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290 purpose by this Royal murderer. The whole of this strange evidence has now been published, and may be consulted by any one, in the State Papers published by Government, vol. v., part iv., and in Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. In these we have the whole bargaining for the murder, the refusal of the lords to do it without a distinct order from the king, and the reply of Sadler that the king's honour must be saved, but that they may rely upon him, and that the murder being done he will engage to pay the money, though he should do it out of his own pocket. The lords, however, were too cautious, and then the Laird of Brunston was employed. This man was originally a familiar and confidential servant of the cardinal's, and entrusted by him with his secret letters to Rome. It was, no doubt, on account of this knowledge of all the cardinal's most secret affairs, that he was selected. He was afterwards a secret agent of Arran, the governor, and after that was bought up by Sadler for Henry.

The death of Cardinal Beaton was at the same time the death-blow to the Papist Church in Scotland. Though he was a man of corrupt moral life, and of a persecuting disposition, he was one of the most able men of his time, and resisted the designs of Henry, for the subjugation of his native country, with a vigour and perseverance which made Henry feel that whilst he lived Scotland was independent. The death of Beaton, so ardently desired, and so highly paid for by Henry, did not, however, bring him nearer to the reduction of the country, or the accomplishment of his son's marriage with the queen. On the contrary, so intense was the hatred of him and of England, which his tyrannic and detestable conduct had created in every rank and class of the Scottish people, that these objects were now further off than ever. Henry's own embarrassments were, in consequence of his Scotch and French wars, become so intolerable, that he was compelled to make peace with France in the month of June, by a treaty called the Treaty of Campe, and to agree to deliver up Boulogne, on which he had spent vast sums in fortifications, on condition that Francis paid up the arrears of his pension, and to submit a claim of 500,000 crowns upon him to arbitration. Francis took care to have Scotland included in the peace, and Henry bound himself not to interfere with it except on receiving some fresh provocation.

The castle of St. Andrews, in which the murderers were enclosed, was besieged by Arran, the regent; and, supplied by England with money, engineers, and provisions, it held out for five mouths, when Francis sent over a fleet and army, with able engineers, who compelled the castle to surrender, and conveyed the murder-agents of Henry to France, where they were for some time employed as galley-slaves. The people of Scotland expressed their exultation over that event by a song, the burden of which was:—

Henry was now drawing to a close of that life which might have been so splendid, and which he had made so horrible. To the last moment he was employed in base endeavours to elude the peace which he had submitted to with Scotland; in the struggles betwixt the two great religious factions, and in still further shocking executions for treason and heresy. Henry himself was become in mind and person a most loathsome object. A life of vile pleasures, and furious and unrestrained passions, succeeded, as other appetites decayed, by a brutal habit of gormandising, had swollen him to an enormous size, and made his body one huge mass of corruption. The ulcer in his leg had become revoltingly offensive; his weight and helplessness were such that he could not pass through any ordinary door, nor be removed from one part of the house to another, except by the aid of machinery and by the help of numerous attendants. The constant irritation of his festering legs made his terrible temper still more terrible.

Of those about him, his queen, Catherine Parr, had the most miraculous escape. With wonderful patience, she had borne his whims, his rages, and his offensive person. She had shown an affectionate regard for his children, and had assisted with great wisdom in the progress of their education, living all the time as with a sword suspended over her head by a hair. She was devotedly attached to the reformed principles, and loved to converse with sincere Protestants. But two of the most bloody and relentless persecutors that the annals of the Church exhibit—Gardiner and Bonner, with their unprincipled confederate, Wriothesley—were always keeping strict watch over her with murderous eyes, and Cranmer, the head of the opposite party, was too timid for a moment's reliance upon him in the hour of danger. All the gaieties and fêtes which in earlier days enlivened the Court were now suspended, and a silence as gloomy as the spirit of the tyrant who created it lay over the palace. Catherine spent her days in a hopeless yet patient endeavour to soothe her irascible consort, and even ventured to enter with him upon the discussion of religious topics. This was a most ticklish subject; for Henry, vain in every region of his mind, was vainest of all of his polemical powers. The "defender of the faith" was not likely to bear the slightest contradiction in such matters, least of all from a mere woman, as he designated his wife. It was not long before he burst forth upon the astounded queen, who no doubt had by far the best of the argument; for Catherine had gone thoroughly into the study of the Scriptures, and had had about her all those most conversant with them. She had made Miles Coverdale her almoner, and rendered him every assistance in his translation of the Bible. She employed the learned Nicholas Udall, Master of Eton, to edit the translations of Erasmus's "Paraphrases on the Four Gospels," which, according to Strype, she published at her own cost. Stimulated by her example, many ladies of rank pursued the study of the learned languages and of Scriptural knowledge. "It was a common thing," Udall observes, "to see young virgins so nouzled and trained in the study of letters, that they willingly set all other pastimes at nought for learning's sake. It was now no news at all to see queens and ladies of most high estate and progeny, instead of courtly dalliance, to embrace virtuous exercises, reading, and writing, with most earnest study, early and late, to apply themselves to the acquirement of knowledge."

Of this school, and one of Catherine's own pupils, was