Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/98

 Parr [q. v.] On 7 July 1544 he made her regent in his absence, when on the point of crossing the Channel to conduct the war in person. His brief campaign was signalised by the capture of Boulogne (14 Sept.); immediately after which he was deserted by his perfidious ally the emperor, who made a separate peace with France on the 19th. Henry suspended operations for the winter, and recrossed the Channel on the 30th. England was now placed at a disadvantage in maintaining the war single-handed against France; but the national spirit rose with the danger, and though Henry's subjects were called upon for loans, subsidies, and benevolences with a frequency heretofore unknown, they contributed for the most part with little grudging. The king, moreover, adopted one of the worst means of lightening his financial burdens—debasement of the currency, an evil which was not remedied till the days of Queen Elizabeth, and only partially then. But he also coined his plate and mortgaged his estates to meet the exigencies of a war which in two years cost him 1,300,000l. England, however, was unable to strike an effective blow at her enemy; and one of her finest vessels, the Mary Rose, sank by accident (20 July 1545) off Portsmouth under the king's own eyes, while the French, almost that very day, made good a temporary landing in the Isle of Wight. But, on the whole, nothing was gained by either side, and on 7 June 1546 France agreed to make peace with England, leaving her in possession of Boulogne for eight years longer, and agreeing to pay a large sum for arrears of past pensions and war expenses.

As for Scotland, the one constant enemy of Henry's policy in that country was Cardinal Beaton, and Henry favoured the plot which resulted in his assassination. In May 1544 an English force under the Earl of Hertford, supported by a fleet in the Firth of Forth, burned Leith and Edinburgh, and laid waste the neighbouring country. But this did not tend to make the Scots more tractable, and in the early part of 1545 a raid by Lord Evers on the Scottish border, in which he desecrated the tombs of the Douglases at Melrose, was revenged by the signal defeat of the invaders at Ancrum Muir (27 Feb.) In April Henry, through the Earl of Cassilis, again attempted to dictate a peace to the Scottish lords, but his terms were rejected, and in September Hertford laid waste the borders about Dryburgh and Melrose. At last, on 30 May 1546, Cardinal Beaton was murdered, and the castle of St. Andrews seized by conspirators in league with England; and as this gave Henry's party the command of a seaport and a strong castle, he had now a footing in Scotland from which he could not easily be driven.

The chief domestic matters of interest during those last years of his reign were matters of religion. Numerous colleges, chantries, and hospitals found it prudent to surrender, and in the session of November 1545 parliament placed the endowments of all such foundations at the king's disposal as an additional aid to meet his war expenses. A power of unlimited confiscation was thus placed in the king's hands; which, however, it seems he was expected to exercise with some regard for the interests of religion and learning. So Henry himself understood the matter, as he told parliament himself in a speech with which he closed the session on 24 Dec. 1545, and he thanked them for such a marked expression of their confidence. He then added that he could not but grieve that his subjects, who showed so much kindness towards himself, were not in charity with one another, but the names heretic, anabaptist, papist, hypocrite, and Pharisee were freely banded about, and he gave them a sort of sermon on the thirteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, urging them to amendment. Above all they must not judge their own causes, or rail at bishops, but if they knew that a bishop or preacher taught corrupt doctrine, ‘come,’ he said, ‘and declare it to some of our council, or to us to whom is committed by God the high authority to reform and order such causes.’

Some doubt seems to be thrown on the authenticity of this speech by the fact that it is not recorded in the ‘Journals of the House of Lords;’ but it comes from Hall's ‘Chronicle,’ a source which can generally be relied on. It was Henry's last speech in parliament, where he never again appeared in person, and it seems too striking and characteristic to be an invention; but in any case it affords singular evidence of the utter inefficiency of the severe act of the Six Articles to effect its avowed purpose of ‘abolishing diversities of opinion.’ Persecutions and burnings for heresy were frequent during the next year, the last of Henry's reign [cf. ].

Henry's infirmities were now increasing. Heavy and unwieldy, he could no longer walk or stand, and the fistula in his leg had become more serious. All who stood near the throne foresaw his speedy death and the horrors of a minority, and were naturally anxious about their own position in the coming reign. Suddenly, on 12 Dec. 1546, the Duke of Norfolk and his son Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, the poet, were made prisoners. Evidence had been collected against them