HENRY VIII. king of England, was the second son of Henry VII. by Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. He was born at Greenwich, on the 28th of June 1491; on the death of his brother Arthur, in 1502, he was created Prince of Wales; and the following year he was betrothed to Catharine of Aragon, Prince Arthur's widow, the pope having granted a dispensation for the purpose. Henry VIII. ascended the throne on the 22d of April 1509, and his marriage with Catharine was celebrated about two months thereafter. In the beginning of his reign he left the government of his kingdom entirely to his ministers, and
spent his time chiefly in tournaments, balls, concerts, and other expensive amusements. Nevertheless he was not so totally absorbed in pleasure as not to find leisure to sacrifice to the resentment of the people two of his father's ministers, Empson and Dudley. A house in London, which had belonged to the former, was, in the year 1510, given to Thomas Wolsey, who was now the king's almoner, and who from this period began to insinuate himself into Henry's favour. In 1513, Wolsey became prime minister, and from that moment governed the king and kingdom with absolute power. In this year Henry declared war against France, gained the battle of Spurs, and took the towns of Terouenne and Tournay; but before he embarked his troops he beheaded the Earl of Suffolk, who had long been confined in the Tower. In 1521, he sacrificed the Duke of Buckingham to the resentment of his prime minister Wolsey, and the same year obtained from the pope the title of Defender of the Faith.
Henry, having been eighteen years married, grew tired of his wife, and in the year 1527 resolved to obtain a divorce; but after many fruitless solicitations, finding it impossible to persuade the pope to annul his marriage with Catharine, he espoused Anne Boleyn in the year 1531. During this interval his favourite Wolsey was disgraced, and died; whilst Henry threw off the papal yoke, and burned three Protestants for heresy. In 1535, he put to death Sir Thomas More, Fisher, and others, for denying his supremacy; and suppressed all the lesser monasteries.
Having now possessed his second queen about five years, he fell violently in love with Lady Jane Seymour. Anne Boleyn was accused of adultery with her own brother, and with three other persons, and having been condemned, was beheaded on the 19th of May 1536. The day following he married Jane Seymour. In 1537, he put to death five of the noble family of Kildare, as a terror to the Irish, of whose disloyalty he had some apprehensions; and in the following year he executed the Marquis of Exeter, with four other persons of distinction, whose only crime was corresponding with Cardinal Pole. In 1538 and 1539, he suppressed all the monasteries in England, and seized their revenues for his own use. The queen having died in child-bed, he this year married the princess Ann of Cleves, but disliking her person, he immediately determined on a divorce; and his obsequious parliament and convocation unanimously pronounced the marriage void, for reasons too ridiculous to be stated.
His majesty being once more at liberty to indulge himself with another wife, fixed upon Catharine Howard, niece to the Duke of Norfolk, who was declared queen in August 1540; but they had been privately married some time before. Henry, it seems, was so entirely satisfied with this lady, that he daily blessed God for his present happiness. But his felicity was of short duration. He had not been married above a year, when the queen was accused of frequent prostitution, both before and since her marriage; and having confessed her guilt, she was beheaded in February 1542. In July 1543, he married his sixth wife, Lady Catharine Parr, the widow of John Neville Lord Latimer, and lived till the year 1547 without committing any more flagrant enormities; but finding himself now approaching his dissolution, he made his will; and, that the last scene of his life might resemble the rest of the piece, he determined to end the tragedy with the murder of two of his best friends and most faithful subjects, the Duke of Norfolk and his son the Earl of Surrey. The earl was beheaded on the 19th of January, and the duke was in like manner ordered for execution on the 29th, but he fortunately escaped by the king's death which happened on the 28th. They were condemned without the shadow of a crime; but Henry's political reason for putting them to death was his apprehension that, if they were suffered to survive him, they would counteract
Henry. some of his regulations in religion, and might be troublesome to his son. Henry died on the 28th January 1547, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was buried at Windsor.
Lord Herbert tries to palliate his crimes, and exaggerates what he is pleased to call his virtues. Bishop Burnet says, "he was rather to be reckoned among the great than the good princes;" but he afterwards acknowledges that "he is to be numbered among the ill princes," yet adds, "I cannot rank him with the worst." Sir Walter Raleigh, with more justice, says, "If all the pictures and patterns of a merciless prince were lost to the world, they might again be painted to the life out of the history of this king."
HENRY of Huntingdon, an English historian of the twelfth century, was canon of Lincoln, and afterwards archdeacon of Huntingdon. He wrote, 1. A History of England, which ends with the year 1154; 2. A Continuation of the History of Bede; 3. Chronological Tables of the Kings of England; 4. A short treatise on the Contempt of the World; 5. Several books of epigrams and love-verses; 6. A poem on herbs. All these productions were written in Latin.
HENRY the Minstrel, commonly called Blind Harry, an ancient Scottish author, distinguished by no particular surname, but well known as the author of an historical poem reciting the achievements of Sir William Wallace.
It is difficult to ascertain the precise time in which this poet lived, or when he wrote his history, as the two authors who mention him speak somewhat differently on these points. Dempster, who wrote in the beginning of the seventeenth century, says that he lived in the year 1361; but Major, who was born in the year 1446, says that he composed this book during the time of his infancy, which we must therefore suppose to have been a few years posterior to 1446; for if it had been composed that very year, the circumstance would probably have been mentioned. As little can we suppose, from Dempster's words, that Henry was born in 1361; for though he says that he lived in that year, we must naturally imagine that he had then attained the years of maturity, or had begun to distinguish himself in the world, rather than that he was only born at that time.
We are in entire ignorance of the family from which Henry was descended; though, from his writings, we should be led to suppose that he had received a liberal education. In these he discovers some knowledge of divinity, classical history, and astronomy, as well as of the languages. In one place he boasts of his celibacy, which seems to indicate his having engaged himself in some of the religious orders of that age. From what Major says of him, we may further suppose his profession to have been that of a travelling bard; though it does not appear that he was skilled in music, or that he had no other profession than that just mentioned. His being blind from his birth, indeed, makes this not improbable; but even this circumstance is not inconsistent with the supposition of his being a religious mendicant. "The particulars," says Major, "which he heard related by the vulgar, he wrote in the vulgar verse, in which he excelled. By reciting his histories before princes or great men, he gained his food and raiment, of which he was worthy." It is thus probable that he was a frequent visitor at the Scottish court; and welcomed by those great families who could boast of any alliance with the hero himself, or who took pleasure in hearing narrated either his exploits or those of his companions.
According to the most early account of Henry, it appears to have been at least fifty-six years after the death of Wallace that Henry was born; yet he is said to have consulted with several of the descendants of those who had been the companions of that hero whilst he achieved his most celebrated exploits, and who were still capable of ascertaining the veracity of what he published. His
chief authority, according to his own account, was a Latin history of the exploits of Sir William, written partly by Mr John Blair and partly by Mr Thomas Gray, who had been the companions of the hero himself. Henry's account of these two authors is to the following purpose: "They became acquainted with Wallace when the latter was only about sixteen years of age, and at that time a student at the school of Dundee; and their acquaintance with him continued till his death, which happened in his twenty-ninth year. Mr John Blair went from the schools in Scotland to Paris, where he studied some time, and received priest's orders. He returned to Scotland in 1296, where he joined Wallace, who was bravely asserting the liberties of his country. Mr Thomas Gray, who was parson of Liberton, joined Wallace at the same time. They were men of great wisdom and integrity, zealous for the freedom of Scotland; and were present with Wallace, and assisted him, in most of his military enterprises. They were also his spiritual counsellors, and administered to him ghostly comfort. The history written by these two clergymen was attested by William Sinclair, bishop of Dunkeld, who had himself been witness to many of Wallace's actions. The bishop, if he had lived longer, was to have sent their book to Rome, for the purpose of obtaining the sanction of the pope's authority."
The book which Henry thus appeals to as his principal authority is now lost, so that we have no opportunity of comparing it with what he has written. The character given of Henry by Dempster, however, is more favourable than that given by Major. The former tells us that "he was blind from his birth; a man of singular happy genius; he was indeed another Homer. He did great honour to his native country, and raised it above what was common to it in his age. He wrote, in the vernacular verse, an elaborate and grand work, in ten books, of the deeds of William Wallace." But in this account there is a mistake, for the poem contains twelve books; but Dempster, who wrote in a foreign country, and had not a printed copy of Henry's work by him when he composed his eulogium, is excusable in a mistake of this kind. It is conjectured that he wrote his Actis and Deidis of Shyr Wilham Wallace about 1446, when he must have been an old man.
If we compare Henry's Wallace with Barbour's Bruce, the result must be a decision in favour of the latter work. The Bruce of Barbour is evidently the work of a politician as well as a poet. The characters of the king, his brother, Douglas, and the Earl of Moray, are carefully discriminated, and their separate talents always employed with judgment, by which means every event is prepared and rendered probable; but the Actis and Deidis of Shyr Wilham Wallace is a mere romance, in which the hero hews down entire squadrons with his single arm, and is indebted for every victory to his own physical strength. Both poems abound with descriptions of battles; but in those of Barbour our attention is successively directed to the cool intrepidity of the king, the brilliant temerity of his brother Edward, and the enterprising stratagems of Douglas; whilst in the work of the Blind Minstrel we find little else than a disgusting picture of hatred, revenge, murder, and bloodshed. As a poetical story-teller, however, he has considerable merit; and the numerous editions through which his Wallace has passed sufficiently attest, if not the genius of the poet, at all events the popularity of his subject. The only known manuscript of this poem, from which all the printed copies have been taken, is that in the Advocates' Library, which bears date 1488. The first printed edition was that of Edinburgh, 1570; but perhaps the best and most correct is that published by the Rev. Dr Jamieson, Edinburgh, 1820. Morrison's edition, Perth, 1790, is also deserving of commendation, as being the first in which the text was given with any regard to accuracy.