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 general pardon, and while he complained of their timid counsels, he authorised them to proclaim one. He also invited Aske to confer with him.

Aske came to court on assurance of pardon, and on representing to the king the causes of discontent, was dismissed with a promise that Henry would go down to the north, have the queen crowned at York, and cause a free parliament to be held there at Whitsuntide for the redress of grievances, while convocation should sit at the same time to settle questions affecting the church. With this message Aske endeavoured to pacify the people. They, however, had grave doubts of the king's good faith, and in January 1537 Sir Francis Bigod [q. v.] and John Hallam [q. v.] conspired to seize both Hull and Scarborough. The attempt was a failure, but new commotions broke out in Westmoreland. These disturbances, which were crushed out one by one, gave the king an excuse for recalling his offered pardon, and very many were executed. Henry and his council then drew up a scheme for keeping the borders more thoroughly under control, and giving pensions to men who might be trusted to repress disorders. Norfolk was shocked to find on the list the names of some notorious thieves and murderers; but he received a reprimand for his scruples from the king, who said he was surprised the duke was more opposed to thieves and murderers than to traitors when the former had done good service to the king.

In February Thomas Fitzgerald, tenth earl of Kildare [q. v.], and his five uncles, taken in Ireland, were hanged together at Tyburn, and in the course of the year Norfolk's brother Thomas Howard died in the Tower of London, to which he had been committed for having made a secret contract of marriage with the king's niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, afterwards the mother of Darnley.

On 12 Oct. Queen Jane gave birth to a prince, afterwards Edward VI, and died on the 24th at Hampton Court. Henry remained a widower for the unusual period of more than two years, but not without frequent talk of marrying a fourth wife. At first he seemed anxious to wed Mary of Guise, and was angry when he was told that she had been already given to his nephew, James V of Scotland. Afterwards he had some thoughts of Christina, duchess of Milan, whose portrait he commissioned Holbein to paint for him. These, however, were but political devices to preserve the balance of power between the two rivals, Charles V and Francis I, lest they should combine with the pope against him. The state of his health, which at least in the spring of 1538 was already serious, might have afforded sufficient reason for avoiding another marriage. He had a fistula in one leg, his face at times growing quite black and he himself speechless from pain. His illness, no doubt, was aggravated by anxieties both domestic and foreign; for if other princes should be banded against him the loyalty of his own subjects was not to be depended on. And Francis I and Charles V were at that very moment drawing towards each other. By the mediation of the pope they made a ten years' truce together in June 1538, and had a personal interview in the following month.

Whatever he might do to meet the danger, Henry certainly had no thought of endeavouring to propitiate the see of Rome. He caused images and shrines everywhere to be demolished and pilgrimages to be suppressed. He moreover resumed the work of dissolving the monasteries, which he had no difficulty in carrying beyond the limit authorised by parliament. For a moment, too, he showed again some inclination to an alliance with the German protestants, whose usefulness in case the emperor should think of attacking him was evident, and some of their divines came to England in the summer on his invitation, to discuss matters of faith with a view to a common agreement. But nothing came of these conferences, and Henry showed himself every day more zealous for ancient doctrine. In November 1537 he issued a proclamation for anabaptists to quit the kingdom. In the same month he signally illustrated his position as head of the church by hearing personally an appeal from the Archbishop of Canterbury by a heretic named John Lambert [q. v.], otherwise called Nicholson, who denied the corporeal presence in the Sacrament. From the account of an eye-witness, preserved, and certainly not weakened in effect, by Foxe (Acts and Monuments, ed. Townsend, 1838, v. 230–6), he seems to have shamefully browbeat the accused. Cromwell, on the other hand, in a contemporary despatch, reports with admiration ‘how benignly his Grace essayed to convert the miserable man’ (, Eccl. Hist., ed. 1852, iv. 428). Neither report can be regarded as altogether trustworthy. The hearing lasted five hours, and several of the bishops argued with the accused from noon till the debate closed by torchlight. At last the king bade Cromwell, as his vicegerent, pronounce sentence, and within a few days the man was burned in Smithfield.

Towards the close of the year Henry's anxieties increased. The spoliation of the rich shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury had renewed the indignation felt against him at