The king of England, by the native force and situa tion of his kingdom, was enabled to hold the balance be tween the two rival princes, Charles V. and Francis I.; and, had he known how to improve his singular advan tages, might have. been, in reality, a greater potentate than either of these monarcns, who were so keenly con tending for the dominion of Europe. But, actuated by his own capricious passions, or directed by the interested views of his favourite, this distinguished superiority of his situation was never employed for the essential benefit of his dominions. Both of the rival monarchs anxiously sought a personal interview with him, in the view of conciliating his friendship; and the emperor, particular ly, arriving in England before Henry could visit Francis, and inspiring the ambitious cardinal with hopes of the papacy, found means to secure both the king and the minister in his interests. An offensive alliance was soon after concluded with the pope and emperor against France; and the Princess Mary, Henry's only child, was betrothed to Charles.
The king, strictly attached to the church of Rome, and particularly displeased with the attacks of Luther upon his favourite author, Thomas Aquinas, opposed, with all les influence, the progress of the Reformation; and even wrote a book in Latin against the great reformer, a pro duction which is considered as sufficiently creditable to his totems, and which procured him from Pope Leo, the title of Defender of the Faith." An invading army was sent into France in 1322; and in the year following, an expedition was made against Scotland, in order to break the alliance which subsisted between the Scottish and the French governments. But the immense treasures of Henry VII. were now exhaust ed, by a succession of empty pageants, guilty pleasures, and useless enterprizes; and it was necessary to find money, not only for the prosecution of the war, but even for toe ordinary charges of the government. Large sums were levied under the name of a benevolence," which were not gi anted without loud murmurings on the part of the nation. A parliament and a convocation were summoned; but neither the clergy nor the commons were so easily managed, or so liberal in their grants, as \Volsey had expected, and seven years were suffered to elapse before they were again assembled. \Volsey, attempting to render the king independent of the parliament, first levied in one year what they had granted payable in four ; and next proceeded to raise money upon the king's authority alone. The people, at length roused from their long submission by the cxorbitancy and the illegality of his exactions, openly opposed the commissioners, and be gan to threaten a general insurrection. Henry, alarmed
by the consequences of his minister's precipitate mea sures, issued circular letters to all the counties, disavow ing the assessment, and declaring that he meant only to apply to his subjects for n a benevolence." But the city of London, hesitating to comply with his demand, and open insurrections breaking out in different parts of the kingdom, the king found it prudent to suspend his medi tated usurpations; and the cardinal hastened to make his peace with the sove reign, by presenting him with a mag nificent palace at Westminster, which he pretended to have erected, from the first, for his master's use. But a period was now appreaching to the exorbitant power of this artful and ambitious prelate; and the same event, which shook his hold of the king's favour, served to over throw in England the whole system of papal tyranny.
Henry had bee;un, (at w at time and from what mo tives is not precisely aseettained,) to entertain doubts concerning the legality of his marriage with his brother's widow, Catherine of Spain ; and to meditate the design of procuring a divorce. It is certain, that Henry VII. afterwards convinced of the unlawfulness of the match which he had contracted for his son, charged him, upon his death-bed, never to consent to its celebration; and that the states of Castile, when treating respecting the proposal of a marriage between the Emperor Charles and Henry's daughter Mary, had, among other objec tions, insisted upon the illegitimate birth of that princess. The marriage of Henry and Catherine had been consider ed by all parties from the beginning as sanctified only by the dispensation of the pope ; but, by the progress of the Reformation in England, the authority of such decisions was more freely questioned than in former times. Car dinal Wolscy, and all the English prelates, with only one exception, concurred in declaring that the king's mar riage was unlawful ; and Henry found it decided by his favourite theologian Aquinas, that, though the pope may dispense with the rules of the church, the laws of God cannot he set aside by any authority, inferior to that by Phich they were enacted. The decay of Catherine's beauty, and the passion which Henry had conceived for Anne holey ne, one of the queen's maids of honour, though not perhaps the exciting causes of his scruples. furnished additional motives to his desire of a divorce.