n to Luther, his vacillation in religious
opinions, King Henry reflects with remarkable fidelity the age in which
he lived, both in its contrasts and its inconsistencies. "It is only the
previous history of England which can explain all the contradictions
exhibited in his conduct,--which can explain how he could be rapacious
yet sometimes generous, the Defender of the Faith yet under sentence of
excommunication, a burner of heretics yet a heretic himself, the pope's
advocate yet the pope's greatest enemy, a bloodthirsty tyrant yet the
best friend to liberty of thought in religion, an enthusiast yet a
turncoat, a libertine and yet all but a Puritan. He was sensual because
his forefathers had been sensual from time immemorial, rough in speech
and action because there had been but few men in Britain who had been
otherwise since the Romans abandoned the island. He was superstitious
and credulous because few were philosophical or gifted with intellectual
courage. Yet he had, what was possessed by his contemporaries, a faint
and intermittent thirst for knowledge, of which he himself hardly knew
the meaning." Henry was shrewd, tenacious of purpose, capricious and
versatile. In spite of his unrestrained indulgences and his monstrous
claims of power, which, be it remembered, he was able to enforce, and
notwithstanding any other vices or faults that may be truthfully charged
against him, he was, on the whole, a popular king. Few monarchs have
ever had to bear such a strain as was placed upon his abilities and
character. Rare have been the periods that have witnessed such
confusion of principles, social, political and religious. Those were the
days when liberty was at work, "but in a hundred fantastical and
repulsive shapes, confused and convulsive, multiform, deformed." Blind
violence and half-way reforms characterized the age because the
principles that were to govern modern times were not yet formulated.

Judged apart from his times Henry appears as an arrogant, cruel and
fickle ruler, whose virtues fail to atone for his vices. But still, with
all his faults, he compares favorably with preceding monarchs and even
with his contemporaries. If he had possessed less intelligence, courage
and ambition, he would not now be so conspicuous for his vices, but the
history of human liberty and free institutions, especially in England,
would have been vastly different. His praiseworthy traits were not
sufficiently strong to enable him to co