Body, Parentage and Character in History: Notes on the Tudor Period

Part 1

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BODY, PARENTAGE AND CHARACTER IN HISTORY.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Ready--New and Cheaper Edition, in great part Rewritten, 2/-

CHARACTER AS SEEN IN BODY AND PARENTAGE, with a Chapter on EDUCATION, CAREER, MORALS, AND PROGRESS.

A remarkable and extremely interesting book.--Scotsman.

A delightful book, witty and wise, clever in exposition, charming in style, readable and original.--Medical Press.

Men and women are both treated under these heads (types of character) in an amusing and observant manner.--Lancet.

We cordially commend this volume.... A fearless writer.... Merits close perusal.--Health.

Mr. Jordan handles his subject in a simple, clear, and popular manner.--Literary World.

Full of varied interest.--Mind.

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUeBNER, AND CO. LIMITED.

BODY, PARENTAGE AND CHARACTER IN HISTORY:

NOTES ON THE TUDOR PERIOD.

BY FURNEAUX JORDAN, F.R.C.S.

LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUeBNER & CO. LIMITED, 1890.

Birmingham: Printed by Hall and English.

PREFACE.

In my little work on "Character as Seen in Body and Parentage" I have put forward not a system, but a number of conclusions touching the relationship which I believe to exist between certain features of character on the one hand and certain peculiarities of bodily configuration, structure, and inheritance on the other. These conclusions, if they are true, should find confirmation in historic narrative, and their value, if they have any, should be seen in the light they throw on historic problems.

The incidents and characters and questions of the Tudor period are not only of unfailing interest, but they offer singularly rich and varied material to the student of body and character.

If the proposal to connect the human body with human nature is distasteful to certain finely-strung souls, let me suggest to them a careful study of the work and aims and views of Goethe, the scientific observer and impassioned poet, whom Madame de Stael described as the most accomplished character the world has produced; and who was, in Matthew Arnold's opinion, the greatest poet of this age and the greatest critic of any age. The reader of 'Wilhelm Meister' need not be reminded of the close attention which is everywhere given to the principle of inheritance--inheritance even of 'the minutest faculty.'

The student of men and women has, let me say in conclusion, one great advantage over other students--he need not journey to a museum, he has no doors to unlock, and no catalogue to consult; the museum is constantly around him and on his shelves; the catalogue is within himself.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

NOTE I.--THE VARIOUS VIEWS OF HENRY VIII.'S CHARACTER. Momentous changes in sixteenth century 1 Many characters given to noted persons 3 A great number given to Henry 3 The character given in our time 6 Attempt to give an impartial view 8 Need of additional light 14

NOTE II.--THE RELATION OF BODY AND PARENTAGE TO CHARACTER. Bodily organisation and temperaments 15 Leading types in both 16 Elements of character run in groups 17 Intervening gradations 20

NOTE III.--HENRY'S FAMILY PROCLIVITIES. Henry of unimpassioned temperament 21 Took after unimpassioned mother 22 Derived nothing from his father 23 Character of Henry VII. 24 Henry VIII., figure and appearance 26

NOTE IV.--THE WIVES' QUESTION. Henry's marriages, various causes 27 Passion not a marked cause 28 Henry had no strong passions 30 Self-will and self-importance 31 Conduct of impassioned men 31

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NOTE V.--THE LESS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. Characteristics common to all temperaments 32 Henry's cruelty 33 Henry's piety 35

NOTE VI.--THE MORE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF HENRY'S CHARACTER. Always doing or undoing something 37 Habitual fitfulness 38 Self-importance 40 Henry and Wolsey: Which led? 41 Love of admiration 43

NOTE VII.--HENRY AND HIS COMPEERS. Henry's political helpers superior to theological 45 Cranmer 46 Sir Thomas More 47 Wolsey 49

NOTE VIII.--HENRY AND HIS PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT. No act of constructive genius 51 Parliament not abject, but in agreement 53 Proclamations 54 Liberty a matter of race 55

NOTE IX.--HENRY AND THE REFORMATION. Teutonic race fearless, therefore truthful 56 Outgrew Romish fetters 57 French Revolution racial 58 The essential and the accidental in great movements 60 Wyclif 61 Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Knox 62 Henry's part in the Reformation 64 No thought of permanent division 65 The dissolution of the monasteries 66

NOTE X.--QUEEN ELIZABETH AND QUEEN MARY. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth much alike 69 Elizabeth less pious but more fitful 71 Elizabeth and marriage 72 Elizabeth's part in the Reformation 73 Elizabeth and Mary Stuart very unlike 74 Lofty characters with flaws 76 Mary's environment and fate 79 Bodily peculiarities of the two Queens 81

THE VARIOUS VIEWS OF HENRY VIII.'S CHARACTER.

NOTE I.

The progress of an individual, of a people, or even of a movement is never up, and their decadence is never down, an inclined plane. Neither do we see sudden and lofty flights in progress nor headlong falls in decadence. Both move rather by steps--steps up or steps down. The steps are not all alike; one is short another long; one sudden another gradual. They are all moreover the inevitable sequences of those which went before, and they as inevitably lead to those which follow. Our Fathers took a long step in the Tudor epoch, but older ones led up to it and newer ones started from it. The long step could not possibly be evaded by a Teutonic people. Rome lay in the path, and progress must needs step over the body of Rome--not a dead body then, though wounded from within, not a dead body yet, though now deeply and irreparably wounded from without. Civilization must everywhere step over the body of Rome or stand still, or turn backwards.

Two factors are especially needed for progress: brain (racial brain), which by organisation and inheritance tends to be large, free, capable; and secondly, circumstance, which continually calls forth capability, and freedom, and largeness. All the schools of supernaturalism, but above all the Romish school, compress and paralyse at least a portion of the brain: if a portion is disabled all is enfeebled. If a bodily limb even, a mere hand or foot, be fettered and palsied, the body itself either dies or droops into a smaller way of life. It is so with a mental limb--a mental hand or foot in relation to the mental life.

To the group of ever-present and subtle forces which make for progress, there were added in the sixteenth century seemingly new and conspicuous forces. The art of printing or writing by machinery sowed living seed broadcast over a fertile soil; the "new learning" restored to us the inspiring but long hidden thought of old Aryan friends and relatives, and this again in some degree relaxed the grip of alien and enslaving Semitic ideas which the exigencies of Roman circumstance had imposed on Europe with the edge of the sword. New action trod on the heels of new thought. New lands were traversed; new seas were sailed; new heavens were explored. The good steed civilisation--long burdened and blindfolded and curbed,--had lagged somewhat; but now the reins were loose, the spurs were sharp, the path was clear and the leap which followed was long.

While our fathers were taking, or were on the eve of taking, this long step, a notable young man, the son of a capable and wise father and of a not incapable but certainly unwise mother, stepped into the chief place in this country. A student who was in training for an Archbishop was suddenly called upon to be a King. What this King was, what he was not; what organisation and parentage and circumstance did for him; how he bore himself to his time--to its drift, its movements, its incidents, its men, and, alas, to its women--is now our object to inquire. The study of this theological monarch and of his several attitudes is deeply instructive and of unfailing interest.

The Autocrat of the breakfast table wittily comments on the number of John's characters. John had three. Notable men have more characters than "John." Henry VIII. 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 Victoria's, 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.

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