ber, soon after the battle of Solway, in which several of his nobility were taken prisoners. On the death of the king of Sectland, Henry proposed a marriage between Edward, his son by Jane Seymour, and his late nephew's infant daughter, Mary. But Cardinal Beaton, regent of Scotland, was opposed to the match, and a war ensued, in which Henry's troops supported the party of the earl of Lennox against the cardinal. In June, 1546, peace was concluded with Scotland, and also with the king of France.

Henry had now become the subject of disease, and Bishop Gardiner, so notorious from the part which he took in the persecution of the following reign, was his minister. Even now, persecution-from which, indeed, the previous part of Henry's reign had been by no means free-darkened this closing period of his life. Catharine Parr, whom Henry had married on the 12th July, 1543, was in danger of falling before the temper of her lord. She was attached to the Protestant religion, and, in a conversation with the king, ventured to differ with him in an article of faith. But heresy and contradiction were too much for him to bear. He informed Bishop Gardiner of the queen's offence, and even authorised articles of impeachment to be prepared against her —as if it were a matter of course, that to be the wife of Henry was, in the end, to be the victim of his cruelty. But Catharine, hearing of her danger, effectually soothed and pacified him, commending his theological capacity, and speaking humbly of herself. The bloody actions of Henry's reign were not yet terminated however, nor was it until the duke of Norfolk had been condemned, and his celebrated and accomplished son, the earl of Surrey, by a sentence which none, perhaps, will justify, had lost his life, that Henry yielded up his own. His health had long been giving way, and his malady seems to have roused to savage passion a temper ill-prepared, perhaps, by courtly flattery and parliamentary submission, for a personal encounter with an enemy which the power of the tyrant was unable to subdue. On hearing that death might be looked for, he directed Cranmer to be sent for; and the latter having asked him to give a sign of his dying in the faith, Henry pressed the hand of the prelate, and expired. This event occurred on the 28th of January, 1547, in the 56th year of the king's age, and 38th of his reign

This prince-whose character history brings the more prominently out, from the vigorous part he took, and the powerful influence he exerted, in the transactions of his reign-appears not only to have encouraged art and genius, but to have been himself possessed of considerable accomplishment and learning. But along with his attainments, there is indicated a dogmatic confidence in his own conclusions-at least in matters of theology-founded, probably, both on his notions of prerogative as a king, and head of the English church, and on a vain opinion of his own capacity. He was possessed, no doubt, of great activity and energy of mind; but these were frightful weapons in the hands of a despot, and might have proved so even in the hands of a wiser and better man possessed of the prerogative wielded by the English king. But Henry did not act merely under the influence of short and violent excitement. Wolsey, who had opportunity to know him well, thus described him shortly before his own death:-" He is a prince of a most royal carriage. and hath a princely heart; and rather than he will miss or want any part of his will, he will endanger the one

half of his kingdom. I do assure you, that I have often kneeled before him, sometimes three hours together, to persuade him from his will and appetite, but could not prevail." To his country he stands in the relation of the prince under whom the English church was severed from the supremacy of Rome, and the Holy Scriptures opened up for the use of the English people. But the probable sincerity of his adherence to the Romish dogmas, and the false opinions of the age respecting the treatment of errors in theological belief, are unable to remove from his memory the stain of religious persecution-and, although the part which he took in setting aside the papal claim to the supremacy in England, may have found support in conclusions to which reason, guided by the circumstances in which his wish for a divorce from Catharine had placed him, yet, considering the headstrong passions of the king, and the relation into which he was brought with the pope, by his suit for a divorce, there is reason to regard his conduct in the matter a proof neither of sound and deliberate thought on the real subject of the supremacy, nor of a generous wish to establish truth, though new, on the ruins of antiquated error. During Henry's life, the English government ill kept pace with the growth of religious reformation under the great men who led the march of protestantism on the continent of Europe and much as, in point of fact, Henry may have done to bring on in England the ascendancy of truth, yet he does not, as its wise and generous advocate, stand forth,

"His own brows garlanded, Amid the tremor of a realm aglow, Amid a mighty nation jubilant."

In many respects, the reign of this monarch is deserving of careful study, and the great men who flourished in it have not only a strong but a peculiar claim on our attention. They performed a work of much difficulty, and established principles which indicate the rapid advancement of knowledge and good sense. Nor is it only from the position in which they stood as to the affairs of their own times, that the actors on the stage of public events at this period merit so much observation. They were the forerunners of a yet hardier generation,— of men who had a far more difficult task to perform, who stood surrounded by circumstances which it required higher intellects to govern and more light to convert into good, but who were yet indebted in many important respects to their predecessors. It is with an eye to subsequent eras that every division of biographical history should be made there is however a stronger, a more evident relationship between following ages at one period than at another. The most ingenious minds will find it difficult to trace the progress of improvement by that of time through the general course of events: it is only here and there that the cause and the effect may be seen hanging together in the misty regions of the past; but wherever even the faintest signs of the connexion are discoverable, there both history and biography assume a dignity which raises them far above their ordinary respectability and usefulness.

Cardinal Wolsey.

BORN A. D. 1471.-DIED A. D. 15 ̊0.

THOMAS WOLSEY was born at Ipswich, in Suffolk, in the month of August, some say March, 1471. A controversy has arisen among his biographers as to the rank in life and occupation of this celebrated man's father. We are neither able nor solicitous to determine the point. Cavendish describes him as "an honest poor man's son," and the designation is sufficient to show that Wolsey added to his other merits the no small one of having raised himself to the most exalted eminence which a subject could occupy from an humble and obscure station. His father appears to have possessed a little property, which enabled him to enter his son at Magdalene college, Oxford, where he obtained the degree of bachelor-in-arts at the early age of fifteen. Το quickness of apprehension, the young Wolsey added considerable personal qualifications. Shakspeare says of him, that "he was fashioned to much honour from the cradle;" and to this union of intellectual and bodily qualities he may have been indebted for much of the favour and patronage which were shown to him in early life. He was early elected fellow of Magdalene, and, having been subsequently admitted to orders, was appointed master of the preparatory school of his college. The assiduity and success with which, in this character, he conducted the preliminary education of the three sons of Grey, marquess of Dorset, procured for him the patronage of that nobleman, who presented him with the living of Lymington in Hampshire.

Wolsey was in his 29th year when he obtained this his first churchpreferment. Before he left the university he had given solid proof not only of his literary tastes and acquirement, but of his munificence and genius for architecture. The erection of the fine tower of Magdalene college chapel had demonstrated the justness of his taste, but had, at the same time, involved him in pecuniary embarrassments to a considerable extent. Yet no sooner was the young incumbent settled in his rectory than he began to repair and beautify both his church and parsonage house, in a style which would have better suited the mansion of a nobleman than the residence of a country clergyman. So early did the love of architecture display and manifest itself as a master-passion in Wolsey's mind. The marquess of Dorset died in 1501, but Wolsey quickly found another patron in Deane, archbishop of Canterbury, into whose household he was received as domestic chaplain. The archbishop died in 1502, and Wolsey next acquired the favour of Sir John Nanfan, treasurer to the city of Calais, who, upon retiring from office on the score of old age, recommended Wolsey so warmly to the notice of Henry VII., that the king made him one of his chaplains.

Wolsey had now entered on the high road to preferment, and, with that quick discernment and tact for which he was afterwards so conspicuous, he immediately attached himself to the bishop of Winchester and Sir Thomas Lovel, two of the most influential members of Henry's privy council. By studying the temper of these two courtiers, and accommodating himself to their wishes, he raised himself so high in their good opinion, that they did not hesitate to recommend him to

the king, then contemplating a marriage with the duchess of Savoy, as a fit person for conducting the necessary negotiations with Maximilian, emperor of Germany, the father of the duchess. "The king," says Cavendish, "giving ear unto them, and being a prince of excellent judgment and modesty, commanded them to bring his chaplain, whom they so much commended, before his Grace's presence. At whose repairs thither, to prove the wit of his chaplain, the king fell in communication with him in matters of weight and gravity; and perceiving his wit to be very fine, thought him sufficient to be put in trust and authority with this embassy, and commanded him to prepare himself for this enterprise and journey, and for his depeche to repair to his Grace, and his trusty counsellors aforesaid, of whom he should receive his commission and instructions; by means whereof he had then a due occasion to repair from time to time to the king's presence, who perceived him more and more to be a very wise man, and of a good entendement." The expedition and address with which Wolsey acquitted himself in this negotiation, justified the high encomiums which had been pronounced upon him by his friends, Fox and Lovel, and effectually established him in Henry's favour, who rewarded him with the deanery of Lincoln, at that time the most valuable benefice in England under a bishoprick, to which were added the prebends of Stowe, Walton, and Brinkald.

Nor

Soon after the commencement of Henry the Eighth's reign, we find Wolsey executing the office of king's almoner, an office which gave him every opportunity of ingratiating himself with the monarch. was he long in turning the advantages of his situation to his own profit. In a very few months he had acquired the complete confidence of his royal master, and had rendered himself so subservient to his pleasures, that Henry rewarded him with the splendid mansion and gardens of Sir Richard Empson, which, on the attainder of that minister, had fallen to the crown. This palace was for some years the scene of Wolsey's magnificence and Henry's sports. Here the young monarch, with his gay companions, sought relief from the cares of state in the most unbounded revelry and licentiousness; and here Wolsey, abandoning all decorum, sang, danced, and caroused with the youthful debauchees. "He came unto the king," says Tyndale, "and waited upon him, and was no man so obsequious and serviceable, and in all games and sports the first and next at hand, and as a captain to encourage others, and a gay finder-out of new pastimes, to obtain favour with all. He spied out the nature and disposition of the king's playfellows, and of all that were great, and whom he spied meet for his purpose, him he flattered and made faithful with great purposes." was he less sedulous to win the esteem and friendship of such ladies as stood well in the youthful monarch's good graces. "Whosoever of them was great," says Strype, "to her he was familiar, and gave her gifts." By such arts, Wolsey at once established himself in Henry's favour, as a prime accessary to his pleasures, whilst he not only gave no offence to those who might otherwise have become his rivals, but actually won them over to his own interests. At the same time he endeavoured to convince Henry that he was equal to greater things than promoting courtly revelry and giving a zest to a monarch's hours of relaxation. By frequent disquisitions on the works of the school

Nor

men, and particularly of Aquinas, Henry's especial favourite, and on the theory and art of government, he succeeded in impressing his young pupil with a high sense of his skill both as a politician and a divine. In this way he gradually acquired a wonderful dominion over the youthful king's mind, and became at last the most influential personage in the whole circle of Henry's accomplished courtiers. He now wanted nothing "either to please his fantasy, or to lavish his coffers, fortune so smiled upon him," he was the sole avenue to Henry's favour, and suitors of every rank found it for their interest to propitiate Wolsey in the first instance, and make their first approaches through him. The two rival ministers, Surrey and Fox, quailed before his ascendancy; and Margaret of Scotland and Queen Catharine herself found it for their advantage to keep on good terms with the all-powerful almoner.

Soon after the king's return from the campaign in France, the bishopric of Lincoln happened to become vacant, and was given to Wolsey, who, on taking possession, found his wealth much augmented by the moveables of his predecessor; he had been scarcely invested with this new honour, when York also became vacant, and he was advanced to the archiepiscopal dignity. Little more than a year elapsed before Wolsey was advanced to the rank of cardinal by Leo X. Archbishop Warham now relinquished the seals, which were instantly given to the cardinal with the dignity of chancellor of the realm. "Henceforth,"

says Galt, "Wolsey may be regarded as the dictator of England; for, although the king appeared, afterwards, personally in every important transaction, the cardinal had acquired such an ascendancy that the emanations of the royal will were in fact only the reflected purposes of the minister." A bull investing him with legantine authority, placed his ecclesiastical pre-eminence in the realm above controversy, and invested him with the prerogatives of the pontiff himself. Francis I. being now desirous of entering into an alliance with England, had recourse to bribery to win the interest of the cardinal. Charles V. of Germany, Pope Leo, and the duke of Milan, successively resorted to the same means with a view to the same end. In addition to the annuities settled upon him by these potentates, Wolsey farmed the revenues of the sees of Hereford and Worcester from the foreign dignitaries upon whom they had been bestowed, and held in commendam the abbey of St Alban's with the bishopric of Bath. What the arts were by which the crafty favourite continued to apologise to his royal master for his avariciousness, and above all to lull his suspicions of foreign influence, does not clearly appear; one thing is certain, that not only did the unscrupulous monarch connive at his minister's conduct, but he even sanctioned it, and seemed to be much amused at the adroitness with which Wolsey managed his own interest in every negotiation. On being informed that Francis I. had settled an annuity of 12,000 livres on the cardinal, he only observed to Wolsey himself, "I plainly discern that you will govern both Francis and me." So astonishing did this entire ascendancy over the capricious monarch appear even at the time, that the vulgar of the day universally ascribed it to demoniacal influence. But ample as Wolsey's revenues were, they did not more than suffice

Rymer, xiii. 734.