Sins of Fathers . . . And of Kings

Sins of Fathers

‘The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.’ (Numbers 14:18)

Language is a slippery thing.  We often tend to think of it simply as a means of communication, but we underestimate its ability to twist and to hide meanings at our peril. For example, I once wrote about the word “debunk.” This words more often serves to hide and protect “bunk” than to expose it.

Today’s word is peccadillo, a Spanish word derived from the Latin peccatum, “sin.”  The -illo on the end makes it a dimunitive, diminishing the meaning of the original to “little sins.” The implication is that the sins thus designated are small and unimportant, mere trifles. In current usage the word peccadillo almost invariably refers to sexual sins. It serves as a warning to the judgmental and puritanical among us not to make too much of such transgressions.  These are, after all minor affairs, victimless crimes, even . . . aren’t they?

A Long-Awaited Burial

If this seems like an odd introduction to the post below, bear with me.  I first published this piece in 2015. It was the most popular article on my first Blogger blog. I was reflecting on the long-delayed Christian burial of England’s King Richard III, more than half a millennium after his death. Despite the brevity of his reign (less than three years), Richard remains one of the most recognized British rulers. He is himself a fascinating figure in his own right. That’s even after we get past Shakespeare’s villainous caricature. But he is also the link between two other monarchs. One is Edward IV, the father of his predecessor. The other is the son of his successor, Henry VIII. The “peccadilloes” of Edward and Henry, as we shall see, had reverberations far beyond any crimes Richard is alleged to have committed.

A Controversial King

530 years is a long, long time to wait.  On Thursday, March 26th 2015, England’s King Richard III finally received a Christian burial. He was the last English monarch to die in battle, and one of the last to die a Catholic. His was not a Catholic funeral, unfortunately. His interment in the Anglican Cathedral of Leicester was, however, a great improvement over the hasty, unmarked burying of his desecrated corpse after the Battle of Bosworth Field more than five centuries before.

Richard remains one of the most controversial of British kings.  He assumed the throne when Parliament declared his twelve-year-old nephew Edward V illegitimate. Edward and his younger brother Richard went to live in the Tower of London. The Tower was not yet exclusively a prison. Their uncle became King Richard III.  The two boys quickly disappeared from public view. Just two years after his accession Richard also lost his throne. A certain Henry Tudor deposed him and ascended the throne as Henry VII.  

From the beginning Richard has been the prime suspect in the disappearance of the “little princes.” Historians today, especially since Paul Murray Kendall’s 1955 biography of Richard III, acknowledge that there is no convincing evidence that he was the author of their deaths. Others, including Henry Tudor, had far more motive to kill them than Richard did.*    

Profound Consequences

As interesting as it would be to speculate on the probable guilt of the various parties involved (and, of course, it would be), that’s not the purpose of this article. Instead, I’d like to focus on what can happen when we let desires untamed by a properly formed conscience have free rein.  The connection here is that Henry VII drove Richard from the throne. In time bequeathed the throne to his son Henry VIII. The younger Henry, in time, separated the English Church from the Universal Church and made himself its head.  

Henry’s action had profound consequences. Among these was the destruction of Catholic culture in England along with a century and a half of strife and bloodshed. This in itself was more than enough.  Historian Warren Carroll has demonstrated that the separation of the English Church went a long way towards ensuring that the Protestant Reformation became a permanent feature of religious life in Europe. It might otherwise have remained a largely German affair. In later years, the growth of the British Empire ensured that the split in the Latin Church spread over the whole globe.

And all because of Henry VIII’s wandering eye.  He did not set up his own church for theological reasons. In fact, Henry never considered himself a Protestant. Nor was he compelled by a groundswell of anti-Catholic feeling in England. Eamon Duffy thoroughly documents this last point in The Stripping of the Altars.  

Pope of England

No, Henry’s motivation was his failure to produce a male heir with his wife, Catherine of Aragon. We should also mention the king’s his ardent desire to indulge in a more intimate relationship with one of Catherine’s ladies, Anne Boleyn.  Anne’s price for returning the king’s affections was that she take Catherine’s place.  Since the Pope was unwilling to grant Henry an annulment, the English monarch simply made himself the pope of England. As far as he was concerned, that solved the problem.  While it is possible that a Plantagenet descendant of Richard III, had he ruled instead of Henry, might also have split with Rome, it seems much less likely. As we saw, the actual break was precipitated neither by domestic pressure nor by external forces. It was instead a working out of Henry’s personal desires and character.

Another King’s Lust

On the other hand, however decisive Henry VIII’s libido might have been for the creation of the Anglican Church, there would have been no Henry VIII to have caused the split had it not been for another king’s lust.  That king is Richard III’s elder brother, Edward IV. He was the father of the little princes who were allegedly murdered in the Tower of London.  Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, a sudden and inadvisable match, came as a surprise to his family and advisors. He did not marry her not because it was an appropriate marriage for an English monarch. Rather, as with Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII a couple generations later, it was her price for bestowing her favors upon the king.

Elizabeth brought her family with her, of course. Their ambitions after Edward’s death were so alarming that many nobles and Parliament called upon the late king’s brother Richard to serve as protector of the young Edward V and his brother. Soon it seemed expedient to remove the twelve-year-old king altogether in favor of his grown-up and capable uncle. This was especially so after another sexual indiscretion of Edward IV’s came to light which allowed Parliament to declare Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville null, and the boy-king illegitimate.  

Upon the Third and Fourth Generation

In other words, Edward’s lust-driven behavior in one instance created the unstable situation that made the deposition of his son desirable. Additionally, his libidinous behavior in another instance provided the grounds to do so.  As we saw above, the consequences of these indiscretions is still evident around the globe more than half a millennium later.

Few of us, of course, can expect our misdeeds to have anywhere near the impact of those of Edward IV or Henry VIII. Nonetheless we can see, as Scripture tells us, how “the sins of fathers” descend “upon children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation” (Numbers, 14:18). Indeed, for centuries.  The point is, we have no way to predict how far-reaching the consequences of our own sins will be, and how long they’ll last. Nobody who has seen the vast store of sociological data over the past few decades can deny that one of the greatest contributors to poverty and other debilitating social ills today is the break-down of sexual morality. The next time we feel temptation, we might do well to remember what happened when Edward and Henry went astray.

Featured image top of page: detail, The Princes in the Tower, by John Everett Millais, 1878

*Postscript:

In brief, while Richard might fear that the princes could become a rallying point for those disaffected with his rule, he could point to the fact that an act of Parliament had formally removed them from the succession. Parliament had also legally affirmed Richard as the rightful king.  Henry, on the other hand, came from a line that had been excluded from the succession generations earlier by Henry IV.  He needed both Richard and the princes dead, because the justification for his rebellion was that Richard was a usurper. If so, then Edward V, and not Henry Tudor, was the rightful king. If not, then Richard III was the rightful king, and Henry simply a traitor.  Either way, no Henry VII.