The king’s College of our lady of Eton beside Windsor 3 page

Two political blunders in the latter years of his reign diminished Henry's support. His marriage to Joan of Navarre (of whom it was rumored practiced necromancy) was highly unpopular - she was, in fact, convicted of witchcraft in 1419. Scrope and Thomas Mawbray were executed in 1405 after conspiring against Henry; the Archbishop's execution alarmed the English people, adding to his unpopularity. He developed a nasty skin disorder and epilepsy, persuading many that God was punishing the king for executing an archbishop. Crushing the myriad of rebellions was costly, which involved calling Parliament to fund such activities. The House of Commons used the opportunity to expand its powers in 1401, securing recognition of freedom of debate and freedom from arrest for dissenting opinions. Lollardy, the Protestant movement founded by John Wycliffe during the reign of Edward III , gained momentum and frightened both secular and clerical landowners, inspiring the first anti-heresy statute, De Heritico Comburendo, to become law in 1401.

Henry, ailing from leprosy and epilepsy, watched as Prince Henry controlled the government for the last two years of his reign. In 1413, Henry died in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. Rafael Holinshed explained his unpopularity in Chronicles of England : "... by punishing such as moved with disdain to see him usurp the crown, did at sundry times rebel against him, he won(himself more hatred, than in all his life time ... had been possible for him to have weeded out and removed." Unlikely as it may seem (due to the amount of rebellion in his reign), Henry left his eldest son an undisputed succession.

Henry IV, 1399 to 1413 Henry IV (possibly 3 April 1366 - 20 March 1413) was King of England and Lord of Ireland (1399-1413). Like other kings of England, at that time, he also claimed the title of King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence the other name by which he was known, Henry (of) Bolingbroke His father, John of Gaunt, was the third son of Edward III, and enjoyed a position of considerable influence during much of the reign of Richard II. Henry's mother was Blanche, heiress to the considerable Lancaster estates.

Henry experienced a rather more inconsistent relationship with King Richard II than his father had. First cousins and childhood playmates, they were admitted together to the Order of the Garter in 1377, but Henry participated in the Lords Appellant's rebellion against the King in 1387. After regaining power, Richard did not punish Henry (many of the other rebellious Barons were executed or exiled). In fact, Richard elevated Henry from Earl of Derby to Duke of Hereford.

Henry spent a full year of 1390 supporting the unsuccessful siege of Vilnius (capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) by Teutonic Knights with his 300 fellow knights. During this campaign Henry Bolingbroke also bought captured Lithuanian princes and then apparently took them back to England. Henry's second expedition to Lithuania in 1392 illustrates the financial benefits to the Order of these guest crusaders. His small army consisted of over 100 men, including longbow archers and six minstrels, at a total cost to the Lancastrian purse of Ј4,360. Much of this sum benefited the local economy through the purchase of silverware and the hiring of boats and equipment. Despite the efforts of Henry and his English crusaders, two years of attacks on Vilnius proved fruitless. In 1392/93 Henry undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where he made offerings at the Holy Sepulchre and Mount of Olives. Later he was to vow to lead a crusade to free Jerusalem from the "infidel", but he died before this could be accomplished.

However, the relationship between Henry Bolingbroke and the King encountered a second crisis. In 1398, a remark by Bolingbroke regarding Richard II's rule was interpreted as treason by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk. The two dukes agreed to undergo a duel of honor (called by Richard II) at Gosford Green near Coventry. Yet before the duel could take place, Richard II instead decided to banish Henry from the kingdom (with the approval of Henry's father, John of Gaunt) to avoid further bloodshed. Mowbray himself was exiled for life.

John of Gaunt died in 1399. Without explanation, Richard cancelled the legal documents that would have allowed Henry to inherit Gaunt's land automatically. Instead, Henry would be required to ask for the lands from Richard. After some hesitation, Henry met with the exiled Thomas Arundel, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who had lost his position because of his involvement with the Lords Appellant. Henry and Arundel returned to England while Richard was on a military campaign in Ireland. With Arundel as his advisor, Henry began a military campaign, confiscating land from those who opposed him and ordering his soldiers to destroy much of Cheshire. Henry quickly gained enough power and support to have himself declared King Henry IV, to imprison King Richard, who died in prison under mysterious circumstances, and to bypass Richard's seven-year-old heir- presumptive, Edmund de Mortimer. Henry's coronation, on 13 October 1399, is notable for being the first time following the Norman Conquest that the monarch made an address in English.

Henry consulted with Parliament frequently, but was sometimes at odds with the members, especially over ecclesiastical matters. On Arundel's advice, Henry passed the De heretico comburendo and was thus the first English king to allow the burning of heretics, mainly to suppress the Lollard movement.

Early in his reign, Henry hosted the visit of Manuel II Palaiologos, the only Byzantine emperor ever to visit England, from December 1400 to January 1401 at Eltham Palace, with a joust being given in his honour. He also sent monetary support with him upon his departure, to aid him against the Ottoman Empire.

In 1406, English pirates captured the future James I of Scotland off the coast of Flamborough Head as he was going to France. James remained a prisoner of Henry for the rest of Henry's reign.

Henry V, 1413 to 1422 Eldest son of Henry IV. Born 1388. Crowned at Westminster, April 9th, 1413. "When Prince of Wales," says history, he "was committed to prison for affronting one of the King's judges."

Elsewhere, we timidly refer to what a king's minister said of "History" - not to be repeated. Both stories may be equally false.

Certain it is that history has truthfully related the great Victory of Agincourt, not to be discredited by dry-as-dust researches in rolls or records. That made King Henry V popular. He was but twenty-seven years of age (1415) when he won that great victory against overwhelming odds. "If God give us the victory," he said, "it will be plain that we owe it to His grace. If not, the fewer we are, the less loss to England."

Did he who undoubtedly spake those words strike "in the very seat of judgment" the Lord Chief Justice, who was like "as a father to my youth," when he was crowned king? Hall, the chronicler, relates the incident. Shakespeare wrote Part II. of "Henry IV." (from which we quote) 1600-1, nearly two hundred years after the date (1412) when it is said to have taken place.

Ten years later (1422) "the greatness of Henry V. had reached its highest point," and he reigned but nine years. "He had won the Church by his orthodoxy, the nobles by his warlike prowess, the whole people by his revival of the glories of Crecy and Poitiers." Whatever his moral delinquencies, they were forgotten and forgiven. He was almost worshipped by the people. The nobles were fascinated by his knightly qualities; the Commons generously aided him with supplies; the Church esteemed him for his piety and devotion to its interests. "A King and an Englishman" the recorded verdict; "the noblest representative of the House of Lancaster."

He died at Bois de Vincennes near Paris at the age of thirty-four from dysentery contracted during the siege of Meaux. Catherine returned Henry's body to London where he was buried in Westminster Abbey on 7 November 1422. Whatsoever man might do for his country, that did Henry V as England's King. His abilities were no less conspicuous in the council than in the field.

Henry VI, 1422 to 1461, 1470 to 1471 Only son of Henry V. Born 1421. Ascended the throne 1422. Proclaimed King of France the same year. Crowned at Westminster King of England, November 6th, 1429-a child in his eighth year, who during his minority was under the guardianship of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. One of the most unfortunate of the sovereigns of the House of Lancaster, whose reign was a continued succession of misgovernment, violence, and anarchy; partly the results of an "intellectual weakness," supposed to have been attributable to an inherited infirmity (epilepsy) traceable to his grandfathers on both sides.

It has been said of Henry VI. that he was better fitted for a cloister than a crown; to have been a monk rather than the ruler of a kingdom. In that event, the name of Henry of Windsor might have been enrolled in the calendar of saints, as one who had aimed at the religious regeneration of that part of the world in which his life was spent.

Of this side of his character we are reminded by "the College of our Lady of Eton, beside Windsor," and King's College in Cambridge; the one for centuries the nursery of the other. "A man of pure simplicity of mind," 'tis said, "without the least deceit or falsehood"; who "always spoke truth and performed every promise he made." A simple man of noble thoughts, and of gentle, unselfish, and forgiving disposition; thrice made prisoner, twice deposed, and finally murdered in the Tower.

The siege of Orleans (1428-9), recalling "God's holy maid," Jeanne D'Arc, and her martyrdom at Rouen, were of his reign, toward the close of which, of all the possessions in France which this king's predecessors had held, Calais alone remained. The ruinous issue of the great struggle with France roused England to a burst of fury against the Government, to whose weakness it attributed its disasters. Jack Cade's insurrection was one of the immediate results. The Wars of the Roses were to follow; Henry having sunk into a state of idiocy, which made his rule, even feeble as it was, no longer possible. The rival House of York appeared in the field, and the cause of the House of Lancaster was lost at the battle of Towton, near Tadcaster, in Yorkshire (1461). With the Yorkist victory there gained, the crown passed to Edward, Duke of York, who boasted of a double descent from Edward III. Betrayed into the hands of his enemies, Henry VI. was finally deposed (1461), and passed to his death (1471) in the Tower of London. He was laid to rest at Chertsey, where later Henry VII caused his remains to be removed to St. George's Chapel at Windsor.

Edward IV, 1461 to 1470, 1471 to 1483 First King of the House of York. Born 1441. His grandfather was Richard, son of Edmund, fifth son of Edward III.; and his grandmother was Anne, great grand-daughter of Lionel, third son of the same king. Elected King of England, March 5th, 1461; but before his Coronation was obliged to take the field, and fight the battle of Towton as aforesaid (March 29th, 1461). Crowned at Westminster three months later, June 29th, 1461. Among the ablest, the most ruthless and pitiless of the leaders of that civil war, by which he secured the crown. There is "no reasonable doubt" that Henry VI., Edward, Prince of Wales, that king's son, and the Duke of Clarence - "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence," his own brother (of the traditional butt of Malmsey) - were murdered by King Edward IV.'s orders. The ancient baronage of England, according to history, was never more powerful than after the battle of Towton. More powerful than any of those barons who then overawed the crown was he who for a while became master of England: Warwick, the "King Maker," killed at the battle of Barnet. The "Last of the Barons," he. King Edward IV. is said to have met Prince Edward's cry for mercy at the battle of Tewkesbury with a blow from his gauntlet. He was stabbed by Yorkist lords, to whom the act had seemed invitation to the deed. "A goodly personage and very princely to behold," was written of King Edward IV.; "of visage lovely, of body mighty, strong, and clean made"; who courted and married Elizabeth Woodville (widow of Sir John Grey), and had to mistress Jane Shore, one, it is said, of many concubines, his thoughts being much employed upon "the ladies, on hunting, and dressing." His winning manners and carelessness of bearing secured him a popularity which was denied to nobler kings. He was not particular as to some of the companions of his leisure, and mixed familiarly with all classes, at all events towards the close of his reign. To the dissoluteness of his life was attributed his comparatively early death at the age of forty-one. He was buried at Windsor, 1483. There his corpse was discovered undecayed in 1789; "his dress nearly perfect, as were the lineaments of his face." More important than all, Caxton set up his printing press in the Almonry of Westminster in this king's reign.

Edward V, 9 April to 25 June 1483 The eldest son of Edward IV, whose person, at that king's death, was seized by his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of Edward IV.; which act marks the beginning and the end of this unfortunate prince's career as successor to the throne at the age of twelve. In 1594, there was published in London, "The True Tragedie of Richard the Third; wherein is showne the death of Edward the Fourth; with the smothering of the two young Princes in the Tower; with a lamentable end of Shore's wife, an example for all wicked women. And, lastly, the conjunction and joyning of the two Noble Houses, Lancaster and York. As was played by the Queenes Majesties Players."

Not Shakespeare's tragedy, this, but another's. Its title tersely sums up the main historical incidents of Edward V.'s brief life of thirteen years. The two young princes were the brothers, Edward V. and Richard, Duke of York, murdered (so history relates) by their uncle's order. Bones of two youths were discovered under a staircase in the White Tower in 1674.

A preliminary of that crime was the summary execution of Lord Hastings, principal minister of the late king, and the loyal adherent of his sons. "Talk'st thou to me of 'ifs'? Thou art a traitor! Off with his head! Now, by Saint Paul, I swear I will not dine until I see the same." Thus Shakespeare, following the chronicles nearest the event related.

Within two months of Hastings' execution, there was no longer an Edward V. to be crowned, after the manner of his ancestors, in Westminster Abbey. The Duke of Gloucester, presently to become Richard III., was the youthful Edward's guardian, appointed Protector by the Council.

It is a moot point whether his original motive in consigning his charge to the Tower was other than to have him under his own eye in safe keeping, apart from state factions and intrigues. Whatever the motive may have been, certain is it that the "two young Princes" there lodged were foully done to death:

"James Tyrrel having devised that they should be murthered in their beds and no blood shed... Within a while they smothered and stifled them; and their breaths failing, they gave up to God their innocent souls into the joys of Heaven."

Their "murtherers" buried them at "the stair-foot, meetly deep in the ground." Thus Holinshed, who adds that Richard gave James Tyrrel "great thanks," "and (as men say) there made him knight."

Richard III, 1483-1485 Younger brother of Edward IV. Born 1450. Made Protector of England, as aforesaid, 1483; elected King by his supporters, June 27th of that year; and crowned at Westminster the month following. His age, therefore, was thirty-three when he ascended the throne, which he held for two brief years, being killed at the battle of Bosworth in the struggle with the Earl of Richmond, Tudor-heir of the House of Lancaster.

The Duke of Buckingham's revolt in the first year of King Richard's reign had paved the way to that final issue of the enmity of many of the nobility towards him. Buckingham and Richmond joined hand with hand to dethrone Richard. Buckingham failed, and was beheaded; Richmond succeeded; and to the victor belonged the spoils-the Tudor succession to the crown of England.

Baynard's Castle, by St. Paul's, was the scene of that solemn farce recorded, in which Richard assumed the royal dignity at the invitation of Buckingham, and in obedience to the pretended wishes of the citizens-a scene, among others, pictorially represented on the ambulatory walls of London's Royal Exchange.

The murder of the princes proved the overflowing of the already full cup of Richard's iniquities. It roused indignation wherever known-that "crowning deed of blood." "He was close and secret, a deep dissembler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly companionable when he inwardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to kill, vindictive and cruel, not for evil always, but often for ambition and increase of his estate. Friend and foe were alike indifferent where his advantage grew; he spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose." Thus Sir Thomas More, in his "Life of Richard III." The best, perhaps, that has been recorded of him is that he met a soldier's death. He hewed his way on the field of Bosworth into the very presence of his rival. There he fell overpowered by the numbers of those who hated and feared him, eager to have the mastery, and along with it his life.

He had actually worn the crown in battle, "which was found as the struggle ended near a hawthorn bush, and placed on the head of the conqueror," amidst shouts of "King Henry!" So, in 1485, came the first of the Tudor line to the throne of England.

Henry VII, 1485to 1509 Son of Edmund, eldest son of Owen Tudor, by Katharine, widow of Henry V. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, was great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt. Born 1456. Came to the throne, as aforesaid, on the field of Bosworth. Crowned at Westminster, October 30th, 1485. Married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV.; and so were blended in one the white and red roses of York and Lancaster, henceforth to be the badge of Tudor regality. The inheritance of the Crown was "to be, rest, and abide in King Henry VII. and his heirs." Thus Parliament declared, November 7th, 1485; and it was so.

But this prince of both Houses was to be no more restful in his realm than his predecessors. Within two years of his election, Lambert Simnel, a boy of eighteen, son of an Oxford tradesman, was persuaded to lend himself to the imposture of being Edward, Earl of Warwick, said to have escaped from the Tower, who was the son of George, Duke of Clarence, of the royal line of Edward III.

That insurrection put down, another pretender arose - Perkin Warbeck - who was also in due order of events overthrown. Warwick and Warbeck were both prisoners in the Tower, and having (as was said) tired and vexed the King with plans and plots, were sent to death. The execution of the Earl is held to have been "the one judicial murder" of King Henry VII’s reign.

Parsimony and avarice are considered to have been his chief failings. As was usual with many of England's earlier kings, Henry invaded France. Eventually he received large sums of money from the French king for abandoning the war.

"He made the very insurrections and conspiracies against him not only pay for their suppression, but become actual sources of revenue." The chief aim of the King was not to be compelled to appeal to Parliament for money. He worked his way by the revival of "dormant claims of the Crown, by the exaction of fines for the breach of forgotten tenures, and by a host of petty extortions" - not for the greedy desire of riches, he said, or hunger of money; but "to bring low and abate the high stomachs of those of his subjects who had too much or enough money and to spare."

The more ostentatious a nobleman (among others) in his style of living, the likelier he to attract Henry's attention; all illegal, hut not without profitable warnings and lessons. This Henry Tudor was One of the most skilful and far-sighted of rulers.

Henry VIII, 1509 to 1547 Only surviving son of Henry VII. Born 1491. The most married king of England. In the year of his accession married, by Papal dispensation, Catherine of Aragon, his deceased brother Arthur's wife. Crowned at Westminster, June 24th, 1509. Received the title of Defender of the Faith, 1521, and styled Head of the Church ten years later. Divorced Queen Catherine, May 23rd, 1533, and married Anne Boleyn, who was crowned Queen the month following. Catherine died at Kimbolton in 1536.

Queen Anne Boleyn, on whose character he had stamped the infamy of adultery, if not a worse crime, was executed, and the King three days after (May 20th, 1536) married the Lady Jane Seymour, who died in childbed, 1537.

Three years later he married Anne of Cleves, whom he divorced in little more than six months; whereupon he married Catherine Howard, his fifth wife.

Two years later she was sent to the block, and in 1543 he married his sixth wife, Catherine Parr.

It is said that he dressed himself in white on the day of Anne Boleyn's execution, to display his contempt for her, little divining that her child would be known in history as the most famous of his House, and one of the greatest of Queens the world has ever known. The Reformation, and the dissolution of the monasteries, its natural outcome, is to be reckoned the most notable event of Henry VIII’s reign, abiding in its consequences. The most famous statesman of the times was Cardinal Wolsey, the King's Chancellor and most able and trusted first Minister of State; son of a wealthy townsman of Ipswich, memorials of whom remain to our time Christ Church, Oxford, Hampton Court Palace, and in that well- known London thoroughfare Whitehall, the site in part of York House, his principal palace. "Haughty beyond comparison,".

In raising his clerical favourite (ambitious, it was said, to become Pope) to the head in Church and State, King Henry "gathered all religious as all civil authority into his personal grasp."

Wolsey's downfall came. "There was never legate or cardinal that did good to England," said the Duke of Suffolk, when Wolsey's doom was sealed by the wrath of his master in the business of Queen Catherine's divorce. Wolsey died in 1530.

Henry henceforth had to think and act without him. The ten years that followed were among the most momentous in English history. "The one great institution which could still offer resistance to the royal will was struck down." That institution was the Church in England and Henry himself became its "Supreme Head."

Thus came the formation, under the inspiration (for so it is recorded) of Thomas Cromwell, able Secretary of the Cardinal, and after his death Henry's Prime Minister, whose fall was as sudden as Wolsey's.

Edward VI, 1547 to 1553 Son of Henry VIII. by Jane Seymour. Born 1537. Crowned at Westminster, February 20th, 1547, at the age of ten. Died at the age of sixteen. Was by his father's will placed under the guardianship of a Council of Regency, of whom the youthful Edward's uncle, Lord Hertford, after-wards Duke of Somerset, was the chief, subsequently assuming the title of Protector. His period of office was marked by a struggle between adherents of the old religion (Catholic) and of the new (Protestant); the use of the Book of Common Prayer which, with slight alterations, is still that of the Church of England, and of the Missal and Breviary from whose contents it is mainly drawn; such, historically, were the points of religious conflict at the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., here noted because they occupied men's minds and provoked disorder and bloodshed throughout the kingdom during the most of his brief reign. Edward VI.'s character partook of the obstinacy of his father's, which was formalised in the son by weak health, early ending in consumption. His faults assuredly did not lie on the side of an excess of feeling, as is shown by his indifference to the execution of both his uncles, the Protector and Lord Seymour, and in the cool way in which he notes the fact of their death in the journal which he kept Had he lived, he might have turned out a respectable but right. His reign seems to have ended neither too early nor too late. "Whom the gods love die young." Let that be his all-sufficient epitaph.

He is best remembered by his grammar schools, of which he founded eighteen, the greatest of which is Christ's Hospital, for considerably over three centuries remaining in one place- Newgate Street, London, but now removed to Horsham.

St. Bartholomew's, St. Thomas's, Bridewell, and Bethlehem - the so-called "royal hospitals" - were of Edward's institution. He was not a little of a "bigot" religiously, pardonable enough in one who had but just "come to years of discretion" when he died. He was prone, we are told, to lecture others much older than himself on principles of theology. He dictated to his sister Mary, a bigot herself, on the rules of her own conscience: "Although her good sweet King," said she, "hath more knowledge than any other of his years, yet it is not possible that he can be judge of these things." Edward VI. died at Greenwich, and lies in Westminster Abbey.

Lady Jane Grey (10-19 July 1553) The accession of Lady Jane Grey as Queen was engineered by the powerful Duke of Northumberland, President of the King's Council, in the interests of promoting his own dynastic line.

Northumberland persuaded the sickly Edward VI to name Lady Jane Grey as his heir. As one of Henry VIII’s great-nieces, the young girl was a genuine claimant to the throne. Northumberland then married his own son, Lord Guilford Dudley, to Lady Jane.

On the death of Edward, Jane assumed the throne and her claim was recognised by the Council. Despite this, the country rallied to Mary, Catherine of Aragon^fs daughter and a devout Roman Catholic.

Jane reigned for only nine days and was later executed with her husband in 1554.

Mary I (1553-1558) Mary I was the first Queen Regnant (that is, a queen reigning in her own right rather than a queen through marriage to a king). Courageous and stubborn, her character was moulded by her early years.

An Act of Parliament in 1533 had declared her illegitimate and removed her from the succession to the throne (she was reinstated in 1544, but her half-brother Edward removed her from the succession once more shortly before his death), whilst she was pressurised to give up the Mass and acknowledge the English Protestant Church.

Mary restored papal supremacy in England, abandoned the title of Supreme Head of the Church, reintroduced Roman Catholic bishops and began the slow reintroduction of monastic orders.

Mary also revived the old heresy laws to secure the religious conversion of the country; heresy was regarded as a religious and civil offence amounting to treason (to believe in a different religion from the Sovereign was an act of defiance and disloyalty).

As a result, around 300 Protestant heretics were burnt in three years - apart from eminent Protestant clergy such as Cranmer (a former archbishop and author of two Books of Common Prayer), Latimer and Ridley, these heretics were mostly poor and self-taught people.

Apart from making Mary deeply unpopular, such treatment demonstrated that people were prepared to die for the Protestant settlement established in Henry's reign.

The progress of Mary's conversion of the country was also limited by the vested interests of the aristocracy and gentry who had bought the monastic lands sold off after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and who refused to return these possessions voluntarily as Mary invited them to do. Aged 37 at her accession, Mary wished to marry and have children, thus leaving a Catholic heir to consolidate her religious reforms, and removing her half-sister Elizabeth (a focus for Protestant opposition) from direct succession.

Mary's decision to marry Philip, King of Spain from 1556, in 1554 was very unpopular; the protest from the Commons prompted Mary's reply that Parliament was 'not accustomed to use such language to the Kings of England' and that in her marriage 'she would choose as God inspired her'.

The marriage was childless, Philip spent most of it on the continent, England obtained no share in the Spanish monopolies in New World trade and the alliance with Spain dragged England into a war with France.

Popular discontent grew when Calais, the last vestige of England's possessions in France dating from William the Conqueror's time, was captured by the French in 1558.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 693