from the king, who would have executed her, had he suspected her real
views. She survived her husband, who died four years after her
marriage, in 1547.

[Sidenote: Last Days of Henry.]

The last years of any tyrant are always melancholy, and those of Henry
were embittered by jealousies and domestic troubles. His finances were
deranged, his treasury exhausted, and his subjects discontented. He
was often at war with the Scots, and different continental powers. He
added religious persecution to his other bad traits, and executed, for
their opinions, some of the best people in the kingdom. His father had
left him the richest sovereign of Europe, and he had seized the abbey
lands, and extorted heavy sums from his oppressed people; and yet he
was poor. All his wishes were apparently gratified; and yet he was the
most miserable man in his dominions. He exhausted all the sources of
pleasure, and nothing remained but satiety and disgust. His mind and
his body were alike diseased. His inordinate gluttony made him most
inconveniently corpulent, and produced ulcers and the gout. It was
dangerous to approach this "corrupt mass of dying tyranny." It was
impossible to please him, and the least contradiction drove him into
fits of madness and frenzy.

In his latter days, he ordered, in a fit of jealousy, the execution of
the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman of the kingdom, who had given
offence to the Earl of Hertford, uncle to the young prince of Wales,
and the founder of the greatness of the Seymours. But the tyrant died
before the sentence was carried into effect, much to the joy of the
good people of England, whom he had robbed and massacred. Several
thousands perished by the axe of the executioner during his
disgraceful reign, and some of them were the lights of the age, and
the glory of their country.

Tyrannical as was Henry VIII., still he ever ruled by the laws. He did
not abolish parliament, or retrench its privileges. The parliament
authorized all his taxes, and gave sanction to all his violent
measures. The parliament was his supple instrument; still, had the
parliament resisted his will, doubtless he would have dissolved it, as
did the Stuart princes. But it was not, in his reign, prepared for
resistance, and the king had every thing after his own way.

[Sidenote: Death of Henry VIII.]

By nature, he was amiable, generous, and munificent. But his temper
was spoiled by self-indulgence and incessant flattery. The