BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY. The Constable of the Tower. AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE.* BY WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH. ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN GILBERT. Prologue. THE WILL OF HENRY THE EIGHTH. I. HOW THE RIGHT HIGH AND RENOWNED KING HENRY THE EIGHTH WAXED GRIEVOUSLY SICK, AND WAS LIKE TO DIE. THE terrible reign of Henry the Eighth drew to a close. The curtain was about to descend upon one of the most tremendous dramas ever enacted in real life-a drama which those who witnessed it beheld with wonder and awe. The sun of royalty, which had scorched all it fell upon by the fierceness of its mid-day beams, was fast sinking into seas lighted up by lurid fires, and deeply stained by blood. For five-and-thirty years of Henry's tyrant sway, no man in England, however high his rank, could count his life secure. Nay, rather, the higher the rank the greater was the insecurity. Royal descent, wealth, power, popularity, could not save the Duke of Buckingham from Henry's jealous fears. Truly spake the dying Wolsey of his dread and inexorable master- "Rather than miss or want any part of his will or appetite, he will endanger the loss of half his realm. Therefore, be well advised what matter ye put in his head, for you shall never put it out again." Henry was prone to suspicion, and to be suspected by him was to be doomed, for he was unforgiving as mistrustful. His favour was fatal; his promises a snare; his love destruction. Rapacious as cruel, and lavish as rapacious, his greediness was insatiable. He confiscated the possessions of the Church, and taxed the laity to the uttermost * All rights reserved. VOL. XLIX. B The marvel is, that the iron yoke he placed upon his subjects was endured. But he had a firm hand, as well as a strong will. Crafty as well as resolute, he framed laws merely to deride them and break them. He threw off the Pope's authority in order to make himself supreme head of the Church. Some were executed by him for maintaining the Papal supremacy, others put to death for denying certain Catholic tenets. To prove his even-handed justice, Romanists and Lutherans were linked together, and conducted in pairs to the stake. At one moment he upheld the new doctrines; on the next, he supported the old religion. Thus he used the contending parties for his own purposes, and made each contribute to his strength. The discord in the Church pleased him, though he feigned to reprove it. His councillors trembled at his slightest frown, and dared not for their heads give him honest advice. His parliaments were basely subservient, and confirmed his lawless decrees without an effort at resistance. A merciless system of religious persecution was commenced and carried out according to his changeful opinions. The fires at Smithfield were continually burning. The scaffold on Tower-hill reeked with the blood of the noble and the worthy. The state dungeons were crowded. Torture was applied. Secret examinations were allowed. Defence was denied the accused; and a bill of attainder smote the unfortunate person against whom it was procured as surely as the axe. The wisest, the noblest, the bravest, the best of Henry's subjects were sacrificed to his resentments and caprice. Uprightness could not save More and Fisher, nor long services and blind obedience Wolsey and Cromwell. Age offered no protection to the octogenarian Lord Darcy, and piety failed to preserve the abbots of Fountains, Rivaux, and Gervaux. But not alone did men perish by the stern behests of this ruthless tyrant, this worse than Oriental despot, but women!-women of incomparable beauty, who had shared his couch, and had every claim upon his tenderness and compassion. But pity was not in his nature. When love was gone, dislike and hate succeeded. Startling and almost incredible is the history of his six marriages. No parallel can be found to it save in wild and grotesque fiction. It reads like a Bluebeard story, yet, alas! it was fearful reality. Katherine of Aragon, faultless and loving, was divorced to make way for the lovely Anne Boleyn, who, in her turn, was decapitated to give place to the resistless Jane Seymour. The latter lived not long enough to weary her capricious consort, but was succeeded by Catherine of Cleves, whose want of personal attraction caused the annulment of her marriage and Cromwell's destruction. Next came the bewitching Catherine Howard, who was butchered like Anne Boleyn; and lastly, Catherine Parr, saved only from the block by her own spirit and prudence, as will be presently related. Twice was the nuptial knot forcibly untied-twice was it sundered by the axe. Pretexts for his violence were never wanting to Henry. But the trials of his luckless spouses were a mockery of justice. The accused were prejudged ere heard. The king's pleasure was alone consulted. From his vengeance there was no escape. When it was a question whether the beautiful Jane Seymour's life should be preserved, or that of the infant she was about to bring into the world, Henry unhesitatingly sacrificed the queen, brutally observing, "that he could readily get other wives, but might not have other children." But not only did young and lovely_women suffer from his barbarity; venerable dames fared no better. Execrable was the manner in which the aged and dignified Countess of Salisbury was slaughtered. A list of Henry's victims would swell pages: their number is almost incredible. For nearly five-and thirty years had this royal Bluebeard ruled the land; despoiling the Church, plundering his subjects, trampling on the necks of his nobles, disregarding all rights, divorcing and butchering his wives, disgracing and beheading his ministers; yet all the while, in the intensity of his egotism, entertaining the firm belief that he was one of the wisest and most merciful of kings, and arrogating to himself the title of Heaven's Vicar and High Minister on earth. But the end of this monstrous tyranny approached. For months the moody monarch had shut himself up within his palace at Westminster like a sick lion in his den, and it appeared almost certain he would never quit it alive. Nothing could be gloomier than the present aspect of the court, or offer a greater contrast to its former splendour and gaiety. The pompous pageantries and shows erstwhile exhibited there were over; the sumptuous banquets and Belshazzar-like festivals, of which the monarch and his favourite attendants partook, had ceased; boisterous merriment was no longer heard-laughter, indeed, was altogether hushed; gorgeously-apparelled nobles and proudly-beautiful dames no longer thronged the halls; ambassadors and others were no more admitted to the royal presence; knightly displays were no more made in the precincts of the palace; the tennis-court was unfrequented, the manegeground unvisited, all the king's former amusements and occupations were neglected and abandoned. Music was no longer heard either within or without, for light inspiriting sounds irritated the king almost to madness. Henry passed much of his time in his devotions, maintaining for the most part a sullen silence, during which he brooded over the past, and thought with bitter regret, not of his misdeeds and cruelties, but of bygone pleasures. Not more changed was the king's court than the king himself. Accounted, when young, one of the handsomest princes in Europe, possessing at that time a magnificent person, a proud and majestic bearing, and all that could become a sovereign, he was now an unwieldy, unshapely, and bloated mass. The extraordinary vigour of his early days gave promise of long life; but the promise was fallacious. Formerly he had been accustomed to take prodigious exercise, and to engage in all manly sports; but of late, owing to increasing obesity, these wholesome habits were neglected, and could never be resumed; his infirmities offering an effectual bar to their continuance. Though not positively intemperate, Henry placed little restraint upon himself in regard to wine, and none whatever as to food. He ate prodigiously. Nor when his life depended upon the observance of some rules of diet would he refrain. Engendered in his frame by want of exercise, and nourished by gross self-indulgence, disease made rapid and fearful progress. Ere long he had become so corpulent, and his limbs were so much swollen, that he was almost incapable of movement. Such was his weight, that machinery had to be employed to raise him or place him in a chair. Doors were widened to allow him passage. He could not repose in a couch from fear of suffocation; and unceasing anguish was occasioned by a deep and incurable ulcer in the leg. Terrible was he to behold at this period. Terrible to hear were his cries of rage and pain, which resembled the roaring of a wild beast. His attendants came nigh him with reluctance and affright, for the slightest inadvertence drew down dreadful imprecations and menaces on their heads. But the lion, though sick to death, was a lion still. While any life was left him, Henry would not abate a jot of the sovereign power he had exercised. Though his body was a mass of disease, his faculties were vigorous as ever; his firmness was unshaken, his will absolute. To the last he was true to himself. Inexorable he had been, and inexorable he remained. His thirst for vengeance was insatiable as ever, while his suspicions were more quickly aroused, and sharper than heretofore. But during this season of affliction, vouchsafed him, perchance, for repentance from his numerous and dire offences, there was no endeavour to reconcile himself with man, or to make his peace with Heaven. Neither was there any outward manifestation of remorse. The henchmen and pages, stationed at the doors of his chamber during the long hours of night, and half slumbering at their posts, with other watchers by his side, were often appalled by the fearful groans of the restless king. But these might be wrested from him by pain, and were no proof that conscience pricked him. Not a word escaped his lips to betoken that sleep was scared away by the spectres of his countless victims. What passed within that dark and inscrutable breast no man could tell. |