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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    ' The Autocrat of the breakfast table wittily com- ments on the number of John^s characters. John had three. Notable men have more characters than ^^ John.-*^ Henry YIII. had more characters than even the most notable of men. A man of national repute or of high position has the characters given to him by his friends, his enemies, and characters given also by parties, sects^ and schools. Henry had all these and two more^ strictly, two groups more—one given to him by his own time, another given to him by ours. If we could call up from their long sleep half a dozen representative and capable men of Henry^s reign to meet half a dozen of Victorians, the jury would probably not agree. If the older six could obtain all the evidence which is before us, and the newer six could recall all which was familiar to Henry^s subjects at home and his compeers abroad; if the two bodies could weigh matters together, discuss all things together—could together raise the dead and summon the living— nevertheless in the end two voices would speak—a sixteenth century voice and a nineteenth. The older would say in effect: '^ We took our King to be not only a striking personality; not only an expert in all bodily exercises and mental accomplishments; we knew him to be much more—to be industrious, pious, sincere, courageous, and accessible. We be- lieved him to be keen in vision, wise in judgment, prompt and sagacious in action. We looked round on our neighbours and their rulers, and we saw reason to esteem ourselves the most prosperous of peoples and our King the first, by a long way the first, of his fellow Kings. Tour own records prove that long years after Henry's death, in all time of trouble the people longed for Henry^s good sense and cried out for Henry^s good laws. He was a sacrilegious miscreant