[1] By his last will he made Mary and Elizabeth heirs to the crown in case all male and female issue by himself or his son Edward failed (S361).  Henry’s eldest sister, Margaret (see No. 3 in Genealogical Table on page 207), was passed by entirely.  But long after Henry’s death, Parliament set his will aside (1603) and made James I (a descendent of Margaret) King of England.

356.  More Marriages (1540).

Thomas Cromwell, the King’s trusted adviser (S351), succeeded in persuading his master to agree to marry Anne of Cleves, a German Protestant Princess.  Henry had never seen her, but her portrait represented her as a woman of surpassing beauty.

When Anne reached England, Henry hurried to meet her with all a lover’s ardor.  To his dismay, he found that not only was she ridiculously ugly, but that she could speak—­so he said—­“nothing but Dutch,” of which he did not understand a word.  Matters, however, had gone too far to retract, and the marriage was duly solemnized (1540).  The King obtained a divorce within six months, and then took his revenge by cutting off Cromwell’s head.  What is more, he cut it off by virtue of that very Act of Attainder which Cromwell had used so unscrupulously in Henry’s behalf (S351).

The same year (1540) Henry married Catharine Howard, a fascinating girl still in her teens, whose charms so moved the King that it is said he was tempted to have a special thanksgiving service prepared to commemorate the day he found her.

Unfortunately, Catharine was accused of having been guilty of misconduct before her marriage.  She confessed her fault, but for such cases Henry had no mercy.  The Queen was tried for high treason, and soon walked that fatal road in which Anne Boleyn had preceded her (S355).

Not to be baffled in his matrimonial experiments, the King took Catherine Parr for his sixth and last wife (1543).  She was inclined to be a zealous Protestant, and she too might have gone to the block, on a charge of heresy, but her quick wit came to her rescue.  She flattered the King’s self-conceit as a profound theologian and the compliment saved her life.

357.  Henry’s Action respecting Religion.

Though occupied with these rather numerous domestic infelicities, Henry was not idle in other directions.  By an act known as the Six Articles, or, as the Protestants called it, the “Bloody Act,” or the “Whip with Six Lashes” (1539), the King established a new and peculiar form of religion.  In words, at least, it seemed to be practically the same as that upheld by the Pope, but with the Pope left out.[1]

[1] The Six Articles:  The chief article ordered that all persons who denied the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation should be burned at the stake as heretics and that all their possessions should be forfeited to the Crown.  The remaining five articles affirmed the obligation of all persons to accept and obey certain other Catholic doctrines under pain of punishment for felony, if they refused.