhead than +most of his compeers. Left to his own instincts, he preferred to live and +let others live. Cranmer had not the loftiness (nor the hardness and +inflexibility) of a More; not the genius and grace and scholarship of an +Erasmus; not the definite purpose and iron will of a Cromwell; not the +fire of a Latimer; not the clear sight and grasp of a Gardiner; not the +sagacity and varied gifts of a Henry; but for my part I would have chosen +him before all his fellows (certainly his English fellows) to advise with +and to confide in. Of all the tables and the roofs of that time I should +have preferred to sit at his table and sleep under his roof. The great +luminaries who guide in revolutions are rare, and the smaller lights of +smaller circumstance are not rare; but—the question is not easy to +answer—which could we best spare, if we were compelled to choose, the +towering lighthouse of exceptional storm or the cheery lamp of daily life?</p> + +<p>One figure of Henry’s times which never fails to interest us is that of +Sir Thomas More. More was clearly one of the unimpassioned class; but his +commanding intellect, his quick response to high influences, his +capability of forming noble friendships, and his lofty ideals seemed to +dispense with the need of deep emotions. More and Henry, indeed, were much +alike in many ways. Both were precocious in early life; both were quick, +alert, practical; both were able; both, to the outside world at least, +were genial, affable, attractive; both also, alas, were fitful,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +censorious, difficult to please; both were self-confident—one confident +enough to kill, the other confident enough to be killed. Had they changed +places in the greatest crisis of their lives Henry would have rejected +More’s headship of the Church and More would have sent Henry to the block.</p> + +<p>In order to understand More’s character correctly we must recognise the +changing waves of circumstance through which he passed. There were in fact +two Mores, the earlier and the later. The earlier More was an unembittered +and independent thinker; the seeming spirit of independence however was, +in a great degree, merely the spirit of contradiction. He was a friend of +education and the new learning. He advocated reform in religion; but +reform, be it noted, before the Reformation, reform gently and from +within; reform when kings and scholars and popes themselves all asked for +it. History, unhappily, tells of much reform on the lips which doggedly +refused to translate itself into practice. The earlier More was all for +reform in principle, but he invariably disapproved of it in detail. The +later and in some degree embittered More was thrown by temperament, by the +natural bias of increasing years and by the exigencies of combat, into the +ecclesiastical and reactionary camp, and in that camp his conduct was +stained by cruel inquisitorial methods.</p> + +<p>The deteriorating effects of conflict (which happily grow less in each +successive century) on individuals as well as on parties and peoples is +seen in another notable though very different character of More’s century. +Savonarola, before his bitter fight with Florentine and Roman powers, was +a large, clear-sighted, sane reformer; after the fight he became blind, +fanatical, and insane. Why may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> we not combine all thankfulness for the +early More and the early Savonarola, and all compassion for the later More +and later Savonarola? Mary Stuart, Francis Bacon, Robert Burns, Napoleon +Buonapart, and Lord Byron were notable personalities; they—some of them +at least—did the world service which others did not and could not do. Yet +how many of us are there who, if admitting to the full their greatness, do +not belittle their follies? or, if freely admitting their follies, do not +belittle their greatness?</p> + +<p>Wolsey, holding aloof from religious strife, remained simply the scholar +and the politician—a politician moreover <i>before</i> politics became in +their turn also a matter of hostile camps. Being a politician only, he +continued to be merciful while More drifted from politics and mercy into +ecclesiasticism and cruelty. More’s change was in itself evidence of a +fitful and passionless temperament, of such evidence indeed there is no +lack. His first public action was one of petulance and self-importance. He +had been treated with continued and exceptional kindness by Cardinal +Morton and Henry VII.; but when Morton, on behalf of his king, asked +parliament for a subsidy, the newly-elected More, conscious of his powers, +and thinking too, may we not say, much more of a people’s applause than of +a people’s burdens, successfully urged its reduction to one half.</p> + +<p>More was by nature censorious, and never heartily approved of anything. +When Wolsey, on submitting a proposal to him with the usual result, told +him—told him it would seem in the unvarnished language of the time—that +he stood alone in his disapproval, and that he was a fool, More, with +ready wit and affected humility, rejoined that he thanked God that he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +the only fool on the King’s Council. More, we may be quite sure, was not +conscious of a spirit of contradiction; he probably felt that his first +duty was to suggest to everybody some improvement in everything. This +spirit of antagonism nevertheless played a leading part in his changeful +life. In his early years he found orthodoxy rampant and defiant, +consequently he inclined to heresy; at a later period heresy became +rampant and defiant, and as inevitably he returned to the older faith and +views. A modern scholar and piquant censor, and—I gather from his own +writings, the only knowledge I have of him—an extreme specimen of the +unimpassioned temperament, Mark Pattison, says that he never saw anything +without suggesting how it might have been better; and that every time he +entered a railway carriage he worked out a better time table than the one +in use. If More had lived in his own Utopia he would have found fault with +it, and drawn in imagination another and a better land. The later More +was, as all unimpassioned and censorious temperaments are, a prophet of +evil; and as much evil did happen—was sure to happen—his wisdom has come +down to us somewhat greater in appearance than it was in reality.</p> + +<p>The cruelty of the Tudor epoch has already been spoken of. Catholics and +protestants, kings, popes, cardinals, ministers, Luthers, Calvins, Knoxes +were all stained by it. Henry and More, we know, were no exceptions. But +More’s cruelty differed from Henry’s in one important respect—there was +nothing appertaining to self in it, except self-confidence. Henry’s +cruelty was in the interest of himself—his person, his family, and his +throne; More’s cruelty, although less limited perhaps, and more dangerous, +was nevertheless in the interest of religion.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> +<h2>HENRY AND HIS PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE VIII.</span></p> + +<p>It is in his attitude to his people and his parliament that we see Henry +at his best. His sagacity did not show itself in any deliberate or deeply +reasoned policy, certainly not, we may allow with Dr. Stubbs, in any great +act of “constructive genius;” it showed itself in seeing clearly the +difficulties of the hour and the day, and in the hourly and daily success +with which they were met. Henry and his father presided over the +introduction of a new order of things, which new order, however, was a +step only, not a cataclysm. They themselves scarcely knew the significance +of the step or how worthily they presided over it. The world, indeed, +knows little—history says little—of great and sudden acts of +constructive genius. These gradually emerge from the growth of peoples; +they do not spring from the brains of individuals royal or otherwise. If +the vision of a ruler is clear and his aims good, he, more than others, +may help on organic and beneficent growth. Full-blown schemes and +policies, even if marked by genius, are rarely helpful and not +infrequently they end in hindrance or even in explosion. The Stuarts had a +large “scheme” touching church and king. It was a scheme of “all in all or +not at all;” for them and their dynasty it ended in “not at all.” French +history is brimful of “great acts of constructive genius” and has none of +the products of development. For Celtic history is indeed a sad succession +of fits,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> and not a process of quiet growth. How a succession of fits will +end, and how growth will end, it is not difficult to foretel.</p> + +<p>The government of peoples is for the most part and in the long run that +which they deserve, that which they are best fitted for, and not at all +that which, it may be, they wish for and cry out for. A people +ready—fairly and throughout all strata ready—for that which they demand +will not long demand in vain. Our fathers, under the Tudor Henrys and the +Tudor Elizabeth, had the rule which was best fitted for them, which they +asked for, which they deserved—a significant morsel, by the bye, of +racial circumstance. It by no means follows, let it be noted, that what +people and king together approved of was the ideal or the wisest. It is +with policies as with all things else, the fittest, not the best, continue +to hold the field.</p> + +<p>Henry and Elizabeth had not only clearness of sight, but flexibility of +mind also, and would doubtless have ruled over Puritan England with +success; it lay in them to rule well over our modern England also. Charles +I., by organisation and proclivity, would have fared badly at the hands of +a Tudor parliament, and, again as a result of organisation and proclivity, +Henry VIII. and the Long Parliament would have been excellent friends. +Hand to mouth government, if it is also capable, is probably the best +government for a revolutionary time. Conflicting parties are often kept +quiet by mere suspense—by mingled hopes and fears. It has been well said +of Henry of Navarre that he kept France, the home of political whirlwinds, +tranquil for a time because the Protestants believed him to be a +Protestant and the Catholics believed he was about to become a Catholic.</p> + +<p>The majority of historians and all the compilers of history tell us that +Henry’s parliaments were abject<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> and servile. The statement is politically +misleading and is also improbable on the grounds of organisation and race. +It is one of many illustrations of the vice of purely literary judgments +on men and movements; a vice which takes no account of physiology, of +race, of organisation and proclivity. For we may be well assured that the +grandsons of brave men and the grandfathers of brave men are never +themselves cowards. One and the same people—especially a slow, steadfast, +and growing people—does not put its neck under the foot of one king +to-day and cut off the head of another king to-morrow. It is not difficult +to see how the misconception arose: in a time of great trial the king and +the people were agreed both in politics and in religion. The people held +the king’s views; they admired his sagacity; they trusted in his honour. +If a brother is attached to his brother and does not quarrel with him, is +he therefore poor-spirited? If by rare chance a servant sees, possibly on +good grounds, a hero in his master, is he therefore a poltroon? If a +parliament and a king see eye to eye, is it just to label the parliament +throughout history as an abject parliament?</p> + +<p>Henry’s epoch, moreover, was not one of marked political excitement, and +therefore the hasty observer jumps to the conclusion that it was not one +of political independence. In each individual, in each community, in each +people there is a sum-total of nerve force. In a given amount of brain +substance—one brain or many—in a given amount of brain nutriment of +brain vitality, there is a given quantity of nerve power. This totality of +power will show itself it may be in one way strongly or in several ways +less strongly; it cannot be increased, it cannot be lessened. On purely +physiological grounds it may be affirmed that Bacon could not have thought +and written all his own work and at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> the same time have also thought and +written the life-work of Shakspere. Shakspere could not have added Bacon’s +investigations to his own ‘intuitions.’ In our own time Carlyle could not +have written “The French Revolution” and “The Descent of Man;” he could +not have gone through the two trainings, gained the two knowledges, and +lived the two lives which led to the two works. So it is with +universities: when scholarship is robust, theology limps; and during the +Tractarian excitement, so a great scholar affirms, learning in Oxford sank +to a lower level. So with peoples: in a literary age religious feeling is +less earnest; in a time of political excitement both religion and +literature suffer. Henry’s era was one of abounding theological activity: +Luthers, Calvins, and (later) Knoxes came to the front, and the front +could not, never can, hold many dominant and also differing spirits. In +Elizabeth’s time Marlowes and Shaksperes and Spensers were master spirits, +and master spirits are never numerous. No doubt as civilisation goes on +great men and great movements learn to move, never equally perhaps but +more easily, side by side: more leaders come to the front—but is the +front as brilliant? Choice spirits are more numerous—but are the spirits +quite as choice? Another and a less partial generation must decide.</p> + +<p>“But,” say the few observers and the crowd of compilers, “only a servile +parliament would have given the king permission to issue proclamations +having the authority of law.” But the people, it cannot be too +emphatically repeated, were neither creatures crawling in the mire nor +red-tapists terrified at every innovation; they trusted the king, and he +did not violate their trust. The proclamations, so it was stipulated, were +not to tamper with existing laws;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> they were to meet exigencies in an +epoch of exigencies, and they met them with a wisdom and a promptness +which parliament could not come near. It is physiological +proclivities—not red tape, not parchment clauses, not Magna +Chartas—which keep a people free. It is rather red tape, and not the +occasional snapping of red tape which enfeebles liberty. If the +non-conformists, who by the bye detested Romanism more than they loved +religion, had not rejected the declaration of indulgence of Charles II.—a +declaration which gave to Romanists leave of worship as well as to +non-conformists—does any sane person believe that English freedom would +have been less than it now is? In our time a body of men who hate England +more than they love Ireland have, of set purpose, tumbled parliament into +the dust: now, if a capable and firm authority were entrusted for twelve +months with exceptional yet absolute control over parliamentary procedure, +does any sane person suppose that the English passion for free parliaments +would be lulled to sleep? Rule has often to be cruel in order to be kind. +Alas, the multitude is made up not of Cromwells, is indeed afraid of +Cromwells. In total ignorance of racial proclivities, it foolishly +believes that a Cromwellian speaker for twelve months would mean a +Cromwellian speaker for ever.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> +<h2>NOTE ON HENRY AND THE REFORMATION.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE IX.</span></p> + +<p>It is a singular misreading of history to say that Henry did much directly +or indirectly to help on the Reformation of the Church in this country, +although the part he played was not a small one. Neither was the +Reformation itself, grave and critical as it was, so sudden and volcanic +an upheaval as is generally believed.</p> + +<p>Luther himself did not put forward a single new idea. No man is thinker +and fighter at once; at any rate, no man thinks and fights at the same +moment. Luther struck his blows for already accomplished thought. Curious +ideas of unknown dates—for history reveals mergings only, not beginnings, +not endings, and the student of men and movements might well exclaim +“nothing begins and nothing ends,”—ideas of unknown dates and unknown +birth-places had slowly come into existence. In Teutonic Europe at least, +the older ideas were becoming trivial and inadequate. It was the northern +Europe, which from the earliest times had been dogged in its courage both +bodily and mental; the Europe strong in that reverence for truth which +rests on courage, which is inseparable from courage, which never exists +apart from courage; the Europe strong in its respect for women; strong in +its fearlessness of death, of darkness, of storm, of the sea-lion, the +land monster, the unearthly ghost, and which was strong therefore in its +fearlessness of hell-fire and priestly threats. Celtic Europe, especially +Celtic Ireland, slept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> then and sleeps now the unbroken slumber of +credulity. Credulity and fear are allied. Celtic Ireland was palsied then, +and is palsied still, by the fear of what we may now call Father Furniss’s +hell. It is surely not difficult to recall and therefore not difficult to +foretell the history of so widely differing races. Everywhere throughout +Teutonic Europe, in castle and monastery, in mansion and cottage, the +old-new ideas were talked over, drunk over, quarrelled over, shaken hands +over, slept over. Everywhere the poets—the peoples’ voices then, for the +printed sheet, the coffee house, the club, were yet far off,—the poets, +Lindsay, Barbour and others in Scotland; Langland, Skelton and others in +England had, long before, pelted preachers and preaching with their +bitterest gibes. Those poets little knew how narrowly they escaped with +their lives; they escaped because they shouted their fierce diatribes just +before not just after the strife of battle. They had flashed out the +signals of undying warfare, but before the signals could be interpreted +the signallers had died in their beds. Thought, inquiry, discussion, +printing, poetry, the new learning, the older Lollardry had moved on with +quiet steps. A less quiet step was at hand, but this also, if less quiet, +was as natural and as inevitable as the stealthiest of preceding steps. +Europe had gradually become covered with a network of universities, and +students of every nationality were constantly passing from one to another. +One common language, Latin, bound university to university and thinking +men to thinking men. He who spoke to one spoke to all. The time was a sort +of hot-house, and the growth of man was “forced.” Reaction attends on +action, but in the main, studious men made the universities—not +universities the studious men; in like-manner good men have made +religions, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> religions so much good men. Ideas and opinions quickly +became common property; sooner or later they filtered down from the Latin +phrase to home-spun talk; filtered down also from the university to the +town, village, and busy highway.</p> + +<p>The Papacy itself had made Papal rule impossible to vigorous peoples. With +curiously narrow ambition Popes have always preferred even limited +temporal importance to unlimited spiritual sway. Two Popes, nay at one +time three, had struggled not for the supremacy of religion but for merely +personal pre-eminence. Popes had fought Popes, councils had fought +councils, and each had called in the friendly infidel to fight the +catholic enemy. The catholic sack of catholic Rome had been accompanied by +greater lust and more copious bloodshed than the sack of Rome in olden +time by northern Infidels. The teachings, claims, and crimes native to +Rome, nay, even the imported refinements of the arts and letters and +elegancies of Paganism did what legions of full-blown Luthers could not +have done.</p> + +<p>The Reformation, with its complex causes, its complex methods, its complex +products, is, more than other great movements, brimful of matter for +observation, thought, and inference.</p> + +<p>The French Revolution was but one of a series of fierce uprisings of a +race which rises and slaughters whenever it has a chance. French history +teems with slaughters both in time of peace and time of war. Mediæval +French Kings dared not arm their peasants with bows and arrows, for +otherwise not a nobleman or a gentleman would have been left alive. At the +close of the eighteenth century in France the oppression was heavy, the +opportunity was large, and the uprising was ferocious. No other people +have ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> shown such a spectacle, and it is therefore idle to compare +other great national movements with it. French history stands alone: no +oppressor can oppress like the French oppressor; no retaliator can +retaliate like the French retaliator. It is a question much less of +politics than of organisation and race. But to return.</p> + +<p>Mr. Carlyle, in his own rousing way and on a subject which deeply +interests him—Luther and the Reformation—mingles fine literary vigour +with an indifference to physiological teaching which is by no means +habitual with him. The heaven-born hero tells us what has become false and +unreal, and shows us—it is his special business—how we may <i>go back</i> to +truth and reality. The humbler student believes that we are constantly +journeying <i>towards</i> truth and reality—these lie not behind but in front +of us. The school of prophets tells us that the hero alights in front of +us and stands apart. The student declares that we all move together; that +we partly make our heroes, and partly they make us; that we have grades of +heroes; that they are not at all supernatural—we touch them, see them, +know them, send them to the front, keep them and dismiss them at our will, +or what seems our will. Carlyle affirms that modern civilisation took its +rise from the great scene at Worms. The truths of organisation, of body, +of brain, of race, of parentage would rather say that civilisation itself +was not born of but in reality gave rise to Luther and the scene at Worms. +The Reformation did not give private judgment; private judgment gave the +Reformation.</p> + +<p>In all revolutions there is a mixture of the essential and the accidental. +During the long succession of the ordinary efforts of growing peoples +there are also from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> time to time unusual efforts to bring to an end +whatever of accident is most at variance with essential truth and reason +and sanity and honour. In the reformations of a growing people, whatever +the age in which they happen, whatever the religion or policy or conduct +of the age, leading spirits rebel against what is most oppressive and +resent what is most arrogant in that age; they reject what is most false +and laugh out of court what is most ridiculous. In the sixteenth century +men felt no special or inherent resentment to arrogance because it lifted +its head in Rome; they looked on the so-called miracle of +transubstantiation with no special or peculiar incredulity; their sense of +humour was not necessarily tickled by the idea that a soul leaped out of +purgatory when a coin clinked in Tetzel’s box. Those were matters of +accident and circumstance; they were simply the most intolerable or +incredible or preposterous items of the century. Given other preceding +accidents—another Deity, or one appearing in another century or arising +in another people; another emperor than Constantine; other soldiers than +Constantine’s—and the sixteenth-century items of oppression and falsehood +would have been there, it is true, but they would have been other than +they were.</p> + +<p>We are often told that great movements come quickly, and are the peculiar +work of heroes. We are told, indeed, that from time to time mankind +degenerates into a mass of dry fuel, and that at the fitting moment a hero +descends, as a torch, and sets the mass on fire. Nay, moreover, if we +doubt this teaching we are dead to poetic feeling and have lost our +spiritual ideals. Happily, however, if phantasy dies, poetry still lives. +Leaders and led, teachers and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> taught, are all changing and always +changing; but no change brings a lessened poetic susceptibility or a +lessened poetic impulse. If, in future, historians and critics come to see +that the organisation and bodily proclivity and parentage of men have +really much to do with men, let us nevertheless be comforted—the ether +men breathe will be no less ample, the air no less divine. Every age is +transitional—not this or that—and the ages are bound together by +unbroken sequence. As with the movements so is it with the leaders: they +are in touch with each other as well as in touch with their followers. All +ages have some men who are bolder than others, or more reflective than +others, or more courageous, or more active. At certain epochs in history +there have been men who combined many high qualities, and who in several +ways stood in front of their time. Wyclif was not separated from his +fellows by any deep gulf, neither was he, as regards time, the first in +his movement, but no leader ever sprang so far in front of the led. +General leaders appear first, and afterwards, when the lines of cleavage +are clearer, special leaders arise. Wyclif was a general leader, and +therefore had many things to do. He did them all well. He was a scholar, a +theologian, a writer, a preacher. It is his attitude to his age and to all +ages, and to national growth, which interests us—not his particular +writing, or his preaching, or his detailed views. He propounded, he +defined, he lighted up, he animated, he fought. In one capacity or in two +Wyclif might have soared to a loftier height and have shone a grander +figure. But he did what was most needed to be done then and there. The +time was not ripe, and it did not lie in Wyclif to make it ripe, for the +Reformation, but he showed the way to the Reformation;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> he introduced its +introducers and led its leaders. The special leaders appeared in due time, +and they also were the product of their time. An Erasmus shed more light +than others on burning problems; a Calvin formulated more incisively than +his fellows; a Luther fought more defiantly; and, a little later, a Knox +roused the laggards with fiercer speech. It is interesting to note that +the fighters and the speakers in all movements and at all times come most +quickly to the front; it is for them that the multitude shouts its loudest +huzzas and the historian writes his brightest pages. But let us not forget +this one lesson from history and physiology: it is not given—or but +rarely given—to any one man to do all these things, to innovate, to +illuminate, to formulate, to fight, to rouse; it is certainly not given to +any one man to do all with equal power, and certainly not all at once. For +there is a sum-total of brain-force, not in the individual only, but in +the community and in the epoch. In one stream it is powerful; if it be +divided in several streams each stream is weaker. It was a theological +torrent at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a literary torrent at +the century’s close. We have (perhaps it is for our good) several streams, +we have however, we all hope, a good total to divide. Curiously, too, the +most clear-sighted of leaders never see the end, never indeed see far into +the future of their movement. The matters and forces which go to form a +revolution are many and complex, reformers when striving to improve a +world often end in forming a party. If the leaders are clear-sighted, the +party will be continuous, large, long-lived; dim-sighted enthusiasts, even +when for the moment successful, lead a discontinuous, short-lived, +spasmodic crowd. Sometimes a leader steps forth clear and capable, but +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> multitude continues to sleep. Wyclif, for example, called on his +generation to follow him in a new and better path. He seemed to call in +vain. In the sixteenth century men were awake, stirring, resolved; but no +leaders were ready. Fortunately the people marched well although they had +no captains to speak of. The age was heroic although it had no conspicuous +heroes.</p> + +<p>Although in its forms, its beliefs, its opinions, its policy, its conduct, +there was much that was accidental, it was nevertheless inevitable and +essential that the Reformation should come. It mattered not whether this +thing had been done or that; whether this particular leader led or that; +whether this or that concession had been made at Rome. If Erasmus could +not fight Luther could. If Rome could concede nothing, much could be torn +from her. There is, indeed, much fighting and tearing in history: +complacent persons, loftily indifferent to organisation, and race, and +long antecedent, are astonished that men should fight, or should fight +with their bodies, or that, when fighting they should actually kill each +other. In all times, alas, the fittest, not the wisest, has prevailed—and +the fittest, alas, has been cruel. In the seventeenth century Parliament +and Charles Stuart fought each other by roughest bodily methods, and +Parliament, proving victorious, killed Charles. Had Charles conquered, and +could Parliament have been reduced to one neck or a dozen, we may be quite +sure that the one neck or the dozen would have been severed on the block.</p> + +<p>When the thousand fermenting elements came together in the sixteenth +century cauldron, no number of men, certainly no one man, certainly not +Henry, could do much to hinder or to help on the seething process. This of +course was not Henry’s view. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> believed himself to be—gave himself out +to be—the fountain of truth. We know that he and an <i>admiring</i> (not an +<i>abject</i>) Parliament proposed an Act to abolish diversity of opinion on +religious matters. We know too, that while he graciously permitted his +subjects to read the Word of God, he commanded them to adopt the opinions +of the king. It was indeed cheap compulsion, for he and the vast mass of +his subjects held similar opinions. Nevertheless, it is true that Henry, +with characteristic sagacity, turned to the right spot and at the right +moment when the cauldron threatened to boil over, or possibly to explode. +At a critical epoch he helped to avert bloodshed; for in this island there +was no war of peasants, or princes, or theologians.</p> + +<p>Those who say that the great divorce question brought about or even +accelerated the Reformation, are those who see or wish to see the bubbles +only, and cannot, or will not see the stream—its depth and strength,—on +which the bubbles float. For the six-wives matter was in reality a bubble, +large it is true, prismatic, many-coloured, interesting, visible +throughout Europe, minutely gossiped over on every hearth. If King Henry, +however, had had no wife at all, the Reformation would have come no more +slowly than it did; if he had had, like King Solomon, seven hundred wives, +it would have come no more quickly. Henry was not himself a reformer, and +but little likely to lead reformers. Under a fitful and petulant exterior +the king was a cold, calculating, self-remembering man. The reformers were +a self-forgetting, passionate, often a frenzied party, and as a rule, +firebrands do not follow icebergs. If imperious circumstance loosened +Henry’s moorings to Rome, he had no more notion of drifting towards +Augsburg or Geneva, than, a little later, his daughter Elizabeth had of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +drifting to Edinburgh and Knox. Henry had no deep attachment, but he clung +to the old religion, chiefly perhaps because it was old, as much as he +could cling to anything; he had no deep hatreds, but, as heartily as his +nature permitted, he detested the new. He would have disliked it all the +more, had that been possible, could he have looked with interpretative +glance backward to the seed-time of Wyclif’s era, or forward to the ripe +harvest of the seventeenth century. Could it have been made plain to Henry +that he was helping to put a sword into a Puritan’s hand and bring a +King’s head to the block, he would have had himself whipped at the tomb of +Catharine of Aragon, and would have thrown his crown at the Pope’s feet.</p> + +<p>He assumed the headship of the English Church, it is true; but even good +Catholics throughout Europe did not then so completely as now accept the +supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and central ideas had not then so +completely swallowed up the territorial. If Henry had not taken the +headship of the English Church when he did, the Church would probably have +had no head at all, and religious teaching in this country would have +fared much as it fared in Switzerland and Scotland and North Germany. As +it was, Henry simply believed himself to be another Pope, and London to be +another Rome. He, the English Pope, and the Pope at Rome would, for the +most part, work together like brothers—work for the diffusion of the +<i>one</i> truth (which all sorts and conditions of Popes believe they +possess), and work therefore for the good of all people.</p> + +<p>Had the great European religious movement reached our island in any other +reign than Henry’s it would not have run quite the same course it did. Of +all the Kings who have ruled over us Henry VIII. was the only King who was +at the same time willing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> enough, able enough, educated enough (he had +been trained to be an Archbishop), and pious enough to be, at any rate, +the first head of a great Church.</p> + +<p>But it is said: “Look at the destruction of the religious houses; surely +that was the work of heresy and greed.” Henry had no heresy in his nature, +but he was not without greed, and as he was certainly extravagant, he had +therefore the stronger incentives to exaction. But in our history the +foible of a King avails but little when it clashes with the conscience, +the ideal, the will of a people. Henry’s greed, moreover, whatever its +strength, was less strong than his conservatism, less strong than his +piety. Stronger, too, than all these combined was his boundless love of +popularity—a love which alone would have preserved the monasteries could +the monasteries have been preserved by any single man. But new ideas and +new religious ideals had come in, and the new religious ideals and the old +religious houses could not flourish together. The existence of those +houses had long been threatened. One hundred years before, Parliament had +more than once seriously discussed the appropriation of ecclesiastical +funds to military purposes. Cardinal Morton, after impartial inquiry, +contemplated sweeping changes. Wolsey, a good Catholic, had suppressed +numerous houses. It is interesting to know that at one period of his life +Sir Thomas More thought of retiring into a religious house, but after +carefully studying monastic life he gave up the project. It is not +necessary to sift and resift the evidence touching the morality of the +monasteries. Probably those institutions were not so black as their +enemies, new or old, have painted them, nor so white as they appear in the +eyes of their modern friends. But whether they were fragments of Hades +thrust up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> from below, or fragments of the celestial regions let down from +above, or whatever else they were, their end was come. Many causes were at +work. They were coming into collision with the rapidly growing modern +social life—a life more complex than at any time before, more complex in +its roots, its growths, its products, and its needs. The newer social life +had developed a passionate love of knowledge; it had formed a loftier +ideal of domestic life. It pondered too over our economic problems, and +disliked the ceaseless accumulation of land and wealth in ecclesiastical +hands. Does any one imagine that a close network of institutions, which +were at any rate not models of virtue; institutions which hated knowledge +and thrust it out of doors; which directly or indirectly cast a slur on +the growing domestic ideal; which told the awakening descendants of +Scandinavian and Norseman and Saxon, that their women were unclean—that +their mothers and daughters were “snares;” does anyone imagine that such a +network could be permitted to entangle and strangle modern life? It has +already been said that the newer social ideas were destined to arise, and +that therefore the older religious houses were doomed to fall. It mattered +little the particular year in which they fell; it mattered little who +seemed to deal the final blow. Many centuries before, human nature being +what it was, and social conditions what they were, quiet retreats had met +a want—they were fittest to live and they lived. But a succession of +centuries brought change—a little in human nature, much in social +conditions, very much in thought and opinion, and the retreats, the inner +life and opinions of which had not kept pace with life outside, were no +longer needed, no longer fittest, and they fell. Henry did not destroy +them. Catholicism, which neither<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> made them pure nor made them impure, was +unable to preserve them. Could the long buried bones of their founders +have come to life again and have put on the newer flesh, thought, with +newer brain, the newer thought, they would have found quite other outlets +for their energy, leisure and wealth. It is so with all founders and all +institutions. It is so at this moment with the institutions which were +born of the Reformation itself. Naturalists tell us that the jelly-like +mass, the amæba, embraces everything, both the useful and the useless, +that comes in its way, but that in time it relaxes its embrace on the +useless. So the civilisation of a growing people is like a huge amæba, +which slowly enfolds men and ideas, and incidents, and systems, and then +sooner or later it disenfolds the unsuitable and the worn-out.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> +<h2>QUEEN ELIZABETH AND QUEEN MARY.</h2> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTE X.</span></p> + +<p>Few rulers, few persons indeed, have ever been so much alike as our two +rulers Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth. No man was ever so like +Henry as was the woman Elizabeth; no woman ever resembled Elizabeth so +closely as did the man Henry. Both father and daughter were extreme +examples of the intellectual and unimpassioned temperament. High capacity, +acute perception, clear insight, correct inference were present in both. +Both, too, were capricious, fault-finding, querulous and vain. Both, +moreover, had their preferences and their dislikes. Both, too, felt and +showed resentment when their vanity was wounded. But in neither of them, +it may be truly affirmed, was there any consuming passion—any fervent +love, or invincible hatred, or fierce jealousy, or overwhelming anger.</p> + +<p>Those who preach the doctrine of an essential difference between the sexes +and who, with the injustice which so frequently accompanies the abounding +self-importance of masculinity, would deprive women not only of “equality +of sphere” but “equality of opportunity,” may study the character of Henry +and Elizabeth with great advantage. Human beings are first of all divided +(I have elsewhere contended) into certain types of character and only +afterwards into men and women. Many men are by nature devoted lovers and +parents and friends; many women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> are not. Elizabeth was one of a number—a +large number—of women who have, it may be, many of the qualities which +tell in practical and public life, and but little of the emotion which +wells up in true wifehood and motherhood and friendship.</p> + +<p>Henry and Elizabeth stand far above the average level of rulers. In +sagacity, in tact and in statesmanship only two of their successors can +compare with them. But the methods of Oliver Cromwell and William III. +were very different from the Tudor methods. Cromwell and William strove to +be guided by what they sincerely held to be lofty principles. Henry and +Elizabeth were guided merely, though wisely guided, by the fineness of +their instincts. Fine instincts were perhaps better fitted for the earlier +time, and lofty principles for the later. It is easier, alas, to bungle in +formulating and in applying principles than in trusting to adroitness and +intuitions.</p> + +<p>All the elements of character which Henry possessed were found also in +Elizabeth, and many of these elements, though not all, they possessed in +equal degree. They were alike in capacity, courage, sincerity, +versatility, industry; alike in their conservative proclivities and also +in their love of pageantry—for Elizabeth, like Henry, revelled in public +business and in public pleasures; she delighted in progresses, shows, +masks and plays. They were alike, too, in their sense of duty, in their +desire for the welfare of the people, and also in their thirst for the +people’s good opinion. But Elizabeth, although she had immense +self-importance (she heartily approved of the queen and, heartily indeed, +of nothing else), was perhaps less self-confident than her father. She was +not quite comfortable in her headship of the Church—but then she had not +been educated for the Church as her father had been,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> and she did not +possess her father’s devotional nature. Her conduct was however more +decorous than her father’s, notwithstanding that she was distinctly less +religious than he—less religious in principle, in inward conviction and +in outward worship. If she was less devout than Henry she had however a +larger share of fitfulness than even he. The historian who more vividly +than any other has placed the Tudor time before us speaks of Elizabeth’s +“ingrained insincerity;” the words “ingrained fitfulness” would perhaps be +more correct, for she was in truth as sincere as her fitfulness permitted +her to be. Although it is true she was not without—no one at that time +was quite without—insincerity and intrigue and duplicity and falsehood in +her diplomatic methods, she was fairly sincere in her views and aims and +conduct. But unfortunately her views and aims and conduct were constantly +changing. She was sincere too easily and too frequently. She had a dozen +fits of sincerity in a dozen hours. Whenever she sent a message, no matter +how carefully the message had been considered, a second was sent to recall +or change it, and very shortly a third messenger would be despatched in +pursuit of the second. Urgent and critical circumstance alone, and +frequently not even this, forced upon her any conclusive action. I am +compelled to agree with those who believe that the most distressing +incident of her life was the final decision touching Mary Stuart’s death: +it was distressing on several grounds—she was not naturally cruel, or, +like her father, cruel to those only who stood in her path; she did not +like to kill a queen; and, above all, she hated to do anything which (like +marriage, to wit) could not be undone. Elizabeth was compelled by +temperament to be always doing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> something, but by temperament also she was +always reluctant to get anything done. In her two bushels of occupation +there were not two grains of performance.</p> + +<p>Her extreme fitfulness had at least one fortunate result—it saved many +lives. Henry’s frequent change of view and of policy was unquestionable, +but the change was slow enough to give to the ever-watchful enemies of a +fallen minister time enough to tear the fallen minister to pieces. But if +a minister of Elizabeth’s fell, his head was in little danger: if he fell +from favour to-day, he was restored to-morrow. He might trip twenty times, +and as many times his rivals would be on the alert; but twenty pardons +would be granted all in good time.</p> + +<p>Touching the question of marriage the queen was far wiser than her father. +Neither father nor daughter had the needful qualities which go to make +marriage happy, and both had certain other qualities which in many cases +make it an intolerable burden. Henry, unlike Elizabeth, did not discover +this, for his perceptive powers generally were less acute than hers. She +probably knew that in her inmost heart (her brain was sufficiently acute +to gain a glimpse of what was in her heart and what was not) she was a +stranger to the deep and sustained affections without which marriage is so +often a cruel deception. She had admirers and favourites it is true; and, +after the fashion of the time, was unseemly enough in her fits of romping +and her fits of pettishness. But there has not yet been anywhere, or at +any time, under the sun a healthful temperament which has objected to +admiration and entertainment, and probably there never will be.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth’s attitude to the religious condition of her people marks a +decided movement, if not an onward movement: for we must never forget that +a multitude<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> of high-minded and capable souls believe that the several +steps of the Reformation were downward steps. But what were the steps, and +what especially was Elizabeth’s step? The popes (and their times) had +said, <i>in effect</i>, you need not read and you must not think or inquire; +your duty is to obey and believe. Henry (and his time) said, you may think +and you may read, especially if your reading enables you to understand the +King, but you must believe what the King believes and worship as the King +worships. Elizabeth (and her times), still more at the mercy of rising +Teutonic waves, exclaimed, you may think and read and inquire and believe +as you like—especially as you insist upon doing so—but you really must, +all of you, go to church with me on Sunday mornings. Elizabeth’s +church-going act, by the bye, is still unrepealed. Long after, William +III. (and his time, though William was before his time) said, you may +think, read, believe, and publicly worship as you will, but you must +believe something and you must worship somewhere. John Milton, before +William in time and long before him in largeness of view, was the one +colossal figure who fought bravely and single-handed for freedom in every +domain of thought and speech and conduct.</p> + +<p>The Tudor time, more than any other in our history, lends itself to the +study of character; a study which, although difficult, is the less +difficult in that whatever of change may take place, old elements of +character do not altogether disappear and entirely new elements do not +make their appearance. These elements lie everywhere around us. A great +writer and an acute observer of men declares indeed that we all contain +the elements of a Luther and a Borgia (his ideal of the best and worst +elements), and that if a man cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> see these near at hand he will not +find them though he travel from Dan to Beersheba. The Tudor and the Stuart +periods alike present remarkable persons and remarkable incidents; but in +the earlier period the men and women were more striking than the events, +while events attract our attention more than individuals in the later. +With the Tudors men and women seemed to lead, for men and women were +proportionately the stronger; circumstance seemed to be the stronger in +the Stuart times.</p> + +<p>No century contains three royal figures so striking in themselves and so +clearly revealed to us as are the figures of Henry and Elizabeth and Mary +in the sixteenth. Their capability, their vitality and their attainments +would have made them striking persons in any position of life. Each, +indeed, possessed the three qualities which make a really interesting +personality—and such personalities are but a small proportion of the +neutral-tinted multitude who are good and kind and industrious—and +nothing more. They, the three personalities, could all see facts for +themselves; they could all see the relative value of facts (the rarest of +the three qualities); and they could all draw sound inferences from the +larger facts.</p> + +<p>The three individuals presented however but two types of character. Henry +and Elizabeth were examples of one type and Mary of another. The Tudor +father and daughter were, as we have already seen, not examples merely but +<i>extreme</i> examples of the unimpassioned, ever active, ever visible class. +Mary was as extreme an example of the impassioned, meditative, persistent +and tenacious class. It was a remarkable coincidence that pitted two such +mental and bodily extremes against each other. All sane human beings have +much more of that which is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> common to the character of the race than they +have of that which is peculiar to the individual. There was not only this +common basis of human nature in Elizabeth and Mary, there was something +more: both were singularly capable, brilliant, witty and brave (Mary being +the braver and her bravery being the more tried). The two queens had +certain unusual advantages in common, for both were educated to the +highest ideal of female education—very curiously a higher ideal then than +at any other time before, or even since, until our own generation; both, +too, had much experience of life—the larger and the less elevating share +falling to Mary’s lot. But here the resemblance ceases. What in Elizabeth +Tudor were slight though shrill rivulets of love and hate and anger and +scorn and jealousy, or of pity or gratitude, were mighty and rushing +torrents in Mary Stuart. We have seen what Elizabeth was: in many ways +Mary was the exact opposite, for she was not at all given to bustle or +change or acrimony or captiousness or suspicion. She was not, it is true, +without vanity; she had ample grounds for having it and she was deeply +human, but (it was not so with Elizabeth) her pride was even greater than +her vanity.</p> + +<p>The elements which met together in Mary were all of a finer quality than +those which were found in Elizabeth; but in Mary some troublous elements +were added to the choicer ones. In her high land there were ominous +volcanic peaks, while in the decorous plain of Elizabeth’s character there +was a monotonous blending of vegetation and sand. In some of our greatest +characters (the truism is well-worn) there have been grave defects. Burns’ +life never comes to any generous mind save with the deepest regret as well +as the keenest admiration. Bacon’s was a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> mind with a great fault. +Shakspere and Goethe—the two foremost spirits which time has yet given to +us—are not held to have led altogether stainless lives. Now the Queen of +Scots was not by any means one of the immortals, but she was nevertheless +and in truth a great woman. Yet in the splendid block out of which the +ever-pathetic figure of Mary was chiselled there came to light an +ineradicable flaw. The good and evil of all these characters were mainly, +though not wholly (for circumstance must not be forgotten), due to +organisation and inheritance. A little difference in their organisation, +and they would have been other individuals than they were, and would most +likely have remained unknown to us; but having the parentage they had, and +being what they were, a little difference in circumstance would probably +have mattered little. What there was in each of organisation, what of +circumstance, and what of volition, is a problem the solution of which is +still far off. In all of them volition, whatever that may be, did its +best; organisation, let us say, did its worst; circumstance looked on, +helping here and hindering there,—the compromise is history.</p> + +<p>As the six-wives business clings to Henry’s name, so does the Darnley +matter, though curiously with less odium, cling to that of Mary. Henry has +had no friends save those who lived in or near his time. In our time an +inquirer, here or there, strives perhaps to gain for him something of +impartial judgment. Mary has never been without warm friends, and her +friends seem to grow in number and in warmth. The controversy still rages +touching Mary’s part in the tragic event which inflicted so deep a wound +into her life. But although the controversy goes on at even fever heat, +the public judgment remains cool and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> is probably just. It is kept cool +and just by the weight of a few colossal truths which the deftest +manipulation of a cloud of smaller truths cannot hide. At critical moments +the physiological historian, who looks steadily at a few large incidents +in the light of human nature, discovers clues which escape the vision of +the purely literary historian, who is for ever diving—and usefully +diving—into the wells of parchment detail. In reality it matters little +whether this diver or that has dived most deeply; matters little whether +certain documents are spurious or genuine. Mary Stuart accepted—she +certainly did not reject—the passion of a certain man; that man was a +leader among a number of men who murdered her husband; after the murder +Mary Stuart married that particular man, and thereby most assuredly held a +candle to murder. This was Mary. Now if everything that has been said in +her favour could be proved, she would be but little better than this; if +everything that has been said against her could be proved, she would be +but little worse.</p> + +<p>The student of historic characters never forgets the time the country and +the circumstance in which his characters lived. We are now looking at a +time when not only noble and ignoble characters existed side by side, but +when noble and less noble elements existed together in one and the same +character. For indeed the good elements of a better time come in slowly, +and the evil elements of a bad past die a lingering death. The active +Scotland (there was, we know, a good quiet Scotland in the background), +the active Scotland of Tudor times was given over to factions, fanatics, +self-seekers and assassins. Life was taken and given with scant ceremony. +The highest personages of that time contrived murder, or sanctioned it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +or forgave it—the popes did, continental sovereigns did, Henry did, +Elizabeth did. The murders thus contrived or sanctioned or condoned were, +it is true, mainly on behalf of thrones or dominions or religions, while +the murder which Mary assuredly forgave, if she did not sanction, was on +behalf of her passions. The moral difference between murder for a crown +and murder for a love we may not now discuss.</p> + +<p>It was to this Scotland, the active and factious Scotland just described, +that the young queen of nineteen years was brought—brought from a +different atmosphere and with an unpropitious training. The more favoured +Elizabeth meanwhile was ruling over a quieter, a more united people, and +was helped at her council-table by high-minded and unselfish men. It is +useless now perhaps to ask if we may be allowed to admire the gifts, to +deplore the faults, and to pity the fate of the more unfortunate queen. We +can indeed, individually, do what we please, but the queen’s posterity +with no uncertain voice has declared that we may. Emerson says that the +great soul of the world is just, and the great soul has kept Mary within +the territory of its favour. It would seem that the affection and devotion +which were given to Mary were not based on any single great or on any +group of great actions; they were based (it is to her credit) on daily +acts of kindliness and patience and unruffled grace. The sum of Mary’s +qualities, whatever they were, endowed her with the rare gift of making +the world her friend; and the world does not, as a rule, make lasting +friendships on insufficient grounds. Mary indeed, with all her faults, +deserved a better country than Scotland; and England, it may be added, +deserved a more gracious queen than Elizabeth. But whatever she deserved +or whatever she was fitted for,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> Mary’s fate was destined to be one of the +saddest of recorded time. Inward force and outer circumstance are so +commingled that mortal reason fails to disentangle them. To-day men <i>seem</i> +to put a curb on circumstance, and to-morrow circumstance <i>seems</i> to run +away with men. An ocean of complex and imperious circumstance surged +around two queens, one it lifted up and kept afloat and carried into a +secure haven, the other it tossed mercilessly to and fro and finally drew +her underneath its waves.</p> + +<p>A number of leading Scottish nobles gave out and probably believed that +the wretched Darnley’s life was incompatible with the general good. +Bothwell was but one of this number. Yet how clear it has ever been to all +eyes, save to those of the blindly passionate actors themselves, that the +Scottish queen’s fatal error, even if there were no grave error before, +was in marrying any one of the misguided band. But misguidance was in the +ascendant. Could she by some magic web have concealed the husbands from +each other and have married them all, she would at any rate have fared no +worse than she did. But, to be serious, if a queen marries one of half a +dozen ambitious assassins, the other five will assuredly make her life +intolerable and her rule impossible.</p> + +<p>In no aspect of character did the two queens differ more than in their +attitude to religion. Elizabeth’s piety, like her father’s, though less +deep than his, was of a similar passionless, perceptive, unreflective +order. Mary’s religion, like Elizabeth’s, like that of all individuals in +all parts of the world, was no doubt at first the product of her early +surroundings; but with the Scottish queen it was much more than this—it +was a profoundly passionate conviction and a deeply revered ideal. A +living writer, who is perhaps unrivalled in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> the historic art and who +rarely errs in his historic judgments, is less happy than is his wont in +his verdict on the catholic queen. He avers that she had no share “in the +deeper and nobler emotions;” yet almost in the same breath he states that +she had “a purpose fixed as the stars to trample down the Reformation.” To +have a purpose “fixed as the stars” to trample down <i>one</i> religion was, in +that age of the world, surely to have a purpose “fixed as the stars” to +strengthen and protect <i>another</i>; to yearn to put down the Reformation was +surely to yearn to bring in catholicism—catholic teaching and catholic +rites and catholic rule. We may not be catholics, but we are not entitled +to say that from an impassioned catholic woman’s point of view this was +not a high ideal; it had been the ideal of the judicial mind, Sir Thomas +More, as well as the ideal of the enthusiast, Ignatius Loyola; it had been +for a thousand years the ideal of a multitude of noble natures both men +and women. Elizabeth, opportunely enough, had no ideals of any kind; +ideals indeed are often inconvenient in a ruler; but she had, despite her +acrimonious speech, plenty of sincerely good wishes and good intentions +for all the world. If the Queen of England had no ideals she had many +devices, and one was to check the flow of all sorts of zeal, especially +Protestant zeal. In the two lives religion told in different ways—the +difference was in the two natures, be it noted, not in the two religions. +Elizabeth, with a skin-deep religion only, was evenly and enduringly +virtuous. Mary had ardent and deep convictions, but her career was not one +of unbroken virtue. Elizabeth was certainly unfortunate in her religious +attitudes. She did not like the Protestants for she was not a good +Protestant; the Catholics did not like her for she was not a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> good +Catholic. In religion, indeed as in all things, she was greatly influenced +by her inborn spirit of “contrariness.” If the Catholics had intrigued +less persistently against her throne and her life, and if (the idea is +sufficiently ludicrous) the Queen of Scotland had chanced to run in +harness with the hated John Knox (hated of both queens), she would gladly +have given the rein to her Catholic impulses.</p> + +<p>The two queens differed as much in body as in mind. I have elsewhere +sought to show not only that certain leading features of character tend to +run together (in itself a distinct contribution to our knowledge), but +also that these allied features are associated with a group of bodily +peculiarities, a contribution, if it really is a contribution, of greatly +additional interest. Elizabeth, large and pink-skinned like her father, +was by no means without impressiveness and even stateliness. She carried +her head a little forward and her chin a little downward, both these +positions being due to a slightly curved upper spine. Her hair was scanty +and her eyebrows were practically absent. All these bodily items, as well +as her mental items, she inherited from her father. Mary had a wholly +different figure and a different presence; her head was upright, her spine +straight; in her back there was no convexity either vertically or +transversely. Her eyebrows were abundant and her head of hair was long and +massive. All these peculiarities, too, we may be quite sure, she derived +from her parentage (not necessarily the nearest parents) on one side or +the other. In my little work on body and parentage in character I urge—it +is well to say here—that the bodily signs of certain classes of character +(two more marked and one intervening) are now and then subject to the +modifying influences of ailment and accident, and especially when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> these +happen in early life. In Elizabeth and Mary, however, no such influences +disturbed the development of two strongly-marked examples, both in body +and in character, of two large classes of women and, with but little +alteration, of two large classes of men also.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">[FOR INDEX SEE FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS.]</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Hall & English</span>, Printers, No. 71, High Street, Birmingham.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Footnote:</strong></p> + +<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> From historic comparison we may feel sure that no such cruelty was +found in the Gothic and Frankish and Norman blood of France.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Body, Parentage and Character in +History, by Furneaux Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BODY, PARENTAGE, CHARACTER IN HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 36993-h.htm or 36993-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/9/36993/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Body, Parentage and Character in History + Notes on the Tudor Period + +Author: Furneaux Jordan + +Release Date: August 7, 2011 [EBook #36993] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BODY, PARENTAGE, CHARACTER IN HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +BODY, PARENTAGE AND CHARACTER IN HISTORY. + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ + +Ready--New and Cheaper Edition, in great part Rewritten, 2/- + + CHARACTER AS SEEN IN BODY AND PARENTAGE, + with a Chapter on + EDUCATION, CAREER, MORALS, AND PROGRESS. + +A remarkable and extremely interesting book.--_Scotsman._ + +A delightful book, witty and wise, clever in exposition, charming in +style, readable and original.--_Medical Press._ + +Men and women are both treated under these heads (types of character) in +an amusing and observant manner.--_Lancet._ + +We cordially commend this volume.... A fearless writer.... Merits close +perusal.--_Health._ + +Mr. Jordan handles his subject in a simple, clear, and popular +manner.--_Literary World._ + +Full of varied interest.--_Mind._ + +KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUeBNER, AND CO. LIMITED. + + + + + BODY, PARENTAGE AND + CHARACTER IN HISTORY: + + NOTES ON THE TUDOR PERIOD. + + + BY FURNEAUX JORDAN, F.R.C.S. + + + LONDON: + KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUeBNER & CO. LIMITED, + 1890. + + + Birmingham: Printed by Hall and English. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +In my little work on "Character as Seen in Body and Parentage" I have put +forward not a system, but a number of conclusions touching the +relationship which I believe to exist between certain features of +character on the one hand and certain peculiarities of bodily +configuration, structure, and inheritance on the other. These conclusions, +if they are true, should find confirmation in historic narrative, and +their value, if they have any, should be seen in the light they throw on +historic problems. + +The incidents and characters and questions of the Tudor period are not +only of unfailing interest, but they offer singularly rich and varied +material to the student of body and character. + +If the proposal to connect the human body with human nature is distasteful +to certain finely-strung souls, let me suggest to them a careful study of +the work and aims and views of Goethe, the scientific observer and +impassioned poet, whom Madame de Stael described as the most accomplished +character the world has produced; and who was, in Matthew Arnold's +opinion, the greatest poet of this age and the greatest critic of any age. +The reader of 'Wilhelm Meister' need not be reminded of the close +attention which is everywhere given to the principle of +inheritance--inheritance even of 'the minutest faculty.' + +The student of men and women has, let me say in conclusion, one great +advantage over other students--he need not journey to a museum, he has no +doors to unlock, and no catalogue to consult; the museum is constantly +around him and on his shelves; the catalogue is within himself. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + NOTE I.--THE VARIOUS VIEWS OF HENRY VIII.'S CHARACTER. + Momentous changes in sixteenth century 1 + Many characters given to noted persons 3 + A great number given to Henry 3 + The character given in our time 6 + Attempt to give an impartial view 8 + Need of additional light 14 + + NOTE II.--THE RELATION OF BODY AND PARENTAGE TO CHARACTER. + Bodily organisation and temperaments 15 + Leading types in both 16 + Elements of character run in groups 17 + Intervening gradations 20 + + NOTE III.--HENRY'S FAMILY PROCLIVITIES. + Henry of unimpassioned temperament 21 + Took after unimpassioned mother 22 + Derived nothing from his father 23 + Character of Henry VII. 24 + Henry VIII., figure and appearance 26 + + NOTE IV.--THE WIVES' QUESTION. + Henry's marriages, various causes 27 + Passion not a marked cause 28 + Henry had no strong passions 30 + Self-will and self-importance 31 + Conduct of impassioned men 31 + + NOTE V.--THE LESS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. + Characteristics common to all temperaments 32 + Henry's cruelty 33 + Henry's piety 35 + + NOTE VI.--THE MORE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. + Always doing or undoing something 37 + Habitual fitfulness 38 + Self-importance 40 + Henry and Wolsey: Which led? 41 + Love of admiration 43 + + NOTE VII.--HENRY AND HIS COMPEERS. + Henry's political helpers superior to theological 45 + Cranmer 46 + Sir Thomas More 47 + Wolsey 49 + + NOTE VIII.--HENRY AND HIS PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT. + No act of constructive genius 51 + Parliament not abject, but in agreement 53 + Proclamations 54 + Liberty a matter of race 55 + + NOTE IX.--HENRY AND THE REFORMATION. + Teutonic race fearless, therefore truthful 56 + Outgrew Romish fetters 57 + French Revolution racial 58 + The essential and the accidental in great movements 60 + Wyclif 61 + Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Knox 62 + Henry's part in the Reformation 64 + No thought of permanent division 65 + The dissolution of the monasteries 66 + + NOTE X.--QUEEN ELIZABETH AND QUEEN MARY. + Henry VIII. and Elizabeth much alike 69 + Elizabeth less pious but more fitful 71 + Elizabeth and marriage 72 + Elizabeth's part in the Reformation 73 + Elizabeth and Mary Stuart very unlike 74 + Lofty characters with flaws 76 + Mary's environment and fate 79 + Bodily peculiarities of the two Queens 81 + + + + +THE VARIOUS VIEWS OF HENRY VIII.'S CHARACTER. + +NOTE I. + + +The progress of an individual, of a people, or even of a movement is never +up, and their decadence is never down, an inclined plane. Neither do we +see sudden and lofty flights in progress nor headlong falls in decadence. +Both move rather by steps--steps up or steps down. The steps are not all +alike; one is short another long; one sudden another gradual. They are all +moreover the inevitable sequences of those which went before, and they as +inevitably lead to those which follow. Our Fathers took a long step in the +Tudor epoch, but older ones led up to it and newer ones started from it. +The long step could not possibly be evaded by a Teutonic people. Rome lay +in the path, and progress must needs step over the body of Rome--not a +dead body then, though wounded from within, not a dead body yet, though +now deeply and irreparably wounded from without. Civilization must +everywhere step over the body of Rome or stand still, or turn backwards. + +Two factors are especially needed for progress: brain (racial brain), +which by organisation and inheritance tends to be large, free, capable; +and secondly, circumstance, which continually calls forth capability, and +freedom, and largeness. All the schools of supernaturalism, but above all +the Romish school, compress and paralyse at least a portion of the brain: +if a portion is disabled all is enfeebled. If a bodily limb even, a mere +hand or foot, be fettered and palsied, the body itself either dies or +droops into a smaller way of life. It is so with a mental limb--a mental +hand or foot in relation to the mental life. + +To the group of ever-present and subtle forces which make for progress, +there were added in the sixteenth century seemingly new and conspicuous +forces. The art of printing or writing by machinery sowed living seed +broadcast over a fertile soil; the "new learning" restored to us the +inspiring but long hidden thought of old Aryan friends and relatives, and +this again in some degree relaxed the grip of alien and enslaving Semitic +ideas which the exigencies of Roman circumstance had imposed on Europe +with the edge of the sword. New action trod on the heels of new thought. +New lands were traversed; new seas were sailed; new heavens were explored. +The good steed civilisation--long burdened and blindfolded and +curbed,--had lagged somewhat; but now the reins were loose, the spurs were +sharp, the path was clear and the leap which followed was long. + +While our fathers were taking, or were on the eve of taking, this long +step, a notable young man, the son of a capable and wise father and of a +not incapable but certainly unwise mother, stepped into the chief place in +this country. A student who was in training for an Archbishop was suddenly +called upon to be a King. What this King was, what he was not; what +organisation and parentage and circumstance did for him; how he bore +himself to his time--to its drift, its movements, its incidents, its men, +and, alas, to its women--is now our object to inquire. The study of this +theological monarch and of his several attitudes is deeply instructive and +of unfailing interest. + +The Autocrat of the breakfast table wittily comments on the number of +John's characters. John had three. Notable men have more characters than +"John." Henry VIII. had more characters than even the most notable of men. +A man of national repute or of high position has the characters given to +him by his friends, his enemies, and characters given also by parties, +sects, and schools. Henry had all these and two more--strictly, two groups +more--one given to him by his own time, another given to him by ours. + +If we could call up from their long sleep half a dozen representative and +capable men of Henry's reign to meet half a dozen of Victoria's, the jury +would probably not agree. If the older six could obtain all the evidence +which is before us, and the newer six could recall all which was familiar +to Henry's subjects at home and his compeers abroad; if the two bodies +could weigh matters together, discuss all things together--could together +raise the dead and summon the living--nevertheless in the end two voices +would speak--a sixteenth century voice and a nineteenth. + +The older would say in effect: "We took our King to be not only a striking +personality; not only an expert in all bodily exercises and mental +accomplishments; we knew him to be much more--to be industrious, pious, +sincere, courageous, and accessible. We believed him to be keen in vision, +wise in judgment, prompt and sagacious in action. We looked round on our +neighbours and their rulers, and we saw reason to esteem ourselves the +most prosperous of peoples and our King the first, by a long way the +first, of his fellow Kings. Your own records prove that long years after +Henry's death, in all time of trouble the people longed for Henry's good +sense and cried out for Henry's good laws. He was a sacrilegious +miscreant you say; if it were so the nation was a nation of sacrilegious +miscreants, for he merely obeyed the will of the people and carried out a +policy which had been called for and discussed and contrived and, in part, +carried out long before our Henry's time. Upwards of a century before, the +assembled knights of the shire had more than once proposed to take the +property of the Church (much of it gained by sinister methods) and hand it +over for military purposes. The spirit of the religious houses had for +some time jarred on the awakening spirit of a thinking people. Their very +existence cast a slur on a high and growing ideal of domestic life. Those +ancient houses detested and strove to keep down the knowledge which an +aroused people then, as never before, passionately desired to gain." + +"You say he was a 'monster of lust.' Lust is not a new sin: our generation +knew it as well as yours; detected it as keenly as yours; hated it almost +as heartily. But consider: No king anywhere has been, in his own time, so +esteemed, so trusted, nay even so loved and reverenced as our king. Should +we have loved, trusted, and reverenced a 'monster of lust'? If you examine +carefully the times before ours and the times since, you will find that +monsters of lust, crowned or uncrowned, do not act as Henry acted. The +Court, it is true, was not pure, but it was the least voluptuous Court +then existing, and Henry was the least voluptuous man in it. While still +in his teens the widow of an elder brother, a woman much older than he, +and who was also old for her years, was married to him on grounds of state +policy. Not Henry only, but wise and learned men, Luther and Melancthon +among others, came to believe that the marriage was not legal. Henry +himself, indeed, came to believe that God's curse was on it--in our time +we fervently believed in God's curse. A boy with promise of life and +health was the one eager prayer of the people. But boy after boy died and +of four boys not one survived. If one of Catharine's boys had lived: nay +more, if Ann Boleyn had been other than a scheming and faithless woman; or +if, later, Jane Seymour had safely brought forth her son (and perhaps +other sons), Henry would assuredly never have married six wives. You say +he should have seen beforehand the disparity of years, the illegality, the +incest--should have seen even the yet unfallen curse: in our time boys of +eighteen did not see so clearly all these things." "Alas," the juror might +have added, "marriage and death are the two supreme incidents in man's +life: but marriage comes before experience and judgment--these are absent +when they are most needed; experience and judgment attend on death when +they are needless." "Bear in mind, moreover," resumes the older voice, +"that in our time the marriage laws were obscure, perplexing, and +unsettled. High ideals of marriage did not exist. The first nobleman in +our Court was the Earl of Suffolk who twice committed bigamy and was +divorced three times; his first wife was his aunt, and his last his +daughter-in-law. Papal relaxations and papal permissions were cheap and +common--they permitted every sort of sexual union and every sort of +separation. Canon law and the curious sexual relationships of +ecclesiastics, high and low, shed no light but rather darkness on the +matter. The Pope, it is true, hesitated to grant Henry's divorce, but not, +as the whole world knew, on moral or religious grounds: at heart he +approved the divorce and rebuked Wolsey for not settling the matter +offhand in England. All the papal envoys urged the unhappy Catharine to +retire into a religious house; but Catharine insisted that God had called +her to her position"--forgetting, we may interpose, that if He called her +to it He also in effect deposed her from it. God called her daughter Mary, +so Mary believed, to burn Protestants; God called Elizabeth, so Elizabeth +exclaimed ('it was marvellous in her eyes'), to harass Romanists. + +"But the one paramount circumstance which weighed with us, and we remember +a thousand circumstances while you remember the 'six wives' only, was the +question of succession. If succession was the one question which more than +all others agitated your fathers in Anne's time, try to imagine what it +was to us. You, after generations of order, peace and security--you +utterly fail to understand our position. We had barely come out of a +lawless cruel time--a time born of the ferocity and hate of conflicting +dynasties. Fathers still lived to tell us how they ate blood, and drank +blood, and breathed blood. They and we were weary of blood, and our two +Henrys (priceless Henrys to us,) had just taken its taste out of our +mouths. No queen, be it well noted, had ruled over us either in peaceful +or in stormy times; we believed with our whole souls, rightly or wrongly, +that no queen could possibly preserve us from destruction and ruin. It was +our importunity mainly--make no mistake on this point,--which drove our +king, whenever he was wifeless, to take another wife. His three years of +widowhood after Jane Seymour's death was our gravest anxiety." + +The newer voice replies: "You were a foolish and purblind generation. The +simplicity of your Henry's subjects, and the servility of his parliament +have become a bye-word. It is true your king, although less capable than +you suppose, was not without certain gifts--their misuse only adds to his +infamy. It is true also that he had been carefully educated,--his father +was to be thanked for that. It would seem, moreover, that quite early in +life he was not without some attractiveness in person and manners, but you +forget that bodily grossness and mental irritability soon made him a +repulsive object. An eminent Englishman of our century says he was a big, +burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double-chinned and swinish-looking +fellow, and that indeed so bad a character could never have been veiled +under a prepossessing appearance. Your King was vain, ostentatious, and +extravagant. With measured words we declare that his hypocrisy, cruelty, +sacrilege, selfishness and lust, were all unbounded. He was above all an +unrivalled master of mean excuses: did he wish to humble and oppress the +clergy--they had violated the statute of premunire. Did his voluptuous eye +fall on a dashing young maid of honour--he suddenly discovered that he was +living in incest, and that his marriage was under God's curse. Did the +Pope hesitate to grant him a divorce--he began to see that the proper head +of the English Church was the English king. Was his exchequer empty--he +was convinced that the inmates of the wealthy religious houses led the +lives and deserved the fate of certain cities once destroyed by fire and +brimstone. Did a defiant Pole carry his head out of Harry's reach--it was +found that Pole's mother, Lady Salisbury, was the centre of Yorkist +intrigue, and that the mother's head could be lopped off in place of the +son's." + +The two voices it is clear have much to say for themselves. It is equally +clear that the two groups of jurymen will not agree on their verdict. + +It is commonly held and as a rule on good grounds, that the judgment of +immediate friends and neighbours is less just than the opinion of +foreigners and of posterity. This is so when foreigners and posterity are +agreed, and are free from the tumult, and passion, and personal bias of +time and place. It is not so in Henry's case. Curiously enough, foreign +observers, scholars, envoys, travellers, agree with--nay, outrun Henry's +subjects in their praise of Henry. Curiously too the tumult and passion +touching Henry's matrimonial affairs--touching all his affairs +indeed,--have grown rather than diminished with the progress of time. +Epochs, like men, have not the gift of seeing themselves as others see +them. Unnumbered Frenchmen ate and drank, and made merry, and bought and +sold; married their children and buried their parents, not knowing that +France was giving a shock to all mankind for all time to come. The +assassins of St. Bartholomew believed that in future a united Christendom +would bless them for performing a pious and uniting deed. We see all at +once the bare and startling fact of six wives. Henry's subjects saw and +became familiar with a slow succession of marriages, each of which had its +special cloud of vital yet confusing circumstance. So too the Reformation +has its different phases. In the sixteenth century it was looked on as a +serious quarrel, no doubt, but no one dreamed it was anything more. Then +each side thought the other side would shortly come to its senses and all +would be well; no one dreamt of two permanently hostile camps and lasting +combat. If personal hate and actual bloodshed have passed away, and at the +present moment the combat shews signs of still diminishing bitterness, it +is because a new and mysterious atmosphere is slowly creeping over +both--slowly benumbing both the armies. + +An attempt must be made here to sketch Henry's character with as much +impartiality as is possible. But no impartial sketch will please either +his older friends or his newer enemies. Although Henry came to the throne +a mere boy, he was a precocious boy. In the precocious the several stages +of life succeed each other more quickly than in others, and probably they +themselves do not wear so well. When Henry was twenty-five he was little +less wise and capable than he was at thirty-five or forty-five. At forty +he was probably wiser than he was at fifty. The young king's presence was +striking; he had a fresh rosy complexion, and an auburn though scanty +beard. His very limbs, exclaims one foreign admirer, "glowed with warm +pink" through his delicately woven tennis costume. He was handsome in +feature; large and imposing in figure; open and frank in manners; strong, +active, and skilled in all bodily exercises. He was an admirer of all the +arts, and himself an expert in many of them. Henry had indeed all the +qualities, whatever their worth may be, which make a favourite with the +multitude. Those qualities, no matter what change time brought to them, +preserved his popularity to the last. + +Henry was neither a genius nor a hero; but they who deny that he was a +singularly able man will probably misread his character; misread his +ideals, his conduct, and his various attitudes. Henry's education was +thorough and his learning extensive. His habit of mind tended perhaps +rather to activity and versatility and obedience to old authority than to +intensity or depth or independence. His father, who looked more favourably +on churchmen and lawyers than on noblemen, destined his second son for the +Church. At that time theology, scholastic theology--for Colet and Erasmus +and More had not then done their work--was the acutest mental discipline +known as well as the highest accomplishment. For when the "new learning" +reached this country it found theology the leading study, and therefore +it roused theology; in Italy on the other hand it found the arts the +predominant study, and there it roused the arts. Henry would doubtless +have made a successful bishop and escaped thereby much domestic turmoil; +but, on the whole, he was probably better fitted to be a King; while his +quiet, contemplative, and kindly father would at any rate have found life +pleasanter in lawn sleeves than he found it on a throne. + +It would be well if men and women were to write down in two columns with +all possible honesty the good and the evil items in the characters (not +forgetting their own) which interest them. The exercise itself would +probably call forth serviceable qualities, and would frequently bring to +light unexpected results. Probably in this process good characters would +lose something and the bad would gain. From such an ordeal Henry VIII. +would come out a sad figure, though not quite so sad as is popularly +considered. + +It is not proposed in this sketch of character to separate, if indeed +separation is possible, the good qualities which are held to be more or +less inborn from those which seem to be attainable by efforts of the will. +Freedom of the will must of course be left in its native darkness. Neither +can the attempt be made to estimate, even if such estimate were possible, +how much the individual makes of his own character and how much is made +for him. Some features of character, again, are neither good nor evil, or +are good or evil only when they are excessive or deficient or unsuitable +to time and place. Love of pageantry is one of these; love of pleasure +another; so, too, are the leanings to conservation or to innovation. + +In thought and feeling and action Henry was undoubtedly conservative. His +conservatism was modified by his self-will and self-confidence, but it +assuredly ranked with the leading features of his character--with his +piety his egotism and his love of popularity. To shine in well-worn paths +was his chief enjoyment: not to shine in these paths, or to get out of +them, or to get in advance of them, or to lag behind, was his greatest +dread. The innovator may or may not be pious, but conservatism naturally +leans to piety, and Henry's piety, if not deep or passionate, was at any +rate copious and sincere. Henry, it has been said, was not a hero, not a +genius, neither was he a saint. But if his ideals were not high, and if +his conduct was not unstained, his religious beliefs were unquestioning +and his religious observances numerous and stringent. + +The fiercer the light which beat upon his throne, the better pleased was +Henry. He had many phases of character and many gifts, and he delighted in +displaying his phases and in exercising his gifts. The use and place of +ceremony and spectacle are still matters of debate; but modern feeling +tends more and more to hand them over to children, May-day sweeps, and +Lord-mayors. In Henry's reign the newer learning and newer thought had it +is true done but little to undermine the love of gewgaws and glitter, but +Henry's devotion to them, even for his time, was so childish that it must +be written down in his darker column. + +We may turn now to the less debatable items in Henry's character, and say +which shall go into the black list and which into the white. We are all +too prone perhaps to give but one column to the men we approve, and one +only to the men we condemn. It is imperative in the estimation of +character that there be "intellect enough," as a great writer expresses +it, to judge and material enough on which to pronounce judgment. If we +bring the "sufficient intellect," especially one that is fair by habit and +effort, to the selection of large facts--for facts have many sizes and +ranks, large and small, pompous and retiring--and strip from these the +smaller confusing facts, strip off too, personal witcheries and deft +subtleties--then we shall see that all men (and all movements) have two +columns. The 'monster' Henry had two. In his good column we cannot refuse +to put down unflagging industry--no Englishman worked harder--a genuine +love of knowledge, a deep sense of the value of education, and devotion to +all the arts both useful and elevating--the art of ship-building +practically began with him. His courage, his sincerity, his sense of duty, +his frequent generosity, his placability (with certain striking +exceptions) were all beyond question. His desire for the welfare of his +people, although tempered by an unduly eager desire for their good +opinion, was surely an item on the good side. The good column is but +fairly good; the black list is, alas, very black. Henry was fitful, +capricious, petulant, censorious. His fitfulness and petulance go far to +explain his acts of occasional implacability. Failing health and premature +age explain in some degree the extreme irritability and absence of control +which characterised his later years. In his best years his love of +pleasure, or rather his love of change and excitement, his ostentation, +and his extravagance exceeded all reasonable limits. Ostentation and love +of show are rarely found apart from vanity, and Henry's vanity was +colossal. Vain men are not proud, and Henry had certainly not the pride +which checks the growth of many follies. A proud man is too proud to be +vain or undignified or mean or deceitful, and Henry was all these. Pride +and dignity usually run together; while, on the other hand, vanity and +self-importance keep each other company as a rule. Henry lacked dignity +when he competed with his courtiers for the smiles of Ann Boleyn in her +early Court days; he lacked it when he searched Campeggio's unsavoury +carpet-bag. He seemed pleased rather than otherwise that his petty gossip +should be talked of under every roof in Europe. It is true that in this +direction Catharine descended to a still lower level of bed-room scandal; +but her nature, never a high one, was deteriorated by a grievous +unhappiness and by that incessant brooding which sooner or later tumbles +the loftiest nature into the dust. + +Henry's two striking failings--his two insanities--were a huge +self-importance and an unquenchable thirst for notoriety and applause. I +have said 'insanities' designedly, for they were not passions--they were +diseases. The popular "modern voice" would probably not regard these as at +all grave defects when compared with others so much worse. This voice +indeed, we well know, declares him to have been the embodiment of the +worst human qualities--of gross selfishness, of gross cruelty, and of +gross lust. These charges are not groundless, but if we could believe them +with all the fulness and the vehemence with which they are made, we must +then marvel that his subjects trusted him, revered him, called (they and +their children) for his good sense and his good laws; we can but marvel +indeed that with one voice of execration they did not fell him lifeless to +the ground. He was unguarded and within reach. If the charges against +Henry come near to the truth, Nero was the better character of the two. +Nero knew not what he did; he was beyond question a lunatic and one of a +family of lunatics. Henry's enormities were the enormities of a fairly +sane and responsible man. + +In order to read Henry's character more correctly, if that be possible, +than it is read by the "two voices," more light is needed. Let us see what +an examination of Henry's bodily organisation, and especially of his +parentage, will do for us. In this light--if it be light, and attainable +light--it will be well to examine afresh (at the risk of some repetition) +the grave charges which are so constantly and so confidently laid at his +door and see what of vindication or modification or damning confirmation +may follow. Before looking specially at Henry's organisation and +inheritance, I purpose devoting a short chapter to a general view of the +principles which can give such an examination any value. It will be for +the most part a brief statement of views which I have already put forward +in my little work on character as seen in body and parentage. + + + + +THE RELATION OF BODY AND PARENTAGE TO CHARACTER. + +NOTE II. + + +It is unwise to turn aside from the investigation of any body of truths +because it can only be partial in its methods or incomplete in its +results. We do this however in the study of the science of character. It +is true that past efforts have given but little result--little result +because they ignored and avowedly ignored the connection which is coming +to be more and more clearly seen to exist between character on the one +hand and bodily organisation and proclivity, and especially the +organisation and proclivity of the nervous system, on the other hand. +Those who ignore the bearings of organisation and inheritance on character +are, for the most part, those who prefer that "truth should be on their +side rather than that they should be on the side of truth." + +It is contended here that much serviceable knowledge may be obtained by +the careful investigation, in given individuals, of _bodily_ +characteristics, and the union of these with _mental_ and _moral_ +characteristics. The relationship of these combined features of body and +mind to parentage, near and remote, and on both sides, should be traced as +far back as possible. The greater the number of individuals brought under +examination, the more exact and extensive will be the resulting knowledge. + +Very partial methods of classifying character are of daily utility. We +say, for example, speaking of the muscular system only, that men are +strong or weak. But this simple truth or classification has various +notable bearings. Both the strong and the weak may be dextrous, or both +may be clumsy; both may be slow, or both may be quick; but they will be +dextrous or clumsy, slow or quick, in different ways and degrees. So, +going higher than mere bodily organisation, we may say that some men are +bold and resolute while others are timid and irresolute; some again are +parsimonious and others prodigal. Now these may possibly be all +intelligent or all stupid, all good or all bad; but, nevertheless, +boldness and timidity, parsimony and generosity, modify other phases of +character in various ways. The irresolute man, for example, cannot be very +wise, or the penurious man truly good. It must always be remembered in +every sort of classification of bodily or of mental characteristics, that +the lines of division are not sharply defined. All classes merge into each +other by imperceptible degrees. + +One of the most, perhaps the most, fundamental and important +classification of men and women is that which puts them into two divisions +or two temperaments, the active, or tending to be active, on the one hand, +and the reflective, or tending to be reflective, on the other. To many +students of character this is not anew suggestion, but much more is +contended for here. It is contended that the more active temperament is +alert, practical, quick, conspicuous, and--a very notable +circumstance--less impassioned; the more reflective temperament is less +active, less practical, or perhaps even dreamy, secluded, and--also a very +notable circumstance--more impassioned. It is not so much that men of +action always desire to be seen, or that men of thought desire to be +hidden; action naturally brings men to the front; contemplation as +naturally hides them; when active men differ, the difference carries +itself to the housetops; when thinking men differ, they fight in the +closet and by quieter methods. Busy men, moreover, are given to detail, +and detail fills the eye and ear; men of reflection deal more with +principles, and these lie beyond the range of ordinary vision. + +The proposition which I here put forward, based on many years of +observation and study, is fundamental, and affects, more or less, a wide +range of character in every individual. The proposition is that in the +active temperament the intellectual faculties are disproportionately +strong--the passions are feebler and lag behind; in the reflective +temperament the passions are the stronger in proportion to the mental +powers. Character is dominated more by the intellect in one case, more by +the emotions in the other. In all sane and healthful characters (and only +these are considered here) the intellectual and emotional elements are +both distinctly present. The most active men think; the most reflective +men act. But in many men and women the intellect takes an unduly large +share in the fashioning of life; these are called here the "less +impassioned," the "unimpassioned," or for the sake of brevity, "the +passionless." In many others the feelings or emotions play a stronger +part; these are the "more impassioned" or the "passionate." + +Character is not made of of miscellaneous fragments, of thought and +feeling, of volition and action. Its elements are more or less homogeneous +and run in uniform groups. The less impassioned, or passionless, for +example, are apt to be changeable and uncertain; they are active, ready, +alert; they are quick to comprehend, to decide, to act; they are usually +self-confident and sometimes singularly self-important. They often seek +for applause but they are sparing in their approval and in their praise of +others. When the mental endowment is high, and the training and +environment favourable, the unimpassioned temperament furnishes some of +our finest characters. In this class are found great statesmen and great +leaders. A man's _public_ position is probably determined more by +intellectual power than by depth of feeling. Now and then, especially when +the mental gifts are slight, the less pleasing elements predominate: love +of change may become mere fitfulness; activity may become bustle; sparing +approval may turn to habitual detraction and actual censoriousness. Love +of approbation may degenerate into a mania for notoriety at any cost; +self-importance may bring about a reckless disregard of the well-being of +others. Fortunately the outward seeming of the passionless temperament is +often worse than the reality, and querulous speech is often combined with +generous action. Frequently, too, where there is ineradicable caprice +there is no neglect of duty. + +The elements of character which, in various ways and degrees, cluster +together in the more impassioned or passionate temperament are very +different in their nature. In this temperament we find repose or even +gentleness, quiet reflection, tenacity of purpose. The feelings--love, or +hate, or joy, or grief, or anger, or jealousy--are more or less deep and +enduring. In this class also there are fine characters, especially (as in +the unimpassioned) when the mental gifts are high and the training +refined. In this class too are found perhaps the worst characters which +degrade the human race. In all save the rarest characters, the customary +tranquillity may be broken by sullen cloud or actual storm. In the less +capable and less elevated, devotion may become fanaticism, and tenacity +may become blind prejudice, or sheer obstinacy. In this temperament too, +in its lower grades, we meet too often--not all together perhaps, +certainly not all in equal degree--with indolence, sensuality, +inconstancy; or morbid brooding, implacability, and even cruelty. + +I contend then that certain features of character, it may be in very +varying degrees of intensity, belong to the more active and passionless +temperament, and certain other features attend on the more reflective and +impassioned temperament. If it can be shown that there are two marked +groups of elements in character--the more impassioned group and the less +impassioned group--and that each group may be inferred to exist if but one +or two of its characteristic elements are clearly seen, why even then much +would be gained in the interpretation of history and of daily life. But I +contend for much more than this; the two temperaments have each their +characteristic bodily signs; the more marked the temperament, the more +striking and the more easily read are the bodily signs. In the +intermediate temperament--a frequent and perhaps the happiest +temperament--the bodily signs are also intermediate. The bodily +characteristics run in groups also, as well as the mental. The nervous +system of each temperament is enclosed in its own special organisation and +framework. In my work on "character as seen in body and parentage," I +treat this topic with some fulness, and what is stated there need not be +repeated now. It may be noted, however, that in the two temperaments there +are peculiarities of the skin--clearness or pigmentation; of the +hair--feebleness or sparseness, or closeness and vigour of growth; of the +configuration of the skeleton and consequent pose of the figure. + +If the conclusions here put forward are true, they give a key which opens +up much character to us. They touch, as I have already said, a great range +of character in every individual, but they make no pretension to be a +system. They have only an indirect bearing on many phases of character; +for in both the active and reflective temperaments there may be found, for +example, either wisdom or folly, courage or cowardice, refinement or +coarseness. + +It must always be remembered, too, that besides the more marked types of +character, whether bodily or mental, there are numberless intervening +gradations. When the temperaments, moreover, are distinctly marked, the +ordinary concurrent elements may exist in very unequal degrees and be +combined in very various ways. One or two qualities may perhaps absorb the +sum-total of nerve force. In the passionless man or woman extreme activity +may repress the tendency to disapprove; immense self-importance may impede +action. In the impassioned individual, inordinate love or hate may +enfeeble thought; deep and persistent thought may dwarf the affections. + +As I have said elsewhere: 'For the ordinary purposes of life, especially +of domestic and social life, the intervening types of character (combining +thought and action more equally, though probably each in somewhat less +degree) produce perhaps the most useful and the happiest results. But the +progress of the world at large is mainly due to the combined efforts of +the more extreme types--the supremely reflective and impassioned and the +supremely active and unimpassioned. Both are needed. If we had men of +action only, we should march straight into chaos; if we had men of thought +only, we should drift into night and sleep!' + + + + +HENRY'S FAMILY PROCLIVITIES. + +NOTE III. + + +If there is any truth in the views put forward in the foregoing chapter, +and if history has at all faithfully portrayed a character concerning +which it has had, at any rate, much to say, it is clear that Henry must be +placed in the less impassioned class of human beings. When I first called +attention to the three sorts of character--and the three groups of +characteristics--the active, practical, and more or less passionless on +the one hand; the less active, reflective, and impassioned on the other; +and, thirdly, the intermediate class, neither Henry nor his period was in +my mind. But when, at a later time (and for purposes other than the +special study of character), I came to review the Reformation with its +ideas, its men, its incidents, I saw at once, to my surprise, that Henry's +life was a busy, active, conspicuous, passionless life. He might have sat +for the portrait I had previously drawn. Markedly unimpassioned men tend +to be fitful, petulant, censorious, self-important, self-willed, and eager +for popularity--so tended Henry. The unimpassioned are frequently sincere, +conscientious, pious, and conservative--Henry was all these. They often +have, especially when capable and favourably encompassed, a high sense of +duty and a strong desire to promote the well-being of those around +them--these qualities were conspicuous in Henry's character. + +How much of inherited organisation, how much of circumstance, how much of +self-effort go to the making of character is a problem the solution of +which is yet seemingly far off. Mirabeau, with fine perception, declared +that a boy's education should begin, twenty years before he is born, with +his mother. Unquestionably before a man is born the plan of his character +is drawn, its foundations are laid, and its building is foreshadowed. Can +he, later, close a door here or open a window there? Can he enlarge this +chamber or contract that? He believes he can, and is the happier in the +belief; but in actual life we do not find that it is given to one man to +say, I will be active, I will be on the spot, I will direct here and +rebuke there; nor to another man to say, I will give myself up to thought, +to dreams, to seclusion. Henry never said, with unconscious impulse or +with conscious words, "I will be this, or I will not be that." + +Henry VIII. took altogether after his mother's side, and she, again, took +after her father. Henry was, in fact, his grandfather Edward IV. over +again. He had, however, a larger capacity than his mother's father, and he +lived in a better epoch. Edward, it was said in his time, was the +handsomest and most accomplished man in Europe. Henry was spoken of in +similar words by his compeers both at home and abroad. Both were large in +frame, striking in contour, rose-pink in complexion--then, as now, the +popular ideal of manly perfection--and both became exceedingly corpulent +in their later years. Both were active, courteous, affable, accessible; +both busy, conspicuous, vain, fond of pleasure, and given to display. Both +were unquestionably brave; but they were also (both of them) fickle, +capricious, suspicious, and more or less cruel. Both put self in the +foremost place; but Edward's selfishness drifted rather to +self-indulgence, while Henry's took the form of self-importance. Extreme +self-importance is usually based on high capacity, and Edward's capacity +did not lift him out of the region of pomposity and frequent indiscretion. + +Edward IV. was nevertheless an able man although less able than Henry. +Like Henry he belonged to the unimpassioned class; he was without either +deeply good or deeply evil passion, but probably he had somewhat stronger +emotions than his grandson. In other words Henry had more of intellect and +less of passion than his grandfather. Edward's early and secret marriage +was no proof of passion. Early marriages are not the monopoly of any +temperament; sometimes they are the product of the mere caprice, or the +self-will and the feeble restraint of the passionless, and sometimes the +product of the raw and immature judgment of the passionate. Edward +deserves our pity, for he had everything against him; he had no models, no +ideals, no education, no training. The occupation of princes at that time +brought good neither to themselves nor anyone else. They went up and down +the country to slay and be slain; to take down from high places the +severed heads of one worthless dynasty and put up the heads of another +dynasty equally worthless. + +The eighth Henry derived nothing from his father--the seventh,--nothing of +good, nothing of evil. One of the most curious errors of a purely literary +judgment on men and families is seen in the use of the epithet "Tudor." We +hear for example of the "Tudor" blood shewing itself in one, of the +"Tudor" spirit flashing out in another. Whether Henry VII. was a Tudor or +not we may not now stop to inquire. Henry VIII. we have seen took wholly +after his Yorkist mother. Of Henry's children, Mary was a repetition of +her dark dwarfish Spanish mother; the poor lad Edward, whether a Seymour +or a Yorkist, was certainly not a Tudor. The big comely pink Elizabeth was +her father in petticoats--her father in body, her father in mind. Henry +VIII. in fact while Tudor in name was Lancastrian in dynasty, and Yorkist +in blood. No two kings, no two men indeed could well have been more +unlike, bodily, mentally, and morally, than the two Henrys--father and +son. The eighth was communicative, confiding, open, frank; the seventh was +silent, reserved, mysterious. The son was active, busy, practical, +conspicuous; the father, although not indolent, and not unpractical, was +nevertheless quiet, dreamy, reflective, self-restrained, and unobtrusive. +One was prodigal, martial, popular; the other was prudent, peaceful, +steadfast, and unpopular. He is said indeed to have been parsimonious, but +the least sympathetic of his historians confess that he was generous in +his rewards for service, that his charities were numerous, and that his +state ceremonies were marked by fitting splendour. Henry VIII. changed (or +destroyed) his ministers, his bishops, his wives, and his measures also, +many times. Henry VII. kept his wife--perverse and mischievous as she +was,--till she died; kept his ministers and bishops till they died; kept +his policy and his peace till he died himself. + +Henry VII. is noteworthy mainly for being but little noticed. The scribe +of whatever time sees around him only that which is conspicuous and +exceptional and often for the most part foolish, and therefore the +documents of this Henry's reign are but few in number. The occupants of +high places who are careful and prudent are rarely popular. His +unpopularity was moreover helped on in various ways. Dynastic policy +thrust upon him a wife of the busy unimpassioned temperament--a woman in +whom deficient emotion and sympathy and affection were not compensated by +any high qualities; a woman who was restless, mischievous, vain, +intriguing, and fond of influence. Elizabeth of York had all the bad +qualities of her father and her son and had very few of their good ones. A +King Henry in feminine disguise without his virtues was not likely to love +or be loved. Domestic sourness is probably a not infrequent cause of +taciturnity and mystery and seclusion in the characters of both men and +women. It was well that Henry was neither angry nor morose. It says much +for him moreover that while he was the object of ceaseless intrigue and +hostility and rancour he yet never gave way to cynicism or revenge or +cruelty. + +With a tolerably happy marriage, an assenting and a helpful nobility, and +an unassailed throne, it is difficult to put a limit to the good which +Henry VII. might have done and which it lay in him to do. As it was he +smoothed the way for enterprise and discovery, for the printing press and +the new learning. He was the first of English monarchs who befriended +education--using the word in its modern sense. It is curious that the +acutest changes in our history--the death of a decrepit mediaevalism, the +birth of the young giant modernism--happened in our so-called sleepiest +reign. Surely the "quiet" father had a smaller share of popular applause +than he deserved, and as surely the "dashing" son a much larger share. But +in all periods, old and new, popularity should give us pause: yesterday, +for example, inquisitors were knelt to, hailed with acclamation and pelted +with flowers, and heretics were spat upon, hissed at, and burnt, but +to-day's flowers are for the heretics and the execrations are for the +inquisitors. + +Thus then in all characteristics--intellectual, moral and bodily--Henry +VIII. must be placed in the unimpassioned class. It may be noted too in +passing that all the portraits of Henry show us a feeble growth of hair on +the face and signs of a convex back--convex vertically and convex +transversely. We do not see the back it is true, but we see both the head +and the shoulders carried forwards and the chin held down towards the +chest--held indeed so far downward that the neck seems greatly shortened. +It is interesting to observe the pose of the head and neck and shoulders +in the portraits of noted personages. The forward head and shoulders, the +downward chin (the products of a certain spinal configuration) are seen in +undoubtedly different characters but characters which nevertheless have +much in common: they are seen in all the portraits of Napoleon I. and, +although not quite so markedly, in those of our own General Gordon. +Napoleon and Gordon were unlike in many ways, and the gigantic +self-importance and self-seeking of Napoleon were absent in the simpler +and finer character. In other ways they were much alike. Both were brave +active busy men; but both were fitful, petulant, censorius, difficult to +please, and--which is very characteristic--both although changeable were +nevertheless self-willed and self-confident. Both were devoid of the +deeper passions. + + + + +THE WIVES QUESTION. + +NOTE IV. + + +It is affirmed that no one save a monster of lust would marry six wives--a +monster of lust being of course a man of over-mastering passion. It might +be asked, in passing, seeing that six wives is the sign of a perfect +"monster" if three wives make a semi-monster? Pompey had five wives, was +he five-sixths of a monster. To be serious however in this wife question, +it will probably never be possible to say with exactness how much in +Henry's conduct was due to religious scruples; how much to the urgent +importunity (state-born importunity) of advisers and subjects; how much to +the then existing confusion of the marriage laws; how much to misfortune +and coincidence; how much to folly and caprice; how much to colossal +self-importance, and how much to "unbounded license." + +History broadly hints that great delusions, like great revolutions, may +overcome--especially if the overcoming be not too sudden--both peoples and +persons without their special wonder. In such delusions and such +revolutions the actors and the victims are alike often unconscious actors +and unconscious victims. Neither Henry nor his people dreamt that the +great marriage question of the sixteenth century would excite the ridicule +of all succeeding centuries. Luther did not imagine that his efforts would +help to divide religious Europe into two permanently hostile camps. +Robespierre did not suspect that his name would live as an enduring +synonym for blood. But to marry six wives, solely on licentious grounds, +is a proceeding so striking and so uncomplicated that no delusion could +possibly come over the performer and certainly not over a watchful people. +Yet something akin to delusion there certainly was; its causes however +were several and complex, and lust was the least potent of them. The +statement may seem strange, but there was little of desire in Henry's +composition. A monster he possibly was of some sort of folly; but strange +as it may seem he was a monster of folly precisely because he was the +opposite of a monster of passion. Unhappily unbounded lust is now and then +a feature of the impassioned temperament. It is never seen however in the +less impassioned, and Henry was one of the less impassioned. The want of +dignity is itself a striking feature in the character of passionless and +active men, and want of dignity was the one conspicuous defect in Henry's +conduct in his marriage affairs. Perhaps too, dignity--personal or +national--is, like quietness and like kindliness, among the later growths +of civilisation. + +No incident or series of incidents illustrative of character in any of its +phases, no matter how striking the incidents, or how strong the character +or phase of character, have ever happened once only. If libertinism, for +example, had ever shown itself in the selection and destruction of +numerous wives, history would assuredly give information pertinent +thereto: it gives none. Nothing happens once only. Even the French +Revolution, so frequently regarded as a unique event, was only one of +several examples of the inherent and peculiar cruelty of the French +celt.[1] The massacre of Bartholomew was more revolting in its numbers +and in its character. The massacre of the commune, French military +massacres and various massacres in French history deprive the "great" +Revolution of its exceptional character. But to return. There were +licentious kings and princes before Henry, granting he was licentious, and +there have been notably licentious kings and princes since: their methods +are well known and they were wholly unlike his. + + [1] From historic comparison we may feel sure that no such cruelty was + found in the Gothic and Frankish and Norman blood of France. + +Certain incidents concerning Henry's marriages are of great physiological +interest: a fat, bustling, restless, fitful, wilful man approaching +mid-life--a man brim full of activity but deficient in feeling, waited +twenty years before the idea of divorce was seriously entertained; and +several more years of Papal shiftiness were endured, not without petulance +enough, but seemingly without storm or whirlwind. When Jane Seymour died, +three years of single life followed. It is true the three years were not +without marriage projects, but they were entirely state projects, and were +in no way voluptuous overtures. The marriage with Anne of Cleves was a +purely state marriage, and remained, so historians tell us, a merely +nominal and ceremonial marriage during the time the King and the German +princess occupied the same bed--a circumstance not at all indicative of +"monstrous" passion. The very unfaithfulness of Anne Boleyn and Catherine +Howard is not without its significance, for the proceedings of our Divorce +Court show that as a rule (a rule it is true not without exceptions) we do +not find the wives of lustful men to be unfaithful. In the case of a Burns +or a Byron or a King David it is not the wife who is led astray; it is the +wives of the Henrys and the Arthurs, strikingly dissimilar as they were in +so many respects, who are led into temptation. + +No _sane_ man is the embodiment of a single passion. Save in the wards of +a lunatic asylum a simple monster of voluptuousness, or monster of anger, +or monster of hate has no existence; and within those wards such monsters +are undoubted examples of nerve ailment. It is true one (very rarely one +only) passion may unduly predominate--one or more may be fostered and +others may be dwarfed; but as a very general rule the deeper passions run +together. One passion, if unequivocally present, denotes the existence of +other passions, palpable or latent--denotes the existence, in fact, of the +impassioned temperament. Henry VIII., startling as the statement may seem, +had no single, deep, unequivocal passion--no deep love, no profound pity, +no overwhelming grief, no implacable hate, no furious anger. The noisy +petulance of a busy, censorious, irritable man and the fretfulness of an +invalid are frequently misunderstood. On no single occasion did Henry +exhibit overmastering anger. Historians note with evident surprise that he +received the conclusion of the most insulting farce in history--the +Campeggio farce--with composure. When the Bishop of Rochester thrust +himself, unbidden, into the Campeggio Court in order to denounce the king +and the divorce, Henry's only answer was a long and learned essay on the +degrees of incestuous marriage which the Pope might or might not permit. +When his own chaplains scolded him, in coarse terms, in his own chapel, he +listened, not always without peevishness, but always without anger. +Turning to other emotions, no hint is given of Henry's grief at the loss +of son after son in his earlier married years. If a husband of even +ordinary affection _could_ ever have felt grief, it would surely show +itself when a young wife and a young mother died in giving birth to a +long-wished-for son and heir. Not a syllable is said of Henry's grief at +Jane Seymour's death; and three weeks after he was intriguing for a +Continental, state, and purely diplomatic marriage. It is true that he +paraded a sort of fussy affection for the young prince Edward--carried him +indeed through the state apartments in his own royal arms; but the less +impassioned temperament is often more openly demonstrative than the +impassioned, especially when the public ear listens and the public eye +watches. Those who caress in public attach as a rule but little meaning to +caresses. If Henry's affections were small we have seen that his +self-importance was colossal; and the very defections--terrible to some +natures--of Anne Boleyn and of Catherine Howard wounded his importance +much more deeply than they wounded his affections. + +If we limit our attention for a moment to the question of deep feeling, we +cannot but see how unlike Henry was to the impassioned men of history. +Passionate king David, for example, would not have waited seven years +while a commission decided upon his proposed relationship to Bathsheba; +and the cold Henry could not have flung his soul into a fiery psalm. The +impassioned Burns could not have said a last farewell to the mother of his +helpless babe without moistening the dust with his tears, while Henry +could never have understood why many strong men cannot read the second +verse of "John Anderson my Jo" with an unbroken voice. + + + + +THE LESS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. + +NOTE V. + + +It is well now, after considering the question of Henry's parentage and +organisation, to look again and a little more closely, at certain +significant features in his character--his caprice, his captiousness, his +love of applause, his self-will, self-confidence, and self-importance. +These elements of character frequently run together in equal or unequal +degrees, and they are extremely characteristic of the more markedly +passionless temperament. But before doing this it is well to look, in a +brief note, at some features of Henry's character which are found in the +less impassioned and the more impassioned temperaments alike. Both +temperaments, for example, may be cruel or kindly; both may tend to +conservatism or to innovation; pious persons or worldly may be found in +both. But the cruelty or kindliness, the conservatism or innovation, the +piety or worldliness differ in the different temperaments--they differ in +their motives, in their methods, in their aims. + +The cruelty of the unimpassioned man is, for the most part, a reckless +disregard for the happiness or well-being or (in mediaeval times +especially) for the lives of those who stand in his way or thwart his +plans or lessen his self-importance. Such cruelty is more wayward +resentful and transitory than deliberative or implacable or persistent. +The cruelty of the impassioned man is perhaps the darkest of human +passions. It is the cruelty born of hate--cruelty contrived with +deliberation and watched with glee. Happily it is a kind which lessens +with the growth of civilisation. Often it attends on the strong +convictions of strong natures obeying strong commands--commands which are +always strongest when they are believed to have a supernatural origin; for +belief in supernaturalism is the natural enemy of mercy; it demands +obedience and forbids compassion. Cruelty was at its worst when +supernatural beliefs were strongest; for happily natural reason has grown, +and supernatural belief has dwindled. The unimpassioned and the +impassioned temperaments may alike scale the highest or descend to the +lowest levels of character, although probably the most hateful level of +human degredation is reached by the more impassioned nature. It cannot be +denied that, even for his time, Henry had a certain unmistakable dash of +cruelty in his composition. A grandson of Edward IV., who closely +resembled his grandfather, could not well be free from it. But the cruelty +of Henry, like that of Edward, was cruelty of the passionless type. He +swept aside--swept too often out of existence--those who defied his will +or lessened his importance. + +How much of Henry's cruelty was due to the resolve to put down opposition, +how much was due to passing resentment and caprice, and how much, if any, +to the delight of inflicting pain, not even Henry's compeers could easily +have said. His cruelty in keeping the solitary Mary apart from her +solitary mother was singularly persistent in so fickle a man; but even +here weak fear and a weak policy were stronger than cruel feeling. It was +Henry's way of meeting persistent obstinacy. It is needless to discuss +the cruelty of the executions on religious grounds during Henry's reign; +they were the order of the day and were sanctioned by the merciful and the +unmerciful alike. But Henry's treatment of high personages was a much +deeper stain--deeper than the stain of his matrimonial affairs. People and +parliament earnestly prayed for a royal son and heir, but no serious or +popular prayer was ever offered up for the heads of Fisher or More or Lady +Salisbury. Henry's cruelty had always practical ends in view. Great +officials who had failed, or who were done with, were officials in the +way, and _their_ heads might be left to the care of those who were at once +their rivals and their enemies. The execution of Lady Salisbury will never +fail to rouse indignation as long as history is history and men are men. +Henry might have learned a noble lesson from his father. Henry VII. put +his own intriguing mother-in-law into a religious house, and the proper +destination of a female Yorkist intriguer--no matter how high or +powerful--was a convent, not a scaffold. In the execution of Elizabeth +Barton meanness was added to cruelty, for the wretched woman confessed her +impostures and exposed the priests who contrived them for her. The cruelty +which shocked Europe most, and has shocked it ever since, was the +execution of Sir Thomas More. More's approval would have greatly consoled +the King, but More's approval fell far short of the King's demands. The +silence of great men does _not_ give consent, and More was silent. More +was, next to Erasmus, the loftiest intellect then living on this planet. +Throughout Europe men were asking what More thought of "the King's +matter." More's head was the only answer. But however indignant we may be, +let us not be unjust; Henry, cruel as he was, was less cruel than any of +his compeers--royal, imperial, or papal, or other. The cruelty of our +Tudor ruler has always been put under a fierce light; the greater cruelty +of distant rulers we are too prone to disregard. We are too prone also to +forget that the one thing new under the sun in _our_ time is greater +kindliness--kindliness to life, to opinion, to pocket. If fate had put a +crown on Luther's head, or Calvin's, or later, on Knox's, their methods +would have been more stringent than Henry's. Henry and his Parliament, it +is true, proposed an Act of Parliament "to abolish diversity of opinion in +matters of religion." But Luther and Calvin and Knox, nay even More +(Erasmus alone stood on a higher level), were each and all confident of +their possession of the _one_ truth and of their infallibility as +interpreters thereof; each and all were ready, had the power been theirs, +to abolish "diversity of religious opinion." + +There are two kinds of religion, or at any rate two varieties of religious +character--both are sincere--the religion of the active and passionless +and that of the reflective and impassioned. One is a religion of +inheritance, of training, of habit, of early and vivid perception; with +certain surroundings it is inevitable; if shaken off it returns. George +Eliot acutely remarks of one of her notably passionless characters, "His +first opinions remained unchanged, as they always do with those in whom +perception is stronger than thought and emotion." The other is a religion +(two extremes are spoken of here, but every intermediate gradation exists) +a religion of thought and emotion, of investigation and introspection. It +is marked by deep love of an ideal or real good, and deep hate of what may +also often be called an ideal or real evil. Henry's religion was of the +first sort. It would be deeply interesting to know the sort of religion +of the great names of Henry's time. We lack however the needful light on +their organisation, parentage, and circumstance. But in all the provinces +of life the men who have imprinted their names on history have been for +the most part active, practical, and unimpassioned men. They, in their +turn, have owed much to the impassioned, thinking, and often unpractical +men whose names history has not troubled itself to preserve. + +And now, in the light shed by organisation and inheritance, we may gain +further information on the more characteristic features of Henry's +character--his caprice, his captiousness, his uncertainty, and his +peevishness, his resolve never to be hidden or unfelt or forgotten. + + + + +THE MORE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. + +NOTE VI. + + +Henry was always doing something or undoing something. Whether he was +addressing Parliament, admonishing and instructing subordinates, or +exhorting heretics; whether he was restoring order in Northern England, or +(with much wisdom) introducing order into Wales, or (with much folly) +disorder into Scotland; whether he was writing letters to Irish chieftains +or Scottish councillors, or Northern pilgrims; whether he was defending +the Faith or destroying religious houses; whether he was putting together +six articles to the delight of Catholics, or dropping them in a few weeks +to the exultation of Protestants; whether burning those who denied the +miracle of the Real Presence, or hanging those who denied his headship of +the Church; whether he was changing a Minister, a Bishop, or a wife, his +hands were always full. And in Henry's case at least--probably in most +cases--Satan found much mischief for busy hands to do. + +The man who is never at rest is usually a fitful man. Constant change, +whether of ministers or of views or of plans, is in itself fitfulness. But +fitfulness is something more than activity: it implies an uncertainty of +thought or conduct which forbids calculation or prediction, and therefore +forbids confidence; it is an inborn proclivity. Happily vigorous reasoning +power often accompanies it and keeps it in check. In poorly endowed +intellects, whether in men or women, fitfulness and its almost constant +associate petulance harass many circles and many hearths. + +It is recorded that when the disgraced Wolsey took his departure from +Court, the King sent after him a hurried messenger with a valuable ring +and comforting words. The incident has excited much perplexity and comment +among historians. What was its meaning? what its object? Probably the +incident had no precise meaning; probably it was merely the involuntary +deed of an irresistible constitutional tendency; possibly, too, there +lurked in the motive which led to it some idea of future change and +exigency. The active, practical, serviceable man sows many seeds and keeps +on sowing them. Time and circumstance mainly decide which seeds shall grow +and which shall not. Caprice is not unfrequently associated with high +faculties. Sometimes it would seem to be due to the gift--not a common +one--of seeing many sides of a question, and of seeing these so vividly +that action is thereby enfeebled or frequently changed. Sometimes it is a +conservative instinct which sees that a given step is too bold and must be +retraced. It certainly is not selfishness: a long-pondered policy is often +dashed to the ground in an instant, or a long-sought friendship is ended +by a moment's insult. At root caprice is an inborn constitutional bias. +Henry was the first powerful personage who declared that the Papal +authority was Divine--declaring this, indeed, with so much fervour that +the good Catholic More expostulated with him. But Henry was also the first +high personage who threw Papal authority to the winds. It is on record +that Henry would have taken Wolsey into favour again had Wolsey lived. Not +Wolsey only but all Henry's Ministers would have been employed and +dismissed time after time could they but have contrived to keep their +heads on their shoulders. Henry might even have re-married his wives had +they lived long enough. One circumstance only would have lessened their +chances--attractive women were more numerous than experts in statecraft: +for one Wolsey there were a thousand fair women. + +Habitual fitfulness, it has already been noted, is not often found apart +from habitual petulance, and both these qualities were conspicuous in +Henry's character. There was something almost impish in the spirit which +led him to don gorgeous attire--men had not then got out of barbaric +finery, and women are still in its bondage--on the day of Anne Boleyn's +bloodshed. Nay more, there was undoubtedly a dash of cruelty in it, as +there was in the acerbity which led him to exclaim that the Pope might +send a Cardinal's hat to Fisher, but he would take care that Fisher had no +head to put it on. Now and then his whims were simply puerile; it was so +when he signalised some triumph over a Continental potentate by a dolls' +battle on the Thames. Two galleys, one carrying the Romish and the other +the English decorations, met each other. After due conflict, the royalists +boarded the papal galley and threw figures of the pope and sundry +cardinals into the water--king and court loudly applauding. But again, let +us not forget that those days were more deeply stained than ours with +puerility and cruelty and spite. More, it is true, rose above the +puerility of his time; Erasmus rose above both its cruelty and its +puerility; Henry rose above neither. + +No charge is brought against Henry with more unanimity and vehemence than +that of selfishness. And the charge is not altogether a baseless one; but +the selfishness which stained Henry's character is not the selfishness he +is accused of. When Henry is said to have been a monster of selfishness it +is implied that he was a monster of self-indulgence. He was not that--he +was the opposite of that. He was in reality a monster of self-importance, +and extreme personal importance is incompatible with gross personal +indulgence. Self-indulgence is the failing of the impassioned, especially +when the mental gifts are poor; while self-importance is the failing of +the passionless, especially when the mental gifts are rich. Let there be +given three factors, an unimpassioned temperament, a vigorous intellect, +and circumstance favourable to public life--committee life, municipal, +platform, Parliamentary, or pulpit life--and self-importance is rarely +wanting. This price we must sometimes pay for often quite invaluable +service. + +When Henry spoke--it is not infrequently so when the passionless and +highly gifted individual speaks--the one unpardonable sin on the part of +the listener was not to be convinced. A sin of a little less magnitude was +to make a proposal to Henry. It implied that he was unable to cope with +the problems which beset him and beset his time. He could not approve of +what he himself did not originate; at any rate he put the alien proposal +aside for the time--in a little time he _might_ approve of it and it might +then seem to be his own. The temperament which censured a matter yesterday +will often applaud it to-day and put it in action to-morrow. The +unimpassioned are prone to imitation, but they first condemn what they +afterwards imitate. When Cromwell made the grave proposal touching the +headship of the Church, Henry hesitated--nay, was probably shocked--at +first. Yet, for Henry's purposes at least, it was Cromwell (and not +Cranmer with his University scheme) who had "caught the right sow by the +ear." + +Henry had a boundless belief in the importance of the King; but this did +not hinder, nay it helped him to believe in the importance of the people +also--it helped him indeed to seek the more diligently their welfare, +seeing that the more prosperous a people is, the more important is its +King. True he always put himself first and the people second. How few +leaders of men or movements do otherwise. Possibly William III. would have +stepped down from his throne if it had been shown that another in his +place could better curb the ambition of France abroad, or better secure +the mutual toleration of religious parties at home. Possibly, nay +probably, George Washington would have retired could he have seen that the +attainment of American independence was more assured in other hands. Lloyd +Garrison would have gladly retired into private life if another more +quickly than he could have given freedom to the slave. John Bright would +have willingly held his tongue if thereby another tongue could have spoken +more powerfully for the good of his fellow-men. Such men can be counted on +the fingers and Henry is not one of them. Henry would have denied (as +would all his compeers in temperament) that he put himself first. He would +have said; "I desire the people's good first and above all things;" but he +would have significantly added; "Their good is safest in my hands." + +It is a moot point in history whether Henry was led by his high officials +or was followed by them. Did he, for example, direct Wolsey or did Wolsey +(as is the common view) in reality lead his King while appearing to follow +him. To me the balance of evidence, as well as the natural proclivities +of Henry's character, favour the view that he thought and willed and acted +for himself. Do we not indeed know too well the fate of those whose +thought and will ran counter to his? No man's opinion and conduct are +independent of his surroundings and his time; for every man, especially +every monarch, must see much through other eyes and hear much through +other ears. But if other eyes and other ears are numerous enough they will +also be conflicting enough, and will strengthen rather than diminish the +self-confidence and self-importance of the self-confident and +self-important ruler. + +Self-importance, as a rule, is built on a foundation of solid +self-confidence, and Henry's confidence in himself was broad enough and +deep enough to sustain any conceivable edifice. The Romish church was +then, and had been for a thousand years, the strongest influence in +Europe. It touched every event in men's bodily lives and decided also the +fate of their immortal souls. Henry nevertheless had no misgiving as to +his fitness to be the spiritual head of the Church in this country, or the +spiritual head of the great globe itself, if the great globe had had one +Church only. + +When I come to speak of the Reformation I shall have to remark that, had +the great European religious movement reached our island in any other +reign than Henry's, religion would not have been exactly what it now is. +Of all our rulers Henry was the only one who was at the same time willing +enough, educated enough (he had been trained to be an Archbishop), able +enough, and pious enough to be at any rate the _first_ head of a great +Church. + +Henry was so sagacious that he never forgot the superiority of sagacity +over force. He delighted in reasoning, teaching, exhorting; and he +believed that while any ruler could command, few could argue and very few +could convince. It is true, alas, that when individuals or bodies were not +convinced if he spoke, he became unreasonably petulant. When Scotland did +not accept a long string of unwise proposals he laid Leith in ashes. When +Ireland did not yield to his wishes, he knocked a castle to atoms with +cannon, and thereby so astonished Ireland, be it noted, that it remained +peaceful and prosperous during the remainder of his reign. + +Perhaps the happiest moments in Henry's life were those when he presided +over courts of theological inquiry. To confute heresy was his chief +delight; and his vanity was indulged to its utmost when the heretical +Lambert was tried. Clothed in white silk, seated on a throne, surrounded +by peers and bishops and learned doctors, he directed the momentous +matters of this world and the next; he elucidated, expounded, and laid +down the laws of both heaven and earth. It was a high day; one thing only +marred its splendour--he, the first living defender of orthodoxy, had +spoken and heterodoxy remained unconvinced. Heterodoxy must clearly be +left to its just punishment, for bishops, peers, and learned doctors were +astonished at the display of so much eloquence, learning, and piety. + +The physiological student of human nature who is much interested in the +question of martyrdom finds, indeed, that the martyr-burner and the martyr +(of whatever temperament) have much in common. Both believe themselves to +possess assured and indisputable truth; both are infallible; both +self-confident; both are prepared, in the interests of truth, to throw +their neighbours into the fire if circumstance is favourable; both are +willing to be themselves thrown into the fire if circumstance is adverse. +One day they burn, the next day they are burnt. + +The feature in Henry's character which as we have seen amounted to mania +was his love of popularity; it was a mania which saved him from many +evils. Even unbridled self-will does little harm if it be an unbridled +self-will to stand well with a progressive people. It has been a matter of +surprise to those who contend that Henry, seeing that he possessed--it is +said usurped--a lion's power, did not use it with lion-like licence. His +ingrained love of applause is the physiological explanation. Let it be +noted, too, that not everyone who thirsts for popularity succeeds in +obtaining it, for success demands several factors: behind popular applause +there must be action, behind action must be self-confidence, behind +self-confidence must be large capability. Henry had all these. In such a +chain love of applause is the link least likely to be missing. For, +indeed, what is the use of being active, capable, confident and important +in a closet? The crow sings as sweetly as the nightingale if no one is +listening, and importance is no better than insignificance if there is no +one "there to see." + +We shall gain further and not uninteresting knowledge of Henry's character +if we look at certain side lights which history throws upon it. We turn +therefore, in another note, to look for a few moments at the men, the +movements, the drift, the institutions of his time, and observe how he +bore himself towards them. + + + + +HENRY AND HIS COMPEERS. + +NOTE VII. + + +In Henry's time, and in every time, the art of judging women has been a +very imperfect one. It is an imperfect art still and, as long as it takes +for granted that women are radically unlike men, so long it will remain +imperfect. But Henry was a good judge of one sex at any rate, for he was +helped by the most capable men then living, and in reality he tolerated no +stupidity--except in his wives. In an era of theological change it was +perhaps an unfortunate circumstance that he was better helped in his +politics than in his theology. Wolsey, although a Cardinal and even a +candidate for the Papal chair, was to all intents and purposes a practical +statesman. Had he succeeded in becoming a Pope he would nevertheless have +remained a mere politician. Wolsey, then, and Cromwell and More were all +distinctly abler men than Cranmer or Latimer or Gardiner. + +But Henry himself, looking at him in all that he was and in all that he +did, was not unworthy of his helpers. There were then living in Europe +some of the most enduring names in history. More, it is true, was made of +finer clay than the king; Erasmus was not only the loftiest figure of his +time--he is one of the loftiest of any time; but Henry was also a great +personality and easily held his own in the front rank of European +personalities. As a ruler no potentate of his time--royal, imperial or +papal--could for a moment compare with him. Of all known Englishmen he +was the fittest to be King of England. Had it been Henry's fortune to have +had one or two or even three wives only, our school histories would have +contained a chapter entitled "How 'Henry the Good' steered his country +safely through its greatest storm." He played many parts with striking +ability. He was probably as great a statesman as Wolsey or More or +Cromwell. He would certainly have made a better archbishop than Cranmer; a +better bishop than Latimer or Gardiner; he was a better soldier than +Norfolk. What then might he have been had he been a statesman only, or a +diplomatist or an ecclesiastic or a soldier only? + +In all the parts he played, save the part of husband, his unimpassioned +temperament stood him in good stead. A man's attitudes to his fellow-men +and to the movements of his time are, on the whole, determined more by his +intellect than by his feeling. The emotions indeed are very disturbing +elements. They have, it is true, made or helped to make a few careers; but +they have destroyed many more. Very curiously, Henry's compeers were, most +of them, like himself--unimpassioned men. Latimer, who was perhaps an +exception, preached sermons at Paul's Cross brimful of a passion which +Henry admired but did not understand. Cranmer too was a man of undoubted +feeling and strong affection. It is said there is sometimes a magnetic +charm between the unlike in temperament; strong friendships certainly +exist between them; and it is to Henry's credit that to the last he kept +near to him a man so unlike himself. Cranmer was a kindly, sympathetic, +helpful, good soul, but not a saint. He was not one of those to whom +Gracian refers as becoming bad out of pure goodness. Cranmer was a +capable and a strong man, but he was not supremely capable or supremely +strong. He was free from the worst of human evils--'cocksureness.' The +acute Spaniard just named says that "every blockhead is thoroughly +persuaded that he is in the right;" Cranmer was less of a blockhead than +most of his compeers. Left to his own instincts, he preferred to live and +let others live. Cranmer had not the loftiness (nor the hardness and +inflexibility) of a More; not the genius and grace and scholarship of an +Erasmus; not the definite purpose and iron will of a Cromwell; not the +fire of a Latimer; not the clear sight and grasp of a Gardiner; not the +sagacity and varied gifts of a Henry; but for my part I would have chosen +him before all his fellows (certainly his English fellows) to advise with +and to confide in. Of all the tables and the roofs of that time I should +have preferred to sit at his table and sleep under his roof. The great +luminaries who guide in revolutions are rare, and the smaller lights of +smaller circumstance are not rare; but--the question is not easy to +answer--which could we best spare, if we were compelled to choose, the +towering lighthouse of exceptional storm or the cheery lamp of daily life? + +One figure of Henry's times which never fails to interest us is that of +Sir Thomas More. More was clearly one of the unimpassioned class; but his +commanding intellect, his quick response to high influences, his +capability of forming noble friendships, and his lofty ideals seemed to +dispense with the need of deep emotions. More and Henry, indeed, were much +alike in many ways. Both were precocious in early life; both were quick, +alert, practical; both were able; both, to the outside world at least, +were genial, affable, attractive; both also, alas, were fitful, +censorious, difficult to please; both were self-confident--one confident +enough to kill, the other confident enough to be killed. Had they changed +places in the greatest crisis of their lives Henry would have rejected +More's headship of the Church and More would have sent Henry to the block. + +In order to understand More's character correctly we must recognise the +changing waves of circumstance through which he passed. There were in fact +two Mores, the earlier and the later. The earlier More was an unembittered +and independent thinker; the seeming spirit of independence however was, +in a great degree, merely the spirit of contradiction. He was a friend of +education and the new learning. He advocated reform in religion; but +reform, be it noted, before the Reformation, reform gently and from +within; reform when kings and scholars and popes themselves all asked for +it. History, unhappily, tells of much reform on the lips which doggedly +refused to translate itself into practice. The earlier More was all for +reform in principle, but he invariably disapproved of it in detail. The +later and in some degree embittered More was thrown by temperament, by the +natural bias of increasing years and by the exigencies of combat, into the +ecclesiastical and reactionary camp, and in that camp his conduct was +stained by cruel inquisitorial methods. + +The deteriorating effects of conflict (which happily grow less in each +successive century) on individuals as well as on parties and peoples is +seen in another notable though very different character of More's century. +Savonarola, before his bitter fight with Florentine and Roman powers, was +a large, clear-sighted, sane reformer; after the fight he became blind, +fanatical, and insane. Why may we not combine all thankfulness for the +early More and the early Savonarola, and all compassion for the later More +and later Savonarola? Mary Stuart, Francis Bacon, Robert Burns, Napoleon +Buonapart, and Lord Byron were notable personalities; they--some of them +at least--did the world service which others did not and could not do. Yet +how many of us are there who, if admitting to the full their greatness, do +not belittle their follies? or, if freely admitting their follies, do not +belittle their greatness? + +Wolsey, holding aloof from religious strife, remained simply the scholar +and the politician--a politician moreover _before_ politics became in +their turn also a matter of hostile camps. Being a politician only, he +continued to be merciful while More drifted from politics and mercy into +ecclesiasticism and cruelty. More's change was in itself evidence of a +fitful and passionless temperament, of such evidence indeed there is no +lack. His first public action was one of petulance and self-importance. He +had been treated with continued and exceptional kindness by Cardinal +Morton and Henry VII.; but when Morton, on behalf of his king, asked +parliament for a subsidy, the newly-elected More, conscious of his powers, +and thinking too, may we not say, much more of a people's applause than of +a people's burdens, successfully urged its reduction to one half. + +More was by nature censorious, and never heartily approved of anything. +When Wolsey, on submitting a proposal to him with the usual result, told +him--told him it would seem in the unvarnished language of the time--that +he stood alone in his disapproval, and that he was a fool, More, with +ready wit and affected humility, rejoined that he thanked God that he was +the only fool on the King's Council. More, we may be quite sure, was not +conscious of a spirit of contradiction; he probably felt that his first +duty was to suggest to everybody some improvement in everything. This +spirit of antagonism nevertheless played a leading part in his changeful +life. In his early years he found orthodoxy rampant and defiant, +consequently he inclined to heresy; at a later period heresy became +rampant and defiant, and as inevitably he returned to the older faith and +views. A modern scholar and piquant censor, and--I gather from his own +writings, the only knowledge I have of him--an extreme specimen of the +unimpassioned temperament, Mark Pattison, says that he never saw anything +without suggesting how it might have been better; and that every time he +entered a railway carriage he worked out a better time table than the one +in use. If More had lived in his own Utopia he would have found fault with +it, and drawn in imagination another and a better land. The later More +was, as all unimpassioned and censorious temperaments are, a prophet of +evil; and as much evil did happen--was sure to happen--his wisdom has come +down to us somewhat greater in appearance than it was in reality. + +The cruelty of the Tudor epoch has already been spoken of. Catholics and +protestants, kings, popes, cardinals, ministers, Luthers, Calvins, Knoxes +were all stained by it. Henry and More, we know, were no exceptions. But +More's cruelty differed from Henry's in one important respect--there was +nothing appertaining to self in it, except self-confidence. Henry's +cruelty was in the interest of himself--his person, his family, and his +throne; More's cruelty, although less limited perhaps, and more dangerous, +was nevertheless in the interest of religion. + + + + +HENRY AND HIS PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT. + +NOTE VIII. + + +It is in his attitude to his people and his parliament that we see Henry +at his best. His sagacity did not show itself in any deliberate or deeply +reasoned policy, certainly not, we may allow with Dr. Stubbs, in any great +act of "constructive genius;" it showed itself in seeing clearly the +difficulties of the hour and the day, and in the hourly and daily success +with which they were met. Henry and his father presided over the +introduction of a new order of things, which new order, however, was a +step only, not a cataclysm. They themselves scarcely knew the significance +of the step or how worthily they presided over it. The world, indeed, +knows little--history says little--of great and sudden acts of +constructive genius. These gradually emerge from the growth of peoples; +they do not spring from the brains of individuals royal or otherwise. If +the vision of a ruler is clear and his aims good, he, more than others, +may help on organic and beneficent growth. Full-blown schemes and +policies, even if marked by genius, are rarely helpful and not +infrequently they end in hindrance or even in explosion. The Stuarts had a +large "scheme" touching church and king. It was a scheme of "all in all or +not at all;" for them and their dynasty it ended in "not at all." French +history is brimful of "great acts of constructive genius" and has none of +the products of development. For Celtic history is indeed a sad succession +of fits, and not a process of quiet growth. How a succession of fits will +end, and how growth will end, it is not difficult to foretel. + +The government of peoples is for the most part and in the long run that +which they deserve, that which they are best fitted for, and not at all +that which, it may be, they wish for and cry out for. A people +ready--fairly and throughout all strata ready--for that which they demand +will not long demand in vain. Our fathers, under the Tudor Henrys and the +Tudor Elizabeth, had the rule which was best fitted for them, which they +asked for, which they deserved--a significant morsel, by the bye, of +racial circumstance. It by no means follows, let it be noted, that what +people and king together approved of was the ideal or the wisest. It is +with policies as with all things else, the fittest, not the best, continue +to hold the field. + +Henry and Elizabeth had not only clearness of sight, but flexibility of +mind also, and would doubtless have ruled over Puritan England with +success; it lay in them to rule well over our modern England also. Charles +I., by organisation and proclivity, would have fared badly at the hands of +a Tudor parliament, and, again as a result of organisation and proclivity, +Henry VIII. and the Long Parliament would have been excellent friends. +Hand to mouth government, if it is also capable, is probably the best +government for a revolutionary time. Conflicting parties are often kept +quiet by mere suspense--by mingled hopes and fears. It has been well said +of Henry of Navarre that he kept France, the home of political whirlwinds, +tranquil for a time because the Protestants believed him to be a +Protestant and the Catholics believed he was about to become a Catholic. + +The majority of historians and all the compilers of history tell us that +Henry's parliaments were abject and servile. The statement is politically +misleading and is also improbable on the grounds of organisation and race. +It is one of many illustrations of the vice of purely literary judgments +on men and movements; a vice which takes no account of physiology, of +race, of organisation and proclivity. For we may be well assured that the +grandsons of brave men and the grandfathers of brave men are never +themselves cowards. One and the same people--especially a slow, steadfast, +and growing people--does not put its neck under the foot of one king +to-day and cut off the head of another king to-morrow. It is not difficult +to see how the misconception arose: in a time of great trial the king and +the people were agreed both in politics and in religion. The people held +the king's views; they admired his sagacity; they trusted in his honour. +If a brother is attached to his brother and does not quarrel with him, is +he therefore poor-spirited? If by rare chance a servant sees, possibly on +good grounds, a hero in his master, is he therefore a poltroon? If a +parliament and a king see eye to eye, is it just to label the parliament +throughout history as an abject parliament? + +Henry's epoch, moreover, was not one of marked political excitement, and +therefore the hasty observer jumps to the conclusion that it was not one +of political independence. In each individual, in each community, in each +people there is a sum-total of nerve force. In a given amount of brain +substance--one brain or many--in a given amount of brain nutriment of +brain vitality, there is a given quantity of nerve power. This totality of +power will show itself it may be in one way strongly or in several ways +less strongly; it cannot be increased, it cannot be lessened. On purely +physiological grounds it may be affirmed that Bacon could not have thought +and written all his own work and at the same time have also thought and +written the life-work of Shakspere. Shakspere could not have added Bacon's +investigations to his own 'intuitions.' In our own time Carlyle could not +have written "The French Revolution" and "The Descent of Man;" he could +not have gone through the two trainings, gained the two knowledges, and +lived the two lives which led to the two works. So it is with +universities: when scholarship is robust, theology limps; and during the +Tractarian excitement, so a great scholar affirms, learning in Oxford sank +to a lower level. So with peoples: in a literary age religious feeling is +less earnest; in a time of political excitement both religion and +literature suffer. Henry's era was one of abounding theological activity: +Luthers, Calvins, and (later) Knoxes came to the front, and the front +could not, never can, hold many dominant and also differing spirits. In +Elizabeth's time Marlowes and Shaksperes and Spensers were master spirits, +and master spirits are never numerous. No doubt as civilisation goes on +great men and great movements learn to move, never equally perhaps but +more easily, side by side: more leaders come to the front--but is the +front as brilliant? Choice spirits are more numerous--but are the spirits +quite as choice? Another and a less partial generation must decide. + +"But," say the few observers and the crowd of compilers, "only a servile +parliament would have given the king permission to issue proclamations +having the authority of law." But the people, it cannot be too +emphatically repeated, were neither creatures crawling in the mire nor +red-tapists terrified at every innovation; they trusted the king, and he +did not violate their trust. The proclamations, so it was stipulated, were +not to tamper with existing laws; they were to meet exigencies in an +epoch of exigencies, and they met them with a wisdom and a promptness +which parliament could not come near. It is physiological +proclivities--not red tape, not parchment clauses, not Magna +Chartas--which keep a people free. It is rather red tape, and not the +occasional snapping of red tape which enfeebles liberty. If the +non-conformists, who by the bye detested Romanism more than they loved +religion, had not rejected the declaration of indulgence of Charles II.--a +declaration which gave to Romanists leave of worship as well as to +non-conformists--does any sane person believe that English freedom would +have been less than it now is? In our time a body of men who hate England +more than they love Ireland have, of set purpose, tumbled parliament into +the dust: now, if a capable and firm authority were entrusted for twelve +months with exceptional yet absolute control over parliamentary procedure, +does any sane person suppose that the English passion for free parliaments +would be lulled to sleep? Rule has often to be cruel in order to be kind. +Alas, the multitude is made up not of Cromwells, is indeed afraid of +Cromwells. In total ignorance of racial proclivities, it foolishly +believes that a Cromwellian speaker for twelve months would mean a +Cromwellian speaker for ever. + + + + +NOTE ON HENRY AND THE REFORMATION. + +NOTE IX. + + +It is a singular misreading of history to say that Henry did much directly +or indirectly to help on the Reformation of the Church in this country, +although the part he played was not a small one. Neither was the +Reformation itself, grave and critical as it was, so sudden and volcanic +an upheaval as is generally believed. + +Luther himself did not put forward a single new idea. No man is thinker +and fighter at once; at any rate, no man thinks and fights at the same +moment. Luther struck his blows for already accomplished thought. Curious +ideas of unknown dates--for history reveals mergings only, not beginnings, +not endings, and the student of men and movements might well exclaim +"nothing begins and nothing ends,"--ideas of unknown dates and unknown +birth-places had slowly come into existence. In Teutonic Europe at least, +the older ideas were becoming trivial and inadequate. It was the northern +Europe, which from the earliest times had been dogged in its courage both +bodily and mental; the Europe strong in that reverence for truth which +rests on courage, which is inseparable from courage, which never exists +apart from courage; the Europe strong in its respect for women; strong in +its fearlessness of death, of darkness, of storm, of the sea-lion, the +land monster, the unearthly ghost, and which was strong therefore in its +fearlessness of hell-fire and priestly threats. Celtic Europe, especially +Celtic Ireland, slept then and sleeps now the unbroken slumber of +credulity. Credulity and fear are allied. Celtic Ireland was palsied then, +and is palsied still, by the fear of what we may now call Father Furniss's +hell. It is surely not difficult to recall and therefore not difficult to +foretell the history of so widely differing races. Everywhere throughout +Teutonic Europe, in castle and monastery, in mansion and cottage, the +old-new ideas were talked over, drunk over, quarrelled over, shaken hands +over, slept over. Everywhere the poets--the peoples' voices then, for the +printed sheet, the coffee house, the club, were yet far off,--the poets, +Lindsay, Barbour and others in Scotland; Langland, Skelton and others in +England had, long before, pelted preachers and preaching with their +bitterest gibes. Those poets little knew how narrowly they escaped with +their lives; they escaped because they shouted their fierce diatribes just +before not just after the strife of battle. They had flashed out the +signals of undying warfare, but before the signals could be interpreted +the signallers had died in their beds. Thought, inquiry, discussion, +printing, poetry, the new learning, the older Lollardry had moved on with +quiet steps. A less quiet step was at hand, but this also, if less quiet, +was as natural and as inevitable as the stealthiest of preceding steps. +Europe had gradually become covered with a network of universities, and +students of every nationality were constantly passing from one to another. +One common language, Latin, bound university to university and thinking +men to thinking men. He who spoke to one spoke to all. The time was a sort +of hot-house, and the growth of man was "forced." Reaction attends on +action, but in the main, studious men made the universities--not +universities the studious men; in like-manner good men have made +religions, not religions so much good men. Ideas and opinions quickly +became common property; sooner or later they filtered down from the Latin +phrase to home-spun talk; filtered down also from the university to the +town, village, and busy highway. + +The Papacy itself had made Papal rule impossible to vigorous peoples. With +curiously narrow ambition Popes have always preferred even limited +temporal importance to unlimited spiritual sway. Two Popes, nay at one +time three, had struggled not for the supremacy of religion but for merely +personal pre-eminence. Popes had fought Popes, councils had fought +councils, and each had called in the friendly infidel to fight the +catholic enemy. The catholic sack of catholic Rome had been accompanied by +greater lust and more copious bloodshed than the sack of Rome in olden +time by northern Infidels. The teachings, claims, and crimes native to +Rome, nay, even the imported refinements of the arts and letters and +elegancies of Paganism did what legions of full-blown Luthers could not +have done. + +The Reformation, with its complex causes, its complex methods, its complex +products, is, more than other great movements, brimful of matter for +observation, thought, and inference. + +The French Revolution was but one of a series of fierce uprisings of a +race which rises and slaughters whenever it has a chance. French history +teems with slaughters both in time of peace and time of war. Mediaeval +French Kings dared not arm their peasants with bows and arrows, for +otherwise not a nobleman or a gentleman would have been left alive. At the +close of the eighteenth century in France the oppression was heavy, the +opportunity was large, and the uprising was ferocious. No other people +have ever shown such a spectacle, and it is therefore idle to compare +other great national movements with it. French history stands alone: no +oppressor can oppress like the French oppressor; no retaliator can +retaliate like the French retaliator. It is a question much less of +politics than of organisation and race. But to return. + +Mr. Carlyle, in his own rousing way and on a subject which deeply +interests him--Luther and the Reformation--mingles fine literary vigour +with an indifference to physiological teaching which is by no means +habitual with him. The heaven-born hero tells us what has become false and +unreal, and shows us--it is his special business--how we may _go back_ to +truth and reality. The humbler student believes that we are constantly +journeying _towards_ truth and reality--these lie not behind but in front +of us. The school of prophets tells us that the hero alights in front of +us and stands apart. The student declares that we all move together; that +we partly make our heroes, and partly they make us; that we have grades of +heroes; that they are not at all supernatural--we touch them, see them, +know them, send them to the front, keep them and dismiss them at our will, +or what seems our will. Carlyle affirms that modern civilisation took its +rise from the great scene at Worms. The truths of organisation, of body, +of brain, of race, of parentage would rather say that civilisation itself +was not born of but in reality gave rise to Luther and the scene at Worms. +The Reformation did not give private judgment; private judgment gave the +Reformation. + +In all revolutions there is a mixture of the essential and the accidental. +During the long succession of the ordinary efforts of growing peoples +there are also from time to time unusual efforts to bring to an end +whatever of accident is most at variance with essential truth and reason +and sanity and honour. In the reformations of a growing people, whatever +the age in which they happen, whatever the religion or policy or conduct +of the age, leading spirits rebel against what is most oppressive and +resent what is most arrogant in that age; they reject what is most false +and laugh out of court what is most ridiculous. In the sixteenth century +men felt no special or inherent resentment to arrogance because it lifted +its head in Rome; they looked on the so-called miracle of +transubstantiation with no special or peculiar incredulity; their sense of +humour was not necessarily tickled by the idea that a soul leaped out of +purgatory when a coin clinked in Tetzel's box. Those were matters of +accident and circumstance; they were simply the most intolerable or +incredible or preposterous items of the century. Given other preceding +accidents--another Deity, or one appearing in another century or arising +in another people; another emperor than Constantine; other soldiers than +Constantine's--and the sixteenth-century items of oppression and falsehood +would have been there, it is true, but they would have been other than +they were. + +We are often told that great movements come quickly, and are the peculiar +work of heroes. We are told, indeed, that from time to time mankind +degenerates into a mass of dry fuel, and that at the fitting moment a hero +descends, as a torch, and sets the mass on fire. Nay, moreover, if we +doubt this teaching we are dead to poetic feeling and have lost our +spiritual ideals. Happily, however, if phantasy dies, poetry still lives. +Leaders and led, teachers and taught, are all changing and always +changing; but no change brings a lessened poetic susceptibility or a +lessened poetic impulse. If, in future, historians and critics come to see +that the organisation and bodily proclivity and parentage of men have +really much to do with men, let us nevertheless be comforted--the ether +men breathe will be no less ample, the air no less divine. Every age is +transitional--not this or that--and the ages are bound together by +unbroken sequence. As with the movements so is it with the leaders: they +are in touch with each other as well as in touch with their followers. All +ages have some men who are bolder than others, or more reflective than +others, or more courageous, or more active. At certain epochs in history +there have been men who combined many high qualities, and who in several +ways stood in front of their time. Wyclif was not separated from his +fellows by any deep gulf, neither was he, as regards time, the first in +his movement, but no leader ever sprang so far in front of the led. +General leaders appear first, and afterwards, when the lines of cleavage +are clearer, special leaders arise. Wyclif was a general leader, and +therefore had many things to do. He did them all well. He was a scholar, a +theologian, a writer, a preacher. It is his attitude to his age and to all +ages, and to national growth, which interests us--not his particular +writing, or his preaching, or his detailed views. He propounded, he +defined, he lighted up, he animated, he fought. In one capacity or in two +Wyclif might have soared to a loftier height and have shone a grander +figure. But he did what was most needed to be done then and there. The +time was not ripe, and it did not lie in Wyclif to make it ripe, for the +Reformation, but he showed the way to the Reformation; he introduced its +introducers and led its leaders. The special leaders appeared in due time, +and they also were the product of their time. An Erasmus shed more light +than others on burning problems; a Calvin formulated more incisively than +his fellows; a Luther fought more defiantly; and, a little later, a Knox +roused the laggards with fiercer speech. It is interesting to note that +the fighters and the speakers in all movements and at all times come most +quickly to the front; it is for them that the multitude shouts its loudest +huzzas and the historian writes his brightest pages. But let us not forget +this one lesson from history and physiology: it is not given--or but +rarely given--to any one man to do all these things, to innovate, to +illuminate, to formulate, to fight, to rouse; it is certainly not given to +any one man to do all with equal power, and certainly not all at once. For +there is a sum-total of brain-force, not in the individual only, but in +the community and in the epoch. In one stream it is powerful; if it be +divided in several streams each stream is weaker. It was a theological +torrent at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a literary torrent at +the century's close. We have (perhaps it is for our good) several streams, +we have however, we all hope, a good total to divide. Curiously, too, the +most clear-sighted of leaders never see the end, never indeed see far into +the future of their movement. The matters and forces which go to form a +revolution are many and complex, reformers when striving to improve a +world often end in forming a party. If the leaders are clear-sighted, the +party will be continuous, large, long-lived; dim-sighted enthusiasts, even +when for the moment successful, lead a discontinuous, short-lived, +spasmodic crowd. Sometimes a leader steps forth clear and capable, but +the multitude continues to sleep. Wyclif, for example, called on his +generation to follow him in a new and better path. He seemed to call in +vain. In the sixteenth century men were awake, stirring, resolved; but no +leaders were ready. Fortunately the people marched well although they had +no captains to speak of. The age was heroic although it had no conspicuous +heroes. + +Although in its forms, its beliefs, its opinions, its policy, its conduct, +there was much that was accidental, it was nevertheless inevitable and +essential that the Reformation should come. It mattered not whether this +thing had been done or that; whether this particular leader led or that; +whether this or that concession had been made at Rome. If Erasmus could +not fight Luther could. If Rome could concede nothing, much could be torn +from her. There is, indeed, much fighting and tearing in history: +complacent persons, loftily indifferent to organisation, and race, and +long antecedent, are astonished that men should fight, or should fight +with their bodies, or that, when fighting they should actually kill each +other. In all times, alas, the fittest, not the wisest, has prevailed--and +the fittest, alas, has been cruel. In the seventeenth century Parliament +and Charles Stuart fought each other by roughest bodily methods, and +Parliament, proving victorious, killed Charles. Had Charles conquered, and +could Parliament have been reduced to one neck or a dozen, we may be quite +sure that the one neck or the dozen would have been severed on the block. + +When the thousand fermenting elements came together in the sixteenth +century cauldron, no number of men, certainly no one man, certainly not +Henry, could do much to hinder or to help on the seething process. This of +course was not Henry's view. He believed himself to be--gave himself out +to be--the fountain of truth. We know that he and an _admiring_ (not an +_abject_) Parliament proposed an Act to abolish diversity of opinion on +religious matters. We know too, that while he graciously permitted his +subjects to read the Word of God, he commanded them to adopt the opinions +of the king. It was indeed cheap compulsion, for he and the vast mass of +his subjects held similar opinions. Nevertheless, it is true that Henry, +with characteristic sagacity, turned to the right spot and at the right +moment when the cauldron threatened to boil over, or possibly to explode. +At a critical epoch he helped to avert bloodshed; for in this island there +was no war of peasants, or princes, or theologians. + +Those who say that the great divorce question brought about or even +accelerated the Reformation, are those who see or wish to see the bubbles +only, and cannot, or will not see the stream--its depth and strength,--on +which the bubbles float. For the six-wives matter was in reality a bubble, +large it is true, prismatic, many-coloured, interesting, visible +throughout Europe, minutely gossiped over on every hearth. If King Henry, +however, had had no wife at all, the Reformation would have come no more +slowly than it did; if he had had, like King Solomon, seven hundred wives, +it would have come no more quickly. Henry was not himself a reformer, and +but little likely to lead reformers. Under a fitful and petulant exterior +the king was a cold, calculating, self-remembering man. The reformers were +a self-forgetting, passionate, often a frenzied party, and as a rule, +firebrands do not follow icebergs. If imperious circumstance loosened +Henry's moorings to Rome, he had no more notion of drifting towards +Augsburg or Geneva, than, a little later, his daughter Elizabeth had of +drifting to Edinburgh and Knox. Henry had no deep attachment, but he clung +to the old religion, chiefly perhaps because it was old, as much as he +could cling to anything; he had no deep hatreds, but, as heartily as his +nature permitted, he detested the new. He would have disliked it all the +more, had that been possible, could he have looked with interpretative +glance backward to the seed-time of Wyclif's era, or forward to the ripe +harvest of the seventeenth century. Could it have been made plain to Henry +that he was helping to put a sword into a Puritan's hand and bring a +King's head to the block, he would have had himself whipped at the tomb of +Catharine of Aragon, and would have thrown his crown at the Pope's feet. + +He assumed the headship of the English Church, it is true; but even good +Catholics throughout Europe did not then so completely as now accept the +supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and central ideas had not then so +completely swallowed up the territorial. If Henry had not taken the +headship of the English Church when he did, the Church would probably have +had no head at all, and religious teaching in this country would have +fared much as it fared in Switzerland and Scotland and North Germany. As +it was, Henry simply believed himself to be another Pope, and London to be +another Rome. He, the English Pope, and the Pope at Rome would, for the +most part, work together like brothers--work for the diffusion of the +_one_ truth (which all sorts and conditions of Popes believe they +possess), and work therefore for the good of all people. + +Had the great European religious movement reached our island in any other +reign than Henry's it would not have run quite the same course it did. Of +all the Kings who have ruled over us Henry VIII. was the only King who was +at the same time willing enough, able enough, educated enough (he had +been trained to be an Archbishop), and pious enough to be, at any rate, +the first head of a great Church. + +But it is said: "Look at the destruction of the religious houses; surely +that was the work of heresy and greed." Henry had no heresy in his nature, +but he was not without greed, and as he was certainly extravagant, he had +therefore the stronger incentives to exaction. But in our history the +foible of a King avails but little when it clashes with the conscience, +the ideal, the will of a people. Henry's greed, moreover, whatever its +strength, was less strong than his conservatism, less strong than his +piety. Stronger, too, than all these combined was his boundless love of +popularity--a love which alone would have preserved the monasteries could +the monasteries have been preserved by any single man. But new ideas and +new religious ideals had come in, and the new religious ideals and the old +religious houses could not flourish together. The existence of those +houses had long been threatened. One hundred years before, Parliament had +more than once seriously discussed the appropriation of ecclesiastical +funds to military purposes. Cardinal Morton, after impartial inquiry, +contemplated sweeping changes. Wolsey, a good Catholic, had suppressed +numerous houses. It is interesting to know that at one period of his life +Sir Thomas More thought of retiring into a religious house, but after +carefully studying monastic life he gave up the project. It is not +necessary to sift and resift the evidence touching the morality of the +monasteries. Probably those institutions were not so black as their +enemies, new or old, have painted them, nor so white as they appear in the +eyes of their modern friends. But whether they were fragments of Hades +thrust up from below, or fragments of the celestial regions let down from +above, or whatever else they were, their end was come. Many causes were at +work. They were coming into collision with the rapidly growing modern +social life--a life more complex than at any time before, more complex in +its roots, its growths, its products, and its needs. The newer social life +had developed a passionate love of knowledge; it had formed a loftier +ideal of domestic life. It pondered too over our economic problems, and +disliked the ceaseless accumulation of land and wealth in ecclesiastical +hands. Does any one imagine that a close network of institutions, which +were at any rate not models of virtue; institutions which hated knowledge +and thrust it out of doors; which directly or indirectly cast a slur on +the growing domestic ideal; which told the awakening descendants of +Scandinavian and Norseman and Saxon, that their women were unclean--that +their mothers and daughters were "snares;" does anyone imagine that such a +network could be permitted to entangle and strangle modern life? It has +already been said that the newer social ideas were destined to arise, and +that therefore the older religious houses were doomed to fall. It mattered +little the particular year in which they fell; it mattered little who +seemed to deal the final blow. Many centuries before, human nature being +what it was, and social conditions what they were, quiet retreats had met +a want--they were fittest to live and they lived. But a succession of +centuries brought change--a little in human nature, much in social +conditions, very much in thought and opinion, and the retreats, the inner +life and opinions of which had not kept pace with life outside, were no +longer needed, no longer fittest, and they fell. Henry did not destroy +them. Catholicism, which neither made them pure nor made them impure, was +unable to preserve them. Could the long buried bones of their founders +have come to life again and have put on the newer flesh, thought, with +newer brain, the newer thought, they would have found quite other outlets +for their energy, leisure and wealth. It is so with all founders and all +institutions. It is so at this moment with the institutions which were +born of the Reformation itself. Naturalists tell us that the jelly-like +mass, the amaeba, embraces everything, both the useful and the useless, +that comes in its way, but that in time it relaxes its embrace on the +useless. So the civilisation of a growing people is like a huge amaeba, +which slowly enfolds men and ideas, and incidents, and systems, and then +sooner or later it disenfolds the unsuitable and the worn-out. + + + + +QUEEN ELIZABETH AND QUEEN MARY. + +NOTE X. + + +Few rulers, few persons indeed, have ever been so much alike as our two +rulers Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth. No man was ever so like +Henry as was the woman Elizabeth; no woman ever resembled Elizabeth so +closely as did the man Henry. Both father and daughter were extreme +examples of the intellectual and unimpassioned temperament. High capacity, +acute perception, clear insight, correct inference were present in both. +Both, too, were capricious, fault-finding, querulous and vain. Both, +moreover, had their preferences and their dislikes. Both, too, felt and +showed resentment when their vanity was wounded. But in neither of them, +it may be truly affirmed, was there any consuming passion--any fervent +love, or invincible hatred, or fierce jealousy, or overwhelming anger. + +Those who preach the doctrine of an essential difference between the sexes +and who, with the injustice which so frequently accompanies the abounding +self-importance of masculinity, would deprive women not only of "equality +of sphere" but "equality of opportunity," may study the character of Henry +and Elizabeth with great advantage. Human beings are first of all divided +(I have elsewhere contended) into certain types of character and only +afterwards into men and women. Many men are by nature devoted lovers and +parents and friends; many women are not. Elizabeth was one of a number--a +large number--of women who have, it may be, many of the qualities which +tell in practical and public life, and but little of the emotion which +wells up in true wifehood and motherhood and friendship. + +Henry and Elizabeth stand far above the average level of rulers. In +sagacity, in tact and in statesmanship only two of their successors can +compare with them. But the methods of Oliver Cromwell and William III. +were very different from the Tudor methods. Cromwell and William strove to +be guided by what they sincerely held to be lofty principles. Henry and +Elizabeth were guided merely, though wisely guided, by the fineness of +their instincts. Fine instincts were perhaps better fitted for the earlier +time, and lofty principles for the later. It is easier, alas, to bungle in +formulating and in applying principles than in trusting to adroitness and +intuitions. + +All the elements of character which Henry possessed were found also in +Elizabeth, and many of these elements, though not all, they possessed in +equal degree. They were alike in capacity, courage, sincerity, +versatility, industry; alike in their conservative proclivities and also +in their love of pageantry--for Elizabeth, like Henry, revelled in public +business and in public pleasures; she delighted in progresses, shows, +masks and plays. They were alike, too, in their sense of duty, in their +desire for the welfare of the people, and also in their thirst for the +people's good opinion. But Elizabeth, although she had immense +self-importance (she heartily approved of the queen and, heartily indeed, +of nothing else), was perhaps less self-confident than her father. She was +not quite comfortable in her headship of the Church--but then she had not +been educated for the Church as her father had been, and she did not +possess her father's devotional nature. Her conduct was however more +decorous than her father's, notwithstanding that she was distinctly less +religious than he--less religious in principle, in inward conviction and +in outward worship. If she was less devout than Henry she had however a +larger share of fitfulness than even he. The historian who more vividly +than any other has placed the Tudor time before us speaks of Elizabeth's +"ingrained insincerity;" the words "ingrained fitfulness" would perhaps be +more correct, for she was in truth as sincere as her fitfulness permitted +her to be. Although it is true she was not without--no one at that time +was quite without--insincerity and intrigue and duplicity and falsehood in +her diplomatic methods, she was fairly sincere in her views and aims and +conduct. But unfortunately her views and aims and conduct were constantly +changing. She was sincere too easily and too frequently. She had a dozen +fits of sincerity in a dozen hours. Whenever she sent a message, no matter +how carefully the message had been considered, a second was sent to recall +or change it, and very shortly a third messenger would be despatched in +pursuit of the second. Urgent and critical circumstance alone, and +frequently not even this, forced upon her any conclusive action. I am +compelled to agree with those who believe that the most distressing +incident of her life was the final decision touching Mary Stuart's death: +it was distressing on several grounds--she was not naturally cruel, or, +like her father, cruel to those only who stood in her path; she did not +like to kill a queen; and, above all, she hated to do anything which (like +marriage, to wit) could not be undone. Elizabeth was compelled by +temperament to be always doing something, but by temperament also she was +always reluctant to get anything done. In her two bushels of occupation +there were not two grains of performance. + +Her extreme fitfulness had at least one fortunate result--it saved many +lives. Henry's frequent change of view and of policy was unquestionable, +but the change was slow enough to give to the ever-watchful enemies of a +fallen minister time enough to tear the fallen minister to pieces. But if +a minister of Elizabeth's fell, his head was in little danger: if he fell +from favour to-day, he was restored to-morrow. He might trip twenty times, +and as many times his rivals would be on the alert; but twenty pardons +would be granted all in good time. + +Touching the question of marriage the queen was far wiser than her father. +Neither father nor daughter had the needful qualities which go to make +marriage happy, and both had certain other qualities which in many cases +make it an intolerable burden. Henry, unlike Elizabeth, did not discover +this, for his perceptive powers generally were less acute than hers. She +probably knew that in her inmost heart (her brain was sufficiently acute +to gain a glimpse of what was in her heart and what was not) she was a +stranger to the deep and sustained affections without which marriage is so +often a cruel deception. She had admirers and favourites it is true; and, +after the fashion of the time, was unseemly enough in her fits of romping +and her fits of pettishness. But there has not yet been anywhere, or at +any time, under the sun a healthful temperament which has objected to +admiration and entertainment, and probably there never will be. + +Elizabeth's attitude to the religious condition of her people marks a +decided movement, if not an onward movement: for we must never forget that +a multitude of high-minded and capable souls believe that the several +steps of the Reformation were downward steps. But what were the steps, and +what especially was Elizabeth's step? The popes (and their times) had +said, _in effect_, you need not read and you must not think or inquire; +your duty is to obey and believe. Henry (and his time) said, you may think +and you may read, especially if your reading enables you to understand the +King, but you must believe what the King believes and worship as the King +worships. Elizabeth (and her times), still more at the mercy of rising +Teutonic waves, exclaimed, you may think and read and inquire and believe +as you like--especially as you insist upon doing so--but you really must, +all of you, go to church with me on Sunday mornings. Elizabeth's +church-going act, by the bye, is still unrepealed. Long after, William +III. (and his time, though William was before his time) said, you may +think, read, believe, and publicly worship as you will, but you must +believe something and you must worship somewhere. John Milton, before +William in time and long before him in largeness of view, was the one +colossal figure who fought bravely and single-handed for freedom in every +domain of thought and speech and conduct. + +The Tudor time, more than any other in our history, lends itself to the +study of character; a study which, although difficult, is the less +difficult in that whatever of change may take place, old elements of +character do not altogether disappear and entirely new elements do not +make their appearance. These elements lie everywhere around us. A great +writer and an acute observer of men declares indeed that we all contain +the elements of a Luther and a Borgia (his ideal of the best and worst +elements), and that if a man cannot see these near at hand he will not +find them though he travel from Dan to Beersheba. The Tudor and the Stuart +periods alike present remarkable persons and remarkable incidents; but in +the earlier period the men and women were more striking than the events, +while events attract our attention more than individuals in the later. +With the Tudors men and women seemed to lead, for men and women were +proportionately the stronger; circumstance seemed to be the stronger in +the Stuart times. + +No century contains three royal figures so striking in themselves and so +clearly revealed to us as are the figures of Henry and Elizabeth and Mary +in the sixteenth. Their capability, their vitality and their attainments +would have made them striking persons in any position of life. Each, +indeed, possessed the three qualities which make a really interesting +personality--and such personalities are but a small proportion of the +neutral-tinted multitude who are good and kind and industrious--and +nothing more. They, the three personalities, could all see facts for +themselves; they could all see the relative value of facts (the rarest of +the three qualities); and they could all draw sound inferences from the +larger facts. + +The three individuals presented however but two types of character. Henry +and Elizabeth were examples of one type and Mary of another. The Tudor +father and daughter were, as we have already seen, not examples merely but +_extreme_ examples of the unimpassioned, ever active, ever visible class. +Mary was as extreme an example of the impassioned, meditative, persistent +and tenacious class. It was a remarkable coincidence that pitted two such +mental and bodily extremes against each other. All sane human beings have +much more of that which is common to the character of the race than they +have of that which is peculiar to the individual. There was not only this +common basis of human nature in Elizabeth and Mary, there was something +more: both were singularly capable, brilliant, witty and brave (Mary being +the braver and her bravery being the more tried). The two queens had +certain unusual advantages in common, for both were educated to the +highest ideal of female education--very curiously a higher ideal then than +at any other time before, or even since, until our own generation; both, +too, had much experience of life--the larger and the less elevating share +falling to Mary's lot. But here the resemblance ceases. What in Elizabeth +Tudor were slight though shrill rivulets of love and hate and anger and +scorn and jealousy, or of pity or gratitude, were mighty and rushing +torrents in Mary Stuart. We have seen what Elizabeth was: in many ways +Mary was the exact opposite, for she was not at all given to bustle or +change or acrimony or captiousness or suspicion. She was not, it is true, +without vanity; she had ample grounds for having it and she was deeply +human, but (it was not so with Elizabeth) her pride was even greater than +her vanity. + +The elements which met together in Mary were all of a finer quality than +those which were found in Elizabeth; but in Mary some troublous elements +were added to the choicer ones. In her high land there were ominous +volcanic peaks, while in the decorous plain of Elizabeth's character there +was a monotonous blending of vegetation and sand. In some of our greatest +characters (the truism is well-worn) there have been grave defects. Burns' +life never comes to any generous mind save with the deepest regret as well +as the keenest admiration. Bacon's was a great mind with a great fault. +Shakspere and Goethe--the two foremost spirits which time has yet given to +us--are not held to have led altogether stainless lives. Now the Queen of +Scots was not by any means one of the immortals, but she was nevertheless +and in truth a great woman. Yet in the splendid block out of which the +ever-pathetic figure of Mary was chiselled there came to light an +ineradicable flaw. The good and evil of all these characters were mainly, +though not wholly (for circumstance must not be forgotten), due to +organisation and inheritance. A little difference in their organisation, +and they would have been other individuals than they were, and would most +likely have remained unknown to us; but having the parentage they had, and +being what they were, a little difference in circumstance would probably +have mattered little. What there was in each of organisation, what of +circumstance, and what of volition, is a problem the solution of which is +still far off. In all of them volition, whatever that may be, did its +best; organisation, let us say, did its worst; circumstance looked on, +helping here and hindering there,--the compromise is history. + +As the six-wives business clings to Henry's name, so does the Darnley +matter, though curiously with less odium, cling to that of Mary. Henry has +had no friends save those who lived in or near his time. In our time an +inquirer, here or there, strives perhaps to gain for him something of +impartial judgment. Mary has never been without warm friends, and her +friends seem to grow in number and in warmth. The controversy still rages +touching Mary's part in the tragic event which inflicted so deep a wound +into her life. But although the controversy goes on at even fever heat, +the public judgment remains cool and is probably just. It is kept cool +and just by the weight of a few colossal truths which the deftest +manipulation of a cloud of smaller truths cannot hide. At critical moments +the physiological historian, who looks steadily at a few large incidents +in the light of human nature, discovers clues which escape the vision of +the purely literary historian, who is for ever diving--and usefully +diving--into the wells of parchment detail. In reality it matters little +whether this diver or that has dived most deeply; matters little whether +certain documents are spurious or genuine. Mary Stuart accepted--she +certainly did not reject--the passion of a certain man; that man was a +leader among a number of men who murdered her husband; after the murder +Mary Stuart married that particular man, and thereby most assuredly held a +candle to murder. This was Mary. Now if everything that has been said in +her favour could be proved, she would be but little better than this; if +everything that has been said against her could be proved, she would be +but little worse. + +The student of historic characters never forgets the time the country and +the circumstance in which his characters lived. We are now looking at a +time when not only noble and ignoble characters existed side by side, but +when noble and less noble elements existed together in one and the same +character. For indeed the good elements of a better time come in slowly, +and the evil elements of a bad past die a lingering death. The active +Scotland (there was, we know, a good quiet Scotland in the background), +the active Scotland of Tudor times was given over to factions, fanatics, +self-seekers and assassins. Life was taken and given with scant ceremony. +The highest personages of that time contrived murder, or sanctioned it, +or forgave it--the popes did, continental sovereigns did, Henry did, +Elizabeth did. The murders thus contrived or sanctioned or condoned were, +it is true, mainly on behalf of thrones or dominions or religions, while +the murder which Mary assuredly forgave, if she did not sanction, was on +behalf of her passions. The moral difference between murder for a crown +and murder for a love we may not now discuss. + +It was to this Scotland, the active and factious Scotland just described, +that the young queen of nineteen years was brought--brought from a +different atmosphere and with an unpropitious training. The more favoured +Elizabeth meanwhile was ruling over a quieter, a more united people, and +was helped at her council-table by high-minded and unselfish men. It is +useless now perhaps to ask if we may be allowed to admire the gifts, to +deplore the faults, and to pity the fate of the more unfortunate queen. We +can indeed, individually, do what we please, but the queen's posterity +with no uncertain voice has declared that we may. Emerson says that the +great soul of the world is just, and the great soul has kept Mary within +the territory of its favour. It would seem that the affection and devotion +which were given to Mary were not based on any single great or on any +group of great actions; they were based (it is to her credit) on daily +acts of kindliness and patience and unruffled grace. The sum of Mary's +qualities, whatever they were, endowed her with the rare gift of making +the world her friend; and the world does not, as a rule, make lasting +friendships on insufficient grounds. Mary indeed, with all her faults, +deserved a better country than Scotland; and England, it may be added, +deserved a more gracious queen than Elizabeth. But whatever she deserved +or whatever she was fitted for, Mary's fate was destined to be one of the +saddest of recorded time. Inward force and outer circumstance are so +commingled that mortal reason fails to disentangle them. To-day men _seem_ +to put a curb on circumstance, and to-morrow circumstance _seems_ to run +away with men. An ocean of complex and imperious circumstance surged +around two queens, one it lifted up and kept afloat and carried into a +secure haven, the other it tossed mercilessly to and fro and finally drew +her underneath its waves. + +A number of leading Scottish nobles gave out and probably believed that +the wretched Darnley's life was incompatible with the general good. +Bothwell was but one of this number. Yet how clear it has ever been to all +eyes, save to those of the blindly passionate actors themselves, that the +Scottish queen's fatal error, even if there were no grave error before, +was in marrying any one of the misguided band. But misguidance was in the +ascendant. Could she by some magic web have concealed the husbands from +each other and have married them all, she would at any rate have fared no +worse than she did. But, to be serious, if a queen marries one of half a +dozen ambitious assassins, the other five will assuredly make her life +intolerable and her rule impossible. + +In no aspect of character did the two queens differ more than in their +attitude to religion. Elizabeth's piety, like her father's, though less +deep than his, was of a similar passionless, perceptive, unreflective +order. Mary's religion, like Elizabeth's, like that of all individuals in +all parts of the world, was no doubt at first the product of her early +surroundings; but with the Scottish queen it was much more than this--it +was a profoundly passionate conviction and a deeply revered ideal. A +living writer, who is perhaps unrivalled in the historic art and who +rarely errs in his historic judgments, is less happy than is his wont in +his verdict on the catholic queen. He avers that she had no share "in the +deeper and nobler emotions;" yet almost in the same breath he states that +she had "a purpose fixed as the stars to trample down the Reformation." To +have a purpose "fixed as the stars" to trample down _one_ religion was, in +that age of the world, surely to have a purpose "fixed as the stars" to +strengthen and protect _another_; to yearn to put down the Reformation was +surely to yearn to bring in catholicism--catholic teaching and catholic +rites and catholic rule. We may not be catholics, but we are not entitled +to say that from an impassioned catholic woman's point of view this was +not a high ideal; it had been the ideal of the judicial mind, Sir Thomas +More, as well as the ideal of the enthusiast, Ignatius Loyola; it had been +for a thousand years the ideal of a multitude of noble natures both men +and women. Elizabeth, opportunely enough, had no ideals of any kind; +ideals indeed are often inconvenient in a ruler; but she had, despite her +acrimonious speech, plenty of sincerely good wishes and good intentions +for all the world. If the Queen of England had no ideals she had many +devices, and one was to check the flow of all sorts of zeal, especially +Protestant zeal. In the two lives religion told in different ways--the +difference was in the two natures, be it noted, not in the two religions. +Elizabeth, with a skin-deep religion only, was evenly and enduringly +virtuous. Mary had ardent and deep convictions, but her career was not one +of unbroken virtue. Elizabeth was certainly unfortunate in her religious +attitudes. She did not like the Protestants for she was not a good +Protestant; the Catholics did not like her for she was not a good +Catholic. In religion, indeed as in all things, she was greatly influenced +by her inborn spirit of "contrariness." If the Catholics had intrigued +less persistently against her throne and her life, and if (the idea is +sufficiently ludicrous) the Queen of Scotland had chanced to run in +harness with the hated John Knox (hated of both queens), she would gladly +have given the rein to her Catholic impulses. + +The two queens differed as much in body as in mind. I have elsewhere +sought to show not only that certain leading features of character tend to +run together (in itself a distinct contribution to our knowledge), but +also that these allied features are associated with a group of bodily +peculiarities, a contribution, if it really is a contribution, of greatly +additional interest. Elizabeth, large and pink-skinned like her father, +was by no means without impressiveness and even stateliness. She carried +her head a little forward and her chin a little downward, both these +positions being due to a slightly curved upper spine. Her hair was scanty +and her eyebrows were practically absent. All these bodily items, as well +as her mental items, she inherited from her father. Mary had a wholly +different figure and a different presence; her head was upright, her spine +straight; in her back there was no convexity either vertically or +transversely. Her eyebrows were abundant and her head of hair was long and +massive. All these peculiarities, too, we may be quite sure, she derived +from her parentage (not necessarily the nearest parents) on one side or +the other. In my little work on body and parentage in character I urge--it +is well to say here--that the bodily signs of certain classes of character +(two more marked and one intervening) are now and then subject to the +modifying influences of ailment and accident, and especially when these +happen in early life. In Elizabeth and Mary, however, no such influences +disturbed the development of two strongly-marked examples, both in body +and in character, of two large classes of women and, with but little +alteration, of two large classes of men also. + + +[FOR INDEX SEE FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS.] + + +HALL & ENGLISH, Printers, No. 71, High Street, Birmingham. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Body, Parentage and Character in +History, by Furneaux Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BODY, PARENTAGE, CHARACTER IN HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 36993.txt or 36993.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/9/36993/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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