Ten Tudor Statesmen

Henry found, in 1529, that his determination to have a divorce would involve either a fight with the Papacy or a struggle to secure Papal support in despite of the emperor. Also...

He had always treated marriage primarily as an affair of politics, as was natural and inevitable, but with a sufficient respect for its moral aspects to keep him faithful to his...

For the concentration of power, effective power, in the king’s hands, money was essential; while to keep the general population contented, it was necessary that their purses sho...

In its second aspect, the Reformation was a religious revolution; a revision of ethical standards; a revival of that ardour of sentiment and of conviction whereof martyrs are bo...

The death of Don John about the end of September was followed by the appointment of Alexander of Parma, a statesman and soldier of the first rank, as his successor; who at the o...

The Bill, with the clause, was passed in 1531. Again the campaign rested for about a year. So far, apart from a slight rectification of abuses, nothing more--in form--had been d...

To establish orderly government at home, to settle a religious _modus vivendi_, to avoid war, and to prevent the succession of Mary Stewart or any pronounced Catholic--these wer...

The English people had wanted the war; when they got it they paid for it at first cheerfully. But no advantage accrued, not even appreciable glory, and they tired of it. After P...

Young Charles was already king of all Spain, and lord of the Burgundian heritage. He was also heir to the Austrian and other German possessions of Maximilian, who, like Ferdinan...

Diversities in the judgments passed on Thomas Cromwell are less marked than in the case of most of the statesmen portrayed in this volume. There is no possibility of questioning...

Viewed even exclusively as a religious movement, Luther’s revolt would not have attracted More’s sympathies. He had never doubted any of the dogmas of the Church, though he had...

Cranmer, like a good many other people, was thoroughly convinced that, though the marriage with Katharine had been effected in perfect good faith, it was invalid in the nature o...

Two hundred years before the first Tudor ascended the throne of England, one of the ablest rulers this country has known realised that the union of England and Scotland as a sin...

Now, it will be easy to see from the foregoing paragraphs that already in 1568 enough had occurred to inflame popular feeling against Spain. There were the doings of the Spanish...

Walter Raleigh was born in 1552, a year before Mary Tudor ascended the English throne. He was of a Devon house; himself, one of a large and composite family, for his mother, Kat...

Apparently, Cranmer and the Protector worked in complete harmony, save in the one matter of the chantries; but there is no sign at all that he took his cue from the Protector. T...

His brother William, created Lord Seymour of Sudely under the new administration, was also Lord High Admiral. But, as the king’s uncle, he was by no means satisfied with the hon...

On the whole it does not look as if More went in any very great fear of the old king’s wrath. Mr. Colte would not have been in a hurry to bestow his daughter in marriage on a yo...

Both Raleigh and Essex accompanied the Lisbon expedition in 1589. Raleigh was with Drake; Essex, who had joined in defiance of orders, with the land force. The fleet was in no w...

The Lutherans, however, looked askance. They feared the Greeks _et dona ferentes_; had not Henry taken the field conspicuously against their leader? German Lutheranism was deep-...

Within a short period, the French King, Henry II., was mortally injured in a tournament. The Dauphin succeeded, and his wife became Queen of France, as well as of Scotland. Then...

Being of the advanced Reformation party, young Walsingham quitted the country on Mary’s accession, remained abroad during the five years of her rule, and returned when Elizabeth...

The marriage was extremely unpopular; the new queen was spiteful, flighty, undignified, if nothing worse. In a very short time, Cranmer was the only friend she had left; she los...

The series of studies contained in this volume is in no way a history of the Tudor period. My object in preparing it has been first to form in my own mind and secondly to presen...

Cranmer, Archbishop, family and early years of, 239; at Cambridge, 239-240; marriage, 240; on the divorce question, 135, 178, 242-243, 245; embassy to Bologna, 179, 245; second...