Body, parentage and character in history : notes on the Tudor period / by Furneaux Jordan.

  • Jordan, Furneaux.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Body, parentage and character in history : notes on the Tudor period / by Furneaux Jordan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    evidence^ as well as the natural proclivities of Henry's character^ favour the view that he thought and willed and acted for himself. Do we not indeed know too well the fate of those whose thought and will ran counter to his ? No man's opinion and conduct are independent of his surroundings and his time; for every man, especially every monarch, must see much through other eyes and hear much through other ears. But if other eyes and other ears are numerous enough they will also be conflicting enough, and will strengthen rather than diminish the self-confidence and self-importance of the self-confident and self- important ruler. Self-importance, as a rule, is built on a foundation of solid self-confidence, and Henry's confidence in himself was broad enough and deep enough to sustain any conceivable edifice. The Romish church was then, and had been for a thousand years, the strongest infiuence in Europe. It touched every event in men's bodily lives and decided also the fate of their immortal souls. Henry nevertheless had no misgiving as to his fitness to be the spiritual head of the Church in this country, or the spiritual head of the great globe itself, if the great globe had had one Church only. When I come to speak of the Heformation I shall have to remark that, had the great European religious movement reached our island in any other reign than Henry's, religion would not have been exactly what it now is. Of all our rulers Henry was the only one who was at the same time willing enough, educated enough (he had been trained to be an Archbishop), able enough, and pious enough to be at any rate the first head of a great Church. Henry was so sagacious that he never forgot the superiority of sagacity over force. He delighted in