ward V. though that young prince was but just turned of twelve years of age, never received the crown, nor exercised any function of royalty; so that the interval between the death of his father, and the usurpation of his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III. was properly an interregnum, during which the uncle took his measures for wresting the crown from his nephew. § 85. Character of RICHARD III. Those historians who favour Richard, for even He has met partisans among later writers, maintain that he was well qualified for government, had he legally obtained it; and that he committed no crimes but such as were necessary to procure him possession of the crown; but this is a very poor apology, when it is confessed that he was ready to commit the most horrid crimes which appeared necessary for that purpose; and it is certain that all his courage and capacity, qualities in which he really seems not to have been deficient, would never have made compensation to the people, for the danger of the precedent, and for the contagious example of vice and murder, exalted upon the throne. This prince was of a small stature, humpbacked, and had a very harsh disagreeable visage; so that his body was in every particular no less deformed than his mind. Hume. $86. Another Character of RICHARD III. * Such was the end of Richard III. the most cruel unrelenting tyrant that ever sat on the throne of England. He seems to have been an utter stranger to the softer emotions of the human heart, and entirely destitute of every social enjoyment. His ruling passion was ambition: for the gratification of which he trampled upon every law, both human and divine; but this thirst of dominion was unattended with the least work of generosity, or any desire of rendering himself agreeable to his fellow-creatures: it was the ambition of a savage, not of a prince; for he was a solitary king, altogether detached from the rest of mankind, and incapable of that satisfaction which results from private friendship and disinterested society. We must acknowledge, however, that after his accession to the throne, his administration in general was conducted by the rules of justice; that he enacted salutary laws, and established wise regulations; and that, if his reign had been protracted, he might have proved an excellent king to the English nation. He was dark, silent, and reserved, and so much master of dissimulation, that it was almost impossible to dive into his real sentiments, when he wanted to conceal his designs. His stature was small, his aspect cloudy, severe, and forbidding one of his arms was withered, and one shoulder higher than another, from which circumstance of deformity he acquired the epithet of Crookbacked. Smollett. §87. Character of HENRY VII. The reign of Henry VII. was in the main fortunate for his people at home, and honourable abroad. He put an end to the civil wars with which the nation had been so long harassed; he maintained peace and order to the state; he depressed the former exorbitant power of the nobility; and, together with the friendship of some foreign princes, he acquired the consideration and regard of all. He loved peace, without fearing war; though agitated with criminal suspicions of his servants and ministers, he discovered no timidity, either in the conduct of his affairs, or in the day of battle; and, though often severe in his punishments, he was commonly less actuated by revenge than by the maxims of policy. The services which he rendered his people were derived from his views of private interest, rather than the motives of public spirit; and where he deviated from selfish regards, it was unknown to himself, and ever from malignant prejudices, or the mean projects of avarice; not from the sallies of passion, or allurements of pleasure; still less from the benign motives of friendship and generosity. His capacity was excellent, but somewhat contracted by the narrowness of his heart; he possessed insinuation and address, but never employed these talents except some great point of interest was to be gained; and while he neglected to conciliate the affections of his people, he often felt the danger of resting his authority on their fear and reverence alone. He was always extremely attentive to his affairs; but possessed not the faculty of seeing far into futurity; and was more *Slain at the Battle of Bosworth, § 88. Another Character of HENRY VII. To Henry by his contemporaries was allotted the praise of political wisdom. He seems, indeed, to have been formed by nature for the circumstances in which accident had placed him. With a mind dark and mistrustful, tenacious of its own secrets and adroit in divining the secrets of others, capable of employing the most unprincipled agents, and of descending to the meanest artifices, he was able to unravel the plots, to detect the impostures, and to defeat the projects of all his opponents. But there was nothing open in his friendship, or generous in his enmity. His suspicions kept him always on his guard: he watched with jealousy the conduct of his very ministers; and never unbosomed himself with freedom even to his consort or his mother. It was his delight to throw an air of mystery over the most ordinary transactions: nor would pride or policy allow him, even when it appeared essential to his interests, to explain away the doubts, or satisfy the curiosity of his subjects. The consequence was, that no one knew what to believe, or what to expect. "All things," says Sir Thomas More," were so covertly demeaned, one thing pretended and another meant, that there was nothing so plain and openly proved, but that yet, for the common custom of close and covert dealing, men had it ever inwardly suspect, as many well counterfeited jewels make the true mistrusted." He appears to have been the first of our kings since the accession of Henry III., who confined his expenses within the limits of his income. But the civil wars had swept away those crowds of annuitants and creditors, that formerly used to besiege the doors of the exchequer: and the revenue of the crown came to him free from incumbrances, and aug Hence he was en mented by forfeitures. abled to reign without the assistance of parliament: and, if he occasionally summoned the two houses, it was only when a decent pretext for demanding a supply, offered to his avarice a bait, which it could not refuse. He had, however, little to apprehend from the freedom or the remonstrances of these assemblies. That spirit of resistance to oppression, that ardour to claim and establish their liberties, which characterized the parliaments of former times, had been extinguished in the bloody feuds between the two roses. The temporal peers, who had survived the storm, were few in number, and without the power of their ancestors: they feared, by alarming the suspicions of the monarch, to replunge themselves into the dangers, from which they had so lately emerged; and the commons readily adopted the humble tone, and submissive demeanour of the upper house. Henry, and the same may be observed of his two last predecessors, found them always the obsequious ministers of his pleasure. But if the king were economical in his expenses, and eager in the acquisition of wealth, it should also be added, that he often rewarded with the generosity, and on occasions of ceremony displayed the magnificence, of a great monarch. His charities were many and profuse. Of his buildings his six convents of friars fell in the next reign: his chapel at Westminster still exists, a monument of his opulence and taste. He is said to have occasionally advanced loans of money to merchants engaged in profitable branches of trade: and not only gave the royal licence to the attempt of the Venetian navigator Cabot, but fitted out a ship at his own expense to join in the voyage. Cabot sailed from Bristol, discovered the island of Newfoundland, crept along the coast of Florida, and returned to England. It was the first European expedition that ever reached the American continent. Lingard. § 89. Character of HENRY VIII. It is difficult to give a just summary of this prince's qualities; he was so different from himself in different parts of his reign, that, as is well remarked by Lord Herbert, his history is his best character and description. The absolute and uncontrouled authority which he maintained at home, and the regard he obtained among foreign nations, are circumstances which entitle him to the appellation of a great prince while his tyranny and cruelty seem to exclude him from the character of a good one. He possessed, indeed, great vigour of mind, which qualified him for exercising dominion over men; courage, intrepidity, vigilance, inflexibility; and though these qualities lay not always under the guidance of a regular and solid judgment, they were accompanied with good parts, and an extensive capacity; and every one dreaded a contest with a man who was never known to yield or to forgive; and who, in every controversy, was determined to ruin himself or his antagonist. A catalogue of his vices would comprehend many of the worst qualities incident to human nature. Violence, cruelty, profusion, rapacity, injustice, obstinacy, arrogance, bigotry, presumption, caprice; but neither was he subject to all these vices in the most extreme degree, nor was he at intervals altogether devoid of virtues. He was sincere, open, gallant, liberal, and capable at least of a temporary friendship and attachment. In this respect he was unfortunate, that the incidents of his times served to display his faults in their full light; the treatment he met with from the court of Rome provoked him to violence; the danger of a revolt from his superstitious subjects seemed to require the most extreme severity. But it must at the same time be acknowledged, that his situation tended to throw an additional lustre on what was great and magnanimous in his character. The emulation between the Emperor and the French King rendered his alliance, notwithstanding his impolitic conduct, of great importance to Europe. The extensive powers of his prerogative, and the submission, not to say slavish disposition of his parliament, made it more easy for him to assume and maintain that entire dominion, by which his reign is so much distinguished in English history. It may seem a little extraordinary, that notwithstanding his cruelty, his extortion, his violence, his arbitrary administration, this prince not only acquired the regard of his subjects, but never was the object of their hatred; he seems even, in some degree, to have possessed their love and affection. His exterior qualities were advantageous, and fit to captivate the multitude; his magnificence and personal bravery rendered him illustrious to vulgar eyes; and it may be said with truth, that the English in that age were so thoroughly subdued, that, like eastern slaves, they were inclined to admire even those acts of violence and tyranny, which were exercised over themselves, and at their own expence. Hume. §90. Another Character of HENRY VIII. To form a just estimate of the character of Henry, we must distinguish between the young king, guided by the counsels of Wolsey, and the monarch of more mature age, governing by his own judgment, and with the aid of ministers selected and fashioned by himself. In his youth, the beauty of his person, the elegance of his manners, and his adroitness in every martial and fashionable exercise, were calculated to attract the admiration of his subjects. His court was gay and splendid; a succession of amusements seemed to absorb his attention: yet his pleasures were not permitted to encroach on his more important duties; he assisted at the council, perused the dispatches, and corresponded with his generals and ambassadors: nor did the minister, trusted and powerful as he was, dare to act, till he had asked the opinion, and taken the pleasure of his sovereign. His natural abilities had been improved by study: and his esteem for literature may be inferred from the learned education which he gave to his children, and from the number of eminent scholars to whom he granted pensions in foreign states, or on whom he conferred promotion in his own. The immense treasure which he inherited from his father, was perhaps a misfortune; because it engendered habits of expence not to be supported from the ordinary revenue of the crown: and the soundness of his politics may be doubted, which under the pretence of supporting the balance of power, repeatedly involved the nation in continental hostilities. Yet even these errors served to throw a lustre round the English throne, and raised its possessor in the eyes of his own subjects and of the different nations of Europe. But as the king advanced in age, his vices gradually developed themselves: after the death of Wolsey they were indulged without restraint. He became as rapacious as he was prodigal: as obstinate as he was capricious as fickle in his friendships, as he was merciless in his resentments. Though liberal of his confidence, he soon grew suspicious of those whom he had ever trusted; and, as if he possessed no other right to the crown than that which he derived from the very questionable claim of his father, he viewed with an evil eye every remote descendant of the Plantagenets; and eagerly embraced the slightest pretexts to remove those whom his jealousy represented as future rivals to himself or his posterity. In pride and vanity he was perhaps without a parallel. Inflated with the praises of interested admirers, he despised the judgment of others; acted as if he deemed himself infallible in matters of policy and religion; and seemed to look upon dissent from his opinion as equivalent to a breach of allegiance. In his estimation, to submit and to obey, were the great, the paramount duties of subjects: and this persuasion steeled his breast against remorse for the blood which he shed, and led him to trample without scruple on the liberties of the nation. When he ascended the throne, there still existed a spirit of freedom, which on more than one occasion defeated the arbitrary measures of the court, though directed by an able minister, and supported by the authority of the sovereign: but in the lapse of a few years that spirit had fled, and before the death of Henry, the king of England had grown into a despot, the people had shrunk into a nation of slaves. The causes of this important change in the relations between the sovereign and his subjects, may be found not so much in the abilities or passions of the former, as in the obsequiousness of his parliaments, the assumption of the ecclesiastical supremacy, and the servility of the two religious parties which divided the nation. Lingard. $91. Character of EDWARD VI. Thus died Edward VI. in the sixteenth year of his age. He was counted the wonder of his time; he was not only learned in the tongues and the liberal sciences, but he knew well the state of his kingdom. He kept a table-book, in which he had written the characters of all the eminent men of the nation: he studied fortification, and understood the mint well. He knew the harbours in all his domi nions, with the depth of the water, and way of coming into them. He understood foreign affairs so well, that the ambassadors who were sent into England, published very extraordinary things of him, in all the courts of Europe. He had great quickness of apprehension; but being distrustful of his memory, he took notes of every thing he heard (that was considerable) in Greek characters, that those about him might not understand what he writ, which he afterwards copied out fair in the journal that he kept. His virtues were wonderful: when he was made to believe that his uncle was guilty of conspiring the death of the other counsellors, he upon that abandoned him. Barnaby Fitz Patrick was his favourite; and when he sent him to travel, he writ oft to him to keep good company, to avoid excess and luxury; and to improve himself in those things that might render him capable of employment at his return. He was afterwards made Lord of Upper Ossory in Ireland, by Queen Elizabeth, and did answer the hopes this excellent king had of him. He was very merciful in his nature, which appeared in his unwillingness to sign the warrant for burning the maid of Kent. He took great care to have his debts well paid, reckoning that a prince who breaks his faith, and loses his credit, has thrown up that which he can never recover, and made himself liable to perpetual distrust, and extreme contempt. He took special care of the petitions that were given him by poor and oppressed people. But his great zeal for religion crowned all the rest-it was not an angry heat about it that actuated him, but it was a true tenderness of conscience, founded on the love of God and his neighbour. These extraordinary qualities, set off with great sweetness and affability, made him universally beloved by his people. Burnet. § 92. Another Character of EDWARD VI. Edward is celebrated by historians for the beauty of his person, the sweetness of his disposition, and the extent of his knowledge. By the time he had attained his sixteenth year, he understood the Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish languages; he was versed in the sciences of logic, music, natural philosophy, and master of all theological disputes; insomuch that the famous Cardanus, in his return from Scotland, visiting the English court, was astonished at the progress he had made in learning; and afterwards extolled him in his works as a prodigy of nature. Notwithstanding these encomiums, he seems to have had an ingredient of bigotry in his disposition, that would have rendered him very troublesome to those of tender consciences, who might have happened to differ with him in religious principles; nor can we reconcile either to his boasted humanity or penetration, his consenting to the death of his uncle, who had served him faithfully; unless we suppose he wanted resolution to withstand the importunities of his ministers, and was deficient in that vigour of mind, which often exists independent of Smollett. learning and culture. § 93. Another Character of EDWARD VI. It would be idle to delineate the character of a prince, who lived not till his passions developed themselves, or his faculties had acquired maturity. His education, like that of his two sisters, began at a very early age. In abilities he was equal, perhaps superior, to most boys of his years: and his industry and improvement amply repaid the solicitude of his tutors. But the extravagant praises, which have been lavished on him by his panegyrists and admirers, may be received with some degree of caution. In the French and Latin letters, to which they appeal, it is difficult to separate the composition of the pupil from the corrections of the master and since, to raise his reputation, deceptions are known to have been employed on some occasions, it may be justifiable to suspect that they were practised on others. The boy of twelve or fourteen years was accustomed to pronounce his opinion in the council with all the gravity of a hoary statesman. But he had been previously informed of the subjects to be discussed: his preceptors had supplied him with short notes, which he committed to memory: and while he delivered their sentiments as his own, the lords, whether they were aware or not of the artifice, admired and applauded the precocious wisdom with which Heaven had gifted their sovereign. Edward's religious belief could not have been the result of his own judgment. He was compelled to take it on trust from those about him, who moulded his infant mind to their own pleasure, and infused into it their own opinions or prejudices. From them he derived a strong sense of piety, and a habit of daily devotion; a warm attachment to the new, and a violent antipathy to the ancient, doctrines. He believed it to be the first of his duties to extirpate what he had been taught to deem, the idolatrous worship of his fathers: and with his last breath he wafted a prayer to Heaven for the preservation of his subjects from the infection of "papistry." Yet it may be a question whether his early death has not proved a benefit to the church of England, as it is at present established. His sentiments like those of his instructors were tinged with Calvinism: attempts were made to persuade him that episcopacy was an expensive and unnecessary institution; and the courtiers, whose appetite for church property had been whetted rather than satisfied by former spoliations, looked impatiently towards the entire suppression of bishoprics and chapters. sions belonging to these establishments one half had already been seized by the royal favourites: in the course of a few years their rapacity would have devoured the remainder. Lingard. the Of the posses § 94. Character of MARY. It is not necessary to employ many words in drawing the character of this princess. And She possessed few qualities either estimable or amiable, and her person was as little engaging as her behaviour and address. Obstinacy, bigotry, violence, cruelty, malignity, revenge, and tyranny; every circumstance of her character took a tincture from her bad temper and narrow understanding. amidst the complication of vices which entered into her composition, we shall scarcely find any virtue but sincerity, a quality which she seems to have maintained throughout her whole life, except in the beginning of her reign, when the necessity of her affairs obliged her to make some promises to the Protestants, which she certainly never intended to perform. But in those cases a weak ‘bigoted woman, under the government of priests, easily finds casuistry sufficient to justify to herself the violation of an engagement. She appears, as well as her father, to have been susceptible of some attachment of friendship; and that without caprice and inconstancy, which were so remarkable in the conduct of that monarch. To which we may add, that in many circumstances of her life, she gave |