If Henry VIII. had died previous to the first agitation of the divorce, his loss would have been deplored as one of the heaviest misfortunes which had ever befallen the country; and he would have left a name which would have taken its place in history by the side of that of the Black Prince or of the conqueror of Agincourt.  Left at the most trying age, with his character unformed, with the means at his disposal of gratifying every inclination, and married by his ministers when a boy to an unattractive woman far his senior, he had lived for thirty-six years almost without blame, and bore through England the reputation of an upright and virtuous king.  Nature had been prodigal to him of her rarest gifts.  In person he is said to have resembled his grandfather, Edward IV., who was the handsomest man in Europe.  His form and bearing were princely; and amidst the easy freedom of his address, his manner remained majestic.  No knight in England could match him in the tournament except the Duke of Suffolk:  he drew with ease as strong a bow as was borne by any yeoman of his guard; and these powers were sustained in unfailing vigour by a temperate habit and by constant exercise.  Of his intellectual ability we are not left to judge from the suspicious panegyrics of his contemporaries.  His state papers and letters may be placed by the side of those of Wolsey or of Cromwell, and they lose nothing in the comparison.  Though they are broadly different, the perception is equally clear, the expression equally powerful, and they breathe throughout an irresistible vigour of purpose.  In addition to this he had a fine musical taste, carefully cultivated; he spoke and wrote in four languages; and his knowledge of a multitude of other subjects, with which his versatile ability made him conversant, would have formed the reputation of any ordinary man.  He was among the best physicians of his age; he was his own engineer, inventing improvements in artillery, and new constructions in ship-building; and this not with the condescending incapacity of a royal amateur, but with thorough workmanlike understanding.  His reading was vast, especially in theology, which has been ridiculously ascribed by Lord Herbert to his father’s intention of educating him for the Archbishopric of Canterbury; as if the scientific mastery of such a subject could have been acquired by a boy of twelve years of age, for he was no more when he became Prince of Wales.  He must have studied theology with the full maturity of his intellect; and he had a fixed and perhaps unfortunate interest in the subject itself.[176]

In all directions of human activity Henry displayed natural powers of the highest order, at the highest stretch of industrious culture.  He was “attentive,” as it is called, “to his religious duties,” being present at the services in chapel two or three times a day with unfailing regularity, and showing to outward appearance a real sense of religious obligation in the energy and purity of his life.  In private