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to power over other nations than an ordinary priest had.

Henry, in the year 1521, wrote a book against Luther. Of course the Pope was enchanted with it. He sent Henry a letter, flattering him to the skies and beyond them, calling him wise, learned, gentle, charitable, meek, and by many other pretty but undeserved names. He also gave him the title of "Defender of the Faith," which the kings of England have borne ever since.

Now there are various ranks among the priests of the Roman Church. Next in order to the Pope are the Cardinals. When a Pope dies a new one is chosen by the Cardinals from amongst themselves. Wolsey, as I told you, was a Cardinal, and he longed to be Pope. In the year 1522, he thought he had a chance, for the Pope died. Another was chosen; but Wolsey was not the fortunate man. However, poor Wolsey's trials were not only those arising from disappointment. He got out of favour with the king, and fell lower and lower. His splendid house was taken possession of by Henry, who even seized his clothes. Then the capricious king changed his mind, and seeming sorry, sent the Cardinal a pardon, and told him he might keep some of his money. Wolsey could not resist his love of show (people who are not born to grandeur always care for it most, and you remember he was only a butcher's son), and Henry was again made angry by what he considered Wolsey's extravagance, and had him arrested on the charge of high treason. High treason means plotting against the king. On the road to prison he was taken ill, and died at Leicester Abbey. It

is said that when dying, the poor Cardinal exclaimed, "If I had only served my God as faithfully as I have served my king, He would not have forsaken me in my grey hairs."

In 1533 the king divorced his queen and married Anne Boleyn, one of her maids of honour, who was very beautiful. This made the Pope angry. Henry now declared that the Pope should no longer rule in England. He called himself the "Head of the Church," and said that he would have things his own way. He gave orders that all prayers and books wherein the Pope was named should be suppressed. The Pope excommunicated Henry, who ceased to be considered the "Defender of the Faith."

The next thing Henry did was to make inquiries into the state of all the monasteries in the kingdom. And now I must tell you what monasteries were. They were houses where monks or Roman Catholic priests lived. These monks and priests looked after the sick, taught the children, gave away money to the poor, fed and sheltered the homeless, and did many other good actions. But, of course, there were bad monks as well as good ones. Some wasted the money entrusted to them to give away; some spent it on themselves. And there is no doubt that these monasteries wanted seeing after. Henry saw to them quickly enough. He shut them all up; he turned the inmates out; he took all the money for himself.

The first result of this was dreadful. For although Henry told the people that it was wrong and foolish to think that the Pope had absolute power, he only put him

self in the Pope's place; and the most ignorant of his subjects did not know what to believe or to do, and many became fearfully wicked. Then all the beggars

who used to be relieved at the convent gates got desperate. One riot after another took place.

The king, meanwhile, burned Lutherans because he said that they were wicked, and killed Papists because they stuck to their Pope.

In fact, Henry only objected to one part of the Roman Catholic religion, and that was being obedient to the Pope. He would be master. It is true that in the end the people of England left the Roman Catholic religion; but as far as Henry believed any religion at all, it was Roman Catholicism.

Sir Thomas More, a most excellent and learned man, refused to take an oath to the effect that the king was head of the Church, and was therefore beheaded.

In 1536 Henry had his queen, Anne Boleyn, beheaded on a charge of high treason. The next day he married Jane Seymour, the daughter of a Wiltshire gentleman. This lady died in about a year. Henry now found it rather hard to get a wife. One duchess whom he wished to marry sent word that she "had but one head; if she had had two, one should have been at his majesty's service." Henry, however, succeeded in persuading a Protestant princess, by name Anne of Cleves, to marry him. He saw and fell in love with her picture; but alas! it was a flattering likeness, and when he saw the lady, he said he did not want to marry her. If photographs had been invented in those days, the poor lady's journey might have been spared. However, she got off rather

cheaply on the whole, for the king only divorced her instead of putting her to death. A fortnight afterwards he announced that Katharine Howard was his wife, as he had married her privately. She turned out though to have been a bad sort of woman, and was beheaded. Strangely enough, another lady, Catharine Parr, was found rash enough to marry the king; and, stranger still, she survived him.

The tyrannical king told his subjects that they must believe on religious matters whatever he told them or be put to death; and as he never held the same belief for long together, it was difficult for his people to please him.

The Pope ordered that no one should give the king or his friends food; told all the clergy to leave England, excepting a few who were to remain to baptize infants; and said that when the king died his body was to remain unburied. But, after all, the Pope could only talk, and an angry king who was present was more feared than an absent pope.

Towards the end of his reign Henry grew more passionate and brutal. He got so fat and unwieldy that he could not move at all, and a hole had to be made in the floor of one room through to the ceiling of another, that he might be let up and down by ropes. When it became evident that he was going to die, every one was afraid to tell him so. At last, just a few hours before the end, some courageous person told him he could not live long, and asked if he would like to see a clergyman. Archbishop Cranmer, of whom you will read more in the next reign, came, and the king pressed his hand, and died in the act.

In the year 1536 parish priests were ordered to supply the people with the Bible.

In this reign there lived a celebrated painter named Holbein. One day he was very busy painting a picture when an earl asked to come in, and made a great noise because Holbein would not be disturbed. At last the painter, losing patience, pushed the nobleman downstairs. He complained to the king, who said, "I could make seven earls out of seven peasants any day, but seven earls could not make one artist."

CHAPTER XXIII.

EDWARD VI., 1547–1553.

A BOY king. And a good, meek, gentle little boy; very unlike his father. Edward's mother was Jane Seymour, and he was only a baby when she died, and but nine years old when the death of his father placed him on the throne. His eldest uncle was made Protector of the kingdom; that is, he had to govern until Edward was old enough to do so.

The most important changes of this reign were concerning religion. Archbishop Cranmer, Bishop Ridley, and other Reformers were employed in making a Prayerbook for the Church, which book was nearly the same as the one now used. Many Church laws were altered, and those Roman Catholics who would not join the Reformers were punished; for in those days, as you read in the last reign, people were mistaken enough to fancy it right to persecute their neighbours on

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