collar, and how Francis gave Henry, in return, a costly bracelet.
All this and a great deal more was so written about, and sung
about, and talked about at that time (and, indeed, since that time
too), that the world has had good cause to be sick of it, for ever.
Of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy
renewal of the war between England and France, in which the two
Royal companions and brothers in arms longed very earnestly to
damage one another. But, before it broke out again, the Duke of
Buckingham was shamefully executed on Tower Hill, on the evidence
of a discharged servant – really for nothing, except the folly of
having believed in a friar of the name of HOPKINS, who had
pretended to be a prophet, and who had mumbled and jumbled out some
nonsense about the Duke’s son being destined to be very great in
the land. It was believed that the unfortunate Duke had given
offence to the great Cardinal by expressing his mind freely about
the expense and absurdity of the whole business of the Field of the
Cloth of Gold. At any rate, he was beheaded, as I have said, for
nothing. And the people who saw it done were very angry, and cried
out that it was the work of ‘the butcher’s son!’
The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey invaded
France again, and did some injury to that country. It ended in
another treaty of peace between the two kingdoms, and in the
discovery that the Emperor of Germany was not such a good friend to
England in reality, as he pretended to be. Neither did he keep his
promise to Wolsey to make him Pope, though the King urged him. Two
Popes died in pretty quick succession; but the foreign priests were
too much for the Cardinal, and kept him out of the post. So the
Cardinal and King together found out that the Emperor of Germany
was not a man to keep faith with; broke off a projected marriage
between the King’s daughter MARY, Princess of Wales, and that
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sovereign; and began to consider whether it might not be well to
marry the young lady, either to Francis himself, or to his eldest
son.
There now arose at Wittemberg, in Germany, the great leader of the
mighty change in England which is called The Reformation, and which
set the people free from their slavery to the priests. This was a
learned Doctor, named MARTIN LUTHER, who knew all about them, for
he had been a priest, and even a monk, himself. The preaching and
writing of Wickliffe had set a number of men thinking on this
subject; and Luther, finding one day to his great surprise, that
there really was a book called the New Testament which the priests
did not allow to be read, and which contained truths that they
suppressed, began to be very vigorous against the whole body, from
the Pope downward. It happened, while he was yet only beginning
his vast work of awakening the nation, that an impudent fellow
named TETZEL, a friar of very bad character, came into his
neighbourhood selling what were called Indulgences, by wholesale,
to raise money for beautifying the great Cathedral of St. Peter’s,
at Rome. Whoever bought an Indulgence of the Pope was supposed to
buy himself off from the punishment of Heaven for his offences.
Luther told the people that these Indulgences were worthless bits
of paper, before God, and that Tetzel and his masters were a crew
of impostors in selling them.
The King and the Cardinal were mightily indignant at this
presumption; and the King (with the help of SIR THOMAS MORE, a wise
man, whom he afterwards repaid by striking off his head) even wrote
a book about it, with which the Pope was so well pleased that he
gave the King the title of Defender of the Faith. The King and the
Cardinal also issued flaming warnings to the people not to read
Luther’s books, on pain of excommunication. But they did read them