The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon / The Story as Told by the Imperial Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry VIII
INTRODUCTION
The mythic element cannot be eliminated out of history. Men who play leading parts on the world’s stage gather about them the admiration of friends and the animosity of disappointed rivals or political enemies. The atmosphere becomes charged with legends of what they have said or done – some inventions, some distortions of facts, but rarely or never accurate. Their outward acts, being public, cannot be absolutely misstated; their motives, being known only to themselves, are an open field for imagination; and as the disposition is to believe evil rather than good, the portraits drawn may vary indefinitely, according to the sympathies of the describer, but are seldom too favourable. The more distinguished a man is the more he is talked about. Stories are current about him in his own lifetime, guaranteed apparently by the highest authorities; related, insisted upon; time, place, and circumstance accurately given – most of them mere malicious lies; yet, if written down, to reappear in memoirs a hundred years hence, they are likely to pass for authentic, or at least probable. Even where there is no malice, imagination will still be active. People believe or disbelieve, repeat or suppress, according to their own inclinations; and death, which ends the feuds of unimportant persons, lets loose the tongues over the characters of the great. Kings are especially sufferers; when alive they hear only flattery; when they are gone men revenge themselves by drawing hideous portraits of them, and the more distinguished they may have been the more minutely their weaknesses are dwelt upon. “C’est un plaisir indicible,” says Voltaire, “de donner des décrets contre des souverains morts quand on ne peut en lancer contre eux de leur vivant de peur de perdre ses oreilles.” The dead sovereigns go their way. Their real work for good or evil lives after them; but they themselves are where the opinions expressed about their character affect them no more. To Cæsar or Napoleon it matters nothing what judgment the world passes upon their conduct. It is of more importance for the ethical value of history that acts which as they are related appear wicked should be duly condemned, that acts which are represented as having advanced the welfare of mankind should be duly honoured, than that the real character of individuals should be correctly appreciated. To appreciate any single man with complete accuracy is impossible. To appreciate him even proximately is extremely difficult. Rulers of kingdoms may have public reasons for what they do, which at the time may be understood or allowed for. Times change, and new interests rise. The circumstances no longer exist which would explain their conduct. The student looks therefore for an explanation in elements which he thinks he understands – in pride, ambition, fear, avarice, jealousy, or sensuality; and, settling the question thus to his own satisfaction, resents or ridicules attempts to look for other motives. So long as his moral judgment is generally correct, he inflicts no injury, and he suffers none. Cruelty and lust are proper objects of abhorrence; he learns to detest them in studying the Tiberius of Tacitus, though the character described by the great Roman historian may have been a mere creation of the hatred of the old Roman aristocracy. The manifesto of the Prince of Orange was a libel against Philip the Second; but the Philip of Protestant tradition is an embodiment of the persecuting spirit of Catholic Europe which it would be now useless to disturb. The tendency of history is to fall into wholesome moral lines whether they be accurate or not, and to interfere with harmless illusions may cause greater errors than it aspires to cure. Crowned offenders are arraigned at the tribunal of history for the crimes which they are alleged to have committed. It may be sometimes shown that the crimes were not crimes at all, that the sufferers had deserved their fate, that the severities were useful and essential for some great and valuable purpose. But the reader sees in the apology for acts which he had regarded as tyrannical a defence of tyranny itself. Preoccupied with the received interpretation, he finds deeds excused which he had learnt to execrate; and in learning something which, even if true, is of no real moment to him, he suffers in the maiming of his perceptions of the difference between right and wrong. The whitewashing of the villains of tradition is, therefore, justly regarded as waste of labour. If successful, it is of imperfect value; if unsuccessful, it is a misuse of industry which deserves to be censured. Time is too precious to be squandered over paradoxes. The dead are gone; the censure of mankind has written their epitaphs, and so they may be left. Their true award will be decided elsewhere.
This is the common sense verdict. When the work of a man is done and ended; when, except indirectly and invisibly, he affects the living world no more, the book is closed, the sentence is passed, and there he may be allowed to rest. The case is altered, however, when the dead still live in their actions, when their principles and the effects of their conduct are still vigorous and operative, and the movements which they initiated continue to be fought over. It sometimes happens that mighty revolutions can be traced to the will and resolution of a single man, and that the conflict continues when he is gone. The personal character of such a man becomes then of intrinsic importance as an argument for attack or defence. The changes introduced by Henry VIII. are still denounced or defended with renewed violence; the ashes of a conflict which seemed to have been decided are again blown into a flame; and what manner of man Henry was, and what the statesmen and churchmen were who stood by him and assisted him in reshaping the English constitution, becomes a practical question of our own time. By their fruits ye shall know them. A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Roman Catholics argue from the act to the man, and from the man back to the act. The Reformation, they say, was a rebellion against an authority appointed by God for the rule of the world; it was a wicked act in itself; the author or the authors of it were presumably, therefore, themselves wicked; and the worst interpretation of their conduct is antecedently probable, because a revolt against the Church of Christ could only have originated in depraved hearts. Or again, inverting the argument, they say with sufficient plausibility that the sins and crimes of the King are acknowledged facts of history; that from so bad a man no good thing could ever rise; that Henry was a visible servant of the devil, and therefore the Reformation, of which he was the instrument, was the devil’s work. If the picture drawn of him by his Catholic contemporaries is correct, the inference is irresistible. That picture, however, was drawn by those whose faith he wounded and whose interests he touched, and therefore might be regarded with suspicion. Religious animosity is fertile in calumny, because it assumes beforehand that every charge is likely to be true in proportion to its enormity, and Catholic writers were credulous of evil when laid to the charge of so dangerous an adversary. But the Catholics have not been Henry’s only accusers; all sorts and sects have combined in the general condemnation. The Anglican High Churchman is as bitter against him as Reginald Pole himself. He admits and maintains the separation from Rome which Henry accomplished for him; but he abhors as heartily as Pole or Lingard the internal principles of the Reformation. He resents the control of the clergy by the civil power. He demands the restoration of the spiritual privileges which Henry and his parliaments took away from them. He aspires to the recovery of ecclesiastical independence. He therefore with equal triumph points to the blots in Henry’s character, and deepens their shade with every accusation, proved or unproved, which he can find in contemporary records. With him, too, that a charge was alleged at the time is evidence sufficient to entitle him to accept it as a fact.
Again, Protestant writers have been no less unsparing from an imprudent eagerness to detach their cause from a disreputable ally. In Elizabeth’s time it was a point of honour and loyalty to believe in the innocence of her mother. If Anne Boleyn was condemned on forged or false evidence to make way for Jane Seymour, what appears so clearly to us must have been far clearer to Henry and his Council; of all abominable crimes committed by tyrannical princes there was never one more base or cowardly than Anne’s execution; and in insisting on Anne’s guiltlessness they have condemned the King, his ministers, and his parliaments. Having discovered him to have murdered his wife, they have found him also to have been a persecutor of the truth. The Reformation in England was at its outset political rather than doctrinal. The avarice and tyranny of the Church officials had galled the limbs of the laity. Their first steps were to break the chains which fretted them, and to put a final end to the temporal power of the clergy. Spiritual liberty came later, and came slowly from the constitution of the English mind. Superstition had been familiarised by custom, protected by natural reverence, and shielded from inquiry by the peculiar horror attaching to unbelief. The nation had been taught from immemorial time that to doubt on the mysteries of faith was the worst crime