The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (230 page)

A few days after, he expired, in the flower of his age; a prince of 14th Dec. Death of considerable virtues and talents; well fitted, by his vigilance and James the Fifth.

personal courage, for repressing those disorders, to which his kingdom, during that age, was so much exposed. He executed justice with impartiality and rigour; but as he supported the commonalty and the church against the rapine of the nobility, he escaped not the hatred of that order. The protestants also, whom he opposed, have endeavoured to throw many stains on his memory; but have not been able to fix any considerable imputation upon him.
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Henry was no sooner informed of his victory and of the death of 1543.

his nephew, than he projected, as James had foreseen, the scheme of uniting Scotland to his own dominions, by marrying his son, Edward, to

the heiress of that kingdom.x
He called together the Scottish nobles, who were his prisoners; and after reproaching them, in severe terms, for their pretended breach of treaty, he began to soften his tone, and proposed to them this expedient, by which, he hoped, those disorders, so prejudicial to both states, would for the future be prevented.

He offered to bestow on them their liberty without ransom; and only required of them engagements to favour the marriage of the prince of Wales with their young mistress.

They were easily prevailed on to give their assent to a proposal, which seemed so natural, and so advantageous to both kingdoms; and being conducted to Newcastle, they delivered to the duke of Norfolk hostages for their return, in case the intended nuptials were not completed: And they thence proceeded to Scotland, where they found affairs in some confusion.

The pope, observing his authority in Scotland to be in danger from the spreading of the new opinions, had bestowed on Beaton, the primate, the dignity of cardinal, in order to confer more influence upon him; and that prelate had long been regarded as prime minister to James, and as the head of that party, which defended the ancient privileges and property of the ecclesiastics. Upon the death of his master, this man, apprehensive of the consequences both to his party and to himself, endeavoured to keep possession of power; and for that purpose, he is accused of executing a deed, which required a high degree of temerity. He forged, it is said, a will for the king, appointing himself, and three noblemen more, regents of the kingdom during the

minority of the infant princess.y
At least, for historians are not well agreed in the circumstances of the fact, he had read to James a paper of that import, to which that monarch, during the delirium which preceded his death, had given an imperfect assent and approbation.
z
By virtue of this will, Beaton had put himself in possession of the government; and having united his interests with those of the queen-dowager, he obtained the consent of the convention of states, and excluded the pretensions of the earl of Arran.

James earl of Arran, of the name of Hamilton, was next heir to the crown by his grandmother, daughter of James III; and on that account seemed best entitled to possess that high office, into which the cardinal had intruded himself. The prospect also of his succession after a princess, who was in such tender infancy, procured him many partizans; and though his character indicated little spirit, activity, or ambition, a propensity, which he had discovered for the new opinions, had attached to him all the zealous promoters of those innovations. By means of these adherents, joined to the vassals of his own family, he had been able to make opposition to the cardinal’s administration; and the suspicion of Beaton’s forgery, with the accession of the noblemen, who had been prisoners in England, assisted too by some money sent from London, was able to turn the balance in his favour. The earl of Angus and his brother, having taken the present opportunity of returning into their native country, opposed the cardinal with all the credit of that powerful family; and the majority of the convention had now embraced opposite interests to those which formerly prevailed.

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lord Seton; and a negociation was commenced with Sir Ralph Sadler, the English ambassador, for the marriage of the infant queen with the prince of Wales.

The following conditions were quickly agreed on; that the queen Treaty with Scotland.

should remain in Scotland till she should be ten years of age; that she should then be sent to England to be educated; that six Scottish noblemen should immediately be delivered as hostages to Henry; and that the kingdom, notwithstanding its union with England, should still retain its laws and privileges.
a
By means of these equitable conditions, the war between the nations, which had threatened Scotland with such dismal calamities, seemed to be fully composed, and to be changed into perpetual concord and amity.

But the cardinal-primate, having prevailed on Seton to restore him to his liberty, was able, by his intrigues, to confound all these measures, which appeared so well concerted. He assembled the most considerable ecclesiastics; and having represented to them the imminent danger, to which their revenues and privileges were exposed, he persuaded them to collect privately from the clergy a large sum of money, by which, if entrusted to his management, he engaged to overturn the schemes of their enemies.
b

Besides the partizans, whom he acquired by pecuniary motives, he rouzed up the zeal of those, who were attached to the catholic worship; and he represented the union with England as the sure forerunner of ruin to the church and to the ancient religion.

The national antipathy of the Scots to their southern neighbours was also an infallible engine, by which the cardinal wrought upon the people; and though the terror of Henry’s arms, and their own inability to make resistance, had procured a temporary assent to the alliance and marriage proposed, the settled habits of the nation produced an extreme aversion to those measures. The English ambassador and his retinue received many insults from persons whom the cardinal had instigated to commit those violences, in hopes of bringing on a rupture: But Sadler prudently dissembled the matter; and waited patiently, till the day appointed for the delivery of the hostages. He then demanded of the regent the performance of that important article; but received for answer, that his authority was very precarious, that the nation had now taken a different impression, and that it was not in his power to compel any of the nobility to deliver themselves as hostages to the English. Sadler, foreseeing the consequence of this refusal, sent a summons to all those who had been prisoners in England, and required them to fulfil the promise, which they had given, of returning into custody.

None of them showed so much sentiment of honour, as to fulfil their engagements, except Gilbert Kennedy, earl of Cassilis. Henry was so well pleased with the behaviour of this nobleman, that he not only received him graciously, but honoured him with presents, gave him his liberty, and sent him back to Scotland, with his two brothers, whom he had left as hostages.
c

This behaviour of the Scottish nobles, though it reflected New rupture.

dishonour on the nation, was not disagreeable to the cardinal, who foresaw, that all these persons would now be deeply interested to maintain their enmity and opposition to England. And as a war was soon expected with that kingdom, he found it necessary immediately to apply to France, and to crave the assistance of that ancient ally, during the present distresses of the Scottish nation.

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pretensions on the Milanese, and his resentment against Charles, had engaged him in a war with that potentate; and having made great, though fruitless efforts during the preceding campaign, he was the more disabled at present from defending his own dominions, much more from granting any succour to the Scots. Matthew Stuart, earl of Lenox, a young nobleman of a great family, was at that time in the French court; and Francis, being informed, that he was engaged in ancient and hereditary enmity with the Hamiltons, who had murdered his father, sent him over to his native country, as a support to the cardinal and the queen-mother: And he promised, that a supply of money, and, if necessary, even military succours, should soon be dispatched after him. Arran, the governor, seeing all these preparations against him, assembled his friends, and made an attempt to get the person of the infant queen into his custody; but being repulsed, he was obliged to come to an accommodation with his enemies, and to entrust that precious charge to four neutral persons, the heads of potent families, the Grahams, Areskines, Lindseys, and Levingstones. The arrival of Lenox, in the midst of these transactions, served to render the victory of the French party over

the English still more undisputable.d

The opposition, which Henry met with in Scotland from the Rupture with France.

French intrigues, excited his resentment, and farther confirmed the resolution, which he had already taken, of breaking with France, and of uniting his arms with those of the emperor. He had other grounds of complaint against the French king; which, though not of great importance, yet being recent, were able to overbalance those great injuries, which he had formerly received from Charles. He pretended, that Francis had engaged to imitate his example in separating himself entirely from the see of Rome, and that he had broken his promise in that particular.

He was dissatisfied, that James his nephew, had been allowed to marry, first Magdalene of France, then a princess of the house of Guise; and he considered these alliances as pledges, which Francis gave of his intentions to support the Scots against the power of England.
e
He had been informed of some railleries, which the French king had thrown out against his conduct with regard to his wives. He was disgusted, that Francis, after so many obligations which he owed him, had sacrificed him to the emperor; and, in the confidence of friendship, had rashly revealed his secrets to that subtle and interested monarch. And he complained, that regular payments were never made of the sums due to him by France, and of the pension, which had been stipulated. Impelled by all these motives, he alienated himself from his ancient friend and confederate, and formed a league with the emperor, who earnestly courted his alliance. This league, besides stipulations for mutual defence, contained a plan for invading France; and the two monarchs agreed to enter Francis’s dominions with an army, each of twenty-five thousand men; and to require that prince to pay Henry all the sums which he owed him, and to consign Boulogne, Montreuil, Terouenne, and Ardres, as a security for the regular payment of his pension for the future: In case these conditions were rejected, the confederate princes agreed to challenge, for Henry, the crown of France, or, in default of it, the dutchies of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Guienne; for Charles, the dutchy of Burgundy, and some other territories.
f
That they might have a pretence for enforcing these claims, they sent a message to Francis, requiring him to renounce his alliance with Sultan Solyman, and to make reparation for all the prejudice, which Christendom had sustained from that unnatural confederacy. Upon the French king’s refusal, war was declared against him by the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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allies. It may be proper to remark, that the partizans of France objected to Charles his alliance with the heretical king of England, as no less obnoxious than that which Francis had contracted with Solyman: And they observed, that this league was a breach of the solemn promise, which he had given to Clement VII. never to make peace or alliance with England.

While the treaty with the emperor was negociating, the king 22d Jan. A

summoned a new session of parliament, in order to obtain

parliament.

supplies for his projected war with France. The parliament granted him a subsidy to be paid in three years: It was levied in a peculiar manner; but

exceeded not three shillings in the pound, upon any individual.g
The convocation gave the king six shillings in the pound, to be levied in three years. Greater sums were always, even during the establishment of the Catholic religion, exacted from the clergy than from the laity: Which made the emperor Charles say, when Henry dissolved the monasteries, and sold their revenues, or bestowed them on his nobility and courtiers, that he had killed the hen, which brought him the golden eggs.
h

The parliament also facilitated the execution of the former law, by which the king’s proclamations were made equal to statutes: They appointed, that any nine counsellors should form a legal court for punishing all disobedience to proclamations. The total abolition of juries in criminal causes, as well as of all parliaments, seemed, if the king had so pleased, the necessary consequence of this enormous law. He might issue a proclamation, enjoining the execution of any penal statute, and afterwards try the criminals, not for breach of the statute, but for disobedience to his proclamation. It is remarkable, that lord Mountjoy entered a protest against this law; and it is equally remarkable, that that protest is the only one entered against any public bill during this whole reign.
i

It was enacted,k
this session, that any spiritual person, who preached or taught contrary to the doctrine contained in the king’s book, the
Erudition of a Christian
man,
or contrary to any doctrine which he should
thereafter
promulgate, was to be admitted on the first conviction to renounce his error; on the second, he was required to carry a faggot; which if he refused to do, or fell into a third offence, he was to be burnt. But the laity, for the third offence, were only to forfeit their goods and chattels, and be liable to perpetual imprisonment. Indictment must be laid within a year after the offence, and the prisoner was allowed to bring witnesses for his exculpation.