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Title: The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3)

Author: James Anthony Froude

Author of introduction, etc.: W. Llewelyn Williams

Release date: April 4, 2005 [eBook #15537]
                Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Deirdre Menchaca, Keith Edkins, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH, VOLUME 1 (OF 3) ***


E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Deirdre Menchaca, Keith Edkins, and
the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team



FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND

Henry VIII · Introduction by
W. Llewelyn Williams M.P. B.C.L.

Volume One

First Published 1909

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illuminated Frontispiece]

CONSIDER HISTORY WITH THE BEGINNINGS OF
IT STRETCHING DIMLY INTO THE REMOTE TIME;
EMERGING DARKLY OVT OF THE MYSTERIOVS
             ETERNITY:
THE TRVE EPIC POEM AND VNIVERSAL DIVINE
       SCRIPTVRE...--CARLYLE

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illuminated Title]

THE REIGN of HENRY the EIGHTH

by

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

VOLUME I.

London & Toronto J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
New York E.P. Dutton & Co







INTRODUCTION

James Anthony Froude was born at Dartington Rectory, the youngest son of
the Archdeacon of Totnes, on April 23, 1818. His father was a clergyman of
the old school, as much squire as parson. In the concluding chapter to his
_History of England_, Froude wrote that "for a hundred and forty years
after the Revolution of 1688, the Church of England was able to fulfil with
moderate success the wholesome functions of a religious establishment.
Theological doctrinalism passed out of fashion; and the clergy, merged as
they were in the body of the nation, and no longer endeavouring to elevate
themselves into a separate order, were occupied healthily in impressing on
their congregations the meaning of duty and moral responsibility to God."
Of this sane and orthodox, but not over-spiritual, clergy, Archdeacon
Froude was an excellent and altogether wholesome type. He was a stiff Tory;
his hatred of Dissent was so uncompromising that he would not have a copy
of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in the rectory. A stern, self-contained,
reticent man, he never, in word of deed, confessed his affection for his
youngest son. He was a good horseman, and was passionately fond of open-air
exercises and especially of hunting. His one accomplishment was drawing,
and his sketches in after years earned the praise of Ruskin.

Cast in the same mould, but fashioned by different circumstances, the
archdeacon's eldest son, Richard Hurrell Froude, was a man of greater
intellectual brilliance and even more masterful character. He was one of
the pioneers of the Oxford Movement, and it was only his early death that
deposed him from his place of equality with Newman and Keble and Pusey.
Anthony was a sickly child, and from his earliest years lacked the loving
care of a mother. He was brought up with Spartan severity by his father and
his aunt. The most venial self-indulgence was regarded as criminal. From
the age of three he was inured to hardship by being ducked every morning in
a trough of ice-cold water. Hurrell Froude felt no tenderness for the
ailing lad. Once, in order to rouse a manly spirit in his little brother,
he took him by the heels, plunged him like another Achilles into a stream,
and stirred with his head the mud at the bottom. Froude has been accused,
and not without justice, of not feeling a proper aversion to acts of
cruelty. The horrible Boiling Act of Henry VIII. excites neither disgust
nor hatred in him; and he makes smooth excuses for the illegal tortures of
the rack and the screw which were inflicted on prisoners by Elizabeth and
her ministers. He had himself been reared in a hardy school; he had been
trained to be indifferent to pain. It may well be that his callousness in
speaking of Tudor cruelties is to be traced to the influences that
surrounded his loveless childhood and youth.

Hurrell Froude was the idol of his younger brothers. He was a man of
brilliant parts, and a born leader of men. His hatred of Radicals and
Dissenters transcended even his father's dislike of them. His conception of
the Church differed widely from that in which the archdeacon had been
reared. To him a clergyman was a priest who belonged to a sacerdotal caste,
and who ought not "to merge himself in the body of the nation." To him the
Reformation was an infamous crime, and Henry VIII. was worse than the
Bluebeard of the nursery. His hero was Thomas à Becket. He wrote a sketch
of his life and career, which he did not live to finish. His friends
ill-advisedly published it after his death. His ideal ecclesiastical
statesman of modern times was Archbishop Laud. Charles I. was a martyr, and
the Revolution of 1688 an inglorious blunder. To the day of his death--in
spite of the harsh discipline which he received at his hands in boyhood, in
spite of wide divergence of opinion in later years in all matters secular
and religious--Froude never ceased to worship at his brother's shrine. Out
of regard for his memory, more than from any passionate personal
conviction, he associated himself while at Oxford with the Anglican
movement. His affectionate admiration for Newman, neither time nor change
served to impair. If Carlyle was his prophet in later years, his influence
happily did not affect his style. That was based on the chaste model of
Newman. He owed his early friendship with Newman to that great man's
association with Hurrell Froude. Many years after, when Freeman had
venomously accused him of "dealing stabs in the dark at a brother's almost
forgotten fame"--poor Froude's offence was that he dared to write an essay
on Thomas à Becket--he defended himself with rare emotion against the
charge. "I look back upon my brother," he said, "as on the whole the most
remarkable man I have ever met in my life. I have never seen any
person--not one--in whom, as I now think him, the excellences of intellect
and character were combined in fuller measure."

As Froude's powers developed and matured, and as his experience of the
world broadened, he cast away his brother's yoke, and reverted more to his
father's school of thought. As his father was to him the ideal clergyman of
the Church of England, so the Church before 1828 remained to him the model
of what an established religion should be. He was a thorough Erastian, who
believed in the subordination of the Church to the state. He detested
theological doctrinalism of all kinds; he revolted against the idea that
the clergy should form a separate order. The pretensions of Whitgift and
Laud, the High Anglican school of Keble and Pusey, the whole conception of
the Church and the priesthood which underlay the Oxford Movement, were
things obnoxious to him. In a characteristic passage in the chapter on the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew he reveals his hatred and distrust of
dogmatism. "Whenever the doctrinal aspect of Christianity has been
prominent above the practical," he wrote, "whenever the first duty of the
believer has been held to consist in holding particular opinions on the
functions and nature of his Master, and only the second in obeying his
Master's commands, then always, with a uniformity more remarkable than is
obtained in any other historical phenomena, there have followed dissension,
animosity, and in later ages bloodshed. Christianity, as a principle of
life, has been the most powerful check upon the passions of mankind.
Christianity as a speculative system of opinion has converted them into
monsters of cruelty."

Holding such decided views on doctrinalism, it might have been thought that
Froude would have visited all the warring sects of the sixteenth century
with equal judgment. No Church was more doctrinal than that of Geneva; no
Calvinist ever was more dogmatic than John Knox. But the men who fought the
battle of the Reformation in England and Scotland were, in the main, the
Calvinists; and to Froude the Reformation was the beginning of a new and
better era, when the yoke of the priest had been finally cast away.
"Calvinism," he said in one of his addresses at St. Andrews, "was the
spirit which rises in revolt against untruth." John Knox was too heroic a
figure not to rouse the artistic sense in Froude. "There lies one," said
the Regent Morton over his coffin, "who never feared the face of mortal
man." Froude has made this epitaph the text of the noblest eulogy ever
delivered on Knox. "No grander figure can be found, in the entire history
of the Reformation in this island, than that of Knox." He surpassed
Cromwell and Burghley in integrity of purpose and in purity of methods. He
towered above the Regent Murray in intellect, and he worked on a larger
scale than Latimer. "His was the voice that taught the peasant of the
Lothians that he was a free man, the equal in the sight of God with the
proudest peer or prelate that had trampled on his forefathers. He was the
one antagonist whom Mary Stuart could not soften nor Maitland deceive. He
it was who had raised the poor commons of his country into a stern and
rugged people, who might be hard, narrow, superstitious, and fanatical, but
who nevertheless were men whom neither king, noble, nor priest could force
again to submit to tyranny." Yet even here, Froude could not refrain from
quoting the sardonic comment of the English ambassador at Edinburgh: Knox
behaved, said Randolph, "as though he were of God's privy council."

It is certain, at least, that other reformers, who were not greatly
inferior to Knox in capacity, and not at all in piety and honesty, have not
met the same generous treatment at his hands. He sneers at Hooper because
he had scruples about wearing episcopal robes at his consecration as Bishop
of Worcester, though he himself in a famous passage asserts the anomalous
position of bishops in the Church of England. Hooper, as a Calvinist, was
in the right in objecting, and though the point upon which he took his
stand was nominally one of form, there lay behind it a protest against the
Anglican conception of a bishop. He speaks slightingly of Ridley and
Ferrars, though he makes ample amends to them and to Hooper, when he comes
to describe the manner of their death. To the reformers who fled from the
Marian persecution, including men like Jewel and Grindal, he refers with
scornful contempt, though he has no word of criticism to apply to Knox for
retiring to England and to the continent when the flame of persecution was
certainly not more fierce. Latimer is one of his favourites,--a plain,
practical man, not given to abstract speculation or theological subtleties,
but one who was content to do his duty day by day without the fear of man
before his eyes. Latimer, though he was looked upon as a Protestant in the
earliest years of the English Reformation, believed in the Real Presence up
to a short time before his death. But of all English ecclesiastics Thomas
Cranmer was perhaps most to Froude's liking. Cranmer was, like Froude
himself, an artist in words. The English liturgy owes its charm and beauty
to his sense of style, his grace of expression, and his cultured piety.
That he was a great man few will be found in these days to maintain; fewer
still will believe that he deserved the scathing invective of Macaulay. But
no one can read the account given by Froude of his last years without
feeling that the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury was neither
saint nor martyr. If ever there was one, he was a timeserver. He pronounced
the divorce of Catherine of Arragon, though he had sworn fealty to the
Pope. He never raised a protest against any of the political murders of
Henry VIII.--with the notable exception of his courageous attempt to save
his friend, Thomas Cromwell. Even in that case, however, he lies under the
suspicion of having interfered through fear that his own fate was involved
in that of the _malleus monachorum_. In the days of Edward VI. he aimed at
the liberty, if not at the life, of Bonner and Gardiner, without semblance
of legal right: He recanted in the reign of Mary when he thought he could
purchase his miserable life. It was only when all hope of pardon was past
that he re-affirmed his belief in the reformed faith. Indeed, he waited
until the day of his execution before withdrawing his recantation, and
confounded his enemies on the way to the stake. To a master of dramatic
narrative the last scene of Cranmer's life came as a relief and an
inspiration. "So perished Cranmer," wrote Froude, in a memorable passage:
"he was brought out, with the eyes of his soul blinded, to make sport for
his enemies, and in his death he brought upon them a wider destruction than
he had effected by his teaching while alive. Pole was appointed the next
day to the See of Canterbury; but in other respects the court had
over-reached themselves by their cruelty. Had they been contented to accept
the recantation, they would have left the archbishop to die broken-hearted,
pointed at by the finger of pitying scorn; and the Reformation would have
been disgraced in its champion. They were tempted, by an evil spirit of
revenge, into an act unsanctioned even by their own bloody laws; and they
gave him an opportunity of writing his name in the roll of martyrs. The
worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a
single and peculiar peril. The Apostle, though forewarned, denied his
Master on the first alarm of danger; yet that Master, who knew his nature
in its strength and its infirmity, chose him for the rock on which he would
build his Church."

With this conscious and avowed bias in favour of undogmatic Christianity,
Froude came to write the story of the transition of England from a Catholic
to a Protestant country. He was not without sympathy with the old order of
things. We cannot but feel a thrill as we read his incomparable description
of the change which was effected in men's thoughts and ideas by the
translation of the mediæval into the modern world? "For, indeed, a change
was coming upon the world, the meaning and direction of which even still is
hidden from us, a change from era to era. The paths trodden by the
footsteps of ages were broken up; old things were passing away, and the
faith and the life of ten centuries were dissolving like a dream. Chivalry
was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to crumble into
ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions, of the old world
were passing away, never to return. A new continent had risen up beyond the
western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an
infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself, unfixed
from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness
of the universe. In the fabric of habit which they had so laboriously built
for themselves, mankind were to remain no longer. And now it is all
gone--like an unsubstantial pageant faded; and between us and the old
English there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the historian will
never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and our imagination can
but feebly penetrate to them. Only among the aisles of the cathedral, only
as we gaze upon their silent figures sleeping on their tombs, some faint
conceptions float before us of what these men were when they were alive;
and perhaps in the sound of church bells, that peculiar creation of
mediæval age, which falls upon the ear like the echo of a vanished world."
Froude was once asked what was the greatest and most essential quality of
an historian. He replied that it was imagination. It was a true and a just
saying, and Froude himself possessed the faculty in abundance.

It was not only with the old order that Froude showed his sympathy. He is
seldom ungenerous in his references to individual Catholics, however
mistaken in his sight their opinions may have been. With Wolsey and Warham,
Fisher and More, even with Gardiner and Bonner he deals fairly and with
some amount of real sympathy. The heroic death of Campian moves him to pity
just as much as the death of Latimer; the strenuous labours of Father
Parsons to overthrow Elizabeth and Protestantism failed to remove him
beyond the pale of Froude's charitable judgment. One English Catholic alone
was reserved for the historian's harsh and sometimes petulant criticism.
For Cardinal Pole Froude felt the angriest contempt. He was descended from
the blood royal, both of England and of Wales. On his father's side he was
descended in direct line from the ancient princes of Powis; on his mother's
from the Plantagenets and the Nevilles. He was the most learned and
illustrious Englishman of his age. He had stood high in King Henry's
favour; he was destined for the greatest offices in the state. He was not
without natural ambition. Yet he forfeited all that he had--the favour of
his prince, the society of his mother whom he loved, and the kindred who
were proud of him, the hope of promotion and of power, his friends, his
home, and his country, for conscience' sake. He remained true to the
ancient faith in which he was reared. With unerring instinct he foresaw
that, once England was severed from the Papacy, it would be impossible for
king or parliament to stem the flood of the Reformation. For twenty years
he remained an exile on the continent. He returned an old and broken man,
to witness the overthrow of his cherished plans. He was repudiated by the
Pope whose authority he had sacrificed everything to maintain, and in his
old age he suffered the humiliation of being accused of heresy in the court
of Rome. He died the same day as Mary died, with the knowledge that all his
life's labours and sacrifices were come to naught, and that the dominion of
the Roman Church in England was gone for ever. Froude saw none of the
pathos or tragedy of Pole's life. To him the cardinal was a renegade, a
traitor to his country, a mercenary of the Pope, a foreign potentate, a
"hysterical dreamer," who vainly imagined that he was "the champion of
heaven, and the destroyer of heresy."

Froude was, above all, an Englishman. His strongest sympathies went out to
the "God's Englishmen" of Elizabeth's reign, who broke the power of Rome
and Spain, and who made England supreme in Europe. In his first chapter he
describes the qualities of Englishmen with a zest and gusto that drew the
comment from Carlyle that "this seems to me exaggerated: what we call John
Bullish." He described them as "a sturdy, high-hearted race, sound in body
and fierce in spirit which, under the stimulus of those great shins of
beef, their common diet, were the wonder of the age." Carlyle's advice when
he read this passage in proof was characteristic:--"Modify a little:
Frederick the Great was brought up on beer-sops; Robert Burns on oatmeal
porridge; and Mahomet and the Caliphs conquered the world on barley meal."
But the passage stood unmodified, in spite of Froude's regard for his
master.

How this fierce and turbulent people fought their way to world-wide empire
was a problem which Froude thought he was able to solve. It was, in the
main, because they broke down the power of the priests, and insisted on the
supremacy of state over Church. Therefore all his filial affection, his
patriotism, and his ecclesiastical prejudices were arrayed on the same
side. If history be an exact science, then Froude can lay no claim to the
title of historian. He was a brilliant advocate, a man of letters endowed
with a matchless style, writing of matters which interested him deeply, and
in the investigation of which he spent twenty years of his life. Froude
himself would have been the first to repudiate the idea that history is
philosophy teaching by examples, or that an historian has necessarily a
greater insight into the problems of the present than any other observant
student of affairs. "Gibbon," he once wrote, "believed that the era of
conquerors was at an end. Had he lived out the full life of man, he would
have seen Europe at the feet of Napoleon. But a few years ago we believed
the world had grown too civilised for war, and the Crystal Palace in Hyde
Park was to be the inauguration of a new era. Battles, bloody as
Napoleon's, are now the familiar tale of every day; and the arts which have
made the greatest progress are the arts of destruction."

It is absurd to attack Froude on the ground that he was biassed. No man has
ever yet written a living history without being biassed. Thucydides
detested the radicalism of Cleon as heartily as Gibbon hated the
Christianity of Rome. It was once the fashion of the Oxford school to decry
Froude as being unworthy of the name of historian. Stubbs, indeed, did pay
public tribute to Froude's "great work," but he stood almost alone of his
school. Freeman for many years pursued and persecuted Froude with a
persistent malevolence which happily has no parallel in the story of
English scholarship. It is not necessary in this place to do more than
refer to that unpleasant episode. Since the publication of the brilliant
vindication of Froude in Mr. Herbert Paul's _Life_, it would be superfluous
to go into the details of that unhappy controversy. The only difference
between Froude and other historians is that Froude's partisanship is always
obvious. He was not more favourable to Henry VIII. than Stubbs was to
Thomas à Becket. But Froude openly avowed his preferences and his dislikes.
Catholicism was to him "a dying superstition," Protestantism "a living
truth." Freeman went further, and charged Froude with having written a
history which was not "_un livre de bonne joy._" It is only necessary to
recall the circumstances under which the _History_ was written to dispose
of that odious charge. In order to obtain material for his _History_,
Froude spent years of his life in the little Spanish village of Simancas.
"I have worked in all," he said in his Apologia, "through nine hundred
volumes of letters, notes, and other papers, private and official, in five
languages and in different handwritings. I am not rash enough to say that I
have never misread a word, or overlooked a passage of importance. I profess
only to have dealt with my materials honestly to the best of my ability."
Few, indeed, have had to encounter such difficulties as met Froude in his
exploration of the archives at Simancas. "Often at the end of a page," he
wrote many years after, "I have felt as after descending a precipice, and
have wondered how I got down. I had to cut my way through a jungle, for no
one had opened the road for me. I have been turned into rooms piled to the
window-sill with bundles of dust-coloured despatches, and told to make the
best of it. Often have I found the sand glistening on the ink where it had
been sprinkled when a page was turned. There the letter had lain, never
looked at again since it was read and put away." Of these difficulties not
a trace is discoverable in Froude's easy and effortless narrative. When he
was approaching the completion of his _History_, he vowed that his account
of the Armada should be as interesting as a novel. He succeeded not only
with that portion of his task, but with all the stirring story that he set
out to narrate. But the ease of his style only concealed the real pains
which he had taken. Of Freeman's charge Froude has long been honourably
acquitted. The Simancas MSS. have since been published in the Rolls Series,
and Mr. Martin Hume, in his Introduction, has paid his tribute to the care,
accuracy, and good faith of their first transcriber. Long before this
testimony could be given, Scottish historians who disagreed with Froude's
conclusions on many points,--men such as Skelton and Burton--had been
profoundly impressed with the care, skill, and conscientiousness with which
Froude handled the mass of tangled materials relating to the history of
Scotland.

This does not mean that Froude is free from minor inaccuracies, or that he
is innocent of graver faults which flowed from his abundant quality of
imagination. He constantly quotes a sentence inaccurately in his text,
while it is accurately transcribed in a footnote. He is careless in matters
which are important to students of Debrett, as for instance, he
indiscriminately describes Lord Howard as Lord William Howard and Lord
Howard. But Froude was sometimes guilty of something worse than these
trivial "howlers." Lecky exposed, with calm ruthlessness, some of Froude's
exaggerations--to call them by no worse name--in his _Story of the English
in Ireland_. When his _Erasmus_ was translated into Dutch, the countrymen
of Erasmus accused him of constant, if not deliberate, inaccuracy. Lord
Carnarvon once sent Froude to South Africa as an informal special
commissioner. When he returned to this country he wrote an article on the
South African problem in the _Quarterly Review_. Sir Bartle Frere, who knew
South Africa as few men did, said of it that it was an "essay in which for
whole pages a truth expressed in brilliant epigrams alternates with
mistakes or misstatements which would scarcely be pardoned in a special war
correspondent hurriedly writing against time." So dangerous is the quality
of imagination in a writer!

Truth to tell, Froude was a literary man with a fondness for historical
investigation, and an artist's passion for the dramatic in life and story.
He wrote with a purpose--that purpose being to defend the English
Reformation against the attacks of the neo-Catholic-Anglicans, under whose
influence he had himself been for a time in his youth. To him, therefore,
Henry VIII. was "the majestic lord who broke the bonds of Rome." This is
not the occasion, nor is the present writer the man, to analyse that
complex and masterful personality. Froude started to defend the English
Reformation against the vile charge that it was the outcome of kingly lust.
That charge he has finally dispelled. Henry VIII. was not the monster that
Lingard painted. He beheaded two queens, but few will be found to assert
to-day that either Anne Boleyn or Catherine Howard were innocent martyrs.
People must agree to differ to the crack of doom as to the justice of
Catherine's divorce. It is one of those questions which different men will
continue to answer in different ways. But one thing is abundantly clear. If
Henry was actuated merely by passion for Anne Boleyn, he would scarcely
have waited for years before putting Queen Catherine away. Henry divorced
Anne of Cleves, but Anne, who survived the dissolution of her marriage and
remained in England for twenty years, made no complaint of her treatment,
and she has had no champions either among Catholic or Protestant writers.
Her divorce is only remembered as the occasion of the downfall of the
greatest statesman of his age, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. But in his
eagerness to proclaim the truth, Froude went on to defend a paradox. Once
free from the charge of lust,--and compared with Francis of France or
Charles V., Henry was a continent man--Henry became to Froude the ideal
monarch.

Some one has said that Henry VIII. was the greatest king that ever lived,
because he always got his own way. If that be the test, then Henry was
indeed "every inch a king." He broke with Rome; he deposed the Pope from
his supremacy over England; he dissolved the monasteries; he sent the
noblest and wisest in England to the scaffold; he reduced Wales to law and
order and gave her a constitution; he married and unmarried as he liked; he
disposed of the succession to the throne of England by his will; and his
people never murmured. Only once, when the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out,
was his throne in any danger, and that insurrection he easily suppressed.
He made war with France; he invaded Scotland more than once, and every time
with striking success. He played his vigorous part in European politics,
and at his death he left his realm inviolate. It is an amazing record,
which might well dazzle a writer of Froude's temperament and training. But
there are dark shades in the picture, which Froude was content to make
little of, if not to ignore. He is fond of contrasting Henry's way with
conspirators with that of his daughter Elizabeth. He sneers at her
"tenderness" towards high-born traitors, and never ceases to reproach her
with her one act of repression after the Yorkshire rising. But he had not a
word to say against the tyrannical murders of Henry VIII. Elizabeth truly
boasted that she never punished opinion: Henry sent to the scaffold better
men than himself for holding academical opinions contrary to his own.
Cardinal Fisher may have been--after the publication of Chappuys's letters
it is not possible to deny that he was--technically guilty of treason. But
he was a saint and an old man past eighty, and "the earth on the edge of
the grave was already crumbling under his feet." The king spared neither
age nor worth nor innocence. He had been the familiar friend of More; he
had walked through his gardens at Chelsea leaning on his arm; More had been
his chancellor; he was still the greatest of his subjects; while frankly
admitting that he differed in opinion from the king on the question of the
royal supremacy, he promised that he would not try to influence others.
Henry was inexorable. He not only condemned him to die a traitor's
death,--he added a callous message, which still rouses the indignation of
every generous soul, that he should "not use many words on the scaffold."
Thomas Cromwell had served him as few ministers have served a king; to him
was due--or, at least, he was the capable instrument of--the policy which
has given distinction to Henry's reign; but he was delivered over to his
enemies when the king's caprice had shifted to another quarter. Even Froude
finds it difficult to excuse the execution of More and Cromwell. But,
having once made up his mind to make a hero of Henry, he goes on with it
bravely to the end. He hides nothing, he excuses nothing, he extenuates
nothing. Neither the death of the aged Countess of Salisbury or of the
gallant Earl of Surrey, nor the illegal imprisonment of the aged Norfolk,
the hero of Flodden, shakes his faith in his hero-king. He even relates,
with minute detail, how a few days before the king's death, four poor
persons, one of whom was a tailor, were burnt at the stake for denying the
Real Presence. But his final comment on it all was: "His personal faults
were great, and he shared, besides them, in the errors of his age; but far
deeper blemishes would be but scars upon the features of a sovereign who in
trying times sustained nobly the honour of the English name, and carried
the commonwealth securely through the hardest crisis in its history."

When a young man Froude had been elected Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
This entailed his taking holy orders, though he does not seem to have
regularly performed the duties of a clergyman. In 1849 he published his
first book, _The Nemesis of Faith_, now happily forgotten. It raised an
immediate commotion. It was denounced as heretical, and the senior tutor of
Exeter burnt it during a lecture in the College Hall. Froude resigned his
Fellowship, and his connection with the university was severed for
thirty-three years. He was one of the first to take advantage of the
alteration of the law which enabled a clergyman to resign his orders. In
1892 he went back to Oxford as Regius Professor of Modern History. "The
temptation of going back to Oxford in a respectable way," he said, "was too
much for me." He died on October 20, 1894, and on his tombstone he is
simply described, by his own wish, as Professor of Modern History in the
University of Oxford.

The writer is indebted for information with regard to Froude's life to Mr.
Pollard's article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and to Mr.
Herbert Paul's admirable _Life of Froude_ (Pitman).

W. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS.

_November_ 16, 1908.

The following is a list of the published works of J.A. Froude:

    Life of St. Neot (Lives of the English Saints, edited by J.H. Newman),
    1844; Shadows of the Clouds (Tales), by Zeta (_pseud._), 1847; A Sermon
    (on 2 Cor. vii. 10) preached at St. Mary's Church on the Death of the
    Rev. George May Coleridge, 1847; Article on Spinoza (_Oxford and
    Cambridge Review_), 1847; The Nemesis of Faith (Tale), 1849; England's
    Forgotten Worthies (_Westminster Review_), 1852; Book of Job
    (_Westminster Review)_, 1853; Poems of Matthew Arnold (_Westminster
    Review_), 1854; Suggestions on the Best Means of Teaching English
    History (Oxford Essays, etc.), 1855; History of England, 12 vols.,
    1856-70; The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish Character,
    1865; Inaugural Address delivered to the University of St. Andrews,
    March 19, 1869, 1869; Short Studies on Great Subjects, 1867, 2 vols.,
    series 2-4, 1871-83 (articles from _Fraser's Magazine, Westminster
    Review_, etc.); The Cat's Pilgrimage, 1870; Calvinism: Address at St.
    Andrews, 1871; The English in Ireland, 3 vols., 1872-74; Bunyan
    (English Men of Letters), 1878; Cæsar: a Sketch, 1879; Two Lectures on
    South Africa, 1880; Thomas Carlyle (a history of the first forty years
    of his life, etc.), 2 vols., 1882; Luther: a Short Biography, 1883;
    Thomas Carlyle (a history of his life in London, 1834-81), 2 vols.,
    1884; Oceana, 1886; The English in the West Indies, 1888; Liberty and
    Property: an Address [1888]; The Two Chiefs of Dunboy, 1889; Lord
    Beaconsfield (a Biography), 1890; The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon,
    1891; The Spanish Story of the Armada, 1892; Life and Letters of
    Erasmus, 1894; English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century, 1895; Lectures
    on the Council of Trent, 1896; My Relations with Carlyle, 1903.

    EDITED:--Carlyle's Reminiscences, 1881; Mrs. Carlyle's Letters, 1883.





CONTENTS

   CHAPTER

      I. SOCIAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

     II. THE LAST YEARS OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF WOLSEY.

    III. THE PARLIAMENT OF 1529.

     IV. CHURCH AND STATE.

      V. MARRIAGE OF HENRY AND ANNE BOLEYN.

     VI. THE PROTESTANTS.

    VII. THE LAST EFFORTS OF DIPLOMACY.

         NOTES.




HENRY VIII

CHAPTER I

SOCIAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

In periods like the present, when knowledge is every day extending, and the
habits and thoughts of mankind are perpetually changing under the influence
of new discoveries, it is no easy matter to throw ourselves back into a
time in which for centuries the European world grew upon a single type, in
which the forms of the father's thoughts were the forms of the son's, and
the late descendant was occupied in treading into paths the footprints of
his distant ancestors. So absolutely has change become the law of our
present condition, that it is identified with energy and moral health; to
cease to change is to lose place in the great race; and to pass away from
off the earth with the same convictions which we found when we entered it,
is to have missed the best object for which we now seem to exist.

It has been, however, with the race of men as it has been with the planet
which they inhabit. As we look back over history, we see times of change
and progress alternating with other times when life and thought have
settled into permanent forms; when mankind, as if by common consent, have
ceased to seek for increase of knowledge, and, contented with what they
possess, have endeavoured to make use of it for purposes of moral
cultivation. Such was the condition of the Greeks through many ages before
the Persian war; such was that of the Romans till the world revenged itself
upon its conquerors by the introduction among them of the habits of the
conquered; and such again became the condition of Europe when the Northern
nations grafted the religion and the laws of the Western empire on their
own hardy natures, and shaped out that wonderful spiritual and political
organisation which remained unshaken for a thousand years.

The aspirant after sanctity in the fifteenth century of the Christian era
found a model which he could imitate in detail in the saint of the fifth.
The gentleman at the court of Edward IV. or Charles of Burgundy could
imagine no nobler type of heroism than he found in the stories of King
Arthur's knights. The forms of life had become more elaborate--the surface
of it more polished--but the life itself remained essentially the same; it
was the development of the same conception of human excellence; just as the
last orders of Gothic architecture were the development of the first, from
which the idea had worked its way till the force of it was exhausted.

A condition of things differing alike both outwardly and inwardly from that
into which a happier fortune has introduced ourselves, is necessarily
obscure to us. In the alteration of our own character, we have lost the key
which would interpret the characters of our fathers, and the great men even
of our own English history before the Reformation seem to us almost like
the fossil skeletons of another order of beings. Some broad conclusions as
to what they were are at least possible to us, however; and we are able to
determine, with tolerable certainty, the social condition of the people of
this country, such as it was before the movements of the sixteenth century,
and during the process of those movements.

The extent of the population can only be rudely conjectured. A rough census
was taken at the time of the Armada, when it was found to be something
under five millions; but anterior to this I can find no authority on which
I can rely with any sort of confidence. It is my impression, however, from
a number of reasons--each in itself insignificant, but which taken together
leave little doubt upon my mind--that it had attained that number by a
growth so slow as to be scarcely perceptible, and had nearly approached to
it many generations before. Simon Fish, in _The Supplication of
Beggars_,[1] says that the number of households in England in 1531 was
520,000. His calculation is of the most random kind; for he rates the
number of parishes at 52,000, with ten households on an average in each
parish. A mistake so preposterous respecting the number of parishes shows
the great ignorance of educated men upon the subject. The ten households in
each parish may, probably (in some parts of the country), have been a
correct computation; but this tells us little with respect to the aggregate
numbers, for the households were very large--the farmers, and the gentlemen
also, usually having all the persons whom they employed residing under
their own roof. Neither from this, therefore, nor from any other positive
statement which I have seen, can I gather any conclusion that may be
depended upon. But when we remember the exceeding slowness with which the
population multiplied in a time in which we can accurately measure it--that
is to say, from 1588 to the opening of the last century--under
circumstances in every way more favourable to an increase, I think we may
assume that the increase was not so great between 1500 and 1588, and that,
previous to 1500, it did not more than keep pace with the waste from civil
and foreign war. The causes, indeed, were wholly wanting which lead to a
rapid growth of numbers. Numbers now increase with the increase of
employment and with the facilities which are provided by the modern system
of labour for the establishment of independent households. At present, any
able-bodied unskilled labourer earns, as soon as he has arrived at man's
estate, as large an amount of wages as he will earn at any subsequent time;
and having no connection with his employer beyond the receiving the due
amount of weekly money from him, and thinking himself as well able to marry
as he is likely to be, he takes a wife, and is usually the father of a
family before he is thirty. Before the Reformation, not only were early
marriages determinately discouraged, but the opportunity for them did not
exist. A labourer living in a cottage by himself was a rare exception to
the rule; and the work of the field was performed generally, as it now is
in the large farms in America and Australia, by servants who lived in the
families of the squire or the farmer, and who, while in that position,
commonly remained single, and married only when by prudence they had saved
a sufficient sum to enable them to enter some other position.

Checked by circumstances of this kind, population would necessarily remain
almost stationary, and a tendency to an increase was not of itself regarded
by the statesmen of the day as any matter for congratulation or as any
evidence of national prosperity. Not an increase of population, which would
facilitate production and beat down wages by competition, but the increase
of the commonwealth, the sound and healthy maintenance of the population
already existing, were the chief objects which the government proposed to
itself; and although Henry VIII. carefully nursed his manufactures, there
is sufficient proof in the grounds alleged for the measures to which he
resorted, that there was little redundancy of occupation.

In a statute, for instance, for the encouragement of the linen
manufactures, it is said[2] that--"The King's Highness, calling to his most
blessed remembrance the great number of idle people daily increasing
throughout this his Realm, supposeth that one great cause thereof is by the
continued bringing into the same the great number of wares and merchandise
made, and brought out and from, the parts beyond the sea into this his
Realm, ready wrought by manual occupation; amongst the which wares one kind
of merchandise in great quantity, which is linen cloth of divers sorts made
in divers countries beyond the sea, is daily conveyed into this Realm;
which great quantity of linen cloth so brought is consumed and spent within
the same; by reason whereof not only the said strange countries where the
said linen cloth is made, by the policy and industry of making and vending
the same are greatly enriched; and a marvellous great number of their
people, men, women, and children, are set on work and occupation, and kept
from idleness, to the great furtherance and advancement of their
commonwealth; but also contrariwise the inhabitants and subjects of this
Realm, for lack of like policy and industry, are compelled to buy all or
most part of the linen cloth consumed in the same, amounting to inestimable
sums of money. And also the people of this Realm, as well men as women,
which should and might be set on work, by exercise of like policy and craft
of spinning, weaving, and making of cloth, lies now in idleness and
otiosity, to the high displeasure of Almighty God, great diminution of the
King's people, and extreme ruin, decay, and impoverishment of this Realm.
Therefore, for reformation of these things, the King's most Royal Majesty
intending, like a most virtuous Prince, to provide remedy in the premises;
nothing so much coveting as the increase of the Commonwealth of this his
Realm, with also the virtuous exercise of his most loving subjects and
people, and to avoid that most abominable sin of idleness out of the Realm,
hath, by the advice and consent of his Lords and Commons in Parliament
assembled, ordained and enacted that every person occupying land for
tillage, shall for every sixty acres which he hath under the plough, sow
one quarter of an acre in flax or hemp."

This Act was designed immediately to keep the wives and children of the
poor in work in their own houses;[3] but it leaves no doubt that
manufactures in England had not of themselves that tendency to
self-development which would encourage an enlarging population. The woollen
manufactures similarly appear, from the many statutes upon them, to have
been vigorous at a fixed level, but to have shown no tendency to rise
beyond that level. With a fixed market and a fixed demand, production
continued uniform.

A few years subsequent, indeed, to the passing of the Act which I have
quoted, a very curious complaint is entered in the statute book, from the
surface of which we should gather, that so far from increasing,
manufactures had alarmingly declined. The fact mentioned may bear another
meaning, and a meaning far more favourable to the state of the country;
although, if such a phenomenon were to occur at the present time, it could
admit of but one interpretation. In the 18th and 19th of the 32nd of Henry
VIII., all the important towns in England, from the Tweed to the Land's
End, are stated, one by one, to have fallen into serious decay. Usually
when we meet with language of this kind, we suppose it to mean nothing more
than an awakening to the consciousness of evils which had long existed, and
which had escaped notice only because no one was alive to them. In the
present instance, however, the language was too strong and too detailed to
allow of this explanation; and the great body of the English towns
undoubtedly were declining in wealth and in the number of their
inhabitants. "Divers and many beautiful houses of habitation," these
statutes say, "built in tyme past within their walls and liberties, now are
fallen down and decayed, and at this day remain unre-edified, and do lie as
desolate and vacant grounds, many of them nigh adjoining to the
High-streets, replenished with much uncleanness and filth, with pits,
sellers, and vaults lying open and uncovered, to the great perill and
danger of the inhabitants and other the King's subjects passing by the
same; and some houses be very weak and feeble, ready to fall down, and
therefore dangerous to pass by, to the great decay and hinderance of the
said boroughs and towns."[4]

At present, the decay of a town implies the decay of the trade of the town;
and the decay of all towns simultaneously would imply a general collapse of
the trade of the whole country. Walled towns, however, before the
Reformation, existed for other purposes than as the centre points of
industry: they existed for the protection of property and life: and
although it is not unlikely that the agitation of the Reformation itself
did to some degree interrupt the occupation of the people, yet I believe
that the true account of the phenomenon which then so much disturbed the
parliament, is, that one of their purposes was no longer required; the
towns flagged for a time because the country had become secure. The woollen
manufacture in Worcestershire was spreading into the open country,[5] and,
doubtless, in other counties as well; and the "beautiful houses" which had
fallen into decay, were those which, in the old times of insecurity, had
been occupied by wealthy merchants and tradesmen, who were now enabled, by
a strong and settled government, to dispense with the shelter of locked
gates and fortified walls, and remove their residences to more convenient
situations. It was, in fact, the first symptom of the impending social
revolution. Two years before the passing of this Act, the magnificent
Hengrave Hall, in Suffolk, had been completed by Sir Thomas Kitson, "mercer
of London,"[6] and Sir Thomas Kitson was but one of many of the rising
merchants who were now able to root themselves on the land by the side of
the Norman nobility, first to rival, and then slowly to displace them.

This mighty change, however, was long in silent progress before it began to
tell on the institutions of the country. When city burghers bought estates,
the law insisted jealously on their accepting with them all the feudal
obligations. Attempts to use the land as "a commodity" were, as we shall
presently see, angrily repressed; while, again, in the majority of
instances, such persons endeavoured, as they do at present, to cover the
recent origin of their families by adopting the manners of the nobles,
instead of transferring the habits of the towns to the parks and chases of
the English counties. The old English organisation maintained its full
activity; and the duties of property continued to be for another century
more considered than its rights.

Turning, then, to the tenure of land--for if we would understand the
condition of the people, it is to this point that our first attention must
be directed--we find that through the many complicated varieties of it
there was one broad principle which bore equally upon every class, that the
land of England must provide for the defence of England. The feudal system,
though practically modified, was still the organising principle of the
nation, and the owner of land was bound to military service for his country
whenever occasion required. Further, the land was to be so administered,
that the accustomed number of families supported by it should not be
diminished, and that the State should suffer no injury from the
carelessness or selfishness of the owners.[7] Land never was private
property in that personal sense of property in which we speak of a thing as
our own, with which we may do as we please; and in the administration of
estates, as indeed in the administration of all property whatsoever, duty
to the State was at all times supposed to override private interest or
inclination. Even tradesmen, who took advantage of the fluctuations of the
market, were rebuked by parliament for "their greedy and covetous minds,"
"as more regarding their own singular lucre and profit than the commonweal
of the Realm;"[8] and although in an altered world, neither industry nor
enterprise will thrive except under the stimulus of self-interest, we may
admire the confidence which in another age expected every man to prefer the
advantage of the community to his own. All land was held upon a strictly
military principle. It was the representative of authority, and the holder
or the owner took rank in the army of the State according to the nature of
his connection with it. It was first broadly divided among the great
nobility holding immediately under the crown, who, above and beyond the
ownership of their private estates, were the Lords of the Fee throughout
their presidency, and possessed in right of it the services of knights and
gentlemen who held their manors under them, and who followed their standard
in war. Under the lords of manors, again, small freeholds and copyholds
were held of various extent, often forty shilling and twenty shilling
value, tenanted by peasant occupiers, who thus, on their own land, lived as
free Englishmen, maintaining by their own free labour themselves and their
families. There was thus a descending scale of owners, each of whom
possessed his separate right, which the law guarded and none might violate;
yet no one of whom, again, was independent of an authority higher than
himself; and the entire body of the English free possessors of the soil was
interpenetrated by a coherent organisation which converted them into a
perpetually subsisting army of soldiers. The extent of land which was held
by the petty freeholders was very large, and the possession of it was
jealously treasured; the private estates of the nobles and gentlemen were
either cultivated by their own servants, or let out, as at present, to free
tenants; or (in earlier times) were occupied by villains, a class who,
without being bondmen, were expected to furnish further services than those
of the field, services which were limited by the law, and recognised by an
outward ceremony, a solemn oath and promise from the villain to his lord.
Villanage, in the reign of Henry VIII., had practically ceased. The name of
it last appears upon the statute book in the early years of the reign of
Richard II., when the disputes between villains and their liege lords on
their relative rights had furnished matter for cumbrous lawsuits, and by
general consent the relation had merged of itself into a more liberal form.
Thus serfdom had merged or was rapidly merging into free servitude; but it
did not so merge that labouring men, if they pleased, were allowed to live
in idleness. Every man was regimented somewhere; and although the
peasantry, when at full age, were allowed, under restrictions, their own
choice of masters, yet the restrictions both on masters and servants were
so severe as to prevent either from taking advantage of the necessities of
the other, or from terminating through caprice or levity, or for any
insufficient reason, a connection presumed to be permanent.[9]

Through all these arrangements a single aim is visible, that every man in
England should have his definite place and definite duty assigned to him,
and that no human being should be at liberty to lead at his own pleasure an
unaccountable existence. The discipline of an army was transferred to the
details of social life, and it issued in a chivalrous perception of the
meaning of the word duty, and in the old characteristic spirit of English
loyalty.

From the regulations with respect to land, a coarser advantage was also
derived, of a kind which at the present time will be effectively
appreciated. It is a common matter of dispute whether landed estates should
be large or small; whether it is better that the land should be divided
among small proprietors, cultivating their own ground, or that it should
follow its present tendency, and be shared by a limited and constantly
diminishing number of wealthy landlords. The advocates for a peasant
proprietary tell us truly, that a landed monopoly is dangerous; that the
possession of a spot of ground, though it be but a few acres, is the best
security for loyalty, giving the state a pledge for its owner, and creating
in the body of the nation a free, vigorous, and manly spirit. The advocates
for the large estates tell us, that the masses are too ill-educated to be
trusted with independence; that without authority over them, these small
proprietors become wasteful, careless, improvident; that the free spirit
becomes a democratic and dangerous spirit; and finally, that the resources
of the land cannot properly be brought out by men without capital to
cultivate it. Either theory is plausible. The advocates of both can support
their arguments with an appeal to experience; and the verdict of fact has
not as yet been pronounced emphatically.

The problem will be resolved in the future history of this country. It was
also nobly and skilfully resolved in the past. The knights and nobles
retained the authority and power which was attached to the lordships of the
fees. They retained extensive estates in their own hands or in the
occupation of their immediate tenants; but the large proportion of the
lands was granted out by them to smaller owners, and the expenditure of
their own incomes in the wages and maintenance of their vast retinues left
but a small margin for indulgence in luxuries. The necessities of their
position obliged them to regard their property rather as a revenue to be
administered in trust, than as "a fortune" to be expended in indulgence.
Before the Reformation, while the differences of social degree were
enormous, the differences in habits of life were comparatively slight, and
the practice of men in these things was curiously the reverse of our own.
Dress, which now scarcely suffices to distinguish the master from his
servant, was then the symbol of rank, prescribed by statute to the various
orders of society as strictly as the regimental uniform to officers and
privates; diet also was prescribed, and with equal strictness; but the diet
of the nobleman was ordered down to a level which was then within the reach
of the poorest labourer. In 1336, the following law was enacted by the
Parliament of Edward III.:[10] "Whereas, heretofore through the excessive
and over-many sorts of costly meats which the people of this Realm have
used more than elsewhere, many mischiefs have happened to the people of
this Realm--for the great men by these excesses have been sore grieved; and
the lesser people, who only endeavour to imitate the great ones in such
sort of meats, are much impoverished, whereby they are not able to aid
themselves, nor their liege lord, in time of need, as they ought; and many
other evils have happened, as well to their souls as their bodies--our Lord
the King, desiring the common profit as well of the great men as the common
people of his Realm, and considering the evils, grievances, and mischiefs
aforesaid, by the common assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and other
nobles of his said Realm, and of the commons of the same Realm, hath
ordained and established that no man, of what estate or condition soever he
be, shall cause himself to be served, in his house or elsewhere, at dinner,
meal, or supper, or at any other time, with more than two courses, and each
mess of two sorts of victuals at the utmost, be it of flesh or fish, with
the common sorts of pottage, without sauce or any other sorts of victuals.
And if any man choose to have sauce for his mess, he may, provided it be
not made at great cost; and if fish or flesh be to be mixed therein, it
shall be of two sorts only at the utmost, either fish or flesh, and shall
stand instead of a mess, except only on the principal feasts of the year,
on which days every man may be served with three courses at the utmost,
after the manner aforesaid."

Sumptuary laws are among the exploded fallacies which we have outgrown, and
we smile at the unwisdom which could expect to regulate private habits and
manners by statute. Yet some statutes may be of moral authority when they
cannot be actually enforced, and may have been regarded, even at the time
at which they were issued, rather as an authoritative declaration of what
wise and good men considered to be right, than as laws to which obedience
could be compelled. This act, at any rate, witnesses to what was then
thought to be right by "the great persons" of the English realm; and when
great persons will submit themselves of their free will to regulations
which restrict their private indulgence, they are in little danger of
disloyalty from those whom fortune has placed below them.

Such is one aspect of these old arrangements; it is unnecessary to say that
with these, as with all other institutions created and worked by human
beings, the picture admits of being reversed. When by the accident of birth
men are placed in a position of authority, no care in their training will
prevent it from falling often to singularly unfit persons. The command of a
permanent military force was a temptation to ambition, to avarice, or
hatred, to the indulgence of private piques and jealousies, to political
discontent on private and personal grounds. A combination of three or four
of the leading nobles was sufficient, when an incapable prince sate on the
throne, to effect a revolution; and the rival claims of the houses of York
and Lancaster to the crown, took the form of a war unequalled in history
for its fierce and determined malignancy, the whole nation tearing itself
in pieces in a quarrel in which no principle was at stake, and no national
object was to be gained. A more terrible misfortune never befel either this
or any other country, and it was made possible only in virtue of that
loyalty with which the people followed the standard, through good and evil,
of their feudal superiors. It is still a question, however, whether the
good or the evil of the system predominated; and the answer to such
question is the more difficult because we have no criterion by which, in
these matters, degrees of good and evil admit of being measured. Arising
out of the character of the nation, it reflected this character in all its
peculiarities; and there is something truly noble in the coherence of
society upon principles of fidelity. Fidelity of man to man is among the
rarest excellences of humanity, and we can tolerate large evils which arise
out of such a cause. Under the feudal system men were held together by
oaths, free acknowledgments, and reciprocal obligations, entered into by
all ranks, high and low, binding servants to their masters, as well as
nobles to their kings; and in the frequent forms of the language in which
the oaths were sworn we cannot choose but see that we have lost something
in exchanging these ties for the harsher connecting links of mutual
self-interest.

"When a freeman shall do fealty to his lord," the statute says, "he shall
hold his right hand upon the book, and shall say thus:--Hear you, my lord,
that I shall be to you both faithful and true, and shall owe my faith to
you for the land that I hold, and lawfully shall do such customs and
services as my duty is to you, at the times assigned, so help me God and
all his saints."

"The villain," also, "when he shall do fealty to his lord, shall hold his
right hand over the book, and shall say:--Hear you, my lord, that I from
this day forth unto you shall be true and faithful, and shall owe you
fealty for the land which I hold of you in villanage; and that no evil or
damage will I see concerning you, but I will defend and warn you to my
power. So help me God and all his saints."[11]

Again, in the distribution of the produce of land, men dealt fairly and
justly with each other; and in the material condition of the bulk of the
people there is a fair evidence that the system worked efficiently and
well. It worked well for the support of a sturdy high-hearted race, sound
in body and fierce in spirit, and furnished with thews and sinews which,
under the stimulus of those "great shins of beef,"[12] their common diet,
were the wonder of the age. "What comyn folke in all this world," says a
state paper in 1515[13] "may compare with the comyns of England in riches,
freedom, liberty, welfare, and all prosperity? What comyn folke is so
mighty, so strong in the felde, as the comyns of England?" The relative
numbers of the French and English armies which fought at Cressy and
Agincourt may have been exaggerated, but no allowance for exaggeration will
effect the greatness of those exploits; and in stories of authentic actions
under Henry VIII., where the accuracy of the account is undeniable, no
disparity of force made Englishmen shrink from enemies wherever they could
meet them. Again and again a few thousands of them carried dismay into the
heart of France. Four hundred adventurers, vagabond apprentices, from
London,[14] who formed a volunteer corps in the Calais garrison, were for
years the terror of Normandy. In the very frolic of conscious power they
fought and plundered, without pay, without reward, except what they could
win for themselves; and when they fell at last they fell only when
surrounded by six times their number, and were cut to pieces in careless
desperation. Invariably, by friend and enemy alike, the English are
described as the fiercest people in all Europe (the English wild beasts,
Benvenuto Cellini calls them); and this great physical power they owed to
the profuse abundance in which they lived, and to the soldier's training in
which every man of them was bred from childhood. The state of the working
classes can, however, be more certainly determined by a comparison of their
wages with the prices of food. Both were regulated, so far as regulation
was possible, by act of parliament, and we have therefore data of the
clearest kind by which to judge. The majority of agricultural labourers
lived, as I have said, in the houses of their employers; this, however, was
not the case with all, and if we can satisfy ourselves as to the rate at
which those among the poor were able to live who had cottages of their own,
we may be assured that the rest did not live worse at their masters'
tables.

Wheat, the price of which necessarily varied, averaged in the middle of the
fourteenth century tenpence the bushel;[15] barley averaging at the same
time three shillings the quarter. With wheat the fluctuation was excessive;
a table of its possible variations describes it as ranging from
eighteenpence the quarter to twenty shillings; the average, however, being
six and eightpence.[16] When the price was above this sum, the merchants
might import to bring it down;[17] when it was below this price the farmers
were allowed to export to the foreign markets.[18] The same scale, with a
scarcely appreciable tendency to rise, continued to hold until the
disturbance in the value of the currency. In the twelve years from 1551 to
1562, although once before harvest wheat rose to the extraordinary price of
forty-five shillings a quarter, it fell immediately after to five shillings
and four.[19] Six and eightpence continued to be considered in parliament
as the average; [20] and on the whole it seems to have been maintained for
that time with little variation.[21]

Beef and pork were a halfpenny a pound--mutton was three farthings. They
were fixed at these prices by the 3rd of the 24th of Hen. VIII. But the act
was unpopular both with buyers and with sellers. The old practice had been
to sell in the gross, and under that arrangement the rates had been
generally lower. Stow says,[22] "It was this year enacted that butchers
should sell their beef and mutton by weight--beef for a halfpenny the
pound, and mutton for three farthings; which being devised for the great
commodity of the realm (as it was thought), hath proved far otherwise: for
at that time fat oxen were sold for six and twenty shillings and eightpence
the piece; fat wethers for three shillings and fourpence the piece; fat
calves at a like price; and fat lambs for twelvepence. The butchers of
London sold penny pieces of beef for the relief of the poor--every piece
two pound and a half, sometimes three pound for a penny; and thirteen and
sometimes fourteen of these pieces for twelvepence; mutton eightpence the
quarter, and an hundred weight of beef for four shillings and eightpence."
The act was repealed in consequence of the complaints against it,[23] but
the prices never fell again to what they had been, although beef sold in
the gross could still be had for a halfpenny a pound in 1570.[24] Other
articles of food were in the same proportion. The best pig or goose in a
country market could be bought for fourpence; a good capon for threepence
or fourpence; a chicken for a penny; a hen for twopence.[25]

Strong beer, such as we now buy for eighteenpence a gallon, was then a
penny a gallon;[26] and table-beer less than a halfpenny. French and German
wines were eightpence the gallon. Spanish and Portuguese wines a shilling.
This was the highest price at which the best wines might be sold; and if
there was any fault in quality or quantity, the dealers forfeited four
times the amount.[27] Rent, another important consideration, cannot be
fixed so accurately, for parliament did not interfere with it. Here,
however, we are not without very tolerable information. "My father," says
Latimer,[28] "was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a
_farm of three or four pounds by the year_ at the uttermost, and hereupon
he tilled so much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred
sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king
a harness with himself and his horse. I remember that I buckled on his
harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I
had not been able to have preached before the King's Majesty now. He
married my sisters with five pounds, or twenty nobles, each, having brought
them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor
neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor; and all this he did of the
said farm." If "three or four pounds at the uttermost" was the rent of a
farm yielding such results, the rent of labourers' cottages is not likely
to have been considerable.[29]

Some uncertainty is unavoidable in all calculations of the present nature;
yet, after making the utmost allowances for errors, we may conclude from
such a table of prices that a penny, in terms of the labourer's
necessities, must have been nearly equal in the reign of Henry VIII. to the
present shilling. For a penny, at the time of which I write, the labourer
could buy as much bread, beef, beer, and wine--he could do as much towards
finding lodging for himself and his family--as the labourer of the
nineteenth century can for a shilling. I do not see that this admits of
question. Turning, then, to the table of wages, it will be easy to
ascertain his position. By the 3rd of the 6th of Henry VIII. it was enacted
that master carpenters, masons, bricklayers, tylers, plumbers, glaziers,
joiners, and other employers of such skilled workmen, should give to each
of their journeymen, if no meat or drink was allowed, sixpence a day for
the half year, fivepence a day for the other half; or fivepence-halfpenny
for the yearly average. The common labourers were to receive fourpence a
day for half the year, for the remaining half, threepence.[30] In the
harvest months they were allowed to work by the piece, and might earn
considerably more;[31] so that, in fact (and this was the rate at which
their wages were usually estimated), the day labourer, if in full
employment, received on an average fourpence a day for the whole year.
Allowing a deduction of one day in a fortnight for a saint's day or a
holiday, he received, therefore, steadily and regularly, if well conducted,
an equivalent of something near to twenty shillings a week, the wages at
present paid in English colonies: and this is far from being a full account
of his advantages. Except in rare instances, the agricultural labourer held
land in connection with his house, while in most parishes, if not in all,
there were large ranges of common and unenclosed forest land, which
furnished his fuel to him gratis, where pigs might range, and ducks and
geese; where, if he could afford a cow, he was in no danger of being unable
to feed it; and so important was this privilege considered, that when the
commons began to be largely enclosed, parliament insisted that the working
man should not be without some piece of ground on which he could employ his
own and his family's industry.[32] By the 7th of the 31st of Elizabeth, it
was ordered that no cottage should be built for residence without four
acres of land at lowest being attached to it for the sole use of the
occupants of such cottage.

It will, perhaps, be supposed that such comparative prosperity of labour
was the result of the condition of the market in which it was sold, that
the demand for labour was large and the supply limited, and that the state
of England in the sixteenth century was analogous to that of Australia or
Canada at the present time. And so long as we confine our view to the
question of wages alone, it is undoubted that legislation was in favour of
the employer. The Wages Act of Henry VIII. was unpopular with the
labourers, and was held to deprive them of an opportunity of making better
terms for themselves.[33] But we shall fall into extreme error if we
translate into the language of modern political economy the social features
of a state of things which in no way correspond to our own. There was this
essential difference, that labour was not looked upon as a market
commodity; the government (whether wisely or not, I do not presume to
determine) attempting to portion out the rights of the various classes of
society by the rule, not of economy, but of equity. Statesmen did not care
for the accumulation of capital; they desired to see the physical
well-being of all classes of the commonwealth maintained at the highest
degree which the producing power of the country admitted; and population
and production remaining stationary, they were able to do it. This was
their object, and they were supported in it by a powerful and efficient
majority of the nation. On the one side parliament interfered to protect
employers against their labourers; but it was equally determined that
employers should not be allowed to abuse their opportunities; and this
directly appears from the 4th of the 5th of Elizabeth, by which, on the
most trifling appearance of a depreciation in the currency, it was declared
that the labouring man could no longer live on the wages assigned to him by
the act of Henry; and a sliding scale was instituted by which, for the
future, wages should be adjusted to the price of food.[34]

The same conclusion may be gathered also, indirectly, from other acts,
interfering imperiously with the rights of property where a disposition
showed itself to exercise them selfishly. The city merchants, as I have
said, were becoming landowners; and some of them attempted to apply the
rules of trade to the management of landed estates. While wages were ruled
so high, it answered better as a speculation to convert arable land into
pasture; but the law immediately stepped in to prevent a proceeding which
it regarded as petty treason to the commonwealth. Self-protection is the
first law of life; and the country relying for its defence on an
able-bodied population, evenly distributed, ready at any moment to be
called into action, either against foreign invasion or civil disturbance,
it could not permit the owners of land to pursue for their own benefit a
course of action which threatened to weaken its garrisons. It is not often
that we are able to test the wisdom of legislation by specific results so
clearly as in the present instance. The first attempts of the kind which I
have described were made in the Isle of Wight, early in the reign of Henry
VII. Lying so directly exposed to attacks from France, the Isle of Wight
was a place which it was peculiarly important to keep in a state of
defence, and the following act was therefore the consequence:--

"Forasmuch as it is to the surety of the Realm of England that the Isle of
Wight, in the county of Southampton, be well inhabited with English people,
for the defence as well of our antient enemies of the Realm of France as of
other parties; the which Isle is late decayed of people by reason that many
towns and villages have been let down, and the fields dyked and made
pasture for beasts and cattle, and also many dwelling-places, farms, and
farmholds have of late time been used to be taken into one man's hold and
hands, that of old time were wont to be in many several persons' holds and
hands, and many several households kept in them; and thereby much people
multiplied, and the same Isle thereby well inhabited, which now, by the
occasion aforesaid, is desolate and not inhabited, but occupied with beasts
and cattle, so that if hasty remedy be not provided, that Isle cannot long
be kept and defended, but open and ready to the hands of the king's
enemies, which God forbid. For remedy hereof, it is ordained and enacted
that no manner of person, of what estate, degree, or condition soever,
shall take any several farms more than one, whereof the yearly value shall
not exceed the sum of ten marks; and if any several leases afore this time
have been made to any person or persons of divers and sundry farmholds,
whereof the yearly value shall exceed that sum, then the said person or
persons shall choose one farmhold at his pleasure, and the remnant of his
leases shall be utterly void."[35]

An act, tyrannical in form, was singularly justified by its consequences.
The farms were rebuilt, the lands reploughed, the island repeopled; and in
1546, when a French army of sixty thousand men attempted to effect a
landing at St. Helen's, they were defeated and driven off by the militia of
the island and a few levies transported from Hampshire and the adjoining
counties.[36] The money-making spirit, however, lay too deep to be checked
so readily. The trading classes were growing rich under the strong rule of
the Tudors. Increasing numbers of them were buying or renting land; and the
symptoms complained of broke out in the following reign in many parts of
England. They could not choose but break out indeed; for they were the
outward marks of a vital change, which was undermining the feudal
constitution, and would by and bye revolutionise and destroy it. Such
symptoms it was impossible to extinguish; but the government wrestled long
and powerfully to hold down the new spirit; and they fought against it
successfully, till the old order of things had finished its work, and the
time was come for it to depart. By the 1st of the 7th of Henry VIII., the
laws of feudal tenure were put in force against the landed traders.
Wherever lands were converted from tillage to pasture, the lords of the fee
had authority to seize half of all profits until the farm-buildings were
reconstructed. If the immediate lord did not do his duty, the lord next
above him was to do it; and the evil still increasing, the act, twenty
years later, was extended further, and the king had power to seize.[37] Nor
was this all. Sheep-farming had become an integral branch of business; and
falling into the hands of men who understood each other, it had been made a
monopoly, affecting seriously the prices of wool and mutton.[38] Stronger
measures were therefore now taken, and the class to which the offenders
belonged was especially pointed out by parliament.

"Whereas," says the 13th of the 25th of Henry VIII., "divers and sundry
persons of the king's subjects of this Realm, to whom God of his goodness
hath disposed great plenty and abundance of moveable substance, now of
late, within few years, have daily studied, practised, and invented ways
and means how they might accumulate and gather together into few hands, as
well great multitude of farms as great plenty of cattle, and in especial,
sheep, putting such lands as they can get to pasture and not to tillage;
whereby they have not only pulled down churches and towns and enhanced the
old rates of the rents of the possessions of this Realm, or else brought it
to such excessive fines that no poor man is able to meddle with it, but
also have raised and enhanced the prices of all manner of corn, cattle,
wool, pigs, geese, hens, chickens, eggs, and such other commodities, almost
double above the prices which hath been accustomed, by reason whereof a
marvellous multitude of the poor people of this realm be not able to
provide meat, drink, and clothes necessary for themselves, their wives, and
children, but be so discouraged with misery and poverty, that they fall
daily to theft, robbery, and other inconveniences, or pitifully die for
hunger and cold; and it is thought by the king's humble and loving
subjects, that one of the greatest occasions that moveth those greedy and
covetous people so to accumulate and keep in their hands such great
portions and parts of the lands of this Realm from the occupying of the
poor husbandmen, and so to use it in pasture and not in tillage, is the
great profit that cometh of sheep which be now come into a few persons'
hands, in respect of the whole number of the king's subjects; it is hereby
enacted, that no person shall have or keep on lands not their own
inheritance more than 2000 sheep; that no person shall occupy more than two
farms; and that the 19th of the 4th of Henry VII., and those other acts
obliging the lords of the fees to do their duty, shall be re-enacted and
enforced."[39]

By these measures the money-making spirit was for a time driven back, and
the country resumed its natural course. I am not concerned to defend the
economic wisdom of such proceedings; but they prove, I think, conclusively,
that the labouring classes owed their advantages not to the condition of
the labour market, but to the care of the state; and that when the state
relaxed its supervision, or failed to enforce its regulations, the
labourers being left to the market chances, sank instantly in the unequal
struggle with capital.

The government, however, remained strong enough to hold its ground (except
during the discreditable interlude of the reign of Edward VI.) for the
first three quarters of the century; and until that time the working
classes of this country remained in a condition more than prosperous. They
enjoyed an abundance far beyond what in general falls to the lot of that
order in long-settled countries; incomparably beyond what the same class
were enjoying at that very time in Germany or France. The laws secured
them; and that the laws were put in force we have the direct evidence of
successive acts of the legislature justifying the general policy by its
success: and we have also the indirect evidence of the contented loyalty of
the great body of the people at a time when, if they had been discontented,
they held in their own hands the means of asserting what the law
acknowledged to be their right. The government had no power to compel
submission to injustice, as was proved by the fate of an attempt to levy a
"benevolence" by force, in 1525. The people resisted with a determination
against which the crown commissioners were unable to contend, and the
scheme ended with an acknowledgment of fault by Henry, who retired with a
good grace from an impossible position. If the peasantry had been suffering
under any real grievances we should not have failed to have heard of them
when the religious rebellions furnished so fair an opportunity to press
those grievances forward. Complaint was loud enough when complaint was
just, under the Somerset protectorate. [40]

The incomes of the great nobles cannot be determined, for they varied
probably as much as they vary now. Under Henry IV. the average income of an
earl was estimated at £2000 a year.[41] Under Henry VIII. the great Duke of
Buckingham, the wealthiest English peer, had £6000.[42] And the income of
the Archbishop of Canterbury was rated at the same amount.[43] But the
establishments of such men were enormous; their ordinary retinues in time
of peace consisting of many hundred persons; and in war, when the duties of
a nobleman called him to the field, although in theory his followers were
paid by the crown, yet the grants of parliament were on so small a scale
that the theory was seldom converted into fact, and a large share of the
expenses was paid often out of private purses. The Duke of Norfolk, in the
Scotch war of 1523, declared (not complaining of it, but merely as a reason
why he should receive support) that he had spent all his private means upon
the army; and in the sequel of this history we shall find repeated
instances of knights and gentlemen voluntarily ruining themselves in the
service of their country. The people, not universally, but generally, were
animated by a true spirit of sacrifice; by a true conviction that they were
bound to think first of England, and only next of themselves; and unless we
can bring ourselves to understand this, we shall never understand what
England was under the reigns of the Plantagenets and Tudors. The expenses
of the court under Henry VII. were a little over £14,000 a year, out of
which were defrayed the whole cost of the king's establishment, the
expenses of entertaining foreign ambassadors, the wages and maintenance of
the yeomen of the guard, the retinues of servants, and all necessary outlay
not incurred for public business. Under Henry VIII., of whose extravagance
we have heard so much, and whose court was the most magnificent in the
world, these expenses were £19,894 16s. 8d.,[44] a small sum when compared
with the present cost of the royal establishment, even if we adopt the
relative estimate of twelve to one, and suppose it equal to £240,000 a year
of our money. But indeed it was not equal to £240,000; for, although the
proportion held in articles of common consumption, articles of luxury were
very dear indeed.[45]

Passing down from the king and his nobles, to the body of the people, we
find that the income qualifying a country gentleman to be justice of the
peace was £20 a year, [46] and if he did his duty, his office was no
sinecure. We remember Justice Shallow and his clerk Davy, with his novel
theory of magisterial law; and Shallow's broad features have so English a
cast about them, that we may believe there were many such, and that the
duty was not always very excellently done. But the Justice Shallows were
not allowed to repose upon their dignity. The justice of the peace was
required not only to take cognisance of open offences, but to keep
surveillance over all persons within his district, and over himself in his
own turn there was a surveillance no less sharp, and penalties for neglect
prompt and peremptory.[47] Four times a year he was to make proclamation of
his duty, and exhort all persons to complain against him who had occasion.

Twenty pounds a year, and heavy duties to do for it, represented the
condition of the squire of the parish.[48] By the 2nd of the 2nd of Henry
V., "the wages" of a parish priest were limited to £5 6s. 8d., except in
cases where there was special licence from the bishop, when they might be
raised as high as £6. Priests were probably something better off under
Henry VIII., but the statute remained in force, and marks an approach at
least to their ordinary salary.[49] The priest had enough, being unmarried,
to supply him in comfort with the necessaries of life. The squire had
enough to provide moderate abundance for himself and his family. Neither
priest nor squire was able to establish any steep difference in outward
advantages between himself and the commons among whom he lived.

The habits of all classes were open, free, and liberal. There are two
expressions corresponding one to the other, which we frequently meet with
in old writings, and which are used as a kind of index, marking whether the
condition of things was or was not what it ought to be. We read of "merry
England;"--when England was not merry, things were not going well with it.
We hear of "the glory of hospitality," England's pre-eminent boast,-by the
rules of which all tables, from the table of the twenty-shilling freeholder
to the table in the baron's hall and abbey refectory, were open at the
dinner hour to all comers, without stint or reserve, or question asked:[50]
to every man, according to his degree, who chose to ask for it there was
free fee and free lodging; bread, beef, and beer for his dinner; for his
lodging, perhaps, only a mat of rushes in a spare corner of the hall, with
a billet of wood for a pillow,[51] but freely offered and freely taken, the
guest probably faring much as his host fared, neither worse nor better.
There was little fear of an abuse of such licence, for suspicious
characters had no leave to wander at pleasure; and for any man found at
large and unable to give a sufficient account of himself, there were the
ever-ready parish stocks or town gaol. The "glory of hospitality" lasted
far down into Elizabeth's time; and then, as Camden says, "came in great
bravery of building, to the marvellous beautifying of the realm, but to the
decay" of what he valued more.

In such frank style the people lived, hating three things with all their
hearts: idleness, want, and cowardice; and for the rest carrying their
hearts high, and having their hands full. The[52] hour of rising, winter
and summer, was four o'clock, with breakfast at five, after which the
labourers went to work and the gentlemen to business, of which they had no
little. In the country every unknown face was challenged and examined--if
the account given was insufficient, he was brought before the justice; if
the village shopkeeper sold bad wares, if the village cobbler made
"unhonest" shoes, if servants and masters quarrelled, all was to be looked
to by the justice; there was no fear lest time should hang heavy with him.
At twelve he dined; after dinner he went hunting, or to his farm or to what
he pleased.[53] It was a life unrefined, perhaps, but coloured with a
broad, rosy, English health.

Of the education of noblemen and gentlemen we have contradictory accounts,
as might be expected. The universities were well filled, by the sons of
yeomen chiefly. The cost of supporting them at the colleges was little, and
wealthy men took a pride in helping forward any boys of promise.[54] It
seems clear also, as the Reformation drew nearer, while the clergy were
sinking lower and lower, a marked change for the better became perceptible
in a portion at least of the laity. The more old-fashioned of the higher
ranks were slow in moving; for as late as the reign of Edward VI.[55] there
were peers of parliament unable to read; but on the whole, the invention of
printing, and the general ferment which was commencing all over the world,
had produced marked effects in all classes. Henry VIII. himself spoke four
languages, and was well read in theology and history; and the high
accomplishments of More and Sir T. Elliott, of Wyatt and Cromwell, were but
the extreme expression of a temper which was rapidly spreading, and which
gave occasion, among other things to the following reflection in Erasmus.
"Oh, strange vicissitudes of human things," exclaims he. "Heretofore the
heart of learning was among such as professed religion. Now, while they for
the most part give themselves up, _ventri luxui pecuniæque_, the love of
learning is gone from them to secular princes, the court and the nobility.
May we not justly be ashamed of ourselves? The feasts of priests and
divines are drowned in wine, are filled with scurrilous jests, sound with
intemperate noise and tumult, flow with spiteful slanders and defamation of
others; while at princes' tables modest disputations are held concerning
things which make for learning and piety."

A letter to Thomas Cromwell from his son's tutor will not be without
interest on this subject; Cromwell was likely to have been unusually
careful in his children's training, and we need not suppose that all boys
were brought up as prudently. Sir Peter Carew, for instance, being a boy at
about the same time, and giving trouble at the High School at Exeter, was
led home to his father's house at Ottery, coupled between two
foxhounds.[56] Yet the education of Gregory Cromwell is probably not far
above what many young men of the middle and higher ranks were beginning to
receive. Henry Dowes was the tutor's name, beyond which fact I know nothing
of him. His letter is as follows:--

"After that it pleased your mastership to give me in charge, not only to
give diligent attendance upon Master Gregory, but also to instruct him with
good letters, honest manners, pastyme of instruments, and such other
qualities as should be for him meet and convenient, pleaseth it you to
understand that for the accomplishment thereof I have endeavoured myself by
all ways possible to excogitate how I might most profit him. In which
behalf, through his diligence, the success is such as I trust shall be to
your good contentation and pleasure, and to his no small profit. But for
cause the summer was spent in the service of the wild gods, [and] it is so
much to be regarded after what fashion youth is brought up, in which time
that that is learned for the most part will not be wholly forgotten in the
older years, I think it my duty to acertain your mastership how he spendeth
his time. And first after he hath heard mass he taketh a lecture of a
dialogue of Erasmus' _Colloquies_, called _Pietas Puerilis_, wherein is
described a very picture of one that should be virtuously brought up; and
for cause it is so necessary for him, I do not only cause him to read it
over, but also to practise the precepts of the same. After this he
exerciseth his hand in writing one or two hours, and readeth upon Fabyan's
_Chronicle_ as long. The residue of the day he doth spend upon the lute and
virginals. When he rideth, as he doth very oft, I tell him by the way some
history of the Romans or the Greeks, which I cause him to rehearse again in
a tale. For his recreation he useth to hawk and hunt and shoot in his long
bow, which frameth and succeedeth so well with him that he seemeth to be
thereunto given by nature."[57]

I have spoken of the organisation of the country population, I have now to
speak of that of the towns, of the trading classes and manufacturing
classes, the regulations respecting which are no less remarkable and no
less illustrative of the national character. If the tendency of trade to
assume at last a form of mere self-interest be irresistible, if political
economy represent the laws to which in the end it is forced to submit
itself, the nation spared no efforts, either of art or policy, to defer to
the last moment the unwelcome conclusion.

The names and shadows linger about London of certain ancient societies, the
members of which may still occasionally be seen in quaint gilt barges
pursuing their own difficult way among the swarming steamers; when on
certain days, the traditions concerning which are fast dying out of memory,
the Fishmongers' Company, the Goldsmiths' Company, the Mercers' Company,
make procession down the river for civic feastings at Greenwich or
Blackwall. The stately tokens of ancient honour still belong to them, and
the remnants of ancient wealth and patronage and power. Their charters may
be read by curious antiquaries, and the bills of fare of their ancient
entertainments. But for what purpose they were called into being, what
there was in these associations of common trades to surround with gilded
insignia, and how they came to be possessed of broad lands and church
preferments, few people now care to think or to inquire. Trade and traders
have no dignity any more in the eyes of any one, except what money lends to
them; and these outward symbols scarcely rouse even a passing feeling of
curiosity. And yet these companies were once something more than names.
They are all which now remain of a vast organisation which once penetrated
the entire trading life of England--an organisation set on foot to realise
that most necessary, if most difficult, condition of commercial excellence
under which man should deal faithfully with his brother, and all wares
offered for sale, of whatever kind, should honestly be what they pretend to
be.[58] I spoke of the military principle which directed the distribution
and the arrangements of land. The analogy will best explain a state of
things in which every occupation was treated as the division of an army;
regiments being quartered in every town, each with its own self-elected
officers, whose duty was to exercise authority over all persons professing
the business to which they belonged; who were to see that no person
undertook to supply articles which he had not been educated to manufacture;
who were to determine the prices at which such articles ought justly to be
sold; above all, who were to take care that the common people really bought
at shops and stalls what they supposed themselves to be buying; that cloth
put up for sale was true cloth, of true texture and full weight: that
leather was sound and well tanned; wine pure, measures honest; flour
unmixed with devil's dust;--who were generally to look to it that in all
contracts between man and man for the supply of man's necessities, what we
call honesty of dealing should be truly and faithfully observed.[59] An
organisation for this purpose did once really exist in England,[60] really
trying to do the work which it was intended to do, as half the pages of our
early statutes witness. In London, as the metropolis, a central council
sate for every branch of trade, and this council was in communication with
the Chancellor and the Crown. It was composed of the highest and most
respectable members of the profession, and its office was to determine
prices, fix wages, arrange the rules of apprenticeship, and discuss all
details connected with the business on which legislation might be required.
Further, this council received the reports of the searchers--high officers
taken from their own body, whose business was to inspect, in company with
the lord mayor or some other city dignitary, the shops of the respective
traders; to receive complaints, and to examine into them. In each
provincial town local councils sate in connection with the municipal
authorities, who fulfilled in these places the same duties; and their
reports being forwarded to the central body, and considered by them,
representations on all necessary matters were then made to the privy
council; and by the privy council, if requisite, were submitted to
parliament. If these representations were judged to require legislative
interference, the statutes which were passed in consequence were returned
through the Chancellor to the mayors of the various towns and cities, by
whom they were proclaimed as law. No person was allowed to open a trade or
to commence a manufacture, either in London or the provinces, unless he had
first served his apprenticeship; unless he could prove to the satisfaction
of the authorities that he was competent in his craft; and unless he
submitted as a matter of course to their supervision. The legislature had
undertaken not to let that indispensable task go wholly unattempted, of
distributing the various functions of society by the rule of capacity; of
compelling every man to do his duty in an honest following of his proper
calling, securing to him that he in his turn should not be injured by his
neighbour's misdoings.

The state further promising for itself that all able-bodied men should be
found in work,[61] and not allowing any man to work at a business for which
he was unfit, insisted as its natural right that children should not be
allowed to grow up in idleness, to be returned at mature age upon its
hands. Every child, so far as possible, was to be trained up in some
business or calling,[62] idleness "being the mother of all sin," and the
essential duty of every man being to provide honestly for himself and his
family. The educative theory, for such it was, was simple but effective: it
was based on the single principle that, next to the knowledge of a man's
duty to God, and as a means towards doing that duty, the first condition of
a worthy life was the ability to maintain it in independence. Varieties of
inapplicable knowledge might be good, but they were not essential; such
knowledge might be left to the leisure of after years, or it might be
dispensed with without vital injury. Ability to labour could not be
dispensed with, and this, therefore, the state felt it to be its own duty
to see provided; so reaching, I cannot but think, the heart of the whole
matter. The children of those who could afford the small entrance fees were
apprenticed to trades, the rest were apprenticed to agriculture; and if
children were found growing up idle, and their fathers or their friends
failed to prove that they were able to secure them an ultimate maintenance,
the mayors in towns and the magistrates in the country had authority to
take possession of such children, and apprentice them as they saw fit, that
when they grew up "they might not be driven" by want or incapacity "to
dishonest courses."[63]

Such is an outline of the organisation of English society under the
Plantagenets and Tudors. A detail of the working of the trade laws would be
beyond my present purpose. It is obvious that such laws could be enforced
only under circumstances when production and population remained (as I said
before) nearly stationary; and it would be madness to attempt to apply them
to the changed condition of the present. It would be well if some competent
person would make these laws the subject of a special treatise. I will run
the risk, however, of wearying the reader with two or three illustrative
statutes, which I have chosen, not as being more significant than many
others, but as specimens merely of the discipline under which, for
centuries, the trade and manufactures of England contrived to move; showing
on one side the good which the system effected, on the other the inevitable
evils under which it finally sank.

The first which I shall quote concerns simply the sale of specific goods
and the means by which tradesmen were prevented from enhancing prices. The
Act is the 6th of the 24th of Henry VIII., and concerns the sale of wines,
the statute prices of which I have already mentioned.

"Because," says this Act, "that divers merchants inhabiting within the city
of London have of late not only presumed to bargain and sell in gross to
divers of the king's subjects great quantities of wines of Gascony,
Guienne, and French wines, some for five pounds per tonne, some for more
and some for less, and so after the rate of excessive prices contrary to
the effect of a good and laudable statute lately made in this present
parliament; that is to say, contrary to and above the prices thereof set by
the Right Honourable Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Lord President of the
King's most honourable Council, Lord Privy Seal, and the two Chief Justices
of either bench, whereby they be fallen into the penalties limited by the
said statute; as by due proof made by examination taken is well known--but
also having in their hands great abundance of wine, by them acquired and
bought to be sold, obstinately and maliciously, since their said attemptate
and defaults proved, have refused to bargain and sell to many of the king's
subjects any of their said wines remaining and being in their hands;
purposing and intending thereby their own singular and unreasonable lucres
and profits, to have larger and higher prices of their said wines, to be
set according to their insatiable appetites and minds; it is therefore
ordained and enacted, by authority of this present parliament, that every
merchant now having, or which shall hereafter have, wines to be sold, and
refusing to sell or deliver, or not selling and delivering any of the said
wines for ready money therefore to be paid, according to the price or
prices thereof being set, shall forfeit and lose the value of the wine so
required to be bought.... For due execution of which provision, and for the
relief of the king's subjects, it shall be lawful to all and singular
justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, and other head officers in shires,
cities, boroughs, towns, etc., at the request of any person to whom the
said merchant or merchants have refused to sell, to enter into the cellars
and other places where such wines shall lie or be, and to sell and deliver
the same wine or wines desired to be bought to the person or persons
requiring to buy the same; taking of the buyer of the wine so sold to the
use and satisfaction of the proprietor aforesaid, according to the prices
determined by the law."

The next which I select is the eleventh of the second and third of Philip
and Mary; and falling in the midst of the smoke of the Smithfield fires,
and the cruelties of that melancholy time, it shines like a fair gleam of
humanity, which will not lose anything of its lustre because the evils
against which it contends have in our times, also, furnished matter for
sorrow and calamity--calamity which we unhappily have been unable even to
attempt to remedy. It is termed "An Act touching Weavers," and runs:

"Forasmuch as the weavers of this realm have, as well at this present
parliament as at divers other times, complained that the rich and wealthy
clothiers do in many ways oppress them--some by setting up and keeping in
their houses divers looms, and keeping and maintaining them by journeymen
and persons unskilful, to the decay of a great number of artificers which
were brought up in the said science of weaving, with their families and
their households--some by engrossing of looms into their hands and
possession, and letting them out at such unreasonable rents, as the poor
artificers are not able to maintain themselves, much less maintain their
wives, families, and children--some also by giving much less wages and hire
for weaving and workmanship than in times past they did, whereby they are
enforced utterly to forsake their art and occupation wherein they have been
brought up; It is, therefore, for remedy of the premises, and for the
avoiding of a great number of inconveniences which may grow if in time it
be not foreseen, ordained and enacted by authority of this present
parliament, that no person using the feat or mystery of cloth-making, and
dwelling out of a city, borough, market-town, or corporate town, shall
keep, or retain, or have in his or their houses or possession, any more
than one woollen loom at a time; nor shall by any means, directly or
indirectly, receive or take any manner of profit, gain, or commodity, by
letting or setting any loom, or any house wherein any loom is or shall be
used or occupied, which shall be together by him set or let, upon pain of
forfeiture for every week that any person shall do the contrary to the
tenor and true meaning hereof, twenty shillings."

A provision then follows, limiting weavers living in towns to two
looms--the plain intention being to prevent the cloth manufacture from
falling into the power of large capitalists employing "hands;" and to
enable as many persons as possible to earn all in their own homes their own
separate independent living. I suppose that the parliament was aware that
by pursuing this policy the cost of production was something increased;
that cloth was thus made dearer than it would have been if trade had been
left to follow its own course. It considered, however, that the loss was
compensated to the nation by retaining its people in the condition not of
"hands," but of men; by rendering them independent of masters, who only
sought to make their own advantage at the expense of labour; and enabling
them to continue to maintain themselves in manly freedom. The weak point of
all such provisions did not lie, I think, in the economic aspect of them,
but in a far deeper difficulty. The details of trade legislation, it is
obvious, could only be determined by persons professionally conversant with
those details; and the indispensable condition of success with such
legislation is, that it be conducted under the highest sense of the
obligations of honesty. No laws are of any service which are above the
working level of public morality; and the deeper they are carried down into
life, the larger become the opportunities of evasion. That the system
succeeded for centuries is evident from the organisation of the companies
remaining so long in its vitality; but the efficiency of this organisation
for the maintenance of fair dealing could exist only so long as the
companies themselves--their wardens and their other officials, who alone,
_quisque in suâ arte_, were competent to judge what was right and what was
wrong--could be trusted, at the same time being interested parties, to give
a disinterested judgment. The largeness of the power inevitably committed
to the councils was at once a temptation and an opportunity to abuse those
powers; and slowly through the statute book we find the traces of the
poison as it crept in and in. Already in the 24th of Henry VIII., we meet
with complaints in the leather trade of the fraudulent conduct of the
searchers, whose duty was to affix their seal upon leather ascertained to
be sound, before it was exposed for sale, "which mark or print, for
corruption and lucre, is commonly set and put by such as take upon them the
search and sealing, as well upon leather insufficiently tanned, as upon
leather well tanned, to the great deceit of the buyers thereof." About the
same time, the "craft wardens" of the various fellowships, "out of sinister
mind and purpose," were levying excessive fees on the admission of
apprentices; and when parliament interfered to bring them to order, they
"compassed and practised by cautill and subtle means to delude the good and
wholesome statutes passed for remedy."[64] The old proverb, _Quis custodiat
custodes_, had begun to verify itself, and the symptom was a fatal one.
These evils, for the first half of the century, remained within compass;
but as we pass on we find them increasing steadily. In the 7th and the 8th
of Elizabeth, there are indications of the truck system; and towards her
later years, the multiplying statutes and growing complaints and
difficulties show plainly that the companies had lost their healthy
vitality, and, with other relics of feudalism, were fast taking themselves
away. There were no longer tradesmen to be found in sufficient numbers who
were possessed of the necessary probity; and it is impossible not to
connect such a phenomenon with the deep melancholy which in those years
settled down on Elizabeth herself.

For, indeed, a change was coming upon the world, the meaning and direction
of which even still is hidden from us, a change from era to era. The paths
trodden by the footsteps of ages were broken up; old things were passing
away, and the faith and the life of ten centuries were dissolving like a
dream. Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to
crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of the
old world were passing away, never to return. A new continent had risen up
beyond the western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk
back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth
itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in
the awful vastness of the universe. In the fabric of habit in which they
had so laboriously built for themselves, mankind were to remain no longer.

And now it is all gone--like an unsubstantial pageant faded; and between us
and the old English there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the
historian will never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and our
imagination can but feebly penetrate to them. Only among the aisles of the
cathedral, only as we gaze upon their silent figures sleeping on their
tombs, some faint conceptions float before us of what these men were when
they were alive; and perhaps in the sound of church bells, that peculiar
creation of mediæval age, which falls upon the ear like the echo of a
vanished world.

The transition out of this old state is what in this book I have undertaken
to relate. As yet there were uneasy workings below the surface; but the
crust was unbroken, and the nation remained outwardly unchanged as it had
been for centuries. I have still some few features to add to my
description.

Nothing, I think, proves more surely the mutual confidence which held
together the government and the people, than the fact that all classes were
armed. Every man, as I have already said, was a soldier; and every man was
ready equipped at all times with the arms which corresponded to his rank.
By the great statute of Winchester,[65] which was repeated and expanded on
many occasions in the after reigns, it was enacted, "That every man have
harness in his house to keep the peace after the antient assise--that is to
say, every man between fifteen years of age and sixty years shall be
assessed and sworn to armour according to the quantity of his lands and
goods--that is, to wit, for fifteen pounds lands and forty marks goods, a
hauberke, a helmet of iron, a sword, a dagger, and a horse. For ten pounds
of lands and twenty marks goods, a hauberke, a helmet, a sword, and a
dagger. For five pounds lands, a doublet, a helmet of iron, a sword, and a
dagger. For forty shillings lands, a sword, a bow and arrows, and a dagger.
And all others that may shall have bows and arrows. Review of armour shall
be made every year two times, by two constables for every hundred and
franchise thereunto appointed; and the constables shall present, to
justices assigned for that purpose, such defaults as they do find."

As the archery was more developed, and the bow became the peculiar weapon
of the English, regular practice was ordered, and shooting became at once
the drill and the amusement of the people. Every hamlet had its pair of
butts; and on Sundays and holidays[66] all able-bodied men were required to
appear in the field, to employ their leisure hours "as valyant Englishmen
ought to do," "utterly leaving the play at the bowls, quoits, dice, kails,
and other unthrifty games;" magistrates, mayors, and bailiffs being
responsible for their obedience, under penalty, if these officers neglected
their duty, of a fine of twenty shillings for each offence. On the same
days, the tilt-yard at the Hall or Castle was thrown open, and the young
men of rank amused themselves with similar exercises. Fighting, or mock
fighting--and the imitation was not unlike the reality--was at once the
highest enjoyment and the noblest accomplishment of all ranks in the state;
and over that most terrible of human occupations they had flung the
enchanted halo of chivalry, decorating it with all the fairest graces, and
consecrating it with the most heroic aspirations.

The chivalry, with much else, was often perhaps something ideal. In the
wars of the Roses it had turned into mere savage ferocity; and in forty
years of carnage the fighting propensities had glutted themselves. A
reaction followed, and in the early years of Henry VIII. the statutes were
growing obsolete, and the "unlawful games" rising again into favour. The
younger nobles, or some among them, were shrinking from the tilt-yard, and
were backward on occasions even when required for war. Lord Surrey, when
waiting on the Border, expecting the Duke of Albany to invade the northern
counties, in 1523, complained of the growing "slowness" of the young lords
"to be at such journeys,"[67] and of their "inclination to dancing,
carding, and dicing." The people had followed the example, and were falling
out of archery practice, exchanging it for similar amusements. Henry VIII.,
in his earlier days an Englishman after the old type, set himself
resolutely to oppose these downward tendencies, and to brace again the
slackened sinews of the nation. In his own person he was the best rider,
the best lance, and the best archer in England; and while a boy he was
dreaming of fresh Agincourts, and even of fresh crusades. In 1511, when he
had been king only three years, parliament re-enacted the Winchester
statute, with new and remarkable provisions; and twice subsequently in the
course of his reign he returned back upon the subject, insisting upon it
with increasing stringency. The language of the Act of 1511 is not a little
striking. "The King's Highness," so the words run, "calling to his gracious
remembrance that by the feats and exercise of the subjects of his realm in
shooting in long bows, there had continually grown and been within the same
great numbers and multitudes of good archers, which hath not only defended
the realm and the subjects thereof against the cruel malice and dangers of
their enemies in times heretofore past, but also, with little numbers and
puissance in regard of their opposites, have done many notable acts and
discomfitures of war against the infidels and others; and furthermore
reduced divers regions and countries to their due obeysance, to the great
honour, fame, and surety of this realm and subjects, and to the terrible
dread and fear of all strange nations, anything to attempt or do to the
hurt or damage of them: Yet nevertheless that archery and shooting in long
bows is but little used, but daily does minish and decay, and abate more
and more; for that much part of the commonalty and poor people of this
realm, whereby of old time the great number and substance of archers had
grown and multiplied, be not of power nor ability to buy them long bows of
yew to exercise shooting in the same, and to sustain the continual charge
thereof; and also because, by means and occasions of customable usage of
tennis play, bowles, claish and other unlawful games, prohibited by many
good and beneficent statutes, much impoverishment hath ensued: Wherefore,
the King's Highness, of his great wisdom and providence, and also for zeal
to the public weal, surety, and defence of this his realm, and the antient
fame in this behalf to be revived, by the assent of his Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and his Commons in this present parliament assembled, hath
enacted and established that the statute of Winchester for archers be put
in due execution; and over that, that every man being the king's subject,
not lame, decrepit, or maimed, being within the age of sixty years, except
spiritual men, justices of the one bench and of the other, justices of the
assize, and barons of the exchequer, do use and exercise shooting in long
bows, and also do have a bow and arrows ready continually in his house, to
use himself in shooting. And that every man having a man child or men
children in his house, shall provide for all such, being of the age of
seven years and above, and till they shall come to the age of seventeen
years, a bow and two shafts, to learn them and bring them up in shooting;
and after such young men shall come to the age of seventeen years, every of
them shall provide and have a bow and four arrows continually for himself,
at his proper costs and charges, or else of the gift and provision of his
friends, and shall use the same as afore is rehearsed." Other provisions
are added, designed to suppress the games complained of, and to place the
bows more within the reach of the poor, by cheapening the prices of them.

The same statute[68] (and if this be a proof that it had imperfectly
succeeded, it is a proof also of Henry's confidence in the general
attachment of his subjects) was re-enacted thirty years later, at the
crisis of the Reformation, when the northern counties were fermenting in a
half-suppressed rebellion, and the catholics at home and abroad were
intriguing to bring about a revolution. In this subsequent edition of
it[69] some particulars are added which demand notice. In the directions to
the villages for the maintaining each "a pair of buttes," it is ordered
that no person above the age of twenty-four shall shoot with the light
flight arrow at a distance under two hundred and twenty yards. Up to two
hundred and twenty yards, therefore, the heavy war arrow was used, and this
is to be taken as the effective range for fighting purposes of the old
archery.[70] No measures could have been invented more effective than this
vigorous arming to repress the self-seeking tendencies in the mercantile
classes which I have mentioned as beginning to show themselves. Capital
supported by force may make its own terms with labour; but capital lying
between a king on one side resolved to prevent oppression, and a people on
the other side in full condition to resist, felt even prudence dictate
moderation, and reserved itself for a more convenient season.

Looking, therefore, at the state of England as a whole, I cannot doubt that
under Henry the body of the people were prosperous, well-fed, loyal, and
contented. In all points of material comfort they were as well off as they
had ever been before; better off than they have ever been in later times.

Their amusements, as prescribed by statute, consisted in training
themselves as soldiers. In the prohibitions of the statutes we see also
what their amusements were inclined to be. But besides "the bowles and the
claish," field sports, fishing, shooting, hunting, were the delight of
every one, and although the forest laws were terrible, they served only to
enhance the excitement by danger. Then, as now, no English peasant could be
convinced that there was any moral crime in appropriating the wild game. It
was an offence against statute law, but no offence against natural law; and
it was rather a trial of skill between the noble who sought to monopolise a
right which seemed to be common to all, and those who would succeed, if
they could, in securing their own share of it. The Robin Hood ballads
reflect the popular feeling and breathe the warm genial spirit of the old
greenwood adventurers. If deer-stealing was a sin, it was more than
compensated by the risk of the penalty to which those who failed submitted,
when no other choice was left. They did not always submit, as the old
northern poem shows of _Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of
Cloudislee_, with its most immoral moral; yet I suppose there was never
pedant who could resist the spell of those ringing lines, or refuse with
all his heart to wish the rogues success, and confusion to the honest men.

But the English peasantry had pleasures of less ambiguous propriety, and
less likely to mislead our sympathies. The chroniclers have given us many
accounts of the masques and plays which were acted in the court, or in the
castles of the noblemen. Such pageants were but the most splendid
expression of a taste which was national and universal. As in ancient
Greece, generations before the rise of the great dramas of Athens,
itinerant companies wandered from village to village, carrying their stage
furniture in their little carts, and acted in their booths and tents the
grand stories of the mythology; so in England the mystery players haunted
the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, taprooms, or in the farmhouse
kitchen, played at saints and angels, and transacted on their petty stage
the drama of the Christian faith. To us, who can measure the effect of such
scenes only by the impression which they would now produce upon ourselves,
these exhibitions can seem but unspeakably profane; they were not profane
when tendered in simplicity, and received as they were given. They were no
more profane than those quaint monastic illuminations which formed the germ
of Italian art; and as out of the illuminations arose those paintings which
remain unapproached and unapproachable in their excellence, so out of the
mystery plays arose the English drama, represented in its final
completeness by the creations of a poet who, it now begins to be supposed,
stands alone among mankind. We allow ourselves to think of Shakspeare or of
Raphael or of Phidias, as having accomplished their work by the power of
their own individual genius; but greatness like theirs is never more than
the highest degree of an excellence which prevails widely round it, and
forms the environment in which it grows. No single mind in single contact
with the facts of nature could have created out of itself a Pallas, a
Madonna, or a Lear; such vast conceptions are the growth of ages, the
creations of a nation's spirit; and artist and poet, filled full with the
power of that spirit, have but given them form, and nothing more than form.
Nor would the form itself have been attainable by any isolated talent. No
genius can dispense with experience; the aberrations of power, unguided or
ill-guided, are ever in proportion to its intensity, and life is not long
enough to recover from inevitable mistakes. Noble conceptions already
existing, and a noble school of execution which will launch mind and hand
at once upon their true courses, are indispensable to transcendent
excellence; and Shakspeare's plays were as much the offspring of the long
generations who had pioneered his road for him, as the discoveries of
Newton were the offspring of those of Copernicus.

No great general ever arose out of a nation of cowards; no great statesman
or philosopher out of a nation of fools; no great artist out of a nation of
materialists; no great dramatist except when the drama was the passion of
the people. Acting was the especial amusement of the English, from the
palace to the village green. It was the result and expression of their
power over themselves, and power over circumstances. They were troubled
with no subjective speculations; no social problems vexed them with which
they were unable to deal; and in the exuberance of vigour and spirits they
were able, in the strict and literal sense of the word, to play with the
materials of life. The mystery plays came first; next the popular legends;
and then the great figures of English history came out upon the stage, or
stories from Greek and Roman writers; or sometimes it was an extemporised
allegory. Shakspeare himself has left us many pictures of the village
drama. Doubtless he had seen many a Bottom in the old Warwickshire hamlets;
many a Sir Nathaniel playing "Alissander," and finding himself "a little
o'erparted." He had been with Snug the joiner, Quince the carpenter, and
Flute the bellows-mender, when a boy we will not question, and acted with
them, and written their parts for them; had gone up with them in the
winter's evenings to the Lucy's Hall before the sad trouble with the
deer-stealing; and afterwards, when he came to London and found his way
into great society, he had not failed to see Polonius burlesquing Cæsar on
the stage, as in his proper person Polonius burlesqued Sir William Cecil.
The strolling players in _Hamlet_ might be met at every country wake or
festival; it was the direction in which the especial genius of the people
delighted to revel. As I desire in this chapter not only to relate what
were the habits of the people, but to illustrate them also, within such
compass as I can allow myself, I shall transcribe out of Hall[71] a
description of a play which was acted by the boys of St. Paul's School, in
1527, at Greenwich, adding some particulars, not mentioned by Hall, from
another source.[72] It is a good instance of the fantastic splendour with
which exhibitions of this kind were got up, and it possesses also a
melancholy interest of another kind, as showing how little the wisest among
us can foresee our own actions, or assure ourselves that the convictions of
to-day will alike be the convictions of to-morrow. The occasion was the
despatch of a French embassy to England, when Europe was outraged by the
Duke of Bourbon's capture of Rome, when the children of Francis I. were
prisoners in Spain, and Henry, with the full energy of his fiery nature,
was flinging himself into a quarrel with Charles V. as the champion of the
Holy See.

At the conclusion of a magnificent supper "the king led the ambassadors
into the great chamber of disguisings; and in the end of the same chamber
was a fountain, and on one side was a hawthorne tree, all of silk, with
white flowers, and on the other side was a mulberry tree full of fair
berries, all of silk. On the top of the hawthorne were the arms of England,
compassed with the collar of the order[73] of St. Michael, and in the top
of the mulberry tree stood the arms of France within a garter. The fountain
was all of white marble, graven and chased; the bases of the same were
balls of gold, supported by ramping beasts wound in leaves of gold. In the
first work were gargoylles of gold, fiercely faced with spouts running. The
second receit of this fountain was environed with winged serpents, all of
gold, which griped it; and on the summit of the same was a fair lady, out
of whose breasts ran abundantly water of marvellous delicious savour. About
this fountain were benches of rosemary, fretted in braydes laid on gold,
all the sides set with roses, on branches as they were growing about this
fountain. On the benches sate eight fair ladies in strange attire, and so
richly apparelled in cloth of gold, embroidered and cut over silver, that I
cannot express the cunning workmanship thereof. Then when the king and
queen were set, there was played before them, by children, in the Latin
tongue, a manner of tragedy, the effect whereof was that the pope was in
captivity and the church brought under foot. Whereupon St. Peter appeared
and put the cardinal (Wolsey) in authority to bring the pope to his
liberty, and to set up the church again. And so the cardinal made
intercession with the kings of England and France that they took part
together, and by their means the pope was delivered. Then in came the
French king's children, and complained to the cardinal how the emperour
kept them as hostages, and would not come to reasonable point with their
father, whereupon they desired the cardinal to help for their deliverance;
which wrought so with the king his master and the French king that he
brought the emperour to a peace, and caused the two young princes to be
delivered." So far Hall relates the scene, but there was more in the play
than he remembered or cared to notice, and I am able to complete this
curious picture of a pageant once really and truly a living spectacle in
the old palace at Greenwich, by an inventory of the dresses worn by the
boys and a list of the _dramatis personæ_.

The school-boys of St. Paul's were taken down the river with the master in
six boats, at the cost of a shilling a boat--the cost of the dresses and
the other expenses amounting in all to sixty-one shillings.

The characters were--

An orator in apparel of cloth of gold.

Religio, Ecclesia, Veritas, like three widows, in garments of silk, and
suits of lawn and Cyprus.

Heresy and False Interpretation, like sisters of Bohemia, apparelled in
silk of divers colours.

The heretic Luther, like a party friar, in russet damask and black taffety.

Luther's wife, like a frow of Spiers in Almayn, in red silk.

Peter, Paul, and James, in habits of white sarsnet, and three red mantles,
and lace of silver and damask, and pelisses of scarlet.

A Cardinal in his apparel.

Two Sergeants in rich apparel.

The Dolphin and his brother in coats of velvet embroidered with gold, and
capes of satin bound with velvet.

A Messenger in tinsel satin.

Six men in gowns of grey sarsnet.

Six women in gowns of crimson velvet.

War, in rich cloth of gold and feathers, armed.

Three Almeyns, in apparel all cut and holed in silk.

Lady Peace in lady's apparel white and rich.

Lady Quietness and Dame Tranquillity richly beseen in lady's apparel.

It is a strange world. This was in November, 1527. In November, 1530, but
three brief years after, Wolsey lay dying in misery, a disgraced man, at
Leicester Abbey; "the Pope's Holiness" was fast becoming in English eyes
plain Bishop of Rome, held guilty towards this realm of unnumbered
enormities, and all England was sweeping with immeasurable velocity towards
the heretic Luther. So history repeats the lesson to us, not to boast
ourselves of the morrow, for we know not what a day may bring forth.

Before I conclude this survey, it remains for me to say something of the
position of the poor, and of the measures which were taken for the solution
of that most difficult of all problems, the distinguishing the truly
deserving from the worthless and the vagabond. The subject is one to which
in the progress of this work I shall have more than one occasion to return;
but inasmuch as a sentimental opinion prevails that an increase of poverty
and the consequent enactment of poor-laws was the result of the suppression
of the religious houses, and that adequate relief had been previously
furnished by these establishments, it is necessary to say a few words for
the removal of an impression which is as near as possible the reverse of
the truth. I do not doubt that for many centuries these houses fulfilled
honestly the intentions with which they were established; but as early as
the reign of Richard II. it was found necessary to provide some other means
for the support of the aged and impotent; the monasteries not only having
then begun to neglect their duty; but by the appropriation of benefices
having actually deprived the parishes of their local and independent means
of charity.[74] Licences to beg were at that time granted to deserving
persons; and it is noticeable that this measure was in a few years followed
by the petition to Henry IV. for the secularisation of ecclesiastical
property.[75] Thus early in our history had the regular clergy forgotten
the nature of their mission, and the object for which the administration of
the nation's charities had been committed to them. Thus early, while their
houses were the nurseries of dishonest mendicancy,[76] they had surrendered
to lay compassion, those who ought to have been their especial care. I
shall unhappily have occasion hereafter to illustrate these matters in
detail. I mention them in this place only in order to dissipate at once a
foolish dream. At the opening of the sixteenth century, before the
suppression of the monasteries had suggested itself in a practical form,
pauperism was a state question of great difficulty, and as such I have at
present to consider it.

For the able-bodied vagrant, it is well known that the old English laws had
no mercy. When wages are low, and population has outgrown the work which
can be provided for it, idleness may be involuntary and innocent; at a time
when all industrious men could maintain themselves in comfort and
prosperity, "when a fair day's wages for a fair day's work" was really and
truly the law of the land, it was presumed that if strong capable men
preferred to wander about the country, and live upon the labour of others,
mendicancy was not the only crime of which they were likely to be guilty;
while idleness itself was justly looked upon as a high offence, and
misdemeanour. The penalty of God's laws against idleness, as expressed in
the system of nature, was starvation; and it was held intolerable that any
man should be allowed to escape a divine judgment by begging under false
pretences, and robbing others of their honest earnings.

In a country also the boast of which was its open-handed hospitality, it
was necessary to take care that hospitality was not brought to discredit by
abuse; and when every door was freely opened to a request for a meal or a
night's lodging, there was an imperative duty to keep a strict eye on
whatever persons were on the move. We shall therefore be prepared to find
"sturdy and valiant beggars" treated with summary justice as criminals of a
high order; the right of a government so to treat them being proportioned
to the facilities with which the honestly disposed can maintain themselves.

It might have been expected, on the other hand, that when wages were so
high, and work so constant, labourers would have been left to themselves to
make provision against sickness and old age. To modern ways of thinking on
these subjects, there would have seemed no hardship in so leaving them; and
their sufferings, if they had suffered, would have appeared but as a
deserved retribution. This, however, was not the temper of earlier times.
Charity has ever been the especial virtue of Catholic States, and the aged
and the impotent were always held to be the legitimate objects of it. Men
who had worked hard while they were able to work were treated like decayed
soldiers, as the discharged pensionaries of society; they were held
entitled to wear out their age (under restrictions) at the expense of
others; and so readily did society acquiesce in this aspect of its
obligations, that on the failure of the monasteries to do their duty, it
was still sufficient to leave such persons to voluntary liberality, and
legislation had to interfere only to direct such liberality into its
legitimate channels. In the 23rd of Edw. III. cap. 7, a prohibition was
issued against giving alms to "valiant beggars," and this proving
inadequate, and charity being still given indiscriminately, in the twelfth
year of Richard II. the system of licences was introduced, and a pair of
stocks was erected by order in every town or village, to "justify" persons
begging unpermitted. The monasteries growing more and more careless, the
number of paupers continued to multiply, and this method received
successive expansions, till at length, when the Reformation was concluded,
it terminated, after many changes of form, in the famous Act of Elizabeth.
We can thus trace our poor law in the whole course of its growth, and into
two stages through which it passed I must enter with some minuteness. The
12th of the 22nd of Henry VIII., and the 25th of the 27th, are so
remarkable in their tone, and so rich in their detail, as to furnish a
complete exposition of English thought at that time upon the subject; while
the second of these two acts, and probably the first also, has a further
interest for us, as being the composition of Henry himself, and the most
finished which he has left to us.[77]

"Whereas," says the former of these two Acts, "in all places throughout
this realm of England, vagabonds and beggars have of long time increased,
and daily do increase in great and excessive numbers, by the occasion of
idleness, mother and root of all vices; whereby hath insurged and sprung,
and daily insurgeth and springeth, continual thefts, murders, and other
heinous offences and great enormities, to the high displeasure of God, the
inquietation and damage of the king's people, and to the marvellous
disturbance of the common weal of this realm; and whereas, strait statutes
and ordinances have been before this time devised and made, as well by the
king our sovereign lord, as also by divers his most noble progenitors,
kings of England, for the most necessary and due reformation of the
premises; yet that notwithstanding, the said number of vagabonds and
beggars be not seen in any part to be diminished, but rather daily
augmented and increased into great routs or companies, as evidently and
manifestly it doth and may appear: Be it therefore enacted by the king our
sovereign lord, and by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons,
in this present parliament assembled, that the justices of the peace of all
and singular the shires of England within the limits of their commission,
and all other justices of the peace, mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, and other
officers of every city, borough, or franchise, shall from time to time, as
often as need shall require, make diligent search and inquiry of all aged,
poor, and impotent persons, which live, or of necessity be compelled to
live by alms of the charity of the people; and such search made, the said
officers, every of them within the limits of their authorities, shall have
power, at their discretions, to enable to beg within such limits as they
shall appoint, such of the said impotent persons as they shall think
convenient; and to give in commandment to every such impotent beggar (by
them enabled) that none of them shall beg without the limits so appointed
to them. And further, they shall deliver to every such person so enabled a
letter containing the name of that person, witnessing that he is authorised
to beg, and the limits within which he is appointed to beg, the same letter
to be sealed with the seal of the hundred, rape, wapentake, city, or
borough, and subscribed with the name of one of the said justices or
officers aforesaid. And if any such impotent person do beg in any other
place than within such limits, then the justices of the peace, and all
other the king's officers and ministers, shall by their discretions punish
all such persons by imprisonment in the stocks, by the space of two days
and two nights, giving them only bread and water."

Further, "If any such impotent person be found begging without a licence,
at the discretion of the justices of the peace, he shall be stripped naked
from the middle upwards, and whipped within the town in which he be found,
or within some other town, as it shall seem good. Or if it be not
convenient so to punish him, he shall be set in the stocks by the space of
three days and three nights."

Such were the restrictions under which impotency was allowed support.
Though not in itself treated as an offence, and though its right to
maintenance by society was not denied, it was not indulged, as we may see,
with unnecessary encouragement. The Act then proceeds to deal with the
genuine vagrant.

"And be it further enacted, that if any person or persons, being whole and
mighty in body and able to labour, be taken in begging in any part of this
realm; and if any man or woman, being whole and mighty in body, having no
land, nor master, nor using any lawful merchandry, craft, or mystery
whereby he might get his living, be vagrant, and can give none account how
he doth lawfully get his living, then it shall, be lawful to the constables
and all other king's officers, ministers, and subjects of every town,
parish, and hamlet, to arrest the said vagabonds and idle persons, and
bring them to any justice of the peace of the same shire or liberty, or
else to the high constable of the hundred; and the justice of the peace,
high constable, or other officer, shall cause such idle person so to him
brought, to be had to the next market town or other place, and there to be
tied to the end of a cart, naked, and be beaten with whips throughout the
same town till his body be bloody by reason of such whipping; and after
such punishment of whipping had, the person so punished shall be enjoined
upon his oath to return forthwith without delay, in the next and straight
way, to the place where he was born, or where he last dwelled before the
same punishment, by the space of three years; and then put himself to
labour like a true man ought to do; and after that done, every such person
so punished and ordered shall have a letter, sealed with the seal of the
hundred, rape, or wapentake, witnessing that he hath been punished
according to this estatute, and containing the day and place of his
punishment, and the place where unto he is limited to go, and by what time
he is limited to come thither: for that within that time, showing the said
letter, he may lawfully beg by the way, and otherwise not; and if he do not
accomplish the order to him appointed by the said letter, then to be
eftsoons taken and whipped; and so often as there be fault found in him, to
be whipped till he has his body put to labour for his living, or otherwise
truly get his living, so long as he is able to do so."

Then follow the penalties against the justices of the peace, constables,
and all officers who neglect to arrest such persons; and a singularly
curious catalogue is added of certain forms of "sturdy mendicancy," which,
if unspecified, might have been passed over as exempt, but to which Henry
had no intention of conceding further licence. It seems as if, in framing
the Act, he had Simon Fish's petition before him, and was commencing at
last the rough remedy of the cart's-tail, which Fish had dared to recommend
for a very obdurate evil.[78] The friars of the mendicant orders were
tolerated for a few years longer; but many other spiritual persons may have
suffered seriously under the provisions of the present statute.

"Be it further enacted," the Act continues, "that scholars of the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, that go about begging, not being
authorised under the seal of the said universities, by the commissary,
chancellor, or vice-chancellor of the same; and that all and singular
shipmen pretending losses of their ships and goods, going about the country
begging without sufficient authority, shall be punished and ordered in
manner and form as is above rehearsed of strong beggars; and that all
proctors and pardoners, and all other idle persons going about in counties
or abiding in any town, city, or borough, some of them using divers subtle,
crafty, and unlawful games and plays, and some of them feigning themselves
to have knowledge in physick, physnamye, and palmistry, or other crafty
science, whereby they bear the people in hand that they can tell their
destinies, dreams, and fortunes, and such other like fantastical
imaginations, to the great deceit of the king's subjects, shall, upon
examination had before two justices of the peace, if by provable witness
they be found guilty of such deceits, be punished by whipping at two days
together, after the manner before rehearsed. And if they eftsoons offend in
the same or any like offence, to be scourged two days, and the third day to
be put upon the pillory, from nine o'clock till eleven the forenoon of the
same day, and to have the right ear cut off; and if they offend the third
time, to have like punishment with whipping and the pillory, and to have
the other ear cut off."

It would scarcely have been expected that this Act would have failed for
want of severity in its penalties; yet five years later, for this and for
some other reasons, it was thought desirable to expand the provisions of
it, enhancing the penalties at the same time to a degree which has given a
bloody name in the history of English law to the statutes of Henry VIII. Of
this expanded statute[79] we have positive evidence, as I said, that Henry
was himself the author. The merit of it, or the guilt of it--if guilt there
be--originated with him alone. The early clauses contain practical
amendments of an undoubtedly salutary kind. The Act of 1531 had been
defective in that no specified means had been assigned for finding vagrants
in labour, which, with men of broken character, was not immediately easy.
The smaller monasteries having been suppressed in the interval, and
sufficient funds being thus placed at the disposal of the government,
public works[80] were set on foot throughout the kingdom, and this
difficulty was obviated.

Another important alteration was a restriction upon private charity.
Private persons were forbidden, under heavy penalties, to give money to
beggars, whether deserving or undeserving. The poor of each parish might
call at houses within the boundaries for broken meats; but this was the
limit of personal almsgiving; and the money which men might be disposed to
offer was to be collected by the churchwardens on Sundays and holidays in
the churches. The parish priest was to keep an account of receipts and of
expenditure, and relief was administered with some approach to modern
formalities. A further excellent but severe enactment empowered the parish
officers to take up all idle children above the age of five years, "and
appoint them to masters of husbandry or other craft or labour to be
taught;" and if any child should refuse the service to which he was
appointed, or run away "without cause reasonable being shown for it," he
might be publicly whipped with rods, at the discretion of the justice of
the peace before whom he was brought.

So far, no complaint can be urged against these provisions: they display
only that severe but true humanity, which, in offering fair and liberal
maintenance for all who will consent to be honest, insists, not unjustly,
that its offer shall be accepted, and that the resources of charity shall
not be trifled away. On the clause, however, which gave to the Act its
especial and distinguishing character, there will be large difference of
opinion. "The sturdy vagabond," who by the earlier statute was condemned on
his second offence to lose the whole or a part of his right ear, was
condemned by the amended Act, if found a third time offending, with the
mark upon him of his mutilation, "to suffer pains and execution of death,
as a felon and as an enemy of the commonwealth." So the letter stands. For
an able-bodied man to be caught a third time begging was held a crime
deserving death, and the sentence was intended, on fit occasions, to be
executed. The poor man's advantages, which I have estimated at so high a
rate, were not purchased without drawbacks. He might not change his master
at his will, or wander from place to place. He might not keep his children
at his home unless he could answer for their time. If out of employment,
preferring to be idle, he might be demanded for work by any master of the
"craft" to which he belonged, and compelled to work whether he would or no.
If caught begging once, being neither aged nor infirm, he was whipped at
the cart's tail. If caught a second time, his ear was slit, or bored
through with a hot iron. If caught a third time, being thereby proved to be
of no use upon this earth, but to live upon it only to his own hurt and to
that of others, he suffered death as a felon. So the law of England
remained for sixty years. First drawn by Henry, it continued unrepealed
through the reigns of Edward and of Mary, subsisting, therefore, with the
deliberate approval of both the great parties between whom the country was
divided. Reconsidered under Elizabeth, the same law was again formally
passed; and it was, therefore, the expressed conviction of the English
nation, that it was better for a man not to live at all than to live a
profitless and worthless life. The vagabond was a sore spot upon the
commonwealth, to be healed by wholesome discipline if the gangrene was not
incurable; to be cut away with the knife if the milder treatment of the
cart-whip failed to be of profit.[81]

A measure so extreme in its severity was partly dictated by policy. The
state of the country was critical; and the danger from questionable persons
traversing it unexamined and uncontrolled was greater than at ordinary
times. But in point of justice, as well as of prudence, it harmonised with
the iron temper of the age, and it answered well for the government of a
fierce and powerful people, in whose hearts lay an intense hatred of
rascality, and among whom no one need have lapsed into evil courses except
by deliberate preference for them. The moral substance of the English must
have been strong indeed when it admitted of such hardy treatment; but on
the whole, the people were ruled as they preferred to be ruled; and if
wisdom may be tested by success, the manner in which they passed the great
crisis of the Reformation is the best justification of their princes.

The era was great throughout Europe. The Italians of the age of Michael
Angelo; the Spaniards who were the contemporaries of Cortez; the Germans
who shook off the pope at the call of Luther; and the splendid chivalry of
Francis I. of France, were no common men. But they were all brought face to
face with the same trials, and none met them as the English met them. The
English alone never lost their self-possession; and if they owed something
to fortune in their escape from anarchy, they owed more to the strong hand
and steady purpose of their rulers.

To conclude this chapter then.

In the brief review of the system under which England was governed, we have
seen a state of things in which the principles of political economy were,
consciously or unconsciously, contradicted; where an attempt, more or less
successful, was made to bring the production and distribution of wealth
under the moral rule of right and wrong; and where those laws of supply and
demand, which we are now taught to regard as immutable ordinances of
nature, were absorbed or superseded by a higher code. It is necessary for
me to repeat that I am not holding up the sixteenth century as a model
which the nineteenth might safely follow. The population has become too
large, employment has become too complicated and fluctuating, to admit of
external control; while, in default of control, the relapse upon
self-interest as the one motive principle is certain to ensue, and when it
ensues is absolute in its operations. But as, even with us, these so-called
ordinances of nature in time of war consent to be suspended, and duty to
his country becomes with every good citizen a higher motive of action than
the advantages which he may gain in an enemy's market; so it is not
uncheering to look back upon a time when the nation was in a normal
condition of militancy against social injustice; when the government was
enabled by happy circumstances to pursue into detail a single and serious
aim at the well-being--well-being in its widest sense--of all members of
the commonwealth. The world, indeed, was not made particularly pleasant. Of
liberty, in the modern sense of the word, of the supposed right of every
man "to do what he will with his own" or with himself, there was no idea.
To the question, if ever it was asked, May I not do what I will with my
own? there was the brief answer, No man may do what is wrong, either with
that which is his own or with that which is another's. Workmen were not
allowed to take advantage of the scantiness of the labour market to exact
extravagant wages. Capitalists were not allowed to drive the labourers from
their holdings, and destroy their healthy independence. The antagonism of
interests was absorbed into a relation of which equity was something more
than the theoretic principle, and employers and employed were alike
amenable to a law which both were compelled to obey. The working man of
modern times has bought the extension of his liberty at the price of his
material comfort. The higher classes have gained in luxury what they have
lost in power. It is not for the historian to balance advantages. His duty
is with the facts.




CHAPTER II

THE LAST YEARS OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF WOLSEY

Times were changed in England since the second Henry walked barefoot
through the streets of Canterbury, and knelt while the monks flogged him on
the pavement in the Chapter-house, doing penance for Becket's murder. The
clergy had won the battle in the twelfth century because they deserved to
win it. They were not free from fault and weakness, but they felt the
meaning of their profession. Their hearts were in their vows, their
authority was exercised more justly, more nobly, than the authority of the
crown; and therefore, with inevitable justice, the crown was compelled to
stoop before them. The victory was great; but, like many victories, it was
fatal to the conquerors. It filled them full with the vanity of power; they
forgot their duties in their privileges; and when, a century later, the
conflict recommenced, the altering issue proved the altering nature of the
conditions under which it was fought. The laity were sustained in vigour by
the practical obligations of life; the clergy sunk under the influence of a
waning religion, the administration of the forms of which had become their
sole occupation; and as character forsook them, the Mortmain Act,[82] the
Acts of Premunire, and the repeatedly recurring Statutes of Provisors mark
the successive defeats that drove them back from the high post of command
which character alone had earned for them. If the Black Prince had lived,
or if Richard II. had inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the
ecclesiastical system would have been spared the misfortune of a longer
reprieve. Its worst abuses would have then terminated, and the reformation
of _doctrine_ in the sixteenth century would have been left to fight its
independent way unsupported by the moral corruption of the church from
which it received its most powerful impetus. The nation was ready for
sweeping remedies. The people felt little loyalty to the pope, as the
language of the Statutes of Provisors[83] conclusively proves, and they
were prepared to risk the sacrilege of confiscating the estates of the
religious houses--a complete measure of secularisation being then, as I
have already said,[84] the expressed desire of the House of Commons.[85]
With an Edward III. on the throne such a measure would very likely have
been executed, and the course of English history would have been changed.
It was ordered otherwise, and doubtless wisely. The church was allowed a
hundred and fifty more years to fill full the measure of her offences, that
she might fall only when time had laid bare the root of her degeneracy, and
that faith and manners might be changed together.

The history of the time is too imperfect to justify a positive conclusion.
It is possible, however, that the success of the revolution effected by
Henry IV. was due in part to a reaction in the church's favour; and it is
certain that this prince, if he did not owe his crown to the support of the
church, determined to conciliate it. He confirmed the Statutes of
Provisors,[86] but he allowed them to sink into disuse. He forbade the
further mooting of the confiscation project; and to him is due the first
permission of the bishops to send heretics to the stake.[87] If English
tradition is to be trusted, the clergy still felt insecure; and the French
wars of Henry V. are said to have been undertaken, as we all know from
Shakspeare, at the persuasion of Archbishop Chichele, who desired to
distract his attention from reverting to dangerous subjects. Whether this
be true or not, no prince of the house of Lancaster betrayed a wish to
renew the quarrel with the church. The battle of Agincourt, the conquest
and re-conquest of France, called off the attention of the people; while
the rise of the Lollards, and the intrusion of speculative questions, the
agitation of which has ever been the chief aversion of English statesmen,
contributed to change the current; and the reforming spirit must have
lulled before the outbreak of the wars of the Roses, or one of the two
parties in so desperate a struggle would have scarcely failed to have
availed themselves of it. Edward IV. is said to have been lenient towards
heresy; but his toleration, if it was more than imaginary, was tacit only;
he never ventured to avow it. It is more likely that in the inveterate
frenzy of those years men had no leisure to remember that heresy existed.

The clergy were thus left undisturbed to go their own course to its natural
end. The storm had passed over them without breaking; and they did not
dream that it would again gather. The immunity which they enjoyed from the
general sufferings of the civil war contributed to deceive them; and
without anxiety for the consequences, and forgetting the significant
warning which they had received, they sank steadily into that condition
which is inevitable from the constitution of human nature, among men
without faith, wealthy, powerful, and luxuriously fed, yet condemned to
celibacy, and cut off from the common duties and common pleasures of
ordinary life. On the return of a settled government, they were startled
for a moment in their security; the conduct of some among them had become
so unbearable, that even Henry VII., who inherited the Lancastrian
sympathies, was compelled to notice it; and the following brief act was
passed by his first parliament, proving by the very terms in which it is
couched the existing nature of church discipline. "For the more sure and
likely reformation," it runs, "of priests, clerks, and religious men,
culpable, or by their demerits openly noised of incontinent living in their
bodies, contrary to their order, be it enacted, ordained, and established,
that it be lawful to all archbishops and bishops, and other ordinaries
having episcopal jurisdiction, to punish and chastise such religious men,
being within the bounds of their jurisdiction, as shall be convict before
them, by lawful proof, of adultery, fornication, incest, or other fleshly
incontinency, by committing them to ward and prison, there to remain for
such time as shall be thought convenient for the quality of their
trespasses."[88]

Previous to the passing of this act, therefore, the bishops, who had power
to arrest laymen on suspicion of heresy, and detain them in prison
untried,[89] had no power to imprison priests, even though convicted of
adultery or incest. The legislature were supported by the Archbishop of
Canterbury. Cardinal Morton procured authority from the pope to visit the
religious houses, the abominations of which had become notorious;[90] and
in a provincial synod held on the 24th of February, 1486, he laid the
condition of the secular clergy before the assembled prelates. Many
priests, it was stated, spent their time in hawking or hunting, in lounging
at taverns, in the dissolute enjoyment of the world. They wore their hair
long like laymen; they were to be seen lounging in the streets with cloak
and doublet, sword and dagger. By the scandal of their lives they
imperilled the stability of their order.[91] A number of the worst
offenders, in London especially, were summoned before the synod and
admonished;[92] certain of the more zealous among the learned (_complures
docti_) who had preached against clerical abuses were advised to be more
cautious, for the avoiding of scandal;[93] but the archbishop, taking the
duty upon himself, sent round a circular among the clergy of his province,
exhorting them to general amendment.[94]

Yet this little cloud again disappeared. Henry VII. sat too insecurely on
his throne to venture on a resolute reform, even if his feelings had
inclined him towards it, which they did not. Morton durst not resolutely
grapple with the evil. He rebuked and remonstrated; but punishment would
have caused a public scandal. He would not invite the inspection of the
laity into a disease which, without their assistance, he had not the
strength to encounter; and his incipient reformation died away
ineffectually in words. The church, to outward appearance, stood more
securely than ever. The obnoxious statutes of the Plantagenets were in
abeyance, their very existence, as it seemed, was forgotten; and Thomas à
Becket never desired more absolute independence for the ecclesiastical
order than Archbishop Warham found established when he succeeded to the
primacy. He, too, ventured to repeat the experiment of his predecessor. In
1511 he attempted a second visitation of the monasteries, and again
exhorted a reform; but his efforts were even slighter than Morton's, and in
their results equally without fruit. The maintenance of his order in its
political supremacy was of greater moment to him than its moral purity: a
decent veil was cast over the clerical infirmities, and their vices were
forgotten as soon as they ceased to be proclaimed.[95] Henry VIII., a mere
boy on his accession, was borne away with the prevailing stream; and
trained from his childhood by theologians, he entered upon his reign
saturated with theological prepossessions. The intensity of his nature
recognising no half measures, he was prepared to make them the law of his
life; and so zealous was he, that it seemed as if the church had found in
him a new Alfred or a Charlemagne. Unfortunately for the church,
institutions may be restored in theory; but theory, be it never so perfect,
will not give them back their life; and Henry discovered, at length, that
the church of the sixteenth century as little resembled the church of the
eleventh, as Leo X. resembled Hildebrand, or Warham resembled St. Anselm.

If, however, there were no longer saints among the clergy, there could
still arise among them a remarkable man; and in Cardinal Wolsey the king
found an adviser who was able to retain him longer than would otherwise
have been possible in the course which he had entered upon; who, holding a
middle place between an English statesman and a catholic of the old order,
was essentially a transition minister; and who was qualified, above all men
then living, by a combination of talent, honesty, and arrogance, to open
questions which could not again be closed when they had escaped the grasp
of their originator. Under Wolsey's influence Henry made war with Louis of
France, in the pope's quarrel, entered the polemic lists with Luther, and
persecuted the English protestants. But Wolsey could not blind himself to
the true condition of the church. He was too wise to be deceived with
outward prosperity; he knew well that there lay before it, in Europe and at
home, the alternative of ruin or amendment; and therefore he familiarised
Henry with the sense that a reformation was inevitable, and dreaming that
it could be effected from within, by the church itself inspired with a
wiser spirit, he himself fell first victim of a convulsion which he had
assisted to create, and which he attempted too late to stay.

His intended measures were approaching maturity, when all Europe was
startled by the news that Rome had been stormed by the Imperial army, that
the pope was imprisoned, the churches pillaged, the cardinals insulted, and
all holiest things polluted and profaned. A spectator, judging only by
outward symptoms, would have seen at that strange crisis in Charles V. the
worst patron of heresy, and the most dangerous enemy of the Holy See; while
the indignation with which the news of these outrages was received at the
English court, would have taught him to look on Henry as the one sovereign
in Europe on whom that See might calculate most surely for support in its
hour of danger. If he could have pierced below the surface, he would have
found that the pope's best friend was the prince who held him prisoner;
that Henry was but doubtfully acquiescing in the policy of an unpopular
minister; and that the English nation would have looked on with stoical
resignation if pope and papacy had been wrecked together. They were not
inclined to heresy; but the ecclesiastical system was not the catholic
faith; and this system, ruined by prosperity, was fast pressing its
excesses to the extreme limit, beyond which it could not be endured. Wolsey
talked of reformation, but delayed its coming; and in the mean time, the
persons to be reformed showed no fear that it would come at all. The
monasteries grew worse and worse. The people were taught only what they
could teach themselves. The consistory courts became more oppressive.
Pluralities multiplied, and non-residence and profligacy. Favoured parish
clergy held as many as eight benefices.[96] Bishops accumulated sees, and,
unable to attend to all, attended to none. Wolsey himself, the church
reformer (so little did he really know what a reformation meant), was at
once Archbishop of York, Bishop of Winchester, of Bath, and of Durham, and
Abbot of St. Alban's. In Latimer's opinion, even twenty years later, and
after no little reform in such matters, there was but one bishop in all
England who was ever at his work and ever in his diocese. "I would ask a
strange question," he said, in an audacious sermon at Paul's Cross, "Who is
the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England, that passeth all the
rest in doing of his office?[97] I can tell, for I know him who it is; I
know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I
should name him. There is one that passeth all the others, and is the most
diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I
will tell you. It is the devil. Among all the pack of them that have cure,
the devil shall go for my money, for he applieth his business. Therefore,
ye unpreaching prelates, learn of the devil to be diligent in your office.
If ye will not learn of God, for shame learn of the devil."[98]

Under such circumstances, we need not be surprised to find the clergy sunk
low in the respect of the English people. Sternly intolerant of each
other's faults, the laity were not likely to be indulgent to the vices of
men who ought to have set an example of purity; and from time to time,
during the first quarter of the century, there were explosions of temper
which might have served as a warning if any sense or judgment had been left
to profit by it.

In 1514 a London merchant was committed to the Lollards' Tower for refusing
to submit to an unjust exaction of mortuary;[99] and a few days after was
found dead in his cell. An inquest was held upon the body, when a verdict
of wilful murder was returned against the chancellor of the Bishop of
London; and so intense was the feeling of the city, that the bishop applied
to Wolsey for a special jury to be chosen on the trial. "For assured I am,"
he said, "that if my chancellor be tried by any twelve men in London, they
be so maliciously set _in favorem hæreticæ pravitatis_, that they will cast
and condemn any clerk, though he were as innocent as Abel."[100] Fish's
famous pamphlet also shows the spirit which was seething; and though we may
make some allowance for angry rhetoric, his words have the clear ring of
honesty in them; and he spoke of what he had seen and knew. The monks, he
tells the king, "be they that have made a hundred thousand idle dissolute
women in your realm, who would have gotten their living honestly in the
sweat of their faces had not their superfluous riches allured them to lust
and idleness. These be they that when they have drawn men's wives to such
incontinency, spend away their husbands' goods, make the women to run away
from their husbands, bringing both man, wife, and children to idleness,
theft, and beggary. Yea, who is able to number the great broad bottomless
ocean sea full of evils that this mischievous generation may bring upon us
if unpunished?"[101]

Copies of this book were strewed about the London streets; Wolsey issued a
prohibition against it, with the effect which such prohibitions usually
have. Means were found to bring it under the eyes of Henry himself; and the
manner in which it was received by him is full of significance, and betrays
that the facts of the age were already telling on his understanding. He was
always easy of access and easy of manner; and the story, although it rests
on Foxe's authority, has internal marks of authenticity.

"One Master Edmund Moddis, being with the king in talk of religion, and of
the new books that were come from beyond the seas, said that if it might
please his Highness to pardon him, and such as he would bring to his Grace,
he should see such a book as it was a marvel to hear of. The king demanded
who they were? He said 'Two of your merchants--George Elliot and George
Robinson.' The king appointed a time to speak with them. When they came
before his presence in a privy closet, he demanded what they had to say or
to shew him. One of them said that there was a book come to their hands
which they had there to shew his Grace. When he saw it he demanded if any
of them could read it. 'Yea,' said George Elliot, 'if it please your Grace
to hear it.' 'I thought so,' said the king; 'if need were, thou couldst say
it without book.'

"The whole book being read out, the king made a long pause, and then said,
'If a man should pull down an old stone wall, and should begin at the lower
part, the upper part thereof might chance to fall upon his head.' Then he
took the book, and put it in his desk, and commanded them, on their
allegiance, that they should not tell any man that he had seen it."[102]

Symptoms such as these boded ill for a self-reform of the church, and it
was further imperilled by the difficulty which it is not easy to believe
that Wolsey had forgotten. No measures would be of efficacy which spared
the religious houses, and they would be equally useless unless the bishops,
as well as the inferior clergy, were comprehended in the scheme of
amendment. But neither with monks nor bishops could Wolsey interfere except
by a commission from the pope, and the laws were unrepealed which forbade
English subjects, under the severest penalties, to accept or exercise
within the realm an authority which they had received from the Holy See.
Morton had gone beyond the limits of the statute of provisors in receiving
powers from Pope Innocent to visit the monasteries. But Morton had stopped
short with inquiry and admonition. Wolsey, who was in earnest with the
work, had desired and obtained a full commission as legate, but he could
only make use of it at his peril. The statute slumbered, but it still
existed.[103] He was exposing not himself only, but all persons, lay and
clerical, who might recognise his legacy to a Premunire; and he knew well
that Henry's connivance, or even expressed permission, could not avail him
if his conduct was challenged. He could not venture to appeal to
parliament. Parliament was the last authority whose jurisdiction a
churchman would acknowledge in the concerns of the clergy; and his project
must sooner or later have sunk, like those of his two predecessors, under
its own internal difficulties, even if the accident had not arisen which
brought the dispute to a special issue in its most vital point, and which,
fostered by Wolsey for his own purposes, precipitated his ruin.

It is never more difficult to judge equitably the actions of public men
than when private as well as general motives have been allowed to influence
them, or when their actions may admit of being represented as resulting
from personal inclination, as well as from national policy. In life, as we
actually experience it, motives slide one into the other, and the most
careful analysis will fail adequately to sift them. In history, from the
effort to make our conceptions distinct, we pronounce upon these intricate
matters with unhesitating certainty, and we lose sight of truth in the
desire to make it truer than itself. The difficulty is further complicated
by the different points of view which are chosen by contemporaries and by
posterity. Where motives are mixed, men all naturally dwell most on those
which approach nearest to themselves: contemporaries whose interests are at
stake overlook what is personal in consideration of what is to them of
broader moment; posterity, unable to realise political embarrassments which
have ceased to concern them, concentrate their attention on such features
of the story as touch their own sympathies, and attend exclusively to the
private and personal passions of the men and women whose character they are
considering.

These natural, and to some extent inevitable tendencies, explain the
difference with which the divorce between Henry VIII. and Catherine of
Arragon has been regarded by the English nation in the sixteenth and in the
nineteenth centuries. In the former, not only did the parliament profess to
desire it, urge it, and further it, but we are told by a contemporary[104]
that "all indifferent and discreet persons" judged that it was right and
necessary. In the latter, perhaps, there is not one of ourselves who has
not been taught to look upon it as an act of enormous wickedness. In the
sixteenth century, Queen Catherine was an obstacle to the establishment of
the kingdom, an incentive to treasonable hopes. In the nineteenth, she is
an outraged and injured wife, the victim of a false husband's fickle
appetite. The story is a long and painful one, and on its personal side
need not concern us here further than as it illustrates the private
character of Henry. Into the public bearing of it I must enter at some
length, in order to explain the interest with which the nation threw itself
into the question, and to remove the scandal with which, had nothing been
at stake beyond the inclinations of a profligate monarch, weary of his
queen, the complaisance on such a subject of the lords and commons of
England would have coloured the entire complexion of the Reformation.

The succession to the throne, although determined in theory by the ordinary
law of primogeniture, was nevertheless, subject to repeated arbitrary
changes. The uncertainty of the rule was acknowledged and deplored by the
parliament,[105] and there was no order of which the nation, with any unity
of sentiment, compelled the observance. An opinion prevailed--not, I
believe, traceable to statute, but admitted by custom, and having the force
of statute in the prejudices of the nation--that no stranger born out of
the realm could inherit.[106] Although the descent in the female line was
not formally denied, no female sovereign had ever, in fact, sat upon the
throne.[107] Even Henry VII. refused to strengthen his title by advancing
the claims of his wife: and the uncertainty of the laws of marriage, and
the innumerable refinements of the Romish canon law, which affected the
legitimacy of children,[108] furnished, in connection with the further
ambiguities of clerical dispensations, perpetual pretexts, whenever
pretexts were needed, for a breach of allegiance. So long, indeed, as the
character of the nation remained essentially military, it could as little
tolerate an incapable king as an army in a dangerous campaign can bear with
an inefficient commander; and whatever might be the theory of the title,
when the sceptre was held by the infirm hand of an Edward II., a Richard
II., or a Henry VI., the difficulty resolved itself by force, and it was
wrenched by a stronger arm from a grasp too feeble to retain it. The
consent of the nation was avowed, even in the authoritative language of a
statute,[109] as essential to the legitimacy of a sovereign's title; and
Sir Thomas More, on examination by the Solicitor-General, declared as his
opinion that parliament had power to depose kings if it so pleased.[110] So
many uncertainties on a point so vital had occasioned fearful episodes in
English history; the most fearful of them, which had traced its character
in blood in the private records of every English family, having been the
long struggle of the preceding century, from which the nation was still
suffering, and had but recovered sufficiently to be conscious of what it
had endured. It had decimated itself for a question which involved no
principle and led to no result, and perhaps the history of the world may be
searched in vain for any parallel to a quarrel at once so desperate and so
unmeaning.

This very unmeaning character of the dispute increased the difficulty of
ending it. In wars of conquest or of principle, when something definite is
at stake, the victory is either won, or it is lost; the conduct of
individual men, at all events, is overruled by considerations external to
themselves which admit of being weighed and calculated. In a war of
succession, where the great families were divided in their allegiance, and
supported the rival claimants in evenly balanced numbers, the inveteracy of
the conflict increased with its duration, and propagated itself from
generation to generation. Every family was in blood feud with its
neighbour; and children, as they grew to manhood, inherited the duty of
revenging their fathers' deaths.

No effort of imagination can reproduce to us the state of this country in
the fatal years which intervened between the first rising of the Duke of
York and the battle of Bosworth; and experience too truly convinced Henry
VII. that the war had ceased only from general exhaustion, and not because
there was no will to continue it. The first Tudor breathed an atmosphere of
suspended insurrection, and only when we remember the probable effect upon
his mind of the constant dread of an explosion, can we excuse or
understand, in a prince not generally cruel, the execution of the Earl of
Warwick. The danger of a bloody revolution may present an act of arbitrary
or cowardly tyranny in the light of a public duty.

Fifty years of settled government, however, had not been without their
effects. The country had collected itself; the feuds of the families had
been chastened, if they had not been subdued; while the increase of wealth
and material prosperity had brought out into obvious prominence those
advantages of peace which a hot-spirited people, antecedent to experience,
had not anticipated, and had not been able to appreciate. They were better
fed, better cared for, more justly governed than they had ever been before;
and though abundance of unruly tempers remained, yet the wiser portion of
the nation, looking back from their new vantage-ground, were able to
recognise the past in its true hatefulness. Thenceforward a war of
succession was the predominating terror with English statesmen, and the
safe establishment of the reigning family bore a degree of importance which
it is possible that their fears exaggerated, yet which in fact was the
determining principle of their action.

It was therefore with no little anxiety that the council of Henry VIII.
perceived his male children, on whom their hopes were centred, either born
dead, or dying one after another within a few days of their birth, as if
his family were under a blight. When the queen had advanced to an age which
precluded hope of further offspring, and the heir presumptive was an infirm
girl, the unpromising prospect became yet more alarming. The life of the
Princess Mary was precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood.
If she lived, her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she
did not live, and the king had no other children, a civil war was
inevitable. At present such a difficulty would be disposed of by an
immediate and simple reference to the collateral branches of the royal
family; the crown would descend with even more facility than the property
of an intestate to the next of kin. At that time, if the rule had been
recognised, it would only have increased the difficulty, for the next heir
in blood was James of Scotland; and, gravely as statesmen desired the union
of the two countries, in the existing mood of the people, the very stones
in London streets, it was said,[111] would rise up against a king of
Scotland who claimed to enter England as sovereign. Even the parliament
itself declared in formal language that they would resist any attempt on
the part of the Scottish king "to the uttermost of their power."[112]

As little, however, as the English would have admitted James's claims,
would James himself have acknowledged their right to reject them. He would
have pleaded the sacred right of inheritance, refusing utterly the
imaginary law which disentitled him: he would have pressed his title with
all Scotland to back him, and probably with the open support of France.
Centuries of humiliation remained unrevenged, which both France and
Scotland had endured at English hands. It was not likely that they would
waste an opportunity thrust upon them by Providence. The country might, it
is true, have encountered this danger, serious as it would have been, if
there had been hope that it would itself have agreed to any other choice.
England had many times fought successfully against the same odds, and would
have cared little for a renewal of the struggle, if united in itself: but
the prospect on this side, also, was fatally discouraging. The elements of
the old factions were dormant, but still smouldering. Throughout Henry's
reign a White Rose agitation had been secretly fermenting; without open
success, and without chance of success so long as Henry lived, but
formidable in a high degree if opportunity to strike should offer itself.
Richard de la Pole, the representative of this party, had been killed at
Pavia, but his loss had rather strengthened their cause than weakened it,
for by his long exile he was unknown in England; his personal character was
without energy; while he made place for the leadership of a far more
powerful spirit in the sister of the murdered Earl of Warwick, the Countess
of Salisbury, mother of Reginald Pole. This lady had inherited, in no
common degree, the fierce nature of the Plantagenets; born to command, she
had rallied round her the Courtenays, the Nevilles, and all the powerful
kindred of Richard the King Maker, her grandfather. Her Plantagenet descent
was purer than the king's; and if Mary died and Henry left no other issue,
half England was likely to declare either for one of her sons, or for the
Marquis of Exeter, the grandson of Edward IV.

In 1515, when Giustiniani,[113] the Venetian ambassador, was at the court,
the Dukes of Buckingham, of Suffolk, and of Norfolk, were also mentioned to
him as having each of them hopes of the crown. Buckingham, meddling
prematurely in the dangerous game, had lost his life for it; but in his
death he had strengthened the chance of Norfolk, who had married his
daughter. Suffolk was Henry's brother-in-law;[114] chivalrous, popular, and
the ablest soldier of his day; and Lady Margaret Lennox, also, daughter of
the Queen of Scotland by her second marriage, would not have wanted
supporters, and early became an object of intrigue. Indeed, as she had been
born in England, it was held in parliament that she stood next in order to
the Princess Mary.[115]

Many of these claims were likely to be advanced if Henry died leaving a
daughter to succeed him. They would all inevitably be advanced if he died
childless; and no great political sagacity was required to foresee the
probable fate of the country if such a moment was chosen for a French and
Scottish invasion. The very worst disasters might be too surely looked for,
and the hope of escape, precarious at the best, hung upon the frail thread
of a single life. We may therefore imagine the dismay with which the nation
saw this last hope failing them--and failing them even in a manner more
dangerous than if it had failed by death; for it did but add another doubt,
when already there were too many. In order to detach France from Scotland,
and secure, if possible, its support for the claims of the princess, it had
been proposed to marry the Princess Mary to a son of the French king. The
negotiations were conducted through the Bishop of Tarbês,[116] and at the
first conference the Bishop raised a question in the name of his
government, on the validity of the papal dispensation granted by Julius the
Second, to legalise the marriage from which she was sprung. The abortive
marriage Scheme perished in its birth, but the doubt which had been raised
could not perish with it. Doubt on such a subject once mooted might not be
left unresolved, even if the raising it thus publicly had not itself
destroyed the frail chance of an undisputed succession. If the relations of
Henry with Queen Catherine had been of a cordial kind, it is possible that
he would have been contented with resentment; that he would have refused to
reconsider a question which touched his honour and his conscience; and,
united with parliament, would have endeavoured to bear down all
difficulties with a high hand. This at least he might have himself
attempted. Whether the parliament, with so precarious a future before them,
would have consented, is less easy to say. Fortunately or unfortunately,
the interests of the nation pointed out another road, which Henry had no
unwillingness to enter.

On the death of Prince Arthur, five months after his marriage, Henry VII.
and the father of the Princess alike desired that the bond between their
families thus broken should be re-united; and, as soon as it became clear
that Catherine had not been left pregnant (a point which, tacitly at least,
she allowed to be considered uncertain at the time of her husband's
decease), it was proposed that she should be transferred, with the
inheritance of the crown, to the new heir. A dispensation was reluctantly
granted by the pope,[117] and reluctantly accepted by the English ministry.
The Prince of Wales, who was no more than twelve years old at the time, was
under the age at which he could legally sue for such an object; and a
portion of the English council, the Archbishop of Canterbury among them,
were unsatisfied,[118] both with the marriage itself, and with the adequacy
of the forms observed in a matter of so dubious an import. The betrothal
took place at the urgency of Ferdinand. In the year following Henry VII.
became suddenly ill; Queen Elizabeth died; and superstition working on the
previous hesitation, misfortune was construed into an indication of the
displeasure of Heaven. The intention was renounced, and the prince, as soon
as he had completed his fourteenth year, was invited and required to
disown, by a formal act, the obligations contracted in his name.[119] Again
there was a change. The king lived on, the alarm yielded to the temptations
of covetousness. Had he restored Catherine to her father he must have
restored with her the portion of her dowry which had been already received;
he must have relinquished the prospect of the moiety which had yet to be
received. The negotiation was renewed. Henry VII. lived to sign the
receipts for the first instalment of the second payment;[120] and on his
death, notwithstanding much general murmuring,[121] the young Henry, then a
boy of eighteen, proceeded to carry out his father's ultimate intentions.
The princess-dowager, notwithstanding what had passed, was still on her
side willing;--and the difference of age (she was six years older than
Henry) seeming of little moment when both were comparatively young, they
were married. For many years all went well; opposition was silenced by the
success which seemed to have followed, and the original scruples were
forgotten. Though the marriage was dictated by political convenience, Henry
was faithful, with but one exception, to his wife's bed--no slight honour
to him, if he is measured by the average royal standard in such matters;
and, if his sons had lived to grow up around his throne, there is no reason
to believe that the peace of his married life would have been interrupted,
or that, whatever might have been his private feelings, he would have
appeared in the world's eye other than acquiescent in his condition.

But his sons had not lived; years passed on, bringing with them premature
births, children born dead, or dying after a few days or hours,[122] and
the disappointment was intense in proportion to the interests which were at
issue. The especial penalty denounced against the marriage with a brother's
wife[123] had been all but literally enforced; and the king found himself
growing to middle life and his queen passing beyond it with his prayers
unheard, and no hope any longer that they might be heard. The disparity of
age also was more perceptible as time went by, while Catherine's
constitution was affected by her misfortunes, and differences arose on
which there is no occasion to dwell in these pages--differences which in
themselves reflected no discredit either on the husband or the wife, but
which were sufficient to extinguish between two infirm human beings an
affection that had rested only upon mutual esteem, but had not assumed the
character of love.

The circumstances in which Catherine was placed were of a kind which no
sensitive woman could have endured without impatience and mortification;
but her conduct, however natural, only widened the breach which personal
repugnance and radical opposition of character had already made too wide.
So far Henry and she were alike that both had imperious tempers, and both
were indomitably obstinate; but Henry was hot and impetuous, Catherine was
cold and self-contained--Henry saw his duty through his wishes; Catherine,
in her strong Castilian austerity, measured her steps by the letter of the
law; the more her husband withdrew from her, the more she insisted upon her
relation to him as his wife; and continued with fixed purpose and immovable
countenance[124] to share his table and his bed long after she was aware of
his dislike for her.

If the validity of so unfortunate a connection had never been questioned,
or if no national interests had been dependent on the continuance or the
abolition of it, these discomforts were not too great to have been endured
in silence. They were not originally occasioned by any latent inclination
on the part of the king for another woman. They had arisen to their worst
dimensions before he had ever seen Anne Boleyn, and were produced by causes
of a wholly independent kind; and even if it had not been so, when we
remember the tenor of his early life we need not think that he would have
been unequal to the restraint which ordinary persons in similar
circumstances are able to impose on their caprices. The legates spoke no
more than the truth when they wrote to the pope, saying that "it was mere
madness to suppose that the king would act as he was doing merely out of
dislike of the queen, or out of inclination, for another person; he was not
a man whom harsh manners and an unpleasant disposition (_duri mores et
injucunda consuetudo_) could so far provoke; nor could any sane man believe
him to be so infirm of character that sensual allurements would have led
him to dissolve a connexion in which he had passed the flower of youth
without stain or blemish, and in which he had borne himself in his trial so
reverently and honourably."[125] I consider this entirely true in a sense
which no great knowledge of human nature is required to understand. The
king's personal dissatisfaction was great: if this had been all, however,
it would have been extinguished or endured; but the interests of the
nation, imperilled as they were by the maintenance of the marriage,
entitled him to regard his position under another aspect. Even if the
marriage in itself had never been questioned, he might justly have desired
the dissolution of it; and when he recalled the circumstances under which
it was contracted, the hesitation of the council, the reluctance of the
pope, the alarms and vacillation of his father, we may readily perceive how
scruples of conscience must have arisen in a soil well prepared to receive
them--how the loss of his children must have appeared as a judicial
sentence on a violation of the Divine law. The divorce presented itself to
him as a moral obligation, when national advantage combined with
superstition to encourage what he secretly desired; and if he persuaded
himself that those public reasons, without which, in truth and fact, he
would not have stirred, were those that alone were influencing him, the
self-deceit was of a kind with which the experience of most men will
probably have made them too familiar. In those rare cases where inclination
coincides with right, we cannot be surprised if mankind should mislead
themselves with the belief that the disinterested motives weigh more with
them than the personal.

A remarkable and very candid account of Henry's feelings is furnished by
himself in one of the many papers of instructions[126] which he forwarded
to his secretary at Rome. Hypocrisy was not among his faults, and in
detailing the arguments which were to be laid before the pope he has
exhibited a more complete revelation of what was passing in himself--and
indirectly of his own nature in its strength and weakness--than he perhaps
imagined while he wrote. The despatch is long and perplexed; the style that
of a man who saw his end clearly, and was vexed with the intricate and
dishonest trifling with which his way was impeded, and which nevertheless
he was struggling to tolerate. The secretary was to say, "that the King's
Highness having above all other things his intent and mind ever founded
upon such respect unto Almighty God as to a Christian and catholic prince
doth appertain, knowing the fragility and uncertainty of all earthly
things, and how displeasant unto God, how much dangerous to the soul, how
dishonourable and damageable to the world it were to prefer vain and
transitory things unto those that be perfect and certain, hath in this
cause, doubt, and matter of matrimony, whereupon depend so high and
manifold consequences of greatest importance, always cast from his conceit
the darkness and blundering confusion of falsity, and specially hath had
and put before his eyes the light and shining brightness of truth; upon
which foundation as a most sure base for perpetual tranquillity of his
conscience his Highness hath expressly resolved and determined with himself
to build and establish all his acts, deeds, and cogitations touching this
matter; without God did build the house, in vain they laboured that went
about to build it; and all actions grounded upon that immovable fundament
of truth, must needs therein be firm, sound, whole, perfect, and worthy of
a Christian man; which if truth were put apart, they could not for the same
reason be but evil, vain, slipper, uncertain, and in nowise permanent or
endurable." He then laboured to urge on the pope the duty of
straightforward dealing; and dwelt in words which have a sad interest for
us (when we consider the manner in which the subject of them has been dealt
with) on the judgment bar, not of God only, but of human posterity, at
which his conduct would be ultimately tried.

"The causes of private persons dark and doubtful be sometimes," the king
said, "pretermitted and passed over as things more meet at some seasons to
be dissimuled than by continual strife and plea to nourish controversies.
Yet since all people have their eyes conject upon princes, whose acts and
doings not only be observed in the mouths of them that now do live, but
also remain in such perpetual memory to our posterity [so that] the evil,
if any there be, cannot but appear and come to light, there is no reason
for toleration, no place for dissimulation; but [there is reason] more
deeply, highly, and profoundly to penetrate and search for the truth, so
that the same may vanquish and overcome, and all guilt, craft, and
falsehood clearly be extirpate and reject."

I am anticipating the progress of the story in making these quotations; for
the main burden of the despatch concerns a forged document which had been
introduced by the Roman lawyers to embarrass the process, and of which I
shall by-and-bye have to speak directly; but I have desired to illustrate
the spirit in which Henry entered upon the general question--assuredly a
more calm and rational one than historians have usually represented it to
be. In dealing with the obstacle which had been raised, he displayed a most
efficient mastery over himself, although he did not conclude without
touching the pith of the matter with telling clearness. The secretary was
to take some opportunity of speaking to the pope privately; and of warning
him, "as of himself," that there was no hope that the king would give way:
he was to "say plainly to his Holiness that the king's desire and intent
_convolare ad secundas nuptias non patitur negativum_; and whatsoever
should be found of bull, brief, or otherwise, his Highness found his
conscience so inquieted, his succession in such danger, and his most royal
person in such perplexity for things unknown and not to be spoken, that
other remedy there was not but his Grace to come by one way or other, and
specially at his hands, if it might be, to the desired end; and that all
concertation to the contrary should be vain and frustrate."

So peremptory a conviction and so determined a purpose were of no sudden
growth, and had been probably maturing in his mind for years, when the
gangrene was torn open by the Bishop of Tarbês, and accident precipitated
his resolution. The momentous consequences involved, and the reluctance to
encounter a probable quarrel with the emperor, might have long kept him
silent, except for some extraneous casualty; but the tree being thus rudely
shaken, the ripe fruit fell. The capture of Rome occurring almost at the
same moment, Wolsey caught the opportunity to break the Spanish alliance;
and the prospect of a divorce was grasped at by him as a lever by which to
throw the weight of English power and influence into the papal scale, to
commit Henry definitely to the catholic cause. Like his acceptance of
legatine authority, the expedient was a desperate one, and if it failed it
was ruinous. The nation at that time was sincerely attached to Spain. The
alliance with the house of Burgundy was of old date; the commercial
intercourse with Flanders was enormous, Flanders, in fact, absorbing all
the English exports; and as many as 15,000 Flemings were settled in London.
Charles himself was personally popular; he had been the ally of England in
the late French war; and when in his supposed character of leader of the
anti-papal party in Europe he allowed a Lutheran army to desecrate Rome, he
had won the sympathy of all the latent discontent which was fermenting in
the population. France, on the other hand, was as cordially hated as Spain
was beloved. A state of war with France was the normal condition of
England; and the reconquest of it the universal dream from the cottage to
the castle. Henry himself, early in his reign, had shared in this delusive
ambition; and but three years before the sack of Rome, when the Duke of
Suffolk led an army into Normandy, Wolsey's purposed tardiness in sending
reinforcements had alone saved Paris.[127]

There could be no doubt, therefore, that a breach with the emperor would in
a high degree be unwelcome to the country. The king, and probably such
members of the council as were aware of his feelings, shrank from offering
an open affront to the Spanish people., and anxious as they were for a
settlement of the succession, perhaps trusted that advantage might be taken
of some political contingency for a private arrangement; that Catherine
might be induced by Charles himself to retire privately, and sacrifice
herself, of her free will, to the interests of the two countries. This,
however, is no more than conjecture; I think it probable, because so many
English statesmen were in favour at once of the divorce and of the Spanish
alliance--two objects which, only on some such hypothesis, were compatible.
The fact cannot be ascertained, however, because the divorce itself was not
discussed at the council table until Wolsey had induced the king to change
his policy by the hope of immediate relief.

Wolsey has revealed to us fully his own objects in a letter to Sir Gregory
Cassalis, his agent at Rome. He shared with half Europe in an impression
that the emperor's Italian campaigns were designed to further the
Reformation; and of this central delusion he formed the keystone of his
conduct. "First condoling with his Holiness," he wrote, "on the unhappy
position in which, with the college of the most reverend cardinals, he is
placed,[128] you shall tell him how, day and night, I am revolving by what
means or contrivance I may bring comfort to the church of Christ, and raise
the fallen state of our most Holy Lord. I care not whit it may cost me,
whether of expense or trouble; nay, though I have to shed my blood, or give
my life for it, assuredly so long as life remains to me for this I will
labour. And how let me mention the great and marvellous effects which have
been wrought by my instrumentality on the mind of my most excellent master
the king, whom I have persuaded to unite himself with his Holiness in heart
and soul. I urged innumerable reasons to induce him to part him from the
emperor, to whom he clung with much tenacity. The most effective of them
all was the constancy with which I assured him of the good-will and
affection which were felt for him by his Holiness, and the certainty that
his Holiness would furnish proof of his friendship in conceding his said
Majesty's requests, in such form as the church's treasure and the authority
of the Vicar of Christ shall permit, or so far as that authority extends or
may extend. I have undertaken, moreover, for all these things in their
utmost latitude, pledging my salvation, my faith, my honour and soul upon
them. I have said that his demands shall be granted amply and fully,
without scruple, without room or occasion being left for
after-retractation; and the King's Majesty, in consequence, believing on
these my solemn asseverations that the Pope's Holiness is really and indeed
well inclined towards him, accepting what is spoken by me as spoken by the
legate of the Apostolic See, and therefore, as in the name of his Holiness,
has determined to run the risk which I have pressed upon him; he will spare
no labour or expense, he will disregard the wishes of his subjects, and the
private interest of his Realm, to attach himself cordially and constantly
to the Holy See."[129]

These were the words of a man who loved England well, but who loved Rome
better; and Wolsey has received but scanty justice from catholic writers,
since he sacrificed himself for the catholic cause. His scheme was bold and
well laid, being weak only in that it was confessedly in contradiction to
the instincts and genius of the nation, by which, and by which alone, in
the long run, either this or any other country has been successfully
governed. And yet he might well be forgiven if he ventured on an unpopular
course in the belief that the event would justify him; and that, in uniting
with France to support the pope, he was not only consulting the true
interest of England, but was doing what England actually desired, although
blindly aiming at her object by other means. The French wars, however
traditionally popular, were fertile only in glory. The rivalry of the two
countries was a splendid folly, wasting the best blood of both countries
for an impracticable chimera; and though there was impatience of
ecclesiastical misrule, though there was jealousy of foreign interference,
and general irritation with the state of the church, yet the mass of the
people hated protestantism even worse than they hated the pope, the clergy,
and the consistory courts. They believed--and Wolsey was, perhaps, the only
leading member of the privy council, except Archbishop Warham, who was not
under the same delusion--that it was possible for a national church to
separate itself from the unity of Christendom, and at the same time to
crush or prevent innovation of doctrine; that faith in the sacramental
system could still be maintained, though the priesthood by whom those
mysteries were dispensed should minister in gilded chains. This was the
English historical theory handed down from William Rufus, the second Henry,
and the Edwards; yet it was and is a mere phantasm, a thing of words and
paper fictions, as Wolsey saw it to be. Wolsey knew well that an
ecclesiastical revolt implied, as a certainty, innovation of doctrine; that
plain men could not and would not continue to reverence the office of the
priesthood, when the priests were treated as the paid officials of an
earthly authority higher than their own. He was not to be blamed if he took
the people at their word; if he believed that, in their doctrinal
conservatism, they knew and meant what they were saying: and the reaction
which took place under Queen Mary, when the Anglican system had been tried
and failed, and the alternative was seen to be absolute between a union
with Rome or a forfeiture of catholic orthodoxy, prove after all that he
was wiser than in the immediate event he seemed to be; that if his policy
had succeeded, and if, strengthened by success, he had introduced into the
church those reforms which he had promised and desired,[130] he would have
satisfied the substantial wishes of the majority of the nation.

Like other men of genius, Wolsey also combined practical sagacity with an
unmeasured power of hoping. As difficulties gathered round him, he
encountered them with the increasing magnificence of his schemes; and after
thirty years' experience of public life, he was as sanguine as a boy. Armed
with this little lever of the divorce, he saw himself, in imagination, the
rebuilder of the catholic faith and the deliverer of Europe. The king being
remarried, and the succession settled, he would purge the Church of
England, and convert the monasteries into intellectual garrisons of pious
and learned men, occupying the land from end to end. The feuds with France
should cease for ever, and, united in a holy cause, the two countries
should restore the papacy, put down the German heresies, depose the
emperor, and establish in his place some faithful servant of the church.
Then Europe once more at peace, the hordes of the Crescent, which were
threatening to settle the quarrels of Christians in the West as they had
settled them in the East--by the extinction of Christianity itself,--were
to be hurled back into their proper barbarism.[131] These magnificent
visions fell from him in conversations with the Bishop of Bayonne, and may
be gathered from hints and fragments of his correspondence. Extravagant as
they seem, the prospect of realising them was, humanly speaking, neither
chimerical nor even improbable. He had but made the common mistake of men
of the world who are the representatives of an old order of things at the
time when that order is doomed and dying. He could not read the signs of
the times; and confounded the barrenness of death with the barrenness of a
winter which might be followed by a new spring and summer; he believed that
the old life-tree of Catholicism, which in fact was but cumbering the
ground, might bloom again in its old beauty. The thing which he called
heresy was the fire of Almighty God, which no politic congregation of
princes, no state machinery, though it were never so active, could trample
out; and as in the early years of Christianity the meanest slave who was
thrown to the wild beasts for his presence at the forbidden mysteries of
the gospel, saw deeper, in the divine power of his faith, into the future
even of this earthly world than the sagest of his imperial persecutors, so
a truer political prophet than Wolsey would have been found in the most
ignorant of those poor men, for whom his myrmidons were searching in the
purlieus of London, who were risking death and torture in disseminating the
pernicious volumes of the English Testament.

If we look at the matter, however, from a more earthly point of view, the
causes which immediately defeated Wolsey's policy were not such as human
foresight could have anticipated. We ourselves, surveying the various
parties in Europe with the light of our knowledge of the actual sequel, are
perhaps able to understand their real relations; but if in 1527 a political
astrologer had foretold that within two years of that time the pope and the
emperor who had imprisoned him would be cordial allies, that the positions
of England and Spain toward the papacy would be diametrically reversed, and
that the two countries were on the point of taking their posts, which they
would ever afterwards maintain, as the champions respectively of the
opposite principles to those which at that time they seemed to represent,
the prophecy would have been held scarcely less insane than a prophecy six
or even three years before the event, that in the year 1854 England would
be united with an Emperor Napoleon for the preservation of European order.

Henry, then, in the spring of the year 1527, definitively breaking the
Spanish alliance, formed a league with Francis I., the avowed object of
which was the expulsion of the Imperialists from Italy; with a further
intention--if it could be carried into effect--of avenging the outrage
offered to Europe in the pope's imprisonment, by declaring vacant the
imperial throne. Simultaneously with the congress at Amiens where the terms
of the alliance were arranged, confidential persons were despatched into
Italy to obtain an interview--if possible--with the pope, and formally
laying before him the circumstances of the king's position, to request him
to make use of his powers to provide a remedy. It is noticeable that at the
outset of the negotiation the king did not fully trust Wolsey. The latter
had suggested, as the simplest method of proceeding, that the pope should
extend his authority as legate, granting him plenary power to act as
English vicegerent so long as Rome was occupied by the Emperor's troops.
Henry, not wholly satisfied that he was acquainted with his minister's full
intentions in desiring so large a capacity, sent his own secretary, unknown
to Wolsey, with his own private propositions--requesting simply a
dispensation to take a second wife, his former marriage being allowed to
stand with no definite sentence passed upon it; or, if that were
impossible, leaving the pope to choose his own method, and settle the
question in the manner least difficult and least offensive.[132]

Wolsey, however, soon satisfied the king that he had no sinister
intentions. By the middle of the winter we find the private messenger
associated openly with Sir Gregory Cassalis, the agent of the minister's
communications;[133] and a series of formal demands were presented jointly
by these two persons in the names of Henry and the legate; which, though
taking many forms, resolved themselves substantially into one. The pope was
required to make use of his dispensing power to enable the King of England
to marry a wife who could bear him children, and thus provide some better
security than already existed for the succession to the throne. This demand
could not be considered as in itself unreasonable; and if personal feeling
was combined with other motives to induce Henry to press it, personal
feeling did not affect the general bearing of the question. The king's
desire was publicly urged on public grounds, and thus, and thus only, the
pope was at liberty to consider it. The marriages of princes have ever been
affected by other considerations than those which influence such relations
between private persons. Princes may not, as "unvalued persons" may, "carve
for themselves;" they pay the penalty of their high place, in submitting
their affections to the welfare of the state; and the same causes which
regulate the formation of these ties must be allowed to influence the
continuance of them. The case which was submitted to the pope was one of
those for which his very power of dispensing had been vested in him; and
being, as he called himself, the Father of Christendom, the nation thought
themselves entitled to call upon him to make use of that power. A resource
of the kind must exist somewhere--the relation between princes and subjects
indispensably requiring it. It had been vested in the Bishop of Rome,
because it had been presumed that the sanctity of his office would secure
an impartial exercise of his authority. And unless he could have shown
(which he never attempted to show) that the circumstances of the succession
were not so precarious as to call for his interference, it would seem that
the express contingency had arisen which was contemplated in the
constitution of the canon law;[134] and that where a provision had been
made by the church of which he was the earthly head, for difficulties of
this precise description, the pope was under an obligation either to make
the required concessions in virtue of his faculty, or, if he found himself
unable to make those concessions, to offer some distinct explanation of his
refusal. I speak of the question as nakedly political. I am not considering
the private injuries of which Catherine had so deep a right to complain,
nor the complications subsequently raised on the original validity of the
first marriage. A political difficulty, on which alone he was bound to give
sentence, was laid before the pope in his judicial capacity, in the name of
the nation; and the painful features which the process afterwards assumed
are due wholly to his original weakness and vacillation.

Deeply, however, as we must all deplore the scandal and suffering which
were occasioned by the dispute, it was in a high degree fortunate, that at
the crisis of public dissatisfaction in England with the condition of the
church, especially in the conduct of its courts of justice, a cause should
have arisen which tested the whole question of church authority in its
highest form; where the dispute between the laity and the ecclesiastics was
represented in a process in which the pope sat as judge; in which the king
was the appellant, and the most vital interests of the nation were at stake
upon the issue. It was no accident which connected a suit for divorce with
the reformation of religion. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction was upon its
trial, and the future relations of church and state depended upon the
pope's conduct in a matter which no technical skill was required to decide,
but only the moral virtues of probity and courage. The time had been when
the clergy feared only to be unjust, and when the functions of judges might
safely be entrusted to them. The small iniquities of the consistory courts
had shaken the popular faith in the continued operation of such a fear; and
the experience of an Alexander VI., a Julius II., and a Leo X. had induced
a suspicion that even in the highest quarters justice had ceased to be much
considered. It remained for Clement VII. to disabuse men of their alarms,
or by confirming them to forfeit for ever the supremacy of his order in
England. Nor can it be said for him that the case was one in which it was
unusually difficult to be virtuous. Justice, wounded dignity, and the
interests of the See pointed alike to the same course. Queen Catherine's
relationship to the emperor could not have recommended her to the
tenderness of the pope, and the policy of assenting to an act which would
infallibly alienate Henry from Charles, and therefore attach him to the
Roman interests, did not require the eloquence of Wolsey to make it
intelligible. If, because he was in the emperor's power, he therefore
feared the personal consequences to himself, his cowardice of itself
disqualified him to sit as a judge.

It does not fall within my present purpose to detail the first stages of
the proceedings which followed. In substance they are well known to all
readers of English history, and may be understood without difficulty as
soon as we possess the clue to the conduct of Wolsey. I shall, however, in
a few pages briefly epitomise what passed.

At the outset of the negotiation, the pope, although he would take no
positive steps, was all, in words, which he was expected to be. Neither he
nor the cardinals refused to acknowledge the dangers which threatened the
country. He discussed freely the position of the different parties, the
probabilities of a disputed succession, and the various claimants who would
present themselves, if the king died without an heir of undisputed
legitimacy.[135] Gardiner writes to Wolsey,[136] "We did even more
inculcate what speed and celerity the thing required, and what danger it
was to the realm to have this matter hang in suspense. His Holiness
confessed the same, and thereupon began to reckon what divers titles might
be pretended by the King of Scots and others, and granted that, without an
heir male, with provision to be made by consent of the state for his
succession, and unless that what shall be done herein be established in
such fashion as nothing may hereafter be objected thereto, the realm was
like to come to dissolution."

In stronger language the Cardinal-Governor of Bologna declared that "he
knew the gyze of England as well as few men did, and if the king should die
without heirs male, he was sure it would cost two hundred thousand men's
lives. Wherefore he thought, supposing his Grace should have no more
children by the queen, and that by taking of another wife he might have
heirs male, the bringing to pass that matter, and by that to avoid the
mischiefs afore written, he thought would deserve Heaven."[137] Whatever
doubt their might be, therefore, whether the original marriage with
Catherine was legal, it was universally admitted that there was none about
the national desirableness of the dissolution of it; and if the pope had
been free to judge only by the merits of the case, it is impossible to
doubt that he would have cut the knot, either by granting a dispensation to
Henry to marry a second wife--his first being formally, though not
judicially, separated from him--or in some other way.[138] But the emperor
was "a lion in his path;" the question of strength between the French and
the Spaniards remained undecided, and Clement would come to no decision
until he was assured of the power of the allies to protect him from the
consequences. Accordingly he said and unsaid, sighed, sobbed, beat his
breast, shuffled, implored, threatened;[139] in all ways he endeavoured to
escape from his dilemma, to say yes and to say no, to do nothing, to offend
no one, and above all to gain time, with the weak man's hope that
"something might happen" to extricate him. Embassy followed embassy from
England, each using language more threatening than its predecessor. The
thing, it was said, must be done, and should be done. If it was not done by
the pope it would be done at home in some other way, and the pope must take
the consequences.[140] Wolsey warned him passionately of the rising
storm,[141] a storm which would be so terrible when it burst "that it would
be better to die than to live." The pope was strangely unable to believe
that the danger could be real, being misled perhaps by other information
from the friends of Queen Catherine, and by an over-confidence in the
attachment of the people to the emperor. He acted throughout in a manner
natural to a timid amiable man, who found himself in circumstances to which
he was unequal; and as long as we look at him merely as a man we can pity
his embarrassment. He forgot, however, that only because he was supposed to
be more than a man had kings and emperors consented to plead at his
judgment seat--a fact of which Stephen Gardiner, then Wolsey's secretary,
thought it well to remind him in the following striking language:--

"Unless," said the future Bishop of Winchester in the council, at the close
of a weary day of unprofitable debating, "unless some other resolution be
taken than I perceive you intend to make, hereupon shall be gathered a
marvellous opinion of your Holiness, of the college of cardinals, and of
the authority of this See. The King's Highness, and the nobles of the realm
who shall be made privy to this, shall needs think that your Holiness and
these most reverend and learned councillors either will not answer in this
cause, or cannot answer. If you will not, if you do not choose to point out
the way to an erring man, the care of whom is by God committed to you, they
will say, 'Oh race of men most ungrateful, and of your proper office most
oblivious! You who should be simple as doves are full of all deceit, and
craft, and dissembling. If the king's cause be good, we require that you
pronounce it good. If it be bad, why will you not say that it is bad, so to
hinder a prince to whom you are so much bounden from longer continuing with
it? We ask nothing of you but justice, which the king so loves and values,
that whatever sinister things others may say or think of him, he will
follow that with all his heart; that, and nothing else, whether it be for
the marriage or against the marriage.'

"But if the King's Majesty," continued Gardiner, hitting the very point of
the difficulty, "if the King's Majesty and the nobility of England, being
persuaded of your good will to answer if you can do so, shall be brought to
doubt of your ability, they will be forced to a harder conclusion
respecting this See--namely, that God has taken from it the key of
knowledge; and they will begin to give better ear to that opinion of some
persons to which they have as yet refused to listen, that those papal laws
which neither the pope himself nor his council can interpret, deserve only
to be committed to the flames." "I desired his Holiness," he adds, "to
ponder well this matter."[142]

Clement was no hero, but in his worst embarrassments his wit never failed
him. He answered that he was not learned, and "to speak truth, albeit there
was a saying in the canon law, that _Pontifex habet omnia jura in scrinio
pectoris_ (the pope has all laws locked within his breast), yet God had
never given him the key to open that lock." He was but "seeking pretexts"
for delay, as Gardiner saw, till the issue of the Italian campaign of the
French in the summer of 1528 was decided. He had been liberated, or had
been allowed to escape from Rome, in the fear that if detained longer he
might nominate a vicegerent; and was residing at an old ruined castle at
Orvieto, waiting upon events, leaving the Holy City still occupied by the
Prince of Orange. In the preceding autumn, immediately after the congress
at Amiens, M. de Lautrec, accompanied by several English noblemen, had led
an army across the Alps. He had defeated the Imperialists in the north of
Italy in several minor engagements; and in January his success appeared so
probable, that the pope took better heart, and told Sir Gregory Cassalis,
that if the French would only approach near enough to enable him to plead
compulsion, he would grant a commission to Wolsey, with plenary power to
conclude the cause.[143] De Lautrec, however, foiled in his desire to bring
the Imperialists to a decisive engagement, wasted his time and strength in
ineffectual petty sieges; and finally, in the summer, on the unhealthy
plains of Naples, a disaster more fatal in its consequences than the battle
of Pavia, closed the prospects of the French to the south of the Alps; and
with them all Wolsey's hopes of realising his dream. Struck down, not by a
visible enemy, but by the silent hand of fever, the French general himself,
his English friends, and all his army melted away from off the earth. The
pope had been wise in time. He had committed himself in words and
intentions; but he had done nothing which he could not recall. He obtained
his pardon from the emperor by promising to offend no more; and from that
moment never again entertained any real thought of concession. Acting under
explicit directions, he made it his object thenceforward to delay and to
procrastinate. Charles had no desire to press matters to extremities. War
had not yet been declared[144] against him by Henry; nor was he anxious
himself to precipitate a quarrel from which, if possible, he would gladly
escape. He had a powerful party in England, which it was unwise to alienate
by hasty, injudicious measures; and he could gain all which he himself
desired by a simple policy of obstruction. His object was merely to
protract the negotiation and prevent a decision, in the hope either that
Henry would be wearied into acquiescence, or that Catherine herself would
retire of her own accord, or, finally, that some happy accident might occur
to terminate the difficulty. It is, indeed, much to the honour of Charles
V. that he resolved to support the queen. She had thrown herself on his
protection; but princes in such matters consider prudence more than
feeling, and he could gain nothing by defending her: while, both for
himself and for the church he risked the loss of much. He over-rated the
strength of his English connection, and mistook the English character; but
he was not blind to the hazard which he was incurring, and would have
welcomed an escape from the dilemma perhaps as warmly as Henry would have
welcomed it himself. The pope, who well knew his feelings, told Gardiner,
"It would be for the wealth of Christendom if the queen were in her
grave; and he thought the emperor would be thereof most glad of all;"
saying, also, "that he thought like as the emperor had destroyed the
temporalities of the church, so should she be the destruction of the
spiritualities."[145]

In the summer of 1528, before the disaster at Naples, Cardinal Campeggio
had left Rome on his way to England, where he was to hear the cause in
conjunction with Wolsey. An initial measure of this obvious kind it had
been impossible to refuse; and the pretexts under which it was for many
months delayed, were exhausted before the pope's ultimate course had been
made clear to him. But Campeggio was instructed to protract his journey to
its utmost length, giving time for the campaign to decide itself. He
loitered into the autumn, under the excuse of gout and other convenient
accidents, until the news reached him of De Lautrec's death, which took
place on the 21st of August; and then at length proceeding, he betrayed to
Francis I., on passing through Paris, that he had no intention of allowing
judgment to be passed upon the cause.[146] Even Wolsey was beginning to
tremble at what he had attempted, and was doubtful of success.[147] The
seeming relief came in time, for Henry's patience was fast running out. He
had been over-persuaded into a course which he had never cordially
approved. The majority of the council, especially the Duke of Norfolk and
the Duke of Suffolk, were traditionally imperial, and he himself might well
doubt whether he might not have found a nearer road out of his difficulties
by adhering to Charles. Charles, after all, was not ruining the papacy, and
had no intention of ruining it; and his lightest word weighed more at the
court of Rome than the dubious threats and prayers of France. The Bishop of
Bayonne, resident French ambassador in London, whose remarkable letters
transport us back into the very midst of that unquiet and stormy scene,
tells us plainly that the French alliance was hated by the country, that
the nobility were all for the emperor, and that among the commons the
loudest discontent was openly expressed against Wolsey from the danger of
the interruption of the trade with Flanders. Flemish ships had been
detained in London, and English ships in retaliation had been arrested in
the Zealand ports; corn was unusually dear, and the expected supplies from
Spain and Germany were cut off;[148] while the derangement of the woollen
trade, from the reluctance of the merchants to venture purchases, was
causing distress all over the country, and Wolsey had been driven to the
most arbitrary measures to prevent open disturbance.[149] He had set his
hopes upon the chance of a single cast which he would not believe could
fail him, but on each fresh delay he was compelled to feel his declining
credit, and the Bishop of Bayonne wrote, on the 20th of August, 1528, that
the cardinal was in bad spirits, and had told him in confidence, that "if
he could only see the divorce arranged, the king remarried, the succession
settled, and the laws and the manners and customs of the country reformed,
he would retire from the world and would serve God the remainder of his
days."[150] To these few trifles he would be contented to confine
himself--only to these; he was past sixty, he was weary of the world, and
his health was breaking, and he would limit his hopes to the execution of a
work for which centuries imperfectly sufficed. It seemed as if he measured
his stature by the lengthening shadow, as his sun made haste to its
setting. Symptoms of misgiving may be observed in the many anxious letters
which he wrote while Campeggio was so long upon his road; and the Bishop of
Bayonne, whose less interested eyes could see more deeply into the game,
warned him throughout that the pope was playing him false.[151] Only in a
revulsion from violent despondency could such a man as Wolsey have allowed
himself, on the mere arrival of the legate, and after a few soft words from
him, to write in the following strain to Sir Gregory Cassalis:--

"You cannot believe the exultation with which at length I find myself
successful in the object for which these many years, with all my industry,
I have laboured. At length I have found means to bind my most excellent
sovereign and this glorious realm to the holy Roman see in faith and
obedience for ever. Henceforth will this people become the most sure pillar
of support to bear up the sacred fabric of the church. Henceforth, in
recompense for that enduring felicity which he has secured to it, our most
Holy Lord has all England at his devotion. In brief time will this noble
land make its grateful acknowledgments to his clemency at once for the
preservation of the most just, most wise, most excellent of princes, and
for the secure establishment of the realm and the protection of the royal
succession."[152]

This letter was dated on the fourth of October, and was written in the hope
that the pope had collected his courage, and that the legate had brought
powers to proceed to judgment. In a few days the prospect was again
clouded, and Wolsey was once more in despair.[153] Campeggio had brought
with him instructions if possible to arrange a compromise,--if a compromise
was impossible, to make the best use of his ingenuity, and do nothing and
allow nothing to be done. In one of two ways, however, it was hoped that he
might effect a peaceful solution. He urged the king to give way and to
proceed no further; and this failing, as he was prepared to find, he urged
the same thing upon the queen.[154] He invited Catherine, or he was
directed to invite her, in the pope's name,[155] for the sake of the
general interests of Christendom, to take the vows and enter what was
called _religio laxa_, a state in which she might live unincumbered by
obligations except the easy one of chastity, and free from all other
restrictions either of habit, diet, or order. The proposal was Wolsey's,
and was formed when he found the limited nature of Campeggio's
instructions;[156] but it was adopted by the latter; and I cannot but think
(though I have no proof of it) that it was not adopted without the
knowledge of the emperor. Whatever were his own interests, Charles V. gave
Catherine his unwavering support: he made it his duty to maintain her in
the ignominious position in which she was placed, and submitted his own
conduct to be guided by her wishes. It cannot be doubted, however, from the
pope's words, and also from the circumstances of the case, that if she
could have prevailed upon herself to yield, it would have relieved him from
a painful embarrassment. As a prince, he must have felt the substantial
justice of Henry's demand, and in refusing to allow the pope to pass a
judicial sentence of divorce, he could not but have known that he was
compromising the position of the Holy See: while Catherine herself, on the
other hand, if she had yielded, would have retired without a stain; no
opinion would have been pronounced upon her marriage; the legitimacy of the
Princess Mary would have been left without impeachment; and her right to
the succession, in the event of no male heir following from any new
connection which the king might form, would have been readily secured to
her by act of parliament. It may be asked why she did not yield, and it is
difficult to answer the question. She was not a person who would have been
disturbed by the loss of a few court vanities. Her situation as Henry's
wife could not have had many charms for her, nor can it be thought that she
retained a personal affection for him. If she had loved him, she would have
suffered too deeply in the struggle to have continued to resist, and the
cloister would have seemed a paradise. Or if the cloister had appeared too
sad a shelter for her, she might have gone back to the gardens of the
Alhambra, where she had played as a child, carrying with her the
affectionate remembrance of every English heart, and welcomed by her own
people as an injured saint. Nor again can we suppose that the possible
injury of her daughter's prospects from the birth of a prince by another
marriage could have seemed of so vast moment to her. Those prospects were
already more than endangered, and would have been rather improved than
brought into further peril.

It is not for us to dictate the conduct which a woman smarting under
injuries so cruel ought to have pursued. She had a right to choose the
course which seemed the best to herself, and England especially could not
claim of a stranger that readiness to sacrifice herself which it might have
demanded and exacted of one of its own children. We may regret, however,
what we are unable to censure; and the most refined ingenuity could
scarcely have invented a more unfortunate answer than that which the Queen
returned to the legate's request. She seems to have said that she was ready
to take vows of chastity if the king would do the same. It does not appear
whether the request was _formally_ made, or whether it was merely suggested
to her in private conversation. That she told the legates, however, what
her answer would be, appears certain from the following passage, sadly
indicating the "devices of policy" to which in this unhappy business
honourable men allowed themselves to be driven:--

"Forasmuch as it is like that the queen shall make marvellous difficulty,
and in nowise be conformable to enter religion[157] or take vows of
chastity, but that to induce her thereunto, there must be ways and means of
high policy used, and all things possible devised to encourage her to the
same; wherein percase she shall resolve that she in no wise will condescend
so to do, unless that the King's Highness also do the semblable for his
part; the king's said orators shall therefore in like wise ripe and
instruct themselves by their secret learned council in the court of Rome,
if, for so great a benefit to ensue unto the king's succession, realm, and
subjects, with the quiet of his conscience, his Grace should promise so to
enter religion on vows of chastity for his part, only thereby to conduce
the queen thereunto, whether in that case the Pope's Holiness may dispense
with the King's Highness for the same promise, oath, or vow, discharging
his Grace clearly of the same."[158]

The explanation of the queen's conduct lies probably in regions into which
it is neither easy nor well to penetrate; in regions of outraged delicacy
and wounded pride, in a vast drama of passion which had been enacted behind
the scenes. From the significant hints which are let fall of the original
cause of the estrangement, it was of a kind more difficult to endure than
the ordinary trial of married women, the transfer of a husband's affection
to some fairer face; and a wife whom so painful a misfortune had failed to
crush would be likely to have been moved by it to a deeper and more bitter
indignation even, because while she could not blame herself, she knew not
whom she might rightly allow herself to blame. And if this were so, the
king is not likely to have allayed the storm when at length, putting faith
in Wolsey's promises, he allowed himself openly to regard another person as
his future wife, establishing her in the palace at Greenwich under the same
roof with the queen, with reception rooms, and royal state, and a position
openly acknowledged,[159] the gay court and courtiers forsaking the gloomy
dignity of the actual wife for the gaudy splendour of her brilliant rival.
Tamer blood than that which flowed in the veins of a princess of Castile
would have boiled under these indignities; and we have little reason to be
surprised if policy and prudence were alike forgotten by Catherine in the
bitterness of the draught which was forced upon her, and if her own
personal wrongs outweighed the interests of the world. Henry had proceeded
to the last unjustifiable extremity as soon as the character of Campeggio's
mission had been made clear to him, as if to demonstrate to all the world
that he was determined to persevere at all costs and hazards.[160] Taking
the management of the negotiation into his own keeping, he sent Sir Francis
Bryan, the cousin of Anne Boleyn, to the pope, to announce that what he
required must be done, and to declare peremptorily, no more with covert
hints, but with open menace, that in default of help from Rome, he would
lay the matter before parliament, to be settled at home by the laws of his
own country.

Meanwhile, the emperor, who had hitherto conducted himself with the
greatest address, had fallen into his first error. He had retreated
skilfully out of the embarrassment in which the pope's imprisonment
involved him, and mingling authority and dictation with kindness and
deference, he had won over the Holy See to his devotion, and neutralised
the danger to which the alliance of France and England threatened to expose
him. His correspondence with the latter country assured him of the
unpopularity of the course which had been pursued by the cardinal; he was
aware of the obstruction of trade which it had caused, and of the general
displeasure felt by the people at the breach of an old friendship; while
the league with France in behalf of the Roman church had been barren of
results, and was made ridiculous by the obvious preference of the pope for
the enemy from whom it was formed to deliver him. If Charles had understood
the English temper, therefore, and had known how to avail himself of the
opportunity, events might have run in a very different channel. But he was
not aware of the earnestness with which the people were bent upon securing
the succession, nor of their loyal attachment to Henry. He supposed that
disapproval of the course followed by Wolsey to obtain the divorce implied
an aversion to it altogether; and trusting to his interest in the privy
council, and to his commercial connection with the city, he had attempted
to meet menace with menace; he had replied to the language addressed by
Henry to the pope with an attempt to feel the pulse of English
disaffection, and he opened a correspondence with the Earl of Desmond for
an Irish revolt.[161]

The opportunity for a movement of this kind had not yet arrived. There was,
in England at least, as yet no wide disaffection; but there was a chance of
serious outbreaks; and Henry instantly threw himself upon the nation. He
summoned the peers by circular to London, and calling a general meeting,
composed of the nobility, the privy council, the lord mayor, and the great
merchants of the city, he laid before them a specific detail of his objects
in desiring the divorce;[162] and informed them of the nature of the
measures which had been taken.[163] This, the French ambassador informs us,
gave wide satisfaction and served much to allay the disquiet; but so great
was the indignation against Wolsey, that disturbances in London were every
day anticipated; and at one time the danger appeared so threatening, that
an order of council was issued, commanding all strangers to leave the city,
and a general search was instituted for arms.[164] The strangers aimed at
were the Flemings, whose numbers made them formidable, and who were,
perhaps, supposed to be ready to act under instruction from abroad. The
cloud, however, cleared away; the order was not enforced; and the
propitious moment for treason had not yet arrived. The emperor had felt so
confident that, in the autumn of 1528, he had boasted that, "before the
winter was over, he would fling Henry from his throne by the hands of his
own Subjects." The words had been repeated to Wolsey, who mentioned them
openly at his table before more than a hundred gentlemen. A person present
exclaimed, "That speech has lost the emperor more than a hundred thousand
hearts among us;"[165] an expression which reveals at once the strength and
the weakness of the imperial party. England might have its own opinions of
the policy of the government, but it was in no humour to tolerate treason,
and the first hint of revolt was followed by an instant recoil. The
discovery of more successful intrigues in Scotland and Ireland completed
the destruction of Charles's influence;[166] and the result of these
ill-judged and premature efforts was merely to unite the nation in their
determination to prosecute the divorce.

Thus were the various parties in the vast struggle which was about to
commence gravitating into their places; and mistake combined with policy to
place them in their true positions. Wolsey, in submitting "the king's
matter" to the pope, had brought to issue the question whether the papal
authority should be any longer recognised in England; and he had secured
the ruin of that authority by the steps through which he hoped to establish
it; while Charles, by his unwise endeavours to foment a rebellion, severed
with his own hand the links of a friendship which would have been seriously
embarrassing if it had continued. By him, also, was dealt the concluding
stroke in this first act of the drama; and though we may grant him credit
for the ingenuity of his contrivance, he can claim it only at the expense
of his probity. The pope, when the commission was appointed for the trial
of the cause in England, had given a promise in writing that the commission
should not be revoked. It seemed, therefore, that the legates would be
compelled, in spite of themselves, to pronounce sentence; and that the
settlement of the question, in one form or other, could not long be
delayed. At the pressure of the crisis in the winter of 1528-9, a document
was produced alleged to have been found in Spain, which furnished a pretext
for a recall of the engagement, and opening now questions, indefinite and
inexhaustible, rendered the passing of a sentence in England impossible.
Unhappily, the weight of the king's claim (however it had been rested on
its true merits in conversation and in letters) had, by the perverse
ingenuity of the lawyers, been laid on certain informalities and defects in
the original bull of dispensation, which had been granted by Julius II. for
the marriage of Henry and Catherine. At the moment when the legates' court
was about to be opened, a copy of a brief was brought forward, bearing the
same date as the bull, exactly meeting the objection. The authenticity of
this brief was open, on its own merits, to grave doubt; and suspicion
becomes certainty when we find it was dropped out of the controversy so
soon as the immediate object was gained for which it was produced. But the
legates' hands were instantly tied by it. The "previous question" of
authenticity had necessarily to be tried before they could take another
step; and the "original" of the brief being in the hands of the emperor,
who refused to send it into England, but offered to send it to Rome, the
cause was virtually transferred to Rome, where Henry, as he knew, was
unlikely to consent to plead, or where he could himself rule the decision.
He had made a stroke of political finesse, which answered not only the
purpose that he immediately intended, but answered, also, the purpose that
he did not intend--of dealing the hardest blow which it had yet received to
the supremacy of the Holy See.

The spring of 1529 was wasted in fruitless efforts to obtain the brief. At
length, in May, the proceedings were commenced; but they were commenced
only in form, and were never more than an illusion. Catherine had been
instructed in the course which she was to pursue. She appealed from the
judgment of the legates to that of the pope; and the pope, with the plea of
the new feature which had arisen in the case, declared that he could not
refuse to revoke his promise. Having consented to the production of the
brief, he had in fact no alternative; nor does it appear what he could have
urged in excuse of himself. He may have suspected the forgery; nay, it is
certain that in England he was believed to be privy to it; but he could not
ignore an important feature of necessary evidence, especially when pressed
upon him by the emperor; and it was in fact no more than an absurdity to
admit the authority of a papal commission, and to refuse to permit an
appeal from it to the pope in person. We may thank Clement for dispelling a
chimera by a simple act of consistency. The power of the See of Rome in
England was a constitutional fiction, acknowledged only on condition that
it would consent to be inert. So long as a legate's court sat in London,
men were able to conceal from themselves the fact of a foreign
jurisdiction, and to feel that, substantially, their national independence
was respected; when the fiction aspired to become a reality, but one
consequence was possible. If Henry himself would have stooped to plead at a
foreign tribunal, the spirit of the nation would not have permitted him to
inflict so great a dishonour on the free majesty of England.

So fell Wolsey's great scheme, and with it fell the last real chance of
maintaining the pope's authority in England under any form. The people were
smarting under the long humiliation of the delay, and ill-endured to see
the interests of England submitted, as they virtually were, to the
arbitration of a foreign prince. The emperor, not the pope, was the true
judge who sat to decide the quarrel; and their angry jealousy refused to
tolerate longer a national dishonour.

"The great men of the realm," wrote the legates, "are storming in bitter
wrath at our procrastination. Lords and commons alike complain that they
are made to expect at the hands of strangers things of vital moment to
themselves and their fortunes. And many persons here who would desire to
see the pope's authority in this country diminished or annulled, are
speaking in language which we cannot repeat without horror."[167]

And when, being in such a mood, they were mocked, after two weary years of
negotiation, by the opening of a fresh vista of difficulties, when they
were informed that the further hearing of the cause was transferred to
Italy, even Wolsey, with certain ruin before him, rose in protest before
such a dream of shame. He was no more the Roman legate, but the English
minister.

"If the advocation be passed," he wrote to Cassalis,[168] "or shall now at
any time hereafter pass, with citation of the king in person, or by
proctor, to the court of Rome, or with any clause of interdiction or
excommunication, _vel cum invocatione brachii sæcularis_, whereby the king
should be precluded from taking his advantage otherwise, the dignity and
prerogative royal of the king's crown, whereunto all the nobles and
subjects of this realm will adhere and stick unto the death, may not
tolerate nor suffer that the same be obeyed. And to say the truth, in so
doing the pope should not only show himself the king's enemy, but also as
much as in him is, provoke all other princes and people to be the
semblable. Nor shall it ever be seen that the king's cause shall be
ventilated or decided in any place out of his own realm; _but that if his
Grace should come at any time to the Court of Rome, he would do the same
with such a main and army royal as should be formidable to the pope and all
Italy_."[169]

Wolsey, however, failed in his protest; the advocation was passed,
Campeggio left England, and he was lost. A crisis had arrived, and a
revolution of policy was inevitable. From the accession of Henry VII., the
country had been governed by a succession of ecclesiastical ministers, who
being priests as well as statesmen, were essentially conservative; and
whose efforts in a position of constantly increasing difficulty had been
directed towards resisting the changing tendencies of the age, and either
evading a reformation of the church while they admitted its necessity, or
retaining the conduct of it in their own hands, while they were giving
evidence of their inability to accomplish the work. It was now over; the
ablest representative of this party, in a last desperate effort to retain
power, had decisively failed. Writs were issued for a parliament when the
legate's departure was determined, and the consequences were inevitable.
Wolsey had known too well the unpopularity of his foreign policy, to
venture on calling a parliament himself. He relied on success as an
ultimate justification; and inasmuch as success had not followed, he was
obliged to bear the necessary fate of a minister who, in a free country,
had thwarted the popular will and whom fortune deserted in the struggle.
The barriers which his single hand had upheld suddenly gave way, the
torrent had free course, and he himself was the first to be swept away. In
modern language, we should describe what took place as a change of
ministry, the government being transferred to an opposition, who had been
irritated by long depression under the hands of men whom they despised, and
who were borne into power by an irresistible force in a moment of
excitement and danger. The king, who had been persuaded against his better
judgment to accept Wolsey's schemes, admitted the rising spirit without
reluctance, contented to moderate its action, but no longer obstructing or
permitting it to be obstructed. Like all great English statesmen, he was
constitutionally conservative, but he had the tact to perceive the
conditions under which, in critical times, conservatism is possible; and
although he continued to endure for himself the trifling of the papacy, he
would not, for the sake of the pope's interest, delay further the
investigation of the complaints of the people against the church; while in
the future prosecution of his own cause, he resolved to take no steps
except with the consent of the legislature, and in a question of national
moment, to consult only the nation's wishes.

The new ministry held a middle place between the moving party in the
commons and the expelled ecclesiastics, the principal members of it being
the chief representatives of the old aristocracy, who had been Wolsey's
fiercest opponents, but who were disinclined by constitution and sympathy
from sweeping measures. An attempt was made, indeed, to conciliate the more
old-fashioned of the churchmen, by an offer of the seals to Warham,
Archbishop of Canterbury, probably because he originally opposed the
marriage between the king and his sister-in-law, and because it was hoped
that his objections remained unaltered. Warham, however, as we shall see,
had changed his mind: he declined, on the plea of age, and the office of
chancellor was given to Sir Thomas More, perhaps the person least
disaffected to the clergy who could have been found among the leading
laymen. The substance of power was vested in the Dukes of Norfolk and
Suffolk, the great soldier-nobles of the age, and Sir William Fitz-William,
lord admiral; to all of whom the ecclesiastical domination had been most
intolerable, while they had each of them brilliantly distinguished
themselves in the wars with France and Scotland. According to the French
ambassador, we must add one more minister, supreme, if we may trust him,
above them all. "The Duke of Norfolk," he writes, "is made president of the
council, the Duke of Suffolk vice-president, and above them both is
Mistress Anne;"[170] this last addition to the council being one which
boded little good to the interests of the See that had so long detained her
in expectation. So confident were the destructive party of the temper of
the approaching parliament, and of the irresistible pressure of the times,
that the general burden of conversation of the dinner-tables in the great
houses in London was an exulting expectation of a dissolution of the church
establishment, and a confiscation of ecclesiastical property; the king
himself being the only obstacle which was feared by them. "These noble
lords imagine," continues the same writer, "that the cardinal once dead of
ruined, they will incontinently plunder the church, and strip it of all its
wealth," adding that there was no occasion for him to write this in cipher,
for it was everywhere openly spoken of.[171]

Movements, nevertheless, which are pregnant with vital change, are slow in
assuming their essential direction, even after the stir has commenced.
Circumstances do not immediately open themselves; the point of vision
alters gradually; and fragments of old opinions, and prepossessions, and
prejudices remain interfused with the new, even in the clearest minds, and
cannot at a moment be shaken off. Only the unwise change suddenly; and we
can never too often remind ourselves, when we see men stepping forward with
uncertainty and hesitation over a road, where to us, we know the actual
future, all seems so plain, that the road looked different to the actors
themselves, who were beset with imaginations of the past, and to whom the
gloom of the future appeared thronged with phantoms of possible
contingencies. The hasty expectations of the noble lords were checked by
Henry's prudence; and though parties were rapidly arranging themselves,
there was still confusion. The city, though disinclined to the pope and the
church, continued to retain an inclination for the emperor; and the pope
had friends among Wolsey's enemies, who, by his overthrow, were pressed
forward into prominence, and divided the victory with the reformers. The
presence of Sir Thomas More in the council was a guarantee that no
exaggerated measures against the church would be permitted so long as he
held the seals; and Henry, perhaps, was anxious to leave room for
conciliation, which he hoped that the pope would desire as much as himself,
so soon as the meeting of parliament had convinced him that the mutinous
disposition of the nation had not been overstated by his own and Wolsey's
letters.

The impression conceived two years before of the hostile relations between
the pope and Charles had not yet been wholly effaced; and even as late as
September, 1529, after the closing of the legates' court, in the very heat
of the public irritation, there were persons who believed that when Clement
met his imperial captor face to face, and the interview had taken place
which had been arranged for the ensuing January, his eyes would be opened,
and that he would fall back upon England.[172] At the same time, the
incongruities in the constitution of the council became so early apparent,
that their agreement was thought impossible, and Wolsey's return to power
was discussed openly as a probability[173]--a result which Anne Boleyn,
who, better than any other person, knew the king's feelings, never ceased
to fear, till, a year after his disgrace, the welcome news were brought to
her that he had sunk into his long rest, where the sick load of office and
of obloquy would gall his back no more.

There was a third party in the country, unconsidered as yet, who had a part
to play in the historical drama: a party which, indeed, if any one had
known it, was the most important of all; the only one which, in a true,
high sense, was of importance at all; and for the sake of which, little as
it then appeared to be so, the whole work was to be done--composed at that
time merely of poor men, poor cobblers, weavers, carpenters, trade
apprentices, and humble artisans, men of low birth and low estate, who
might be seen at night stealing along the lanes and alleys of London,
carrying with them some precious load of books which it was death to
possess; and giving their lives gladly, if it must be so, for the brief
tenure of so dear a treasure. These men, for the present, were likely to
fare ill from the new ministry. They were the disturbers of order, the
anarchists, the men disfigured _pravitate hereticâ_, by monstrous
doctrines, and consequently by monstrous lives--who railed at authorities,
and dared to read New Testaments with their own eyes--who, consequently, by
their excesses and extravagances, brought discredit upon liberal opinions,
and whom moderate liberals (as they always have done, and always will do
while human nature remains itself) held it necessary for their credit's
sake to persecute, that a censorious world might learn to make no confusion
between true wisdom and the folly which seemed to resemble it. The
Protestants had not loved Wolsey, and they had no reason to love him; but
it was better to bear a fagot of dry sticks in a procession when the
punishment was symbolic, than, lashed fast to a stake in Smithfield, amidst
piles of the same fagots kindled into actual flames, to sink into a heap of
blackened dust and ashes; and before a year had passed, they would gladly
have accepted again the hated cardinal, to escape from the philosophic
mercies of Sir Thomas More. The number of English Protestants at this time
it is difficult to conjecture. The importance of such men is not to be
measured by counting heads. In 1526, they were organised into a society,
calling themselves "the Christian brotherhood,"[174] with a central
committee sitting in London; with subscribed funds, regularly audited, for
the purchase of Testaments and tracts; and with paid agents, who travelled
up and down the country to distribute them. Some of the poorer clergy
belonged to the society;[175] and among the city merchants there were many
well inclined to it, and who, perhaps, attended its meetings "by night,
secretly, for fear of the Jews." But, as a rule, "property and influence"
continued to hold aloof in the usual haughty style, and the pioneers of the
new opinions had yet to win their way along a scorched and blackened path
of suffering, before the State would consent to acknowledge them. We think
bitterly of these things, and yet we are but quarrelling with what is
inevitable from the constitution of the world. New doctrines ever gain
readiest hearing among the common people; not only because the interests of
the higher classes are usually in some degree connected with the
maintenance of existing institutions; but because ignorance is itself a
protection against the many considerations which embarrass the judgment of
the educated. The value of a doctrine cannot be determined on its own
apparent merits by men whose habits of mind are settled in other forms;
while men of experience know well that out of the thousands of theories
which rise in the fertile soil below them, it is but one here and one there
which grows to maturity; and the precarious chances of possible vitality,
where the opposite probabilities are so enormous, oblige them to discourage
and repress opinions which threaten to disturb established order, or which,
by the rules of existing beliefs, imperil the souls of those who entertain
them. Persecution has ceased among ourselves, because we do not any more
believe that want of theoretic orthodoxy in matters of faith is necessarily
fraught with the tremendous consequences which once were supposed to be
attached to it. If, however, a school of Thugs were to rise among us,
making murder a religious service; if they gained proselytes, and the
proselytes put their teaching in execution, we should speedily begin again
to persecute opinion. What teachers of Thuggism would appear to ourselves,
the teachers of heresy actually appeared to Sir Thomas More, only being as
much more hateful as the eternal death of the soul is more terrible than
the single and momentary separation of it from the body. There is, I think,
no just ground on which to condemn conscientious Catholics on the score of
persecution, except only this: that as we are now convinced of the
injustice of the persecuting laws, so among those who believed them to be
just, there were some who were led by an instinctive protest of human
feeling to be lenient in the execution of those laws; while others of
harder nature and more narrow sympathies enforced them without reluctance,
and even with exultation. The heart, when it is rightly constituted,
corrects the folly of the head; and wise good men, even though they
entertain no conscious misgiving as to the soundness of their theories, may
be delivered from the worst consequences of those theories, by trusting
their more genial instincts. And thus, and thus only, are we justified in
censuring those whose names figure largely in the persecuting lists. Their
defence is impregnable to logic. We blame them for the absence of that
humanity which is deeper than logic, and which should have taught them to
refuse the conclusions of their speculative creed.

Such, then, was the state of parties in the autumn of 1529. The old
conservatives, the political ecclesiastics, had ceased to exist, and the
clergy as a body were paralysed by corruption. There remained--

The English party who had succeeded to power, and who were bent upon a
secular revolt.

The papal party, composed of theoretic theologians, like Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester, and represented on the council by Sir Thomas More.

And both of these were united in their aversion to the third party, that of
the doctrinal Protestants, who were still called heretics.

These three substantially divided what was sound in England; the first
composed of the mass of the people, representing the principles of
prudence, justice, good sense, and the working faculties of social life:
the two last sharing between them the higher qualities of nobleness,
enthusiasm, self-devotion; but in their faith being without discretion, and
in their piety without understanding. The problem of the Reformation was to
reunite virtues which could be separated only to their mutual confusion;
and to work out among them such inadequate reconciliation as the wilfulness
of human nature would allow.

Before I close this chapter, which is intended as a general introduction, I
have to say something of two prominent persons whose character antecedent
to the actions in which we are to find them engaged it is desirable that we
should understand; I mean Henry VIII. himself, and the lady whom he had
selected to fill the place from which Catherine of Arragon was to be
deposed.

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 he was good-humoured and
good-natured. His letters to his secretaries, though never undignified, are
simple, easy, and unrestrained; and the letters written by them to him are
similarly plain and businesslike, as if the writers knew that the person
whom they were addressing disliked compliments, and chose to be treated as
a man. Again, from their correspondence with one another, when they
describe interviews with him, we gather the same pleasant impression. He
seems to have been always kind, always considerate; inquiring into their
private concerns with genuine interest, and winning, as a consequence,
their warm and unaffected attachment.

As a ruler he had been eminently popular. All his wars had been successful.
He had the splendid tastes in which the English people most delighted, and
he had substantially acted out his own theory of his duty which was
expressed in the following words:--

"Scripture taketh princes to be, as it were, fathers and nurses to their
subjects, and by Scripture it appeareth that it appertaineth unto the
office of princes to see that right religion and true doctrine be
maintained and taught, and that their subjects may be well ruled and
governed by good and just laws; and to provide and care for them that all
things necessary for them may be plenteous; and that the people and
commonweal may increase; and to defend them from oppression and invasion,
as well within the realm as without; and to see that justice be
administered unto them indifferently; and to hear benignly all their
complaints; and to show towards them, although they offend, fatherly pity.
And, finally, so to correct them that be evil, that they had yet rather
save them than lose them if it were not for respect of justice, and
maintenance of peace and good order in the commonweal."[177]

These principles do really appear to have determined Henry's conduct in his
earlier years. His social administration we have partially seen in the
previous chapter. He had more than once been tried with insurrection, which
he had soothed down without bloodshed, and extinguished in forgiveness; and
London long recollected the great scene which followed "evil May-day,"
1517, when the apprentices were brought down to Westminster Hall to receive
their pardons. There had been a dangerous riot in the streets, which might
have provoked a mild government to severity; but the king contented himself
with punishing the five ringleaders, and four hundred other prisoners,
after being paraded down the streets in white shirts with halters round
their necks, were dismissed with an admonition, Wolsey weeping as he
pronounced it.[178]

It is certain that if, as I said, he had died before the divorce was
mooted, Henry VIII., like that Roman Emperor said by Tacitus to have been
_consensu omnium dignus imperii nisi imperasset_, would have been
considered by posterity as formed by Providence for the conduct of the
Reformation, and his loss would have been deplored as a perpetual calamity.
We must allow him, therefore, the benefit of his past career, and be
careful to remember it, when interpreting his later actions. Not many men
would have borne themselves through the same trials with the same
integrity; but the circumstances of those trials had not tested the true
defects in his moral constitution. Like all princes of the Plantagenet
blood, he was a person of a most intense and imperious will. His impulses,
in general nobly directed, had never known contradiction; and late in life,
when his character was formed, he was forced into collision with
difficulties with which the experience of discipline had not fitted him to
contend. Education had done much for him, but his nature required more
correction than his position had permitted, whilst unbroken prosperity and
early independence of control had been his most serious misfortune. He had
capacity, if his training had been equal to it, to be one of the greatest
of men. With all his faults about him, he was still perhaps the greatest of
his contemporaries; and the man best able of all living Englishmen to
govern England, had been set to do it by the conditions of his birth.

The other person whose previous history we have to ascertain is one, the
tragedy of whose fate has blotted the remembrance of her sins--if her sins
were, indeed, and in reality, more than imaginary. Forgetting all else in
shame and sorrow, posterity has made piteous reparation for her death in
the tenderness with which it has touched her reputation; and with the
general instincts of justice, we have refused to qualify our indignation at
the wrong which she experienced, by admitting either stain or shadow on her
fame. It has been with Anne Boleyn as it has been with Catherine of
Arragon--both are regarded as the victims of a tyranny which catholics and
protestants unite to remember with horror; and each has taken the place of
a martyred saint in the hagiology of the respective creeds. Catholic
writers have, indeed, ill repaid, in their treatment of Anne, the
admiration with which the mother of Queen Mary has been remembered in the
Church of England; but the invectives which they have heaped upon her have
defeated their object by their extravagance. It has been believed that
matter failed them to sustain a just accusation, when they condescended to
outrageous slander. Inasmuch, however, as some natural explanation can
usually be given of the actions of human beings in this world without
supposing them to have been possessed by extraordinary wickedness, and if
we are to hold Anne Boleyn entirely free from fault, we place not the king
only, but the privy council, the judges, the Lords and Commons, and the two
Houses of Convocation, in a position fatal to their honour and degrading to
ordinary humanity; we cannot without inquiry acquiesce in so painful a
conclusion. The English nation also, as well as she, deserves justice at
our hands; and it must not be thought uncharitable if we look with some
scrutiny at the career of a person who, except for the catastrophe with
which it was closed, would not so readily have obtained forgiveness for
having admitted the addresses of the king, or for having received the
homage of the court as its future sovereign, while the king's wife, her
mistress, as yet resided under the same roof, with the title and the
position of queen, and while the question was still undecided of the
validity of the first marriage. If in that alone she was to blame, her
fault was, indeed, revenged a thousandfold,--and yet no lady of true
delicacy would have accepted such a position; and feeling for Queen
Catherine should have restrained her, if she was careless of respect for
herself. It must, therefore, be permitted me, out of such few hints and
scattered notices as remain, to collect such information as may be trusted
respecting her early life before her appearance upon the great stage. These
hints are but slight, since I shall not even mention the scandals of
Sanders, any more than I shall mention the panegyrics of Foxe; stories
which, as far as I can learn, have no support in evidence, and rest on no
stronger foundation than the credulity of passion.

Anne Boleyn was the second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a gentleman of
noble family, though moderate fortune;[179] who, by a marriage with the
daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, was brought into connection with the
highest blood in the realm. The year of her birth has not been certainly
ascertained, but she is supposed to have been seven years old[180] in 1514,
when she accompanied the Princess Mary into France, on the marriage of that
lady with Louis XII. Louis dying a few months subsequently, the princess
married Sir Charles Brandon, afterwards created Duke of Suffolk, and
returned to England. Anne Boleyn did not return with her; she remained in
Paris to become accomplished with the graces and elegancies, if she was not
contaminated by the vices, of that court, which, even in those days of
loyal licentiousness, enjoyed an undesirable pre-eminence in profligacy. In
the French capital she could not have failed to see, to hear, and to become
familiar with occurrences with which no young girl can be brought in
contact with impunity, and this poisonous atmosphere she continued to
breathe for nine years. She came back to England in 1525, to be maid of
honour to Queen Catherine, and to be distinguished at the court, by general
consent, for her talents, her accomplishments, and her beauty. Her
portraits, though all professedly by Holbein, or copied from pictures by
him, are singularly unlike each other. The profile in the picture which is
best known is pretty, innocent, and piquant, though rather insignificant:
there are other pictures, however, in which we see a face more powerful,
though less prepossessing. In these the features are full and languid. The
eyes are large; but the expression, though remarkable, is not pleasing, and
indicates cunning more than thought, passion more than feeling; while the
heavy lips and massive chin wear a look of sensuality which is not to be
mistaken. Possibly all are like the original, but represented her under
different circumstances, or at different periods of her life. Previous to
her engagement with the king, she was the object of fleeting attentions
from the young noblemen about the court. Lord Percy, eldest son of Lord
Northumberland, as we all know, was said to have been engaged to her. He
was in the household of Cardinal Wolsey; and Cavendish, who was with him
there, tells a long romantic story of the affair, which, if his account be
true, was ultimately interrupted by Lord Northumberland himself. The story
is not without its difficulties, since Lord Percy had been contracted,
several years previously, to a daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury,[181]
whom he afterwards married, and by the law he could not have formed a
second engagement so long as the first was undissolved. And again, he
himself, when subsequently examined before the privy council, denied
solemnly on his oath that any contract of the kind had existed.[182] At the
same time, we cannot suppose Cavendish to have invented so circumstantial a
narrative, and Percy would not have been examined if there had been no
reason for suspicion. Something, therefore, probably had passed between him
and the young maid of honour, though we cannot now conjecture of what
nature; and we can infer only that it was not openly to her discredit, or
she would not have obtained the position which cost her so dear. She
herself confessed subsequently, before Archbishop Cranmer, to a connection
of some kind into which she had entered before her acquaintance with Henry.
No evidence survives which will explain to what she referred, for the act
of parliament which mentions the fact furnishes no details.[183] But it was
of a kind which made her marriage with the king illegal, and
illegitimatised the offspring of it; and it has been supposed, therefore,
that, in spite of Lord Percy's denial, he had really engaged himself to
her, and was afraid to acknowledge it.[184] This supposition, however, is
not easy to reconcile with the language of the act, which speaks of the
circumstance, whatever it was, as only "recently known;" nor could a
contract with Percy have invalidated her marriage with the king, when Percy
having been pre-contracted to another person, it would have been itself
invalid. A light is thrown upon the subject by a letter found among
Cromwell's papers, addressed by some unknown person to a Mr. Melton, also
unknown, but written obviously when "Mistress Anne" was a young lady about
the court, and before she had been the object of any open attention from
Henry.

"MR. MELTON.--This shall be to advertise you that Mistress Anne is changed
from that she was at when we three were last together. Wherefore I pray you
that ye be no devil's sakke, but according to the truth ever justify, as ye
shall make answer before God; and do not suffer her in my absence to be
married to any other man. I must go to my master, wheresoever he be, for
the Lord Privy Seal desireth much to speak with me, whom if I should speak
with in my master's absence, it would cause me to lose my head; and yet I
know myself as true a man to my prince as liveth, whom (as my friend
informeth me) I have offended grievously in my words. No more to you, but
to have me commended unto Mistress Anne, and bid her remember her promise,
which none can loose, but God only, to whom I shall daily during my life
commend her."[185]

The letter must furnish its own interpretation; for it receives little from
any other quarter. Being in the possession of Cromwell, however, it had
perhaps been forwarded to him at the time of Queen Anne's trial, and may
have thus occasioned the investigation which led to the annulling of her
marriage.

From the account which was written of her by the grandson of Sir Thomas
Wyatt the poet, we still gather the impression (in spite of the admiring
sympathy with which Wyatt writes) of a person with whom young men took
liberties,[186] however she might seem to forbid them. In her diet she was
an epicure, fond of dainty and delicate eating, and not always contented if
she did not obtain what she desired. When the king's attentions towards her
became first marked, Thomas Heneage, afterwards lord chamberlain, wrote to
Wolsey, that he had one night been "commanded down with a dish for Mistress
Anne for supper"; adding that she caused him "to sup with her, and she
wished she had some of Wolsey's good meat, as carps, shrimps, and
others."[187] And this was not said in jest, since Heneage related it as a
hint to Wolsey, that he might know what to do, if he wished to please her.
In the same letter he suggested to the cardinal that she was a little
displeased at not having received a token or present from him; she was
afraid she was forgotten, he said, and "the lady, her mother, desired him
to send unto his Grace, and desire his Grace to bestow a morsel of tunny
upon her." Wolsey made her presents also at times of a more valuable
character, as we find her acknowledging in language of exaggerated
gratitude;[188] and, perhaps the most painful feature in all her earlier
history lies in the contrast between the servility with which she addressed
the cardinal so long as he was in power, and the bitterness with which the
Bishop of Bayonne (and, in fact, all contemporary witnesses) tells us, that
she pressed upon his decline. Wolsey himself spoke of her under the title
of "the night-crow,"[189] as the person to whom he owed all which was most
cruel in his treatment; as "the enemy that never slept, but studied and
continually imagined, both sleeping and waking, his utter
destruction."[190]

Taking these things together, and there is nothing to be placed beside them
of a definitely pleasing kind, except beauty and accomplishments, we form,
with the assistance of her pictures, a tolerable conception of this lady; a
conception of her as a woman not indeed questionable, but as one whose
antecedents might lead consistently to a future either of evil or of good;
and whose character removes the surprise which we might be inclined to feel
at the position with respect to Queen Catherine in which she consented to
be placed. A harsh critic would describe her, on this evidence, as a
self-indulgent coquette, indifferent to the obligations of gratitude, and
something careless of the truth. From the letter referring to her,
preserved by Cromwell, it appears that she had broken a definite promise at
a time when such promises were legally binding, and that she had really
done so was confirmed by her subsequent confession. The breach of such
promises by a woman who could not be expected to understand the grounds on
which the law held them to be sacred, implies no more than levity, and
levity of this kind has been found compatible with many high qualities.
Levity, however, it does undoubtedly imply, and the symptom, if a light
one, must be allowed the weight which is due to it.

It is a miserable duty to be compelled to search for these indications of
human infirmities; above all when they are the infirmities of a lady whose
faults, let them have been what they would, were so fearfully and terribly
expiated; and, if there were nothing else at issue but poor questions of
petty scandal, it were better far that they perished in forgetfulness, and
passed away out of mind and memory for ever. The fortunes of Anne Boleyn
were unhappily linked with those of men to whom the greatest work ever yet
accomplished in this country was committed; and the characters of a king of
England, and of the three estates of the realm, are compromised in the
treatment which she received from them.




CHAPTER III

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1529

No Englishman can look back uninterested on the meeting of the parliament
of 1529. The era at which it assembled is the most memorable in the history
of this country, and the work which it accomplished before its dissolution
was of larger moment politically and spiritually than the achievements of
the Long Parliament itself. For nearly seven years it continued surrounded
by intrigue, confusion, and at length conspiracy, presiding over a people
from whom the forms and habits by which they had moved for centuries were
falling like the shell of a chrysalis. While beset with enemies within the
realm and without, it effected a revolution which severed England from the
papacy, yet it preserved peace unbroken and prevented anarchy from breaking
bounds; and although its hands are not pure from spot, and red stains rest
on them which posterity have bitterly and long remembered; yet if we
consider the changes which it carried through, and if we think of the price
which was paid by other nations for victory in the same struggle, we shall
acknowledge that the records of the world contain no instance of such a
triumph, bought at a cost so slight and tarnished by blemishes so trifling.

The letters of the French Ambassador[191] describe to us the gathering of
the members into London, and the hum of expectation sounding louder and
louder as the day of the opening approached. In order that we may see
distinctly what London felt on this occasion, that we may understand in
detail the nature of those questions with which parliament was immediately
to deal, we will glance at some of the proceedings which had taken place in
the Bishops' Consistory Courts during the few preceding years. The duties
of the officials of these courts resembled in theory the duties of the
censors under the Roman Republic. In the middle ages, a lofty effort had
been made to overpass the common limitations of government, to introduce
punishment for sins as well as crimes, and to visit with temporal penalties
the breach of the moral law. The punishment best adapted for such offences
was some outward expression of the disapproval with which good men regard
acts of sin; some open disgrace; some spiritual censure; some suspension of
communion with the church, accompanied by other consequences practically
inconvenient, to be continued until the offender had made reparation, or
had openly repented, or had given confirmed proof of amendment. The
administration of such a discipline fell, as a matter of course, to the
clergy. The clergy were the guardians of morality; their characters were a
claim to confidence, their duties gave them opportunities of observation
which no other men could possess; while their priestly office gave solemn
weight to their sentences. Thus arose throughout Europe a system of
spiritual surveillance over the habits and conduct of every man, extending
from the cottage to the castle, taking note of all wrong dealing, of all
oppression of man by man, of all licentiousness and profligacy, and
representing upon earth, in the principles by which it was guided, the laws
of the great tribunal of Almighty God.

Such was the origin of the church courts, perhaps the greatest institutions
ever yet devised by man. But to aim at these high ideals is as perilous as
it is noble; and weapons which may be safely trusted in the hands of saints
become fatal implements of mischief when saints have ceased to wield them.
For a time, we need not doubt, the practice corresponded to the intention.
Had it not been so, the conception would have taken no root, and would have
been extinguished at its birth. But a system which has once established
itself in the respect of mankind will be tolerated long after it has
forfeited its claim to endurance, as the name of a great man remains
honoured though borne by worthless descendants; and the Consistory courts
had continued into the sixteenth century with unrestricted jurisdiction,
although they had been for generations merely perennially flowing
fountains, feeding the ecclesiastical exchequer. The moral conduct of every
English man and woman remained subject to them. Each private person was
liable to be called in question for every action of his life; and an
elaborate network of canon law perpetually growing, enveloped the whole
surface of society. But between the original design and the degenerate
counterfeit there was this vital difference,--that the censures were no
longer spiritual. They were commuted in various gradations for pecuniary
fines, and each offence against morality was rated at its specific money
value in the episcopal tables. Suspension and excommunication remained as
ultimate penalties; but they were resorted to only to compel unwilling
culprits to accept the alternative.

The misdemeanours of which the courts took cognisance[192] were "offences
against chastity," "heresy," or "matter sounding thereunto," "witchcraft,"
"drunkenness," "scandal," "defamation," "impatient words," "broken
promises," "untruth," "absence from church," "speaking evil of saints,"
"non-payment of offerings," and other delinquencies incapable of legal
definition; matters, all of them, on which it was well, if possible, to
keep men from going wrong; but offering wide opportunities for injustice;
while all charges, whether well founded or ill, met with ready acceptance
in courts where innocence and guilt alike contributed to the revenue.[193]
"Mortuary claims" were another fertile matter for prosecution; and probate
duties and legacy duties; and a further lucrative occupation was the
punishment of persons who complained against the constitutions of the
courts themselves; to complain against the justice of the courts being to
complain against the church, and to complain against the church being
heresy. To answer accusations on such subjects as these, men were liable to
be summoned, at the will of the officials, to the metropolitan courts of
the archbishops, hundreds of miles from their homes.[194] No expenses were
allowed; and if the charges were without foundation, it was rare that costs
could be recovered. Innocent or guilty, the accused parties were equally
bound to appear.[195] If they failed, they were suspended for contempt. If
after receiving notice of their suspension, they did not appear, they were
excommunicated; and no proof of the groundlessness of the original charge
availed to relieve them from their sentence, till they had paid for their
deliverance.

Well did the church lawyers understand how to make their work productive.
Excommunication seems but a light thing when there are many communions. It
was no light thing when it was equivalent to outlawry; when the person
excommunicated might be seized and imprisoned at the will of the ordinary;
when he was cut off from all holy offices; when no one might speak to him,
trade with him, or show him the most trivial courtesy; and when his
friends, if they dared to assist him, were subject to the same penalties.
In the _Register_ of the Bishop of London[196] there is more than one
instance to be found of suspension and excommunication for the simple crime
of offering shelter to an excommunicated neighbour; and thus offence begot
offence, guilt spread like a contagion through the influence of natural
humanity, and a single refusal of obedience to a frivolous citation might
involve entire families in misery and ruin.

The people might have endured better to submit to so enormous a tyranny, if
the conduct of the clergy themselves had given them a title to respect, or
if equal justice had been distributed to lay and spiritual offenders.
"Benefit of clergy," unhappily, as at this time interpreted, was little
else than a privilege to commit sins with impunity. The grossest moral
profligacy in a priest was passed over with indifference; and so far from
exacting obedience in her ministers to a higher standard than she required
of ordinary persons, the church extended her limits under fictitious
pretexts as a sanctuary for lettered villany. Every person who could read
was claimed by prescriptive usage as a clerk, and shielded under her
protecting mantle; nor was any clerk amenable for the worst crimes to the
secular jurisdiction, until he had been first tried and degraded by the
ecclesiastical judges. So far was this preposterous exemption carried, that
previous to the passing of the first of the 23rd of Henry the Eighth,[197]
those who were within the degrees might commit murder with impunity, the
forms which it was necessary to observe in degrading a priest or deacon
being so complicated as to amount to absolute protection.[198]

Among the clergy, properly so called, however, the prevailing offence was
not crime, but licentiousness. A doubt has recently crept in among our
historians as to the credibility of the extreme language in which the
contemporary writers spoke upon this painful topic. It will scarcely be
supposed that the picture has been overdrawn in the act books of the
Consistory courts; and as we see it there it is almost too deplorable for
belief, as well in its own intrinsic hideousness as in the unconscious
connivance of the authorities. Brothels were kept in London for the
especial use of priests;[199] the "confessional" was abused in the most
open and abominable manner.[200] Cases occurred of the same frightful
profanity in the service of the mass, which at Rome startled Luther into
Protestantism;[201] and acts of incest between nuns and monks were too
frequently exposed to allow us to regard the detected instances as
exceptions.[202] It may be said that the proceedings upon these charges
prove at least that efforts were made to repress them. The bishops must
have the benefit of the plea, and the two following instances will show how
far it will avail their cause. In the Records of the London Court I find a
certain Thomas Wyseman, priest, summoned for fornication and incontinency.
He was enjoined for penance, that on the succeeding Sunday, while high mass
was singing, he should offer at each of the altars in the Church of St.
Bartholomew a candle of wax, value one penny, saying therewith five
_Paternosters_, five _Ave Marys_, and five _Credos_. On the following
Friday he was to offer a candle of the same price before the crucifix,
standing barefooted, and one before the image of cur Lady of Grace. This
penance accomplished he appeared again at the court and compounded for
absolution, paying six shillings and eightpence.[203]

An exposure too common to attract notice, and a fine of six and eightpence
was held sufficient penalty for a mortal sin.

Even this, however, was a severe sentence compared with the sentence passed
upon another priest who confessed to incest with the prioress of Kilbourn.
The offender was condemned to bear a cross in a procession in his parish
church, and was excused his remaining guilt for three shillings and
fourpence.[204]

I might multiply such instances indefinitely; but there is no occasion for
me to stain my pages with them.[205]

An inactive imagination may readily picture to itself the indignation
likely to have been felt by a high-minded people, when they were forced to
submit their lives, their habits, their most intimate conversations and
opinions to a censorship conducted by clergy of such a character; when the
offences of these clergy themselves were passed over with such indifferent
carelessness. Men began to ask themselves who and what these persons were
who retained the privileges of saints,[206] and were incapable of the most
ordinary duties; and for many years before the burst of the Reformation the
coming storm was gathering. Priests were hooted, or "knocked down into the
kennel,"[207] as they walked along the streets--women refused to receive
the holy bread from hands which they thought polluted,[208] and the
appearance of an apparitor of the courts to serve a process or a citation
in a private house was a signal for instant explosion. Violent words were
the least which these officials had to fear, and they were fortunate if
they escaped so lightly. A stranger had died in a house in St. Dunstan's
belonging to a certain John Fleming, and an apparitor had been sent "to
seal his chamber and his goods" that the church might not lose her dues.
John Fleming drove him out, saying loudly unto him, "Thou shalt seale no
door here; go thy way, thou stynkyng knave, ye are but knaves and brybours
everych one of you."[209] Thomas Banister, of St. Mary Wolechurch, when a
process was served upon him, "did threaten to slay the apparitor." "Thou
horson knave," he said to him, "without thou tell me who set thee awork to
summon me to the court, by Goddis woundes, and by this gold, I shall brake
thy head."[210] A "waiter, at the sign of the Cock," fell in trouble for
saying that "the sight of a priest did make him sick," also, "that he would
go sixty miles to indict a priest," saying also in the presence of
many--"horsyn priests, they shall be indicted as many as come to my
handling."[211] Often the officers found threats convert themselves into
acts. The apparitor of the Bishop of London went with a citation into the
shop of a mercer of St. Bride's, Henry Clitheroe by name. "Who does cite
me?" asked the mercer. "Marry, that do I," answered the apparitor, "if thou
wilt anything with it;" whereupon, as the apparitor deposeth, the said
Henry Clitheroe did hurl at him from off his finger that instrument of his
art called the "thymmelle," and he, the apparitor, drawing his sword, "the
said Henry did snatch up his virga, Anglice, his yard, and did pursue the
apparitor into the public streets, and after multiplying of many blows did
break the head of the said apparitor."[212] These are light matters, but
they were straws upon the stream; and such a scene as this which follows
reveals the principles on which the courts awarded their judgment. One
Richard Hunt was summoned for certain articles implying contempt, and for
vilipending his lordship's jurisdiction. Being examined, he confessed to
the words following: "That all false matters were bolstered and clokyd in
this court of Paul's Cheyne; moreover he called the apparitor, William
Middleton, false knave in the full court, and his father's dettes, said he,
by means of his mother-in-law and master commissary, were not payd; and
this he would abide by, that he had now in this place said no more but
truth." Being called on to answer further, he said he would not, and his
lordship did therefore excommunicate him.[213] From so brief an entry we
cannot tell on which side the justice lay; but at least we can measure the
equity of a tribunal which punished complaints against itself with
excommunication, and dismissed the confessed incest of a priest with a fine
of a few shillings.

Such then were the English consistory courts. I have selected but a few
instances from the proceedings of a single one of them. If we are to
understand the weight with which the system pressed upon the people, we
must multiply the proceedings at St. Paul's by the number of the English
dioceses; the number of dioceses by the number of archdeaconries; we must
remember that in proportion to the distance from London the abuse must have
increased indefinitely from the absence of even partial surveillance; we
must remember that appeals were permitted only from one ecclesiastical
court to another; from the archdeacon's court to that of the bishop of the
diocese, from that of the bishop to the Court of Arches; that any language
of impatience or resistance furnished suspicion of heresy, and that the
only security therefore was submission. We can then imagine what England
must have been with an archdeacon's commissary sitting constantly in every
town; exercising an undefined jurisdiction over general morality; and every
court swarming with petty lawyers who lived upon the fees which they could
extract. Such a system for the administration of justice was perhaps never
tolerated before in any country.

But the time of reckoning at length was arrived; slowly the hand had
crawled along the dial plate; slowly as if the event would never come: and
wrong was heaped on wrong; and oppression cried, and it seemed as if no ear
had heard its voice; till the measure of the circle was at length
fulfilled, the finger touched the hour, and as the strokes of the great
hammer rang out above the nation, in an instant the mighty fabric of
iniquity was shivered into ruins. Wolsey had dreamed that it might still
stand, self-reformed as he hoped to see it; but in his dread lest any hands
but those of friends should touch the work, he had "prolonged its sickly
days," waiting for the convenient season which was not to be; he had put
off the meeting of parliament, knowing that if parliament were once
assembled, he would be unable to resist the pressure which would be brought
to bear upon him; and in the impatient minds of the people he had
identified himself with the evils which he alone for the few last years had
hindered from falling. At length he had fallen himself, and his disgrace
was celebrated in London with enthusiastic rejoicing as the inauguration of
the new era. On the eighteenth of October, 1529, Wolsey delivered up the
seals. He was ordered to retire to Esher; and, "at the taking of his
barge," Cavendish saw no less than a thousand boats full of men and women
of the city of London, "waffeting up and down in Thames," to see him sent,
as they expected, to the Tower.[214] A fortnight later the same crowd was
perhaps again assembled on a wiser occasion, and with truer reason for
exultation, to see the king coming up in his barge from Greenwich to open
parliament.

"According to the summons," says Hall, "the King of England began his high
court of parliament the third day of November, on which day he came by
water to his palace of Bridewell, and there he and his nobles put on their
robes of Parliament, and so came to the Black Friars Church, where a mass
of the Holy Ghost was solemnly sung by the king's chaplain; and after the
mass, the king, with all his Lords and Commons which were summoned to
appear on that day, came into the Parliament. The king sate on his throne
or seat royal, and Sir Thomas More, his chancellor, standing on the right
hand of the king, made an eloquent oration, setting forth the causes why at
that time the king so had summoned them."[215]

"Like as a good shepherd," More said, "which not only keepeth and attendeth
well his sheep, but also foreseeth and provideth for all things which
either may be hurtful or noysome to his flock; so the king, which is the
shepherd, ruler, and governor of his realm, vigilantly foreseeing things to
come, considers how that divers laws, before this time made, are now, by
long continuance of time and mutation of things, become very insufficient
and imperfect; and also, by the frail condition of man, divers new
enormities are sprung amongst the people, for the which no law is yet made
to reform the same. For this cause the king at this time has summoned his
high court of parliament; and I liken the king to a shepherd or herdsman,
because if a prince be compared to his riches, he is but a rich man; if a
prince be compared to his honour, he is but an honourable man; but compare
him to the multitude of his people, and the number of his flock, then he is
a ruler, a governor of might and puissance; so that his people maketh him a
prince, as of the multitude of sheep cometh the name of a shepherd.

"And as you see that amongst a great flock of sheep some be rotten and
faulty, which the good shepherd sendeth from the good sheep; so the great
wether which is of late fallen, as you all know, so craftily, so scabedly,
yea, so untruly juggled with the king, that all men must needs guess that
he thought in himself, either the king had no wit to perceive his crafty
doings, or else that he would not see nor know them.

"But he was deceived, for his Grace's sight was so quick and penetrable
that he saw him; yea, and saw through him, both within and without; and
according to his desert he hath had a gentle correction, which small
punishment the king will not to be an example to other offenders; but
clearly declareth that whosoever hereafter shall make like attempt, or
shall commit like offence, shall not escape with like punishment.

"And because you of the Commons House be a gross multitude, and cannot all
speak at one time, the king's pleasure is, that you resort to the Nether
House, and then amongst yourselves, according to the old and antient
custom, choose an able person to be your common mouth and speaker."[216]

The invective against "the great wether" was not perhaps the portion of the
speech to which the audience listened with least interest. In the minds of
contemporaries, principles are identified with persons, who form, as it
were, the focus on which the passions concentrate. At present we may
consent to forget Wolsey, and fix our attention on the more permanently
essential matter--the reform of the laws. The world was changing; how
swiftly, how completely, no living person knew;--but a confusion no longer
tolerable was a patent fact to all men; and with a wise instinct it was
resolved that the grievances of the nation, which had accumulated through
centuries, should be submitted to a complete ventilation, without reserve,
check, or secrecy.

For this purpose it was essential that the Houses should not be interfered
with, that they should be allowed full liberty to express their wishes and
to act upon them. Accordingly, the practice then usual with ministers, of
undertaking the direction of the proceedings, was clearly on this occasion
foregone. In the House of Commons then, as much as now, there was in theory
unrestricted liberty of discussion, and free right for any member to
originate whatever motion he pleased. "The discussions in the English
Parliament," wrote Henry himself to the pope, "are free and unrestricted;
the crown has no power to limit their debates or to controul the votes of
the members. They determine everything for themselves, as the interests of
the commonwealth require."[217] But so long as confidence existed between
the crown and the people, these rights were in great measure surrendered.
The ministers prepared the business which was to be transacted; and the
temper of the Houses was usually so well understood, that, except when
there was a demand for money, it was rare that a measure was proposed the
acceptance of which was doubtful, or the nature of which would provoke
debate. So little jealousy, indeed, was in quiet times entertained of the
power of the crown, and so little was a residence in London to the taste of
the burgesses and the country gentlemen, that not only were their expenses
defrayed by a considerable salary, but it was found necessary to forbid
them absenting themselves from their duties by a positive enactment.[218]

In the composition of the House of Commons, however, which had now
assembled, no symptoms appeared of such indifference. The election had
taken place in the midst of great and general excitement; and the members
chosen, if we may judge from their acts and their petitions, were men of
that broad resolved temper, who only in times of popular effervescence are
called forward into prominence. It would have probably been unsafe for the
crown to attempt dictation or repression at such a time, if it had desired
to do so. Under the actual circumstances, its interest was to encourage the
fullest expression of public feeling.

The proceedings were commenced with a formal "act of accusation" against
the clergy, which was submitted to the king in the name of the Commons of
England, and contained a summary of the wrongs of which the people
complained. This remarkable document must have been drawn up before the
opening of parliament, and must have been presented in the first week of
the session,--probably on the first day on which the House met to transact
business.[219] There is appearance of haste in the composition, little
order being observed in the catalogue of grievances; but inasmuch as it
contains the germ of all the acts which were framed in the following years
for the reform of the church, and is in fact the most complete exhibition
which we possess of the working of the church system at the time when it
ceased to be any more tolerable, I have thought it well to insert it
uncurtailed. Although the fact of the presentation of this petition has
been well known, it has not been accurately described by any of our
historians, none of them appearing to have seen more than incorrect and
imperfect epitomes of it.[220]

"TO THE KING OUR SOVEREIGN LORD

"In most humble wise show unto your Highness and your most prudent wisdom
your faithful, loving, and most obedient servants the Commons in this your
present parliament assembled; that of late, as well through new fantastical
and erroneous opinions grown by occasion of frantic seditious books
compiled, imprinted, published, and made in the English tongue, contrary
and against the very true Catholic and Christian faith; as also by the
extreme and uncharitable behaviour and dealing of divers ordinaries, their
commissaries and sumners, which have heretofore had, and yet have the
examination in and upon the said errours and heretical opinions; much
discord, variance, and debate hath risen, and more and more daily is like
to increase and ensue amongst the universal sort of your said subjects, as
well spiritual as temporal, each against the other--in most uncharitable
manner, to the great inquietation, vexation, and breach of your peace
within this your most Catholic Realm:

"The special particular griefs whereof, which most principally concern your
Commons and lay subjects, and which are, as they undoubtedly suppose, the
very chief fountains, occasions, and causes that daily breedeth and
nourisheth the said seditious factions, deadly hatred, and most
uncharitable part taking, of either part of said subjects spiritual and
temporal against the other, followingly do ensue.--

"I. First the prelates and spiritual ordinaries of this your most excellent
Realm of England, and the clergy of the same, have in their convocations
heretofore made or caused to be made, and also daily do make many and
divers fashions of laws, constitutions, and ordinances; without your
knowledge or most Royal assent, and without the assent and consent of any
of your lay subjects; unto the which laws your said lay subjects have not
only heretofore been and daily be constrained to obey, in their bodies,
goods, and possessions; but have also been compelled to incur daily into
the censures of the same, and been continually put to importable charges
and expenses, against all equity, right, and good conscience. And yet your
said humble subjects ne their predecessors could ever be privy to the said
laws; ne any of the said laws have been declared unto them in the English
tongue, or otherwise published, by knowledge whereof they might have
eschewed the penalties, dangers, or censures of the same; which laws so
made your said most humble and obedient servants, under the supportation of
your Majesty, suppose to be not only to the diminution and derogation of
your imperial jurisdiction and prerogative royal, but also to the great
prejudice, inquietation, and damage of your said subjects.

"II. Also now of late there hath been devised by the Most Reverend Father
in God, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, that in the courts which he
calleth his Courts of the Arches and Audience, shall only be ten proctors
at his deputation, which be sworn to preserve and promote the only
jurisdiction of his said courts; by reason whereof, if any of your lay
subjects should have any lawful cause against the judges of the said
courts, or any doctors or proctors of the same, or any of their friends
and adherents, they can ne may in nowise have indifferent counsel: and
also all the causes depending in any of the said courts may by the
confederacy of the said few proctors be in such wise tracted and delayed,
as your subjects suing in the same shall be put to importable charges,
costs, and expense. And further, in case that any matter there being
preferred should touch your crown, your regal jurisdiction, and
prerogative Royal, yet the same shall not be disclosed by any of the
said proctors for fear of the loss of their offices. Your most obedient
subjects do therefore, under protection of your Majesty, suppose that
your Highness should have the nomination of some convenient number of
proctors to be always attendant upon the said Courts of Arches and
Audience, there to be sworn to the preferment of your jurisdiction and
prerogative, and to the expedition of the causes of your lay subjects
repairing and suing to the same.

"III. And also many of your said most humble and obedient subjects, and
_specially those that be of the poorest sort_, within this your Realm, be
daily convented and called before the said spiritual ordinaries, their
commissaries and substitutes, _ex officio_; sometimes, at the pleasure of
the said ordinaries, for malice without any cause; and sometimes at the
only promotion and accusement of their summoners and apparitors, being
light and undiscreet persons; without any lawful cause of accusation, or
credible fame proved against them, and without any presentment in the
visitation: and your said poor subjects be thus inquieted, disturbed,
vexed, troubled, and put to excessive and importable charges for them to
bear--and many times be suspended and excommunicate for small and light
causes upon the only certificate of the proctors of the adversaries, made
under a feigned seal which every proctor hath in his keeping; whereas the
party suspended or excommunicate many times never had any warning; and yet
when he shall be absolved, if it be out of court, he shall be compelled to
pay to his own proctor twenty[221] _pence_; to the proctor which is against
him other twenty pence, and twenty pence to the scribe, besides a privy
reward that the judge shall have, to the great impoverishing of your said
poor lay subjects.

"IV. Also your said most humble and obedient servants find themselves
grieved with the great and excessive fees taken in the said spiritual
courts, and especially in the said Courts of the Arches and Audience; where
they take for every citation two shillings and sixpence; for every
inhibition six shillings and eightpence; for every proxy sixteen pence; for
every certificate sixteen pence; for every libel three shillings and
fourpence; for every answer for every libel three shillings and fourpence;
for every act, if it be but two words according to the register, fourpence;
for every personal citation or decree three shillings and fourpence; for
every sentence or judgment, to the judge twenty-six shillings and
eightpence; for every testament upon such sentence or judgment twenty-six
shillings and eightpence; for every significavit twelve shillings; for
every commission to examine witnesses twelve shillings, which charges be
thought importable to be borne by your said subjects, and very necessary to
be reformed.

"V. And also the said prelates and ordinaries daily do permit and suffer
the parsons, vicars, curates, parish priests, and other spiritual persons
having cure of souls within this your Realm, to exact and take of your
humble servants divers sums of money for the sacraments and sacramentals of
Holy Church, sometimes denying the same without they be first paid[222] the
said sums of money, which sacraments and sacramentals your said most humble
and obedient subjects, under protection of your Highness, do suppose and
think ought to be in most reverend, charitable, and godly wise freely
ministered unto them at all times requisite, without denial, or exaction of
any manner sums of money to be demanded or asked for the same.

"VI. And also in the spiritual courts of the said prelates and ordinaries
there be limited and appointed so many judges, scribes, apparitors,
summoners, appraysers, and other ministers for the approbation of
Testaments, which covet so much their own private lucres, and the
satisfaction and appetites of the said prelates and ordinaries, that when
any of your said loving subjects do repair to any of the said courts for
the probate of any Testaments, they do in such wise make so long delays, or
excessively do take of them so large fees and rewards for the same as is
importable for them to bear, directly against all justice, law, equity, and
good conscience. Therefore your most humble and obedient subjects do, under
your gracious correction and supportation, suppose it were very necessary
that the said ordinaries in their deputation of judges should be bound to
appoint and assign such discreet, gracious, and honest persons, having
sufficient learning, wit, discretion, and understanding; and also being
endowed with such spiritual promotion, stipend, and salary; as they being
judges in their said courts might and may minister to every person
repairing to the same, justice--without taking any manner of fee or reward
for any manner of sentence or judgment to be given before them.

"VII. And also divers spiritual persons being presented as well by your
Highness as others within this your Realm to divers benefices or other
spiritual promotions, the said ordinaries and their ministers do not only
take of them for their letters of institution and induction many large sums
of money and rewards; but also do pact and covenant with the same, taking
sure bonds for their indemnity to answer to the said ordinaries for the
firstfruits of their said benefices after their institution--so as they,
being once presented or promoted, as aforesaid, are by the said ordinaries
very uncharitably handled, to their no little hindrance and impoverishment;
which your said subjects suppose not only to be against all laws, right,
and good conscience, but also to be simony, and contrary to the laws of
God.

"VIII. And also _the said spiritual ordinaries do daily confer and give
sundry benefices unto certain young folks, calling them their nephews or
kinsfolk_, being in their minority and within age, not apt ne able to serve
the cure of any such benefice: whereby the said ordinaries do keep and
detain the fruits and profits of the same benefices in their own hands, and
thereby accumulate to themselves right great and large sums of money and
yearly profits, to the most pernicious example of your said lay
subjects--and so the cures and promotions given unto such infants be only
employed to the enriching of the said ordinaries; and the poor silly souls
of your people, which should be taught in the parishes given as aforesaid,
for lack of good curates [be left] to perish without doctrine or any good
teaching.

"IX. Also, a great number of holydays now at this present time, with very
small devotion, be solemnised and kept throughout this your Realm, upon the
which many great, abominable, and execrable vices, idle and wanton sports,
be used and exercised, which holydays, if it may stand with your Grace's
pleasure, and specially such as fall in the harvest, might, by your
Majesty, with the advice of your most honourable council, prelates, and
ordinaries, be made fewer in number; and those that shall be hereafter
ordained to stand and continue, might and may be the more devoutly,
religiously, and reverendly observed, to the laud of Almighty God, and to
the increase of your high honour and favour.

"X. And furthermore the said spiritual ordinaries, their commissaries and
substitutes, sometimes for their own pleasure, sometimes by the sinister
procurement of other spiritual persons, use to make out process against
divers of your said subjects, and thereby compel them to appear before
themselves, to answer at a certain day and place to such articles as by
them shall be, _ex officio_, then proposed; and that secretly and not in
open places;[223] and forthwith upon their appearance, without any
declaration made or showed, commit and send them to ward, sometimes for
[half] a year, sometimes for a whole year or more, before they may in
anywise know either the cause of their imprisonment or the name of their
accuser;[224] and finally after their great costs and charges therein, when
all is examined and nothing can be proved against them, but they clearly
innocent for any fault or crime that can be laid unto them, they be again
set at large without any recompence or amends in that behalf to be towards
them adjudged.

"XI. And also if percase upon the said process and appearance any party be
upon the said matter, cause, or examination, brought forth and named,
either as party or witness, and then upon the proof and trial thereof be
not able to prove and verify the said accusation and testimony against the
party accused, then the person so accused is for the more part without any
remedy for his charges and wrongful vexation to be towards him adjudged and
recovered.

"XII. Also upon the examination of the said accusation, if heresy be
ordinarily laid unto the charge of the parties so accused, then the said
ordinaries or their ministers use to put to them such subtle
interrogatories concerning the high mysteries of our faith, as are able
quickly to trap a simple unlearned, or yet a well-witted layman without
learning, and bring them by such sinister introductions soon to their own
confusion. And further, if there chance any heresy to be by such subtle
policy, by any person confessed in words, and yet never committed neither
in thought nor deed, then put they, without further favour, the said person
either to make his purgation, and so thereby to lose his honesty and
credence for ever; or else as some simple silly soul [may do], the said
person may stand precisely to the testimony of his own well-known
conscience, rather than confess his innocent truth in that behalf [to be
other than he knows it to be], and so be utterly destroyed. And if it
fortune the said party so accused to deny the said accusation, and to put
his adversaries to prove the same as being untrue, forged and imagined
against him, then for the most part such witnesses as are brought forth for
the same, be they but two in number, never so sore diffamed, of little
truth or credence, they shall be allowed and enabled, only by discretion of
the said ordinaries, their commissaries or substitutes; and thereupon
sufficient cause be found to proceed to judgment, to deliver the party so
accused either to secular hands, after abjuration,[225] without remedy; or
afore if he submit himself, as best happeneth, he shall have to make his
purgation and bear a faggot, to his extreme shame and undoing.

"In consideration of all these things, most gracious Sovereign Lord, and
forasmuch as there is at this present time, and by a few years past hath
been outrageous violence on the one part and much default and lack of
patient sufferance, charity, and good will on the other part; and
consequently a marvellous disorder [hath ensued] of the godly quiet, peace,
and tranquillity in which this your Realm heretofore, ever hitherto, has
been through your politic wisdom, most honourable fame, and catholic faith
inviolably preserved; it may therefore, most benign Sovereign Lord, like
your excellent goodness for the tender and universally indifferent zeal,
benign love and favour which your Highness beareth towards both the said
parties, that the said articles (if they shall be by your most clear and
perfect judgment, thought any instrument of the said disorders and
factions), being deeply and weightily, after your accustomed ways and
manner, searched and considered; graciously to provide (all violence on
both sides utterly and clearly set apart) some such necessary and behoveful
remedies as may effectually reconcile and bring in perpetual unity, your
said subjects, spiritual and temporal; and for the establishment thereof,
to make and ordain on both sides such strait laws against transgressors and
offenders as shall be too heavy, dangerous, and weighty for them, or any of
them, to bear, suffer, and sustain.

"Whereunto your said Commons most humbly and entirely beseech your Grace,
as the only Head, Sovereign Lord and Protector of both the said parties, in
whom and by whom the only and sole redress, reformation, and remedy herein
absolutely resteth [of your goodness to consent]. By occasion whereof all
your Commons in their conscience surely account that, beside the marvellous
fervent love that your Highness shall thereby engender in their hearts
towards your Grace, ye shall do the most princely feat, and show the most
honourable and charitable precedent and mirrour that ever did sovereign
lord upon his subjects; and therewithal merit and deserve of our merciful
God eternal bliss--whose goodness grant your Grace in goodly, princely, and
honourable estate long to reign, prosper, and continue as the Sovereign
Lord over all your said most humble and obedient servants."[226]

But little comment need be added in explanation of this petition, which,
though drawn with evident haste, is no less remarkable for temper and good
feeling, than for the masterly clearness with which the evils complained of
are laid bare. Historians will be careful for the future how they swell the
charges against Wolsey with quoting the lamentations of Archbishop Warham,
when his Court of Arches was for a while superseded by the Legate's Court,
and causes lingering before his commissaries were summarily dispatched at a
higher tribunal.[227] The archbishop professed, indeed, that he derived no
personal advantage from his courts,[228] and as we have only the popular
impression to the contrary to set against his word, we must believe him;
yet it was of small moment to the laity who were pillaged, whether the
spoils taken from them filled the coffers of the master, or those of his
followers and friends.

When we consider, also, the significant allusion[229] to the young folks
whom the bishops called their nephews, we cease to wonder at their lenient
dealing with the poor priests who had sunk under the temptations of frail
humanity; and still less can we wonder at the rough handling which was soon
found necessary to bring back these high dignitaries to a better mind.

The House of Commons, in casting their grievances into the form of a
petition, showed that they had no desire to thrust forward of themselves
violent measures of reform; they sought rather to explain firmly and
decisively what the country required. The king, selecting out of the many
points noticed those which seemed most immediately pressing, referred them
back to the parliament, with a direction to draw up such enactments as in
their own judgment would furnish effective relief. In the meantime he
submitted the petition itself to the consideration of the bishops,
requiring their immediate answer to the charges against them, and
accompanied this request with a further important requisition. The
legislative authority of convocation lay at the root of the evils which
were most complained of. The bishops and clergy held themselves independent
of either crown or parliament, passing canons by their own irresponsible
and unchecked will, irrespective of the laws of the land, and sometimes in
direct violation of them; and to these canons the laity were amenable
without being made acquainted with their provisions, learning them only in
the infliction of penalties for their unintended breach. The king required
that thenceforward the convocation should consent to place itself in the
position of parliament, and that his own consent should be required and
received before any law passed by convocation should have the force of
statute.[230]

Little notion, indeed, could the bishops have possessed of the position in
which they were standing. It seemed as if they literally believed that the
promise of perpetuity which Christ had made to his church was a charm which
would hold them free in the quiet course of their injustice; or else, under
the blinding influence of custom, they did not really know that any
injustice adhered to them. They could see in themselves only the ideal
virtues of their saintly office, and not the vices of their fragile
humanity; they believed that they were still holy, still spotless, still
immaculate, and therefore that no danger might come near them. It cannot
have been but that, before the minds of such men as Warham and Fisher, some
visions of a future must at times have floated, which hung so plainly
before the eyes of Wolsey and of Sir Thomas More.[231] They could not have
been wholly deaf to the storm in Germany; and they must have heard
something of the growls of smothered anger which for years had been audible
at home, to all who had ears to hear.[232] Yet if any such thoughts at
times did cross their imagination, they were thrust aside as an uneasy
dream, to be shaken off like a nightmare, or with the coward's consolation,
"It will last my time." If the bishops ever felt an uneasy moment, there is
no trace of uneasiness in the answer which they sent in to the king, and
which now, when we read it with the light which is thrown back out of the
succeeding years, seems like the composition of mere lunacy. Perhaps they
had confidence in the support of Henry. In their courts they were in the
habit of identifying an attack upon themselves with an attack upon the
doctrines of the Church; and reading the king's feelings in their own, they
may have considered themselves safe under the protection of a sovereign who
had broken a lance with Luther, and had called himself the Pope's champion.
Perhaps they thought that they had bound him to themselves by a declaration
which they had all signed in the preceding summer in favour of the
divorce.[233] Perhaps they were but steeped in the dulness of official
lethargy. The defence is long, wearying the patience to read it; wearying
the imagination to invent excuses for the falsehoods which it contains. Yet
it is well to see all men in the light in which they see themselves; and
justice requires that we allow the bishops the benefit of their own reply.
It was couched in the following words:--[234]

"After our most humble wise, with our most bounden duty of honour and
reverence to your excellent Majesty, endued from God with incomparable
wisdom and goodness. Please it the same to understand that we, your orators
and daily bounden bedemen, have read and perused a certain supplication
which the Commons of your Grace's honourable parliament now assembled have
offered unto your Highness, and by your Grace's commandment delivered unto
us, that we should make answer thereunto. We have, as the time hath served,
made this answer following, beseeching your Grace's indifferent benignity
graciously to hear the same.

"And first for that discord, variance, and debate which, in the preface of
the said supplication they do allege to have risen among your Grace's
subjects, spiritual and temporal, occasioned, as they say, by the
uncharitable behaviour and demeanour of divers ordinaries: to this we, the
ordinaries, answer, assuring your Majesty that in our hearts there is no
such discord or variance ort our part against our brethren in God and
ghostly children your subjects, as is induced in this preface; but our
daily prayer is and shall be that all peace and concord may increase among
your Grace's true subjects our said children, whom God be our witness we
love, have loved, and shall love ever with hearty affection; never
intending any hurt ne harm towards any of them in soul or body; ne have we
ever enterprised anything against them of trouble, vexation, or
displeasure; but only have, with all charity, exercised the spiritual
jurisdiction of the Church, as we are bound of duty, upon certain
evil-disposed persons infected with the pestilent poison of heresy. And to
have peace with such had been against the Gospel of our Saviour Christ,
wherein he saith, _Non veni mittere pacem sed gladium_. Wherefore,
forasmuch as we know well that there be as well-disposed and
well-conscienced men of your Grace's Commons in no small number assembled,
as ever we knew at any time in parliament; and with that consider how on
our part there is given no such occasion why the whole number of the
spirituality and clergy should be thus noted unto your Highness; we
humbling our hearts to God and remitting the judgment of this our
inquietation to Him, and trusting, as his Scripture teacheth, that if we
love him above all, omnia cooperabuntur in bonum, shall endeavour to
declare to your Highness the innocency of us, your poor orators.

"And where, after the general preface of the same supplication, your
Grace's Commons descend to special particular griefs, and first to those
divers fashions of laws concerning temporal things, whereon, as they say,
the clergy in their convocation have made and daily do make divers laws, to
their great trouble and inquietation, which said laws be sometimes
repugnant to the statutes of your Realm, with many other complaints
thereupon:[235] To this we say, that forasmuch as we repute and take our
authority of making of laws to be grounded upon the Scriptures of God and
the determination of Holy Church, which must be the rule and square to try
the justice and righteousness of all laws, as well spiritual as temporal,
we verily trust that in such laws as have been made by us, or by our
predecessors, the same being sincerely interpreted, and after the meaning
of the makers, there shall be found nothing contained in them but such as
may be well justified by the said rule and square. And if it shall
otherwise appear, as it is our duty whereunto we shall always most
diligently apply ourselves to reform our ordinances to God's commission,
and to conform our statutes to the determination of Scripture and Holy
Church; _so we hope in God, and shall daily pray for the same, that your
Highness will, if there appear cause why, with the assent of your people,
temper your Grace's laws accordingly; whereby shall ensue a most sure and
hearty conjunction and agreement; God being lapis angularis_.

"And as concerning the requiring of your Highness's royal assent to the
authorising of such laws as have been made by our predecessors, or shall be
made by us, in such points and articles, as we have authority to rule and
order; we knowing your Highness's wisdom, virtue, and learning, nothing
doubt but that the same perceiveth how the granting thereunto dependeth not
upon our will and liberty, _and that we may not submit the execution of our
charges and duty certainly prescribed to us by God to your Highness's
assent_; although, indeed, the same is most worthy for your most princely
and excellent virtues, not only to give your royal assent, but also to
devise and command what we should for good order or manners by statutes and
laws provide in the church. Nevertheless, we considering we may not so nor
in such sort restrain the doing of our office in the feeding and ruling of
Christ's people, we most humbly desire your Grace (as the same hath done
heretofore) to show your Grace's mind and opinion unto us, which we shall
most gladly hear and follow if it shall please God to inspire us so to do;
and with all humility we therefore beseech your Grace, following the steps
of your most noble progenitors, to maintain and defend such laws and
ordinances as we, according to our calling and by the authority of God,
shall for his honour make to the edification of virtue and the maintaining
of Christ's faith, whereof your Highness is defender in name, and hath been
hitherto indeed a special protector.

"Furthermore, where there be found in the said supplication, with mention
of your Grace's person, other griefs that some of the said laws extend to
the goods and possessions of your said lay subjects, declaring the
transgressors not only to fall under the terrible censure of
excommunication, but also under the detestable crime of heresy:

"To this we answer that we remember no such, and yet if there be any such,
it is but according to the common law of the Church, and also to your
Grace's law, which determine and decree that every person spiritual or
temporal condemned of heresy shall forfeit his moveables or immoveables to
your Highness, or to the lord spiritual or temporal that by law hath right
to them.[236] Other statutes we remember none that toucheth lands or goods.
If there be, it were good that they were brought forth to be weighed and
pondered accordingly.

"Item as touching the second principal article of the said supplication,
where they say that divers and many of your Grace's obedient subjects, and
especially they that be of the poorest sort, be daily called before us or
before our substitutes ex officio; sometimes at the pleasure of us, the
ordinaries, without any probable cause, and sometimes at the only promotion
of our summoner, without any credible fame first proved against them, and
without presentment in the visitation or lawful accusation:

"On this we desire your high wisdom and learning to consider that albeit in
the ordering of Christ's people, your Grace's subjects, God of His
spiritual goodness assisteth his church, and inspireth by the Holy Ghost as
we verily trust such rules and laws as tend to the wealth of his elect
folk; yet upon considerations to man unknown, his infinite wisdom leaveth
or permitteth men to walk in their infirmity and frailty; so that we cannot
ne will arrogantly presume of ourselves, as though being in name spiritual
men, we were also in all our acts and doings clean and void from all
temporal affections and carnality of this world, or that the laws of the
church made for spiritual and ghostly purpose be not sometime applied to
worldly intent. This we ought and do lament, as becometh us, very sore.
Nevertheless, as the evil deeds of men be the mere defaults of those
particular men, and not of the whole order of the clergy, nor of the law
wholesomely by them made; our request and petition shall be with all
humility and reverence; that laws well made be not therefore called evil
because by all men and at all times they be not well executed; and that in
such defaults as shall appear such distribution may be used _ut unusquisque
onus suum portet_, and remedy be found to reform the offenders; unto the
which your Highness shall perceive as great towardness in your said orators
as can be required upon declaration of particulars. And other answer than
this cannot be made in the name of your whole clergy, for though _in multis
offendimus omnes_, as St. James saith, yet not 'in omnibus offendimus
omnes;' and the whole number can neither justify ne condemn particular acts
to them unknown but thus. He that calleth a man ex officio for correction
of sin, doeth well. He that calleth men for pleasure or vexation, doeth
evil. Summoners should be honest men. If they offend in their office, they
should be punished. To prove first [their faults] before men be called, is
not necessary. He that is called according to the laws ex officio or
otherwise, cannot complain. He that is otherwise ordered should have by
reason convenient recompence and so forth; that is well to be allowed, and
misdemeanour when it appeareth to be reproved.

"Item where they say in the same article that upon their appearance ex
officio at the only pleasure of the ordinaries, they be committed to prison
without bail or mainprize; and there they lie some half a year or more
before they come to their deliverance; to this we answer,--

"That we use no prison before conviction but for sure custody, and only of
such as be suspected of heresy, in which crime, thanked be God, there hath
fallen no such notable person in our time, or of such qualities as hath
given occasion of any sinister suspicion to be conceived of malice or
hatred to his person other than the heinousness of their crime deserveth.
_Truth it is that certain apostates, friars, monks, lewd priests, bankrupt
merchants, vagabonds, and lewd idle fellows of corrupt intent, have
embraced the abominable and erroneous opinions lately sprung in Germany_;
and by them some have been seduced in simplicity and ignorance. Against
these, if judgment has been exercised according to the laws of the church,
and conformably to the laws of this realm, we be without blame. If we have
been too remiss and slack, we shall gladly do our duty from henceforth. If
any man hath been, under pretence of this [crime], particularly offended,
it were pity to suffer any man to be wronged; and thus it ought to be, and
otherwise we cannot answer, no man's special case being declared in the
said petition.

"Item where they say further that they so appearing ex officio, be
condemned to answer to many subtle questions by the which a simple,
unlearned, or else a well-witted layman without learning sometimes is, and
commonly may be trapped and induced into peril of open penance to their
shame, or else [forced] to redeem their penance for money, as is commonly
used; to this we answer that we should not use subtlety, for we should do
all things plainly and openly; and if we do otherwise, we do amiss. We
ought not to ask questions, but after the capacities of the man. Christ
hath defended his true doctrine and faith in his Catholic church from all
subtlety, and so preserved good men in the same, as they have not (blessed
be God) been vexed, inquieted, or troubled in Christ's church. Thereupon
evil men fall in danger by their own subtlety; we protest afore God we have
neither known, read, nor heard of any one man damaged or prejudiced by
spiritual jurisdiction in this behalf, neither in this realm nor any other,
but only by his own deserts. Such is the goodness of God in maintaining the
cause of his Catholic faith.

"Item where they say they be compelled to do open penance, or else redeem
the same for money; as for penance, we answer it consisteth in the arbitre
of a judge who ought to enjoin such penance as might profit for correction
of the fault. Whereupon we disallow that judge's doing who taketh money for
penance for lucre or advantage, not regarding the reformation of sin as he
ought to do. But when open penance may sometimes work in certain persons
more hurt than good, it is commendable and allowable in that case to punish
by the purse, and preserve the fame of the party; foreseeing always the
money be converted _in usus pios et eleemosynam_, and thus we think of the
thing, and that the offenders should be punished.

"Item where they complain that two witnesses be admitted, be they never so
defamed, of little truth or credence, adversaries or enemies to the
parties; yet in many cases they be allowed by the discretion of the
ordinaries to put the party defamed, ex officio, to open penance, and then
to redemption for money; so that every of your subjects, upon the only will
of the ordinaries or their substitutes, without any accuser, proved fame,
or presentment, is or may be infamed, vexed, and troubled, to the peril of
their lives, their shames, costs, and expenses:

"To this we reply, _the Gospel of Christ teacheth us to believe two
witnesses; and as the cause is, so the judge must esteem the quality of the
witness; and in heresy no exception is necessary to be considered if their
tale be likely; which hath been highly provided lest heretics without
jeopardy might else plant their_ _heresies in lewd and light persons, and
taking exception to the witnesses, take boldness to continue their folly.
This is the universal law of Christendom, and hath universally done good.
Of any injury done to any man thereby we know not_.

"Item where they say it is not intended by them to take away from us our
authority to correct and punish sins, and especially the detestable crime
of heresy:

"To this we answer, in the prosecuting heretics we regard our duty and
office whereunto we be called, and if God will discharge us thereof, or
cease that plague universal, as, by directing the hearts of princes, and
specially the heart of your Highness (laud and thanks be unto Him), His
goodness doth commence and begin to do, we should and shall have great
cause to rejoice; as being our authority therein costly, dangerous, full of
trouble and business, without any fruit, pleasure, or commodity worldly,
but a continued conflict and vexation with pertinacity, wilfulness, folly,
and ignorance, whereupon followeth their bodily and ghostly destruction, to
our great sorrow.

"Item where they desire that by assent of your Highness (if the laws
heretofore made be not sufficient for the repression of heresy) more
dreadful and terrible laws may be made; this We think is undoubtedly a more
charitable request than as we trust necessary, considering that by the aid
of your Highness, and the pains of your Grace's statutes freely executed,
your realm may be in short time clean purged from the few small dregs that
do remain, if any do remain.

"Item where they desire some reasonable declaration may be made to your
people, how they may, if they will, avoid the peril of heresy. No better
declaration, we say, can be made than is already by our Saviour Christ, the
Apostles, and the determination of the church, which if they keep, they
shall not fail to eschew heresy.

"Item where they desire that some charitable fashion may be devised by your
wisdom for the calling of any of your subjects before us, that it shall not
stand in the only will and pleasure of the ordinaries at their own
imagination, without lawful accusation by honest witness, according to your
law; to this we say that a better provision cannot be devised than is
already devised by the clergy in our opinion; and if any default appear in
the execution, it shall be amended on declaration of the particulars, and
the same proved.

"Item where they say that your subjects be cited out of the diocese which
they dwell in, and many times be suspended and excommunicate for light
causes upon the only certificate devised by the proctors, and that all your
subjects find themselves grieved with the excessive fees taken in the
spiritual courts:

"To this article, for because it concerneth specially the spiritual courts
of me the Archbishop of Canterbury, please it your Grace to understand that
about twelve months past I reformed certain things objected here; and now
within these ten weeks I reformed many other things in my said courts, as I
suppose is not unknown unto your Grace's Commons; and some of the fees of
the officers of my courts I have brought down to halves, some to the third
part, and some wholly taken away and extincted; and yet it is objected to
me as though I had taken no manner of reformation therein. Nevertheless I
shall not cease yet; but in such things as I shall see your Commons most
offended I will set redress accordingly, so as, I trust, they will be
contented in that behalf. And I, the said archbishop, beseech your Grace to
consider what service the doctors in civil law, which have had their
practice in my courts, have done your Grace concerning treaties, truces,
confederations, and leagues devised and concluded with outward princes; and
that without such learned men in civil law your Grace could not have been
so conveniently served as at all times you have been, which thing, perhaps,
when such learned men shall fail, will appear more evident than it doth
now. The decay whereof grieveth me to foresee, not so greatly for any cause
concerning the pleasure or profit of myself, being a man spent, and at the
point to depart this world, and having no penny of any advantage by my said
courts, but principally for the good love which I bear to the honour of
your Grace and of your realm. And albeit there is, by the assent of the
Lords Temporal and the Commons of your Parliament, an act passed thereupon
already, the matter depending before your Majesty by way of supplication
offered to your Highness by your said Commons;[237] yet, forasmuch as we
your Grace's humble chaplains, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, be
bounden by oath to be intercessors for the rights of our churches; and
forasmuch as the spiritual prelates of the clergy, being of your Grace's
parliament, consented to the said act for divers great causes moving their
conscience, we your Grace's said chaplains show unto your Highness that it
hath appertained to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for the space of
four hundred years or thereabouts to have spiritual jurisdiction over all
your Grace's subjects dwelling within the provinces; and to have authority
to call before them, not only in spiritual causes devolved to them by way
of appeal, but also by way of querimony and complaint; which right and
privilege pertaineth not only to the persons of the said archbishops, but
also to the pre-eminences of their churches. Insomuch that when the
archbishop of either of the sees dieth, the said privileges do not only
remain to his successor (by which he is named Legatus natus), but also in
the meantime of vacation the same privilege resteth in the churches of
Canterbury and York; and is executed by the prior, dean and chapter of the
said churches; and so the said act is directly against the liberty and
privileges of the churches of Canterbury and York; and what dangers be to
them which study and labour to take away the liberties and privileges of
the church, whoso will read the general councils of Christendom and the
canons of the fathers of the Catholic church ordained in that behalf, shall
soon perceive. And further, we think verily that our churches, to which the
said privileges were granted, can give no cause why the pope himself (whose
predecessors granted that privilege) or any other (the honour of your Grace
ever except) may justly take away the same privileges so lawfully
prescribed from our churches, though we [ourselves] had greatly offended,
abusing the said privileges. But when in our persons we trust we have given
no cause why to lose that privilege, we beseech your Grace of your goodness
and absolute power to set such orders in this behalf as we may enjoy our
privileges lawfully admitted so long.

"Item where they complain that there is exacted and demanded in divers
parishes of this your realm, other manner of tythes than hath been
accustomed to be paid this hundred years past; and in some parts of this
your realm there is exacted double tythes, that is to say, threepence, or
twopence-halfpenny, for one acre, over and beside the tythe for the
increase of cattle that pastureth the same:

"To this we say, that tythes being due by God's law, be so duly paid
(thanked be God), by all good men, as there needeth not exaction in the
most parts of this your Grace's realm. As for double tythes, they cannot be
maintained due for one increase; whether in any place they be unduly
exacted in fact we know not. This we know in learning, that neither a
hundred years, nor seven hundred of non-payment, may debar the right of
God's law. The manner of payment, and person unto whom to pay, may be in
time altered, but the duty cannot by any means be taken away.

"Item where they say that when a mortuary is due, curates sometimes, before
they will demand it, will bring citation for it; and then will not receive
the mortuaries till they may have such costs as they say they have laid out
for the suit of the same; when, indeed, if they would first have charitably
demanded it, they needed not to have sued for the same, for it should have
been paid with good will:

"We answer that curates thus offending, if they were known, ought to be
punished, but who thus doeth we know not.

"Item where they say that divers spiritual persons being presented to
benefices within this your realm, we and our ministers do take of them
great sums of money and reward; we reply that this is a particular abuse,
and he that taketh reward doeth not well; and if any penny be exacted above
the accustomed rate and after convenient proportion, it is not well done.
But in taking the usual fee for the sealing, writing, and registering the
letters, which is very moderate, we cannot think it to be reputed as any
offence; neither have we heard any priests in our days complain of any
excess therein.

"And where they say in the same article that such as be presented be
delayed without reasonable cause, to the intent that we the ordinaries may
have the profit of the benefice during the vacation, unless they will pact
and convent with us by temporal bonds, whereof some bonds contain that we
should have part of the profit of the said benefice, which your said
subjects suppose to be not only against right and conscience, but also
seemeth to be simony, and contrary to the laws of God:

"To this we do say that a delay without reasonable cause, and for a
lucrative intent, is detestable in spiritual men, and the doers cannot
eschew punishment: but otherwise a delay is sometimes expedient to examine
the clerk, and sometimes necessary when the title is in variance. All other
bargains and covenants being contrary to the law ought to be punished, as
the quality is of the offence more or less, as simony or inordinate
covetousness.

"Item where they say that we give benefices to our nephews and kinsfolk,
being in young age or infants, whereby the cure is not substantially looked
into, nor the parishioners taught as they should be; we reply to this that
the thing which is not lawful in others is in spiritual men more
detestable. Benefices should be disposed of not _secundum carnem et
sanguinem, sed secundum merita_. And when there is a default it is not
authorised by the clergy as good, but reproved; whereupon in this the
clergy is not to be blamed, but the default as it may appear must be laid
to particular men.

"And where they say that we take the profit of such benefices for the time
of the minority of our said kinsfolk, if it be done to our own use and
profit it is not well; _if it be bestowed to the bringing up and use of the
same parties_, or applied to the maintenance of the church and God's
service, or distributed among the poor, we do not see but that it may be
allowed.

"Item where they say that divers and many spiritual persons, not contented
with the convenient livings and promotions of the church, daily intromit
and exercise themselves in secular offices and rooms, as stewards,
receivers, auditors, bailiffs, and other temporal occupations, withdrawing
themselves from the good contemplative lives that they have professed, not
only to the damage but also to the perilous example of your loving and
obedient subjects; to this we your bedesmen answer that beneficed men may
lawfully be stewards and receivers to their own bishops, as it evidently
appeareth in the laws of the church; and we by the same laws ought to have
no other. And as for priests to be auditors and bailiffs, we know none
such.

"And where, finally, they, in the conclusion of their supplication, do
repeat and say that forasmuch as there is at this present time, and by a
few years past hath been much misdemeanour and violence upon the one part,
and much default and lack of patience, charity, and good will on the other
part; and marvellous discord in consequence of the quiet, peace, and
tranquillity in which this your realm hath been ever hitherto preserved
through your politic wisdom:

"To the first part as touching such discord as is reported, and also the
misdemeanour which is imputed to us and our doings, we trust we have
sufficiently answered the same, humbly beseeching your Grace so to esteem
and weigh such answer with their supplication as shall be thought good and
expedient by your high wisdom. Furthermore we ascertain your Grace as
touching the violence which they seem to lay to our charge, albeit divers
of the clergy of this your realm have sundry times been _rigorously
handled, and with much violence entreated by certain ill-disposed and
seditious persons of the lay fee, have been injured in their bodies, thrown
down in the kennel in the open_ _streets at mid-day_, even here within your
city and elsewhere, to the great rebuke and disquietness of the clergy of
your realm, the great danger of the souls of the said misdoers, and
perilous example of your subjects. Yet we think verily, and do affirm the
same, that no violence hath been so used on our behalf towards your said
lay subjects in any case; unless they esteem this to be violence that we do
use as well for the health of their souls as for the discharge of our
duties in taking, examining, and punishing heretics according to the law:
wherein we doubt not but that your Grace, and divers of your Grace's
subjects, do understand well what charitable entreaty we have used with
such as have been before us for the same cause of heresy; and what means we
have devised and studied for safeguard specially of their souls; and that
charitably, as God be our judge, and without violence as [far as] we could
possibly devise. In execution thereof, and also of the laws of the church
for repression of sin, and also for reformation of mislivers, it hath been
to our great comfort that your Grace hath herein of your goodness, assisted
and aided us in this behalf for the zeal and love which your Grace beareth
to God's church and to His ministers; especially in defence of His faith
whereof your Grace only and most worthily amongst all Christian princes
beareth the title and name. And for that marvellous discord and grudge
among your subjects as is reported in the supplication of your Commons, we
beseech your Majesty, all the premises considered, to repress those that be
misdoers; protesting in our behalf that we ourselves have no grudge nor
displeasure towards your lay subjects our ghostly children. We intreat your
Grace of your accustomed goodness to us your bedemen to continue our chief
protector, defender, and aider in and for the execution of our office and
duty; specially touching repression of heresy, reformation of sin, and due
behaviour and order of all your Grace's subjects, spiritual and temporal;
which (no doubt thereof) shall be much to the pleasure of God, great
comfort to men's souls, quietness and unity of all your realm; and, as we
think, most principally to the great comfort of your Grace's Majesty. Which
we beseech lowly upon our knees, so entirely as we can, to be the author of
unity, charity, and concord as above, for whose preservation we do and
shall continually pray to Almighty God long to reign and prosper in most
honourable estate to his pleasure."

This was the bishops' defence; the best which, under the circumstances,
they considered themselves capable of making. The House of Commons had
stated their complaints in the form of special notorious facts; the bishops
replied with urging the theory of their position, and supposed that they
could relieve the ecclesiastical system from the faults of its ministers,
by laying the sole blame on the unworthiness of individual persons. The
degenerate representatives of a once noble institution could not perhaps be
expected to admit their degeneracy, and confess themselves, as they really
were, collectively incompetent; yet the defence which they brought forward
would have been valid only so long as the blemishes were the rare
exceptions in the working of an institution which was still generally
beneficent. It was no defence at all when the faults had become the rule,
and when there was no security in the system itself for the selection of
worth and capacity to exercise its functions. The clergy, as I have already
said, claimed the privileges of saints, while their conduct fell below the
standard of that of ordinary men; and the position taken in this answer was
tenable only on the hypothesis which it, in fact, deliberately asserted,
that the judicial authority of the church had been committed to it by God
Himself; and that no misconduct of its ministers in detail could forfeit
their claims or justify resistance to them.

There is something touching in the bishops' evidently sincere
unconsciousness that there could be real room for blame. Warham, who had
been Archbishop of Canterbury thirty years, took credit to himself for the
reforms which, under the pressure of public opinion, he had introduced, in
the last few weeks or months; and did not know that in doing so he had
passed sentence on a life of neglect. In the opinion of the entire bench no
infamy, however notorious, could shake the testimony of a witness in a case
of heresy; no cruelty was unjust when there was suspicion of so horrible a
crime; while the appointment of minors to church benefices (not to press
more closely the edge of the accusation) they admitted while they affected
to deny it; since they were not ashamed to defend the appropriation of the
proceeds of benefices occupied by such persons, if laid out on the
education and maintenance of the minors themselves.

Yet these things were as nothing in comparison with the powers claimed for
convocation; and the prelates of the later years of Henry's reign must have
looked back with strange sensations at the language which their
predecessors had so simply addressed to him. If the canons which
convocation might think good to enact were not consistent with the laws of
the Realm, "His Majesty" was desired to produce the wished-for uniformity
by altering the laws of the Realm; and although the bishops might not
submit their laws to His Majesty's approval, they would be happy, they told
him, to consider such suggestions as he might think proper to make. The
spirit of the Plantagenets must have slumbered long before such words as
these could have been addressed to an English sovereign, and little did the
bishops dream that these light words were the spell which would burst the
charm, and bid that spirit wake again in all its power and terror.

The House of Commons in the mean time had not been idle. To them the
questions at issue were unincumbered with theoretic difficulties. Enormous
abuses had been long ripe for dissolution, and there was no occasion to
waste time in unnecessary debates. At such a time, with a House practically
unanimous, business could be rapidly transacted, the more rapidly indeed in
proportion to its importance. In six weeks, for so long only the session
lasted, the astonished church authorities saw bill after bill hurried up
before the Lords, by which successively the pleasant fountains of their
incomes would be dried up to flow no longer; or would flow only in shallow
rivulets along the beds of the once abundant torrents, The jurisdiction of
the spiritual courts was not immediately curtailed, and the authority which
was in future to be permitted to convocation lay over for further
consideration, to be dealt with in another manner. But probate duties and
legacy duties, hitherto assessed at discretion, were dwarfed into fixed
proportions,[238] not to touch the poorer laity any more, and bearing even
upon wealth with a reserved and gentle hand. Mortuaries were shorn of their
luxuriance; when effects were small, no mortuary should be required; when
large, the clergy should content themselves with a modest share. No velvet
cloaks should be stripped any more from strangers' bodies to save them from
a rector's grasp;[239] no shameful battles with apparitors should disturb
any more the recent rest of the dead.[240] Such sums as the law would
permit should be paid thenceforward in the form of decent funeral fees for
householders dying in their own parishes, and there the exactions should
terminate.[241]

The carelessness of the bishops in the discharge of their most immediate
duties obliged the legislature to trespass also in the provinces purely
spiritual, and undertake the discipline of the clergy. The Commons had
complained in their petition that the clergy, instead of attending to their
duties, were acting as auditors, bailiffs, stewards, or in other
capacities, as laymen; they were engaged in trade also, in farming, in
tanning, in brewing, in doing anything but the duties which they were paid
for doing; while they purchased dispensations for non-residence on their
benefices; and of these benefices, in favoured cases, single priests held
as many as eight or nine. It was thought unnecessary to wait for the
bishops' pleasure to apply a remedy here. If the clergy were unjustly
accused of these offences, a law of general prohibition would not touch
them. If the belief of the House of Commons was well founded, there was no
occasion for longer delay. It was therefore enacted[242]--"for the more
quiet and virtuous increase and maintenance of divine service, the
preaching and teaching the Word of God with godly and good example, for the
better discharge of cures, the maintenance of hospitality, the relief of
poor people, the increase of devotion and good opinion of the lay fee
towards spiritual persons"--that no such persons thenceforward should take
any land to farm beyond what was necessary, _bonâ fide_, for the support of
their own households; that they should not buy merchandise to sell again;
that they should keep no tanneries or brewhouses, or otherwise directly or
indirectly trade for gain. Pluralities were not to be permitted with
benefices above the yearly value of eight pounds, and residence was made
obligatory under penalty in cases of absence without special reason, of ten
pounds for each month of such absence. The law against pluralities was
limited as against existing holders, each of whom, for their natural lives,
might continue to hold as many as four benefices. But dispensations, either
for non-residence or for the violation of any other provision of the act,
were made penal in a high degree, whether obtained from the bishops or from
the court of Rome.

These bills struck hard and struck home. Yet even persons who most
disapprove of the Reformation will not at the present time either wonder at
their enactment or complain of their severity. They will be desirous rather
to disentangle their doctrine from suspicious connection, and will not be
anxious to compromise their theology by the defence of unworthy professors
of it.

The bishops, however, could ill tolerate an interference with the
privileges of the ecclesiastical order. The Commons, it was exclaimed, were
heretics and schismatics;[243] the cry was heard everywhere, of Lack of
faith, Lack of faith; and the lay peers being constitutionally
conservative, and perhaps instinctively apprehensive of the infectious
tendencies of innovation, it seemed likely for a time that an effective
opposition might be raised in the Upper House. The clergy commanded an
actual majority in that House from their own body, which they might employ
if they dared; and although they were not likely to venture alone on so
bold a measure, yet a partial support from the other members was a
sufficient encouragement. The aged Bishop of Rochester was made the
spokesman of the ecclesiastics on this occasion. "My Lords," he said, "you
see daily what bills come hither from the Commons House, and all is to the
destruction of the church. For God's sake see what a realm the kingdom of
Bohemia was; and when the church went down, then fell the glory of that
kingdom. Now with the Commons is nothing but Down with the church, and all
this meseemeth is for lack of faith only."[244] "In result," says Hall,
"the acts were sore debated; the Lords Spiritual would in no wise consent,
and committees of the two Houses sate continually for discussion." The
spiritualty defended themselves by prescription and usage, to which a
Gray's Inn lawyer something insolently answered, on one occasion, "the
usage hath ever been of thieves to rob on Shooter's Hill, _ergo_, it is
lawful." "With this answer," continues Hall, "the spiritual men were sore
offended because their doings were called robberies, but the temporal men
stood by their sayings, insomuch that the said gentlemen declared to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, that both the exaction of probates of testaments
and the taking of mortuaries were open robbery and thefts."

At length, people out of doors growing impatient, and dangerous symptoms
threatening to show themselves, the king summoned a meeting in the
Star-chamber between eight members of both Houses. The lay peers, after
some discussion, conclusively gave way; and the bishops, left without
support, were obliged to yield. They signified their unwilling consent, and
the bills, "somewhat qualified," were the next day agreed to--"to the great
rejoicing of the lay people, and the great displeasure of the spiritual
persons."[245]

Nor were the House of Commons contented with the substance of victory. The
reply to their petition had perhaps by that time been made known to them,
and at any rate they had been accused of sympathy with heresy, and they
would not submit to the hateful charge without exacting revenge. The more
clamorous of the clergy out of doors were punished probably by the stocks;
from among their opponents in the Upper House, Fisher was selected for
special and signal humiliation. The words of which he had made use were
truer than the Commons knew; perhaps the latent truth of them was the
secret cause of the pain which they inflicted; but the special anxiety of
the English reformers was to disconnect themselves, with marked emphasis,
from the movement in Germany, and they determined to compel the offending
bishop to withdraw his words.

They sent the speaker, Sir Thomas Audeley, to the king, who "very
eloquently declared what dishonour it was to his Majesty and the realm,
that they which were elected for the wisest men in the shires, cities, and
boroughs within the realm of England, should be declared in so noble a
presence to lack faith." It was equivalent to saying "that they were
infidels, and no Christians--as ill as Turks and Saracens." Wherefore he
"most humbly besought the King's Highness to call the said bishop before
him, and to cause him to speak more discreetly of such a number as was in
the Commons House."[246] Henry consented to their request, it is likely
with no great difficulty, and availed himself of the opportunity to read a
lesson much needed to the remainder of the bench. He sent for Fisher, and
with him for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for six other bishops. The
speaker's message was laid before them, and they were asked what they had
to say. It would have been well for the weak trembling old men if they
could have repeated what they believed and had maintained their right to
believe it. Bold conduct is ever the most safe; it is fatal only when there
is courage but for the first step, and fails when a second is required to
support it. But they were forsaken in their hour of calamity, not by
courage only, but by prudence, by judgment, by conscience itself. The
Bishop of Rochester stooped to an equivocation too transparent to deceive
any one; he said that "he meant only the doings of the Bohemians were for
lack of faith, and not the doings of the Commons House"--"which saying was
confirmed by the bishops present." The king allowed the excuse, and the
bishops were dismissed; but they were dismissed into ignominy, and
thenceforward, in all Henry's dealings with them, they were treated with
contemptuous disrespect. For Fisher himself we must feel only sorrow. After
seventy-six years of a useful and honourable life, which he might have
hoped to close in a quiet haven, he was launched suddenly upon stormy
waters, to which he was too brave to yield, which he was too timid to
contend against; and the frail vessel drifting where the waves drove it,
was soon piteously to perish.

Thus triumphant on every side, the parliament, in the middle of December,
closed its session, and lay England celebrated its exploits as a national
victory. "The king removed to Greenwich, and there kept his Christmas with
the queen with great triumph, with great plenty of viands, and disguisings,
and interludes, to the great rejoicing of his people;"[247] the members of
the House of Commons, we may well believe, following the royal example in
town and country, and being the little heroes of the day. Only the bishops
carried home sad hearts within them, to mourn over the perils of the church
and the impending end of all things; Fisher, unhappily for himself, to
listen to the wailings of the Nun of Kent, and to totter slowly into
treason.

Here, for the present leaving the clergy to meditate on their future, and
reconsider the wisdom of their answer to the king respecting the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction (a point on which they were not the less
certain to be pressed, because the process upon it was temporarily
suspended), we must turn to the more painful matter which, for a time
longer, ran parallel with the domestic reformation, and as yet was unable
to unite with it. After the departure of Campeggio, the further hearing of
the divorce cause had been advoked to Rome, where it was impossible for
Henry to consent to plead; while the appearance of the supposed brief had
opened avenues of new difficulty which left no hope of a decision within
the limits of an ordinary lifetime. Henry was still, however, extremely
reluctant[248] to proceed to extremities, and appeal to the parliament. He
had threatened that he would tolerate no delay, and Wolsey had evidently
expected that he would not. Queen Catherine's alarm had gone so far, that
in the autumn she had procured an injunction from the pope, which had been
posted in the churches of Flanders, menacing the king with spiritual
censures if he took any further steps.[249] Even this she feared that he
would disregard, and in March, 1529-30, a second inhibition was issued at
her request, couched in still stronger language.[250] But these measures
were needless, or at least premature. Henry expected that the display of
temper in the country in the late session would produce an effect both on
the pope and on the emperor; and proposing to send an embassy to
remonstrate jointly with them on the occasion of the emperor's coronation,
which was to take place in the spring at Bologna, he had recourse in the
mean time to an expedient which, though blemished in the execution, was
itself reasonable and prudent.

Among the many _technical_ questions which had been raised upon the
divorce, the most serious was on the validity of the original dispensation;
a question not only on the sufficiency of the form the defects of which the
brief had been invented to remedy; but on the more comprehensive
uncertainty whether Pope Julius had not exceeded his powers altogether in
granting a dispensation where there was so close affinity. No one supposed
that the pope could permit a brother to marry a sister; a dispensation
granted in such a case would be _ipso facto_ void.--Was not the
dispensation similarly void which permitted the marriage of a brother's
widow? The advantage which Henry expected from raising this difficulty was
the transfer of judgment from the partial tribunal of Clement to a broader
court. The pope could not, of course, adjudicate on the extent of his own
powers; especially as he always declared himself to be ignorant of the law;
and the decision of so general a question rested either with a general
council, or must be determined by the consent of Christendom, obtained in
some other manner. If such general consent declared against the pope, the
cause was virtually terminated. If there was some approach to a consent
against him, or even if there was general uncertainty, Henry had a legal
pretext for declining his jurisdiction, and appealing to a council.

Thomas Cranmer, then a doctor of divinity at Cambridge,[251] is said to
have been the person who suggested this ingenious expedient, and to have
advised the king, as the simplest means of carrying it out, to consult in
detail the universities and learned men throughout Europe. His notorious
activity in collecting the opinions may have easily connected him with the
origination of the plan, which probably occurred to many other persons as
well as to him; but whoever was the first adviser, it was immediately acted
upon, and English agents were despatched into Germany, Italy, and France,
carrying with them all means of persuasion, intellectual, moral, and
material, which promised to be of most cogent potency with lawyers'
convictions.

This matter was in full activity when the Earl of Wiltshire, Anne Boleyn's
father, with Cranmer, the Bishop of London, and Edward Lee, afterwards
Archbishop of York, was despatched to Bologna to lay Henry's remonstrances
before the emperor, who was come at last in person to enjoy his miserable
triumph, and receive from the pope the imperial crown. Sir Nicholas Carew,
who had been sent forward a few weeks previously, described in piteous
language the state to which Italy had been reduced by him. Passing through
Pavia, the English emissary saw the children crying about the streets for
bread, and dying of hunger; the grapes in midwinter rotting on the vines,
because there was no one to gather them; and for fifty miles scarcely a
single creature, man or woman, in the fields. "They say," added Carew, "and
the pope also showed us the same, that the whole people of that country,
with divers other places in Italia, with war, famine, and pestilence, are
utterly dead and gone."[252] Such had been the combined work of the vanity
of Francis and the cold selfishness of Charles; and now the latter had
arrived amidst the ruins which he had made, to receive his crown from the
hands of a pope who was true to Italy, if false to all the world besides,
and whom, but two years before, he had imprisoned and disgraced. We think
of Clement as the creature of the emperor, and such substantially he
allowed himself to be; but his obedience was the obedience of fear to a
master whom he hated, and the bishop of Tarbès, who was present at the
coronation, and stood at his side through the ceremony, saw him trembling
under his robes with emotion, and heard him sigh bitterly.[253] Very
unwillingly, we may be assured, he was compelled to act his vacillating
part to England, and England, at this distance of time, may forgive him for
faults to which she owes her freedom, and need not refuse him some tribute
of sympathy in his sorrows.

Fallen on evil times, which greater wisdom and greater courage than had for
many a century been found in the successors of St. Peter would have failed
to encounter successfully, Clement VII. remained, with all his cowardice, a
true Italian; his errors were the errors of his age and nation, and were
softened by the presence, in more than usual measure, of Italian genius and
grace. Benvenuto Cellini, who describes his character with much minuteness,
has left us a picture of a hot-tempered, but genuine and kind-hearted man,
whose taste was elegant, and whose wit, from the playful spirit with which
it was pervaded, and from a certain tendency to innocent levity, approached
to humour. He was liable to violent bursts of feeling; and his inability to
control himself, his gesticulations, his exclamations, and his tears, all
represent to us a person who was an indifferent master of the tricks of
dissimulation to which he was reduced, and whose weakness entitles him to
pity, if not to respect. The papacy had fallen to him at the crisis of its
deepest degradation. It existed as a politically organised institution,
which it was convenient to maintain, but from which the private hearts of
all men had fallen away; and it depended for its very life upon the support
which the courts of Europe would condescend to extend to it. Among these
governments, therefore, distracted as they were by mutual hostility, the
pope was compelled to make his choice; and the fatality of his position
condemned him to quarrel with the only prince on whom, at the outset of
these complications, he had a right to depend.

In 1512, France had been on the point of declaring her religious
independence; and as late as 1525, Francis entertained thoughts of offering
the patriarchate to Wolsey.[254] Charles V., postponing his religious
devotion for the leisure of old age, had reserved the choice of his party,
to watch events and to wait upon opportunity; while, from his singular
position, he wielded in one hand the power of Catholic Spain, in the other
that of Protestant Germany, ready to strike with either, as occasion or
necessity recommended. If his Spaniards had annexed the New World to the
papacy, his German lanzknechts had stormed the Holy City, murdered
cardinals, and outraged the pope's person: while both Charles and Francis,
alike caring exclusively for their private interests, had allowed the Turks
to overrun Hungary, to conquer Rhodes, and to collect an armament at
Constantinople so formidable as to threaten Italy itself, and the very
Christian faith. Henry alone had shown hitherto a true feeling for
religion; Henry had made war with Louis XII. solely in the pope's quarrel;
Henry had broken an old alliance with the emperor to revenge the capture of
Rome, and had won Francis back to his allegiance. To Henry, if to any one,
the Roman bishop had a right to look with confidence. But the power of
England was far off, and could not reach to Rome. Francis had been baffled
and defeated, his armies destroyed, his political influence in the
Peninsula annihilated. The practical choice which remained to Clement lay
only, as it seemed, between the emperor and martyrdom; and having, perhaps,
a desire for the nobler alternative, yet being without the power to choose
it, his wishes and his conduct, his words to private persons and his open
actions before the world, were in perpetual contradiction. He submitted
while his heart revolted; and while at Charles's dictation he was
threatening Henry with excommunication if he proceeded further with his
divorce, he was able at that very time to say, in confidence, to the Bishop
of Tarbès, that he would be well contented if the King of England would
marry on his own responsibility, availing himself of any means which he
might possess among his own people, so only that he himself was not
committed to a consent or the privileges of the papacy were not trenched
upon.[255]

Two years later, when the course which the pope would really pursue under
such circumstances was of smaller importance, Henry gave him an opportunity
of proving the sincerity of this language; and the result was such as he
expected it to be. As yet, however, he had not relinquished the hope of
succeeding by a more open course.

In March, 1529-30, the English ambassadors appeared at Bologna. Their
instructions were honest, manly, and straightforward. They were directed to
explain, _ab initio_, the grounds of the king's proceedings, and to appeal
to the emperor's understanding of the obligations of princes. Full
restitution was to be offered of Catherine's dowry, and the Earl of
Wiltshire was provided with letters of credit adequate to the amount.[256]
If these proposals were not accepted, they were to assume a more peremptory
tone, and threaten the alienation of England; and if menaces were equally
ineffectual, they were to declare that Henry, having done all which lay
within his power to effect his purpose with the goodwill of his friends,
since he could not do as he would, must now do as he could, and discharge
his conscience. If the emperor should pretend that he would "abide the law,
and would defer to the pope," they were to say, "that the sacking of Rome
by the Spaniards and Germans had so discouraged the pope and cardinals,
that they feared for body and goods," and had ceased to be free agents; and
concluding finally that the king would fear God rather than man, and would
rely on comfort from the Saviour against those who abused their authority,
they were then to withdraw.[257] The tone of the directions was not
sanguine, and the political complications of Europe, on which the emperor's
reply must more or less have depended, were too involved to allow us to
trace the influences which were likely to have weighed with him. There
seems no primâ facie reason, however, why the attempt might not have been
successful. The revolutionary intrigues in England had decisively failed,
and the natural sympathy of princes, and a desire to detach Henry from
Francis, must have combined to recommend a return of the old cordiality
which had so long existed between the sovereigns of England and Flanders.
But whatever was the cause, the opening interview assured the Earl of
Wiltshire that he had nothing to look for. He was received with distant
courtesy; but Charles at once objected even to hearing his instructions, as
an interested party.[258] The earl replied that he stood there, not as the
father of the queen's rival, but as the representative of his sovereign;
but the objection declared the attitude which Charles was resolved to
maintain, and which, in fact, he maintained throughout. "The emperor,"
wrote Lord Wiltshire to Henry, "is stiffly bent against your Grace's
matter, and is most earnest in it; while the pope is led by the emperor,
and neither will nor dare displease him."[259] From that quarter, so long
as parties remained in their existing attitude, there was no hope. It seems
to have been hinted, indeed, that if war broke out again between Charles
and Francis, something might be done as the price of Henry's surrendering
the French alliance;[260] but the suggestion, if it was made, was probably
ironical; and as Charles was unquestionably acting against his interest in
rejecting the English overtures, it is fair to give him credit for having
acted on this one occasion of his life, upon generous motives. A respectful
compliment was paid to his conduct by Henry himself in the reproaches which
he addressed to the pope.[261]

So terminated the first and the last overture on this subject which Henry
attempted with Charles V. The ambassadors remained but a few days at
Bologna, and then discharged their commission and returned. The pope,
however, had played his part with remarkable skill, and by finessing
dexterously behind the scenes, had contrived to prevent the precipitation
of a rupture with himself. His simple and single wish was to gain time,
trusting to accident or Providence to deliver him from his dilemma. On the
one hand, he yielded to the emperor in refusing to consent to Henry's
demand; on the other, he availed himself of all the intricacies to parry
Catherine's demand for a judgment in her favour. He even seemed to part
with the emperor on doubtful terms. "The latter," said the Bishop of
Tarbès,[262] "before leaving Bologna, desired his Holiness to place two
cardinals' hats at his disposal, to enable him to reward certain services."
His Holiness ventured to refuse. During his imprisonment, he said he had
been compelled to nominate several persons for that office whose conduct
had been a disgrace to their rank; and when the emperor denied his orders,
the pope declared that he had seen them. The cardinals' hats, therefore,
should be granted only when they were deserved, "when the Lutherans in
Germany had been reduced to obedience, and Hungary had been recovered from
the Turks." If this was acting, it was skilfully managed, and it deceived
the eyes of the French ambassador.

Still further to gratify Henry, the pope made a public declaration with
respect to the dispute which had arisen on the extent of his authority,
desiring, or professing to desire, that all persons whatever throughout
Italy should be free to express their opinions without fear of incurring
his displeasure. This declaration, had it been honestly meant, would have
been creditable to Clement's courage: unfortunately for his reputation, his
outward and his secret actions seldom corresponded, and the emperor's
agents were observed to use very dissimilar language in his name. The
double policy, nevertheless, was still followed to secure delay. Delay was
his sole aim,--either that Catherine's death, or his own, or Henry's, or
some relenting in one or other of the two princes who held their minatory
arms extended over him, might spare himself and the church the calamity of
a decision. For to the church any decision was fatal. If he declared for
Charles, England would fall from it; if for Henry, Germany and Flanders
were lost irrecoverably, and Spain itself might follow. His one hope was to
procrastinate; and in this policy of hesitation for two more years he
succeeded, till at length the patience of Henry and of England was worn
out, and all was ended. When the emperor required sentence to be passed, he
pretended to be about to yield; and at the last moment, some technical
difficulty ever interfered to make a decision impossible. When Henry was
cited to appear at Rome, a point of law was raised upon the privilege of
kings, threatening to open into other points of law, and so to multiply to
infinity. The pope, indeed, finding his own ends so well answered by
evasion, imagined that it would answer equally those of the English nation,
and he declared to Henry's secretary that "if the King of England would
send a mandate ad totam causam, then if his Highness would, there might be
given so many delays by reason of matters which his Highness might lay in,
and the remissorials that his Grace might ask, ad partes, that peradventure
in ten years or longer a sentence should not be given."[263] In point of
worldly prudence, his conduct was unexceptionably wise; but something
beyond worldly prudence was demanded of a tribunal which claimed to be
inspired by the Holy Ghost.

The dreary details of the negotiations I have no intention of pursuing.
They are of no interest to any one,--a miserable tissue of insincerity on
one side, and hesitating uncertainty on the other. There is no occasion for
us to weary ourselves with the ineffectual efforts to postpone an issue
which was sooner or later inevitable.

I may not pass over in similar silence another unpleasant episode in this
business,--the execution of Cranmer's project for collecting the sentiments
of Europe on the pope's dispensing power. The details of this transaction
are not wearying only, but scandalous; and while the substantial justice of
Henry's cause is a reason for deploring the means to which he allowed
himself to be driven in pursuing it, we may not permit ourselves either to
palliate those means or to conceal them. The project seemed a simple one,
and likely to be effective and useful. Unhappily, the appeal was still to
ecclesiastics, to a body of men who were characterised throughout Europe by
a universal absence of integrity, who were incapable of pronouncing an
honest judgment, and who courted intimidation and bribery by the readiness
with which they submitted to be influenced by them. Corruption was resorted
to on all sides with the most lavish unscrupulousness, and the result
arrived at was general discredit to all parties, and a conclusion which
added but one more circle to the labyrinth of perplexities. Croke,[264] a
Doctors' Commons lawyer, who was employed in Italy, described the state of
feeling in the peninsula as generally in Henry's favour; and he said that
he could have secured an all but universal consent, except for the secret
intrigues of the Spanish agents, and their open direct menaces, when
intrigue was insufficient. He complained bitterly of the treachery of the
Italians who were in the English pay; the two Cassalis, Pallavicino, and
Ghinucci, the Bishop of Worcester. These men, he said, were betraying Henry
when they were pretending to serve him, and were playing secretly into the
hands of the emperor.[265] His private despatches were intercepted, or the
contents of them by some means were discovered; for the persons whom he
named as inclining against the papal claims, became marked at once for
persecution. One of them, a Carmelite friar, was summoned before the
Cardinal Governor of Bologna, and threatened with death;[266] and a certain
Father Omnibow, a Venetian who had been in active co-operation with Dr.
Croke, wrote himself to Henry, informing him in a very graphic manner of
the treatment to which, by some treachery, he had been exposed. Croke and
Omnibow were sitting one morning in the latter's cell, "when there entered
upon them the emperor's great ambassador, accompanied with many gentlemen
of Spain, and demanded of the Father how he durst be so bold to take upon
him to intermeddle in so great and weighty a matter, the which did not only
lessen and enervate the pope's authority, but was noyful and odious to all
Realms Christened."[267] Omnibow being a man of some influence in Venice,
the ambassador warned him on peril of his life to deal no further with such
things: there was not the slightest chance that the King of England could
obtain a decision in his favour, because the question had been placed in
the hands of six cardinals who were all devoted to the emperor: the pope,
it was sternly added, had been made aware of his conduct, and was
exceedingly displeased, and the general[268] of his order had at the same
time issued an injunction, warning all members to desist at their peril
from intercourse with the English agents. The Spanish party held themselves
justified in resorting to intimidation to defend themselves against English
money; the English may have excused their use of money as a defence against
Spanish intimidation; and each probably had recourse to their several
methods prior to experience of the proceedings of their adversaries, from a
certain expectation of what those proceedings would be. Substantially, the
opposite manoeuvres neutralised each other, and in Catholic countries,
opinions on the real point at issue seem to have been equally balanced. The
Lutheran divines, from their old suspicion of Henry, were more decided in
their opposition to him. "The Italian Protestants," wrote Croke to the
king, "be utterly against your Highness in this cause, and have letted as
much as with their power and malice they could or might."[269] In Germany
Dr. Bames and Cranmer found the same experience. Luther himself had not
forgotten his early passage at arms with the English Defender of the Faith,
and was coldly hostile; the German theologians, although they expressed
themselves with reserve and caution, saw no reason to court the anger of
Charles by meddling in a quarrel in which they had no interest; they
revenged the studied slight which had been passed by Henry on themselves,
with a pardonable indifference to the English ecclesiastical revolt.

If, however, in Germany and Italy the balance of unjust interference lay on
the imperial side, it was more than adequately compensated by the answering
pressure which was brought to bear in England and in France on the opposite
side. Under the allied sovereigns, the royal authority was openly exercised
to compel such expressions of sentiment as the courts of London and Paris
desired; and the measures which were taken oblige us more than ever to
regret the inventive efforts of Cranmer's genius. For, in fact, these
manoeuvres, even if honestly executed, were all unrealities. The question
at issue was one of domestic English politics, and the metamorphosis of it
into a question of ecclesiastical law was a mere delusion. The discussion
was transferred to a false ground, and however the king may have chosen to
deceive himself, was not being tried upon its real merits. A complicated
difficulty vitally affecting the interests of a great nation, was laid for
solution before a body of persons incompetent to understand or decide it,
and the laity, with the alternative before them of civil war, and the
returning miseries of the preceding century, could brook no judgment which
did not answer to their wishes.

The French king, contemptuously indifferent to justice, submitted to be
guided by his interest; feeling it necessary for his safety to fan the
quarrel between Henry and the emperor, he resolved to encourage whatever
measures would make the breach between them irreparable. The reconciliation
of Herod and Pontius Pilate[270] was the subject of his worst alarm; and a
slight exercise of ecclesiastical tyranny was but a moderate price by which
to ensure himself against so dangerous a possibility.

Accordingly, at the beginning of June, the University of Paris was
instructed by royal letters to pronounce an opinion on the extent to which
the pope might grant dispensations for marriage within the forbidden
degrees. The letters were presented by the grand master, and the latter in
his address to the faculty, maintained at the outset an appearance of
impartiality. The doctors were required to decide according to their
conscience, having the fear of God before their eyes; and no open effort
was ventured to dictate the judgment which was to be delivered.

The majority of the doctors understood their duty and their position, and a
speedy resolution was anticipated, when a certain Dr. Beda, an energetic
Ultramontane, commenced an opposition. He said that, on a question which
touched the power of the pope, they were not at liberty to pronounce an
opinion without the permission of his Holiness himself; and that the
deliberation ought not to go forward till they had applied for that
permission and had received it. This view was supported by the Spanish and
Italian party in the university. The debate grew warm, and at length the
meeting broke up in confusion without coming to a resolution. Beda, when
remonstrated with on the course which he was pursuing, did not hesitate to
say that he had the secret approbation of his prince; that, however Francis
might disguise from the world his real opinions, in his heart he only
desired to see the pope victorious. An assertion so confident was readily
believed, nor is it likely that Beda ventured to make it without some
foundation. But being spoken of openly it became a matter of general
conversation, and reaching the ears of the English ambassador, it was met
with instant and angry remonstrance. "The ambassador," wrote the grand
master to Francis, "has been to me in great displeasure, and has told me
roundly that his master is trifled with by us. We give him words in plenty
to keep his beak in the water; but it is very plain that we are playing
false, and that no honesty is intended. Nor are his words altogether
without reason; for many persons declare openly that nothing will be done.
If the alliance of England, therefore, appear of importance to your
Highness, it would be well for you to write to the Dean of the Faculty,
directing him to close an impertinent discussion, and require an answer to
the question asked as quickly as possible."[271] The tone of this letter
proves, with sufficient clearness, the true feelings of the French
government; but at the moment the alternative suggested by the grand master
might not be ventured. Francis could not afford to quarrel with England, or
to be on less than cordial terms with it, and for a time at least his
brother sovereigns must continue to be at enmity. The negotiations for the
recovery of the French princes out of their Spanish prison, were on the
point of conclusion; and, as Francis was insolvent, Henry had consented to
become security for the money demanded for their deliverance. Beda had,
moreover, injured his cause by attacking the Gallican liberties; and as
this was a point on which the government was naturally sensitive, some
tolerable excuse was furnished for the lesson which it was thought proper
to adminster to the offending doctor.

On the seventeenth of June, 1530, therefore, Francis wrote as follows to
the President of the Parliament of Paris:--

"We have learnt, to our great displeasure, that one Beda, an imperialist,
has dared to raise an agitation among the theologians, dissuading them from
giving their voices on the cause of the King of England.--On receipt of
this letter, therefore, you shall cause the said Beda to appear before you,
and you shall show him the grievous anger which he has given us cause to
entertain towards him. And further you shall declare to him, laying these
our present writings before his eyes that he may not doubt the truth of
what you say, that if he does not instantly repair the fault which he has
committed, he shall be punished in such sort as that he shall remember
henceforth what it is for a person of his quality to meddle in the affairs
of princes. If he venture to remonstrate; if he allege that it is matter of
conscience, and that before proceeding to pronounce an opinion it is
necessary to communicate with the pope; in our name you shall forbid him to
hold any such communication: and he and all who abet him, and all persons
whatsoever, not only who shall themselves dare to consult the pope on this
matter, but who shall so much as entertain the proposal of consulting him,
shall be dealt with in such a manner as shall be an example to all the
world. The liberties of the Gallican Church are touched, and the
independence of our theological council, and there is no privilege
belonging to this realm on which we are more peremptorily determined to
insist."[272]

The haughty missive, a copy of which was sent to England,[273] produced the
desired effect. The doctors became obedient and convinced, and the required
declaration of opinion in Henry's favour, was drawn up in the most ample
manner. They made a last desperate effort to escape from the position in
which they were placed when the seal of the university was to be affixed to
the decision; but the resistance was hopeless, the authorities were
inexorable, and they submitted. It is not a little singular that the
English political agent employed on this occasion, and to whose lot it fell
to communicate the result to the king, was Reginald Pole. He it was, who
behind the scenes, and assisting to work the machinery of the intrigue,
first there, perhaps, contracted his disgust with the cause on which he was
embarked. There learning to hate the ill with which he was forced
immediately into contact, he lost sight of the greater ill to which it was
opposed; and in the recoil commenced the first steps of a career, which
brought his mother to the scaffold, which overspread all England with an
atmosphere of treason and suspicion, and which terminated at last after
years of exile, rebellion, and falsehood, in a brief victory of blood and
shame. So ever does wrong action beget its own retribution, punishing
itself by itself, and wrecking the instruments by which it works. The
letter which Pole wrote from Paris to Henry will not be uninteresting. It
revealed his distaste for his occupation, though prudence held him silent
as to his deeper feelings.

"Please it your Highness to be advertised, that the determination and
conclusion of the divines in this university was achieved and finished
according to your desired purpose, upon Saturday last past. The sealing of
the same has been put off unto this day, nor never could be obtained before
for any soliciting on our parts which were your agents here, which never
ceased to labour, all that lay in us, for the expedition of it, both with
the privy president and with all such as we thought might in any part aid
us therein. But what difficulties and stops hath been, to let the obtaining
of the seal of the university, notwithstanding the conclusion passed and
agreed unto by the more part of the faculty, by reason of such oppositions
as the adversary part hath made to embezzle the determination that it
should not take effect nor go forth in that same form as it was concluded,
it may please your Grace, to be advertised by this bearer, Master Fox; who,
with his prudence, diligence, and great exercise in the cause, hath most
holp to resist all these crafts, and to bring the matter to that point as
your most desired purpose hath been to have it. He hath indeed acted
according to that hope which I had of him at the beginning and first
breaking of the matter amongst the faculty here, when I, somewhat fearing
and foreseeing such contentions, altercations, and empeschements as by most
likelihood might ensue, did give your Grace advertisement, how necessary I
thought it was to have Master Fox's presence. And whereas I was informed by
Master Fox how it standeth with your Grace's pleasure, considering my
fervent desire thereon, that, your motion once achieved and brought to a
final conclusion in this university, I should repair to your presence, your
Grace could not grant me at this time a petition more comfortable unto me.
And so, making what convenient speed I may, my trust is shortly to wait
upon your Highness. Thus Jesu preserve your most noble Grace to his
pleasure, and your most comfort and honour. Written at Paris, the seventh
day of July, by your Grace's most humble and faithful servant, REGINALD
POLE."[274]

We must speak of this transaction as it deserves, and call it wholly bad,
unjust, and inexcusable. Yet we need not deceive ourselves into supposing
that the opposition which was crushed so roughly was based on any principal
of real honesty. In Italy, intrigue was used against intimidation. In
France intimidation was used against intrigue; and the absence of rectitude
in the parties whom it was necessary to influence, provoked and justified
the contempt with which they were treated.

The conduct of the English universities on the same occasion was precisely
what their later characters would have led us respectively to expect from
them. At Oxford the heads of houses and the senior doctors and masters
submitted their consciences to state dictation, without opposition, and, as
it seemed, without reluctance. Henry was wholly satisfied that the right
was on his own side; he was so convinced of it, that an opposition to his
wishes among his own subjects, he could attribute only to disloyalty or to
some other unworthy feeling; and therefore, while he directed the
convocation, "giving no credence to sinister persuasions, to show and
declare their just and true learning in his cause," he was able to dwell
upon the answer which he expected from them, as a plain matter of duty; and
obviously as not admitting of any uncertainty whatever.

"We will and command you," he said, "that ye, not leaning to wilful and
sinister opinions of your own several minds, considering that we be your
sovereign liege lord [and] totally giving your time, mind, and affections
to the true overtures of divine learning in this behalf, do show and
declare your true and just learning in the said cause, like as ye will
abide by: wherein ye shall not only please Almighty God, but also us your
liege lord. And we, for your so doing, shall be to you and to our
university there so good and gracious a lord for the same, as ye shall
perceive it well done in your well fortune to come. And in case you do not
uprightly, according to divine learning, handle yourselves herein, ye may
be assured that we, not without great cause, shall so quickly and sharply
look to your unnatural misdemeanour herein, that it shall not be to your
quietness and ease hereafter."[275] The admonitory clauses were
sufficiently clear; they were scarcely needed, however, by the older
members of the university. An enlarged experience of the world which years,
at Oxford as well as elsewhere, had not failed to bring with them, a just
apprehension of the condition of the kingdom, and a sense of the
obligations of subjects in times of political difficulty, sufficed to
reconcile the heads of the colleges to obedience; and threats were not
required where it is unlikely that a thought of hesitation was entertained.
But there was a class of residents which appears to be perennial in that
university, composed out of the younger masters; a class of men who,
defective alike in age, in wisdom, or in knowledge, were distinguished by a
species of theoretic High Church fanaticism; who, until they received their
natural correction from advancing years, required from time to time to be
protected against their own extravagance by some form of external pressure.
These were the persons whom the king was addressing in his more severe
language, and it was not without reason that he had recourse to it.

In order to avoid difficulty, and to secure a swift and convenient
resolution, it was proposed that both at Oxford and Cambridge the
universities should be represented by a committee composed of the heads of
houses, the proctors, and the graduates in divinity and law: that this
committee should agree upon a form of a reply; and that the university seal
should then be affixed without further discussion. This proposition was
plausible as well as prudent, for it might be supposed reasonably that
young half-educated students were incapable of forming a judgment on an
intricate point of law; and to admit their votes was equivalent to allowing
judgment to be given by party feeling. The masters who were to be thus
excluded refused however to entertain this view of their incapacity. The
question whether the committee should be appointed was referred to
convocation, where, having the advantage of numbers, they coerced the
entire proceedings; and some of them "expressing themselves in a very
forward manner" to the royal commissioners,[276] and the heads of houses
being embarrassed, and not well knowing what to do, the king found it
necessary again to interpose. He was unwilling, as he said, to violate the
constitution of the university by open interference, "considering it to
exist under grant and charter from the crown as a body politic, in the
ruling whereof in things to be done in the name of the whole, the number of
private suffrages doth prevail." "He was loth, too," he added, "to show his
displeasure, whereof he had so great cause ministered unto him, unto the
whole in general, whereas the fault perchance consisted and remained in
light and wilful heads," and he trusted that it might suffice if the
masters of the colleges used their private influence and authority[277] in
overcoming the opposition. For the effecting of this purpose, however, and
in order to lend weight to their persuasion, he assisted the convocation
towards a conclusion with the following characteristic missive:--

"To our trusty and well-beloved the heads of houses, doctors, and proctors
of our University of Oxford:

"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well; and of late being informed, to
our no little marvel and discontentation, that a great part of the youth of
that our university, with contentious and factious manner daily combining
together, neither regarding their duty to us their sovereign lord, nor yet
conforming themselves to the opinions and orders of the virtuous, wise,
sage, and profound learned men of that university, wilfully do stick upon
the opinion to have a great number of regents and non-regents to be
associate unto the doctors, proctors, and bachelors of divinity for the
determination of our question; which we believe hath not been often seen,
that such a number of right small learning in regard to the other should be
joined with so famous a sort, or in a manner stay their seniors in so
weighty a cause. And forasmuch as this, we think, should be no small
dishonour to our university there, but most especially to you the seniors
and rulers of the same; and as also, we assure you, this their unnatural
and unkind demeanour is not only right much to our displeasure, but much to
be marvelled of, upon what ground and occasion, they being our mere
subjects, should show themselves more unkind and wilful in this matter than
all other universities, both in this and all other regions do: we, trusting
in the dexterity and wisdom of you and other the said discreet and
substantial learned men of that university, be in perfect hope that ye will
conduce and frame the said young persons unto order and conformity as it
becometh you to do. Whereof we be desirous to hear with incontinent
diligence; and doubt you not we shall regard the demeanour of every one of
the university according to their merits and deserts. And if the youth of
the university will play masteries as they begin to do, we doubt not but
they shall well perceive that non est bonum irritare crabrones.[278]

"Given under our hand and seal, at our Castle of Windsor,

"HENRY R."[279]

It is scarcely necessary to say, that, armed with this letter, the heads of
houses subdued the recalcitrance of the overhasty "youth;" and Oxford duly
answered as she was required to answer.

The proceedings at Cambridge were not very dissimilar; but Cambridge being
distinguished by greater openness and largeness of mind on this as on the
other momentous subjects of the day than the sister university, was able to
preserve a more manly bearing, and escape direct humiliation. Cranmer had
written a book upon the divorce in the preceding year, which, as coming
from a well-known Cambridge man, had occasioned a careful ventilation of
the question there; the resident masters had been divided by it into
factions nearly equal in number, though unharmoniously composed. The heads
of houses, as at Oxford, were inclined to the king, but they were
embarrassed and divided by the presence on the same side of the suspected
liberals, the party of Shaxton, Latimer, and Cranmer himself. The agitation
of many months had rendered all members of the university, young and old,
so well acquainted (as they supposed) with the bearings of the difficulty,
that they naturally resisted, as at the other university, the demand that
their power should be delegated to a committee; and the Cambridge
convocation, as well as that of Oxford, threw out this resolution when it
was first proposed to them. A king's letter having made them more amenable,
a list of the intended committee was drawn out, which, containing Latimer's
name, occasioned a fresh storm. But the number in the senate house being
nearly divided, "the labour of certain friends" turned the scale; the vote
passed, and the committee was allowed, on condition that the question
should be argued publicly in the presence of the whole university. Finally,
judgment was obtained on the king's side, though in a less absolute form
than he had required, and the commissioners did not think it prudent to
press for a more extreme conclusion. They had been desired to pronounce
that the pope had no power to permit a man to marry his brother's widow.
They consented only to say that a marriage within those degrees was
contrary to the divine law; but the question of the pope's power was left
unapproached.[280]

It will not be uninteresting to follow this judgment a further step, to the
delivery of it into the hands of the king, where it will introduce us to a
Sunday at Windsor Castle three centuries ago. We shall find present there,
as a significant symptom of the time, Hugh Latimer, appointed freshly
select preacher in the royal chapel, but already obnoxious to English
orthodoxy, on account of his Cambridge sermons. These sermons, it had been
said, contained many things good and profitable, "on sin, and godliness,
and virtue," but much also which was disrespectful to established beliefs,
the preacher being clearly opposed to "candles and pilgrimages," and
"calling men unto the works that God commanded in his Holy Scripture, all
dreams and unprofitable glosses set aside and utterly despised." The
preacher had, therefore, been cited before consistory courts and
interdicted by bishops, "swarms of friars and doctors flocking against
Master Latimer on every side."[281] This also was to be noted about him,
that he was one of the most fearless men who ever lived. Like John Knox,
whom he much resembled, in whatever presence he might be, whether of poor
or rich, of laymen or priests, of bishops or kings, he ever spoke out
boldly from his pulpit what he thought, directly if necessary to particular
persons whom he saw before him respecting their own actions. Even Henry
himself he did not spare where he saw occasion for blame; and Henry, of
whom it was said that he never was mistaken in a _man_--loving a _man_[282]
where he could find him with all his heart--had, notwithstanding, chosen
this Latimer as one of his own chaplains.

The unwilling bearer of the Cambridge judgment was Dr. Buckmaster, the
vice-chancellor, who, in a letter to a friend, describes his reception at
the royal castle.

"To the right worshipful Dr. Edmonds, vicar of Alborne, in Wiltshire, my
duty remembered,--

"I heartily commend me unto you, and I let you understand that yesterday
week, being Sunday at afternoon, I came to Windsor, and also to part of Mr.
Latimer's sermon; and after the end of the same I spake with Mr. Secretary
[Cromwell], and also with Mr. Provost; and so after evensong I delivered
our letters in the Chamber of Presence, all the court beholding. The king,
with Mr. Secretary, did there read them; and did then give me thanks and
talked with me a good while. He much lauded our wisdom and good conveyance
in the matter, with the great quietness in the same. He showed me also what
he had in his hands for our university, according to that which Mr.
Secretary did express unto us, and so he departed from me. But by and bye
he greatly praised Mr. Latimer's sermon; and in so praising said on this
wise: 'This displeaseth greatly Mr. Vice-Chancellor yonder; yon same,' said
he to the Duke of Norfolk, 'is Mr. Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge,' and so
pointed unto me. Then he spake secretly unto the said duke, which, after
the king's departure, came unto me and welcomed me, saying, among other
things, the king would speak with me on the next day. And here is the first
act. On the next day I waited until it was dinner time; and so at the last
Dr. Butts, [king's physician,] came unto me, and brought a reward, twenty
nobles for me, and five marks for the junior proctor which was with me,
saying that I should take that for a resolute answer, and that I might
depart from the court when I would. Then came Mr. Provost, and when I had
shewed him of the answer, he said I should speak with the king after dinner
for all that, and so he brought me into a privy place where after dinner he
would have me wait. I came thither and he both; and by one of the clock the
king entered in. It was in a gallery. There were Mr. Secretary, Mr.
Provost, Mr. Latimer, Mr. Proctor, and I, and no more. The king then talked
with us until six of the clock. I assure you he was scarce contented with
Mr. Secretary and Mr. Provost, that this was not also determined, _an Papa
possit dispensare_. I made the best, and confirmed the same that they had
shewed his Grace before; and how it would never have been so obtained. He
opened his mind, saying he would have it determined after Easter, and of
the same was counselled awhile.

"Much other communication we had, which were too long here to recite. Then
his Highness departed, casting a little holy water of the court; and I
shortly after took my leave of Mr. Secretary and Mr. Provost, with whom I
did not drink, nor yet was bidden, and on the morrow departed from thence,
thinking more than I did say, and being glad that I was out of the court,
where many men, as I did both hear and perceive, did wonder at me. And here
shall be an end for this time of this fable.

"All the world almost crieth out of Cambridge for this act, and specially
on me; but I must bear it as well as I may. I have lost a benefice by it,
which I should have had within these ten days; for there hath one fallen in
Mr. Throgmorton's[283] gift which he hath faithfully promised unto me many
a time, but now his mind is turned and alienate from me. If ye go to court
after Easter I pray you have me in remembrance. Mr. Latimer preacheth
still,--quod æmuli ejus graviter ferunt.

"Thus fare you well. Your own to his power,
WILLIAM BUCKMASTER.[284]
Cambridge, Monday after Easter, 1530."

It does not appear that Cambridge was pressed further, and we may,
therefore, allow it to have acquitted itself creditably, If we sum up the
results of Cranmer's measure as a whole, it may be said that opinions had
been given by about half Europe directly or indirectly unfavourable to the
papal claims; and that, therefore, the king had furnished himself with a
legal pretext for declining the jurisdiction of the court of Rome, and
appealing to a general council. Objections to the manner in which the
opinions had been gained could be answered by recriminations equally just;
and in the technical aspect of the question a step had certainly been
gained. It will be thought, nevertheless, on wider grounds, that the
measure was a mistake; that it would have been far better if the legal
labyrinth had never been entered, and if the divorce had been claimed only
upon those considerations of policy for which it had been first demanded,
and which formed the true justification of it. Not only might a shameful
chapter of scandal have been spared out of the world's history, but the
point on which the battle was being fought lay beside the real issue.
Europe was shaken with intrigue, hundreds of books were written, and tens
of thousands of tongues were busy for twelve months weaving logical
subtleties, and all for nothing. The truth was left unspoken because it was
not convenient to speak it, and all parties agreed to persuade themselves
and accept one another's persuasions, that they meant something which they
did not mean. Beyond doubt the theological difficulty really affected the
king. We cannot read his own book[285] upon it without a conviction that
his arguments were honestly urged, that his misgivings were real, and that
he meant every word which he said. Yet it is clear at the same time that
these misgivings would not have been satisfied, if all the wisdom of the
world--pope, cardinals, councils, and all the learned faculties
together--had declared against him, the true secret of the matter lying
deeper, understood and appreciated by all the chief parties concerned, and
by the English laity, whose interests were at stake; but in all these
barren disputings ignored as if it had no existence.

It was perhaps less easy than it seems to have followed the main road. The
bye ways often promise best at first entrance into them, and Henry's
peculiar temper never allowed him to believe beforehand that a track which
he had chosen could lead to any conclusion except that to which he had
arranged that it should lead. With an intellect endlessly fertile in
finding reasons to justify what he desired, he could see no justice on any
side but his own, or understand that it was possible to disagree with him
except from folly of ill-feeling. Starting always with a foregone
conclusion, he arrived of course where he wished to arrive. His "Glasse of
Truth" is a very picture of his mind. "If the marshall of the host bids us
do anything," he said, "shall we do it if it be against the great captain?
Again, if the great captain bid us do anything, and the king or the emperor
commandeth us to do another, dost thou doubt that we must obey the
commandment of the king or emperor, and contemn the commandment of the
great captain? Therefore if the king or the emperor bid one thing, and God
another, we must obey God, and contemn and not regard neither king nor
emperor." And, therefore, he argued, "we are not to obey the pope, when the
pope commands what is unlawful."[286] These were but many words to prove
what the pope would not have questioned; and either they concluded nothing
or the conclusion was assumed.

We cannot but think that among the many misfortunes of Henry's life his
theological training was the greatest; and that directly or indirectly it
was the parent of all the rest. If in this unhappy business he had trusted
only to his instincts as an English statesman; if he had been contented
himself with the truth, and had pressed no arguments except those which in
the secrets of his heart had weight with him, he would have spared his own
memory a mountain of undeserved reproach, and have spared historians their
weary labour through these barren deserts of unreality.




CHAPTER IV

CHURCH AND STATE

The authorities of the church, after the lesson which they had received
from the parliament in its first session, were now allowed a respite of two
years, during which they might reconsider the complaints of the people, and
consult among themselves upon the conduct which they would pursue with
respect to those complaints. They availed themselves of their interval of
repose in a manner little calculated to recover the esteem which they had
forfeited, or to induce the legislature further to stay their hand. Instead
of reforming their own faults, they spent the time in making use of their
yet uncurtailed powers of persecution; and they wreaked the bitterness of
their resentment upon the unfortunate heretics, who paid with their blood
at the stake for the diminished revenues and blighted dignities of their
spiritual lords and superiors. During the later years of Wolsey's
administration, the Protestants, though threatened and imprisoned, had
escaped the most cruel consequences of their faith. Wolsey had been a
warm-hearted and genuine man, and although he had believed as earnestly as
his brother bishops, that Protestantism was a pernicious thing, destructive
alike to the institutions of the country and to the souls of mankind, his
memory can be reproached with nothing worse than assiduous but humane
efforts for the repression of it. In the three years which followed his
dismissal, a far more bloody page was written in the history of the
reformers; and under the combined auspices of Sir Thomas More's fanaticism,
and the spleen of the angry clergy, the stake re-commenced its hateful
activity. This portion of my subject requires a full and detailed
treatment; I reserve the account of it, therefore, for a separate chapter,
and proceed for the present with the progress of the secular changes.

Although, as I said, no further legislative measures were immediately
contemplated against the clergy, yet they were not permitted to forget the
alteration in their position which had followed upon Wolsey's fall; and as
they had shown in the unfortunate document which they had submitted to the
king, so great a difficulty in comprehending the nature of that alteration,
it was necessary clearly and distinctly to enforce it upon them. Until that
moment they had virtually held the supreme power in the state. The
nobility, crippled by the wars of the Roses, had sunk into the second
place; the Commons were disorganised, or incapable of a definite policy;
and the chief offices of the government had fallen as a matter of course to
the only persons who for the moment were competent to hold them. The
jealousy of ecclesiastical encroachments, which had shown itself so
bitterly under the Plantagenets, had been superseded from the accession of
Henry VII. by a policy of studied conciliation, and the position of Wolsey
had but symbolised the position of his order. But Wolsey was now gone, and
the ecclesiastics who had shared his greatness while they envied it, were
compelled to participate also in his change of fortune.

This great minister, after the failure of a discreditable effort to fasten
upon him a charge of high treason,--a charge which, vindictively pressed
through the House of Lords, was wisely rejected by the Commons,--had been
prosecuted with greater justice for a breach of the law, in having
exercised the authority of papal legate within the realm of England. His
policy had broken down: he had united against him in a common exasperation
all orders in the state, secular and spiritual; and the possible
consequences of his adventurous transgression had fallen upon him. The
parliaments of Edward I., Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV. had by a
series of statutes pronounced illegal all presentations by the pope to any
office or dignity in the Anglican church, under penalty of a premunire; the
provisions of these acts extending not only to the persons themselves who
accepted office under such conditions, but comprehending equally whoever
acknowledged their authority, "their executors, procurators, fautors,
maintainers, and receivers."[287] The importance attached to these laws was
to be seen readily in the frequent re-enactment of them, with language of
increasing vehemence; and although the primary object was to neutralise the
supposed right of the pope to present to English benefices, and although
the office of papal legate is not especially named in any one of the
prohibitory clauses, yet so acute a canonist as Wolsey could not have been
ignorant that it was comprehended under the general denunciation. The 5th
of the 16th of Richard II. was in fact explicitly universal in its
language, and dwelt especially on the importance of prohibiting the
exercise of any species of jurisdiction which could encroach on the royal
authority. He had therefore consciously violated a law on his own
responsibility, which he knew to exist, but which he perhaps trusted had
fallen into desuetude, and would not again be revived. It cannot be denied
that in doing so, being at the time the highest law officer of the crown,
he had committed a grave offence, and was justly liable to the full
penalties of the broken statute. He had received the royal permission, but
it was a plea which could not have availed him, and he did not attempt to
urge it.[288] The contingency of a possible violation of the law by the
king himself had been expressly foreseen and provided against in the act
under which he was prosecuted,[289] and being himself the king's legal
adviser, it was his duty to have kept his sovereign[290] informed of the
true nature of the statute. He had neglected this, his immediate
obligation, in pursuit of the interests of the church, and when Henry's
eyes were opened, he did not consider himself called upon to interfere to
shield his minister from the penalties which he had incurred, nor is it
likely that in the face of the irritation of the country he could have done
so if he had desired. It was felt, indeed, that the long services of
Wolsey, and his generally admirable administration, might fairly save him
(especially under the circumstances of the case) from extremity of
punishment; and if he had been allowed to remain unmolested in the affluent
retirement which was at first conceded to him, his treatment would not have
caused the stain which we have now to lament on the conduct of the
administration which succeeded his fall. He indeed himself believed that
the final attack upon him was due to no influence of rival statesmen, but
to the hatred of Anne Boleyn; and perhaps he was not mistaken. This,
however, is a matter which does not concern us here, and I need not pursue
it. It is enough that he had violated the law of England, openly and
knowingly, and on the revival of the national policy by which that law had
been enacted, he reaped the consequences in his own person.

It will be a question whether we can equally approve of the enlarged
application of the statute which immediately followed. The guilt of Wolsey
did not rest with himself; it extended to all who had recognised him in his
capacity of legate; to the archbishops and bishops, to the two Houses of
Convocation, to the Privy Council, to the Lords and Commons, and indirectly
to the nation itself. It was obvious that such a state of things was not
contemplated by the act under which he was tried, and where in point of law
all persons were equally guilty, in equity they were equally innocent; the
circumstances of the case, therefore, rendered necessary a general pardon,
which was immediately drawn out. The government, however, while granting
absolution to the nation, determined to make some exceptions in their
lenity; and harsh as their resolution appeared, it is not difficult to
conjecture the reasons which induced them to form it. The higher clergy had
been encouraged by Wolsey's position to commit those excessive acts of
despotism which had created so deep animosity among the people. The
overthrow of the last ecclesiastical minister was an opportunity to teach
them that the privileges which they had abused were at an end; and as the
lesson was so difficult for them to learn, the letter of the law which they
had broken was put in force to quicken their perceptions. They were to be
punished indirectly for their other evil doings, and forced to surrender
some portion of the unnumbered exactions which they had extorted from the
helplessness of their flocks.

In pursuance of this resolution, therefore, official notice was issued in
December, 1530, that the clergy lay all under a premunire, and that the
crown intended to prosecute. Convocation was to meet in the middle of
January, and this comforting fact was communicated to the bishops in order
to divert their attention to subjects which might profitably occupy their
deliberations. The church legislature had sate in the preceding years
contemporaneously with the sitting of parliament, at the time when their
privileges were being discussed, and when their conduct had been so angrily
challenged: but these matters had not disturbed their placid equanimity:
and while the bishops were composing their answer to the House of Commons,
Convocation had been engaged in debating the most promising means of
persecuting heretics and preventing the circulation of the Bible.[291] The
session had continued into the spring of 1529-30, when the king had been
prevailed upon to grant an order in council prohibiting Tyndale's
Testament, in the preface of which the clergy were spoken of
disrespectfully.[292] His consent had been obtained with great difficulty,
on the representation of the bishops that the translation was faulty, and
on their undertaking themselves to supply the place of it with a corrected
version. But in obtaining the order, they supposed themselves to have
gained a victory; and their triumph was celebrated in St. Paul's churchyard
with an auto da fé, over which the Bishop of London consented to preside;
when such New Testaments as the diligence of the apparitors could discover,
were solemnly burned.

From occupation such as this a not unwholesome distraction was furnished by
the intimation of the premunire; and that it might produce its due effect,
it was accompanied with the further information that the clergy of the
province of Canterbury would receive their pardon only upon payment of a
hundred thousand pounds--a very considerable fine, amounting to more than a
million of our money. Eighteen thousand pounds was required simultaneously
from the province of York; and the whole sum was to be paid in instalments
spread over a period of five years.[293] The demand was serious, but the
clergy had no alternative but to submit or to risk the chances of the law;
and feeling that, with the people so unfavourably disposed towards them,
they had no chance of a more equitable construction of their position, they
consented with a tolerable grace, the Upper House of Convocation first, the
Lower following. Their debates upon the subject have not been preserved. It
was probably difficult to persuade them that they were treated with
anything but the most exquisite injustice; since Wolsey's legatine
faculties had been the object of their general dread; and if he had
remained in power, the religious orders would have been exposed to a
searching visitation in virtue of these faculties, from which they could
have promised themselves but little advantage. But their punishment, if
tyrannical in form, was equitable in substance, and we can reconcile
ourselves without difficulty to an act of judicial confiscation.

The money, however, was not the only concession which the threat of the
premunire gave opportunity to extort; and it is creditable to the clergy
that the demand which they showed most desire to resist was not that which
most touched their personal interests. In the preamble of the subsidy bill,
under which they were to levy their ransom, they were required by the
council to designate the king by the famous title which gave occasion for
such momentous consequences, of "Protector and only Supreme Head of the
Church and Clergy of England."[294] It is not very easy to see what Henry
proposed to himself by requiring this designation, at so early a stage in
the movement. The breach with the pope was still distant, and he was
prepared to make many sacrifices before he would even seriously contemplate
a step which he so little desired. It may have been designed as a reply to
the papal censures: it may have been to give effect to his own menaces,
which Clement to the last believed to be no more than words;[295] or
perhaps (and this is the most likely) he desired by some emphatic act, to
make his clergy understand the relation in which thenceforward they were to
be placed towards the temporal authority. It is certain only that this
title was not intended to imply what it implied when, four years later, it
was conferred by act Of parliament, and when virtually England was severed
by it from the Roman communion.

But whatever may have been the king's motive, he was serious in requiring
that the title should be granted to him. Only by acknowledging Henry as
Head of the Church should the clergy receive their pardon, and the longer
they hesitated, the more peremptorily he insisted on their obedience. The
clergy had defied the lion, and the lion held them in his grasp; and they
could but struggle helplessly, supplicate and submit. Archbishop Warham,
just drawing his life to a close, presided for the last time in the
miserable scene, imagining that the clouds were gathering for the storms of
the latter day, and that Antichrist was coming in his power.

There had been a debate of three days, whether they should or should not
consent, when, on the 9th of February, a deputation of the judges appeared
in Convocation, to ask whether the Houses were agreed, and to inform them
finally that the king had determined to allow no qualifications. The clergy
begged for one more day, and the following morning the bishops held a
private meeting among themselves, to discuss some plan to turn aside the
blow. They desired to see Cromwell, to learn, perhaps, if there was a
chance of melting the hard heart of Henry; and after an interview with the
minister which could not have been encouraging, they sent two of their
number, the Bishops of Exeter and Lincoln, to attempt the unpromising task.
It was in vain; the miserable old men were obliged to return with the
answer that the king would not see them--they had seen only the judges, who
had assured them, in simple language, that the pardon was not to be settled
until the supremacy was admitted. The answer was communicated to the House,
and again "debated." Submission was against the consciences of the unhappy
clergy; to obey their consciences involved forfeiture of property; and
naturally in such a dilemma they found resolution difficult. They attempted
another appeal, suggesting that eight of their number should hold a
conference with the privy council, and "discover, if they might, some
possible expedient." But Henry replied, as before, that he would have a
clear answer, "_yes_, or _no_." They might say "yes," and their pardon was
ready. They might say "no"--and accept the premunire and its penalties. And
now, what should the clergy have done? No very great courage was required
to answer, "This thing is wrong; it is against God's will, and therefore it
must not be, whether premunire come or do not come." They might have said
it, and if they could have dared this little act of courage, victory was in
their hands. With the cause against them so doubtful, their very attitude
would have commanded back the sympathies of half the nation, and the king's
threats would have exploded as an empty sound. But Henry knew the persons
with whom he had to deal--forlorn shadows, decked in the trappings of
dignity--who only by some such rough method could be brought to a knowledge
of themselves. "Shrink to the clergy"--I find in a state paper of the
time--"Shrink to the clergy, and they be lions; lay their faults roundly
and charitably to them, and they be as sheep, and will lightly be reformed,
for their consciences will not suffer them to resist."[296]

They hesitated for another night. The day following, the archbishop
submitted the clause containing the title to the Upper House, with a saving
paragraph, which, as Burnet sententiously observes, the nature of things
did require to be supposed.[297] "Ecclesiæ et cleri Anglicani," so it ran,
"singularem protectorem, et unicum et supremum Dominum, et quantum per
legem Christi licet, etiam supremum caput ipsius Majestatem agnoscimus--We
recognise the King's Majesty to be our only sovereign lord, the singular
protector of the church and clergy of England, and as far as is allowed by
the law of Christ, also as our Supreme Head." The words were read aloud by
the archbishop, and were received in silence. "Do you assent?" he asked.
The House remained speechless. "Whoever is silent seems to consent," the
archbishop said. A voice answered out of the crowd, "Then are we all
silent." They separated for a few hours to collect themselves. In the
afternoon sitting they discussed the sufficiency of the subterfuge; and at
length agreeing that it saved their consciences, the clause was finally
passed, the Bishop of Rochester, among the rest, giving his unwilling
acquiescence.

So for the present terminated this grave matter. The pardon was immediately
submitted to parliament, where it was embodied in a statute;[298] and this
act of dubious justice accomplished, the Convocation was allowed to return
to its usual occupations, and continue the prosecutions of the heretics.

The House of Commons, during their second session, had confined themselves
meanwhile to secular business. They had been concerned chiefly with
regulations affecting trade and labour; and the proceedings on the
premunire being thought for the time to press sufficiently on the clergy,
they deferred the further prosecution of their own complaints till the
following year. Two measures, however, highly characteristic of the age,
must not be passed over, one of which concerned a matter that must have
added heavily to the troubles of the Bishop of Rochester at a time when he
was in no need of any addition to his burdens.

Fisher was the only one among the prelates for whom it is possible to feel
respect. He was weak, superstitious, pedantical; towards the Protestants he
was even cruel; but he was a singlehearted man, who lived in honest fear of
evil, so far as he understood what evil was; and he alone could rise above
the menaces of worldly suffering, under which his brethren on the bench
sank so rapidly into meekness and submission. We can therefore afford to
compassionate him in the unexpected calamity by which he was overtaken, and
which must have tried his failing spirit in no common manner.

He lived, while his duties required his presence in London, at a house in
Lambeth, and being a hospitable person, he opened his doors at the dinner
hour for the poor of the neighbourhood. Shortly after the matter which I
have just related, many of these people who were dependent on his bounty
were reported to have become alarmingly ill, and several gentlemen of the
household sickened also in the same sudden and startling manner. One of
these gentlemen died, and a poor woman also died; and it was discovered on
inquiry that the yeast which had been used in various dishes had been
poisoned. The guilty person was the cook, a certain Richard Rouse; and
inasmuch as all crimes might be presumed to have had motives, and the
motive in the present instance was undiscoverable, it was conjectured by
Queen Catherine's friends that he had been bribed by Anne Boleyn, or by
some one of her party, to remove out of the way the most influential of the
English opponents of the divorce.[299] The story was possibly without
foundation, although it is not unlikely that Fisher himself believed it.
The shock of such an occurrence may well have unsettled his powers of
reasoning, and at all times he was a person whose better judgment was
easily harassed into incapacity. The origin of the crime, however, is of
less importance than the effect of the discovery upon the nation, in whom
horror of the action itself absorbed every other feeling. Murder of this
kind was new in England. Ready as the people ever were with sword or
lance--incurably given as they were to fighting in the best ordered
times--an Englishman was accustomed to face his enemy, man to man, in the
open day; and the Italian crime (as it was called) of poisoning had not
till recent years been heard of.[300] Even revenge and passion recognised
their own laws of honour and fair play; and the cowardly ferocity which
would work its vengeance in the dark, and practise destruction by wholesale
to implicate one hated person in the catastrophe, was a new feature of
criminality. Occurring in a time so excited, when all minds were on the
stretch, and imaginations were feverish with fancies, it appeared like a
frightful portent, some prodigy of nature, or enormous new birth of
wickedness, not to be received or passed by as a common incident, and not
to be dealt with by the process of ordinary law. Parliament undertook the
investigation, making it the occasion, when the evidence was completed, of
a special statute, so remarkable that I quote it in its detail and wording.
The English were a stern people--a people knowing little of compassion
where no lawful ground existed for it; but they were possessed of an awful
and solemn horror of evil things,--a feeling which, in proportion as it
exists, inevitably and necessarily issues in tempers of iron. The stern man
is ever the most tender when good remains amidst evil, and is still
contending with it; but we purchase compassion for utter wickedness only by
doubting in our hearts whether wickedness is more than misfortune.

"The King's royal Majesty," says the 9th of the 22nd of Henry VIII.,
"calling to his most blessed remembrance that the making of good and
wholesome laws, and due execution of the same against the offenders
thereof, is the only cause that good obedience and order hath been
preserved in this realm; and his Highness having most tender zeal for the
same, considering that man's life above all things is chiefly to be
favoured, and voluntary murders most highly to be detested and abhorred;
and specially all kinds of murders by poisoning, which in this realm
hitherto, our Lord be thanked, hath been most rare and seldom committed or
practised: and now, in the time of this present parliament, that is to say,
on the eighteenth day of February, in the twenty-second year of his most
victorious reign, one Richard Rouse, late of Rochester, in the county of
Kent, cook, otherwise called Richard Cook, of his most wicked and damnable
disposition, did cast a certain venom or poison into a vessel replenished
with yeast or barm, standing in the kitchen of the reverend father in God,
John Bishop of Rochester, at his place in Lambeth Marsh; with which yeast
or barm, and other things convenient, porridge or gruel was forthwith made
for his family there being; whereby not only the number of seventeen
persons of his said family, which did eat of that porridge, were mortally
infected or poisoned, and one of them, that is to say, Bennet Curwan,
gentleman, is thereof deceased; but also certain poor people which resorted
to the said bishop's place, and were there charitably fed with the remains
of the said porridge and other victuals; were in like wise infected; and
one poor woman of them, that is to say, Alice Tryppitt, widow, is also
thereof now deceased: Our said sovereign lord the king, of his blessed
disposition inwardly abhorring all such abominable offences, because that
in manner no person can live in surety out of danger of death by that
means, if practices thereof should not be eschewed, hath ordained and
enacted by authority of this present parliament, that the said poisoning be
adjudged and deemed as high treason; and that the said Richard, for the
said murder and poisoning of the said two persons, shall stand and be
attainted of high treason.

"And because that detestable offence, now newly practised and committed,
requireth condign punishment for the same, it is ordained and enacted by
authority of this present parliament that the said Richard Rouse shall be
therefore boiled to death, without having any advantage of his clergy; and
that from henceforth every wilful murder of any person or persons hereafter
to be committed or done by means or way of poisoning, shall be reputed,
deemed, and judged in the law to be high treason; and that all and every
person or persons which shall hereafter be indicted and condemned by order
of the law of such treason, shall not be admitted to the benefit of his or
their clergy, but shall be immediately after such attainder or
condemnation, committed to execution of death by boiling for the same."

The sentence was carried into effect[301] in Smithfield, "on the tenebra
Wednesday following, to the terrible example of all others." The spectacle
of a living human being boiled to death, was really witnessed three hundred
years ago by the London citizens, within the walls of that old
cattle-market; an example terrible indeed, the significance of which is not
easily to be exhausted. For the poisoners of the soul there was the
stake,[302] for the poisoners of the body, the boiling cauldron,--the two
most fearful punishments for the most fearful of crimes. The stake at which
the heretic suffered was an inherited institution descending through the
usage of centuries; the poisoner's cauldron was the fresh expression of the
judgment of the English nation on a novel enormity; and I have called
attention to it because the temper which this act exhibits is the key to
all which has seemed most dark and cruel in the rough years which followed;
a temper which would keep no terms with evil, or with anything which,
rightly or wrongly, was believed to be evil, but dreadfully and inexorably
hurried out the penalties of it.

Following the statute against poisoning, there stands "an act for the
banishment out of the country of divers outlandish and vagabond people
called Egyptians;"[303] and attached to it another of analogous import,
"for the repression of beggars and vagabonds," the number of whom, it was
alleged, was increasing greatly throughout the country, and much crime and
other inconveniences were said to have been occasioned by them. We may
regard these two measures, if we please, as a result of the energetic and
reforming spirit in the parliament, which was dragging into prominence all
forms of existing disorders, and devising remedies for those disorders. But
they indicate something more than this: they point to the growth of a
disturbed and restless disposition, the interruption of industry, and other
symptoms of approaching social confusion; and at the same time they show us
the government conscious of the momentous nature of the struggle into which
it was launched; and with timely energy bracing up the sinews of the nation
for its approaching trial. The act against the gipsies especially,
illustrates one of the most remarkable features of the times. The air was
impregnated with superstition; in a half consciousness of the impending
changes, all men were listening with wide ears to rumours and prophecies
and fantastic fore-shadowings of the future; and fanaticism, half deceiving
and half itself deceived, was grasping the lever of the popular excitement
to work out its own ends.[304] The power which had ruled the hearts of
mankind for ten centuries was shaking suddenly to its foundation. The
Infallible guidance of the Church was failing; its light gone out, or
pronounced to be but a mere deceitful ignis fatuus; and men found
themselves wandering in darkness, unknowing where to turn or what to think
or believe. It was easy to clamour against the spiritual courts. From men
smarting under the barefaced oppression of that iniquitous jurisdiction,
the immediate outcry rose without ulterior thought; but unexpectedly the
frail edifice of the church itself threatened under the attack to crumble
into ruins; and many gentle hearts began to tremble and recoil when they
saw what was likely to follow on their light beginnings. It was true that
the measures as yet taken by the parliament and the crown professed to be
directed, not to the overthrow of the church, but to the re-establishment
of its strength. But the exulting triumph of the Protestants, the promotion
of Latimer to a royal chaplaincy, the quarrel with the papacy, and a dim
but sure perception of the direction in which the stream was flowing,
foretold to earnest Catholics a widely different issue; and the simplest of
them knew better than the court knew, that they were drifting from the sure
moorings of the faith into the broad ocean of uncertainty. There seems,
indeed, to be in religious men, whatever be their creed, and however
limited their intellectual power, a prophetic faculty of insight into the
true bearings of outward things,--an insight which puts to shame the
sagacity of statesmen, and claims for the sons of God, and only for them,
the wisdom even of the world. Those only read the world's future truly who
have faith in principle, as opposed to faith in human dexterity; who feel
that in human things there lies really and truly a spiritual nature, a
spiritual connection, a spiritual tendency, which the wisdom of the serpent
cannot alter, and scarcely can affect.

Excitement, nevertheless, is no guarantee for the understanding; and these
instincts, powerful as they are, may be found often in minds wild and
chaotic, which, although they vaguely foresee the future, yet have no power
of sound judgment, and know not what they foresee, or how wisely to
estimate it. Their wisdom, if we may so use the word, combines crudely with
any form of superstition or fanaticism. Thus in England, at the time of
which we are speaking, Catholics and Protestants had alike their horoscope
of the impending changes, each nearer to the truth than the methodical
calculations of the statesmen; yet their foresight did not affect their
convictions, or alter the temper of their hearts. They foresaw the same
catastrophe, yet their faith still coloured the character of it. To the one
it was the advent of Antichrist, to the other the inauguration of the
millennium. The truest hearted men on all sides were deserted by their
understandings at the moment when their understandings were the most deeply
needed: and they saw the realities which were round them transfigured into
phantoms through the mists of their hopes and fears. The present was
significant only as it seemed in labour with some gigantic issue, and the
events of the outer world flew from lip to lip, taking as they passed every
shape most wild and fantastical. Until "the king's matter" was decided,
there was no censorship upon speech, and all tongues ran freely on the
great subjects of the day. Every parish pulpit rang with the divorce, or
with the perils of the Catholic faith; at every village ale-house, the talk
was of St. Peter's keys, the sacrament, or of the pope's supremacy, or of
the points in which a priest differed from a layman. Ostlers quarrelled
over such questions as they groomed their masters' horses; old women
mourned across the village shopboards of the evil days which were come or
coming; while every kind of strangest superstition, fairy stories and witch
stories, stories of saints and stories of devils, were woven in and out and
to and fro, like quaint, bewildering arabesques, in the tissue of the
general imagination.[305]

These were the forces which were working on the surface of the English
mind; while underneath, availing themselves skilfully of the excitement,
the agents of the disaffected among the clergy, or the friars mendicant,
who to a man were devoted to the pope and to Queen Catherine, passed up and
down the country, denouncing the divorce, foretelling ruin, disaster, and
the wrath of God; and mingling with their prophecies more than dubious
language on the near destruction or deposition of a prince who was opposing
God and Heaven. The soil was manured by treason, and the sowers made haste
to use their opportunity. Thus especially was there danger in those
wandering encampments of "outlandish people," whose habits rendered them
the ready-made missionaries of sedition; whose swarthy features might hide
a Spanish heart, and who in telling fortunes might readily dictate
policy.[306] Under the disguise of gipsies, the emissaries of the emperor
or the pope might pass unsuspected from the Land's End to
Berwick-upon-Tweed, penetrating the secrets of families, tying the links of
the Catholic organisation: and in the later years of the struggle, as the
intrigues became more determined and a closer connection was established
between the Continental powers and the disaffected English, it became
necessary to increase the penalty against these irregular wanderers from
banishment to death. As yet, however, the milder punishment was held
sufficient, and even this was imperfectly enforced.[307] The tendencies to
treason were still incipient--they were tendencies only, which had as yet
shown themselves in no decisive acts; the future was uncertain, the action
of the government doubtful. The aim was rather to calm down the excitement
of the people, and to extinguish with as little violence as possible the
means by which it was fed.

Ominous symptoms of eccentric agitation, however, began to take shape in
the confusion, A preacher, calling himself the favourite of the Virgin
Mary, had started up at Edinburgh, professing miraculous powers of
abstinence from food. This man was sent by James V. to Rome, where, after
having been examined by Clement, and having sufficiently proved his
mission, he was furnished with a priest's habit and a certificate under
leaden seal.[308] Thus equipped, he went a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and
loaded himself with palm-leaves and with stones from the pillar at which
Christ was scourged; and from thence making his way to England, he appeared
at Paul's Cross an evident saint and apostle, cursing the king and his
divorce, denouncing his apostacy, and threatening the anger of Heaven. He
was arrested and thrown into prison, where he remained, as it was believed,
fifty days without food, or fed in secret by the Virgin, At the close of
the time the government thought it prudent to send him back to Scotland,
without further punishment.[309]

Another more famous prophetess was then in the zenith of her
reputation--the celebrated Nun of Kent--whose cell at Canterbury, for some
three years, was the Delphic shrine of the Catholic oracle, from which the
orders of Heaven were communicated even to the pope himself. This singular
woman seems for a time to have held in her hand the balance of the fortunes
of England. By the papal party she was universally believed to be inspired.
Wolsey believed it, Warham believed it, the bishops believed it, Queen
Catherine believed it, Sir Thomas More's philosophy was no protection to
him against the same delusion; and finally, she herself believed the world,
when she found the world believed in her. Her story is a psychological
curiosity; and, interwoven as it was with the underplots of the time, we
cannot observe it too accurately.

In the year 1525, there lived in the parish of Aldington, in Kent, a
certain Thomas Cobb, bailiff or steward to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
who possessed an estate there. Among the servants of this Thomas Cobb was a
country girl called Elizabeth Barton--a decent person, so far as we can
learn, but of mere ordinary character, and until that year having shown
nothing unusual in her temperament. She was then attacked, however, by some
internal disease; and after many months of suffering, she was reduced into
that abnormal and singular condition, in which she exhibited the phenomena
known to modern wonder-seekers as those of somnambulism or clairvoyance.
The scientific value of such phenomena is still undetermined, but that they
are not purely imaginary is generally agreed. In the histories of all
countries and of all times, we are familiar with accounts of young women of
bad health and irritable nerves, who have exhibited at recurring periods
certain unusual powers; and these exhibitions have had especial attraction
for superstitious persons, whether they have believed in God, or in the
devil, or in neither. A further feature also uniform in such cases, has
been that a small element of truth may furnish a substructure for a
considerable edifice of falsehood; human credulity being always an
insatiable faculty, and its powers being unlimited when once the path of
ordinary experience has been transcended. We have seen in our own time to
what excesses occurrences of this kind may tempt the belief, even when
defended with the armour of science. In the sixteenth century, when
demoniacal possession was the explanation usually received even of ordinary
insanity, we can well believe that the temptation must have been great to
recognise supernatural agency in a manifestation far more uncommon; and
that the difficulty of retaining the judgment in a position of equipoise
must have been very great not only to the spectators but still more to the
subject of the phenomenon herself. To sustain ourselves continuously under
the influence of reason, even when our faculties are preserved in their
natural balance, is a task too hard for most of us. We cannot easily make
too great allowance for the moral derangement likely to follow, when a weak
girl suddenly found herself possessed of powers which she was unable to
understand. Bearing this in mind, for it is only just that we should do so,
we continue the story.

This Elizabeth Barton, then, "in the trances, of which she had divers and
many,[310] consequent upon her illness, told wondrously things done and
said in other places whereat she was neither herself present, nor yet had
heard no report thereof." To simple-minded people who believed in Romanism
and the legends of the saints, the natural explanation of such a marvel
was, that she must be possessed either by the Holy Ghost or by the devil.
The archbishop's bailiff, not feeling himself able to decide in a case of
so much gravity, called in the advice of the parish priest, one Richard
Masters; and together they observed carefully all that fell from her. The
girl had been well disposed, as the priest probably knew. She had been
brought up religiously; and her mind running upon what was most familiar to
it, "she spake words of marvellous holyness in rebuke of sin and
vice;"[311] or, as another account says, "she spake very godly certain
things concerning the seven deadly sins and the Ten Commandments."[312]
This seemed satisfactory as to the source of the inspiration. It was
clearly not a devil that spoke words against sin, and therefore, as there
was no other alternative, it was plain that God had visited her. Her powers
were assuredly from heaven; and it was plain, also, by a natural sequence
of reasoning, that she held some divine commission, of which her
clairvoyance was the miracle in attestation.

An occurrence of such moment was not to be kept concealed in the parish of
Aldington. The priest mounted his horse, and rode to Lambeth with the news
to the Archbishop of Canterbury; and the story having lost nothing of its
marvel by the way,[313] the archbishop, who was fast sinking into dotage,
instead of ordering a careful inquiry, and appointing some competent person
to conduct it, listened with greedy interest; he assured Father Richard
that "the speeches which she had spoken came of God; and bidding him keep
him diligent account of all her utterances, directed him to inform her in
his name that she was not to refuse or hide the goodness and works of God."
Cobb, the bailiff, being encouraged by such high authority, would not keep
any longer in his kitchen a prophetess with the archbishop's imprimatur
upon her; and as soon as the girl was sufficiently recovered from her
illness to leave her bed, he caused her to sit at his own mess with his
mistress and the parson.[314] The story spread rapidly through the country;
inquisitive foolish people came about her to try her skill with questions;
and her illness, as she subsequently confessed, having then left her, and
as only her reputation was remaining, she bethought herself whether it
might not be possible to preserve it a little longer. "Perceiving herself
to be much made of, to be magnified and much set by, by reason of trifling
words spoken unadvisedly by idleness of her brain, she conceived in her
mind that having so good success, and furthermore from so small an occasion
and nothing to be esteemed, she might adventure further to enterprise and
essay what she could do, being in good advisement and remembrance."[315]
Her fits no longer recurred naturally, but she was able to reproduce either
the reality or the appearance of them; and she continued to improvise her
oracles with such ability as she could command, and with tolerable success.

In this undertaking she was speedily provided with an efficient coadjutor.
The Catholic church had for some time been unproductive of miracles, and as
heresy was raising its head and attracting converts, so opportune an
occurrence was not to be allowed to sleep. The archbishop sent his
comptroller to the Prior of Christ Church at Canterbury, with directions
that two monks whom he especially named, Doctor Bocking, the cellarer, and
Dan William Hadley, should go to Aldington to observe.[316] At first, not
knowing what was before them, both prior and monks were unwilling to meddle
with the matter.[317] They submitted, however, "from the obedience which
they owed unto their lord;" and they had soon reason to approve the
correctness of the archbishop's judgment. Bocking, selected no doubt from
previous knowledge of his qualities, was a man devoted to his order, and
not over-scrupulous as to the means by which he furthered the interests of
it. With instinctive perception he discovered material in Elizabeth Barton
too rich to be allowed to waste itself in a country village. Perhaps he
partially himself believed in her, but he was more anxious to ensure the
belief of others, and he therefore set himself to assist her inspiration
towards more effective utterance. Conversing with her in her intervals of
quiet, he discovered that she was wholly ignorant, and unprovided with any
stock of mental or imaginative furniture; and that consequently her
prophecies were without body, and too indefinite to be theologically
available. This defect he remedied by instructing her in the Catholic
legends, and by acquainting her with the revelations of St. Brigitt and St.
Catherine of Sienna.[318] In these women she found an enlarged reflection
of herself; the details of their visions enriched her imagery; and being
provided with these fair examples, she was able to shape herself into
fuller resemblance with the traditionary model of the saints.

As she became more proficient, Father Bocking extended his lessons to the
Protestant controversy, initiating his pupil into the mysteries of
justification, sacramental grace, and the power of the keys. The ready
damsel redelivered his instructions to the world in her moments of
possession; and the world discovered a fresh miracle in the inspired wisdom
of the untaught peasant. Lists of these pregnant sayings were
forwarded[319] regularly to the archbishop, which still possibly lie
mouldering in the Lambeth library, to be discovered by curious antiquaries.
It is idle to inquire how far she was yet conscious of her falsehood.
Conscious wilful deception lies far down the road in a course of this kind;
and supported by the assurance of an archbishop, she was in all likelihood
deep in lying before she actually knew it. Fanaticism and deceit are
strangely near relations to each other, and the deceiver is often the
person first deceived, and the last who is aware of the imposture.

The instructions of the Father had made her acquainted with many stories of
miraculous cures. The Catholic saints followed the type of the apostles,
and to heal diseases by supernatural means was a more orthodox form of
credential than clairvoyance or second sight. Being now cured of her real
disorder, yet able to counterfeit the appearance of it, she could find no
difficulty in arranging in her own case a miracle of the established kind,
and so striking an incident would answer a further end. In the parish was a
chapel of the Virgin, which was a place of pilgrimage; the pilgrims added
something to the income of the priest; and if, by a fresh demonstration of
the Virgin's presence at the favoured spot, the number of these pilgrims
could be increased, they would add more. For both reasons, therefore, the
miracle was desired; and the priest and the monk were agreed that any means
were justifiable which would encourage the devotion of the people.[320]
Accordingly, the girl announced, in one of her trances, that "she would
never take health of her body till such time as she had visited the image
of our Lady" in that chapel. The Virgin had herself appeared to her, she
said, and had fixed a day for her appearance there, and had promised that
on her obedience she would present herself in person and take away her
disorder.[321] The day came; and as (under the circumstances) there was no
danger of failure, the holy fathers had collected a vast concourse of
people to witness the marvel. The girl was conducted to the chapel by a
procession of more than two thousand persons, headed by the monk, the
clergyman, and many other religious persons, the whole multitude "singing
the Litany and saying divers psalms and orations by the way."

"And when she was brought thither[322] and laid before the image of our
Lady, her face was wonderfully disfigured, her tongue hanging out, and her
eyes being in a manner plucked out and laid upon her cheeks, and so greatly
deformed. There was then heard a voice speaking within her belly, as it had
been in a tonne, her lips not greatly moving: she all that while continuing
by the space of three hours or more in a trance. The which voice, when it
told of anything of the joys of heaven, spake so sweetly and so heavenly,
that every man was ravished with the hearing thereof; and contrarywise,
when it told anything of hell, it spake so horribly and terribly, that it
put the hearers in a great fear. It spake also many things for the
confirmation of pilgrimages and trentals, hearing of masses and confession,
and many other such things. And after she had lyen there a long time, she
came to herself again, and was perfectly whole. So this miracle was
finished and solemnly sung; and a book was written of all the whole story
thereof, and put into print; which ever since that time was commonly sold,
and went abroad among the people."

The miracle successfully accomplished, the residence at Aldington was no
longer adapted for an acknowledged and favoured saint. The Virgin informed
her that she was to leave the bailiff and devote herself to her exclusive
service. She was to be Sister Elizabeth, and her especial favourite; and
Father Bocking was to be her spiritual father. The priory of St.
Sepulchre's, Canterbury, was chosen for the place of her profession; and as
soon as she was established in her cell, she became a recognised priestess
or prophetess, alternately communicating revelations, or indulging the
curiosity of foolish persons, and for both services consenting to be paid.
The church had by this time spread her reputation through England. The book
of her oracles, which extended soon to a considerable volume, was shown by
Archbishop Warham to the king, who sent it to Sir Thomas More, desiring him
to look at it. More's good sense had not yet forsaken him; he pronounced it
"a right poor production, such as any simple woman might speak of her own
wit;"[323] and Henry himself "esteemed the matter as light as it afterwards
proved lewd." But the world were less critical censors: the saintly halo
was round her head, and her most trivial words caught the reflection of the
glory, and seemed divine. "Divers and many, as well great men of the realm
as mean men, and many learned men, but specially many religious men, had
great confidence in her, and often resorted to her."[324] They "consulted
her much as to the will of God touching the heresies and schisms in the
realm;" and when the dispute arose between the bishops and the House of
Commons, they asked her what judgment there was in heaven "on the taking
away the liberties of the church;" to which questions her answers, being
dictated by her confessor, were all which the most eager churchman could
desire. Her position becoming more and more determined, the eccentric
periods of her earlier visions subsided into regularity. Once a fortnight
she was taken up into heaven into the presence of God and the saints, with
heavenly lights, heavenly voices, heavenly melodies and joys. The place of
ascent was usually the priory chapel, to which it was essential, therefore,
that she should have continual access: and she was allowed, in consequence,
to pass the dormitory door when she pleased--a privilege of which the
Statute uncharitably hints that she availed herself for a less respectable
purpose. But whatever was her secret conduct, her outward behaviour was in
full keeping with her language and profession. She related many startling
stories, not always of the most decent kind, of the attempts which the
devil made to lead her astray. The devil and the angels were in fact
alternate visitors to her cell, and the former, on one occasion, burnt a
mark upon her hand, which she exhibited publicly, and to which the monks
were in the habit of appealing, when there were any signs of scepticism in
the visitors to the priory. On the occasion of these infernal visits,
"great stinking smokes" were seen to issue from her chamber, "savouring
grievously through all the dorture;" with which, however, it was suspected
subsequently that a paper of brimstone and assafoetida, found among her
property after her arrest, had been in some way connected. We smile at
these stories, looking back at them with eyes enlightened by scientific
scepticism; but they furnished matter for something else than smiles when
the accounts of them could be exhibited by the clergy as a living proof of
the credibility of the Aurea Legenda,--when the subject of them could be
held up as a witness, accredited by miracles, to the truth of the old
faith, a living evidence to shame the incredulity of the Protestant
sectaries. She became a figure of great and singular significance; a "wise
woman," to whom persons of the highest rank were not ashamed to have
recourse to inquire of her the will of God, and to ask the benefit of her
intercessory prayers, for which also they did not fail to pay at a rate
commensurate with their credulity.[325]

This position the Nun of Kent, as she was now called, had achieved for
herself, when the divorce question was first agitated. The monks at the
Canterbury priory, of course, eagerly espoused the side of the queen, and
the Nun's services were at once in active requisition. Absurd as the
stories of her revelations may seem to us, she had already given evidence
that she was no vulgar impostor, and in the dangerous career on which she
now entered, she conducted herself with the utmost skill and audacity. Far
from imitating the hesitation of the pope and the bishops, she issued
boldly, "in the name and by the authority of God," a solemn prohibition
against the king; threatening that, if he divorced his wife, he should not
"reign a month, but should die a villain's death."[326] Burdened with this
message, she forced herself into the presence of Henry himself;[327] and
when she failed to produce an effect upon Henry's obdurate scepticism, she
turned to the hesitating ecclesiastics, and roused their flagging spirits.
The archbishop bent under her denunciations, and at her earnest request
introduced her to Wolsey, then tottering on the edge of ruin.[328] He, too,
in his confusion and perplexity, was frightened, and doubted. She made
herself known to the papal ambassadors, and through them she took upon
herself to threaten Clement,[329] assuming, in virtue of her divine
commission, an authority above all principalities and powers. If it were
likely that she could have heard the story of the Maid of Orleans, it might
be supposed that her imagination tempted her to play again a similar career
on an English stage, and that she fancied herself the destined saviour of
the Church of Christ, as the Maid had been the saviour of France.

It would indeed be a libel on the fair fame of Joan of Arc, if she were to
be compared to a confessed impostor; but Joan of Arc might have been the
reality which the Nun attempted to counterfeit; and the history of the true
heroine might have suggested easily to the imitator the outline of her
part. A revolution had been effected in Europe by a somnambulist peasant
girl; another peasant girl, a somnambulist also, might have seen in the
achievement which had been already accomplished, an earnest of what might
be done by herself. While we call the Nun, too, an impostor, we are bound
to believe that she first imposed upon herself, and that her wildest
adventures into falsehood were compatible with a belief that she was really
and truly inspired. Nothing short of such a conviction would have enabled
her to play a part among kings and queens, and so many of the ablest
statesmen of that most able age. Nothing else could have tempted her, on
the failure of her prophecies, into the desperate career of treason into
which we are soon to see her launched.

Her proceedings were known partially, but partially only, to the king; and
the king seems to have been the only person whose understanding was proof
against her influence. To him she appeared nothing worse than an excited
fanatic, and he allowed her to go her own way, as the best escapement of a
frenzy. Until parliament had declared it illegal to discuss the marriage
question further, he interfered with no one, and therefore not with her. If
her own word was to be taken, he even showed her much personal kindness,
having offered to make her an abbess, which is difficult to believe,
especially as she said that she had refused his offer. She stated also that
at the time of Lord Wiltshire's mission to the emperor, the Countess of
Wiltshire endeavoured to persuade her to accept a place at the court, as a
companion to Anne; which again is unsupported by other evidence, and sounds
improbable.[330] But it is plain, that until she was found to be meditating
treason, she experienced no treatment from the government of which she had
cause to complain; and thus for the present we may leave her pursuing her
machinations with the Canterbury friars, and return to the parliament.

The second session had been longer than the first; it had commenced on the
16th of January, and continued for ten weeks. On the 30th of March, which
was to be its last day, Sir Thomas More came down to the House of Commons,
and there read aloud to the members the decision of the various
universities on the papal power, and the judgment of European learning on
the general question of the king's divorce. The country, he said, was much
disturbed, and the king desired them each to report what they had heard in
their several counties and towns, "in order that all men might perceive
that he had not attempted this matter of his own will or pleasure, as some
strangers reported, but only for the discharge of his conscience and surety
of the succession of his realm."[331] This appears to have been the first
time that the subject was mentioned before parliament, and the occasion was
reasonably and sensibly chosen. The clergy having possession of the
pulpits, had used their opportunity to spread a false impression where the
ignorance of the people would allow them to venture the experiment; the
king having resolved to fall back upon the support of his subjects,
naturally desired the assistance of the country gentlemen and the nobles to
counteract the efforts of disaffection, and provided them with accurate
information in the simplest manner which he could have chosen.

But the desire expressed by Henry was no more than an unnecessary form, for
as a body, the educated laity were as earnestly bent upon the divorce as
the king himself could be, and might have been trusted to use all means by
which to further it. The parliament was prorogued, but the Lords, shortly
after the separation, united with such of the Commons as remained in
London, to give a proof of their feeling by a voluntary address to the
pope. The meaning of this movement was not to be mistaken. On one side, the
Nun of Kent was threatening Clement, speaking, perhaps, the feelings of the
clergy and of all the women in England; on the other side, the parliament
thought well to threaten him, speaking for the great body of English _men_,
for all persons of substance and property, who desired above all things
peace and order and a secured succession.

The language of this remarkable document[332] was as follows:--

"To the Most Holy Lord our Lord and Father in Christ, Clement, by Divine
Providence the seventh of that name, we desire perpetual happiness in our
Lord Jesus Christ.

"Most blessed Father, albeit the cause concerning the marriage of the most
invincible prince, our sovereign lord, the King of England and of France,
Defender of the Faith, and Lord of Ireland, does for sundry great and
weighty reasons require and demand the aid of your Holiness, that it may be
brought to that brief end and determination which we with so great and
earnest desire have expected, and which we have been contented hitherto to
expect, though so far vainly, at your Holiness's hands; we have been
unable, nevertheless, to keep longer silence herein, seeing that this
kingdom and the affairs of it are brought into so high peril through the
unseasonable delay of sentence. His Majesty, who is our head, and by
consequence the life of us all, and we through him as subject members by a
just union annexed to the head, have with great earnestness entreated your
Holiness for judgment; we have however entreated in vain: we are by the
greatness of our grief therefore forced separately and distinctly by these
our letters most humbly to demand a speedy determination. There ought,
indeed, to have been no need of this request on our part. The justice of
the cause itself, approved to be just by the sentence of so many learned
men, by the suffrage of the most famous universities in England, France,
and Italy, should have sufficed alone to have induced your Holiness to
confirm the sentence given by others; especially when the interests of a
king and kingdom are at stake, which in so many ways have deserved well of
the apostolic see. This we say ought to have been motive sufficient with
you, without need of petition on our part; and if we had added our
entreaties, it should have been but as men yielding to a causeless anxiety,
and wasting words for which there was no occasion. Since, however, neither
the merit of the cause nor the recollection of the benefits which you have
received, nor the assiduous and diligent supplications of our prince have
availed anything with your Holiness; since we cannot obtain from you what
it is your duty as a father to grant; the load of our grief, increased as
it is beyond measure by the remembrance of the past miseries and calamities
which have befallen this nation, makes vocal every member of our
commonwealth, and compels us by word and letter to utter our complaints.

"For what a misfortune is this,--that a sentence which our own two
universities, which the University of Paris, and many other universities in
France, which men of the highest learning and probity everywhere, at home
and abroad, are ready to defend with word and pen, that such sentence, we
say, cannot be obtained from the apostolic see by a prince to whom that see
owes its present existence. Amidst the attacks of so many and so powerful
enemies, the King of England ever has stood by that see with sword and pen,
with voice and with authority. Yet he alone is to reap no benefit from his
labours. He has saved the papacy from ruin, that others might enjoy the
fruits of the life which he has preserved for it. We see not what answer
can be made to this; and meanwhile we perceive a flood of miseries
impending over the commonwealth, threatening to bring back upon us the
ancient controversy on the succession, which had been extinguished only
with so much blood and slaughter. We have now a king most eminent for his
virtues, and reigning by unchallenged title, who will secure assured
tranquillity to the realm if he leave a son born of his body to succeed
him. The sole hope that such a son may be born to him lies in the being
found for him some lawful marriage into which he may enter; and to such
marriage the only obstacle lies with your Holiness. It cannot be until you
shall confirm the sentence of so many learned men on the character of his
former connection. This if you will not do, if you who ought to be our
father have determined to leave us as orphans, and to treat us as
castaways, we shall interpret such conduct to mean only that we are left to
care for ourselves, and to seek our remedy elsewhere. We do not desire to
be driven to this extremity, and therefore we beseech your Holiness without
further delay to assist his Majesty's just and reasonable desires. We
entreat you to confirm the judgment of these learned men; and for the sake
of that love and fatherly affection which your office requires you to show
towards us, not to close your bowels of compassion against us, your most
dutiful, most loving, most obedient children. The cause of his Majesty is
the cause of each of ourselves; the head cannot suffer, but the members
must bear a part. We have all our common share in the pain and in the
injury; and as the remedy is wholly in the power of your Holiness, so does
the duty of your fatherly office require you to administer it. If, however,
your Holiness will not do this, or if you choose longer to delay to do it,
our condition hitherto will have been so much the more wretched, that we
have so long laboured fruitlessly and in vain. But it will not be wholly
irremediable; extreme remedies are ever harsh of application; but he that
is sick will by any means be rid of his distemper; and there is hope in the
exchange of miseries, when, if we cannot obtain what is good, we may obtain
a lesser evil, and trust that time may enable us to endure it.

"These things we beseech your Holiness, in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, to consider with yourself. You profess that on earth you are His
vicar. Endeavour, then, to show yourself so to be, by pronouncing your
sentence to the glory and praise of God, and giving your sanction to that
truth which has been examined, approved, and after much deliberation
confirmed by the most learned men of all nations. We meanwhile will pray
the all-good God, whom we know by most sure testimony to be truth itself,
that He will deign so to inform and direct the counsels of your Holiness,
that we obtaining by your authority what is holy, just, and true, may be
spared from seeking it by other more painful methods."

Thus was the great crisis steadily maturing itself, and the cause by this
petition was made to rest upon its proper merits. The justification of the
demand for the divorce was the danger of civil war; and into civil war the
nation had no intention of permitting themselves to be drifted by papal
imbecility. Whatever was the origin of Henry's resolution, it was acted out
with calmness, and justified by sober reason; and backed by the good sense
of his lay subjects, he proceeded bravely, in spite of excommunication,
interdict, and the Nun of Kent, towards the object which his country's
interests, as well as his own, required.

It would have been well if his private behaviour as a man had been as
unobjectionable as his conduct as a sovereign. Hitherto he had remained
under the same roof with Queen Catherine, but with that indelicacy which
was the singular blemish on his character, he had maintained her rival in
the same household with the state of a princess,[333] and needlessly
wounded feelings which he was bound to have spared to the utmost which his
duty permitted. The circumstances of the case, if they were known to us,
though they could never excuse such a proceeding, might perhaps partially
palliate it. Catherine was harsh and offensive, and it was by her own
determination, and not by Henry's desire, that she was unprovided with an
establishment elsewhere. There lay, moreover, as I have said, behind the
scenes a whole drama of contention and bitterness, which now is happily
concealed from us; but which being concealed, leaves us without the clue to
these painful doings. Indelicate, however, the position given to Anne
Boleyn could not but be; and, if it was indelicate in Henry to grant such a
position, what shall we say of the lady who consented, in the presence of
her sovereign and mistress, to wear such ignominious splendour?

But in these most offensive relations there was henceforth to be a change.
In June, 1531, two months after the prorogation of parliament, a deputation
of the privy council went to the apartments of Catherine at Greenwich, and
laying before her the papers which had been read by Sir Thomas More to the
two Houses, demanded formally, whether, for the sake of the country, and
for the quiet of the king's conscience, she would withdraw her appeal to
Rome, and submit to an arbitration in the kingdom. It was, probably, but an
official request, proposed without expectation that she would yield. After
rejecting a similar entreaty from the pope himself, she was not likely,
inflexible as she had ever been, to yield when the pope had admitted her
appeal, and the emperor, victorious through Europe, had promised her
support. She refused, of course, like herself, proudly, resolutely,
gallantly, and not without the scorn which she was entitled to feel. The
nation had no claims upon her, and "for the king's conscience," she
answered, "I pray God send his Grace good quiet therein, and tell him I say
I am his lawful wife, and to him lawfully married; and in that point I will
abide till the court of Rome, which was privy to the beginning, hath made
thereof a determination and a final ending."[334] The learned councillors
retired with their answer. A more passive resistance would have been more
dignified; but Catherine was a queen, and a queen she chose to be; and in
defence of her own high honour, and of her daughter's, by no act of hers
would she abate one tittle of her dignity, or cease to assert her claim to
it. Her reply, however, appears to have been anticipated, and the request
was only preparatory to ulterior measures. For the sake of public decency,
and certainly in no unkind spirit towards herself, a retirement from the
court was now to be forced upon her. At Midsummer she accompanied the king
to Windsor; in the middle of July he left her there, and never saw her
again. She was removed to the More, a house in Hertfordshire, which had
been originally built by George Neville, Archbishop of York, and had
belonged to Wolsey, who had maintained it with his usual splendour.[335]
Once more an attempt was made to persuade her to submit; but with no better
result, and a formal establishment was then provided for her at Ampthill, a
large place belonging to Henry not far from Dunstable. There at least she
was her own mistress, surrounded by her own friends, who were true to her
as queen, and she attracted to her side from all parts of England those
whom sympathy or policy attached to her cause. The court, though keeping a
partial surveillance over her, did not dare to restrict her liberty; and as
the measures against the church became more stringent, and a separation
from the papacy more nearly imminent, she became the nucleus of a powerful
political party. Her injuries had deprived the king and the nation of a
right to complain of her conduct. She owed nothing to England. Her
allegiance, politically, was to Spain; spiritually she was the subject of
the pope; and this dubious position gave her an advantage which she was not
slow to perceive. Rapidly every one rallied to her who adhered to the old
faith, and to whom the measures of the government appeared a sacrilege.
Through herself, or through her secretaries and confessors, a
correspondence was conducted which brought the courts of the continent into
connection with the various disaffected parties in England, with the Nun of
Kent and her friars, with the Poles, the Nevilles, the Courtenays, and all
the remaining faction of the White Rose. And so first the great party of
sedition began to shape itself, which for sixty years, except in the
shortlived interlude of its triumph under Catherine's daughter, held the
nation on the edge of civil war. We shall see this faction slowly and
steadily organising itself, starting from scattered and small beginnings,
till at length it overspread all England and Ireland and Scotland,
exploding from time to time in abortive insurrections, yet ever held in
check by the tact and firmness of the government, and by the inherent
loyalty of the English to the land of their birth. There was a proverb then
current that "the treasons of England should never cease."[336] It was
perhaps fortunate that the papal cause was the cause of a foreign power,
and could only be defended by a betrayal of the independence of the
country. In Scotland and Ireland the insurrectionists were more successful,
being supported in either instance by the national feeling. But the
strength of Scotland had been broken at Flodden; and Ireland, though hating
"the Saxons" with her whole heart, was far off and divided. The true danger
was at home; and when the extent and nature of it is fairly known and
weighed, we shall understand better what is called the "tyranny" of Henry
VIII. and of Elizabeth; and rather admire the judgment than condemn the
resolution which steered the country safe among those dangerous shoals.
Elizabeth's position is more familiar to us, and is more reasonably
appreciated because the danger was more palpable. Henry has been hardly
judged because he trampled down the smouldering fire, and never allowed it
to assume the form which would have justified him with the foolish and the
unthinking. Once and once only the flame blazed out; but it was checked on
the instant, and therefore it has been slighted and forgotten. But with
despatches before his eyes, in which Charles V. was offering James of
Scotland the hand of the Princess Mary, with the title for himself of
Prince of England and Duke of York[337]--with Ireland, as we shall speedily
see it, in flame from end to end, and Dublin castle the one spot left
within the island on which the banner of St. George still floated--with a
corps of friars in hair shirts and chains, who are also soon to be
introduced to us, and an inspired prophetess at their head preaching
rebellion in the name of God--with his daughter, and his daughter's mother
in league against him, some forty thousand clergy to be coerced into honest
dealing, and the succession to the crown floating in uncertainty--finally,
with excommunication hanging over himself, and at length falling, and his
deposition pronounced, Henry, we may be sure, had no easy time of it, and
no common work to accomplish; and all these things ought to be present
before our minds, as they were present before his mind, if we would see him
as he was, and judge him as we would be judged ourselves.

Leaving disaffection to mature itself, we return to the struggle between
the House of Commons and the bishops, which recommenced in the following
winter; first pausing to notice a clerical interlude of some illustrative
importance which took place in the close of the summer. The clergy, as we
saw, were relieved of their premunire on engaging to pay 118,000 pounds
within five years. They were punished for their general offences; the
formal offence for which they were condemned being one which could not
fairly be considered an offence at all. When they came to discuss therefore
the manner in which the money was to be levied, they naturally quarrelled
among themselves as to where the burden of the fine should fairly rest, and
a little scene has been preserved to us by Hall, through which, with
momentary distinctness, we can look in upon those poor men in their
perplexity. The bishops had settled among themselves that each diocese
should make its own arrangements; and some of these great persons intended
to spare their own shoulders to the utmost decent extremity. With this
object, Stokesley, Bishop of London, who was just then very busy burning
heretics, and therefore in bad odour with the people, resolved to call a
meeting of five or six of his clergy, on whom he could depend; and passing
quietly with their assistance such resolutions as seemed convenient, to
avoid in this way the more doubtful expedient of a large assembly.

The necessary intimations were given, and the meeting was to be held on the
1st of September, in the Chapter-house of St. Paul's. The bishop arrived at
the time appointed, but unhappily for his hopes, not only the chosen six,
but with them six hundred of the clergy of Middlesex, accompanied by a mob
of the London citizens, all gathered in a crowd at the Chapter-house door,
and clamouring to be admitted.

The bishop, trusting in the strength of the chains and bolts, and still
hoping to manage the affair officially, sent out a list of persons who
might be allowed to take part in the proceedings, and these with difficulty
made their way to the entrance. A rush was made by the others as they were
going in, and there was a scuffle, which ended for the moment in the
victory of the officials: but the triumph was of brief duration; the
excluded clergy were now encouraged by the people; they returned vigorously
to the attack, broke down the doors, "struck the bishop's officers over the
face," and the whole crowd, priests and laity, rushed together, storming
and shouting, into the Chapter-house. The scene may be easily imagined;
dust flying, gowns torn, heads broken, well-fed faces in the hot September
weather steaming with anger and exertion, and every voice in loudest
outcry. At length the clamour was partially subdued, and the bishop,
beautifully equal to the emergency, arose bland and persuasive.

"My brethren," he said, "I marvel not a little why ye be so heady. Ye know
not what shall be said to you, therefore I pray you keep silence, and hear
me patiently. My friends, ye all know that we be men, frail of condition
and no angels; and by frailty and lack of wisdom we have misdemeaned
ourselves towards the king our sovereign lord and his laws; so that all we
of the clergy were in premunire, by reason whereof all our promotions,
lands, goods, and chattels were to him forfeit, and our bodies ready to be
imprisoned. Yet his Grace, moved with pity and compassion, demanded of us
what we could say why he should not extend his laws upon us.

"Then the fathers of the clergy humbly besought his Grace for mercy, to
whom he answered he was ever inclined to mercy. Then for all our great
offences we had but little penance; for when he might, by the rigour of his
laws, have taken all our livelihoods, he was contented with one hundred
thousand pounds, to be paid in five years. And though this sum may be more
than we may easily bear, yet, by the rigour of his law, we should have
borne the whole burden; whereupon, my brethren, I charitably exhort you to
bear your parts of your livelihood and salary towards payment of this sum
granted."[338]

The ingenuity of this address deserved all praise; but the beauty of the
form was insufficient to disguise the inconclusiveness of the reasoning. It
confessed an offence which the hearers knew to be none; the true
provocation which had led to the penalty--the unjust extortion of the high
church officials--was ignored. The crowd laughed and hooted. The clergy
fiercely tightened their purse-strings, and the bishop was heard out with
hardly restrained indignation. "My lord," it was shortly answered by one of
them, "twenty nobles a year is but a bare living for a priest. Victual and
all else is now so dear that poverty enforceth us to say nay. Besides that,
my lord, we never meddled with the cardinal's faculties. Let the bishops
and abbots which have offended pay." Loud clamour followed and shouts of
applause. The bishop's officers gave the priests high words. The priests
threw back the taunts as they came; and the London citizens, delighting in
the scandalous quarrel, hounded on the opposition. From words they passed
to blows; the bedell and vergers tried to keep order, but "were buffeted
and stricken,"[339] and the meeting broke up in wild uproar and confusion.
For this matter five of the lay crowd and fifteen London curates were sent
to the Tower by Sir Thomas More; but the undignified manoeuvre had failed,
and the fruit of it was but fresh disgrace. United, the clergy might have
defied the king and the parliament; but in the race of selfishness the
bishops and high dignitaries had cared only for their own advantage. They
had left the poorer members of their order with no interest in common with
that of their superiors, beyond the shield which the courts consented to
extend over moral delinquency; and in the hour of danger they found
themselves left naked and alone to bear the storm as they were able.

This incident, and it was perhaps but one of many, is not likely to have
softened the disposition of the Commons, or induced them to entertain more
respectfully the bishops' own estimate of their privileges. The convocation
and the parliament met simultaneously, on the 15th of January, and the
conflict, which had been for two years in abeyance, recommenced. The
initial measure was taken by convocation, and this body showed a spirit
still unsubdued, and a resolution to fight in their own feebly tyrannical
manner to the last. A gentleman in Gloucestershire had lately died, by name
Tracy. In his last testament he had bequeathed his soul to God through the
mercies of Christ, declining the mediatorial offices of the saints; and
leaving no money to be expended in masses.[340] Such notorious heresy could
not be passed over with impunity, and the first step of the assembled
clergy[341] was to issue a commission to raise the body and burn it. Their
audacity displayed at once the power which they possessed, and the temper
in which they were disposed to use it. The Archbishop of Canterbury seems
to have been responsible for this monstrous order, which unfortunately was
carried into execution before Henry had time to interfere.[342] It was the
last act of the kind, however, in which he was permitted to indulge, and
the legislature made haste to take away such authority from hands so
incompetent to use it. From their debates upon burning the dead Tracy,
convocation were proceeding to discuss the possibility of burning the
living Latimer,[343] when they were recalled to their senses by a summons
to prepare some more reasonable answer than that which the bishops had made
for them on their privilege of making laws. Twenty more years of work were
to be lived by Latimer before they were to burn him, and their own
delinquencies were for the present of a more pressing nature. The House of
Commons at the same time proceeded to frame necessary bills on the other
points of their complaint.

The first act upon the roll recalls the Constitutions of Clarendon and the
famous quarrel between Becket and the Crown. When Catholicism was a living
belief, when ordained priests were held really and truly to possess those
awful powers which the mystery of transubstantiation assigns to them, they
were acknowledged by common consent to be an order apart from the rest of
mankind, and being spiritual men, to be amenable only to spiritual
jurisdiction. It was not intended that, if they committed crimes, they
should escape the retributive consequences of those crimes: offenders
against the law might (originally at least) be degraded, if the bishops
thought good, and stripped of their commission be delivered thus to the
secular arm. But the more appropriate punishment for such persons was of a
more awful kind, proportioned to the magnitude of the fault; and was
conveyed or held to be conveyed in the infliction of the spiritual death of
excommunication. Excommunication was, in real earnest, the death of the
soul, at a time when communion with the church was the only means by which
the soul could be made partaker of the divine life; and it was a noble
thing to believe that there was something worse for a man than legal
penalties on his person or on his mortal body; it was beautiful to
recognise in an active living form, that the heaviest ill which could
befall a man was to be cut off from God. But it is only for periods that
humanity can endure the atmosphere of these high altitudes of morality. The
early Christians attempted a community of goods, but they were unequal to
it for more than a generation. The discipline of Catholicism was assisted
by superstition,--it remained vigorous for many hundreds of years, but it
languished at last; and although there was so great virtue in a living
idea, that its forms preserved the reverence of mankind unabated, even when
in their effect and working they had become as evil as they once were
noble; yet reverence and endurance were at length exhausted, and these
forms were to submit to alteration in conformity with the altered nature of
the persons whom they affected.

I have already alluded to the abuse of "benefit of clergy;"[344] we have
arrived at the first of those many steps by which at length it was finally
put away,--a step which did not, however, as yet approach the heart of the
evil, but touched only its extreme outworks. The clergy had monopolised the
learning of the middle ages, and few persons external to their body being
able to read or write, their privileges became co-extensive, as I above
stated, with these acquirements. The exemption from secular jurisdiction,
which they obtained in virtue of their sacred character, had been used as a
protection in villainy for every scoundrel who could write his name. Under
this plea, felons of the worst kind might claim, till this time, to be
taken out of the hands of the law judges, and to be tried at the bishops'
tribunals; and at these tribunals, such a monstrous solecism had
Catholicism become, the payment of money was ever welcomed as the ready
expiation of crime. To prevent the escape of the Bishop of Rochester's
cook, who was a "clerk," parliament had specially interfered, and sentenced
him without trial, by attainder. They now passed a general act, remarkable
alike in what it provided as in what, for the present, it omitted to
provide.[345] The preamble related the nature of the evil which was to be
remedied, and the historical position of it. It dwelt upon the assurances
which had been given again and again by the ordinaries that their
privileges should not be abused; but these promises had been broken as
often as they had been made; so that "continually manifest thieves and
murderers, indicted and found guilty of their misdeeds by good and
substantial inquests, and afterwards, by the usages of the common lawes of
the land, delivered to the ordinaries as clerks convict, were speedily and
hastily delivered and set at large by the ministers of the said ordinaries
for corruption and lucre; or else because the ordinaries enclaiming such
offenders by the liberties of the church would in no wise take the charges
in safe keeping of them, but did suffer them to make their purgation by
such as nothing knew of their misdeeds, and by such fraud did annull and
make void the good and provable trial which was used against such offenders
by the king's law; to the pernicious example, increase, and courage of such
offenders, if the King's Highness by his authority royal put not speedy
remedy thereto."

To provide such necessary remedy, it was enacted that thenceforward no
person under the degree of subdeacon, if guilty of felony, should be
allowed to plead "his clergy" any more, but should be proceeded against by
the ordinary law. So far it was possible to go--an enormous step if we
think of what the evil had been; and in such matters to make a beginning
was the true difficulty--it was the logical premise from which the
conclusion could not choose but follow. Yet such was the mystical
sacredness which clung about the ordained clergy, that their patent
profligacy had not yet destroyed it--a priest might still commit a murder,
and the profane hand of the law might not reach to him.

The measure, however, if imperfect, was excellent in its degree; and when
this had been accomplished, the House proceeded next to deal with the
Arches Court--the one enormous grievance of the time. The petition of the
Commons has already exhibited the condition of this institution; but the
act by which the power of it was limited added more than one particular to
what had been previously stated, and the first twenty lines of the statute
which was now passed[346] may be recommended to the consideration of the
modern censors of the Reformation. The framer of the resolution was no bad
friend to the bishops, if they had possessed the faculty of knowing who
their true friends were, for the statement of complaint was limited, mild,
and moderate. Again, as with the "benefit of clergy," the real ground for
surprise is that any fraction of a system so indefensible should have been
permitted to continue. The courts were nothing else but the vicious sources
of unjust revenue; and with the opportunity so fairly offered, it is
strange indeed that they were not swept utterly away. But sweeping measures
have never found favour in England. There has ever been in English
legislation, even when most reforming, that temperate spirit of equity
which has refused to visit the sins of centuries upon a single generation.
The statute limited its accusations to the points which it was designed to
correct, and touched these with a hand firmly gentle.

"Whereas great numbers of the king's subjects," says the preamble, "as well
men, wives, servants, or others dwelling in divers dioceses of the realm of
England and Wales, heretofore have been at many times called by citations
and other processes compulsory to appear in the Arches, Audience, and other
high Courts of the archbishops of this realm, far from and out of the
dioceses where such persons are inhabitant and dwelling; and many times to
answer to surmised and feigned causes and matters, which have been sued
more for vexation and malice than from any just cause of suit; and when
certificate hath been made by the sumners, apparitors, or any such light
litterate persons, that the party against whom such citations have been
awarded hath been cited or summoned; and thereupon the same party so
certified to be cited or summoned hath not appeared according to the
certificate, the same party therefore hath been excommunicated, or, at the
least, suspended from all divine service; and thereupon, before that he or
she could be absolved, hath been compelled, not only to pay the fees of the
court whereunto he or she was so called, amounting to the sum of two
shillings, or twenty pence at the least; but also to pay to the sumner, for
every mile distant from the place where he or she then dwelled unto the
same court whereunto he or she was summoned to appear, twopence; to the
great charge and impoverishment of the king's subjects, and to the great
occasion of misbehaviour of wives, women, and servants, and to the great
impairment and diminution of their good names and honesties--be it
enacted----" We ask what?--looking with impatience for some large measure
to follow these solemn accusations; and we find parliament contenting
itself with forbidding the bishops, under heavy penalties, to cite any man
out of his own diocese, except for specified causes (heresy being one of
them), and with limiting the fees which were to be taken by the officers of
the courts.[347] It could hardly be said that in this parliament there was
any bitter spirit against the church. This act showed only mild forbearance
and complacent endurance of all tolerable evil.

Another serious matter was dealt with in the same moderate temper. The
Mortmain Act had prohibited the church corporations from further absorbing
the lands; but the Mortmain Act was evaded in detail, the clergy using
their influence to induce persons on their deathbeds to leave estates to
provide a priest for ever "to sing for their souls." The arrangement was
convenient possibly for both parties, or if not for both, certainly for
one; but to tie up lands for ever for a special service was not to the
advantage of the country; and it was held unjust to allow a man a perpetual
power over the disposition of property to atone for the iniquities of his
life. But the privilege was not abolished altogether; it was submitted only
to reasonable limitation. Men might still burden their lands to find a
priest for twenty years. After twenty years the lands were to relapse for
the service of the living, and sinners were expected in equity to bear the
consequence in their own persons of such offences as remained after that
time unexpiated.[348]

Thus, in two sessions, the most flagrant of the abuses first complained of
were in a fair way of being remedied. The exorbitant charges for
mortuaries, probate duties, legacy duties, the illegal exactions for the
sacraments, the worst injustices of the ecclesiastical courts, the
non-residence, pluralities, neglect of cures, the secular occupations and
extravagant privileges of the clergy, were either terminated or brought
within bounds. There remained yet to be disposed of the legislative power
of the convocation and the tyrannical prosecutions for heresy. The last of
these was not yet ripe for settlement; the former was under reconsideration
by the convocation itself, which at length was arriving at a truer
conception of its position; and this question was not therefore to be dealt
with by the legislature.

One more important measure, however, was passed by parliament before it
separated, and it is noticeable as the first step which was taken in the
momentous direction of a breach with the See of Rome. A practice had
existed for some hundreds of years in all the churches of Europe, that
bishops and archbishops, on presentation to their sees, should transmit to
the pope, on receiving their bulls of investment, one year's income from
their new preferments. It was called the payment of annates, or
firstfruits, and had originated in the time of the crusades, as a means of
providing a fund for the holy wars. Once established, it had settled into
custom,[349] and was one of the chief resources of the papal revenue. From
England alone, as much as 160,000 pounds had been paid out of the country
in fifty years;[350] and the impost was alike oppressive to individuals and
injurious to the state. Men were appointed to bishopricks frequently at an
advanced age, and dying, as they often did, within two or three years of
their nomination, their elevation had sometimes involved their families and
friends in debt and embarrassment;[351] while the annual export of so much
bullion was a serious evil at a time when the precious metals formed the
only currency, and were so difficult to obtain. Before a quarrel with the
court of Rome had been thought of as a possible contingency, the king had
laboured with the pope to terminate the system by some equitable
composition; and subsequently cessation of payment had been mentioned more
than once in connection with the threats of a separation. The pope had made
light of these threats, believing them to be no more than words; there was
an opportunity, therefore, of proving that the English government was
really in earnest, in a manner which would touch him in a point where he
was naturally sensitive, and would show him at the same time that he could
not wholly count on the attachment even of the clergy themselves. For, in
fact, the church itself was fast disintegrating, and the allegiance even of
the bishops and the secular clergy to Rome had begun to waver: they had a
stronger faith in their own privileges than in the union of Christendom;
and if they could purchase the continuance of the former at the price of a
quarrel with the pope, some among them were not disinclined to venture the
alternative. The Bishop of Rochester held aloof from such tendencies, and
Warham, though he signed the address of the House of Lords to the pope,
regretted the weakness to which he had yielded: but in the other prelates
there was little seriousness of conviction; and the constitution of the
bench had been affected also by the preferment of Gardiner and Edward Lee
to two of the sees made vacant by the death of Wolsey. Both these men had
been active agents in the prosecution of the divorce; and Gardiner,
followed at a distance by the other, had shaped out, as the pope grew more
intractable, the famous notion that the English church could and should
subsist as a separate communion, independent of foreign control, self
governed, self organised, and at the same time adhering without variation
to Catholic doctrine. This principle (if we may so abuse the word) shot
rapidly into popularity: a party formed about it strong in parliament,
strong in convocation, strong out of doors among the country gentlemen and
the higher clergy--a respectable, wealthy, powerful body, trading upon a
solecism, but not the less, therefore, devoted to its maintenance, and in
their artificial horror of being identified with heresy, the most
relentless persecutors of the Protestants. This party, unreal as they were,
and influential perhaps in virtue of their unreality, became for the moment
the arbiters of the Church of England; and the bishops belonging to it, and
each rising ecclesiastic who hoped to be a bishop, welcomed the resistance
of the annates as an opportunity for a demonstration of their strength. On
this question, with a fair show of justice, they could at once relieve
themselves of a burden which pressed upon their purses, and as they
supposed, gratify the king. The conservatives were still numerically the
strongest, and for a time remained in their allegiance to the Papacy,[352]
but their convictions were too feeble to resist the influence brought to
bear upon them, and when Parliament re-assembled after the Easter recess,
the two Houses of Convocation presented an address to the crown for the
abolition of the impost, and with it of all other exactions, direct and
indirect,--the indulgences, dispensations, delegacies, and the thousand
similar forms and processes by which the privileges of the Church of
England were abridged for the benefit of the Church of Rome, and weighty
injury of purse inflicted both on the clergy and the laity.[353]

That they contemplated a conclusive revolt from Rome as a consequence of
the refusal to pay annates, appears positively in the close of their
address: "May it please your Grace," they concluded, after detailing their
occasions for complaint,--"may it please your Grace to cause the said
unjust exactions to cease, and to be foredone for ever by act of your high
Court of Parliament; and in case the pope will make process against this
realm for the attaining those annates, or else will retain bishops' bulls
till the annates be paid; forasmuch as the exaction of the said annates is
against the law of God and the pope's own laws, forbidding the buying or
selling of spiritual gifts or promotions; and forasmuch as all good
Christian men be more bound to obey God than any man; and forasmuch as St.
Paul willeth us to withdraw from all such as walk inordinately; may it
please your Highness to ordain in this present parliament that the
obedience of your Highness and of the people be withdrawn from the See of
Rome."[354]

It was perhaps cruel to compel the clergy to be the first to mention
separation--or the language may have been furnished by the Erastian party
in the Church, who hoped to gratify the King by it, and save the annates
for themselves; but there was no intention, if the battle was really to be
fought, of decorating the clergy with the spoils. The bill was passed, but
passed conditionally, leaving power to the Crown if the pope would consent
to a compromise of settling the question by a composition. There was a
Papal party in the House of Commons whose opposition had perhaps to be
considered,[355] and the annates were left suspended before Clement at once
as a menace and a bribe.

"Forasmuch," concluded the statute, "as the King's Highness and this his
high Court of Parliament neither have nor do intend in this or any other
like cause any manner of extremity or violence, before gentle courtesy and
friendly ways and means be first approved and attempted, and without a very
great urgent cause and occasion given to the contrary; but principally
coveting to disburden this Realm of the said great exactions and
intolerable charges of annates and firstfruits: [the said Court of
Parliament] have therefore thought convenient to commit the final order and
determination of the premises unto the King's Highness, so that if it may
seem to his high wisdom and most prudent discretion meet to move the Pope's
Holiness and the Court of Rome, amicably, charitably, and reasonably, to
compound either to extinct the said annates, or by some friendly, loving,
and tolerable composition to moderate the same in such way as may be by
this his Realm easily borne and sustained, then those ways of composition
once taken shall stand in the strength, force, and effect of a law."[356]

The business of the session was closing. It remained to receive the reply
of convocation on the limitation of its powers. The convocation, presuming,
perhaps, upon its concessions on the annates question, and untamed by the
premunire, had framed their answer in the same spirit which had been
previously exhibited by the bishops. They had re-asserted their claims as
resting on divine authority, and had declined to acknowledge the right of
any secular power to restrain or meddle with them.[357] The second answer,
as may be supposed, fared no better than the first. It was returned with a
peremptory demand for submission; and taught by experience the uselessness
of further opposition, the clergy with a bad grace complied. The form was
again drawn by the bishops, and it is amusing to trace the workings of
their humbled spirit in their reluctant descent from their high estate.
They still laboured to protect their dignity in the terms of their
concession:--

"As concerning such constitutions and ordinances provincial," they wrote,
"as shall be made hereafter by your most humble subjects, we having our
special trust and confidence in your most excellent wisdom, your princely
goodness, and fervent zeal for the promotion of God's honour and Christian
religion, and specially in your incomparable learning far exceeding in our
judgment the learning of all other kings and princes that we have read of;
and not doubting but that the same should still continue and daily increase
in your Majesty; do offer and promise here unto the same, that from
henceforth we shall forbear to enact, promulge, or put in execution any
such constitutions and ordinances so by us to be made in time coming,
unless your Highness by your Royal assent shall license us to make,
promulge, and execute such constitutions, and the same so made be approved
by your Highness's authority.

"And whereas your Highness's most honourable Commons do pretend that divers
of the constitutions provincial, which have been heretofore enacted, be not
only much prejudicial to your Highness's prerogative royal, but be also
overmuch onerous to your said Commons, we, your most humble servants for
the consideration before said, be contented to refer all the said
constitutions to the judgment of your Grace only. And whatsoever of the
same shall finally be found prejudicial and overmuch onerous as is
pretended, we offer and promise your Highness to moderate or utterly to
abrogate and annul the same, according to the judgment of your Grace.
Saving to us always such liberties and immunities of this Church of England
as hath been granted unto the same by the goodness and benignity of your
Highness and of others your most noble progenitors; with such constitutions
provincial as do stand with the laws of Almighty God and of your Realm
heretofore made, which we most humbly beseech your Grace to ratify and
approve by your most Royal assent for the better execution of the same in
times to come."[358]

The acknowledgment appeared to be complete, and might perhaps have been
accepted without minute examination, except for the imprudent acuteness of
the Lower House of Convocation. As it passed through their hands, they
discovered--what had no doubt been intended as a loophole for future
evasion--that the grounds which were alleged to excuse the submission were
the virtues of the reigning king: and therefore, as they sagaciously
argued, the submission must only remain in force for his life. They
introduced a limitation to that effect. Some further paltry dabbling was
also attempted with the phraseology: and at length, impatient with such
dishonest trifling, and weary of a discussion in which they had resolved to
allow but one conclusion, the king and the legislature thought it well to
interfere with a high hand, and cut short such unprofitable folly. The
language of the bishops was converted into an act of parliament; a mixed
commission was appointed to revise the canon law, and the clergy with a few
brief strokes were reduced for ever into their fit position of
subjects.[359] Thus with a moderate hand this great revolution was
effected, and, to outward appearance, with offence to none except the
sufferers, whose misuse of power when they possessed it deprived them of
all sympathy in their fall.

But no change of so vast a kind can be other than a stone of stumbling to
those many persons for whom the beaten ways of life alone are tolerable,
and who, when these ways are broken, are bewildered and lost. Religion,
when men are under its influence at all, so absorbs their senses, and so
pervades all their associations, that no faults in the ministers of it can
divest their persons of reverence; and just and necessary as all these
alterations were, many a pious and noble heart was wounded, many a man was
asking himself in his perplexity where things would end, and still more
sadly, where, if these quarrels deepened, would lie his own duty. Now the
Nun of Kent grew louder in her Cassandra wailings. Now the mendicant friars
mounted the pulpits exclaiming sacrilege; bold men, who feared nothing that
men could do to them, and who dared in the king's own presence, and in his
own chapel, to denounce him by name.[360] The sacred associations of twelve
centuries were tumbling into ruin; and hot and angry as men had been before
the work began, the hearts of numbers sank in them when they "saw what was
done;" and they fell away slowly to doubt, disaffection, distrust, and at
last treason.

The first outward symptom of importance pointing in this direction, was the
resignation of the seals by Sir Thomas More.[361] More had not been an
illiberal man; when he wrote the _Utopia_, he seemed even to be in advance
of his time. None could see the rogue's face under the cowl clearer than
he, or the proud bad heart under the scarlet hat; and few men had ventured
to speak their thoughts more boldly. But there was in More a want of
confidence in human nature, a scorn of the follies of his fellow creatures
which, as he became more earnestly religious, narrowed and hardened his
convictions, and transformed the genial philosopher into the merciless
bigot. "Heresy" was naturally hateful to him; his mind was too clear and
genuine to allow him to deceive himself with the delusions of Anglicanism;
and as he saw the inevitable tendency of the Reformation to lead ultimately
to a change of doctrine, he attached himself with increasing determination
to the cause of the pope and of the old faith. As if with an instinctive
prescience of what would follow from it, he had from the first been opposed
to the divorce; and he had not concealed his feeling from the king at the
time when the latter had pressed the seals on his unwilling acceptance. In
consenting to become chancellor, he had yielded only to Henry's entreaties;
he had held his office for two years and a half--and it would have been
well for his memory if he had been constant in his refusal--for in his
ineffectual struggles against the stream, he had attempted to counterpoise
the attack upon the church by destroying the unhappy Protestants. At the
close of the session, however, the acts of which we have just described, he
felt that he must no longer countenance, by remaining in an office so near
to the crown, measures which he so intensely disapproved and deplored; it
was time for him to retire from a world not moving to his mind; and in the
fair tranquillity of his family prepare himself for the evil days which he
foresaw. In May, 1532, he petitioned for permission to resign, resting his
request unobtrusively on failing health; and Henry sadly consented to lose
his services.

Parallel to More's retirement, and though less important, yet still
noticeable, is a proceeding of old Archbishop Warham under the same trying
circumstances. In the days of his prosperity, Warham had never reached to
greatness as a man. He had been a great ecclesiastic, successful,
dignified, important, but without those highest qualities which command
respect or interest. The iniquities of Warham's spiritual courts were
greater than those of any other in England. He had not made them what they
were. They grew by their own proper corruption; and he was no more
responsible for them than every man is responsible for the continuance of
an evil by which he profits, and which he has power to remedy. We must look
upon him as the leader of the bishops in their opposition to the reform;
and he was the probable author of the famous answer to the Commons'
petition, which led to such momentous consequences.[362] These consequences
he had lived partially to see. Powerless to struggle against the stream, he
had seen swept away one by one those gigantic privileges to which he had
asserted for his order a claim divinely sanctioned; and he withdrew himself
heartbroken, into his palace at Lambeth, and there entered his solemn
protest against all which had been done. Too ill to write, and trembling on
the edge of the grave, he dictated to his notaries from his bed these not
unaffecting words:--

"In the name of God, Amen. We, William, by Divine Providence Archbishop of
Canterbury, Primate of all England, Legate of the Apostolic See, hereby
publicly and expressly do protest for ourselves and for our Holy
Metropolitan Church of Canterbury, that to any statute passed or hereafter
to be passed in this present Parliament, began the third of November, 1529,
and continued until this present time; in so far as such statute or
statutes be in derogation of the Pope of Rome or the Apostolic See, or be
to the hurt, prejudice, or limitation of the powers of the Church, or shall
tend to the subverting, enervating, derogating from, or diminishing the
laws, customs, privileges, prerogatives, pre-eminence of liberties of our
Metropolitan Church of Canterbury; we neither will, nor intend, nor with
clear conscience are able to consent to the same, but by these writings we
do dissent from, refuse, and contradict them."[363]

Thus formally having delivered his soul, he laid himself down and died.




CHAPTER V

MARRIAGE OF HENRY AND ANNE BOLEYN

Although in the question of the divorce the king had interfered
despotically to control the judgment of the universities, he had made no
attempt, as we have seen, to check the tongues of the clergy. Nor if he had
desired to check them, is it likely that at the present stage of
proceedings he could have succeeded. No law had as yet been passed which
made a crime of a difference of opinion on the pope's dispensing powers;
and so long as no definitive sentence had been pronounced, every one had
free liberty to think and speak as he pleased. So great, indeed, was the
anxiety to disprove Catherine's assertion that England was a _locus
suspectus_, and therefore that the cause could not be equitably tried
there, that even in the distribution of patronage there was an ostentatious
display of impartiality. Not only had Sir Thomas More been made chancellor,
although emphatically on Catherine's side; but Cuthbert Tunstal, who had
been her counsel, was promoted to the see of Durham. The Nun of Kent, if
her word was to be believed, had been offered an abbey,[364] and that Henry
permitted language to pass unnoticed of the most uncontrolled violence,
appears from a multitude of informations which were forwarded to the
government from all parts of the country. But while imposing no restraint
on the expression of opinion, the council were careful to keep themselves
well informed of the opinions which were expressed, and an instrument was
ready made to their hands, which placed them in easy possession of what
they desired. Among the many abominable practices which had been introduced
by the ecclesiastical courts, not the least hateful was the system of
espionage with which they had saturated English society; encouraging
servants to be spies on their masters, children on their parents,
neighbours on their neighbours, inviting every one who heard language
spoken anywhere of doubtful allegiance to the church, to report the words
to the nearest official, as an occasion of instant process. It is not
without a feeling of satisfaction, that we find this detestable invention
recoiling upon the heads of its authors. Those who had so long suffered
under it, found an opportunity in the turning tide, of revenging themselves
on their oppressors; and the country was covered with a ready-made army of
spies, who, with ears ever open, were on the watch for impatient or
disaffected language in their clerical superiors, and furnished steady
reports of such language to Cromwell.[365]

Specimens of these informations will throw curious light on the feelings of
a portion at least of the people. The English licence of speech, if not
recognised to the same extent as it is at present, was certainly as fully
practised. On the return of the Abbot of Whitby from the convocation at
York in the summer of 1532, when the premunire money was voted, the
following conversation was reported as having been overheard in the abbey.

The prior of the convent asked the abbot what the news were. "What news,"
said the abbot, "evil news. The king is ruled by a common ---- Anne Boleyn,
who has made all the spiritualty to be beggared, and the temporalty also.
Further he told the prior of a sermon that he had heard in York, in which
it was said, when a great wind rose in the west we should hear news. And he
asked what that was; and he said a great man told him at York, and if he
knew as much as three in England he would tell what the news were. And he
said who were they? and he said the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Wiltshire,
and the common ---- Anne Boleyn."[366]

The dates of these papers cannot always be determined; this which follows,
probably, is something later, but it shows the general temper in which the
clergy were disposed to meet the measures of the government.

"Robert Legate, friar of Furness, deposeth that the monks had a prophecy
among them, that 'in England shall be slain the decorate rose in his
mother's belly,' and this they interpret of his Majesty, saying that his
Majesty shall die by the hands of priests; for the church is the mother,
and the church shall slay his Grace. The said Robert maintaineth that he
hath heard the monks often say this. Also, it is said among them that the
King's Grace was not the right heir to the crown; for that his Grace's
father came in by no line, but by the sword. Also, that no secular knave
should be head of the church; also that the abbot did know of these
treasons, and had made no report thereof."[367]

Nor was it only in the remote abbeys of the North that such dangerous
language was ventured. The pulpit of St. Paul's rang Sunday after Sunday
with the polemics of the divorce; and if "the holy water of the court" made
the higher clergy cringing and cowardly, the rank and file, even in London
itself, showed a bold English front, and spoke out their thoughts with
entire recklessness. Among the preachers on Catherine's side, Father
Forest, famous afterward in Catholic martyrologies, began to distinguish
himself. Forest was warden of a convent of Observants at Greenwich attached
to the royal chapel, and having been Catherine's confessor, remained, with
the majority of the friars, faithful to her interests, and fearless in the
assertion of them. From their connection with the palace, the intercourse
of these monks with the royal household was considerable; their position
gave them influence, and Anne Boleyn tried the power of her charms, if
possible, to gain them over. She had succeeded with a few of the weaker
brothers, but she was unable (and her inability speaks remarkably for
Henry's endurance of opposition through the early stages of the
controversy) to protect those whose services she had won from the anger of
their superiors. One monk in whom she was interested the warden
imprisoned,[368] another there was an effort to expel,[369] because he was
ready to preach on her side; and Forest himself preached a violent sermon
at Paul's Cross, attacking Cromwell and indirectly the king.[370] He was
sent for to the court, and the persecuted brothers expected their triumph;
but he returned, as one of them wrote bitterly to Cromwell, having been
received with respect and favour, as if, after all, the enmity of a brave
man found more honour at the court than the complacency of cowardice.
Father Forest, says this letter, has been with the king. "He says he spake
with the king for half an hour and more, and was well retained by his
Grace; and the King's Grace did send him a great piece of beef from his own
table; and also he met with my Lord of Norfolk, and he says he took him in
his arms and bade him welcome."[371]

Forest, unfortunately for himself, misconstrued forbearance into fear, and
went his way at last, through treason and perjury, to the stake. In the
meantime the Observants were left in possession of the royal chapel, the
weak brother died in prison, and the king, when at Greenwich, continued to
attend service, submitting to listen, as long as submission was possible,
to the admonitions which the friars used the opportunity to deliver to him.

In these more courteous days we can form little conception of the licence
which preachers in the sixteenth century allowed themselves, or the
language which persons in high authority were often obliged to bear.
Latimer spoke as freely to Henry VIII. of neglected duties, as to the
peasants in his Wiltshire parish. St. Ambrose did not rebuke the Emperor
Theodosius more haughtily than John Knox lectured Queen Mary and her
ministers on the vanities of Holyrood; and Catholic priests, it seems, were
not afraid to display even louder disrespect.

On Sunday, the first of May, 1532, the pulpit at Greenwich was occupied by
Father Peto, afterwards Cardinal Peto, famous through Europe as a Catholic
incendiary; but at this time an undistinguished brother of the Observants
convent. His sermon had been upon the story of Ahab and Naboth, and his
text had been, "Where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall
they lick thy blood, O king." Henry, the court, and most likely Anne Boleyn
herself, were present; the first of May being the great holy-day of the
English year, and always observed at Greenwich with peculiar splendour.
The preacher had dilated at length upon the crimes and the fall of Ahab,
and had drawn the portrait in all its magnificent wickedness.  He had
described the scene in the court of heaven, and spoken of the lying
prophets who had mocked the monarch's hopes before the fatal battle. At the
end, he turned directly to Henry, and assuming to himself the mission of
Micaiah, he closed his address in the following audacious words:--"And now,
O king," he said, "hear what I say to thee.  I am that Micaiah whom thou
wilt hate, because I must tell thee truly that this marriage is unlawful,
and I know that I shall eat the bread of affliction and drink the waters of
sorrow, yet because the Lord hath put it in my mouth I must speak it.
There are other preachers, yea too many, which preach and persuade thee
otherwise, feeding they folly and frail affections upon hopes of their own
worldly promotion; and by that means they betray thy soul, thy honour, and
thy posterity; to obtain fat benefices, to become rich abbots and bishops,
and I know not what.  These I say are the four hundred prophets who, in the
spirit of lying, seek to deceive thee.  Take heed lest thou, being seduced,
find Ahab's punishment, who had his blood licked up by the dogs."

Henry must have been compelled to listen to many such invectives. He left
the chapel without noticing what had passed; and in the course of the week
Peto went down from Greenwich to attend a provincial council at Canterbury,
and perhaps to communicate with the Nun of Kent. Meantime a certain Dr.
Kirwan was commissioned to preach on the other side of the question the
following Sunday.

Kirwan was one of those men of whom the preacher spoke prophetically, since
by the present and similar services he made his way to the archbishopric of
Dublin and the bishopric of Oxford, and accepting the Erastian theory of a
Christian's duty, followed Edward VI. into heresy, and Mary into popery and
persecution. He regarded himself as an official of the state religion; and
his highest conception of evil in a Christian was disobedience to the
reigning authority. We may therefore conceive easily the burden of his
sermon in the royal chapel. "He most sharply reprehended Peto," calling him
foul names, "dog, slanderer, base beggarly friar, rebel, and traitor,"
saying "that no subject should speak so audaciously to his prince:" he
"commended" Henry's intended marriage, "thereby to establish his seed in
his seat for ever;" and having won, as he supposed, his facile victory, he
proceeded with his peroration, addressing his absent antagonist. "I speak
to thee, Peto," he exclaimed, "to thee, Peto, which makest thyself Micaiah,
that thou mayest speak evil of kings; but now art not to be found, being
fled for fear and shame, as unable to answer my argument." In the royal
chapel at Greenwich there was more reality than decorum. A voice out of the
rood-loft cut short the eloquent declamation. "Good sir," it said, "you
know Father Peto is gone to Canterbury to a provincial council, and not
fled for fear of you; for to-morrow he will return again. In the meantime I
am here as another Micaiah, and will lay down my life to prove those things
true which he hath taught. And to this combat I challenge thee; thee
Kirwan, I say, who art one of the four hundred into whom the spirit of
lying is entered, and thou seekest by adultery to establish the succession,
betraying thy king for thy own vain glory into endless perdition."

A scene of confusion followed, which was allayed at last by the king
himself, who rose from his seat and commanded silence. It was thought that
the limit of permissible licence had been transcended, and the following
day Peto and Elstowe, the other speaker, were summoned before the council
to receive a reprimand. Lord Essex told them they deserved to be sewn into
a sack and thrown into the Thames. "Threaten such things to rich and dainty
folk, which have their hope in this world," answered Elstowe, gallantly,
"we fear them not; with thanks to God we know the way to heaven to be as
ready by water as by land."[372] Men of such metal might be broken, but
they could not be bent. The two offenders were hopelessly unrepentant and
impracticable, and it was found necessary to banish them. They retired to
Antwerp, where we find them the following year busy procuring copies of the
Bishop of Rochester's book against the king, which was broadly disseminated
on the continent, and secretly transmitting them into England; in close
correspondence also with Fisher himself, with Sir Thomas More, and for the
ill fortune of their friends, with the court at Brussels, between which and
the English Catholics the intercourse was dangerously growing.[373]

The Greenwich friars, with their warden, went also a bad way. The death of
the persecuted brother was attended with circumstances in a high degree
suspicious.[374] Henry ordered an enquiry, which did not terminate in any
actual exposure; but a cloud hung over the convent, which refused to be
dispelled; the warden was deposed, and soon after it was found necessary to
dissolve the order.

If the English monks had shared as a body the character of the Greenwich
Observants, of the Carthusians of London and Richmond, and of some other
establishments,--which may easily be numbered,--the resistance which they
might have offered to the government, with the sympathy which it would have
commanded, would have formed an obstacle to the Reformation that no power
could have overcome. It was time, however, for the dissolution of the
monasteries, when the few among them, which on other grounds might have
claimed a right to survive, were driven by their very virtues into treason.
The majority perished of their proper worthlessness; the few remaining
contrived to make their existence incompatible with the safety of the
state.

Leaving for the present these disorders to mature themselves, I must now
return to the weary chapter of European diplomacy, to trace the tortuous
course of popes and princes, duping one another with false hopes; saying
what they did not mean, and meaning what they did not say. It is a very
Slough of Despond, through which we must plunge desperately as we may; and
we can cheer ourselves in this dismal region only by the knowledge that,
although we are now approaching the spot where the mire is deepest, the
hard ground is immediately beyond.

We shall, perhaps, be able most readily to comprehend the position of the
various parties in Europe, by placing them before us as they stood
severally in the summer of 1532, and defining briefly the object which each
was pursuing.

Henry only, among the great powers, laid his conduct open to the world,
declaring truly what he desired, and seeking it by open means. He was
determined to proceed with the divorce, and he was determined also to
continue the Reformation of the English Church. If consistently with these
two objects he could avoid a rupture with the pope, he was sincerely
anxious to avoid it. He was ready to make great efforts, to risk great
sacrifices, to do anything short of surrendering what he considered of
vital moment, to remain upon good terms with the See of Rome. If his
efforts failed, and a quarrel was inevitable, he desired to secure himself
by a close maintenance of the French alliance; and having induced Francis
to urge compliance upon the pope by a threat of separation if he refused,
to prevail on him, in the event of the pope's continued obstinacy, to put
his threat in execution, and unite with England in a common schism. All
this is plain and straightforward--Henry concealed nothing, and, in fact,
had nothing to conceal. In his threats, his promises, and his entreaties,
we feel entire certainty that he was speaking his real thoughts.

The emperor's position, also, though not equally simple, is intelligible,
and commands our respect. Although if he had consented to sacrifice his
aunt, he might have spared himself serious embarrassment; although both by
the pope and by the consistory such a resolution would probably have been
welcomed with passionate thankfulness; yet at all hazards Charles was
determined to make her his first object, even with the risk of convulsing
Europe. At the same time his position was encumbered with difficulty. The
Turks were pressing upon him in Hungary and in the Mediterranean; his
relations with Francis--fortunately for the prospects of the
Reformation--were those of inveterate hostility; while in Germany he had
been driven to make terms with the Protestant princes; he had offended the
pope by promising them a general council, in which the Lutheran divines
should be represented; and the pope, taught by recent experience, was made
to fear that these symptoms of favour towards heresy, might convert
themselves into open support.

With Francis the prevailing feeling was rivalry with the emperor, combined
with an eager desire to recover his influence in Italy, and to restore
France to the position in Europe which had been lost by the defeat of
Pavia, and the failure of Lautrec at Naples. This was his first object, to
which every other was subsidiary. He was disinclined to a rupture with the
pope; but the possibility of such a rupture had been long contemplated by
French statesmen. It was a contingency which the pope feared:--which the
hopes of Henry pictured as more likely than it was--and Francis, like his
rivals in the European system, held the menace of it extended over the
chair of St. Peter, to coerce its unhappy occupant into compliance with his
wishes. With respect to Henry's divorce, his conduct to the University of
Paris, and his assurances repeated voluntarily on many occasions, show that
he was sincerely desirous to forward it. He did not care for Henry, or for
England, or for the cause itself; he desired only to make the breach
between Henry and Charles irreparable; to make it impossible for ever that
"his two great rivals" should become friends together; and by inducing the
pope to consent to the English demand, to detach the court of Rome
conclusively from the imperial interests.

The two princes who disputed the supremacy of Europe, were intriguing one
against the other, each desiring to constitute himself the champion of the
church; and to compel the church to accept his services, by the threat of
passing over to her enemies. By a dexterous use of the cards which were in
his hands, the King of France proposed to secure one of two alternatives.
Either he would form a league between himself, Henry, and the pope, against
the emperor, of which the divorce, and the consent to it, which he would
extort from Clement, should be the cement; or, if this failed him, he would
avail himself of the vantage ground which was given to him by the English
alliance to obtain such concessions for himself at the emperor's expense as
the pope could be induced to make, and the emperor to tolerate.

Such, in so far as I can unravel the web of the diplomatic correspondence,
appear to have been the open positions and the secret purposes of the great
European powers.

There remains the fourth figure upon the board, the pope himself, labouring
with such means as were at his disposal to watch over the interests of the
church, and to neutralise the destructive ambition of the princes, by
playing upon their respective selfishnesses. On the central question, that
of the divorce, his position was briefly this. Both the emperor and Henry
pressed for a decision. If he decided for Henry, he lost Germany; if he
decided for Catherine, while Henry was supported by Francis, France and
England threatened both to fall from him. It was therefore necessary for
him to induce the emperor to consent to delay, while he worked upon the
King of France; and, if France and England could once be separated, he
trusted that Henry would yield in despair. This most subtle and difficult
policy reveals itself in the transactions open and secret of the ensuing
years. It was followed with a dexterity as extraordinary as its
unscrupulousness, and with all but perfect success. That it failed at all,
in the ordinary sense of failure, was due to the accidental delay of a
courier; and Clement, while he succeeded in preserving the allegiance of
France to the Roman see, succeeded also--and this is no small thing to have
accomplished--in weaving the most curious tissue of falsehood which will be
met with even in the fertile pages of Italian subtlety.

With this general understanding of the relation between the great parties
in the drama, let us look to their exact position in the summer of 1532.

Charles was engaged in repelling an invasion of the Turks, with an
anarchical Germany in his rear, seething with fanatical anabaptists, and
clamouring for a general council.

Henry and Francis had been called upon to furnish a contingent against
Solyman, and had declined to act with the emperor. They had undertaken to
concert their own measures between themselves, if it proved necessary for
them to move; and in the meantime Cardinal Grammont and Cardinal Tournon
were sent by Francis to Rome, to inform Clement that unless he gave a
verdict in Henry's favour, the Kings of France and England, being _une
mesme chose_, would pursue some policy with respect to him,[375] to which
he would regret that he had compelled them to have recourse. So far their
instructions were avowed and open. A private message revealed the secret
means by which the pope might escape from his dilemma; the cardinals were
to negotiate a marriage between the Duke of Orleans and the pope's niece
(afterwards so infamously famous), Catherine de Medicis. The marriage, as
Francis represented it to Henry, was beneath the dignity of a prince of
France, he had consented to it, as he professed, only for Henry's
sake;[376] but the pope had made it palatable by a secret article in the
engagement, for the grant of the duchy of Milan as the lady's dowry.

Henry, threatened as we have seen with domestic disturbance, and with
further danger on the side of Scotland, which Charles had succeeded in
agitating, concluded, on the 23rd of June, a league, offensive and
defensive, with Francis, the latter engaging to send a fleet into the
Channel, and to land 15,000 troops in England if the emperor should attempt
an invasion from the sea.[378] For the better consolidation of this league,
and to consult upon the measures which they would pursue on the great
questions at issue in Christendom, and lastly to come to a final
understanding on the divorce, it was agreed further that in the autumn the
two kings should meet at Calais. The conditions of the interview were still
unarranged on the 22nd of July, when the Bishop of Paris, who remained
ambassador at the English court, wrote to Montmorency to suggest that Anne
Boleyn should be invited to accompany the King of England on this occasion,
and that she should be received in state. The letter was dated from
Ampthill, to which Henry had escaped for a while from his Greenwich friars
and other troubles, and where the king was staying a few weeks before the
house was given up to Queen Catherine. Anne Boleyn was with him; she now,
as a matter of course, attended him everywhere. Intending her, as he did,
to be the mother of the future heir to his crown, he preserved what is
technically called her honour unimpeached and unimpaired. In all other
respects she occupied the position and received the homage due to the
actual wife of the English sovereign; and in this capacity it was the
desire of Henry that she should be acknowledged by a foreign prince.

The bishop's letter on this occasion is singularly interesting and
descriptive. The court were out hunting, he said, every day; and while the
king was pursuing the heat of the chase, he and Mademoiselle Anne were
posted together, each with a crossbow, at the point to which the deer was
to be driven. The young lady, in order that the appearance of her reverend
cavalier might correspond with his occupation, had made him a present of a
hunting cap and frock, a horn and a greyhound. Her invitation to Calais he
pressed with great earnestness, and suggested that Marguerite de Valois,
the Queen of Navarre, should be brought down to entertain her. The Queen of
France being a Spaniard, would not, he thought, be welcome: "the sight of a
Spanish dress being as hateful in the King of England's eyes as the devil
himself." In other respects the reception should be as magnificent as
possible, "and I beseech you," he concluded, "keep out of the court, _deux
sortes de gens_, the imperialists, and the wits and mockers; the English
can endure neither of them."[379]

Through the tone of this language the contempt is easily visible with which
the affair was regarded in the French court. But for Francis to receive in
public the rival of Queen Catherine, to admit her into his family, and to
bring his sister from Paris to entertain her, was to declare in the face of
Europe, in a manner which would leave no doubt of his sincerity, that he
intended to countenance Henry. With this view only was the reception of
Anne desired by the King of England; with this view it was recommended by
the bishop, and assented to by the French court. Nor was this the only
proof which Francis was prepared to give, that he was in earnest. He had
promised to distribute forty thousand crowns at Rome, in bribing cardinals
to give their voices for Henry in the consistory, with other possible
benefactions.[380]

He had further volunteered his good offices with the court of Scotland,
where matters were growing serious, and where his influence could be used
to great advantage. The ability of James the Fifth to injure Henry happily
fell short of his inclination, but encouraged by secret promises from
Clement and from the emperor, he was waiting his opportunity to cross the
Border with an army; and in the meantime he was feeding with efficient
support a rebellion in Ireland. Of what was occurring at this time in that
perennially miserable country I shall speak in a separate chapter. It is
here sufficient to mention, that on the 23rd of August, Henry received
information that McConnell of the Isles, after receiving knighthood from
James, had been despatched into Ulster with four thousand men,[381] and was
followed by Mackane with seven thousand more on the 3rd of September.[382]
Peace with England nominally continued; but the Kers, the Humes, the Scotts
of Buccleugh, the advanced guard of the Marches, were nightly making forays
across the Border, and open hostilities appeared to be on the point of
explosion.[383] If war was to follow, Henry was prepared for it. He had a
powerful force at Berwick, and in Scotland itself a large party were
secretly attached to the English interests. The clan of Douglas, with their
adherents, were even prepared for open revolt, and open transfer of
allegiance.[384] But, although Scottish nobles might be gained over, and
Scottish armies might be defeated in the field, Scotland itself, as the
experience of centuries had proved, could never be conquered. The policy of
the Tudors had been to abstain from aggression, till time should have
soothed down the inherited animosity between the two countries; and Henry
was unwilling to be forced into extremities which might revive the bitter
memories of Flodden. The Northern counties also, in spite of their Border
prejudices, were the stronghold of the papal party, and it was doubtful how
far their allegiance could be counted upon in the event of an invasion
sanctioned by the pope. The hands of the English government were already
full without superadded embarrassment, and the offered mediation of Francis
was gratefully welcomed.

These were the circumstances under which the second great interview was to
take place between Francis the First and Henry of England.[385] Twelve
years had passed since their last meeting, and the experience which those
years had brought to both of them, had probably subdued their inclination
for splendid pageantry. Nevertheless, in honour of the occasion, some faint
revival was attempted of the magnificence of the Field of the Cloth of
Gold. Anne Boleyn was invited duly; and the Queen of Navarre, as the Bishop
of Paris recommended, came down to Boulogne to receive her. The French
princes came also to thank Henry in person for their deliverance out of
their Spanish prison; and he too, on his side, brought with him his young
Marcellus, the Duke of Richmond, his only son--illegitimate
unfortunately--but whose beauty and noble promise were at once his father's
misery and pride; giving point to his bitterness at the loss of his sons by
Catherine; quickening his hopes of what might be, and deepening his
discontent with that which was. If this boy had lived, he would have been
named to follow Edward the Sixth in the succession, and would have been
King of England;[386] but he too passed away in the flower of his
loveliness, one more evidence of the blight which rested upon the stem of
the Tudors.

The English court was entertained by Francis at Boulogne. The French court
was received in return at Calais by the English. The outward description of
the scene, the magnificent train of the princes, the tournaments, the
feasts, the dances, will be found minutely given in the pages of Hall, and
need not be repeated here. To Hall indeed, the outward life of men, their
exploits in war, and their pageantries in peace, alone had meaning or
interest; and the backstairs secrets of Vatican diplomacy, the questionings
of opinion, and all the brood of mental sicknesses then beginning to
distract the world, were but impertinent interferences with the true
business of existence. But the healthy objectiveness of an old English
chronicler is no longer possible for us; we may envy where we cannot
imitate; and our business is with such features of the story as are of
moment to ourselves.

The political questions which were to be debated at the conference, were
three; the Turkish Invasion, the General Council, and King Henry's divorce.

On the first, it was decided that there was no immediate occasion for
France and England to move. Solyman's retreat from Vienna had relieved
Europe from present peril; and the enormous losses which he had suffered,
might prevent him from repeating the experiment. If the danger became again
imminent, however, the two kings agreed to take the field in person the
following year at the head of eighty thousand men.

On the second point they came to no conclusion, but resolved only to act in
common.

On the third and most important, they parted with a belief that they
understood each other; but their memories, or the memory of one of them,
proved subsequently treacherous; and we can only extract what passed
between them out of their mutual recriminations.

It was determined certainly that at the earliest convenient moment, a
meeting should take place between the pope and Francis; and that at this
meeting Francis should urge in person concession to Henry's demands. If the
pope professed himself unable to risk the displeasure of the emperor, it
should be suggested that he might return to Avignon, where he would be
secure under the protection of France and England. If he was still
reluctant, and persisted in asserting his right to compel Henry to plead
before him at Rome, or if he followed up his citations by inhibitions,
suspensions, excommunications, or other form of censure, Francis declared
that he would support Henry to the last, whether against the pope himself
or against any prince or potentate who might attempt to enforce the
sentence. On this point the promises of the King of France were most
profuse and decided; and although it was not expressly stated in words,
Henry seems to have persuaded himself that, if the pope pressed matters to
extremities, Francis had engaged further that the two countries should
pursue a common course, and unite in a common schism. The two princes did
in fact agree, that if the general council which they desired was refused,
they would summon provincial councils on their own authority. Each of them
perhaps interpreted their engagements by their own wishes or
interests.[387]

We may further believe, since it was affirmed by Henry, and not denied by
Francis, that the latter advised Henry to bring the dispute to a close, by
a measure from which he could not recede; that he recommended him to act on
the general opinion of Europe that his marriage with Queen Catherine was
null, and at once upon his return to England to make Anne Boleyn his
wife.[388]

So far the account is clear. This advice was certainly given, and as
certainly Francis undertook to support Henry through all the consequences
in which the marriage might involve him. But a league for mutual defence
fell short of what Henry desired, and fell short also of what Francis, by
the warmth of his manner, had induced Henry for the moment to believe that
he meant. It is probable that the latter pressed upon him engagements which
he avoided by taking refuge in general professions; and no sooner had Henry
returned to England, than either misgivings occurred to him as to the
substantial results of the interview, or he was anxious to make the French
king commit himself more definitely. He sent to him to beg that he would
either write out, or dictate and sign, the expressions which he had used;
professing to wish it only for the comfort which he would derive from the
continual presence of such refreshing words--but surely for some deeper
reason.[389]

Francis had perhaps said more than he meant; Henry supposed him to have
meant more than he said. Yet some promise was made, which was not
afterwards observed; and Francis acknowledged some engagement in an apology
which he offered for the breach of it. He asserted, in defence of himself,
that he had added a stipulation which Henry passed over in silence,--that
no steps should be taken towards annulling the marriage with Catherine in
the English law courts until the effect had been seen of his interview with
the pope, provided the pope on his side remained similarly inactive.[390]
Whatever it was which he had bound himself to do, this condition, if made
at all, could be reconciled only with his advice that Henry should marry
Anne Boleyn without further delay, on the supposition that the interview in
question was to take place immediately; for the natural consequences of the
second marriage would involve, as a matter of course, some speedy legal
declaration with respect to the first. And when on various pretexts the
pope postponed the meeting, and on the other part of his suggestion Henry
had acted within a few months of his return from Calais, it became
impossible that such a condition could be observed. It availed for a formal
excuse; but Francis vainly endeavoured to disguise his own infirmity of
purpose behind the language of a negotiation which conveyed, when it was
used, a meaning widely different.

The conference was concluded on the 1st of November, but the court was
detained at Calais for a further fortnight by violent gales in the Channel.
In the excited state of public feeling, events in themselves ordinary
assumed a preternatural significance. The friends of Queen Catherine, to
whom the meeting between the kings was of so disastrous augury, and the
nation generally, which an accident to Henry at such a time would have
plunged into a chaos of confusion, alike watched the storm with anxious
agitation; on the king's return to London, Te Deums were offered in the
churches, as if for his deliverance from some extreme and imminent peril.
The Nun of Kent on this great occasion was admitted to conferences with
angels. She denounced the meeting, under celestial instruction, as a
conspiracy against Heaven. The king, she said, but for her interposition,
would have proceeded, while at Calais, to his impious marriage;[391] and
God was so angry with him, that he was not permitted to profane with his
unholy eyes the blessed Sacrament. "It was written in her revelations,"
says the statute of her attainder, "that when the King's Grace was at
Calais, and his Majesty and the French king were hearing mass in the Church
of Our Lady, that God was so displeased with the King's Highness, that his
Grace saw not at that time the blessed sacrament in the form of bread, for
it was taken away from the priest, being at mass, by an angel, and was
ministered to the said Elizabeth, there being present and invisible, and
suddenly conveyed and rapt thence again into the nunnery where she was
professed."[392]

She had an interview with Henry on his return through Canterbury, to try
the effect of her Cassandra presence on his fears;[393] but if he still
delayed his marriage, it was probably neither because he was frightened by
her denunciations, nor from alarm at the usual occurrence of an equinoctial
storm. Many motives combined to dissuade him from further hesitation. Six
years of trifling must have convinced him that by decisive action alone he
could force the pope to a conclusion. He was growing old, and the
exigencies of the succession, rendered doubly pressing by the long
agitation, required immediate resolution. He was himself satisfied that he
was at liberty to marry whom he pleased and when he pleased, his
relationship to Catherine, according to his recent convictions, being such
as had rendered his connection with her from the beginning invalid and
void. His own inclinations and the interests of the nation pointed to the
same course. The King of France had advised it. Even the pope himself, at
the outset of the discussion, had advised it also. "Marry freely," the pope
had said; "fear nothing, and all shall be arranged as you desire." He had
forborne to take the pope at his word; he had hoped that the justice of his
demands might open a less violent way to him; and he had shrunk from a step
which might throw even a causeless shadow over the legitimacy of the
offspring for which he longed. The case was now changed; no other
alternative seemed to be open to his choice, and it was necessary to bring
the matter to a close once and for all.

But Henry, as he said himself, was past the age when passion or appetite
would be likely to move him, and having waited so many years, he could
afford to wait a little longer, till the effects of the Calais conferences
upon the pope should have had time to show themselves. In December, Clement
was to meet the emperor at Bologna. In the month following, it might be
hoped that he would meet Francis at Marseilles or Avignon, and from their
interview would be seen conclusively the future attitude of the papal and
imperial courts. Experience of the past forbade anything like sanguine
expectation; yet it was not impossible that the pope might be compelled at
last to yield the required concessions. The terms of Henry's understanding
with Francis were not perhaps made public, but he was allowed to dictate
the language which the French cardinals were to make use of in the
consistory;[394] and the reception of Anne Boleyn by the French king was
equivalent to the most emphatic declaration that if the censures of the
church were attempted in defence of Catherine, the enforcement of them
would be resisted by the combined arms of France and England.

And the pope did in fact feel himself in a dilemma from which all his
address was required to extricate him. He had no support from his
conscience, for he knew that he was acting unjustly in refusing the
divorce; while to risk the emperor's anger, which was the only honest
course before him, was perhaps for that very reason impossible. He fell
back upon his Italian cunning, and it did not fail him in his need. But his
conduct, though creditable to his ingenuity, reflects less pleasantly on
his character; and when it is traced through all its windings, few
reasonable persons will think that they have need to blush at the causes
which led to the last breach between England and the papacy.

From the time of Catherine's appeal and the retirement of Campeggio,
Clement, with rare exceptions, had maintained an attitude of impassive
reserve. He had allowed judgment to be delayed on various pretexts, because
until that time delay had answered his purposes sufficiently. But to the
English agents he had been studiously cold, not condescending even to hold
out hopes to them that concession might be possible. Some little time
before the meeting at Calais, however, a change was observed in the
language both of the pope himself and of the consistory. The cardinals were
visibly afraid of the position which had been taken by the French king;
questions supposed to be closed were once more admitted to debate in a
manner which seemed to show that their resolution was wavering; and one
day, at the close of a long argument, the following curious conversation
took place between some person (Sir Gregory Cassalis, apparently), who
reported it to Henry, and Clement himself. "I had desired a private
interview with his Holiness," says the writer, "intending to use all my
endeavours to persuade him to satisfy your Majesty. But although I did my
best, I could obtain nothing from him; he had an answer for everything
which I advanced, and it was in vain that I laboured to remove his
difficulties. At length, however, in reply to something which I had
proposed, he said shortly,--Multo minus scandalosum fuisset dispensare cum
majestate vestrâ super duabus uxoribus, quam ea cedere quæ ego petebam, _it
would have created less scandal to have granted your Majesty a dispensation
to have two wives than to concede what I was then demanding_. As I did not
know how far this alternative would be pleasing to your Majesty, I
endeavoured to divert him from it, and to lead him back to what I had been
previously saying. He was silent for a while, and then, paying no regard to
my interruption, he continued to speak of the 'two wives,' admitting
however that there were difficulties in the way of such an arrangement,
principally it seemed because the emperor would refuse his consent from the
possible injury which it might create to his cousin's prospects of the
succession. I replied, that as to the succession, I could not see what
right the emperor had to a voice upon the matter. If some lawful means
could be discovered by which your Majesty could furnish yourself with male
offspring, the emperor could no more justly complain than if the queen were
to die and the prospects of the princess were interfered with by a second
marriage of an ordinary kind. To this the pope made no answer. I cannot
tell what your Majesty will think, nor how far this suggestion of the pope
would be pleasing to your Majesty. Nor indeed can I feel sure, in
consequence of what he said about the emperor, that he actually would grant
the dispensation of which he spoke. I have thought it right, however, to
inform you of what passed."[395]

This letter is undated, but it was written, as appears from internal
evidence, some time in the year 1532.[396]

The pope's language was ambiguous, and the writer did not allow himself to
derive from it any favourable augury; but the tone in which the suggestions
had been made was by many degrees more favourable than had been heard for a
very long time in the quarter from which they came, and the symptoms which
it promised of a change of feeling were more than confirmed in the
following winter.

Charles was to be at Bologna in the middle of December, where he was to
discuss with Clement the situation of Europe, and in particular of Germany,
with the desirableness of fulfilling the engagements into which he had
entered for a general council.

This was the avowed object of the meeting. But, however important the
question of holding a council was becoming, it was not immediately
pressing; and we cannot doubt that the disquiet occasioned by the alliance
of England and France was the cause that the conference was held at so
inconvenient a season. The pope left Rome on the 18th of November, having
in his train a person who afterwards earned for himself a dark name in
English history, Dr. Bonner, then a famous canon lawyer attached to the
embassy. The journey in the wild weather was extremely miserable; and
Bonner, whose style was as graphic as it was coarse, sent home a humorous
account of it to Cromwell.[397] Three wretched weeks the party were upon
the road, plunging through mire and water. They reached Bologna on the 8th
of December, where, four days after them, arrived Charles V. It is
important, as we shall presently see, to observe the dates of these
movements. I shall have to compare with them the successive issues of
several curious documents. On the 12th of December the pope and the emperor
met at Bologna; on the 24th Dr. Bennet, Henry's able secretary, who had
been despatched from England to be present at the conference, wrote to
report the result of his observations. He had been admitted to repeated
interviews with the pope, as well before as after the emperor's arrival;
and the language which the former made use of could only be understood, and
was of course intended to be understood, as expressing the attitude in
which he was placing himself towards the imperial faction. Bennet's letter
was as follows:--

"I have been sundry and many times with the pope, as well afore the coming
of the emperour as sythen, yet I have not at any time found his Holiness
more tractable or propense to show gratuity unto your Highness than now of
late,--insomuch that he hath more freely opened his mind than he was
accustomed, and said also that he would speak with me frankly without any
observance or respect at all. At which time, I greatly lamented (your
Highness's cause being so just) no means could be found and taken to
satisfy your Highness therein; and I said also that I doubted not but that
(if his Holiness would) ways might be found by his wisdom, now at the
emperour's being with him, to satisfy your Highness; and that done, his
Holiness should not only have your Highness in as much or more friendship
than he hath had heretofore, but also procure thereby that thing which his
Holiness hath chiefly desired, which is, as he hath said, a universal
concord among the princes of Christendom. His Holiness answered, that he
would it had cost him a joint of his hand that such a way might be
excogitate; and he said also, that the best thing which he could see to be
done therein at this present, for a preparation to that purpose, was the
thing which is contained in the first part of the cipher.[398] Speaking of
the justness of your cause, he called to his remembrance the thing which he
told me two years past; which was, that the opinion of the lawyers was more
certain, favourable, and helping to your cause than the opinion of the
divines; for he said that as far as he could perceive, the lawyers, though
they held quod Papa possit dispensare in this case, yet they commonly do
agree quod hoc fieri debeat ex maximâ causâ, adhibitâ causæ cognitione,
which in this case doth not appear; and he said, that to come to the truth
herein he had used all diligence possible, and enquired the opinion of
learned men, being of fame and indifferency both in the court here and in
other places. And his Holiness promised me that he would herein use all
good policy and dexterity to imprint the same in the emperour's head; which
done, he reckoneth many things to be invented that may be pleasant and
profitable to your Highness; adding yet that this is not to be done with a
fury, but with leisure and as occasion shall serve, lest if he should
otherwise do, he should let and hinder that good effect which peradventure
might ensue thereby."[399]

This letter has all the character of truth about it. The secretary had no
interest in deceiving Henry, and it is quite certain that, whether honestly
or not, the pope had led him to believe that his sympathies were again on
the English side, and that he was using his best endeavours to subdue the
emperor's opposition.

On the 26th of December, two days later, Sir Gregory Cassalis, who had also
followed the papal court to Bologna, wrote to the same effect. He, too, had
been with the pope, who had been very open and confidential with him. The
emperor, the pope said, had complained of the delay in the process, but he
had assured him that it was impossible for the consistory to do more than
it had done. The opinion of the theologians was on the whole against the
papal power of dispensation in cases of so close relationship; of the canon
lawyers part agreed with the theologians, and those who differed from them
were satisfied that such a power might not be exercised unless there were
most urgent cause, unless, that is, the safety of a kingdom were dependent
upon it. Such occasion he had declared that he could not find to have
existed for the dispensation granted by his predecessor. The emperor had
replied that there had been such occasion: the dispensation had been
granted to prevent war between Spain and England; and that otherwise great
calamities would have befallen both countries. But this was manifestly
untrue; and his Holiness said that he had answered, It was a pity, then,
that these causes had not been submitted at the time, as the reason for the
demand, which it was clear that they had not been: as the case stood, it
was impossible for him to proceed further. Upon which he added, "Se vidisse
Cæsarem obstupefactum." "I write the words," continued Sir Gregory,
"exactly as the pope related them to me. Whether he really spoke in this
way, I cannot tell; of this, however, I am sure, that on the day of our
conversation he had taken the blessed sacrament. He assured me further,
that he had laboured to induce the emperor to permit him to satisfy your
Majesty. I recommended him that when next the emperor spoke with him upon
the subject, he should enter at greater length on the question of
_justice_, and that some other person should be present at the conference,
that there might be no room left for suspicion."[400]

The manner of Clement was so unlike what Cassalis had been in the habit
of witnessing in him, that he was unable, as we see, wholly to persuade
himself that the change was sincere: the letter, however, was despatched
to England, and was followed in a few days by Bonner, who brought
with him the result of the pope's good will in the form of definite
propositions--instructions of similar purport having been forwarded at the
same time to the papal nuncio in England. The pope, so Henry was informed,
was now really well disposed to do what was required; he had urged upon the
emperor the necessity of concessions, and the cause might be settled in one
of two ways, to either of which he was himself ready to consent. Catherine
had appealed against judgment being passed in England, as a place which was
not indifferent. Henry had refused to allow his cause to be heard anywhere
but in his own realm; pleading first his privilege as a sovereign prince;
and secondly, his exemption as an Englishman.[401] The pope, with
appearance of openness, now suggested that Henry should either "send a
mandate requiring the remission of his cause to an indifferent place, in
which case he would himself surrender his claim to have it tried in the
courts at Rome, and would appoint a legate and two auditors to hear the
trial elsewhere;" or else, a truce of three or four years being concluded
between England, France, and Spain, the pope would "with all celerity
indict a general council, to which he would absolutely and wholly remit the
consideration of the question."[402]

Both proposals carried on their front a show of fair dealing, and if
honestly proffered, were an evidence that something more might at length be
hoped than words. But the true obstacle to a settlement lay, as had been
long evident, rather in the want of an honest will, than in legal
difficulties or uncertainty as to the justice of the cause; and while
neither of the alternatives as they stood were admissible or immediately
desirable, there were many other roads, if the point of honesty were once
made good, which would lead more readily to the desired end. Once for all
Henry could not consent to plead out of England; while an appeal to a
council would occupy more time than the condition of the country could
conveniently allow. But the offer had been courteously made; it had been
accompanied with language which might be sincere; and the king replied with
grace, and almost with cordiality; not wholly giving Clement his
confidence, but expressing a hope that he might soon be no longer justified
in withholding it. He was unable, he said, to accept the first condition,
because it was contrary to his coronation oath; "it so highly touched the
prerogative royal of the realm, that though he were minded to do it, yet
must he abstain without the assent of the court of parliament, which he
thought verily would never condescend to it."[403] The other suggestion he
did not absolutely reject, but the gathering of a council was too serious a
matter to be precipitated, and the situation of Christendom presented many
obstacles to a measure which would be useless unless it were carried
through by all the great powers in a spirit of cordial unanimity. He
trusted therefore that if the pope's intentions were really such as he
pretended to entertain, he would find some method more convenient of
proving his sincerity.

It was happy for Henry that experience had taught him to be distrustful.
Events proved too clearly that Clement's assumed alteration of tone was no
more than a manoeuvre designed to entice him to withdraw from the position
in which he had entrenched himself, and to induce him to acknowledge that
he was amenable to an earthly authority exterior to his own realm.[404] In
his offer to refer the cause to a general council, he proved that he was
insincere, when in the following year he refused to allow a council to be a
valid tribunal for the trial of it. The course which he would have followed
if the second alternative had been accepted, may be conjectured from the
measures which, as I shall presently show, he was at this very moment
secretly pursuing. Henry, however, had happily resolved that he would be
trifled with no further; he felt instinctively that only action would cut
the net in which he was entangled; and he would not hesitate any longer to
take a step which, in one way or another, must bring the weary question to
a close. If the pope meant well, he would welcome a resolution which made
further procrastination impossible; if he did not mean well, he could not
be permitted to dally further with the interests of the English nation.
Within a few days, therefore, of Bonner's return from Bologna, he took the
final step from which there was no retreat, and "somewhere about St. Paul's
day,"[405] Anne Boleyn received the prize for which she had thirsted seven
long years, in the hand of the King of England. The ceremony was private.
No authentic details are known either of the scene of it or the
circumstances under which it took place; but it is said to have been
performed by the able Rowland Lee, Bishop of Lichfield, summoned up for the
purpose from the Welsh Marches, of which he was warden. It was done,
however--in one way or other finally done--the cast was thrown, and a match
was laid to the train which now at length could explode the spell of
intrigue, and set Henry and England free.

We have arrived at a point from which the issue of the labyrinth is clearly
visible. The course of it has been very dreary; and brought in contact as
we have been with so much which is painful, so much which is discreditable
to all parties concerned, we may perhaps have lost our sense of the broad
bearings of the question in indiscriminate disgust. It will be well,
therefore, to pause for a moment to recapitulate those features of the
story which are the main indications of its character, and may serve to
guide our judgment in the censure which we shall pass.

It may be admitted, or it ought to be admitted, that if Henry VIII. had
been contented to rest his demand for a divorce merely on the interests of
the kingdom, if he had forborne, while his request was pending, to affront
the princess who had for many years been his companion and his queen; if he
had shown her that respect which her high character gave her a right to
demand, and which her situation as a stranger ought to have made it
impossible to him to refuse; his conduct would have been liable to no
imputation, and our sympathies would without reserve have been on his side.
He could not have been expected to love a person to whom he had been
married as a boy for political convenience, merely because she was his
wife; especially when she was many years his senior in age, disagreeable in
her person, and by the consciousness of it embittered in her temper. His
kingdom demanded the security of a stable succession; his conscience, it
may not be doubted, was seriously agitated by the loss of his children; and
looking upon it as the sentence of Heaven upon a connection, the legality
of which had from the first been violently disputed, he believed that he
had been living in incest, and that his misfortunes were the consequence of
it. Under these circumstances he had a full right to apply for a
divorce.[406]

The causa urgentissima of the canon law for which, by the pope's own
showing, the dispensing powers had been granted to him, had arisen in an
extreme form; and when the vital interests of England were sacrificed to
the will of a foreign prince, sufficient reason had arisen for the nation
to decline submission to so emphatic injustice, and to seek within itself
its own remedies for its own necessities. These considerations must be
allowed all their weight; and except for them, it is not to be supposed
that Henry would have permitted private distaste or inclination to induce
him to create a scandal in Europe. In his conduct, however, as in that of
most men, good was chequered with evil, and sincerity with self-deception.
Personal feeling can be traced from the first, holding a subsidiary,
indeed, but still an influential place, among his motives; and exactly so
far as he was influenced by it, his course was wrong, as the consequence
miserably proved. The position which, in his wife's presence, he assigned
to another woman, however he may have persuaded himself that Catherine had
no claim to be considered his wife, admits neither of excuse nor of
palliation; and he ought never to have shared his throne with a person who
consented to occupy that position. He was blind to the coarseness of Anne
Boleyn, because, in spite of his chivalry, his genius, his accomplishments,
in his relations with women he was without delicacy himself. He directed,
or attempted to direct, his conduct by the broad rules of what he thought
to be just; and in the wide margin of uncertain ground where rules of
action cannot be prescribed, and where men must guide themselves by
consideration for the feelings of others, he--so far as women were
concerned--was altogether or almost a stranger. Such consideration is a
virtue which can be learned only in the society of equals, where necessity
obliges men to practise it. Henry had been a king from his boyhood; he had
been surrounded by courtiers who had anticipated all his desires; and
exposed as he was to an ordeal from which no human being could have escaped
uninjured, we have more cause, after all, to admire him for those
excellences which he conquered for himself, than to blame the defects which
he retained.

But if in his private relations the king was hasty and careless, towards
the pope to whom we must now return, he exhausted all resources of
forbearance: and although, when separation from Rome was at length forced
upon him, he then permitted no half measures, and swept into his new career
with the strength of irresistible will, it was not till he had shown
resolution no less great in the endurance of indignity; and of the three
great powers in Europe, the prince who was compelled to break the unity of
the Catholic church, was evidently the only one who was capable of real
sacrifices to preserve it unbroken. Clement comprehended his reluctance,
but presumed too far upon it; and if there was sin in the "great schism" of
the Reformation, the guilt must rest where it is due. We have now to show
the reverse side of the transactions at Bologna, and explain what a person
wearing the title of his Holiness, in virtue of his supposed sanctity, had
been secretly doing.

In January, 1532, some little time before his conversation with Sir Gregory
Cassalis on the subject of the two wives, the pope had composed a pastoral
letter to Henry, which had never been issued. From its contents it would
seem to have been written on the receipt of an indignant remonstrance of
Queen Catherine, in which she had complained of her desertion by her
husband, and of the public position which had been given to her rival. She
had supposed (and it was the natural mistake of an embittered and injured
woman) that Anne Boleyn had been placed in possession of the rights of an
actual, and not only of an intended wife; and the pope, accepting her
account of the situation, had written to implore the king to abstain, so
long as the cause remained undetermined, from creating so great a scandal
in Christendom, and to restore his late queen to her place at his side.
This letter, as it was originally written, was one of Clement's happiest
compositions.[407] He abstained in it from using any expression which could
be construed into a threat: he appealed to Henry's honourable character,
which no blot had hitherto stained; and dwelling upon the general confusion
of the Christian world, he urged with temperate earnestness the ill effects
which would be produced by so open a defiance of the injunctions of the
Holy See in a person of so high a position. So far all was well. Henry had
deserved that such a letter should be written to him; and the pope was more
than justified in writing it. The letter, however, if it was sent, produced
no effect, and on the 15th of November, three days before Clement's
departure to Bologna, where he pretended (we must not forget) that he
considered Henry substantially right; he added a postscript, in a tone not
contrasting only with his words to the ambassadors, but with the language
of the brief itself.

Again urging Henry's delinquencies, his separation from his wife, and the
scandal of his connection with another person, he commanded him, under
penalty of excommunication, within one month of the receipt of those
injunctions, to restore the queen to her place, and to abstain
thenceforward from all intercourse with Anne Boleyn pending the issue of
the trial. "Otherwise," the pope continued, "when the said term shall have
elapsed, we pronounce thee, Henry King of England, and the said Anne, to be
_ipso facto_ excommunicate, and command all men to shun and avoid your
presence; and although our mind shrinks from allowing such a thought of
your Serenity, although by ourselves and by our auditory of the Rota an
inhibition has been already issued against you; although the act of which
you are suspected be in itself forbidden by all laws human and divine, yet
the reports which are brought to us do so move us, that once more we do
inhibit you from dissolving your marriage with the aforesaid Catherine, or
from continuing process, in your own courts, of divorce from her. And we do
also hereby warn you, that you presume not to contract any new marriage
with the said or with any other woman; we declare such marriage, if you
still attempt it, to be vain and of none effect, and so to be regarded by
all persons in obedience to the Apostolic see."[408]

An inhibitory mandate, was a natural consequence of the conference of
Calais, provided that the pope intended to proceed openly and uprightly;
and if it had been sent upon the spot, Henry could have complained of
nothing worse than of an honourable opposition to his wishes. But the
mystery was not yet exhausted. The postscript was not issued, it was not
spoken of; it was carried secretly to Bologna, and it bears at its foot a
further date of the 23rd of December, the very time, that is to say, at
which the pope was representing himself to Bennet as occupied only in
devising the best means of satisfying Henry, and to Sir Gregory Cassalis,
as so convinced of the justice of the English demands, that he had ventured
in defence of them to the edge of rupture with the emperor.

It might be urged that he was sincere both in his brief and in his
conversation; that he believed that a verdict ought to be given, and would
at last be given, against the original marriage, and that therefore he was
the more anxious to prevent unnecessary scandal. Yet a menace of
excommunication couched in so haughty a tone, could have been honestly
reconciled with his other conduct, only by his following a course with
respect to it which he did not follow--by informing the ambassadors openly
of what he had done, and transmitting his letter through their hands to
Henry himself. This he might have done; and though the issue of such a
document at such a time would have been open to question, it might
nevertheless have been defended. His Holiness, however, did nothing of the
kind. No hint was let fall of the existence of any minatory brief; he
sustained his pretence of good will, till there was no longer any occasion
for him to counterfeit; and two months later it suddenly appeared on the
doors of the churches in Flanders.

Henry at first believed it to be forgery, One forged brief had already been
produced by the imperialists in the course of their transactions, and he
imagined that this was another; even his past experience of Clement had not
prepared him for this last venture of effrontery; he wrote to Bennet,
enclosing a copy, and requiring him to ascertain if it were really
genuine.[409]

The pope could not deny his hand, though the exposure, and the strange
irregular character of the brief itself troubled him, and Bonner, who was
again at the papal court, said that "he was in manner ashamed, and in great
perplexity what he might do therein."[410]

His conduct will be variously interpreted, and to attempt to analyse the
motives of a double-minded man is always a hazardous experiment; but a
comparison of date, the character of Clement himself, the circumstances in
which he was placed, and the retrospective evidence from after events,
points almost necessarily to but one interpretation. It is scarcely
disputable that, frightened at the reception of Anne Boleyn in France, the
pope found it necessary to pretend for a time an altered disposition
towards Henry; and that the emperor, unable to feel wholly confident that a
person who was false to others was true to himself, had exacted the brief
from him as a guarantee for his good faith; Charles, on his side, reserving
the publication until Francis had been gained over, and until Clement was
screened against the danger which he so justly feared, from the
consequences of the interview at Calais.

There was duplicity of a kind; this cannot be denied; and if not designed
to effect this object, this object in fact it answered. While Clement was
talking smoothly to Bennet and Cassalis, secret overtures were advanced at
Paris for a meeting at Nice between the pope, the emperor, and the King of
France, from which Henry was to be excluded.[411] The emperor made haste
with concessions to Francis, which but a few months before would have
seemed impossible. He withdrew his army out of Lombardy, and left Italy
free; he consented to the marriage which he had so earnestly opposed
between Catherine de Medici and the Duke of Orleans, agreeing also, it is
probable, to the contingency of the Duchy of Milan becoming ultimately her
dowry. And Francis having coquetted with the proposal for the Nice
meeting,[412] not indeed accepting, but not absolutely rejecting it,
Charles consented also to waive his objections to the interview between
Francis and the pope, on which he had looked hitherto with so much
suspicion; provided that the pope would bear in mind some mysterious and
unknown communication which had passed at Bologna.[413]

Thus was Francis won. He cared only, as the pope had seen, for his own
interests; and from this time he drew away, by imperceptible degrees, from
his engagements to England. He did not stoop to dishonour or treacherous
betrayal of confidence, for with all his faults he was, in the technical
acceptation of that misused term, a gentleman. He declined only to maintain
the attitude which, if he had continued in it, would have compelled the
pope to yield; and although he continued honestly to urge him to make
concessions, he no longer affected to make them the price of preserving
France in allegiance to the Holy See. Nor need we regret that Francis
shrank from a resolution which Henry had no right to require of him. To
have united with France in a common schism at the crisis of the Reformation
would have only embarrassed the free motions of England; and two nations
whose interests and whose tendencies were essentially opposite, might not
submit to be linked together by the artificial interests of their princes.
The populace of England were unconsciously on the rapid road to
Protestantism. The populace of France were fanatically Catholic. England
was to go her way through a golden era of Elizabeth to Cromwell, the
Puritans, and a Protestant republic; a republic to be perpetuated, if not
in England herself, yet among her great children beyond the sea. France was
to go her way through Bartholomew massacres and the dragonnades to a
polished Louis the Magnificent, and thence to the bloody Medea's cauldron
of Revolution, out of which she was to rise as now we know her. No common
road could have been found for such destinies as these; and the French
prince followed the direction of his wiser instincts when he preferred a
quiet arrangement with the pope, in virtue of which his church should be
secured by treaty the liberties which she desired, to a doubtful struggle
for a freedom which his people neither wished nor approved. The interests
of the nation were in fact his own. He could ill afford to forsake a
religion which allowed him so pleasantly to compound for his amatory
indulgences by the estrapade[414] and a zeal for orthodoxy.

It became evident to Henry early in the spring that he was left
substantially alone. His marriage had been kept secret with the intention
that it should be divulged by the King of France to the pope when he met
him at Marseilles; and as the pope had pretended an anxiety that either the
King of England should be present in person at that interview, or should be
represented by an ambassador of adequate rank, a train had been equipped
for the occasion, the most magnificent which England could furnish. Time,
meanwhile, passed on; the meeting, which was to have taken place first in
January, and then in April, was delayed till October, and in the interval
the papal brief had appeared in Flanders; the queen's pregnancy could not
admit of concealment; and the evident proof which appeared that France was
no longer to be depended upon, convinced the English government that they
had nothing to hope for from abroad, and that Henry's best resources were
to be found, where in fact they had always been, in the strength and
affection of his own people.

From this choking atmosphere, therefore, we now turn back to England and
the English parliament; and the change is from darkness to light, from
death to life. Here was no wavering, no uncertainty, no smiling faces with
false hearts behind them; but the steady purpose of resolute men, who
slowly, and with ever opening vision, bore the nation forward to the fair
future which was already dawning.

Parliament met at the beginning of February, a few days after the king's
marriage, which, however, still remained a secret. It is, I think, no
slight evidence of the calmness with which the statesmen of the day
proceeded with their work, that in a session so momentous, in a session in
which the decisive blow was to be struck of the most serious revolution
through which the country as yet had passed, they should have first settled
themselves calmly down to transact what was then the ordinary business of
legislation, the struggle with the vital evils of society. The first nine
statutes which were passed in this session were economic acts to protect
the public against the frauds of money-making tradesmen; to provide that
shoes and boots should be made of honest leather; that food should be sold
at fair prices, that merchants should part with their goods at fair
profits; to compel, or as far as the legislature was able to do it, to
compel all classes of persons to be true men; to deal honestly with each
other, in that high Quixotic sense of honesty which requires good subjects
at all times and under all circumstances to consider the interests of the
commonwealth as more important than their own. I have already spoken of
this economic legislation, and I need not dwell now upon details of it;
although under some aspects it may be thought that more which is truly
valuable in English history lies in these unobtrusive statutes than in all
our noisy wars, reformations, and revolutions. The history of this as of
all other nations (or so much of it as there is occasion for any of us to
know), is the history of the battles which it has fought and won with evil;
not with political evil merely, or spiritual evil; but with all
manifestations whatsoever of the devil's power. And to have beaten back, or
even to have struggled against and stemmed in ever so small a degree those
besetting basenesses of human nature, now held so invincible that the
influences of them are assumed as the fundamental axioms of economic
science; this appears to me a greater victory than Agincourt, a grander
triumph of wisdom and faith and courage than even the English constitution
or the English liturgy. Such a history, however, lies beside the purpose
which I may here permit myself; and the two acts with which the session
closed, alone in this place require our attention.

The first of these is one of the many "Acts of Apparel," which are to be
found in the early volumes of the statute book. The meaning of these laws
becomes intelligible when we reflect upon the condition of the people. The
English were an organised nation of soldiers; they formed an army
perpetually ready for the field, where the degrees were determined by
social position; and the dresses prescribed to the various orders of
society were the graduated uniforms which indicated the rank of the
wearers. When every man was a soldier, and every gentleman was an officer,
the same causes existed for marking, by costume, the distinctions of
authority, which lead to the answering differences in the modern regiments.

The changing conditions of the country at the time of the Reformation, the
growth of a middle class, with no landed possessions, yet made wealthy by
trade or other industry, had tended necessarily to introduce confusion; and
the policy of this reign, which was never more markedly operative than
during the most critical periods of it, was to reinvigorate the discipline
of the feudal system; and pending the growth of what might better suit the
age, pending the great struggle in which the nation was engaged, to hold
every man at his post. The statute specifies its object, and the motives
with which it was passed.

"Whereas," says the preamble, "divers laws, ordinances, and statutes have
been with great deliberation and advice provided and established for the
necessary repressing and avoiding the inordinate excess daily more and more
used in the sumptuous and costly array and apparel accustomably worn in
this realm, whereof hath ensued, and daily do chance such sundry high and
notable inconveniences as be to the great and notorious detriment of the
commonweal, the subversion of politic order in knowledge and distinction of
people according to their preeminence and degrees, to the utter
impoverishment and undoing of many light and inexpert persons inclined to
pride, the mother of all vices: Be it enacted,"[415]--but I need not enter
into the particulars of the uniforms worn by the nobles and gentlemen of
the court of Henry VIII.; the temper, not the detail, is of importance; and
of the wisdom or unwisdom of such enactments, we who live in a changed age
should be cautious of forming a hasty opinion. The ends which the old
legislation proposed to itself, have in latter ages been resigned as
impracticable. We are therefore no longer adequate judges how far those
ends may in other times have been attainable, and we can still less judge
of the means through which the attainment of them was sought.

The second act of which I have to speak is open to no such ambiguity; it
remains among the few which are and will be of perpetual moment in our
national history. The conduct of the pope had forced upon the parliament
the reconsideration of the character of his supremacy; and when the
question had once been asked, in the existing state of feeling but one
answer to it was possible.

The authority of the church over the state, the supreme kingship of Christ,
and consequently of him who was held to be Christ's vicar, above all
worldly sovereignties, was an established reality of mediæval Europe. The
princes had with difficulty preserved their jurisdiction in matters purely
secular; while in matters spiritual, and in that vast section of human
affairs in which the spiritual and the secular glide one into the other,
they had been compelled--all such of them as lay within the pale of the
Latin communion--to acknowledge a power superior to their own. To the popes
was the ultimate appeal in all causes of which the spiritual courts had
cognisance. Their jurisdiction had been extended by an unwavering pursuit
of a single policy, and their constancy in the twelfth century was rewarded
by absolute victory. In England, however, the field was no sooner won than
it was again disputed, and the civil government gave way at last only when
the danger seemed to have ceased. So long as the papacy was feared, so long
as the successors of St. Peter held a sword which could inflict sensible
wounds, and enforce obedience by penalties, the English kings had resisted
both the theory and the application. While the pope was dangerous he was
dreaded and opposed. When age had withered his arm, and the feeble
lightnings flickered in harmless insignificance, they consented to withdraw
their watchfulness, and his supremacy was silently allowed as an innocent
superstition. It existed as some other institutions exist at the present
day, with a merely nominal authority; with a tacit understanding, that the
power which it was permitted to retain should be exerted only in conformity
with the national will.

Under these conditions the Tudor princes became loyal subjects to the Holy
See, and so they would have willingly remained, had not Clement, in an evil
hour for himself, forgotten the terms of the compact. He laid upon a legal
fiction a strain which his predecessors, in their palmiest days, would have
feared to attempt; and the nation, after grave remonstrance, which was only
received with insults, exorcised the chimæra with a few resolute words for
ever. The parliament, in asserting the freedom of England, carefully chose
their language. They did not pass a new law, but they passed an act
declaratory merely of the law which already existed, and which they were
vindicating against illegal encroachment. "Whereas," says the Statute of
Appeals, "by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is
manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire,
and so hath been accepted in the world; governed by one supreme head and
king, having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the
same; unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people,
divided in terms by names of spiritualty and temporalty, be bound and ought
to bear, next to God, a natural and humble obedience: he being also
institute and furnished by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty God with
plenary, whole, and entire power, pre-eminence and authority, prerogative
and jurisdiction, to render and yield justice and final determination to
all manner of folk resident or subject within this his realm, without
restraint or provocation to any foreign prince or potentate of the world:
the body spiritual whereof having power when any cause of the law divine
happened to come in question, or of spiritual learning, [such cause being]
declared, interpret, and shewed by that part of the body politic called the
spiritualty, now usually called the English church; (which also hath been
reported and also found of that sort, that both for knowledge, integrity,
and sufficiency of numbers, it hath been always thought to be, and is also
at this hour sufficient and meet of itself, without the interfering of any
exterior person or persons, to declare and determine all such doubts, and
to administer all such offices and duties as to the administration of their
rooms spiritual doth appertain): and the laws temporal, for trial of
property of lands and goods, and for the conservation of the people of this
realm in unity and peace, having been and yet being administered, adjudged,
and executed by sundry judges and administers of the said body politic
called the temporalty: and seeing that both these authorities and
jurisdictions do conjoin together for the due administration of justice,
the one to help the other: and whereas the king's most noble progenitors,
and the nobility and commons of this said realm at divers and sundry
parliaments, as well in the time of King Edward I., Edward III., Richard
II., Henry IV., and other noble kings of this realm, made sundry
ordinances, laws, and provisions for the conservation of the prerogatives,
liberties, and pre-eminences of the imperial crown of this realm, and of
the jurisdiction spiritual and temporal of the same, to keep it from the
annoyance as well of the see of Rome as from the authority of other foreign
potentates attempting the diminution or violation thereof, as often as from
time to time any such annoyance or attempt might be known or espied: and
notwithstanding the said good statutes and ordinances, and since the making
thereof, divers inconveniences and dangers not provided for plainly by the
said statutes, have risen and sprung by reason of appeals sued out of this
realm to the see of Rome, in causes testamentary, causes of matrimony and
divorce, right of tithes, oblations, and obventions, not only to the great
inquietation, vexation, trouble, costs, and charges of the King's Highness,
and many of his subjects and residents in this his realm; but also to the
delay and let of the speedy determination of the said causes, for so much
as parties appealing to the said court of Rome most commonly do the same
for the delay of justice; and forasmuch as the great distance of way is so
far out of this realm, so that the necessary proofs, nor the true knowledge
of the causes, can neither there be so well known, nor the witnesses so
well examined there as within this realm, so that the parties grieved by
means of the said appeals be most times without remedy; in consideration
hereof, all testamentary and matrimonial causes, and all suits for tithes,
oblations, and obventions shall henceforth be adjudged in the spiritual and
temporal courts within the realm, without regard to any process of foreign
jurisdiction, or any inhibition, excommunication, or interdict. Persons
procuring processes, inhibitions, appeals, or citations from the court of
Rome, as well as their fautors, comforters, counsellors, aiders and
abettors, all and every of them shall incur the penalties of premunire; and
in all such cases as have hitherto admitted of appeal to Rome, the appeals
shall be from the Archdeacon's court to the Bishop's court, from the
Bishop's court to that of the Archbishop, and no further."[416]

The act was carried through Parliament in February, but again, as with the
Annates Bill, the king delayed his sanction till the post could reach and
return from the Vatican. The Bishop of Bayonne wrote that there was hope
that Clement might yet give way, and entreated that the king would send an
"excusator," a person formally empowered to protest for him that he could
not by the laws of England plead at a foreign tribunal; and that with this
imperfect recognition of his authority the pope would be satisfied.

Chastillon, the French ambassador, had an interview with the king, to
communicate the bishop's message.

"The morning after," Chastillon wrote, "his Majesty sent for me and desired
me to repeat my words before the council. I obeyed; but the majority
declared, that there was nothing in them to act upon, and that the king
must not put himself in subjection. His Majesty himself, too, I found less
warm than in his preceding conversation. I begged the council to be
patient. I said everything that I could think of likely to weigh with the
king, I promised him a sentence from our Holy Father declaring his first
marriage null, his present marriage good. I urged him on all grounds,
public and private, to avoid a rupture with the Holy See. Such a sentence,
I said, would be the best security for the queen, and the safest guarantee
for the unopposed succession of her offspring. If the marriage was
confirmed by the Holy Father's authority, the queen's enemies would lose
the only ground where they could make a stand. The peace of the realm was
now menaced. The emperor talked loudly and made large preparations. Let the
king be allied with France, and through France with the Holy See, and the
emperor could do him no harm. Thus I said my proposals were for the benefit
of the realm of his Majesty, and of the children who might be born to him.
The king would act more prudently both for his own interest, and for the
interest of his children, in securing himself, than in running a risk of
creating universal confusion; and, besides, he owed something to the king
his brother, who had worked so long and so hard for him.

"After some further conversation, his Majesty took me aside into a garden,
where he told me that for himself he agreed in what I had said; but he
begged me to keep his confidence secret. He fears, I think, to appear to
condescend too easily.

"He will not, however, publish the acts of parliament till he sees what is
done at Rome. The vast sums of money which used to be sent out of the
country will go no longer; but in other respects he will be glad to return
to good terms. He will send the excusator when he hears again from M. de
Paris; and for myself, I think, that although the whole country is in a
blaze against the pope, yet with the good will and assistance of the king,
the Holy Father will be reinstated in the greater part of his
prerogatives."

But the hope that the pope would yield proved again delusive. Henry wrote
to him himself in the spirit of his conversation with Chastillon. His
letter was presented by Cardinal Tournon, and Clement said all that could
be said in acknowledgment without making the one vital concession. But
whenever it was put before him that the cause must be heard and decided in
England and in no other place, he talked in the old language of uncertainty
and impossibilities;[417] and Henry learning at the same time that a
correspondence was going forward between Clement and Francis, with the
secrets of which he was not made acquainted, went forward upon his own way.
April brought with it the certainty that the expected concessions were
delusive. Anne Boleyn's pregnancy made further delay impossible.
D'Inteville, who had succeeded Chastillon as French ambassador, once more
attempted to interfere, but in vain. Henry told him he could not help
himself, the pope forced him to the course which he was pursuing, by the
answer which he had been pleased to issue; and he could only encounter
enmity with its own weapons. "The archbishop," d'Inteville wrote to
Francis, "will try the question, and will give judgment. I entreated the
king to wait till the conference at Nice, but he would not consent. I
prayed him to keep the sentence secret till the pope had seen your Majesty;
he replied it was impossible."[418]

Thus the statute became law which transferred to the English courts of law
the power so long claimed and exercised by the Roman see. There are two
aspects under which it may be regarded, as there were two objects for which
it was passed. Considered as a national act, few persons will now deny that
it was as just in itself as it was politically desirable. If the pope had
no jurisdiction over English subjects, it was well that he should be known
to have none; if he had, it was equally well that such jurisdiction should
cease. The question was not of communion between the English and Roman
churches, which might or might not continue, but which this act would not
affect. The pope might still retain his rights of episcopal precedency,
whatever those might be, with all the privileges attached to it. The
parliament merely declared that he possessed no right of interference in
domestic disputes affecting persons and property.

But the act had a special as well as a national bearing, and here it is
less easy to arrive at a just conclusion. It destroyed the validity of
Queen Catherine's appeal; it placed a legal power in the hands of the
English judges to proceed to pass sentence upon the divorce; and it is open
to the censure which we ever feel entitled to pass upon a measure enacted
to meet the particular position of a particular person. When embarrassments
have arisen from unforeseen causes, we have a right to legislate to prevent
a repetition of those embarrassments. Our instincts tell us that no
legislation should be retrospective, and should affect only positions which
have been entered into with a full knowledge at the time of the condition
of the laws.

The statute endeavours to avoid the difficulty by its declaratory form; but
again this is unsatisfactory; for that the pope possessed some authority
was substantially acknowledged in every application which was made to him;
and when Catherine had married under a papal dispensation, it was a strange
thing to turn upon her, and to say, not only that the dispensation in the
particular instance had been unlawfully granted, but that the pope had no
jurisdiction in the matter by the laws of the land which she had entered.

On the other hand, throughout the entire negotiations King Henry and his
ministers had insisted jealously on the English privileges. They had
declared from the first that they might, if they so pleased, fall back upon
their own laws. In desiring that the cause might be heard by a papal legate
in England, they had represented themselves rather as condescending to a
form than acknowledging a right; and they had, in fact, in allowing the
opening of Campeggio's court, fallen, all of them, even Henry himself,
under the penalties of the statutes of provisors. The validity of
Catherine's appeal they had always consistently denied. If the papal
jurisdiction was to be admitted at all, it could only be through a minister
sitting as judge within the realm of England; and the maxim, "Ne Angli
extra Angliam litigare cogantur," was insisted upon as the absolute
privilege of every English subject.

Yet, if we allow full weight to these considerations, a feeling of painful
uncertainty continues to cling to us; and in ordinary cases to be uncertain
on such a point is to be in reality certain. The state of the law could not
have been clear, or the statute of appeals would not have been required;
and explain it as we may, it was in fact passed for a special cause against
a special person; and that person a woman.

How far the parliament was justified by the extremity of the case is a
further question, which it is equally difficult to answer. The alternative,
as I have repeatedly said, was an all but inevitable civil war, on the
death of the king; and practically, when statesmen are entrusted with the
fortunes of an empire, the responsibility is too heavy to allow them to
consider other interests. Salus populi suprema lex, ever has been and ever
will be the substantial canon of policy with public men, and morality is
bound to hesitate before it censures them. There are some acts of injustice
which no national interest can excuse, however great in itself that
interest may be, or however certain to be attained by the means proposed.
Yet government, in its easiest tax, trenches to a certain extent on natural
right and natural freedom; and trenches further and further in proportion
to the emergency with which it has to deal. How far it may go in this
direction, or whether Henry VIII. and his parliament went too far, is a
difficult problem; their best justification is an exceptive clause
introduced into the act, which was intended obviously to give Queen
Catherine the utmost advantage which was consistent with the liberties of
the realm. "In case," says the concluding paragraph, "of any cause, or
matter, or contention now depending for the causes before rehearsed, or
that hereafter shall come into contention for any of the same causes in any
of the foresaid courts, which hath, doth, shall, or may touch the king, his
heirs or successors, kings of this realm; in all or every such case or
cases the party grieved as aforesaid shall or may appeal from any of the
said courts of this realm, to the spiritual prelates and other abbots and
priors of the Upper House, assembled and convocate by the king's writ in
convocation."[419] If Catherine's cause was as just as Catholics and
English high churchmen are agreed to consider it, the English church might
have saved her. If Catherine herself had thought first or chiefly of
justice, she would not perhaps have accepted the arbitration of the English
convocation; but long years before she would have been in a cloister.

Thus it is that while we regret, we are unable to blame; and we cannot wish
undone an act, to have shrunk from which might have spared a single heart,
but _might_ have wrecked the English nation. We increase our pity for
Catherine because she was a princess. We measure the magnitude of the evils
which human beings endure by their position in the scale of society; and
misfortunes which private persons would be expected to bear without
excessive complaining, furnish matter for the lamentation of ages when they
touch the sacred head which has been circled with a diadem. Let it be so.
Let us compensate the queen's sorrows with unstinted sympathy; but let us
not trifle with history, by confusing a political necessity with a moral
crime.

The English parliament, then, had taken up the gauntlet which the pope had
flung to it with trembling fingers: and there remained nothing but for the
Archbishop of Canterbury to make use of the power of which by law he was
now possessed. And the time was pressing, for the new queen was enciente,
and further concealment was not to be thought of. The delay of the
interview between the pope and Francis, and the change in the demeanour of
the latter, which had become palpably evident, discharged Henry of all
promises by which he might have bound himself; and to hesitate before the
menaces of the pope's brief would have been fatal.

The act of appeals being passed, convocation was the authority to which the
power of determining unsettled points of spiritual law seemed to have
lapsed. In the month of April, therefore, Cranmer, now Archbishop of
Canterbury,[420] submitted to it the two questions, on the resolution of
which the sentence which he was to pass was dependent.

The first had been already answered separately by the bench of bishops and
by the universities, and had been agitated from end to end of Europe--was
it lawful to marry the widow of a brother dying without issue, but having
consummated his marriage; and was the Levitical prohibition of such a
marriage grounded on a divine law, with which the pope could not dispense,
or on a canon law of which a dispensation was permissible?[421]

The pope had declared himself unable to answer; but he had allowed that the
general opinion was against the power of dispensing,[422] and there could
be little doubt, therefore, of the reply of the English convocation, or at
least of the upper house. Fisher attempted an opposition; but wholly
without effect. The, question was one in which the interests of the higher
clergy were not concerned, and they were therefore left to the dominion of
their ordinary understandings. Out of two hundred and sixty-three votes,
nineteen only were in the pope's favour.[423]

The lower house was less unanimous, as might have been expected, and as had
been experienced before; the opposition spirit of the English clergy being
usually then, as much as now, in the ratio of their poverty. But there too
the nature of the case compelled an overwhelming majority.[424] It was
decided by both houses that Pope Julius, in granting a licence for the
marriage of Henry and Catherine, had exceeded his authority, and that this
marriage was therefore, _ab initio_, void.

The other question to be decided was one of fact; whether the marriage of
Catherine with Prince Arthur had or had not been consummated, a matter
which the Catholic divines conceived to be of paramount importance, but
which to few persons at the present day will seem of any importance
whosoever. We cannot even read the evidence which was produced without a
sensation of disgust, although in those broader and less conscious ages the
indelicacy was less obviously perceptible. And we may console ourselves
with the hope that the discussion was not so wounding as might have been
expected to the feelings of Queen Catherine, since at all official
interviews, with all classes of persons, at all times and in all places,
she appeared herself to court the subject.[425] There is no occasion in
this place to follow her example. It is enough that Ferdinand, at the time
of her first marriage, satisfied himself, after curious inquiry, that he
might hope for a grandchild; and that the fact of the consummation was
asserted in the treaty between England and Spain, which preceded the
marriage with Henry, and in this supposed brief of Pope Julius which
permitted it.[426] We cannot in consequence be surprised that the
convocation accepted the conclusion which was sanctioned by so high
authority, and we rather wonder at the persistency of Catherine's denials.
With respect to this vote, therefore, we need notice nothing except that
Dr. Clerk, Bishop of Bath and Wells[427] was one of an exceedingly small
minority, who were inclined to believe that the denial might be true, and
this bishop was one of the four who were associated with Cranmer when he
sate at Dunstable for the trial of the cause.

The ground being thus opened, and all preparations being completed, the
archbishop composed a formal letter to the king, in which he dwelt upon the
uncertain prospects of the succession, and the danger of leaving a question
which closely affected it so long unsettled. He expatiated at length on the
general anxiety which was felt throughout the realm, and requested
permission to employ the powers attached to his office to bring it to some
conclusion. The recent alterations had rendered the archbishop something
doubtful of the nature of his position; he was diffident and unwilling to
offend; and not clearly knowing in the exercise of the new authority which
had been granted to him, whether the extension of his power was accompanied
with a parallel extension of liberty in making use of it, he wrote two
copies of this letter, with slight alterations of language, that the king
might select between them the one which he would officially recognise. Both
these copies are extant; both were written the same day from the same
place; both were folded, sealed, and sent. It seems, therefore, that
neither was Cranmer furnished beforehand with a draught of what he was to
write; nor was his first letter sent back to him corrected. He must have
acted by his own judgment; and a comparison of the two letters is singular
and instructive. In the first he spoke of his office and duty in language,
chastened indeed and modest, but still language of independence; and while
he declared his unwillingness to "enterprise any part of that office"
without his Grace's favour obtained, and pleasure therein first known, he
implied nevertheless that his request was rather of courtesy than of
obligation, and had arisen rather from a sense of moral propriety than
because he might not legally enter on the exercise of his duty without the
permission of the crown.[428]

The moderate gleam of freedom vanishes in the other copy under a few pithy
changes, as if Cranmer instinctively felt the revolution which had taken
place in the relations of church and state. Where in the first letter he
asked for his Grace's favour, in the second he asked for his Grace's favour
_and licence_--where in the first he requested to know his Grace's pleasure
as to his proceeding, in the second he desired his Most Excellent Majesty
to _license_ him to proceed. The burden of both letters was the same, but
the introduction of the little word license changed all. It implied a
hesitating belief that the spiritual judges might perhaps thenceforward be
on a footing with the temporal judges and the magistrates; that under the
new constitution they were to understand that they held their offices not
directly under God as they had hitherto pretended, but under God through
the crown.

The answer of Henry indicated that he had perceived the archbishop's
uncertainty; and that he was desirous by the emphatic distinctness of his
own language to spare him a future recurrence of it. He accepted the
deferential version of the petition; but even Cranmer's anticipation of
what might be required of him had not reached the reality. In running
through the preamble, the king flung into the tone of it a character of
still deeper humility;[429] and he conceded the desired licence in the
following imperial style. "In consideration of these things,"--_i.e._ of
the grounds urged by the archbishop for the petition--"albeit we being your
King and Sovereign, do recognise no superior on earth but only God, and not
being subject to the laws of any earthly creature; yet because ye be under
us, by God's calling and ours, the most principal minister of our spiritual
jurisdiction within this our Realm, who we think assuredly is so in the
fear of God, and love towards the observance of his laws, to the which
laws, we as a Christian king have always heretofore, and shall ever most
obediently submit ourself, we will not therefore refuse (our pre-eminence,
power, and authority to us and to our successors in this behalf
nevertheless saved) your humble request, offer, and towardness--that is, to
mean to make an end according to the will and pleasure of Almighty God in
our said great cause of matrimony, which hath so long depended
undetermined, to our great and grievous unquietness and burden of our
conscience. Wherefore we, inclining to your humble petition, by these our
letters sealed with our seal, and signed with our sign manual, do license
you to proceed in the said cause, and the examination and final
determination of the same; not doubting but that ye will have God and the
justice of the said cause only before your eyes, and not to regard any
earthly or worldly affection therein; for assuredly the thing which we most
covet in the world, is so to proceed in all our acts and doings as may be
the most acceptable to the pleasure of Almighty God our Creator, to the
wealth and honour of us, our successors and posterity, and the surety of
our Realm, and subjects within the same."[430]

The vision of ecclesiastical independence, if Cranmer had indulged in it,
must have faded utterly before his eyes on receiving this letter. As clergy
who committed felony were no longer exempted from the penalties of their
crimes; so henceforward the courts of the clergy were to fell into
conformity with the secular tribunals. The temporal prerogatives of
ecclesiastics as a body whose authority over the laity was countervailed
with no reciprocal obligation, existed no longer. This is what the language
of the king implied. The difficulty which the persons whom he was
addressing experienced in realising the change in their position, obliged
him to be somewhat emphatic in his assertion of it; and it might be
imagined at first sight, that in insisting on his superiority to the
officers of the spiritual courts, he claimed a right to dictate their
sentences. But to venture such a supposition would be to mistake the nature
of English sovereignty and the spirit of the change. The supreme authority
in England was the law; and the king no more possessed, or claimed a power
of controlling the judgment of the bishops or their ministers, than he
could interfere with the jurisdiction of the judges of the bench. All
persons in authority, whether in church or state, held their offices
thenceforth by similar tenure; but the rule of the proceedings in each
remained alike the law of the land, which Henry had no more thought of
superseding by his own will than the most constitutional of modern princes.

The closing sentences of his reply to Cranmer are striking, and it is
difficult to believe that he did not mean what he was saying. From the
first step in the process to the last, he maintained consistently that his
only object was to do what was right. He was thoroughly persuaded that the
course which he was pursuing was sanctioned by justice--and persons who are
satisfied that he was entitled to feel such persuasion, need not refuse him
the merit of sincerity, because (to use the language which Cromwell used at
the fatal crisis of his life[431]) "It may be well that they who medelle in
many matters are not able to answer for them all."

Cranmer, then, being fortified with this permission, and taking with him
the Bishops of London, Winchester, Lincoln, and Bath and Wells (the latter
perhaps having been chosen in consequence of his late conduct in the
convocation, to give show of fairness to the proceeding), went down to
Dunstable and opened his court there. The queen was at Ampthill, six miles
distant, having entered on her sad tenancy, it would seem, as soon as the
place had been evacuated by the gaudy hunting party of the preceding
summer. The cause being undecided, and her title being therefore uncertain,
she was called by the safe name of "the Lady Catherine," and under this
designation she was served with a citation from the archbishop to appear
before him on Saturday, the 10th of May. The bearers of the summons were
Sir Francis Bryan (an unfortunate choice, for he was cousin of the new
queen, and insolent in his manner and bearing), Sir Thomas Gage, and Lord
Vaux. She received them like herself with imperial sorrow. They delivered
their message; she announced that she refused utterly to acknowledge the
competency of the tribunal before which she was called; the court was a
mockery; the archbishop was a shadow.[432] She would neither appear before
him in person, nor commission any one to appear on her behalf.

The court had but one course before it--she was pronounced contumacious,
and the trial went forward. None of her household were tempted even by
curiosity to be present. "There came not so much as a servant of hers to
Dunstable, save such as were brought in as witnesses;" some of them having
been required to give evidence in the re-examination which was thought
necessary, as to the nature of the relation of their mistress with her
first boy husband. As soon as this disgusting question had been
sufficiently investigated, nothing remained but to pronounce judgment. The
marriage with the king was declared to have been null and void from the
beginning, and on the 23rd of May, the archbishop sent to London the
welcome news that the long matter was at an end.[433]

It was over;--over at last; yet so over, that the conclusion could but
appear to the losing party a fresh injustice. To those who were concerned
in bringing it to pass, to the king himself, to the nation, to Europe, to
every one who heard of it at the time, it must have appeared, as it appears
now to us who read the story of it, if a necessity, yet a most unwelcome
and unsatisfying one. That the king remained uneasy is evident from the
efforts which he continued to make, or which he allowed to be made,
notwithstanding the brief of the 23rd of December, to gain the sanction of
the pope. That the nation was uneasy, we should not require the evidence of
history to tell us. "There was much murmuring in England," says Hall, "and
it was thought by the unwise that the Bishop of Rome would curse all
Englishmen; that the emperor and he would destroy all the people." And
those who had no such fears, and whose judgment in the main approved of
what had been done, were scandalised at the presentation to them at the
instant of the publication of the divorce, of a new queen, four months
advanced in pregnancy. This also was a misfortune which had arisen out of
the chain of duplicities, a fresh accident swelling a complication which
was already sufficiently entangled. It had been occasioned by steps which
at the moment at which they were ventured, prudence seemed to justify; but
we the more regret it, because, in comparison with the interests which were
at issue, the few months of additional delay were infinitely unimportant.

Nevertheless, we have reason to be thankful that the thing, well or ill,
was over; seven years of endurance were enough for the English nation, and
may be supposed to have gained even for Henry a character for patience. In
some way, too, it is needless to say, the thing must have ended. The life
of none of us is long enough to allow us to squander so large a section of
it struggling in the meshes of a law-suit; and although there may be a
difference of opinion on the wisdom of having first entered upon ground of
such a kind, few thinking persons can suggest any other method in which
either the nation or the king could have extricated themselves. Meanwhile,
it was resolved that such spots and blemishes as hung about the transaction
should be forgotten in the splendour of the coronation. If there was
scandal in the condition of the queen, yet under another aspect that
condition was matter of congratulation to a people so eager for an heir;
and Henry may have thought that the sight for the first time in public of
so beautiful a creature, surrounded by the most magnificent pageant which
London had witnessed since the unknown day on which the first stone of it
was laid, and bearing in her bosom the long-hoped-for inheritor of the
English crown, might induce a chivalrous nation to forget what it was the
interest of no loyal subject to remember longer, and to offer her an
English welcome to the throne.

In anticipation of the timely close of the proceedings at Dunstable, notice
had been given in the city early in May, that preparations should be made
for the coronation on the first of the following month. Queen Anne was at
Greenwich, but, according to custom, the few preceding days were to be
spent at the Tower; and on the 19th of May, she was conducted thither in
state by the lord mayor and the city companies, with one of those splendid
exhibitions upon the water which in the days when the silver Thames
deserved its name, and the sun could shine down upon it out of the blue
summer sky, were spectacles scarcely rivalled in gorgeousness by the
world-famous wedding of the Adriatic. The river was crowded with boats, the
banks and the ships in the pool swarmed with people; and fifty great barges
formed the procession, all blazing with gold and banners. The queen herself
was in her own barge, close to that of the lord mayor; and in keeping with
the fantastic genius of the time, she was preceded up the water by "a foyst
or wafter full or ordnance, in which was a great dragon continually moving
and casting wildfire, and round about the foyst stood terrible monsters and
wild men, casting fire and making hideous noise."[434] So, with trumpets
blowing, cannon pealing, the Tower guns answering the guns of the ships, in
a blaze of fireworks and splendour, Anne Boleyn was borne along to the
great archway of the Tower, where the king was waiting on the stairs to
receive her.

And now let us suppose eleven days to have elapsed, the welcome news to
have arrived at length from Dunstable, and the fair summer morning of life
dawning in treacherous beauty after the long night of expectation. No
bridal ceremonial had been possible; the marriage had been huddled over
like a stolen love-match, and the marriage feast had been eaten in vexation
and disappointment. These past mortifications were to be atoned for by a
coronation pageant which the art and the wealth of the richest city in
Europe should be poured out in the most lavish profusion to adorn.

On the morning of the 31st of May, the families of the London citizens were
stirring early in all houses. From Temple Bar to the Tower, the streets
were fresh strewed with gravel, the footpaths were railed off along the
whole distance, and occupied on one side by the guilds, their workmen, and
apprentices, on the other by the city constables and officials in their
gaudy uniforms, "with their staves in hand for to cause the people to keep
good room and order."[435] Cornhill and Gracechurch Street had dressed
their fronts in scarlet and crimson, in arras and tapestry, and the rich
carpet-work from Persia and the East. Cheapside, to outshine her rivals,
was draped even more splendidly in cloth of gold, and tissue, and velvet.
The sheriffs were pacing up and down on their great Flemish horses, hung
with liveries, and all the windows were thronged with ladies crowding to
see the procession pass. At length the Tower guns opened, the grim gates
rolled back, and under the archway in the bright May sunshine, the long
column began slowly to defile. Two states only permitted their
representatives to grace the scene with their presence--Venice and France.
It was, perhaps, to make the most of this isolated countenance, that the
French ambassador's train formed the van of the cavalcade. Twelve French
knights came riding foremost in surcoats of blue velvet with sleeves of
yellow silk, their horses trapped in blue, with white crosses powdered on
their hangings. After them followed a troop of English gentlemen, two and
two, and then the Knights of the Bath, "in gowns of violet, with hoods
purfled with miniver like doctors." Next, perhaps at a little interval, the
abbots passed on, mitred in their robes; the barons followed in crimson
velvet, the bishops then, and then the earls and marquises, the dresses of
each order increasing in elaborate gorgeousness. All these rode on in
pairs. Then came alone Audeley, lord-chancellor, and behind him the
Venetian ambassador and the Archbishop of York; the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Du Bellay, Bishop of Bayonne and of Paris, not now with
bugle and hunting-frock, but solemn with stole and crozier. Next, the lord
mayor, with the city mace in hand, the Garter in his coat of arms; and then
Lord William Howard--Belted Will Howard, of the Scottish Border, Marshal of
England. The officers of the queen's household succeeded the marshal in
scarlet and gold, and the van of the procession was closed by the Duke of
Suffolk, as high constable, with his silver wand. It is no easy matter to
picture to ourselves the blazing trail of splendour which in such a pageant
must have drawn along the London streets,--those streets which now we know
so black and smoke-grimed, themselves then radiant with masses of colour,
gold, and crimson, and violet. Yet there it was, and there the sun could
shine upon it, and tens of thousands of eyes were gazing on the scene out
of the crowded lattices.

Glorious as the spectacle was, perhaps however, it passed unheeded. Those
eyes were watching all for another object, which now drew near. In an open
space behind the constable there was seen approaching "a white chariot,"
drawn by two palfreys in white damask which swept the ground, a golden
canopy borne above it making music with silver bells: and in the chariot
sat the observed of all observers, the beautiful occasion of all this
glittering homage; fortune's plaything of the hour, the Queen of
England--queen at last--borne along upon the waves of this sea of glory,
breathing the perfumed incense of greatness which she had risked her fair
name, her delicacy, her honour, her self-respect, to win; and she had won
it.

There she sate, dressed in white tissue robes, her fair hair flowing loose
over her shoulders, and her temples circled with a light coronet of gold
and diamonds--most beautiful--loveliest--most favoured perhaps, as she
seemed at that hour, of all England's daughters. Alas! "within the hollow
round" of that coronet--

  Kept death his court, and there the antick sate,
  Scoffing her state and grinning at her pomp.
  Allowing her a little breath, a little scene
  To monarchise, be feared, and kill with looks,
  Infusing her with self and vain conceit,
  As if the flesh which walled about her life
  Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus,
  Bored through her castle walls; and farewell, Queen.

Fatal gift of greatness! so dangerous ever! so more than dangerous in those
tremendous times when the fountains are broken loose of the great deeps of
thought; and nations are in the throes of revolution;--when ancient order
and law and tradition are splitting in the social earthquake; and as the
opposing forces wrestle to and fro, those unhappy ones who stand out above
the crowd become the symbols of the struggle, and fall the victims of its
alternating fortunes. And what if into an unsteady heart and brain,
intoxicated with splendour, the outward chaos should find its way,
converting the poor silly soul into an image of the same confusion,--if
conscience should be deposed from her high place, and the Pandora box be
broken loose of passions and sensualities and follies; and at length there
be nothing left of all which man or woman ought to value, save hope of
God's forgiveness.

Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a summer morning, Queen
Anne Boleyn will leave the Tower of London--not radiant then with beauty on
a gay errand of coronation, but a poor wandering ghost, on a sad tragic
errand, from which she will never more return, passing away out of an earth
where she may stay no longer, into a presence where, nevertheless, we know
that all is well--for all of us--and therefore for her.

But let us not cloud her shortlived sunshine with the shadow of the future.
She went on in her loveliness, the peeresses following in their carriages,
with the royal guard in their rear. In Fenchurch Street she was met by the
children of the city schools; and at the corner of Gracechurch Street a
masterpiece had been prepared of the pseudo-classic art, then so
fashionable, by the merchants of the Styll Yard. A Mount Parnassus had been
constructed, and a Helicon fountain upon it playing into a basin with four
jets of Rhenish wine. On the top of the mountain sat Apollo with Calliope
at his feet, and on either side the remaining Muses, holding lutes or
harps, and singing each of them some "posy" or epigram in praise of the
queen, which was presented, after it had been sung, written in letters of
gold.

From Gracechurch Street, the procession passed to Leadenhall, where there
was a spectacle in better taste, of the old English Catholic kind, quaint
perhaps and forced, but truly and even beautifully emblematic. There was
again a "little mountain," which was hung with red and white roses; a gold
ring was placed on the summit, on which, as the queen appeared, a white
falcon was made to "descend as out of the sky"--"and then incontinent came
down an angel with great melody, and set a close crown of gold upon the
falcon's head; and in the same pageant sat Saint Anne with all her issue
beneath her; and Mary Cleophas with her four children, of the which
children one made a goodly oration to the queen, of the fruitfulness of St.
Anne, trusting that like fruit should come of her."[436]

With such "pretty conceits," at that time the honest tokens of an English
welcome, the new queen was received by the citizens of London. These scenes
must be multiplied by the number of the streets, where some fresh fancy met
her at every turn. To preserve the festivities from flagging, every
fountain and conduit within the walls ran all day with wine; the bells of
every steeple were ringing; children lay in wait with song, and ladies with
posies, in which all the resources of fantastic extravagance were
exhausted; and thus in an unbroken triumph--and to outward appearance
received with the warmest affection--she passed under Temple Bar, down the
Strand by Charing Cross to Westminster Hall. The king was not with her
throughout the day; nor did he intend to be with her in any part of the
ceremony. She was to reign without a rival, the undisputed sovereign of the
hour.

Saturday being passed in showing herself to the people, she retired for the
night to "the king's manour house at Westminster," where she slept. On the
following morning, between eight and nine o'clock, she returned to the
hall, where the lord mayor, the city council, and the peers were again
assembled, and took her place on the high dais at the top of the stairs
under the cloth of state; while the bishops, the abbots, and the monks of
the abbey formed in the area. A railed way had been laid with carpets
across Palace Yard and the Sanctuary to the abbey gates, and when all was
ready, preceded by the peers in their robes of parliament, the Knights of
the Garter in the dress of the order, she swept out under her canopy, the
bishops and the monks "solemnly singing." The train was borne by the old
Duchess of Norfolk her aunt, the Bishops of London and Winchester on either
side "bearing up the lappets of her robe." The Earl of Oxford carried the
crown on its cushion immediately before her. She was dressed in purple
velvet furred with ermine, her hair escaping loose, as she usually wore it,
under a wreath of diamonds.

On entering the abbey, she was led to the coronation chair Where she sat
while the train fell into their places, and the preliminaries, of the
ceremonial were despatched. Then she was conducted up to the high altar,
and anointed Queen of England, and she received from the hands of Cranmer,
fresh come in haste from Dunstable, with the last words of his sentence
upon Catherine scarcely silent upon his lips, the golden sceptre, and St.
Edward's crown.

Did any twinge of remorse, any pang of painful recollection, pierce at that
moment the incense of glory which she was inhaling? Did any vision flit
across her of a sad mourning figure which once had stood where she was
standing, now desolate, neglected, sinking into the darkening twilight of a
life cut short by sorrow? Who can tell? At such a time, that figure would
have weighed heavily upon a noble mind, and a wise mind would have been
taught by the thought of it, that although life be fleeting as a dream, it
is long enough to experience strange vicissitudes of fortune. But Anne
Boleyn was not noble and was not wise,--too probably she felt nothing but
the delicious, all-absorbing, all-intoxicating present, and if that plain,
suffering face presented itself to her memory at all, we may fear that it
was rather as a foil to her own surpassing loveliness. Two years later, she
was able to exult over Catherine's death; she is not likely to have thought
of her with gentler feelings in the first glow and flush of triumph.

We may now leave these scenes. They concluded in the usual English style,
with a banquet in the great hall, and with all outward signs of enjoyment
and pleasure. There must have been but few persons present however who did
not feel that the sunshine of such a day might not last for ever, and that
over so dubious a marriage no Englishman could exult with more than half a
heart. It is foolish to blame lightly actions which arise in the midst of
circumstances which are and can be but imperfectly known; and there may
have been political reasons which made so much pomp desirable. Anne Boleyn
had been the subject of public conversation for seven years, and Henry, no
doubt, desired to present his jewel to them in the rarest and choicest
setting. Yet to our eyes, seeing, perhaps, by the light of what followed, a
more modest introduction would have appeared more suited to the doubtful
nature of her position.

At any rate we escape from this scene of splendour very gladly as from
something unseasonable. It would have been well for Henry VIII. if he had
lived in a world in which women could have been dispensed with; so ill, in
all his relations with them, he succeeded. With men he could speak the
right word, he could do the right thing; with women he seemed to be under a
fatal necessity of mistake.

It was now necessary, however, after this public step, to communicate in
form to the emperor the divorce and the new marriage. The king was assured
of the rectitude of the motives on which he had himself acted, and he knew
at the same time that he had challenged the hostility of the papal world.
Yet he did not desire a quarrel if there were means of avoiding it; and
more than once he had shown respect for the opposition which he had met
with from Charles, as dictated by honourable care for the interests of his
kinswoman. He therefore, in the truest language which will be met with in
the whole long series of the correspondence, composed a despatch for his
ambassador at Brussels, and expressed himself in a tone of honest sorrow
for the injury which he had been compelled to commit. Neither the coercion
which the emperor had exerted over the pope, nor his intrigues with his
subjects in Ireland and England, could deprive the nephew of Catherine of
his right to a courteous explanation; and Henry directed Doctor Nicholas
Hawkins in making his communication "to use only gentle words;" to express
a hope that Charles would not think only of his own honour, but would
remember public justice; and that a friendship of long standing, which the
interests of the subjects of both countries were concerned so strongly in
maintaining, might not be broken. The instructions are too interesting to
pass over with a general description. After stating the grounds on which
Henry had proceeded, and which Charles thoroughly understood, Hawkins was
directed to continue thus:--

"The King of England is not ignorant what respect is due unto the world.
How much he hath laboured and travailed therein he hath sufficiently
declared and showed in his acts and proceedings. If he had contemned the
order and process of the world, or the friendship and amity of your
Majesty, he needed not to have sent so often to the pope and to you both,
nor continued and spent his time in delays. He might have done what he has
done now, had it so liked him, with as little difficulty as now, if without
such respect he would have followed his pleasure."

The minister was then to touch the pope's behaviour and Henry's
forbearance, and after that to say:--

"Going forward in that way his Highness saw that he could come to no
conclusion; and he was therefore compelled to step right forth out of the
maze, and so to quiet himself at last. And is it not time to have an end in
seven years? It is not to be asked nor questioned whether the matter hath
been determined after the common fashion, but whether it hath in it common
justice, truth, and equity. For observation of the common order, his Grace
hath done what lay in him. Enforced by necessity he hath found the true
order which he hath in substance followed with effect, and hath done as
becometh him. He doubteth not but your Majesty, remembering his cause from
the beginning hitherto, will of yourself consider and think, that among
mortal men nothing should be immortal; and suits must once have an end, si
possis recte, si non quocunque modo. If his Highness cannot as he would,
then must he do as he may; and he that hath a journey to be perfected must,
if he cannot go one way, essay another. For his matter with the pope, he
shall deal with him apart. Your Majesty he taketh for his friend, and as to
a friend he openeth these matters to you, trusting to find your Majesty no
less friendly than he hath done heretofore."[437]

If courtesy obliged Henry to express a confidence in the stability of the
relations between himself and Charles, which it was impossible that he
could have felt, yet in other respects this letter has the most pleasant
merit of honesty. Hawkins was so much overcome by "the sweetness of it,"
that "he nothing doubted if that the emperor read the same, by God's grace
he should be utterly persuaded;" and although in this expectation he was a
little over sanguine, as in calmer moments he would have acknowledged, yet
plain speech is never without its value; and Charles himself after he had
tried other expedients, and they had not succeeded with him, found it more
prudent to acquiesce in what could no longer be altered, and to return to
cordiality.

For the present he remained under the impression that by the great body of
the English the divorce was looked upon with coldness and even with
displeasure, that the king was supported only by the complacency of a few
courtiers, and that the nation were prepared to compel him to undo the
wrong which had been inflicted upon Catherine and the princess. So he was
assured by the Spanish party in England; so all the disaffected assured
him, who were perhaps themselves deceived. He had secured Ireland, and
Scotland also in so far as James's promises could secure it;[438] and he
was not disposed to surrender for the present so promising a game till he
had tried his strength and proved his weakness. He replied coldly to
Hawkins, "That for the King of England's amity he would be glad thereof, so
the said king would do works according. The matter was none of his; but the
lady, whose rights had been violated, was his aunt and an orphan, and that
he must see for her, and for her daughter his cousin."[439]

The scarcely ambiguous answer was something softened the following day;
perhaps only, however, because it was too plain a betrayal of his
intentions. He communicated at once with Catherine, and Henry speedily
learnt the nature of the advice which he had given to her. After the
coronation had passed off so splendidly, when no disturbance had risen, no
voice had been raised for her or for her daughter, the poor queen's spirit
for the moment had sunk; she had thought of leaving the country, and flying
with the Princess Mary to Spain. The emperor sent to urge her to remain a
little longer, guaranteeing her, if she could command her patience, an
ample reparation for her injuries. Whatever might appear upon the surface,
the new queen, he was assured, was little loved by the people, and "they
were ready to join with any prince who would espouse her quarrel."[440] All
classes, he said, were agreed in one common feeling of displeasure. They
were afraid of a change of religion; they were afraid of the wreck of their
commerce; and the whole country was fast ripening towards insurrection. The
points on which he relied as the occasion of the disaffection betrayed the
sources of his information. He was in correspondence with the regular
clergy through Peto at Antwerp, and through his Flemish subjects with
merchants of London. Among both these classes, as well as among the White
Rose nobles, he had powerful adherents; and it could not have been
forgotten in the courts, either of London or Brussels, that within the
memory of living men, a small band of exiles, equipped by a Duke of
Burgundy, had landed at a Yorkshire village, and in a month had
revolutionised the kingdom.

In the eyes of Charles there was no reason why an attempt which had
succeeded once might not succeed again under circumstances seemingly of far
fairer promise. The strength of a party of insurrection is a power which
official statesmen never justly comprehend. It depends upon moral
influences, which they are professionally incapable of appreciating. They
are able complacently to ignore the existence of substantial disaffection
though all society may be undermined; they can build their hopes, When it
suits their convenience, on the idle trifling of superficial discontent. In
the present instance there was some excuse for the mistake. That in England
there really existed an active and organised opposition, prepared, when
opportunity offered, to try the chances of rebellion, was no delusion of
persons who measured facts by their desires; it was an ascertained peril of
serious magnitude, which might be seriously calculated upon; and if the
experiment was tried, reasonable men might fairly be divided in opinion on
the result to be expected.

In the meantime the government had been obliged to follow up the coronation
of the new queen by an act which the situation of the kingdom explained and
excused; but which, if Catherine had been no more than a private person,
would have been wanton cruelty. Among the people she still bore her royal
title; but the name of queen, so long as she was permitted to retain it,
was an allowed witness against the legality of the sentence at Dunstable.
There could not be "two queens" in England,[441] and one or other must
retire from the designation. A proclamation was therefore issued by the
council, declaring, that in consequence of the final proofs that the Lady
Catherine had never been lawfully married to the king, she was to bear
thenceforward the title which she had received after the death of her first
husband, and be called the Princess Dowager.

Harsh as this measure was, she had left no alternative to the government by
which to escape the enforcement of it, by her refusal to consent to any
form of compromise. If she was queen, Anne Boleyn was not queen. If she was
queen, the Princess Mary remained the heir to the crown, and the expected
offspring of Anne would be illegitimate. If the question had been merely of
names, to have moved it would have been unworthy and wicked; but where
respect for private feeling was incompatible with the steps which a nation
felt necessary in order to secure itself against civil convulsions, private
feeling was compelled not unjustly to submit to injury. Mary, though still
a girl, had inherited both her father's will and her mother's obstinacy.
She was in correspondence, as we have seen, with the Nun of Kent, and aware
at least, if she was not further implicated in it, of a conspiracy to place
her on the throne. Charles was engaged in the same designs; and it will not
be pretended that Catherine was left without information of what was going
forward, or that her own conduct was uninfluenced by policy. These
intrigues it was positively necessary to stifle, and it was impossible to
leave a pretext of which so powerful a use might be made in the hands of a
party whose object was not only to secure to the princess her right to
succeed her father, but to compel him by arms either to acknowledge it, or
submit to be deposed.[442]

Our sympathies are naturally on the side of the weak and the unsuccessful.
State considerations lose their force after the lapse of centuries, when no
interests of our own are any longer in jeopardy; and we feel for the great
sufferers of history only in their individual capacity, without recalling
or caring for the political exigencies to which they were sacrificed. It is
an error of disguised selfishness, the counterpart of the carelessness with
which in our own age, when we are ourselves constituents of an interested
public, we ignore what it is inconvenient to remember.

Thus, therefore, on one hot Midsummer Sunday in this year 1533, the people
gathering to church in every parish through the English counties, read,
nailed upon the doors, a paper signed Henry R., setting forth that the Lady
Catherine of Spain, heretofore called Queen of England, was not to be
called by that title any more, but was to be called Princess Dowager, and
so to be held and esteemed. The proclamation, we may suppose, was read with
varying comments; of the reception of it in the northern counties, the
following information was forwarded to the crown. The Earl of Derby,
lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire, wrote to inform the council that he had
arrested a certain "lewd and naughty priest," James Harrison by name, on
the charge of having spoken unfitting and slanderous words of his Highness
and the Queen's Grace. He had taken the examinations of several witnesses,
which he had sent with his letter, and which were to the following
effect:--

Richard Clark deposeth that the said James Harrison reading the
proclamation, said that Queen Catherine was queen, Nan Bullen should not be
queen, nor the king should be no king but on his bearing.

William Dalton deposeth, that in his hearing the above-named James said, I
will take none for queen but Queen Catherine--who the devil made Nan
Bullen, that hoore, queen? I will never take her for queen--and he the said
William answered, "Hold thy peace, thou wot'st not what thou sayest--but
that thou art a priest I should punish thee, that others should take
example."

Richard Sumner and John Clayton depose, that they came in company with the
said James from Perbalt to Eccleston, when the said James did say, "This is
a marvellous world--the king will put down the order of priests and destroy
the Sacrament, but he cannot reign long, for York will be in London
hastily."[443]

Here was the later growth of the spirit which we saw a few months
previously in the monks of Furness. The mutterings of discontent had
developed into plain open treason, confident of success, and scarcely
caring to conceal itself--and Yorkshire was preparing for rebellion and
"the Pilgrimage of Grace."

There is another quarter also into which we must follow the proclamation,
and watch the effect of the royal order in a scene where it is well that we
should for a few moments rest. Catherine was still at Ampthill, surrounded
by her own attendants, who formed an inner circle, shielding her retirement
against impertinent curiosity. She rarely or never allowed herself to be
seen; Lord Mountjoy, with an official retinue, was in attendance in the
house; but the occupation was not a pleasant one, and he was as willing to
respect the queen's seclusion as she to remain secluded. Injunctions
arrived however from the court at the end of June, which compelled him to
request an interview; a deputation of the privy council had come down to
inform the ex-queen of the orders of the government, and to desire that
they might be put in force in her own family. Aware probably of the nature
of the communication which was to be made to her, she refused repeatedly to
admit them to her presence. At length, however, she nerved herself for the
effort, and on the 3rd of July Mountjoy and the state commissioners were
informed that she was ready to receive them.

As they entered her room she was lying on a sofa. She had a bad cough, and
she had hurt her foot with a pin, and was unable to stand or walk. Her
attendants were all present by her own desire; she was glad to see around
her some sympathising human faces, to enable her to endure the cold hard
eyes of the officials of the council.

She inquired whether the message was to be delivered in writing or by word
of mouth.

They replied that they had brought with them instructions which they were
to read, and that they were further charged with a message which was to be
delivered verbally. She desired that they would read their written
despatch. It was addressed to the Princess Dowager, and she at once
excepted to the name. She was not Princess Dowager, she said, but queen,
and the king's true wife. She came to the king a clear maid for any bodily
knowledge of Prince Arthur; she had borne him lawful issue and no bastard,
and therefore queen she was, and queen she would be while she lived.

The commissioners were prepared for the objection, and continued, without
replying, to read. The paper contained a statement of worn-out unrealities;
the old story of the judgment of the universities and the learned men, the
sentence of convocation, and of the houses of parliament; and, finally, the
fact of substantial importance, that the king, acting as he believed
according to the laws of God, had married the Lady Anne Boleyn, who was now
his lawful wife, and anointed Queen of England.

Oh yes, she answered when they had done, we know that, and "we know the
authority by which it has been done--more by power than justice." The
king's learned men were learned heretics; the honest learning was for her.
As for the seals of the universities there were strange stories about the
way in which they had been obtained. The universities and the parliament
had done what the king bade them; and they had gone against their
consciences in doing it; but it was of no importance to her--she was in the
hands of the pope, who was God's vicar, and she acknowledged no other
judge.

The commissioners informed her of the decision of the council that she was
no longer to bear the title of queen. It stood, they said, neither with the
laws of God nor man, nor with the king's honour, to have two queens named
within the realm; and in fact, there was but one queen, the king's lawful
wife, to whom he was now married.

She replied shortly that she was the king's lawful queen, and none other.

There was little hope in her manner that anything which could be said would
move her; but her visitors were ordered to try her to the uttermost.

The king, they continued, was surprised that she could be so disobedient;
and not only that she was disobedient herself, but that she allowed and
encouraged her servants in the same conduct.

She was ready to obey the king; she answered, when she could do so without
disobeying God; but she could not damn her soul even for him. Her servants,
she said, must do the best they could; they were standing round her as she
was speaking; and she turned to them with an apology, and a hope that they
would pardon her. She would hinder her cause, she said; and put her soul in
danger, if on their account she were to relinquish her name, and she could
not do it.

The deputation next attempted her on her worldly side. If she would obey,
they informed her that she would be allowed not only her jointure as
Princess Dowager and her own private fortune, but all the settlements which
had been made upon her on her marriage with the king.

She "passed not upon possessions, in regard of this matter," she replied.
It touched her conscience, and no worldly considerations were of the
slightest moment.

In disobeying the king, they said; seeing that she was none other than his
subject, she might give cause for dissension and disturbance; and she might
lose the favour of the people.

She "trusted not," she replied--she "never minded it, nor would she"--she
"desired only to save her right; and if she should lose the favour of the
people in defending that right, yet she trusted to go to heaven cum famâ et
infamiâ."

Promises and persuasions being unavailing, they tried threats. She was told
that if she persisted in so obstinate a course, the king would be obliged
to make known to the world the offers which he had made to her, and the ill
reception which they had met with--and then he would perhaps withdraw those
offers, and conceive some evil opinions of high displeasure towards her.

She answered that there was no manner of offers neither of lands nor goods
that she had respect unto in comparison of her cause--and as to the loss of
the king's affection, she trusted to God, to whom she would daily pray for
him.

The learned council might as well have reasoned with the winds; or
threatened the waves of the sea. But they were not yet weary, and their
next effort was as foolish as it was ungenerous. They suggested, "that if
she did reserve the name of queen, it was thought that she would do it of a
vain desire and appetite of glory; and further, she might be an occasion
that the king would withdraw his love from her most dear daughter the Lady
Princess, which should chiefly move her, if none other cause did."

They must have known little of Catherine, if they thought she could be
influenced by childish vanity. It was for no vain glory that she cared, she
answered proudly; she was the king's true wife, and her conscience forbade
her to call herself otherwise; the princess was his true begotten child;
and as God hath given her to them, so for her part she would render her
again; neither for daughter, family, nor possessions, would she yield in
her cause; and she made a solemn protestation, calling on every one present
to bear witness to what she said, that the king's wife she was, and such
she would take herself to be, and that she would never surrender the name
of queen till the pope had decided that she must bear it no longer.

So ended the first interview. Catherine, before the commissioners left her,
desired to have a copy of the proposals which they had brought, that she
might translate and send them to Rome. They returned with them the next
day, when she requested to see the report which they intended to send to
the council of the preceding conversation. It was placed in her hands; and
as she read it and found there the name of Princess Dowager, she took a pen
and dashed out the words, the mark of which indignant ink-stroke may now be
seen in the letter from which this account is taken.[444] With the accuracy
of the rest she appeared to be satisfied--only when she found again their
poor suggestion that she was influenced by vanity, she broke out with a
burst of passionate indignation.

"I would rather be a poor beggar's wife," she said, "and be sure of heaven,
than queen of all the world, and stand in doubt thereof by reason of my own
consent. I stick not so for vain glory, but because I know myself the
king's true wife--and while you call me the king's subject, I was his
subject while he took me for his wife. But if he take me not for his wife,
I came not into this Realm as merchandise, nor to be married to any
merchant; nor do I continue in the same but as his lawful wife, and not as
a subject to live under his dominion otherwise. I have always demeaned
myself well and truly towards the king--and if it can be proved that either
in writing to the pope or any other, I have either stirred or procured
anything against his Grace, or have been the means to any person to make
any motion which might be prejudicial to his Grace or to his Realm, I am
content to suffer for it. I have done England little good, and I should be
sorry to do it any harm. But if I should agree to your motions and
persuasions, I should slander myself, and confess to have been the king's
harlot for twenty-four years. The cause, I cannot tell by what subtle
means, has been determined here within the king's Realm, before a man of
his own making, the Bishop of Canterbury, no person indifferent I think in
that behalf; and for the indifference of the place, I think the place had
been more indifferent to have been judged in hell; for no truth can be
suffered here, whereas the devils themselves I suppose do tremble to see
the truth in this cause so sore oppressed."[445]

Most noble, spirited, and like a queen. Yet she would never have been
brought to this extremity, and she would have shown a truer nobleness, if
four years before she could have yielded at the pope's entreaty on the
first terms which were proposed to her. Those terms would have required no
humiliating confessions; they would have involved no sentence on her
marriage nor touched her daughter's legitimacy. She would have broken no
law of God, nor seemed to break it. She was required only to forget her own
interests; and she would not forget them, though all the world should be
wrecked by her refusal. She denied that she was concerned in "motions
prejudicial to the king or to the Realm," but she must have placed her own
interpretation on the words, and would have considered excommunication and
interdict a salutary discipline to the king and parliament. She knew that
this sentence was imminent, that in its minor form it had already fallen;
and she knew that her nephew and her friends in England were plotting to
give effect to the decree. But we may pass over this. It is not for an
English writer to dwell upon those faults of Catherine of Arragon, which
English remorse has honourably insisted on forgetting. Her injuries,
inevitable as they were, and forced upon her in great measure by her own
wilfulness, remain among the saddest spots in the pages of our history.

One other brief incident remains to be noticed here, to bring up before the
imagination the features of this momentous summer. It is contained in the
postscript of a letter of Cranmer to Hawkins the ambassador in Germany; and
the manner in which the story is told is no less suggestive than the story
itself.

The immediate present, however awful its import, will ever seem common and
familiar to those who live and breathe in the midst of it. In the days of
the September massacre at Paris, the theatres were open as usual; men ate,
and drank, and laughed, and cried, and went about their common work,
unconscious that those days which were passing by them, so much like other
days, would remain the _dies nefasti_, accursed in the memory of mankind
for ever. Nothing is terrible, nothing is sublime in human things, so long
as they are before our eyes. The great man has so much in common with men
in general, the routine of daily life, in periods the most remarkable in
history, contains so much that is unvarying, that it is only when time has
done its work; and all which was unimportant has ceased to be remembered,
that such men and such times stand out in their true significance. It might
have been thought that to a person like Cranmer, the court at Dunstable,
the coronation of the new queen, the past out of which these things had
risen, and the future which they threatened to involve, would have seemed
at least serious; and that engaged as he had been as a chief actor, in a
matter which, if it had done nothing else, had broken the heart of a
high-born lady whom once he had honoured as his queen, he would have been
either silent about his exploits, or if he had spoken of them, would have
spoken not without some show of emotion. We look for a symptom of feeling,
but we do not find it. When the coronation festivities were concluded he
wrote to his friend an account of what had been done by himself and others
in the light gossiping tone of easiest content; as if he were describing
the common incidents of a common day. It is disappointing, and not wholly
to be approved of. Still less can we approve of the passage with which he
concludes his letter.

"Other news we have none notable, but that one Frith, which was in the
Tower in prison,[446] was appointed by the King's Grace to be examined
before me, my Lord of London, my Lord of Winchester, my Lord of Suffolk, my
Lord Chancellor, and my Lord of Wiltshire; whose opinion was so notably
erroneous that we could not dispatch him, but were fain to leave him to the
determination of his ordinary, which is the Bishop of London. His said
opinion is of such nature, that he thought it not necessary to be believed
as an article of our faith that there is the very corporeal presence of
Christ within the host and sacrament of the altar; and holdeth on this
point much after the opinion of Oecolampadius.

"And surely I myself sent for him three or four times to persuade him to
leave that imagination. But for all that we could do therein, he would not
apply to any counsel. Notwithstanding now he is at a final end with all
examinations; for my Lord of London hath given sentence, and delivered him
to the secular power when he looketh every day to go unto the fire. And
there is also condemned with him one Andrew a tailor for the self-same
opinion; and thus fare you well."[447]

These victims went as they were sentenced, dismissed to their martyr's
crowns at Smithfield, as Queen Anne Boleyn but a few days before had
received her golden crown at the altar of Westminster Abbey. Twenty years
later another fire was blazing under the walls of Oxford; and the hand
which was now writing these light lines was blackening in the flames of it,
paying there the penalty of the same "imagination" for which Frith and the
poor London tailor were with such cool indifference condemned. It is
affecting to know that Frith's writings were the instruments of Cranmer's
conversion; and the fathers of the Anglican church have left a monument of
their sorrow for the shedding of this innocent blood in the Order of the
Communion service, which closes with the very words on which the primate,
with his brother bishops, had sate in judgment.[448]




CHAPTER VI

THE PROTESTANTS

Where changes are about to take place of great and enduring moment, a kind
of prologue, on a small scale, sometimes anticipates the true opening of
the drama; like the first drops which give notice of the coming storm, or
as if the shadows of the reality were projected forwards into the future,
and imitated in dumb show the movements of the real actors in the story.

Such a rehearsal of the English Reformation was witnessed at the close of
the fourteenth century, confused, imperfect, disproportioned, to outward
appearance barren of results; yet containing a representative of each one
of the mixed forces by which that great change was ultimately effected, and
foreshadowing even something of the course which it was to run.

There was a quarrel with the pope upon the extent of the papal privileges;
there were disputes between the laity and the clergy,--accompanied, as if
involuntarily, by attacks on the sacramental system and the Catholic
faith,--while innovation in doctrine was accompanied also with the tendency
which characterised the extreme development of the later
Protestants--towards political republicanism, the fifth monarchy, and
community of goods. Some account of this movement must be given in this
place, although it can be but a sketch only. "Lollardry"[449] has a history
of its own; but it forms no proper part of the history of the Reformation.
It was a separate phenomenon, provoked by the same causes which produced
their true fruit at a later period; but it formed no portion of the stem on
which those fruits ultimately grew. It was a prelude which was played out,
and sank into silence, answering for the time no other end than to make the
name of heretic odious in the ears of the English nation. In their recoil
from their first failure, the people stamped their hatred of heterodoxy
into their language; and in the word _miscreant_, misbeliever, as the
synonym of the worst species of reprobate, they left an indelible record of
the popular estimate of the followers of John Wycliffe.

The Lollard story opens with the disputes between the crown and the see of
Rome on the presentation to English benefices. For the hundred and fifty
years which succeeded the Conquest, the right of nominating the
archbishops, the bishops, and the mitred abbots, had been claimed and
exercised by the crown. On the passing of the great charter, the church had
recovered its liberties, and the privilege of free election had been
conceded by a special clause to the clergy. The practice which then became
established was in accordance with the general spirit of the English
constitution. On the vacancy of a see, the cathedral chapter applied to the
crown for a congé d'élire. The application was a form; the consent was
invariable. A bishop was then elected by a majority of suffrages; his name
was submitted to the metropolitan, and by him to the pope. If the pope
signified his approval, the election was complete; consecration followed;
and the bishop having been furnished with his bulls of investiture, was
presented to the king, and from him received "the temporalities" of his
see. The mode in which the great abbots were chosen was precisely similar;
the superiors of the orders to which the abbeys belonged were the channels
of communication with the pope, in the place of the archbishops; but the
elections in themselves were free, and were conducted in the same manner.
The smaller church benefices, the small monasteries or parish churches,
were in the hands of private patrons, lay or ecclesiastical; but in the
case of each institution a reference was admitted, or was supposed to be
admitted, to the court of Rome.

There was thus in the pope's hand an authority of an indefinite kind, which
it was presumed that his sacred office would forbid him to abuse, but
which, however, if he so unfortunately pleased, he might abuse at his
discretion. He had absolute power over every nomination to an English
benefice; he might refuse his consent till such adequate reasons, material
or spiritual, as he considered sufficient to induce him to acquiesce, had
been submitted to his consideration. In the case of nominations to the
religious houses, the superiors of the various orders residing abroad had
equal facilities for obstructiveness; and the consequence of so large a
confidence in the purity of the higher orders of the Church became visible
in an act of parliament which it was found necessary to pass in
1306-7.[450]

"Of late," says this act, "it has come to the knowledge of the king, by the
grievous complaint of the honourable persons, lords, and other noblemen of
his realm, that whereas monasteries, priories, and other religious houses
were founded to the honour and glory of God, and the advancement of holy
church, by the king and his progenitors, and by the said noblemen and their
ancestors; and a very great portion of lands and tenements have been given
by them to the said monasteries, priories, and religious houses, and the
religious men serving God in them; to the intent that clerks and laymen
might be admitted in such houses, and that sick and feeble folk might be
maintained, hospitality, almsgiving, and other charitable deeds might be
done, and prayers be said for the souls of the founders and their heirs;
the abbots, priors, and governors of the said houses, _and certain aliens
their superiors_, as the abbots and priors of the Cistertians, the
Premonstrants, the orders of Saint Augustine and of Saint Benedict, and
many more of other religions and orders have at their own pleasure set
divers heavy, unwonted heavy and importable tallages, payments, and
impositions upon every of the said monasteries and houses subject unto
them, in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, without the privity of the
king and his nobility, contrary to the laws and customs of the said realm;
and thereby the number of religious persons being oppressed by such
tallages, payments, and impositions, the service of God is diminished, alms
are not given to the poor, the sick, and the feeble; the healths of the
living and the souls of the dead be miserably defrauded; hospitality,
alms-giving, and other godly deeds do cease; and so that which in times
past was charitably given to godly uses and to the service of God, is now
converted to an evil end, by permission whereof there groweth great scandal
to the people." To provide against a continuance of these abuses, it was
enacted that no "religious" persons should, under any pretence or form,
send out of the kingdom any kind of tax, rent, or tallage; and that "priors
aliens" should not presume to assess any payment, charge, or other burden
whatever upon houses within the realm.[451]

The language of this act was studiously guarded. The pope was not alluded
to; the specific methods by which the extortion was practised were not
explained; the tax upon presentations to benefices, either having not yet
distinguished itself beyond other impositions, or the government trusting
that a measure of this general kind might answer the desired end. Lucrative
encroachments, however, do not yield so easily to treatment; nearly fifty
years after it became necessary to re-enact the same statute; and while
recapitulating the provisions of it, the parliament found it desirable to
point out more specifically the intention with which it was passed.

The popes in the interval had absorbed in their turn from the heads of the
religious orders, the privileges which by them had been extorted from the
affiliated societies. Each English benefice had become the fountain of a
rivulet which flowed into the Roman exchequer, or a property to be
distributed as the private patronage of the Roman bishop: and the English
parliament for the first time found itself in collision with the Father of
Christendom.

"The pope," says the fourth of the twenty-fifth of Edward III.,
"accroaching to himself the signories of the benefices within the realm of
England, doth give and grant the same to aliens which did never dwell in
England, and to cardinals which could not dwell here, and to others as well
aliens as denizens, whereby manifold inconveniences have ensued." "Not
regarding" the statute of Edward I., he had also continued to present to
bishopricks, abbeys, priories, and other valuable preferments: money in
large quantities was carried out of the realm from the proceeds of these
offices, and it was necessary to insist emphatically that the papal
nominations should cease. They were made in violation of the law, and were
conducted with simony so flagrant that English benefices were sold in the
papal courts to any person who would pay for them, whether an Englishman or
a stranger. It was therefore decreed that the elections to bishopricks
should be free as in time past, that the rights of patrons should be
preserved, and penalties of imprisonment, forfeiture, or outlawry,
according to the complexion of the offence, should be attached to all
impetration of benefices from Rome by purchase or otherwise.[452]

If statute law could have touched the evil, these enactments would have
been sufficient for the purpose; but the influence of the popes in England
was of that subtle kind which was not so readily defeated. The law was
still defied, or still evaded; and the struggle continued till the close of
the century, the legislature labouring patiently, but ineffectually, to
confine with fresh enactments their ingenious adversary.[453]

At length symptoms appeared of an intention on the part of the popes to
maintain their claims with spiritual censures, and the nation was obliged
to resolve upon the course which, in the event of their resorting to that
extremity, it would follow. The lay lords[454] and the House of Commons
found no difficulty in arriving at a conclusion. They passed a fresh penal
statute with prohibitions even more emphatically stringent, and decided
that "if any man brought into this realm any sentence, summons, or
excommunication, contrary to the effect of the statute, he should incur
pain of life and members, with forfeiture of goods; and if any prelate made
execution of such sentence, his temporalities should be taken from him, and
should abide in the king's hands till redress was made."[455]

So bold a measure threatened nothing less than open rupture. The act,
however, seems to have been passed in haste, without determined
consideration; and on second thoughts, it was held more prudent to attempt
a milder course. The strength of the opposition to the papacy lay with the
Commons.[456] When the session of parliament was over, a great council was
summoned to reconsider what should be done, and an address was drawn up,
and forwarded to Rome, with a request that the then reigning pope would
devise some manner by which the difficulty could be arranged.[457] Boniface
IX. replied with the same want of judgment which was shown afterwards on an
analogous occasion by Clement VII. He disbelieved the danger; and daring
the government to persevere, he granted a prebendal stall at Wells to an
Italian cardinal, to which a presentation had been made already by the
king. Opposing suits were instantly instituted between the claimants in the
courts of the two countries. A decision was given in England in favour of
the nominee of the king, and the bishops agreeing to support the crown were
excommunicated.[458] The court of Rome had resolved to try the issue by a
struggle of force, and the government had no alternative but to surrender
at discretion, or to persevere at all hazards, and resist the usurpation.

The proceedings on this occasion seem to have been unusual, and significant
of the importance of the crisis. Parliament either was sitting at the time
when the excommunication was issued, or else it was immediately assembled;
and the House of Commons drew up, in the form of a petition to the king, a
declaration of the circumstances which had occurred. After having stated
generally the English law on the presentation to benefices, "Now of late,"
they added, "divers processes be made by his Holiness the Pope, and
censures of excommunication upon certain bishops, because they have made
execution of the judgments [given in the king's courts], to the open
disherison of the crown; whereby, if remedy be not provided, the crown of
England, which hath been so free at all times, that it has been in no
earthly subjection, should be submitted to the pope; and the laws and
statutes of the realm by him be defeated and avoided at his will, in
perpetual destruction of the sovereignty of the king our lord, his crown,
his regality, and all his realm." The Commons, therefore, on their part,
declared, "That the things so attempted were clearly against the king's
crown and his regality, used and approved of in the time of all his
progenitors, and therefore they and all the liege commons of the realm
would stand with their said lord the king, and his said crown, in the cases
aforesaid, to live and die."[459] Whether they made allusion to the act of
1389 does not appear--a measure passed under protest from one of the
estates of the realm was possibly held unequal to meet the emergency--at
all events they would not rely upon it. For after this peremptory assertion
of their own opinion, they desired the king, "and required him in the way
of justice," to examine severally the lords spiritual and temporal how they
thought, and how they would stand.[460] The examination was made, and the
result was satisfactory. The lay lords replied without reservation that
they would support the crown. The bishops (they were in a difficulty for
which all allowance must be made) gave a cautious, but also a manly answer.
They would not affirm, they said, that the pope had a right to
excommunicate them in such cases, and they would not say that he had not.
It was clear, however, that legal or illegal, such excommunication was
against the privileges of the English crown, and therefore that, on the
whole, they would and ought to be with the crown, _loialment_, like loyal
subjects, as they were bound by their allegiance.[461]

In this unusual and emphatic manner, the three estates agreed that the pope
should be resisted; and an act passed "that all persons suing at the court
of Rome, and obtaining thence any bulls, instruments, sentences of
excommunication which touched the king, or were against him, his regality,
or his realm, and they which brought the same within the realm, or received
the same, or made thereof notification, or any other execution whatever,
within the realm or without, they, their notaries, procurators, maintainers
and abettors, fautors and counsellors, should be put out of the king's
protection, and their lands and tenements, goods and chattels, be
forfeited."

The resolute attitude of the country terminated the struggle. Boniface
prudently yielded, and for the moment; and indeed for ever under this
especial form, the wave of papal encroachment was rolled back. The temper
which had been roused in the contest, might perhaps have carried the nation
further. The liberties of the crown had been asserted successfully. The
analogous liberties of the church might have followed; and other channels,
too, might have been cut off, through which the papal exchequer fed itself
on English blood. But at this crisis the anti-Roman policy was arrested in
its course by another movement, which turned the current of suspicion, and
frightened back the nation to conservatism.

While the crown and the parliament had been engaged with the pope, the
undulations of the dispute had penetrated down among the body of the
people, and an agitation had been commenced of an analogous kind against
the spiritual authorities at home. The parliament had lamented that the
duties of the religious houses were left unfulfilled, in consequence of the
extortions of their superiors abroad. The people, who were equally
convinced of the neglect of duty, adopted an interpretation of the
phenomenon less favourable to the clergy, and attributed it to the
temptations of worldliness, and the self-indulgence generated by enormous
wealth.

This form of discontent found its exponent in John Wycliffe, the great
forerunner of the Reformation, whose austere figure stands out above the
crowd of notables in English history, with an outline not unlike that of
another forerunner of a greater change.

The early life of Wycliffe is obscure. Lewis, on the authority of
Leland,[462] says that he was born near Richmond, in Yorkshire. Fuller,
though with some hesitation, prefers Durham.[463] He emerges into distinct
notice in 1360, ten years subsequent to the passing of the first Statute of
Provisors, having then acquired a great Oxford reputation as a lecturer in
divinity, and having earned for himself powerful friends and powerful
enemies. He had made his name distinguished by attacks upon the clergy for
their indolence and profligacy: attacks both written and orally
delivered--those written, we observe, being written in English, not in
Latin.[464] In 1365, Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed him Warden
of Canterbury Hall; the appointment, however, was made with some
irregularity, and the following year, Archbishop Islip dying, his
successor, Langham, deprived Wycliffe, and the sentence was confirmed by
the king. It seemed, nevertheless, that no personal reflection was intended
by this decision, for Edward III. nominated the ex-warden one of his
chaplains immediately after, and employed him on an important mission to
Bruges, where a conference on the benefice question was to be held with a
papal commission.

Other church preferment was subsequently given to Wycliffe; but Oxford
remained the chief scene of his work. He continued to hold his
professorship of divinity; and from this office the character of his
history took its complexion. At a time when books were rare and difficult
to be procured, lecturers who had truth to communicate fresh drawn from the
fountain, held an influence which in these days it is as difficult to
imagine as, however, it is impossible to overrate. Students from all Europe
flocked to the feet of a celebrated professor, who became the leader of a
party by the mere fact of his position.

The burden of Wycliffe's teaching was the exposure of the indolent fictions
which passed under the name of religion in the established theory of the
church. He was a man of most simple life; austere in appearance, with bare
feet and russet mantle.[465] As a soldier of Christ, he saw in his Great
Master and his Apostles the patterns whom he was bound to imitate. By the
contagion of example he gathered about him other men who thought as he did;
and gradually, under his captaincy, these "poor priests," as they were
called--vowed to poverty because Christ was poor--vowed to accept no
benefice, lest they should misspend the property of the poor, and because,
as apostles, they were bound to go where their Master called them,[466]
spread out over the country as an army of missionaries, to preach the faith
which they found in the Bible--to preach, not of relics and of indulgences,
but of repentance and of the grace of God. They carried with them copies of
the Bible which Wycliffe had translated, leaving here and there, as they
travelled, their costly treasures, as shining seed points of light; and
they refused to recognise the authority of the bishops, or their right to
silence them.

If this had been all, and perhaps if Edward III. had been succeeded by a
prince less miserably incapable than his grandson Richard, Wycliffe might
have made good his ground; the movement of the parliament against the pope
might have united in a common stream with the spiritual move against the
church at home, and the Reformation have been antedated by a century. He
was summoned to answer for himself before the Archbishop of Canterbury in
1377. He appeared in court supported by the presence of John of Gaunt, Duke
of Lancaster, the eldest of Edward's surviving sons, and the authorities
were unable to strike him behind so powerful a shield.

But the "poor priests" had other doctrines besides those which they
discovered in the Bible, relating to subjects with which, as apostles, they
would have done better if they had shrunk from meddling. The inefficiency
of the clergy was occasioned, as Wycliffe thought, by their wealth and by
their luxury. He desired to save them from a temptation too heavy for them
to bear, and he insisted that by neglect of duty their wealth had been
forfeited, and that it was the business of the laity to take it from its
unworthy possessors. The invectives with which the argument was accompanied
produced a widely-spread irritation. The reins of the country fell
simultaneously into the weak hands of Richard II., and the consequence was
a rapid spread of disorder. In the year which followed Richard's accession,
consistory judges were assaulted in their courts, sanctuaries were
violated, priests were attacked and ill-treated in church, church-yard, and
cathedral, and even while engaged in the mass;[467] the contagion of the
growing anarchy seems to have touched even Wycliffe himself, and touched
him in a point most deeply dangerous.

His theory of property, and his study of the character of Christ, had led
him to the near confines of Anabaptism. Expanding his views upon the
estates of the church into an axiom, he taught that "charters of perpetual
inheritance were impossible;" "that God could not give men civil
possessions for ever;"[468] "that property was founded in grace, and
derived from God;" and "seeing that forfeiture was the punishment of
treason, and all sin was treason against God, the sinner must consequently
forfeit his right to what he held of God." These propositions were nakedly
true, as we shall most of us allow; but God has his own methods of
enforcing extreme principles; and human legislation may only meddle with
them at its peril. The theory as an abstraction could be represented as
applying equally to the laity as to the clergy, and the new teaching
received a practical comment in 1381, in the invasion of London by Wat, the
tyler of Dartford, and 100,000 men, who were to level all ranks, put down
the church, and establish universal liberty.[469] Two priests accompanied
the insurgents, not Wycliffe's followers, but the licentious counterfeits
of them, who trod inevitably in their footsteps, and were as inevitably
countenanced by their doctrines. The insurrection was attended with the
bloodshed, destruction, and ferocity natural to such outbreaks. The
Archbishop of Canterbury and many gentlemen were murdered; and a great part
of London sacked and burnt. It would be absurd to attribute this disaster
to Wycliffe, nor was there any desire to hold him responsible for it; but
it is equally certain that the doctrines which he had taught were
incompatible, at that particular time, with an effective repression of the
spirit which had caused the explosion. It is equally certain that he had
brought discredit on his nobler efforts by ambiguous language on a subject
of the utmost difficulty, and had taught the wiser and better portion of
the people to confound heterodoxy of opinion with sedition, anarchy, and
disorder.

So long as Wycliffe lived, his own lofty character was a guarantee for the
conduct of his immediate disciples; and although his favour had far
declined, a party in the state remained attached to him, with sufficient
influence to prevent the adoption of extreme measures against the "poor
priests." In the year following the insurrection, an act was passed for
their repression in the House of Lords, and was sent down by the king to
the Commons. They were spoken of as "evil persons," going from place to
place in defiance of the bishops, preaching in the open air to great
congregations at markets and fairs, "exciting the people," "engendering
discord between the estates of the realm." The ordinaries had no power to
silence them, and had therefore desired that commissions should be issued
to the sheriffs of the various counties, to arrest all such persons, and
confine them, until they would "justify themselves" in the ecclesiastical
courts.[470] Wycliffe petitioned against the bill, and it was rejected; not
so much perhaps out of tenderness for the reformer, as because the Lower
House was excited by the controversy with the pope; and being doubtfully
disposed towards the clergy, was reluctant to subject the people to a more
stringent spiritual control.

But Wycliffe himself meanwhile had received a clear intimation of his own
declining position. His opposition to the church authorities, and his
efforts at re-invigorating the faith of the country, had led him into
doubtful statements on the nature of the eucharist; he had entangled
himself in dubious metaphysics on a subject on which no middle course is
really possible; and being summoned to answer for his language before a
synod in London, he had thrown himself again for protection on the Duke of
Lancaster. The duke (not unnaturally under the circumstances) declined to
encourage what he could neither approve nor understand;[471] and Wycliffe,
by his great patron's advice, submitted. He read a confession of faith
before the bishops, which was held satisfactory; he was forbidden, however,
to preach again in Oxford, and retired to his living of Lutterworth, in
Leicestershire, where two years later he died.

With him departed all which was best and purest in the movement which he
had commenced. The zeal of his followers was not extinguished, but the
wisdom was extinguished which had directed it; and perhaps the being
treated as the enemies of order had itself a tendency to make them what
they were believed to be. They were left unmolested for the next twenty
years, the feebleness of the government, the angry complexion which had
been assumed by the dispute with Rome, and the political anarchy in the
closing decade of the century, combining to give them temporary shelter;
but they availed themselves of their opportunity to travel further on the
dangerous road on which they had entered; and on the settlement of the
country under Henry IV. they fell under the general ban which struck down
all parties who had shared in the late disturbances.

They had been spared in 1382, only for more sharp denunciation, and a more
cruel fate; and Boniface having healed, on his side, the wounds which had
been opened, by well-timed concessions, there was no reason left for
leniency. The character of the Lollard teaching was thus described (perhaps
in somewhat exaggerated language) in the preamble of the act of 1401.[472]

"Divers false and perverse people," so runs the act _De Heretico
comburendo_, "of a certain new sect, damnably thinking of the faith of the
sacraments of the church, and of the authority of the same, against the law
of God and of the church, usurping the office of preaching, do perversely
and maliciously, in divers places within the realm, preach and teach divers
new doctrines, and wicked erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and
determination of Holy Church. And of such sect and wicked doctrines they
make unlawful conventicles, they hold and exercise schools, they make and
write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform people, and excite and
stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make great strife and division
among the people, and other enormities horrible to be heard, daily do
perpetrate and commit. The diocesans cannot by their jurisdiction
spiritual, without aid of the King's Majesty, sufficiently correct these
said false and perverse people, nor refrain their malice, because they do
go from diocess to diocess, and will not appear before the said diocesans;
but the jurisdiction spiritual, the keys of the church, and the censures of
the same, do utterly contemn and despise; and so their wicked preachings
and doctrines they do from day to day continue and exercise, to the
destruction of all order and rule, right and reason."

Something of these violent accusations is perhaps due to the horror with
which false doctrine in matters of faith was looked upon in the Catholic
church, the grace by which alone an honest life was made possible being
held to be dependent upon orthodoxy. But the Lollards had become political
revolutionists as well as religious reformers; the revolt against the
spiritual authority had encouraged and countenanced a revolt against the
secular; and we cannot be surprised, therefore, that these institutions
should have sympathised with each other, and have united to repress a
danger which was formidable to both.

The bishops, by this act, received arbitrary power to arrest and imprison
on suspicion, without check or restraint of law, at their will and
pleasure. Prisoners who refused to abjure their errors, who persisted in
heresy, or relapsed into it after abjuration, were sentenced to be burnt at
the stake--a dreadful punishment, on the wickedness of which the world has
long been happily agreed. Yet we must remember that those who condemned
teachers of heresy to the flames, considered that heresy itself involved
everlasting perdition; that they were but faintly imitating the severity
which orthodoxy still ascribes to Almighty God Himself.

The tide which was thus setting back in favour of the church did not yet,
however, flow freely, and without a check. The Commons consented to
sacrifice the heretics, but they still cast wistful looks on the lands of
the religious houses. On two several occasions, in 1406, and again 1410,
spoliation was debated in the Lower House, and representations were made
upon the subject to the king.[473] The country, too, continued to be
agitated with war and treason; and when Henry V. became king, in 1412, the
church was still uneasy, and the Lollards were as dangerous as ever.
Whether by prudent conduct they might have secured a repeal of the
persecuting act is uncertain; it is more likely, from their conduct, that
they had made their existence incompatible with the security of any
tolerable government.

A rumour having gone abroad that the king intended to enforce the laws
against heresy, notices were found fixed against the doors of the London
churches, that if any such measure was attempted, a hundred thousand men
would be in arms to oppose it. These papers were traced to Sir John
Oldcastle, otherwise called Lord Cobham, a man whose true character is more
difficult to distinguish, in the conflict of the evidence which has come
down to us about him, than that of almost any noticeable person in history.
He was perhaps no worse than a fanatic. He was certainly prepared, if we
may trust the words of a royal proclamation (and Henry was personally
intimate with Oldcastle, and otherwise was not likely to have exaggerated
the charges against him), he was prepared to venture a rebellion, with the
prospect of himself becoming the president of some possible Lollard
commonwealth.[474] The king, with swift decisiveness, annihilated the
incipient treason. Oldcastle was himself arrested. He escaped out of the
Tower into Scotland; and while Henry was absent in France he seems to have
attempted to organise some kind of Scotch invasion; but he was soon after
again taken on the Welsh Border, tried and executed. An act which was
passed in 1414 described his proceedings as an "attempt to destroy the
king, and all other manner of estates of the realm, as well spiritual as
temporal, and also all manner of policy, and finally the laws of the land."
The sedition was held to have originated in heresy, and for the better
repression of such mischiefs in time to come, the lord chancellor, the
judges, the justices of the peace, the sheriffs, mayors, bailiffs, and
every other officer having government of people, were sworn on entering
their office to use their best power and diligence to detect and prosecute
all persons suspected of so heinous a crime.[475]

Thus perished Wycliffe's labour,--not wholly, because his translation of
the Bible still remained a rare treasure; as seed of future life, which
would spring again under happier circumstances. But the sect which he
organised, the special doctrines which he set himself to teach, after a
brief blaze of success, sank into darkness; and no trace remained of
Lollardry except the black memory of contempt and hatred with which the
heretics of the fourteenth century were remembered by the English people,
long after the actual Reformation had become the law of the land.[476]

So poor a close to a movement of so fair promise was due partly to the
agitated temper of the times; partly, perhaps, to a want of judgment in
Wycliffe; but chiefly and essentially because it was an untimely birth.
Wycliffe saw the evil; he did not see the remedy; and neither in his mind
nor in the mind of the world about him, had the problem ripened itself for
solution. England would have gained little by the premature overthrow of
the church, when the house out of which the evil spirit was cast out could
have been but swept and garnished for the occupation of the seven devils of
anarchy.

The fire of heresy continued to smoulder, exploding occasionally in
insurrection,[477] occasionally blazing up in nobler form, when some poor
seeker for the truth, groping for a vision of God in the darkness of the
years which followed, found his way into that high presence through the
martyr's fire. But substantially, the nation relapsed into obedience--the
church was reprieved for a century. Its fall was delayed till the spirit in
which it was attacked was winnowed clean of all doubtful elements--until
Protestantism had recommenced its enterprise in a desire, not for a fairer
adjustment of the world's good things, but in a desire for some deeper,
truer, nobler, holier insight into the will of God. It recommenced not
under the auspices of a Wycliffe, not with the partial countenance of a
government which was crossing swords with the Father of Catholic
Christendom, and menacing the severance of England from the unity of the
faith, but under a strong dynasty of undoubted Catholic loyalty, with the
entire administrative power, secular as well as spiritual, in the hands of
the episcopate. It sprung up spontaneously, unguided, unexcited, by the
vital necessity of its nature, among the masses of the nation.

Leaping over a century, I pass to the year 1525, at which time, or about
which time, a society was enrolled in London calling itself "The
Association of Christian Brothers."[478] It was composed of poor men,
chiefly tradesmen, artisans, a few, a very few of the clergy; but it was
carefully organised, it was provided with moderate funds, which were
regularly audited; and its paid agents went up and down the country
carrying Testaments and tracts with them, and enrolling in the order all
persons who dared to risk their lives in such a cause. The harvest had been
long ripening. The records of the bishops' courts[479] are filled from the
beginning of the century with accounts of prosecutions for heresy--with
prosecutions, that is, of men and women to whom the masses, the
pilgrimages, the indulgences, the pardons, the effete paraphernalia of the
establishment, had become intolerable; who had risen up in blind
resistance, and had declared, with passionate anger, that whatever was the
truth, all this was falsehood. The bishops had not been idle; they had
plied their busy tasks with stake and prison, and victim after victim had
been executed with more than necessary cruelty. But it was all in vain:
punishment only multiplied offenders, and "the reek" of the martyrs, as was
said when Patrick Hamilton was burnt at St. Andrews, "infected all that it
did blow upon."[480]

There were no teachers, however, there were no books, no unity of
conviction, only a confused refusal to believe in lies. Copies of
Wycliffe's Bible remained, which parties here and there, under death
penalties if detected, met to read;[481] copies, also, of some of his
tracts[482] were extant; but they were unprinted transcripts, most rare and
precious, which the watchfulness of the police made it impossible to
multiply through the press, and which remained therefore necessarily in the
possession of but a few fortunate persons.

The Protestants were thus isolated in single groups or families, without
organisation, without knowledge of each other, with nothing to give them
coherency as a party; and so they might have long continued, except for an
impulse from some external circumstances. They were waiting for direction,
and men in such a temper are seldom left to wait in vain.

The state of England did but represent the state of all Northern Europe.
Wherever the Teutonic language was spoken, wherever the Teutonic nature was
in the people, there was the same weariness of unreality, the same craving
for a higher life. England rather lagged behind than was a leader in the
race of discontent. In Germany, all classes shared the common feeling; in
England it was almost confined to the lowest. But, wherever it existed, it
was a free, spontaneous growth in each separate breast, not propagated by
agitation, but springing self sown, the expression of the honest anger of
honest men at a system which had passed the limits of toleration, and which
could be endured no longer. At such times the minds of men are like a train
of gunpowder, the isolated grains of which have no relation to each other,
and no effect on each other, while they remain unignited; but let a spark
kindle but one of them, and they shoot into instant union in a common
explosion. Such a spark was kindled in Germany, at Wittenberg, on the 31st
of October, 1517. In the middle of that day Luther's denunciation of
Indulgences was fixed against the gate of All Saints church, Wittenberg,
and it became, like the brazen serpent in the wilderness, the sign to which
the sick spirits throughout the western world looked hopefully and were
healed. In all those millions of hearts the words of Luther found an echo,
and flew from lip to lip, from ear to ear. The thing which all were longing
for was done, and in two years from that day there was scarcely perhaps a
village from the Irish Channel to the Danube in which the name of Luther
was not familiar as a word of hope and promise. Then rose a common cry for
guidance. Books were called for--above all things, the great book of all,
the Bible. Luther's inexhaustible fecundity flowed with a steady stream,
and the printing presses in Germany and in the Free Towns of the
Netherlands, multiplied Testaments and tracts in hundreds of thousands.
Printers published at their own expense as Luther wrote.[483] The continent
was covered with disfrocked monks who had become the pedlars of these
precious wares;[484] and as the contagion spread, noble young spirits from
other countries, eager themselves to fight in God's battle, came to
Wittenberg to learn from the champion who had struck the first blow at
their great enemy how to use their weapons. "Students from all nations came
to Wittenberg," says one, "to hear Luther and Melancthon. As they came in
sight of the town they returned thanks to God with clasped hands; for from
Wittenberg, as heretofore from Jerusalem, proceeded the light of
evangelical truth, to spread thence to the utmost parts of the earth."[485]
Thither came young Patrick Hamilton from Edinburgh, whose "reek" was of so
much potency, a boy-enthusiast of nature as illustrious as his birth; and
thither came also from England, which is here our chief concern, William
Tyndal, a man whose history is lost in his work, and whose epitaph is the
Reformation. Beginning life as a restless Oxford student, he moved thence
to Cambridge, thence to Gloucestershire, to be tutor in a knight's family,
and there hearing of Luther's doings, and expressing himself with too warm
approval to suit his patron's conservatism,[486] he fell into disgrace.
From Gloucestershire he removed to London, where Cuthbert Tunstall had
lately been made bishop, and from whom he looked for countenance in an
intention to translate the New Testament. Tunstall showed little
encouragement to this enterprise; but a better friend rose where he was
least looked for; and a London alderman, Humfrey Monmouth by name, hearing
the young dreamer preach on some occasion at St. Dunstan's, took him to his
home for half a year, and kept him there: where "the said Tyndal," as the
alderman declared, "lived like a good priest, studying both night and day;
he would eat but sodden meat, by his good will, nor drink but small single
beer; nor was he ever seen to wear linen about him all the time of his
being there."[487] The half year being passed, Monmouth gave him ten
pounds, with which provision he went off to Wittenberg; and the alderman,
for assisting him in that business, went to the Tower--escaping, however,
we are glad to know, without worse consequences than a short imprisonment.
Tyndal saw Luther,[488] and under his immediate direction translated the
Gospels and Epistles while at Wittenberg. Thence he returned to Antwerp,
and settling there under the privileges of the city, he was joined by Joy,
who shared his great work with him. Young Frith from Cambridge came to him
also, and Barnes, and Lambert, and many others of whom no written record
remains, to concert a common scheme of action.

In Antwerp, under the care of these men, was established the printing
press, by which books were supplied, to accomplish for the teaching of
England what Luther and Melancthon were accomplishing for Germany. Tyndal's
Testament was first printed, then translations of the best German books,
reprints of Wycliffe's tracts or original commentaries. Such volumes as the
people most required were here multiplied as fast as the press could
produce them; and for the dissemination of these precious writings, the
brave London Protestants dared, at the hazard of their lives, to form
themselves into an organised association.

It is well to pause and look for a moment at this small band of heroes; for
heroes they were, if ever men deserved the name. Unlike the first reformers
who had followed Wycliffe, they had no earthly object, emphatically none;
and equally unlike them, perhaps, because they had no earthly object, they
were all, as I have said, poor men--either students, like Tyndal, or
artisans and labourers who worked for their own bread, and in tough contact
with reality, had learnt better than the great and the educated the
difference between truth and lies. Wycliffe had royal dukes and noblemen
for his supporters--knights and divines among his disciples--a king and a
House of Commons looking upon him, not without favour. The first
Protestants of the sixteenth century had for their king the champion of
Holy Church, who had broken a lance with Luther; and spiritual rulers over
them alike powerful and imbecile, whose highest conception of Christian
virtue was the destruction of those who disobeyed their mandates. The
masses of the people were indifferent to a cause which promised them no
material advantage; and the Commons of Parliament, while contending with
the abuses of the spiritual authorities, were laboriously anxious to wash
their hands of heterodoxy. "In the crime of heresy, thanked be God," said
the bishops in 1529, "there hath no notable person fallen in our time;" no
chief priest, chief ruler, or learned Pharisee--not one. "Truth it is that
certain apostate friars and monks, lewd priests, bankrupt merchants,
vagabonds and lewd idle fellows of corrupt nature, have embraced the
abominable and erroneous opinions lately sprung in Germany, and by them
have been some seduced in simplicity and ignorance. Against these, if
judgment have been exercised according to the laws of the realm, we be
without blame. If we have been too remiss or slack, we shall gladly do our
duty from henceforth."[489] Such were the first Protestants in the eyes of
their superiors. On one side was wealth, rank, dignity, the weight of
authority, the majority of numbers, the prestige of centuries; here too
were the phantom legions of superstition and cowardice; and here were all
the worthier influences so pre-eminently English, which lead wise men to
shrink from change, and to cling to things established, so long as one
stone of them remains upon another, This was the army of conservatism.
Opposed to it were a little band of enthusiasts, armed only with truth and
fearlessness; "weak things of the world," about to do battle in God's name;
and it was to be seen whether God or the world was the stronger. They were
armed, I say, with the truth. It was that alone which could have given them
victory in so unequal a struggle. They had returned to the essential
fountain of life; they re-asserted the principle which has lain at the root
of all religions, whatever their name or outward form, which once burnt
with divine lustre in that Catholicism which was now to pass away; the
fundamental axiom of all real life, that the service which man owes to God
is not the service of words or magic forms, or ceremonies or opinions; but
the service of holiness, of purity, of obedience to the everlasting laws of
duty.

When we look through the writings of Latimer, the apostle of the English
Reformation, when we read the depositions against the martyrs, and the
lists of their crimes against the established faith, we find no opposite
schemes of doctrine, no "plans of salvation;" no positive system of
theology which it was held a duty to believe; these things were of later
growth, when it became again necessary to clothe the living spirit in a
perishable body. We find only an effort to express again the old
exhortation of the Wise Man--"Will you hear the beginning and the end of
the whole matter? Fear God and keep his commandments; for that is the whole
duty of man."

Had it been possible for mankind to sustain themselves upon this single
principle without disguising its simplicity, their history would have been
painted in far other colours than those which have so long chequered its
surface. This, however, has not been given to us; and perhaps it never will
be given. As the soul is clothed in flesh, and only thus is able to perform
its functions in this earth, where it is sent to live; as the thought must
find a word before it can pass from mind to mind; so every great truth
seeks some body, some outward form in which to exhibit its powers. It
appears in the world, and men lay hold of it, and represent it to
themselves, in histories, in forms of words, in sacramental symbols; and
these things which in their proper nature are but illustrations, stiffen
into essential fact, and become part of the reality. So arises in era after
era an outward and mortal expression of the inward immortal life; and at
once the old struggle begins to repeat itself between the flesh and the
spirit, the form and the reality. For a while the lower tendencies are held
in check; the meaning of the symbolism is remembered and fresh; it is a
living language, pregnant and suggestive. Bye and bye, as the mind passes
into other phases, the meaning is forgotten; the language becomes a dead
language; and the living robe of life becomes a winding-sheet of
corruption. The form is represented as everything, the spirit as nothing;
obedience is dispensed with; sin and religion arrange a compromise; and
outward observances, or technical inward emotions, are converted into
jugglers' tricks, by which men are enabled to enjoy their pleasures and
escape the penalties of wrong. Then such religion becomes no religion, but
a falsehood; and honourable men turn away from it, and fall back in haste
upon the naked elemental life.

This, as I understand it, was the position of the early Protestants. They
found the service of God buried in a system where obedience was dissipated
into superstition; where sin was expiated by the vicarious virtues of other
men; where, instead of leading a holy life, men were taught that their
souls might be saved through masses said for them, at a money rate, by
priests whose licentiousness disgraced the nation which endured it; a
system in which, amidst all the trickery of the pardons, pilgrimages,
indulgences,--double-faced as these inventions are--wearing one meaning in
the apologies of theologians, and quite another to the multitude who live
and suffer under their influence--one plain fact at least is visible. The
people substantially learnt that all evils which could touch either their
spirits or their bodies, might be escaped by means which resolved
themselves, scarcely disguised, into the payment of moneys.

The superstition had lingered long; the time had come when it was to pass
away. Those in whom some craving lingered for a Christian life turned to
the heart of the matter, to the book which told them who Christ was, and
what he was; and finding there that holy example for which they longed,
they flung aside in one noble burst of enthusiastic passion, the disguise
which had concealed it from them. They believed in Christ, not in the
bowing rood, or the pretended wood of the cross on which he suffered; and
when that saintly figure had once been seen--the object of all love, the
pattern of all imitation--thenceforward neither form nor ceremony should
stand between them and their God.

Under much confusion of words and thoughts, confusion pardonable in all
men, and most of all in them, this seems to me to be transparently visible
in the aim of these "Christian Brothers;" a thirst for some fresh and noble
enunciation of the everlasting truth, the one essential thing for all men
to know and believe. And therefore they were strong; and therefore they at
last conquered. Yet if we think of it, no common daring was required in
those who would stand out at such a time in defence of such a cause. The
bishops might seize them on mere suspicion; and the evidence of the most
abandoned villains sufficed for their conviction.[490] By the act of Henry
V., every officer, from the lord chancellor to the parish constable, was
sworn to seek them out and destroy them; and both bishops and officials had
shown no reluctance to execute their duty. Hunted like wild beasts from
hiding-place to hiding-place, decimated by the stake, with the certainty
that however many years they might be reprieved, their own lives would
close at last in the same fiery trial; beset by informers, imprisoned,
racked, and scourged; worst of all, haunted by their own infirmities, the
flesh shrinking before the dread of a death of agony--thus it was that they
struggled on; earning for _themselves_ martyrdom--for _us_, the free
England in which we live and breathe. Among the great, until Cromwell came
to power, they had but one friend, and he but a doubtful one, who long
believed the truest kindness was to kill them. Henry VIII. was always
attracted towards the persons of the reformers. Their open bearing
commanded his respect. Their worst crime in the bishops' eyes--the
translating the Bible--was in his eyes not a crime, but a merit; he had
himself long desired an authorised English version, and at length compelled
the clergy to undertake it; while in the most notorious of the men
themselves, in Tyndal and in Frith, he had more than once expressed an
anxious interest.[491] But the convictions of his early years were long in
yielding. His feeling, though genuine, extended no further than to pity, to
a desire to recover estimable heretics out of errors which he would
endeavour to pardon. They knew, and all the "brethren" knew, that if they
persisted, they must look for the worst from the king and from every
earthly power; they knew it, and they made their account with it. An
informer deposed to the council, that he had asked one of the society "how
the King's Grace did take the matter against the sacrament; which answered,
the King's Highness was extreme against their opinions, and would punish
them grievously; also that my Lords of Norfolk and Suffolk, my Lord Marquis
of Exeter, with divers other great lords, were very extreme against them.
Then he (the informer) asked him how he and his fellows would do seeing
this, the which answered they had two thousand books out against the
Blessed Sacrament, in the commons' hands; and if it were once in the
commons' heads, they would have no further care."[492]

Tyndal then being at work at Antwerp, and the society for the dispersion of
his books thus preparing itself in England, the authorities were not slow
in taking the alarm. The isolated discontent which had prevailed hitherto
had been left to the ordinary tribunals; the present danger called for
measures of more systematic coercion. This duty naturally devolved on
Wolsey, and the office of Grand Inquisitor, which he now assumed, could not
have fallen into more competent hands.

Wolsey was not cruel. There is no instance, I believe, in which he of his
special motion sent a victim to the stake;--it would be well if the same
praise could be allowed to Cranmer. There was this difference between the
cardinal and other bishops, that while they seemed to desire to punish,
Wolsey was contented to silence; while they, in their conduct of trials,
made escape as difficult as possible, Wolsey sought rather to make
submission easy. He was too wise to suppose that he could cauterise heresy,
while the causes of it, in the corruption of the clergy, remained
unremoved; and the remedy to which he trusted, was the infusing new vigour
into the constitution of the church.[493] Nevertheless, he was determined
to repress, as far as outward measures could repress it, the spread of the
contagion; and he set himself to accomplish his task with the full energy
of his nature, backed by the whole power, spiritual and secular, of the
kingdom. The country was covered with his secret police, arresting
suspected persons and searching for books. In London the scrutiny was so
strict that at one time there was a general flight and panic; suspected
butchers, tailors, and carpenters, hiding themselves in the holds of
vessels in the river, and escaping across the Channel.[494] Even there they
were not safe. Heretics were outlawed by a common consent of the European
governments. Special offenders were hunted through France by the English
emissaries with the permission and countenance of the court,[495] and there
was an attempt to arrest Tyndal at Brussels, from which, for that time, he
happily escaped.[496]

Simultaneously the English universities fell under examination, in
consequence of the appearance of dangerous symptoms among the younger
students. Dr. Barnes, returning from the continent, had used violent
language in a pulpit at Cambridge; and Latimer, then a neophyte in heresy,
had grown suspect, and had alarmed the heads of houses. Complaints against
both of them were forwarded to Wolsey, and they were summoned to London to
answer for themselves.

Latimer, for some cause, found favour with the cardinal, and was dismissed,
with a hope on the part of his judge that his accusers might prove as
honest as he appeared to be, and even with a general licence to
preach.[497] Barnes was less fortunate; he was far inferior to Latimer; a
noisy, unwise man, without reticence or prudence. In addition to his
offences in matters of doctrine, he had attacked Wolsey himself with
somewhat vulgar personality; and it was thought well to single him out for
a public, though not a very terrible admonition. His house had been
searched for books, which he was suspected, and justly suspected, of having
brought with him from abroad. These, however, through a timely warning of
the danger, had been happily secreted,[498] or it might have gone harder
with him. As it was, he was committed to the Fleet on the charge of having
used heretical language. An abjuration was drawn up by Wolsey, which he
signed; and while he remained in prison preparations were made for a
ceremony, in which he was to bear a part, in St. Paul's church, by which
the Catholic authorities hoped to produce some salutary effect on the
disaffected spirits of London.

Vast quantities of Tyndal's publications had been collected by the police.
The bishops, also, had subscribed among themselves[499] to buy up the
copies of the New Testament before they left Antwerp;--an unpromising
method, like an attempt to extinguish fire by pouring oil upon it; they had
been successful, however, in obtaining a large immediate harvest, and a
pyramid of offending volumes was ready to be consumed in a solemn _auto da
fé_.

In the morning of Shrove Sunday, then, 1527, we are to picture to ourselves
a procession moving along London streets from the Fleet prison to St.
Paul's Cathedral. The warden of the Fleet was there, and the knight
marshal, and the tipstaffs, and "all the company they could make," "with
bills and glaives;" and in the midst of these armed officials, six men
marching in penitential dresses, one carrying a lighted taper five pounds'
weight, the others with symbolic fagots, signifying to the lookers-on the
fate which their crimes had earned for them, but which this time, in mercy,
was remitted. One of these was Barnes; the other five were "Stillyard men,"
undistinguishable by any other name, but detected members of the
brotherhood.

It was eight o'clock when they arrived at St. Paul's. The people had
flocked in crowds before them. The public seats and benches were filled.
All London had hurried to the spectacle. A platform was erected in the
centre of the nave, on the top of which, enthroned in pomp of purple and
gold and splendour, sate the great cardinal, supported on each side with
eighteen bishops, mitred abbots, and priors--six-and-thirty in all; his
chaplains and "spiritual doctors" sitting also where they could find place,
"in gowns of damask and satin." Opposite the platform, over the north door
of the cathedral, was a great crucifix--a famous image, in those days
called the Rood of Northen; and at the foot of it, inside a rail, a fire
was burning, with the sinful books, the Tracts and Testaments, ranged round
it in baskets, waiting for the execution of sentence.

Such was the scene into the midst of which the six prisoners entered. A
second platform stood in a conspicuous place in front of the cardinal's
throne, where they could be seen and heard by the crowd; and there upon
their knees, with their fagots on their shoulders, they begged pardon of
God and the Holy Catholic Church for their high crimes and offences. When
the confession was finished Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, preached a sermon:
and the sermon over, Barnes turned to the people, declaring that "he was
more charitably handled than he deserved, his heresies were so heinous and
detestable."

There was no other religious service: mass had perhaps been said previous
to the admission into the church of heretics lying under censure; and the
knight marshal led the prisoners down from the stage to the fire underneath
the crucifix. They were taken within the rails, and three times led round
the blazing pile, casting in their fagots as they passed. The contents of
the baskets were heaped upon the fagots, and the holocaust was complete.
This time, an unbloody sacrifice was deemed sufficient. The church was
satisfied with penance, and Fisher pronounced the prisoners absolved, and
received back into communion.[500]

So ended this strange exhibition, designed to work great results on the
consciences of the spectators. It may be supposed, however, that men whom
the tragedies of Smithfield failed to terrify, were not likely to be
affected deeply by melodrame and blazing paper.

A story follows of far deeper human interest, a story in which the
persecution is mirrored with its true lights and shadows, unexaggerated by
rhetoric; and which, in its minute simplicity, brings us face to face with
that old world, where men like ourselves lived, and worked, and suffered,
three centuries ago.

Two years before the time at which we have now arrived, Wolsey, in
pursuance of his scheme of converting the endowments of the religious
houses to purposes of education, had obtained permission from the pope to
suppress a number of the smaller monasteries. He had added largely to the
means thus placed at his disposal from his own resources, and had founded
the great college at Oxford, which is now called Christchurch.[501]
Desiring his magnificent institution to be as perfect as art could make it,
he had sought his professors in Rome, in the Italian universities, wherever
genius or ability could be found; and he had introduced into the foundation
several students from Cambridge, who had been reported to him as being of
unusual promise. Frith, of whom we have heard, was one of these. Of the
rest, John Clark, Sumner, and Taverner are the most noticeable. At the time
at which they were invited to Oxford, they were tainted, or some of them
were tainted, in the eyes of the Cambridge authorities, with suspicion of
heterodoxy;[502] and it is creditable to Wolsey's liberality, that he set
aside these unsubstantiated rumours, not allowing them to weigh against
ability, industry, and character. The church authorities thought only of
crushing what opposed them, especially of crushing talent, because talent
was dangerous. Wolsey's noble anxiety was to court talent, and if possible
to win it.

The young Cambridge students, however, ill repaid his confidence (so, at
least, it must have appeared to him), and introduced into Oxford the rising
epidemic. Clark, as was at last discovered, was in the habit of reading St.
Paul's Epistles to young men in his rooms; and a gradually increasing
circle of undergraduates, of three or four years' standing,[503] from
various colleges, formed themselves into a spiritual freemasonry, some of
them passionately insisting on being admitted to the lectures, in spite of
warnings from Clark himself, whose wiser foresight knew the risk which they
were running, and shrank from allowing weak giddy spirits to thrust
themselves into so fearful peril.[504]

This little party had been in the habit of meeting for about six
months,[505] when at Easter, 1527, Thomas Garret, a fellow of
Magdalen,[506] who had gone out of residence, and was curate at All Hallows
church, in London, re-appeared in Oxford. Garret was a secret member of the
London Society, and had come down at Clark's instigation, to feel his way
in the university. So excellent a beginning had already been made, that he
had only to improve upon it. He sought out all such young men as were given
to Greek, Hebrew, and the polite Latin;[507] and in this visit met with so
much encouragement, that the Christmas following he returned again, this
time bringing with him treasures of forbidden books, imported by "the
Christian Brothers;" New Testaments, tracts and volumes of German divinity,
which he sold privately among the initiated.

He lay concealed, with his store, at "the house of one Radley,"[508] the
position of which cannot now be identified; and there he remained for
several weeks, unsuspected by the university authorities, till orders were
sent by Wolsey to the Dean of Christchurch, for his arrest. Precise
information was furnished at the same time respecting himself, his mission
in Oxford, and his place of concealment.[509]

The proctors were put upon the scent, and directed to take him; but one of
them, Arthur Cole, of Magdalen, by name, not from any sympathy with
Garret's objects, as the sequel proved, but probably from old acquaintance,
for they were fellows at the same college, gave him information of his
danger, and warned him to escape.

His young friends, more alarmed for their companion than for themselves,
held a meeting instantly to decide what should be done; and at this meeting
was Anthony Dalaber, an undergraduate of Alban Hall, and one of Clark's
pupils, who will now tell the story of what followed.

"The Christmas before that time, I, Anthony Dalaber, the scholar of Alban
Hall, who had books of Master Garret, had been in my country, at
Dorsetshire, at Stalbridge, where I had a brother, parson of this parish,
who was very desirous to have a curate out of Oxford, and willed me in any
wise to get him one there, if I could. This just occasion offered, it was
thought good among the brethren (for so we did not only call one another,
but were indeed one to another), that Master Garret, changing his name,
should be sent forth with my letters into Dorsetshire, to my brother, to
serve him there for a time, until he might secretly convey himself from
thence some whither over the sea. According hereunto I wrote my letters in
all haste possible unto my brother, for Master Garret to be his curate; but
not declaring what he was indeed, for my brother was a rank papist, and
afterwards was the most mortal enemy that ever I had, for the Gospel's
sake.

"So on Wednesday (Feb. 18), in the morning before Shrovetide, Master Garret
departed out of Oxford towards Dorsetshire, with my letter, for his new
service."

The most important person being thus, as was supposed, safe from immediate
danger, Dalaber was at leisure to think a little about himself; and
supposing, naturally, that the matter would not end there, and that some
change of residence might be of advantage for his own security, he moved
off from Alban Hall (as undergraduates it seems were then at liberty to do)
to Gloucester College,[510] under pretence that he desired to study civil
law, for which no facilities existed at the hall. This little matter was
affected on the Thursday; and all Friday and Saturday morning he "was so
much busied in setting his poor stuff in order, his bed, his books, and
such things else as he had," that he had no leisure to go forth anywhere
those two days, Friday and Saturday.

"Having set up my things handsomely," he continues, "the same day, before
noon, I determined to spend that whole afternoon, until evensong time, at
Frideswide College,[511] at my book in mine own study; and so shut my
chamber door unto me, and my study door also, and took into my head to read
Francis Lambert upon the Gospel of St. Luke, which book only I had then
within there. All my other books written on the Scriptures, of which I had
great numbers, I had left in my chamber at Alban's Hall, where I had made a
very secret place to keep them safe in, because it was so dangerous to have
any such books. And so, as I was diligently reading in the same book of
Lambert upon Luke, suddenly one knocked at my chamber door very hard, which
made me astonished, and yet I sat still and would not speak; then he
knocked again more hard, and yet I held my peace; and straightway he
knocked again yet more fiercely; and then I thought this: peradventure it
is somebody that hath need of me; and therefore I thought myself bound to
do as I would be done unto; and so, laying my book aside, I came to the
door and opened it, and there was Master Garret, as a man amazed, whom I
thought to have been with my brother, and one with him."

Garret had set out on his expedition into Dorsetshire, but had been
frightened, and had stolen back into Oxford on the Friday, to his old
hiding place, where, in the middle of the night, the proctors had taken
him. He had been carried to Lincoln, and shut up in a room in the rector's
house, where he had been left all day. In the afternoon the rector went to
chapel, no one was stirring about the college, and he had taken advantage
of the opportunity to slip the bolt of the door and escape. He had a friend
at Gloucester College, "a monk who had bought books of him;" and Gloucester
lying on the outskirts of the town, he had hurried down there as the
readiest place of shelter. The monk was out; and as no time was to be lost,
Garret asked the servant on the staircase to show him Dalaber's rooms.

As soon as the door was opened, "he said he was undone, for he was taken."
"Thus he spake unadvisedly in the presence of the young man, who at once
slipped down the stairs," it was to be feared, on no good errand. "Then I
said to him," Dalaber goes on, "alas, Master Garret, by this your
uncircumspect coming here and speaking so before the young man, you have
disclosed yourself and utterly undone me. I asked him why he was not in
Dorsetshire. He said he had gone a day's journey and a half; but he was so
fearful, his heart would none other but that he must needs return again
unto Oxford. With deep sighs and plenty of tears, he prayed me to help to
convey him away; and so he cast off his hood and gown wherein he came to
me, and desired me to give him a coat with sleeves, if I had any; and he
told me that he would go into Wales, and thence convey himself, if he
might, into Germany. Then I put on him a sleeved coat of mine. He would
also have had another manner of cap of me, but I had none but priestlike,
such as his own was.

"Then kneeled we both down together upon our knees, and lifting up our
hearts and hands to God our heavenly Father, desired him, with plenty of
tears, so to conduct and prosper him in his journey, that he might well
escape the danger of all his enemies, to the glory of His Holy Name, if His
good pleasure and will so were. And then we embraced and kissed the one the
other, the tears so abundantly flowing out from both our eyes, that we all
bewet both our faces, and scarcely for sorrow could we speak one to
another. And so he departed from me, apparelled in my coat, being committed
unto the tuition of our Almighty and merciful Father.

"When he was gone down the stairs from my chamber, I straightways did shut
my chamber door, and went into my study; and taking the New Testament in my
hands, kneeled down on my knees, and with many a deep sigh and salt tear, I
did, with much deliberation, read over the tenth chapter of St. Matthew's
Gospel,[512] praying that God would endue his tender and lately-born little
flock in Oxford with heavenly strength by his Holy Spirit; that quietly to
their own salvation, with all godly patience, they might bear Christ's
heavy cross, which I now saw was presently to be laid on their young and
weak backs, unable to bear so huge a burden without the greater help of his
Holy Spirit.

"This done, I laid aside my book safe, folded up Master Garret's gown and
hood, and so, having put on my short gown, and shut my doors, I went
towards Frideswide (Christchurch), to speak with that worthy martyr of God,
Master Clark. But of purpose I went by St. Mary's church, to go first unto
Corpus Christi College, to speak with Diet and Udal, my faithful brethren
and fellows in the Lord. By chance I met by the way a brother of ours, one
Master Eden, fellow of Magdalen, who, as soon as he saw me, said, we were
all undone, for Master Garret was returned, and was in prison. I said it
was not so; he said it was. I heard, quoth he, our Proctor, Master Cole,
say and declare the same this day. Then I told him what was done; and so
made haste to Frideswide, to find Master Clark, for I thought that he and
others would be in great sorrow.

"Evensong was begun; the dean and the canons were there in their grey
amices; they were almost at Magnificat before I came thither. I stood in
the choir door and heard Master Taverner play, and others of the chapel
there sing, with and among whom I myself was wont to sing also; but now my
singing and music were turned into sighing and musing. As I there stood, in
cometh Dr. Cottisford,[513] the commissary, as fast as ever he could go,
bareheaded, as pale as ashes (I knew his grief well enough); and to the
dean he goeth into the choir, were he was sitting in his stall, and talked
with him, very sorrowfully: what, I know not; but whereof I might and did
truly guess. I went aside from the choir door to see and hear more. The
commissary and dean came out of the choir, wonderfully troubled as it
seemed. About the middle of the church, met them Dr. London,[514] puffing,
blustering, and blowing like a hungry and greedy lion seeking his prey.
They talked together awhile; but the commissary was much blamed by them,
insomuch that he wept for sorrow.

"The doctors departed, and sent abroad their servants and spies everywhere.
Master Clark, about the middle of the compline,[515] came forth of the
choir. I followed him to his chamber, and declared what had happened that
afternoon of Master Garret's escape. Then he sent for one Master Sumner and
Master Bets, fellows and canons there. In the meantime he gave me a very
godly exhortation, praying God to give us all the wisdom of the serpent and
the harmlessness of doves, for we should shortly have much need thereof.
When Master Sumner and Master Bets came, he caused me to declare again the
whole matter to them two. Then desiring them to tell our other brethren in
that college, I went to Corpus Christi College, to comfort our brethren
there, where I found in Diet's chamber, looking for me, Fitzjames, Diet,
and Udal. They all knew the matter before by Master Eden, whom I had sent
unto Fitzjames. So I tarried there and supped with them, where they had
provided meat and drink for us before my coming; and when we had ended,
Fitzjames would needs have me to lie that night with him in my old lodging
at Alban's Hall. But small rest and little sleep took we both there that
night."

The next day, which was Sunday, Dalaber rose at five o'clock, and as soon
as he could leave the Hall, hastened off to his rooms at Gloucester. The
night had been wet and stormy, and his shoes and stockings were covered
with mud. The college gates, when he reached them, were still closed, an
unusual thing at that hour; and he walked up and down under the walls in
the bleak grey morning, till the clock struck seven, "much disquieted, his
head full of forecasting cares," but resolved, like a brave man, that come
what would, he would accuse no one, and declare nothing but what he saw was
already known. The gates were at last opened; he went to his rooms, and for
some time his key would not turn in the door, the lock having been meddled
with. At length he succeeded in entering, and found everything in
confusion, his bed tossed and tumbled, his study door open, and his clothes
strewed about the floor. A monk who occupied the opposite rooms, hearing
him return, came to him and said that the commissary and the two proctors
had been there looking for Garret. Bills and swords had been thrust through
the bed-straw, and every corner of the room searched for him. Finding
nothing, they had left orders that Dalaber, as soon as he returned, should
appear before the prior of the students.

"This so troubled me," Dalaber says, "that I forgot to make clean my hose
and shoes, and to shift me into another gown; and all bedirted as I was, I
went to the said prior's chamber." The prior asked him where he had slept
that night. At Alban's Hall, he answered, with his old bedfellow,
Fitzjames. The prior said he did not believe him, and asked if Garret had
been at his rooms the day before. He replied that he had. Whither had he
gone, then? the prior inquired; and where was he at that time? "I
answered," says Dalaber, "that I knew not, unless he was gone to Woodstock;
he told me that he would go there, because one of the keepers had promised
him a piece of venison to make merry with at Shrovetide. This tale I
thought meetest, though it were nothing so."[516]

At this moment the university beadle entered with two of the commissary's
servants, bringing a message to the prior that he should repair at once to
Lincoln, taking Dalaber with him. "I was brought into the chapel," the
latter continues, "and there I found Dr. Cottisford, commissary; Dr.
Higdon, Dean of Cardinal's College; and Dr. London, Warden of New College;
standing together at the altar. They called for chairs and sate down, and
then [ordered] me to come to them; they asked me what my name was, how long
I had been at the university, what I studied," with various other
inquiries: the clerk of the university, meanwhile, bringing pens, ink, and
paper, and arranging a table with a few loose boards upon tressels. A mass
book, he says, was then placed before him, and he was commanded to lay his
hand upon it, and swear that he would answer truly such questions as should
be asked him. At first he refused; but afterwards, being persuaded, "partly
by fair words, and partly by great threats," he promised to do as they
would have him; but in his heart he "meant nothing so to do." "So I laid my
hand on the book," he goes on, "and one of them gave me my oath, and
commanded me to kiss the book. They made great courtesy between them who
should examine me; at last, the rankest Pharisee of them all took upon him
to do it.

"Then he asked me again, by my oath, where Master Garret was, and whither I
had conveyed him. I said I had not conveyed him, nor yet wist where he was,
nor whither he was gone, except he were gone to Woodstock, as I had before
said. Surely, they said, I brought him some whither this morning, for they
might well perceive by my foul shoes and dirty hosen that I had travelled
with him the most part of the night. I answered plainly, that I lay at
Alban's Hall with Sir Fitzjames, and that I had good witness thereof. They
asked me where I was at evensong. I told them at Frideswide, and that I
saw, first, Master Commissary, and then Master Doctor London, come thither
to Master Dean. Doctor London and the Dean threatened me that if I would
not tell the truth I should surely be sent to the Tower of London, and
there be racked, and put into Little-ease.[517]

"At last when they could get nothing out of me whereby to hurt or accuse
any man, or to know anything of that which they sought, they all three
together brought me up a long stairs, into a great chamber, over Master
Commissary's chamber, wherein stood a great pair of very high stocks. Then
Master Commissary asked me for my purse and girdle, and took away my money
and my knives; and then they put my legs into the stocks, and so locked me
fast in them, in which I sate, my feet being almost as high as my head; and
so they departed, locking fast the door, and leaving me alone.

"When they were all gone, then came into my remembrance the worthy
forewarning and godly declaration of that most constant martyr of God,
Master John Clark, who, well nigh two years before that, when I did
earnestly desire him to grant me to be his scholar, said unto me after this
sort: 'Dalaber, you desire you wot not what, and that which you are, I
fear, unable to take upon you; for though now my preaching be sweet and
pleasant to you, because there is no persecution laid on you for it, yet
the time will come, and that, peradventure, shortly, if ye continue to live
godly therein, that God will lay on you the cross of persecution, to try
you whether you can as pure gold abide the fire. You shall be called and
judged a heretic; you shall be abhorred of the world; your own friends and
kinsfolk will forsake you, and also hate you; you shall be cast into
prison, and none shall dare to help you; you shall be accused before
bishops, to your reproach and shame, to the great sorrow of all your
friends and kinsfolk. Then will ye wish ye had never known this doctrine;
then will ye curse Clark, and wish that ye had never known him because he
hath brought you to all these troubles.'

"At which words, I was so grieved that I fell down on my knees at his feet,
and with tears and sighs besought him that, for the tender mercy of God, he
would not refuse me; saying that I trusted, verily, that he which had begun
this in me would not forsake me, but would give me grace to continue
therein to the end. When he heard me say so, he came to me, took me in his
arms and kissed me, the tears trickling from his eyes; and said unto me:
'The Lord God Almighty grant you so to do; and from henceforth for ever,
take me for your father, and I will take you for my son in Christ.'"

In these meditations the long Sunday morning wore away. A little before
noon the commissary came again to see if his prisoner was more amenable;
finding him, however, still obstinate, he offered him some dinner--a
promise which we will hope he fulfilled, for here Dalaber's own narrative
abruptly forsakes us,[518] leaving uncompleted, at this point, the most
vivid picture which remains to us of a fraction of English life in the
reign of Henry VIII. If the curtain fell finally on the little group of
students, this narrative alone would furnish us with rare insight into the
circumstances under which the Protestants fought their way. The story,
however, can be carried something further, and the strangest incident
connected with it remains to be told.

Dalaber breaks off on Sunday at noon. The same day, or early the following
morning, he was submitted once more to examination: this time, for the
discovery of his own offences, and to induce him to give up his
confederates. With respect to the latter he proved "marvellous obstinate."
"All that was gotten of him was with much difficulty;" nor would he confess
to any names as connected with heresy or heretics except that of Clark,
which was already known. About himself he was more open. He wrote his "book
of heresy," that is, his confession of faith, "with his own hand"--his
evening's occupation, perhaps, in the stocks in the rector of Lincoln's
house; and the next day he was transferred to prison.[519]

This offender being thus disposed of, and strict secrecy being observed to
prevent the spread of alarm, a rapid search was set on foot for books in
all suspected quarters. The fear of the authorities was that "the infect
persons would flee," and "convey" their poison "away with them."[520] The
officials, once on the scent of heresy, were skilful in running down the
game. No time was lost, and by Monday evening many of "the brethren" had
been arrested, their rooms examined, and their forbidden treasures
discovered and rifled. Dalaber's store was found "hid with marvellous
secresy;" and in one student's desk a duplicate of Garret's list--the
titles of the volumes with which the first "Religious Tract Society" set
themselves to convert England.

Information of all this was conveyed in haste by Dr. London to the Bishop
of Lincoln, as the ordinary of the university; and the warden told his
story with much self-congratulation. On one point, however, the news which
he had to communicate was less satisfactory. Garret himself was
gone--utterly gone. Dalaber was obstinate, and no clue to the track of the
fugitive could be discovered. The police were at fault; neither bribes nor
threats could elicit anything; and in these desperate circumstances, as he
told the bishop, the three heads of houses conceived that they might strain
a point of propriety for so good a purpose as to prevent the escape of a
heretic. Accordingly, after a full report of the points of their success,
Doctor London went on to relate the following remarkable proceeding:

"After Master Garret escaped, _the commissary being in extreme pensiveness,
knew no other remedy but this extraordinary, and caused a figure to be made
by one expert in astronomy--and his judjment doth continually persist upon
this, that he fled in a tawny coat south-eastward, and is in the middle of
London, and will shortly to the sea side_. He was curate unto the parson of
Honey Lane.[521] It is likely he is privily cloaked there. Wherefore, as
soon as I knew the judgment of this astronomer, I thought it expedient and
my duty with all speed to ascertain your good lordship of all the premises;
that in time your lordship may advertise my lord his Grace, and my lord of
London. It will be a gracious deed that he and all his pestiferous works,
which he carrieth about, might be taken, to the salvation of his soul,
opening of many privy heresies, and extinction of the same."[522]

We might much desire to know what the bishop's sensations were in reading
this letter--to know whether it occurred to him that in this naïve
acknowledgment, the Oxford heresy hunters were themselves confessing to an
act of heresy; and that by the law of the church, which they were so eager
to administer, they were liable to the same death which they were so
zealous to secure for the poor vendors of Testaments. So indeed they really
were. Consulting the stars had been ruled from immemorial time to be
dealing with the devil; the penalty of it was the same as for witchcraft;
yet here was a reverend warden of a college considering it his duty to
write eagerly of a discovery obtained by these forbidden means, to his own
diocesan, begging him to communicate with the Cardinal of York and the
Bishop of London, that three of the highest church authorities in England
might become _participes criminis_, by acting on this diabolical
information.

Meanwhile, the commissary, not wholly relying on the astrologer, but
resolving prudently to make use of the more earthly resources which were at
his disposal, had sent information of Garret's escape to the corporations
of Dover, Rye, Winchester, Southampton, and Bristol, with descriptions of
the person of the fugitive; and this step was taken with so much
expedition, that before the end of the week no vessel was allowed to leave
either of those harbours without being strictly searched.

The natural method proved more effectual than the supernatural, though
again with the assistance of a singular accident. Garret had not gone to
London; unfortunately for himself, he had not gone to Wales as he had
intended. He left Oxford, as we saw, the evening of Saturday, February
21st. That night he reached a village called Corkthrop,[523] where he lay
concealed till Wednesday; and then, not in the astrologer's orange-tawny
dress, but in "a courtier's coat and buttoned cap," which he had by some
means contrived to procure, he set out again on his forlorn journey, making
for the nearest sea-port, Bristol, where the police were looking out to
receive him. His choice of Bristol was peculiarly unlucky. The "chapman" of
the town was the step-father of Cole, the Oxford proctor: to this person,
whose name was Master Wilkyns, the proctor had written a special letter, in
addition to the commissary's circular; and the family connection acting as
a spur to his natural activity, a coast guard had been set before Garret's
arrival, to watch for him down the Avon banks, and along the Channel shore
for fifteen miles. All the Friday night "the mayor, with the aldermen, and
twenty of the council, had kept privy watch," and searched suspicious
houses at Master Wilkyns's instance; the whole population were on the
alert, and when the next afternoon, a week after his escape, the poor
heretic, footsore and weary, dragged himself into the town, he found that
he had walked into the lion's mouth.[524] He quickly learnt this danger to
which he was exposed, and hurried off again with the best speed which he
could command; but it was too late. The chapman, alert and indefatigable,
had heard that a stranger had been seen in the street; the police were set
upon his track, and he was taken at Bedminster, a suburb on the opposite
bank of the Avon, and hurried before a magistrate, where he at once
acknowledged his identity.

With such happy success were the good chapman's efforts rewarded. Yet in
this world there is no light without shadow; no pleasure without its alloy.
In imagination, Master Wilkyns had thought of himself conducting the
prisoner in triumph into the streets of Oxford, the hero of the hour. The
sour formality of the law condemned him to ill-merited disappointment.
Garret had been taken beyond the liberties of the city; it was necessary,
therefore, to commit him to the county gaol, and he was sent to Ilchester.
"Master Wilkyns offered himself to be bound to the said justice in three
hundred pounds to discharge him of the said Garret, and to see him surely
to Master Proctor's of Oxford; yet could he not have him, for the justice
said that the order of the law would not so serve."[525] The fortunate
captor had therefore to content himself with the consciousness of his
exploit, and the favourable report of his conduct which was sent to the
bishops; and Garret went first to Ilchester, and thence was taken by
special writ, and surrendered to Wolsey.

Thus unkind had fortune shown herself to the chief criminal, guilty of the
unpardonable offence of selling Testaments at Oxford, and therefore hunted
down as a mad dog, and a common enemy of mankind. He escaped for the
present the heaviest consequences, for Wolsey persuaded him to abjure. A
few years later we shall again meet him, when he had recovered his better
nature, and would not abjure, and died as a brave man should die. In the
meantime we return to the university, where the authorities were busy
trampling out the remains of the conflagration.

Two days after his letter respecting the astrologer, the Warden of New
College wrote again to the Diocesan, with an account of his further
proceedings. He was an efficient inquisitor, and the secrets of the poor
undergraduates had been unravelled to the last thread. Some of "the
brethren" had confessed; all were in prison; and the doctor desired
instructions as to what should be done with them. It must be said for Dr.
London, that he was anxious that they should be treated leniently. Dalaber
described him as a roaring lion, and he was a bad man, and came at last to
a bad end. But it is pleasant to find that even he, a mere blustering
arrogant official, was not wholly without redeeming points of character;
and as little good will be said for him hereafter, the following passage in
his second letter may be placed to the credit side of his account. The tone
in which he wrote was at least humane, and must pass for more than an
expression of natural kindness, when it is remembered that he was
addressing a person with whom tenderness for heresy was a crime.

"These youths," he said, "have not been long conversant with Master Garret,
nor have greatly perused his mischievous books; and long before Master
Garret was taken, divers of them were weary of these works, and delivered
them to Dalaber. I am marvellous sorry for the young men. If they be openly
called upon, although they appear not greatly infect, yet they shall never
avoid slander, because my Lord's Grace did send for Master Garret to be
taken. I suppose his Grace will know of your good lordship everything.
Nothing shall be hid, I assure your good lordship, an every one of them
were my brother; and I do only make this moan for these youths, for surely
they be of the most towardly young men in Oxford; and as far as I do yet
perceive, not greatly infect, but much to blame for reading any part of
these works."[526]

Doctor London's intercession, if timid, was generous; he obviously wished
to suggest that the matter should be hushed up, and that the offending
parties should be dismissed with a reprimand. If the decision had rested
with Wolsey, it is likely that this view would have been readily acted
upon. But the Bishop of Lincoln was a person in whom the spirit of humanity
had been long exorcised by the spirit of an ecclesiastic. He was staggering
along the last years of a life against which his own register[527] bears
dreadful witness, and he would not burden his conscience with mercy to
heretics. He would not mar the completeness of his barbarous career. He
singled out three of the prisoners--Garret, Clark, and Ferrars[528]--and
especially entreated that they should be punished. "They be three perilous
men," he wrote to Wolsey, "and have been the occasion of the corruption of
youth. They have done much mischief, and for the love of God let them be
handled thereafter."[529]

Wolsey had Garret in his own keeping, and declined to surrender him.
Ferrars had been taken at the Black Friars, in London,[530] and making his
submission, was respited and escaped with abjuration. But Clark was at
Oxford, in the bishop's power, and the wicked old man was allowed to work
his will upon him. A bill of heresy was drawn, which the prisoner was
required to sign. He refused, and must have been sent to the stake, had he
not escaped by dying prematurely of the treatment which he had received in
prison.[531] His last words only are recorded. He was refused the
communion, not perhaps as a special act of cruelty, but because the laws of
the church would not allow the holy thing to be profaned by the touch of a
heretic. When he was told that it would not be suffered, he said "_crede et
manducâsti_"--"faith is the communion;" and so passed away; a very noble
person, so far as the surviving features of his character will let us
judge; one who, if his manhood had fulfilled the promise of his youth,
would have taken no common part in the Reformation.

The remaining brethren were then dispersed. Some were sent home to their
friends--others, Anthony Dalaber among them, were placed on their trial,
and being terrified at their position, recanted, and were sentenced to do
penance. Ferrars was brought to Oxford for the occasion, and we discern
indistinctly (for the mere fact is all which survives) a great fire at
Carfax; a crowd of spectators, and a procession of students marching up
High Street with fagots on their shoulders, the solemn beadles leading them
with gowns and maces. The ceremony was repeated to which Dr. Barnes had
been submitted at St. Paul's. They were taken three times round the fire,
throwing in each first their fagot, and then some one of the offending
books, in token that they repented and renounced their errors.

Thus was Oxford purged of heresy. The state of innocence which Dr. London
pathetically lamented[532] was restored, and the heads of houses had peace
till their rest was broken by a ruder storm.

In this single specimen we may see a complete image of Wolsey's
persecution, as with varying details it was carried out in every town and
village from the Tweed to the Land's End. I dwell on the stories of
individual suffering, not to colour the narrative, or to re-awaken feelings
of bitterness which may well rest now and sleep for ever; but because,
through the years in which it was struggling for recognition, the history
of Protestantism is the history of its martyrs. No rival theology, as I
have said, had as yet shaped itself into formulas. We have not to trace any
slow growing elaboration of opinion. Protestantism, before it became an
establishment, was a refusal to live any longer in a lie. It was a falling
back upon the undefined untheoretic rules of truth and piety which lay upon
the surface of the Bible, and a determination rather to die than to mock
with unreality any longer the Almighty Maker of the world. We do not look
in the dawning manifestations of such a spirit for subtleties of intellect.
Intellect, as it ever does, followed in the wake of the higher virtues of
manly honesty and truthfulness. And the evidences which were to effect the
world's conversion were so cunningly arranged syllogistic demonstrations,
but once more those loftier evidences which lay in the calm endurance by
heroic men of the extremities of suffering, and which touched--not the mind
with conviction, but the heart with admiring reverence.

In the concluding years of his administration Wolsey was embarrassed with
the divorce. Difficulties were gathering round him, from the failure of his
hopes abroad and the wreck of his popularity at home; and the activity of
the persecution was something relaxed, as the guiding mind of the great
minister ceased to have leisure to attend to it. The bishops, however,
continued, each in his own diocese, to act with such vigour as they
possessed. Their courts were unceasingly occupied with vexatious suits,
commenced without reason, and conducted without justice. They summoned
arbitrarily as suspected offenders whoever had the misfortune to have
provoked their dislike; either compelling them to criminate themselves by
questions on the intricacies of theology,[533] or allowing sentence to be
passed against them on the evidence of abandoned persons, who would not
have been admissible as witnesses before the secular tribunals.[534]

It might have been thought that the clear perception which was shown by the
House of Commons of the injustice with which the trials for heresy were
conducted, the disregard, shameless and flagrant, of the provisions of the
statutes under which the bishops were enabled to proceed, might have led
them to reconsider the equity of persecution in itself; or, at least, to
remove from the office of judges persons who had shown themselves so
signally unfit to exercise that office. It would have been indecent,
however, if not impossible, to transfer to a civil tribunal the cognisance
of opinion; and, on the other hand, there was as yet among the upper
classes of the laity no kind of disposition to be lenient towards those who
were really unorthodox. The desire so far was only to check the reckless
and random accusations of persons whose offence was to have criticised, not
the doctrine but the moral conduct, of the church authorities. The
Protestants, although from the date of the meeting of the parliament and
Wolsey's fall their ultimate triumph was certain, gained nothing in its
immediate consequences. They suffered rather from the eagerness of the
political reformers to clear themselves from complicity with heterodoxy;
and the bishops were even taunted with the spiritual dissensions of the
realm as an evidence of their indolence and misconduct.[535] Language of
this kind boded ill for the "Christian Brethren;" and the choice of
Wolsey's successor for the office of chancellor soon confirmed their
apprehensions; Wolsey had chastised them with whips; Sir Thomas More would
chastise them with scorpions; and the philosopher of the _Utopia_, the
friend of Erasmus, whose life was of blameless beauty, whose genius was
cultivated to the highest attainable perfection, was to prove to the world
that the spirit of persecution is no peculiar attribute of the pedant, the
bigot, of the fanatic, but may co-exist with the fairest graces of the
human character. The lives of remarkable men usually illustrate some
emphatic truth. Sir Thomas More may be said to have lived to illustrate the
necessary tendencies of Romanism in an honest mind convinced of its truth;
to show that the test of sincerity in a man who professes to regard
orthodoxy as an essential of salvation, is not the readiness to endure
persecution, but the courage which will venture to inflict it.

The seals were delivered to the new chancellor in November, 1529. By his
oath on entering office he was bound to exert himself to the utmost for the
suppression of heretics:[536] he was bound, however, equally to obey the
conditions under which the law allowed them to be suppressed. Unfortunately
for his reputation as a judge, he permitted the hatred of "that kind of
men," which he did not conceal that he felt,[537] to obscure his conscience
on this important feature of his duty, and tempt him to imitate the worst
iniquities of the bishops. I do not intend in this place to relate the
stories of his cruelties in his house at Chelsea,[538] which he himself
partially denied, and which at least we may hope were exaggerated. Being
obliged to confine myself to specific instances, I choose rather those on
which the evidence is not open to question; and which prove against More,
not the zealous execution of a cruel law, for which we may not fairly hold
him responsible, but a disregard, in the highest degree censurable, of his
obligations as a judge.

The acts under which heretics were liable to punishment, were the 15th of
the 2nd of Henry IV., and the 1st of the 2nd of Henry V.

By the act of Henry IV., the bishops were bound to bring offenders to trial
in open court, within three months of their arrest, if there were no lawful
impediment. If conviction followed, they might imprison at their
discretion. Except under these conditions, they were not at liberty to
imprison.

By the act of Henry V., a heretic, if he was first indicted before a
secular judge, was to be delivered within ten days (or if possible, a
shorter period) to the bishop, "to be acquit or convict" by a jury in the
spiritual court, and to be dealt with accordingly.[539]

The secular judge might detain a heretic for ten days before delivering him
to the bishop. The bishop might detain him for three months before his
trial. Neither the secular judge nor the bishop had power to inflict
indefinite imprisonment at will while the trial was delayed; nor if on the
trial the bishop failed in securing a conviction, was he at liberty to
detain the accused person any longer on the same charge, because the result
was not satisfactory to himself. These provisions were not preposterously
lenient. Sir Thomas More should have found no difficulty in observing them
himself, and in securing the observance of them by the bishops, at least in
cases where he was himself responsible for the first committal. It is to be
feared that he forgot that he was a judge in his eagerness to be a
partisan, and permitted no punctilious legal scruples to interfere with the
more important object of ensuring punishment to heretics.

The first case which I shall mention is one in which the Bishop of London
was principally guilty; not, however, without More's countenance, and, if
Foxe is to be believed, his efficient support.

In December, 1529, the month succeeding his appointment as chancellor,
More, at the instance of the Bishop of London,[540] arrested a citizen of
London, Thomas Philips by name, on a charge of heresy.

The prisoner was surrendered in due form to his diocesan, and was brought
to trial on the 4th of February; a series of articles being alleged against
him by Foxford, the bishop's vicar-general. The articles were of the usual
kind. The prisoner was accused of having used unorthodox expressions on
transubstantiation, on purgatory, pilgrimages, and confession. It does not
appear whether any witnesses were produced. The vicar-general brought his
accusations on the ground of general rumour, and failed to maintain them.
Whether there were witnesses or not, neither the particular offences, nor
even the fact of the general rumour, could be proved to the satisfaction of
the jury. Philips himself encountered each separate charge with a specific
denial, declaring that he neither was, nor ever had been, other than
orthodox; and the result of the trial was, that no conviction could be
obtained. The prisoner "was found so clear from all manner of infamous
slanders and suspicions, that all the people before the said bishop,
shouting in judgment as with one voice, openly witnessed his good name and
fame, to the great reproof and shame of the said bishop, if he had not been
ashamed to be ashamed."[541] The case had broken down; the proceedings were
over, and by law the accused person was free. But the law, except when it
was on their own side, was of little importance to the church authorities.
As they had failed to prove Philips guilty of heresy, they called upon him
to confess his guilt by abjuring it; "as if," he says, "there were no
difference between a nocent and an innocent, between a guilty and a not
guilty."[542]

He refused resolutely, and was remanded to prison, in open violation of the
law. The bishop, in conjunction with Sir Thomas More,[543] sent for him
from time to time, submitting him to private examinations, which again were
illegal; and urged the required confession, in order, as Philips says, "to
save the bishop's credit."

The further they advanced, the more difficult it was to recede; and the
bishop at length, irritated at his failure, concluded the process with an
arbitrary sentence of excommunication. From this sentence, whether just or
unjust, there was then no appeal, except to the pope. The wretched man, in
virtue of it, was no longer under the protection of the law, and was
committed to the Tower, where he languished for three years, protesting,
but protesting fruitlessly, against the tyranny which had crushed him, and
clamouring for justice in the deaf ears of pedants who knew not what
justice meant.

If this had occurred at the beginning of the century, the prisoner would
have been left to die, as countless multitudes had already died, unheard,
uncared for, unthought of; the victim not of deliberate cruelty, but of
that frightfullest portent, folly armed with power. Happily the years of
his imprisonment had been years of swift revolution. The House of Commons
had become a tribunal where oppression would not any longer cry wholly
unheard; Philips appealed to it for protection, and recovered his
liberty.[544]

The weight of guilt in this instance presses essentially on Stokesley; yet
a portion of the blame must be borne also by the chancellor, who first
placed Philips in Stokesley's hands; who took part in the illegal private
examinations, and who could not have been ignorant of the prisoner's
ultimate fate. If, however, it be thought unjust to charge a good man's
memory with an offence in which his part was only secondary, the following
iniquity was wholly and exclusively his own. I relate the story without
comment in the address of the injured person to More's successor.[545]

"_To the Right Hon. the Lord Chancellor of England. (Sir T. Audeley) and
other of the King's Council._

"In most humble wise showeth unto your goodness your poor bedeman John
Field, how that the next morrow upon twelfth day,[546] in the twenty-first
year of our sovereign lord the King's Highness, Sir Thomas More, Knight,
then being Lord Chancellor of England, did send certain of his servants,
and caused your said bedeman, with certain others, to be brought to his
place at Chelsea, and there kept him (after what manner and fashion it were
now long to tell), by the space of eighteen days;[547] and then set him at
liberty, binding him to appear before him again the eighth day following in
the Star Chamber, which was Candlemas eve; at which day your said bedeman
appeared, and was then sent to the Fleet, where he continued until Palm
Sunday two years after [in violation of both the statutes], kept so close
the first quarter that his keeper only might visit him; and always after
closed up with those that were handled most straitly; often searched,
sometimes even at midnight; besides snares and traps laid to take him in.
Betwixt Michaelmas and Allhalloween tide next after his coming to prison
there was taken from your bedeman a Greek vocabulary, price five shillings;
Saint Cyprian's works, with a book of the same Sir Thomas More's making,
named the _Supplication of Souls_. For what cause it was done he committeth
to the judgment of God, that seeth the souls of all persons. The said Palm
Sunday, which was also our Lady's day, towards night there came two
officers of the Fleet, named George Porter and John Butler, and took your
bedeman into a ward alone, and there, after long searching, found his purse
hanging at his girdle; which they took, and shook out the money to the sum
of ten shillings, which was sent him to buy such necessaries as he lacked,
and delivered him again his purse, well and truly keeping the money to
themselves, as they said for their fees; and forthwith carried him from the
Fleet (where he lost such poor bedding as he then had, and could never
since get it), and delivered him to the Marshalsea, under our gracious
sovereign's commandment and Sir Thomas More's. When the Sunday before the
Rogation week following, your bedeman fell sick; and the Whitsun Monday was
carried out on four men's backs, and delivered to his friends to be
recovered if it so pleased God. At which time the keeper took for your
bedeman's fees other ten shillings, when four shillings should have
sufficed if he had been delivered in good health.

"Within three weeks it pleased God to set your bedeman on his feet, so that
he might walk abroad. Whereof when Sir Thomas More heard (who went out of
his chancellorship about the time your bedeman was carried out of prison),
although he had neither word nor deed which he could ever truly lay to your
bedeman's charge, yet made he such means by the Bishops of Winchester and
London, as your bedeman heard say, to the Hon. Lord Thomas Duke of Norfolk,
that he gave new commandment to the keeper of the Marshalsea to attach
again your said bedeman; which thing was speedily done the Sunday three
weeks after his deliverance. And so he continued in prison again until
Saint Lawrence tide following; at which time money was given to the keeper,
and some things he took which were not given, and then was your bedeman
re-delivered through the king's goodness, under sureties bound in a certain
sum, that he should appear the first day of the next term following, and
then day by day until his dismission. And so hath your bedeman been at
liberty now twelve months waiting daily from term to term, and nothing laid
to his charge as before.

"Wherefore, the premises tenderly considered, and also your said bedeman's
great poverty, he most humbly beseecheth your goodness that he may now be
clearly discharged; and if books, money, or other things seem to be taken
or kept from him otherwise than justice would, eftsoons he beseecheth you
that ye will command it to be restored.

"As for his long imprisonment, with other griefs thereto appertaining, he
looketh not to have recompense of man; but committeth his whole cause to
God, to whom your bedeman shall daily pray, according as he is bound, that
ye may so order and govern the realm that it may be to the honour of God
and your heavenly and everlasting reward."

I do not find the result of this petition, but as it appeared that Henry
had interested himself in the story, it is likely to have been successful.
We can form but an imperfect judgment on the merits of the case, for we
have only the sufferer's _ex parte_ complaint, and More might probably have
been able to make some counter-statement. But the illegal imprisonment
cannot be explained away, and cannot be palliated; and when a judge permits
himself to commit an act of arbitrary tyranny, we argue from the known to
the unknown, and refuse reasonably to give him credit for equity where he
was so little careful of law.

Yet a few years of misery in a prison was but an insignificant misfortune
when compared with the fate under which so many other poor men were at this
time overwhelmed. Under Wolsey's chancellorship the stake had been
comparatively idle; he possessed a remarkable power of making recantation
easy; and there is, I believe, no instance in which an accused heretic was
brought under his immediate cognisance, where he failed to arrange some
terms by which submission was made possible. With Wolsey heresy was an
error--with More it was a crime. Soon after the seals changed hands the
Smithfield fires recommenced; and, the chancellor acting in concert with
them, the bishops resolved to obliterate, in these edifying spectacles, the
recollection of their general infirmities. The crime of the offenders
varied--sometimes it was a denial of the corporal presence, more often it
was a reflection too loud to be endured on the character and habits of the
clergy; but whatever it was, the alternative lay only between abjuration
humiliating as ingenuity could make it, or a dreadful death. The hearts of
many failed them in the trial, and of all the confessors those perhaps do
not deserve the least compassion whose weakness betrayed them, who sank and
died broken-hearted. Of these silent sufferers history knows nothing. A
few, unable to endure the misery of having, as they supposed, denied their
Saviour, returned to the danger from which they had fled, and washed out
their fall in martyrdom. Latimer has told us the story of his friend
Bilney--little Bilney, or Saint Bilney,[548] as he calls him, his companion
at Cambridge, to whom he owed his own conversion. Bilney, after escaping
through Wolsey's hands in 1527, was again cited in 1529 before the Bishop
of London. Three times he refused to recant. He was offered a fourth and
last chance. The temptation was too strong, and he fell. For two years he
was hopelessly miserable; at length his braver nature prevailed. There was
no pardon for a relapsed heretic, and if he was again in the bishop's hands
he knew well the fate which awaited him.

He told his friends, in language touchingly significant, that "he would go
up to Jerusalem;" and began to preach in the fields. The journey which he
had undertaken was not to be a long one. He was heard to say In a sermon,
that of his personal knowledge certain things which had been offered in
pilgrimage had been given to abandoned women. The priests, he affirmed,
"take away the offerings, and hang them about their women's necks; and
after that they take them off the women, if they please them not, and hang
them again upon the images."[549] This was Bilney's heresy, or formed the
ground of his arrest; he was orthodox on the mass, and also on the power of
the keys; but the secrets of the sacred order were not to be betrayed with
impunity. He was seized, and hurried before the Bishop of Norwich; and
being found heterodox on the papacy and the mediation of the saints by the
Bishop of Norwich he was sent to the stake.

Another instance of recovered courage, and of martyrdom consequent upon it,
is that of James Bainham, a barrister of the Middle Temple. This story is
noticeable from a very curious circumstance connected with it.

Bainham had challenged suspicion by marrying the widow of Simon Fish, the
author of the famous _Beggars' Petition_, who had died in 1528; and, soon
after his marriage, was challenged to give an account of his faith. He was
charged with denying transubstantiation, with questioning the value of the
confessional, and the power of the keys; and the absence of authoritative
Protestant dogma had left his mind free to expand to a yet larger belief.
He had ventured to assert, that "if a Turk, a Jew, or a Saracen do trust in
God and keep his law, he is a good Christian man,"[550]--a conception of
Christianity, a conception of Protestantism, which we but feebly dare to
whisper even at the present day. The proceedings against him commenced with
a demand that he should give up his books, and also the names of other
barristers with whom he was suspected to have held intercourse. He refused;
and in consequence his wife was imprisoned, and he himself was racked in
the Tower by order of Sir Thomas More. Enfeebled by suffering, he was then
brought before Stokesley, and terrified by the cold merciless eyes of his
judge, he gave way, not about his friends, but about himself: he abjured,
and was dismissed heartbroken. This was on the seventeenth of February. He
was only able to endure his wretchedness for a month. At the end of it, he
appeared at a secret meeting of the Christian Brothers, in "a warehouse in
Bow Lane," where he asked forgiveness of God and all the world for what he
had done; and then went out to take again upon his shoulders the heavy
burden of the cross.

The following Sunday, at the church of St. Augustine, he rose in his seat
with the fatal English Testament in his hand, and "declared openly, before
all the people, with weeping tears, that he had denied God," praying them
all to forgive him, and beware of his weakness; "for if I should not return
to the truth," he said, "this Word of God would damn me, body and soul, at
the day of judgment." And then he prayed "everybody rather to die than to
do as he did, for he would not feel such a hell again as he did feel for
all the world's good."[551]

Of course but one event was to be looked for; he knew it, and himself wrote
to the bishop, telling him what he had done. No mercy was possible: he
looked for none, and he found none.

Yet perhaps he found what the wise authorities thought to be some act of
mercy. They could not grant him pardon in this world upon any terms; but
they would not kill him till they had made an effort for his soul. He was
taken to the Bishop of London's coal cellar at Fulham, the favourite
episcopal penance chamber, where he was ironed and put in the stocks; and
there was left for many days, in the chill March weather, to bethink
himself. This failing to work conviction, he was carried to Sir Thomas
More's house at Chelsea, where for two nights he was chained to a post and
whipped; thence, again, he was taken back to Fulham for another week of
torture; and finally to the Tower, for a further fortnight, again with
ineffectual whippings.

The demands of charity were thus satisfied. The pious bishop and the
learned chancellor had exhausted their means of conversion; they had
discharged their consciences; and the law was allowed to take its course.
The prisoner was brought to trial on the 20th of April, as a relapsed
heretic. Sentence followed; and on the last of the month the drama closed
in the usual manner at Smithfield. Before the fire was lighted Bainham made
a farewell address to the people, laying his death expressly to More, whom
he called his accuser and his judge.[552]

It is unfortunately impossible to learn the feelings with which these
dreadful scenes were witnessed by the people. There are stories which show
that, in some instances, familiarity had produced the usual effect; that
the martyrdom of saints was at times of no more moment to an English crowd
than the execution of ordinary felons--that it was a mere spectacle to the
idle, the hardened, and the curious. On the other hand, it is certain that
the behaviour of the sufferers was the argument which at last converted the
nation; and an effect which in the end was so powerful with the multitude,
must have been visible long before in the braver and better natures. The
increasing number of prosecutions in London shows, also, that the leaven
was spreading. There were five executions in Smithfield between 1529 and
1533, besides those in the provinces. The prisons were crowded with
offenders who had abjured and were undergoing sentence; and the list of
those who were "troubled" in various ways is so extensive, as to leave no
doubt of the sympathy which, in London at least, must have been felt by
many, very many, of the spectators of the martyrs' deaths. We are left, in
this important point, mainly to conjecture; and if we were better furnished
with evidence, the language of ordinary narrative would fail to convey any
real notion of perplexed and various emotions. We have glimpses, however,
into the inner world of men, here and there of strange interest; and we
must regret that they are so few.

A poor boy at Cambridge, John Randall, of Christ's College, a relation of
Foxe the martyrologist, destroyed himself in these years in religious
desperation; he was found in his study hanging by his girdle, before an
open Bible, with his dead arm and finger stretched pitifully towards a
passage on predestination.[553]

A story even more remarkable is connected with Bainham's execution. Among
the lay officials present at the stake, was "one Pavier," town clerk of
London. This Pavier was a Catholic fanatic, and as the flames were about to
be kindled he burst out into violent and abusive language. The fire blazed
up, and the dying sufferer, as the red flickering tongues licked the flesh
from off his bones, turned to him and said, "May God forgive thee, and shew
more mercy than thou, angry reviler, shewest to me." The scene was soon
over; the town clerk went home. A week after, one morning when his wife had
gone to mass, he sent all his servants out of his house on one pretext or
another, a single girl only being left, and he withdrew to a garret at the
top of the house, which he used as an oratory. A large crucifix was on the
wall, and the girl having some question to ask, went to the room, and found
him standing before it "bitterly weeping." He told her to take his sword,
which was rusty, and clean it. She went away, and left him; when she
returned, a little time after, he was hanging from a beam, dead. He was a
singular person. Edward Hall, the historian, knew him, and had heard him
say, that "if the king put forth the New Testament in English, he would not
live to bear it."[554] And yet he could not bear to see a heretic die. What
was it? Had the meaning of that awful figure hanging on the torturing cross
suddenly revealed itself? Had some inner voice asked him whether, in the
prayer for his persecutors with which Christ had parted out of life, there
might be some affinity with words which had lately sounded in his own ears?
God, into whose hands he threw himself, self-condemned in his wretchedness,
only knows the agony of that hour. Let the secret rest where it lies, and
let us be thankful for ourselves that we live in a changed world.

Thus, however, the struggle went forward; a forlorn hope of saints led the
way up the breach, and paved with their bodies a broad road into the new
era; and the nation the meanwhile was unconsciously waiting till the works
of the enemy were won, and they could walk safely in and take possession.
While men like Bilney and Bainham were teaching with words and writings,
there were stout English hearts labouring also on the practical side of the
same conflict, instilling the same lessons, and meeting for themselves the
same consequences. Speculative superstition was to be met with speculative
denial. Practical idolatry required a rougher method of disenchantment.

Every monastery, every parish church, had in those days its special relics,
its special images, its special something, to attract the interest of the
people. The reverence for the remains of noble and pious men, the dresses
which they had worn, or the bodies in which their spirits had lived, was in
itself a natural and pious emotion; but it had been petrified into a dogma;
and like every other imaginative feeling which is submitted to that bad
process, it had become a falsehood, a mere superstition, a substitute for
piety, not a stimulus to it, and a perpetual occasion of fraud. The people
brought offerings to the shrines where it was supposed that the relics were
of greatest potency. The clergy, to secure the offerings, invented the
relics, and invented the stories of the wonders which had been worked by
them. The greatest exposure of these things took place at the visitation of
the religious houses. In the meantime, Bishop Shaxton's unsavoury inventory
of what passed under the name of relics in the diocese of Salisbury, will
furnish an adequate notion of these objects of popular veneration. There
"be set forth and commended unto the ignorant people," he said, "as I
myself of certain which be already come to my hands, have perfect
knowledge, stinking boots, mucky combes, ragged rochettes, rotten girdles,
pyl'd purses, great bullocks' horns, locks of hair, and filthy rags,
gobbetts of wood, under the name of parcels of the holy cross, and such
pelfry beyond estimation."[555] Besides matters of this kind, there were
images of the Virgin or of the Saints; above all, roods or crucifixes, of
especial potency, the virtues of which had begun to grow uncertain,
however, to sceptical Protestants; and from doubt to denial, and from
denial to passionate hatred, there were but a few brief steps. The most
famous of the roods was that of Boxley in Kent, which used to smile and
bow, or frown and shake its head, as its worshippers were generous or
closehanded. The fortunes and misfortunes of this image I shall by and bye
have to relate. There was another, however, at Dovercourt, in Suffolk, of
scarcely inferior fame. This image was of such power that the door of the
church in which it stood was open at all hours to all comers, and no human
hand could close it. Dovercourt therefore became a place of great and
lucrative pilgrimage, much resorted to by the neighbours on all occasions
of difficulty.

Now it happened that within the circuit of a few miles there lived four
young men, to whom the virtues of the rood had become greatly questionable.
If it could work miracles, it must be capable, so they thought, of
protecting its own substance; and they agreed to apply a practical test
which would determine the extent of its abilities. Accordingly (about the
time of Bainham's first imprisonment), Robert King of Dedham, Robert
Debenham of Eastbergholt, Nicholas Marsh of Dedham, and Robert Gardiner of
Dedham, "their consciences being burdened to see the honour of Almighty God
so blasphemed by such an idol," started off "on a wondrous goodly night" in
February, with hard frost and a clear full moon, ten miles across the
wolds, to the church.

The door was open as the legend declared; but nothing daunted, they entered
bravely, and lifting down the "idol" from its shrine, with its coat and
shoes, and the store of tapers which were kept for the services, they
carried it on their shoulders for a quarter of a mile from the place where
it had stood, "without any resistance of the said idol." There setting it
on the ground, they struck a light, fastened the tapers to the body, and
with the help of them, sacrilegiously burnt the image down to a heap of
ashes; the old dry wood "blazing so brimly," that it lighted them a full
mile on their way home.[556]

For this night's performance, which, if the devil is the father of lies,
was a stroke of honest work against him and his family, the world rewarded
these men after the usual fashion. One of them, Robert Gardiner, escaped
the search which was made, and disappeared till better times; the remaining
three were swinging in chains six months later on the scene of their
exploit. Their fate was perhaps inevitable. Men who dare to be the first in
great movements are ever self-immolated victims. But I suppose that it was
better for them to be bleaching on their gibbets, than crawling at the feet
of a wooden rood, and believing it to be God.

       *       *       *       *       *

These were the first Paladins of the Reformation; the knights who slew the
dragons and the enchanters, and made the earth habitable for common flesh
and blood. They were rarely, as we have said, men of great ability, still
more rarely men of "wealth and station;" but men rather of clear senses and
honest hearts. Tyndal was a remarkable person, and so Clark and Frith
promised to become; but the two last were cut off before they had found
scope to show themselves; and Tyndal remaining abroad, lay outside the
battle which was being fought in England, doing noble work, indeed, and
ending as the rest ended, with earning a martyr's crown; but taking no part
in the actual struggle except with his pen. As yet but two men of the
highest order of power were on the side of Protestantism--Latimer and
Cromwell. Of them we have already said something; but the time was now fast
coming when they were to step forward, pressed by circumstances which could
no longer dispense with them, into scenes of far wider activity; and the
present seems a fitting occasion to give some closer account of their
history. When the breach with the pope was made irreparable, and the papal
party at home had assumed an attitude of suspended insurrection, the
fortunes of the Protestants entered into a new phase. The persecution
ceased; and those who but lately were carrying fagots in the streets, or
hiding for their lives, passed at once by a sudden alternation into the
sunshine of political favour. The summer was but a brief one, followed soon
by returning winter; but Cromwell and Latimer had together caught the
moment as it went by; and before it was over, a work had been done in
England which, when it was accomplished once, was accomplished for ever.
The conservative party recovered their power, and abused it as before; but
the chains of the nation were broken, and no craft of kings or priests or
statesmen could weld the magic links again.

It is a pity that of two persons to whom England owes so deep a debt, we
can piece together such scanty biographies. I must attempt, however, to
give some outline of the little which is known.

The father of Latimer was a solid English yeoman, of Thurcaston, in
Leicestershire. "He had no lands of his own," but he rented a farm "of four
pounds by the year," on which "he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men;"
"he had walk for a hundred sheep, and meadow ground for thirty cows."[557]
The world prospered with him; he was able to save money for his son's
education and his daughters' portions; but he was freehanded and
hospitable; he kept open house for his poor neighbours; and he was a good
citizen, too, for "he did find the king a harness with himself and his
horse," ready to do battle for his country, if occasion called. His family
were brought up "in godliness and the fear of the Lord;" and in all points
the old Latimer seems to have been a worthy, sound, upright man, of the
true English mettle.

There were several children.[558] The Reformer was born about 1490, some
five years after the usurper Richard had been killed at Bosworth. Bosworth
being no great distance from Thurcaston, Latimer the father is likely to
have been present in the battle, on one side or the other--the right side
in those times it was no easy matter to choose--but he became a good
servant of the new government--and the little Hugh, when a boy of seven
years old, helped to buckle[559] on his armour for him, "when he went to
Blackheath field."[560] Being a soldier himself, the old gentleman was
careful to give his sons, whatever else he gave them, a sound soldier's
training. "He was diligent," says Latimer, "to teach me to shoot with the
bow: he taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in the bow--not to draw
with strength of arm, as other nations do, but with the strength of the
body. I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength; as I
increased in these, my bows were made bigger and bigger."[561] Under this
education, and in the wholesome atmosphere of the farmhouse, the boy
prospered well; and by and bye, showing signs of promise, he was sent to
school. When he was fourteen, the promises so far having been fulfilled,
his father transferred him to Cambridge.[562]

He was soon known at the university as a sober, hard-working student. At
nineteen, he was elected fellow of Clare Hall; at twenty, he took his
degree, and became a student in divinity, when he accepted quietly, like a
sensible man, the doctrines which he had been brought up to believe. At the
time when Henry VIII. was writing against Luther, Latimer was fleshing his
maiden sword in an attack upon Melancthon;[563] and he remained, he said,
till he was thirty, "in darkness and the shadow of death." About this time
he became acquainted with Bilney, whom he calls "the instrument whereby God
called him to knowledge." In Bilney, doubtless, he found a sound
instructor; but a careful reader of his sermons will see traces of a
teaching for which he was indebted to no human master. His deepest
knowledge was that which stole upon him unconsciously through the
experience of life and the world. His words are like the clear impression
of a seal; the account and the result of observations, taken first hand, on
the condition of the English men and women of his time, in all ranks and
classes, from the palace to the prison. He shows large acquaintance with
books; with the Bible, most of all; with patristic divinity and school
divinity; and history, sacred and profane: but if this had been all, he
would not have been the Latimer of the Reformation, and the Church of
England would not, perhaps, have been here to-day. Like the physician, to
whom a year of practical experience in a hospital teaches more than a life
of closest study, Latimer learnt the mental disorders of his age in the age
itself; and the secret of that art no other man, however good, however
wise, could have taught him. He was not an echo, but a voice; and he drew
his thoughts fresh from the fountain--from the facts of the era in which
God had placed him.

He became early famous as a preacher at Cambridge, from the first, "a
seditious fellow," as a noble lord called him in later life, highly
troublesome to unjust persons in authority. "None, except the stiff-necked
and uncircumcised, ever went away from his preaching, it was said, without
being affected with high detestation of sin, and moved to all godliness and
virtue."[564] And, in his audacious simplicity, he addressed himself always
to his individual hearers, giving his words a personal application, and
often addressing men by name. This habit brought him first into difficulty
in 1525. He was preaching before the university, when the Bishop of Ely
came into the church, being curious to hear him. He paused till the bishop
was seated; and when he recommenced, he changed his subject, and drew an
ideal picture of a prelate as a prelate ought to be; the features of which,
though he did not say so, were strikingly unlike those of his auditor. The
bishop complained to Wolsey, who sent for Latimer, and inquired what he had
said. Latimer repeated the substance of his sermon; and other conversation
then followed, which showed Wolsey very clearly the nature of the person
with whom he was speaking. No eye saw more rapidly than the cardinal's the
difference between a true man and an impostor; and he replied to the Bishop
of Ely's accusations by granting the offender a licence to preach in any
church in England. "If the Bishop of Ely cannot abide such doctrine as you
have here repeated," he said, "you shall preach it to his beard, let him
say what he will."[565]

Thus fortified, Latimer pursued his way, careless of the university
authorities, and probably defiant of them. He was still orthodox in points
of theoretic belief. His mind was practical rather than speculative, and he
was slow in arriving at conclusions which had no immediate bearing upon
action. No charge could be fastened upon him, definitely criminal; and he
was too strong to be crushed by that compendious tyranny which treated as
an act of heresy the exposure of imposture or delinquency.

On Wolsey's fall, however, he would have certainly been silenced: if he had
fallen into the hands of Sir Thomas More, he would have perhaps been
prematurely sacrificed. But, fortunately, he found a fresh protector in the
king. Henry heard of him, sent for him, and, with instinctive recognition
of his character, appointed him one of the royal chaplains. He now left
Cambridge and removed to Windsor, but only to treat his royal patron as
freely as he had treated the Cambridge doctors--not with any absence of
respect, for he was most respectful, but with that highest respect which
dares to speak unwelcome truth where the truth seems to be forgotten. He
was made chaplain in 1530--during the new persecution, for which Henry was
responsible by a more than tacit acquiescence. Latimer, with no authority
but his own conscience, and the strong certainty that he was on God's side,
threw himself between the spoilers and their prey, and wrote to the king,
protesting against the injustice which was crushing the truest men in his
dominions. The letter is too long to insert; the close of it may show how a
poor priest could dare to address the imperious Henry VIII.:

"I pray to God that your Grace may take heed of the worldly wisdom which is
foolishness before God; that you may do that [which] God commandeth, and
not that [which] seemeth good in your own sight, without the word of God;
that your Grace may be found acceptable in his sight, and one of the
members of his church; and according to the office that he hath called your
Grace unto, you may be found a faithful minister of his gifts, and not a
defender of his faith: for he will not have it defended by man or man's
power, but by his word only, by the which he hath evermore defended it, and
that by a way far above man's power or reason.

"Wherefore, gracious king, remember yourself; have pity upon your soul; and
think that the day is even at hand when you shall give account for your
office, and of the blood that hath been shed by your sword. In which day,
that your Grace may stand steadfastly, and not be ashamed, but be clear and
ready in your reckoning, and have (as they say), your _quietus est_ sealed
with the blood of our Saviour Christ, which only serveth at that day, is my
daily prayer to Him that suffered death for our sins, which also prayeth to
his Father for grace for us continually; to whom be all honour and praise
for ever. Amen. The Spirit of God preserve your Grace."[566]

These words, which conclude an address of almost unexampled grandeur, are
unfortunately of no interest to us, except as illustrating the character of
the priest who wrote them, and the king to whom they were written. The hand
of the persecutor was not stayed. The rack and the lash and the stake
continued to claim their victims. So far it was labour in vain. But the
letter remains, to speak for ever for the courage of Latimer; and to speak
something, too, for a prince that could respect the nobleness of the poor
yeoman's son, who dared in such a cause to write to him as a man to a man.
To have written at all in such a strain was as brave a step as was ever
deliberately ventured. Like most brave acts, it did not go unrewarded; for
Henry remained ever after, however widely divided from him in opinion, his
unshaken friend.

In 1531, the king gave him the living of West Kingston, in Wiltshire, where
for a time he now retired. Yet it was but a partial rest. He had a special
licence as a preacher from Cambridge, which continued to him (with the
king's express sanction)[567] the powers which he had received from Wolsey.
He might preach in any diocese to which he was invited; and the repose of a
country parish could not be long allowed in such stormy times to Latimer.
He had bad health, being troubled with headache, pleurisy, colic, stone;
his bodily constitution meeting feebly the demands which he was forced to
make upon it.[568] But he struggled on, travelling up and down to London,
to Kent, to Bristol, wherever opportunity called him; marked for
destruction by the bishops, if he was betrayed into an imprudent word, and
himself living in constant expectation of death.[569]

At length the Bishop of London believed that Latimer was in his power. He
had preached at St. Abb's, in the city, "at the request of a company of
merchants,"[570] in the beginning of the winter of 1531; and soon after his
return to his living, he was informed that he was to be cited before
Stokesley. His friends in the neighbourhood wrote to him, evidently in
great alarm, and more anxious that he might clear himself, than expecting
that he would be able to do so;[571] he himself, indeed, had almost made up
his mind that the end was coming.[572]

The citation was delayed for a few weeks. It was issued at last, on the
10th of January, 1531-2,[573] and was served by Sir Walter Hungerford, of
Farley.[574] The offences with which he was charged were certain "excesses
and irregularities" not specially defined; and the practice of the bishops
in such cases was not to confine the prosecution to the acts committed; but
to draw up a series of articles, on which it was presumed that the
orthodoxy of the accused person was open to suspicion, and to question him
separately upon each. Latimer was first examined by Stokesley; subsequently
at various times by the bishops collectively; and finally, when certain
formulas had been submitted to him, which he refused to sign, his case was
transferred to convocation. The convocation, as we know, were then in
difficulty with their premunire; they had consoled themselves in their
sorrow with burning the body of Tracy; and they would gladly have taken
further comfort by burning Latimer.[575] He was submitted to the closest
cross-questionings, in the hope that he would commit himself. They felt
that he was the most dangerous person to them in the kingdom, and they
laboured with unusual patience to ensure his conviction.[576] With a common
person they would have rapidly succeeded. But Latimer was in no haste to be
a martyr; he would be martyred patiently when the time was come for
martyrdom; but he felt that no one ought "to consent to die," as long as he
could honestly live;[577] and he baffled the episcopal inquisitors with
their own weapons. He has left a most curious account of one of his
interviews with them.

"I was once in examination," he says,[578] "before five or six bishops,
where I had much turmoiling. Every week, thrice, I came to examination, and
many snares and traps were laid to get something. Now, God knoweth, I was
ignorant of the law; but that God gave me answer and wisdom what I should
speak. It was God indeed, for else I had never escaped them. At the last, I
was brought forth to be examined into a chamber hanged with arras, where I
was before wont to be examined, but now, at this time, the chamber was
somewhat altered: for whereas before there was wont ever to be a fire in
the chimney,[579] now the fire was taken away, and an arras hanging hanged
over the chimney; and the table stood near the chimney's end, so that I
stood between the table and the chimney's end. There was among these
bishops that examined me one with whom I had been very familiar, and took
him for my great friend, an aged man, and he sate next the table end. Then,
among all other questions, he put forth one, a very subtle and crafty one,
and such one indeed as I could not think so great danger in. And when I
would make answer, 'I pray you, Master Latimer,' said he, 'speak out; I am
very thick of hearing, and here be many that sit far off.' I marvelled at
this, that I was bidden to speak out, and began to misdeem, and gave an ear
to the chimney; and, sir, there I heard a pen walking in the chimney,
behind the cloth. They had appointed one there to write all mine answers;
for they made sure work that I should not start from them: there was no
starting from them: God was my good Lord, and gave me answer; I could never
else have escaped it. The question was this: 'Master Latimer, do you not
think, on your conscience, that you have been suspected of heresy?'--a
subtle question--a very subtle question. There was no holding of peace
would serve. To hold my peace had been to grant myself faulty. To answer
was every way full of danger. But God, which hath always given rile answer,
helped me, or else I could never have escaped it. _Ostendite mihi numisma_
_censûs_. Shew me, said he, a penny of the tribute money. They laid snares
to destroy him, but he overturneth them in their own traps."[580]

The bishops, however, were not men who were nice in their adherence to the
laws; and it would have gone ill with Latimer, notwithstanding his
dialectic ability. He was excommunicated and imprisoned, and would soon
have fallen into worse extremities; but at the last moment he appealed to
the king, and the king, who knew his value, would not allow him to be
sacrificed. He had refused to subscribe the articles proposed to him.[581]
Henry intimated to the convocation that it was not his pleasure that the
matter should be pressed further; they were to content themselves with a
general submission, which should be made to the archbishop, without
exacting more special acknowledgments. This was the reward to Latimer for
his noble letter. He was absolved, and returned to his parish, though
snatched as a brand out of the fire.

Soon after, the tide turned, and the Reformation entered into a new phase.

Such is a brief sketch of the life of Hugh Latimer, to the time when it
blended with the broad stream of English history. With respect to the other
very great man whom the exigencies of the state called to power
simultaneously with him, our information is far less satisfactory. Though
our knowledge of Latimer's early story comes to us in fragments only, yet
there are certain marks in it by which the outline can be determined with
certainty. A cloud rests over the youth and early manhood of Thomas
Cromwell, through which, only at intervals, we catch glimpses of authentic
facts; and these few fragments of reality seem rather to belong to a
romance than to the actual life of a man.

Cromwell, the malleus monachorum, was of good English family, belonging to
the Cromwells of Lincolnshire. One of these, probably a younger brother,
moved up to London and conducted an ironfoundry, or other business of that
description, at Putney. He married a lady of respectable connections, of
whom we know only that she was sister of the wife of a gentleman in
Derbyshire, but whose name does not appear.[582] The old Cromwell dying
early, the widow was re-married to a cloth-merchant; and the child of the
first husband, who made himself so great a name in English story, met with
the reputed fortune of a stepson, and became a vagabond in the wide world.
The chart of his course wholly fails us. One day in later life he shook by
the hand an old bell-ringer at Sion House before a crowd of courtiers, and
told them that "this man's father had given him many a dinner in his
necessities." And a strange random account is given by Foxe of his having
joined a party in an expedition to Rome to obtain a renewal from the pope
of certain immunities and indulgences for the town of Boston; a story which
derives some kind of credibility from its connection with Lincolnshire, but
is full of incoherence and unlikelihood. Following still the popular
legend, we find him in the autumn of 1515 a ragged stripling at the door of
Frescobaldi's banking-house in Florence, begging for help. Frescobaldi had
an establishment in London,[583] with a large connection there; and seeing
an English face, and seemingly an honest one, he asked the boy who and what
he was. "I am, sir," quoth he, "of England, and my name is Thomas Cromwell;
my father is a poor man, and by occupation a cloth-shearer; I am strayed
from my country, and am now come into Italy with the camp of Frenchmen that
were overthrown at Garigliano, where I was page to a footman, carrying
after him his pike and burganet." Something in the boy's manner was said to
have attracted the banker's interest; he took him into his house, and after
keeping him there as long as he desired to stay, he gave him a horse and
sixteen ducats to help him home to England.[584] Foxe is the first English
authority for the story; and Foxe took it from Bandello, the novelist; but
it is confirmed by, or harmonises with, a sketch of Cromwell's early life
in a letter of Chappuys, the imperial ambassador, to Chancellor Granvelle.
"Master Cromwell," wrote Chappuys in 1535, "is the son of a poor
blacksmith, who lived in a small village four miles from London, and is
buried in a common grave in the parish churchyard. In his youth, for some
offence, he was imprisoned, and had to leave the country. He went to
Flanders, and thence to Rome and other places in Italy."[585]

Returning to England, he married the daughter of a woollen-dealer, and
became a partner in the business, where he amassed or inherited a
considerable fortune.[586] Circumstances afterwards brought him, while
still young, in contact with Wolsey, who discovered his merit, took him
into service, and in 1525, employed him in the most important work of
visiting and breaking up the small monasteries, which the pope had granted
for the foundation of the new colleges. He was engaged with this business
for two years, and was so efficient that he obtained an unpleasant
notoriety, and complaints of his conduct found their way to the king.
Nothing came of these complaints, however, and Cromwell remained with the
cardinal till his fall.[587]

It was then that the truly noble nature which was in him showed itself. He
accompanied his master through his dreary confinement at Esher,[588] doing
all that man could do to soften the outward wretchedness of it; and at the
meeting of parliament, in which he obtained a seat, he rendered him a still
more gallant service. The Lords had passed a bill of impeachment against
Wolsey, violent, vindictive, and malevolent. It was to be submitted to the
Commons, and Cromwell prepared to attempt an opposition. Cavendish has left
a most characteristic description of his leaving Esher at this trying time.
A cheerless November evening was closing in with rain and storm. Wolsey was
broken down with sorrow and sickness; and had been unusually tried by
parting with his retinue, whom he had sent home, as unwilling to keep them
attached any longer to his fallen fortunes. When they were all gone, "My
lord," says Cavendish, "returned to his chamber, lamenting the departure of
his servants, making his moan unto Master Cromwell, who comforted him the
best he could, and desired my lord to give him leave to go to London, where
he would either make or mar before he came again, which was always his
common saying. Then after long communication with my lord in secret, he
departed, and took his horse and rode to London; at whose departing I was
by, whom he bade farewell, and said, ye shall hear shortly of me, and if I
speed well I will not fail to be here again within these two days."[589] He
did speed well. "After two days he came again with a much pleasanter
countenance, and meeting with me before he came to my lord, said unto me,
that he had adventured to put in his foot where he trusted shortly to be
better regarded or all were done." He had stopped the progress of the
impeachment in the Lower House, and was answering the articles one by one.
In the evening he rode down to Esher for instructions. In the morning he
was again at his place in Parliament; and he conducted the defence so
skilfully, that finally he threw out the bill, saved Wolsey, and himself
"grew into such estimation in every man's opinion, for his honest behaviour
in his master's cause, that he was esteemed the most faithfullest servant,
[and] was of all men greatly commended."[590]

Henry admired his chivalry, and perhaps his talent. The loss of Wolsey had
left him without any very able man, unless we may consider Sir Thomas More
such, upon his council, and he could not calculate on More for support in
his anti-Roman policy; he was glad, therefore, to avail himself of the
service of a man who had given so rare a proof of fidelity, and who had
been trained by the ablest statesman of the age.[591]

To Wolsey Cromwell could render no more service except as a friend, and his
warm friend he remained to the last. He became the king's secretary,
representing the government in the House of Commons, and was at once on the
high road to power. I cannot call him ambitious; an ambitious man would
scarcely have pursued so refined a policy, or have calculated on the
admiration which he gained by adhering to a fallen minister. He did not
seek greatness--greatness rather sought him as the man in England most fit
to bear it. His business was to prepare the measures which were to be
submitted to Parliament by the government. His influence, therefore, grew
necessarily with the rapidity with which events were ripening; and when the
conclusive step was taken, and the king was married, the virtual conduct of
the Reformation passed into his hands. His Protestant tendencies were
unknown as yet, perhaps, even to his own conscience; nor to the last could
he arrive at any certain speculative convictions. He was drawn towards the
Protestants as he rose into power by the integrity of his nature, which
compelled him to trust only those who were honest like himself.



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI

WILL OF THOMAS CROMWELL--1529.

In the name of God, Amen. The 12th day of July, in the year of our Lord God
MCCCCCXXIX., and in the 21st year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, King
Henry VIII., I, Thomas Cromwell, of London, Gentleman, being whole in body
and in good and perfect memory, lauded be the Holy Trinity, make, ordain,
and declare this my present testament, containing my last will, in manner
as following:--First I bequeath my soul to the great God of heaven, my
Maker, Creator, and Redeemer, beseeching the most glorious Virgin and
blessed Lady Saint Mary the Virgin and Mother, with all the holy company of
heaven, to be mediators and intercessors for me to the Holy Trinity, so
that I may be able, when it shall please Almighty God to call me out of
this miserable world and transitory life, to inherit the kingdom of heaven
amongst the number of good Christian people; and whensoever I shall depart
this present life I bequeath my body to be buried where it shall please God
to ordain me to die, and to be ordered after the discretion of mine
executors undernamed. And for my goods which our Lord hath lent me in this
world, I will shall be ordered and disposed in manner and form as hereafter
shall ensue. First I give and bequeath unto my son Gregory Cromwell six
hundred threescore six pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence, of lawful
money of England, with the which six hundred threescore six pounds,
thirteen shillings, and fourpence, I will mine executors undernamed
immediately or as soon as they conveniently may after my decease, shall
purchase lands, tenements, and hereditaments to the clear yearly value of
£33 6s. 8d. by the year above all charges and reprises to the use of my
said son Gregory, for term of his life; and after the decease of the said
Gregory to the heirs male of his body lawfully to be begotten, and for lack
of heirs male of the body of the said Gregory, lawfully begotten, to the
heirs general of his body lawfully begotten. And for lack of such heirs to
the right heirs of me the said Thomas Cromwell, in fee. I will also that
immediately and as soon as the said lands, tenements, and hereditaments
shall be so purchased after my death as is aforesaid by mine executors,
that the yearly profits thereof shall be wholly spent and employed in and
about the education and finding honestly of my said son Gregory, in virtue,
good learning, and manners, until such time as he shall come to the full
age of 24 years. During which time I heartily desire and require my said
executors to be good unto my said you Gregory, and to see he do lose no
time, but to see him virtuously ordered and brought up according to my
trust.

Item. I give and bequeath to my said son Gregory, (when he shall come to
his full age of 24 years), two hundred pounds of lawful English money to
order them as our Lord shall give him grace and discretion, which £200 I
will shall be put in surety to the intent the same may come to his hands at
his said age of 24 years. Item. I give and bequeath to my said son Gregory
of such household stuff as God hath lent me, three of my best featherbeds
with their bolsters; and, the best pair of blankets of fustian, my best
coverlet of tapestry, and my quilt of yellow Turkey satin; one pair of my
best sheets, four pillows of down, with four pair of the best pillowberes,
four of my best table-cloths, four of my best towels, two dozen of my
finest napkins, and two dozen of my other napkins, two garnish of my best
vessel, three of my best brass pots, three of my best brass pans, two of my
best kettles, two of my best spits, my best joined bed of Flanders work,
with the best ---- and tester, and other the appurtenances thereto
belonging; my best press, carven of Flanders work, and my best cupboard,
carven of Flanders work, with also six joined stools of Flanders work, and
six of my best cushions. Item. I give and bequeath to my said son Gregory a
basin with an ewer parcel-gilt, my best salt gilt, my best cup gilt, three
of my best goblets; three other of my goblets parcel-gilt, twelve of my
best silver spoons, three of my best drinking ale-pots gilt; all the which
parcels of plate and household stuff I will shall be safely kept to the use
of my said you Gregory till he shall come to his said full age of 24. And
all the which plate, household stuff, napery, and all other the premises, I
will mine executors do put in safe keeping until my said son come to the
said years or age of 24. And if he die before the age of 24, then I will
all the said plate, vessel, and household stuff shall be sold by mine
executors. And the money thereof coming to be given and equally divided
amongst my poor kinsfolk, that is to say, amongst the children as well of
mine own sisters Elizabeth and Katherine, as of my late wife's sister Joan,
wife to John Williamson;[592] and if it happen that all the children of my
said sisters and sister-in-law do die before the partition be made, and
none of them be living, then I will that all the said plate, vessel, and
household stuff shall be sold and given to other my poor kinsfolk then
being in life, and other poor and indigent people, in deeds of charity for
my soul, my father and mother their souls, and all Christian souls.

[[593] Item. I give and bequeath to my daughter Anne an hundred marks of
lawful money of England when she shall come to her lawful age or happen to
be married, and £40 toward her finding until the time that she shall be of
lawful age or be married, which £40 I will shall be delivered to my friend
John Cook, one of the six Clerks of the King's Chancery, to the intent he
may order the same and cause the same to be employed in the best wise he
can devise about the virtuous education and bringing up of my said daughter
till she shall come to her lawful age or marriage. Then I will that the
said 100 marks, and so much of the said £40 as then shall be unspent and
unemployed at the day of the death of my said daughter Anne, I will it
shall remain to Gregory my son, if he then be in life; and if he be dead,
the same hundred marks, and also so much of the said £40 as then shall be
unspent, to be departed amongst my sisters' children, in manner and form
aforesaid. And if it happen my said sisters' children then to be all dead,
then I will the said 100 marks and so much of the said £40 as shall be
unspent, shall be divided amongst my kinsfolk, such as then, shall be in
life.] Item. I give and bequeath unto my sister Elizabeth Wellyfed £40,
three goblets without a cover, a mazer, and a nut. Item. I give and
bequeath to my nephew Richard Willyams [[594] servant with my Lord Marquess
Dorset, £66 13s. 4d.], £40 sterling, my [[594] fourth] best gown, doublet,
and jacket. Item. I give and bequeath to my nephew, Christopher Wellyfed
£40, [[594] £20] my fifth gown, doublet, and jacket. Item. I give and
bequeath to my nephew William Wellyfed the younger £20, [[594] £40]. Item.
I give and bequeath to my niece Alice Wellyfed, to her marriage, £20. And
if it happen her to die before marriage, then I will that the said £20
shall remain to her brother Christopher. And if it happen him to die, the
same £20 to remain to Wm. Wellyfed the younger, his brother. And if it
happen them all to die before their lawful age or marriage, then I will
that all their parts shall remain to Gregory my son. And if it happen him
to die before them, then I will all the said parts shall remain [[594] to
Anne and Grace, my daughters] to Richard Willyams and Walter Willyams, my
nephews. And if it happen them to die, then I will that all the said parts
shall be distributed in deeds of charity for my soul, my father's and
mother's souls, and all Christian souls. Item. I give and bequeath to my
mother-in-law Mercy Prior, £40 of lawful English money, and her chamber,
with certain household stuff; that is to say, a featherbed, a bolster, two
pillows with their beres, six pair of sheets, a pair of blankets, a garnish
of vessel, two pots, two pans, two spits, with such other of my household
stuff as shall be thought meet for her by the discretion of mine executors,
and such as she will reasonably desire, not being bequeathed to other uses
in this my present testament and last will. Item. I give and bequeath to my
said mother-in-law a little salt of silver, a mazer, six silver spoons, and
a drinking-pot of silver. And also I charge mine executors to be good unto
her during her life. Item. I give and bequeath to my brother-in-law William
Wellyfed, £20, my third gown, jacket, and doublet. Item. I give and
bequeath to John Willyams my brother-in-law, 100 marks, a gown, a doublet,
a jacket, a featherbed, a bolster, six pair of sheets, two table-cloths,
two dozen napkins, two towels, two brass pots, two brass pans, a silver
pot, a nut parcel-gilt; and to Joan, his wife, £40. Item. I give and
bequeath to Joan Willyams, their daughter, to her marriage, £20, and to
every other of their children, £12 13s. 4d. Item. I bequeath to Walter
Willyams, my nephew, £20. item. I give and bequeath to Ralph Sadler, my
servant, 200 marks of lawful English money, my second gown, jacket, and
doublet, and all my books. Item. I give and bequeath to Hugh Whalley, my
servant, £6 13s. 4d. Item. I give and bequeath to Stephen Vaughan, sometime
my servant, 100 marks, a gown, jacket, and doublet. Item. I give and
bequeath to Page, my servant, otherwise called John De Fount, £6 13s. 4d.
[[594] Item. I give and bequeath to Elizabeth Gregory, sometime my servant,
£20, six pair of sheets, a featherbed, a pair of blankets, a coverlet, two
table-cloths, one dozen napkins, two brass pots, two pans, two spits.] And
also to Thomas Averey, my servant, £6 13s. 4d. [[594] Item. I give and
bequeath to John Cooke, one of the six Master Clerks of the Chancery, £10,
my second gown, doublet, and jacket. Item. I give and bequeath to Roger
More, servant of the King's bakehouse, £6 13s. 4d., three yards of satin;
and to Maudelyn, his wife, £3 6s. 8d.] Item. I give and bequeath to John
Horwood, £6 13s. 4d. [[594] Item. I give and bequeath to my little daughter
Grace 100 marks of lawful English money when she shall come to her lawful
age or marriage; and also £40 towards her exhibition and finding until such
time she shall be of lawful age or be married, which £40 I will shall be
delivered to my brother-in-law, John Willyams, to the intent he may order
and cause the same to be employed in and about the virtuous education and
bringing up of my said daughter, till she shall come to her lawful age of
marriage. And if it happen my said daughter to die before she come to her
lawful age or marriage, then I will that the said 100 marks, and so much of
the said £40 as shall then be unspent and unemployed about the finding of
my said daughter at the day of the death of my said daughter shall remain
and be delivered to Gregory my son, if he then shall happen to be in life;
and if he be dead, then the said 100 marks, and the said residue of the
said £40, to be evenly departed among my grown kinsfolk--that is to say, my
sisters' children aforesaid.] Item. That the rest of mine apparel before
not given or bequeathed in this my testament and last will shall be given
and equally departed amongst my servants after the order and discretion of
mine executors. Item. I will also that mine executors shall take the yearly
profits above the charges of my farm of Carberry, and all other things
contained in my said lease of Carberry, in the county of Middlesex, and
with the profits thereof shall yearly pay unto my brother-in-law William
(Wellyfed) and Elizabeth his wife, mine only sister, twenty pounds; give
and distribute for my soul quarterly 40 shillings during their lives and
the longer of them; and after the decease of the said William and
Elizabeth, the profits of the said farm over and above the yearly rent to
be kept to the use of my son Gregory till he be come to the age of 24
years. And at the years of 24 the said lease and farm of Carberry, I do
give and bequeath to my son Gregory, to have the same to him, his executors
and assigns. And if it fortune the said Gregory my son to die before, my
said brother-in-law and sister being dead, he shall come to the age of 24
years, then I will my said cousin Richard Willyams shall have the farm with
the appurtenances to him and to his executors and assigns; and if it happen
my said brother-in-law, my sister, my son Gregory, and my said cousin
Richard, to die before the accomplishment of this my will touching the said
farm, then I will mine executors shall sell the said farm, and the money
thereof coming to employ in deeds of charity, to pray for my soul and all
Christian souls. Item. I will mine executors shall conduct and hire a
priest, being an honest person of continent and good living, to sing for my
soul by the space of seven years next after my death, and to give him for
the same £6 13s. 4d. for his stipend. Item. I give and bequeath towards the
making of highways in this realm, where it shall be thought most necessary,
£20 to be disposed by the discretion of mine executors. Item. I give and
bequeath to every the five orders of Friars within the City of London, to
pray for my soul, 20 shillings. Item. I give and bequeath to 60 poor
maidens in marriage, £40, that is to say, 13s. 4d. to every of the said
poor maidens, to be given and distributed by the discretion of mine
executors. Item. I will that there shall be dealt and given after my
decease amongst poor people householders, to pray for my soul, £20, such as
by mine executors shall be thought most needful. Item. I give and bequeath
to the poor parishioners of the parish where God shall ordain me to have my
dwellingplace at the time of my death, £10, to be truly distributed amongst
them by the discretion of mine executors. Item. I give and bequeath to my
parish church for my tithes forgotten, 20 shillings. Item. To the poor
prisoners of Newgate, Ludgate, King's Bench, and Marshalsea, to be equally
distributed amongst them, £10. Willing, charging, and desiring mine
executors underwritten, that they shall see this my will performed in every
point according to my true meaning and intent as they will answer to God,
and discharge their consciences. The residue of all my goods, chattels, and
debts not bequeathed, my funeral and burial performed, which I will shall
be done without any earthly pomp, and my debts paid, I will shall be sold,
and the money thereof coming, to be distributed in works of charity and
pity, after the good discretion of mine executors undernamed. Whom I make
and ordain, Stephen Vaughan, Ralph Sadler, my servants, and John Willyams
my brother-in-law. Praying and desiring the same mine executors to be good
unto my son Gregory, and to all other my poor friends and kinsfolk and
servants aforenamed in this my testament. And of this my present testament
and last will I make Roger More mine overseer; unto whom and also to every
of the other mine executors I give and bequeath £6 13s. 4d. for their pains
to be taken in the execution of this my last will and testament, over and
above such legacies as herebefore I have bequeathed them in this same
testament and will. In witness whereof, to this my present testament and
last will I have set to my hand in every leaf contained in this book, the
day and year before limited.

THOMAS CROMWELL.

Item. I give and bequeath to William Brabazon, my servant, £20 8s., a gun,
a doublet, a jacket, and my second gelding.

It. to John Avery, Yeoman of the Bedchamber with the King's Highness, £6
13s. 4d., and a doublet of satin.

It. to Thurston, my cook. £6 13s. 4d.

It. to William Body, my servant, £6 13s. 4d.

It. to Peter Mewtas, my servant, £6 13s. 4d.

It. to Ric. Sleysh, my servant, £6 13s. 4d.

It. to George Wilkinson, my servant, £6 13s. 4d.

It. to my friend, Thomas Alvard. £10, and my best gelding.

It. to my friend, Thomas Rush, £10.

It. to my servant, John Hynde, my horsekeeper, £3 6s. 8d.

Item. I will that mine executors shall safely keep the patent of the manor
of Romney to the use of my son Gregory, and the money growing thereof, till
he shall come to his lawful age, to be yearly received to the use of my
said son, and the whole revenue thereof coming to be truly paid unto him at
such time as he shall come to the age of 24 years.




CHAPTER VII

THE LAST EFFORTS OF DIPLOMACY

I have now to resume the thread of the political history where it was
dropped at the sentence of divorce pronounced by Cranmer, and the
coronation of the new queen. The effect was about to be ascertained of
these bold measures upon Europe; and of what their effect would be, only so
much could be foretold with certainty, that the time for trifling was past,
and the pope and Francis of France would be compelled to declare their true
intentions. If these intentions were honest, the subordination of England
to the papacy might be still preserved in a modified form. The papal
jurisdiction was at end, but the spiritual supremacy of the Bishop of Rome,
with a diminished but considerable revenue attached to it, remained
unaffected; and it was for the pope to determine whether, by fulfilling at
last his original engagements, he would preserve these remnants of his
power and privileges, or boldly take up the gage, excommunicate his
disobedient subjects, and attempt by force to bring them back to their
allegiance.

The news of what had been done did not take him wholly by surprise. It was
known at Brussels at the end of April that the king had married. The queen
regent[595] spoke of it to the ambassador sternly and significantly, not
concealing her expectation of the mortal resentment which would be felt by
her brothers;[596] and the information was forwarded with the least
possible delay to the cardinals of the imperial faction at Rome. The true
purposes which underlay the contradiction of Clement's language are
undiscoverable. Perhaps in the past winter he had been acting out a deep
intrigue--perhaps he was drifting between rival currents, and yielded in
any or all directions as the alternate pressure varied; yet whatever had
been the meaning of his language, whether it was a scheme to deceive Henry,
or was the expression only of weakness and good-nature desiring to avoid a
quarrel to the latest moment, the decisive step which had been taken in the
marriage, even though it was nominally undivulged, obliged him to choose
his course and openly adhere to it. After the experience of the past, there
could be no doubt what that course would be.

On the 12th of May a citation was issued against the King of England,
summoning him to appear by person or proxy at a stated day. It had been
understood that no step of such a kind was to be taken before the meeting
of the pope and Francis; Bennet, therefore, Henry's faithful secretary,
hastily inquired the meaning of this measure. The pope told him that it
could not be avoided, and the language which he used revealed to the
English agent the inevitable future. The king, he said, had defied the
inhibitory brief which had been lately issued, and had incurred
excommunication; the imperialists insisted that he should be proceeded
against for contempt, and that the excommunication should at once be
pronounced. However great might be his own personal reluctance, it was not
possible for him to remain passive; and if he declined to resort at once to
the more extreme exercise of his power, the hesitation was merely until the
emperor was prepared to enforce the censures of the church with the strong
hand. It stood not "with his honour to execute such censures," he said,
"and the same not to be regarded."[597] But there was no wish to spare
Henry; and if Francis could be detached from his ally, and if the condition
of the rest of Christendom became such as to favour the enterprise, England
might evidently look for the worst which the pope, with the Catholic
powers, could execute. If the papal court was roused into so menacing a
mood by the mere intimation of the secret marriage, it was easy to foresee
what would ensue when the news arrived of the proceedings at Dunstable.
Bennet entreated that the process should be delayed till the interview; but
the pope answered coldly that he had done his best and could do no more;
the imperialists were urgent, and he saw no reason to refuse their
petition.[598] This was Clement's usual language, but there was something
peculiar in his manner. He had been often violent, but he had never shown
resolution, and the English agents were perplexed. The mystery was soon
explained. He had secured himself on the side of France; and Francis, who
at Calais had told Henry that his negotiations with the see of Rome were
solely for the interests of England, that for Henry's sake he was marrying
his son into a family beneath him in rank, that Henry's divorce was to form
the especial subject of his conference with the pope, had consented to
allow these dangerous questions to sink into a secondary place, and had
relinquished his intention, if he had ever seriously entertained it, of
becoming an active party in the English quarrel.

The long-talked-of interview was still delayed. First it was to have taken
place in the winter, then in the spring; June was the date last fixed for
it, and now Bennet had to inform the king that it would not take place
before September; and that, from the terms of a communication which had
just passed between the parties who were to meet, the subjects discussed at
the conference would not be those which he had been led to expect. Francis,
in answer to a question from the pope, had specified three things which he
proposed particularly to "intreat." The first concerned the defence of
Christendom against the Turks, the second concerned the general council,
and the third concerned "the extinction of the Lutheran sect."[599] These
were the points which the Most Christian king was anxious to discuss with
the pope. For the latter good object especially, "he would devise and treat
for the provision of an army." In the King of England's cause, he trusted
"some means might be found whereby it might be compounded;"[600] but if
persuasion failed, there was no fear lest he should have recourse to any
other method.

It was this which had given back to the pope his courage. It was this which
Bennet had now to report to Henry. The French alliance, it was too likely,
would prove a broken reed, and pierce the hand that leant upon it.

Henry knew the danger; but danger was not a very terrible thing either to
him or to his people. If he had conquered his own reluctance to risk a
schism in the church, he was not likely to yield to the fear of isolation;
and if there was something to alarm in the aspect of affairs, there was
also much to encourage. His parliament was united and resolute. His queen
was pregnant. The Nun of Kent had assigned him but a month to live after
his marriage; six months had passed, and he was alive and well; the
supernatural powers had not declared against him; and while safe with
respect to enmity from above, the earthly powers he could afford to defy.
When he finally divorced Queen Catherine, he must have foreseen his present
position at least as a possibility, and if not prepared for so swift an
apostasy in Francis, and if not yet wholly believing it, we may satisfy
ourselves he had never absolutely trusted a prince of metal so
questionable.

The Duke of Norfolk was waiting at the French court, with a magnificent
embassy, to represent the English king at the interview. The arrival of the
pope had been expected in May. It was now delayed till September; and if
Clement came after all, it would be for objects in which England had but
small concern. It was better for England that there should be no meeting at
all, than a meeting to devise schemes for the massacre of Lutherans. Henry
therefore wrote to the Duke, telling him generally what he had heard from
Rome; he mentioned the three topics which he understood were to form the
matter of discussion; but he skilfully affected to regard them as having
originated with the imperialists, and not with the French king. In a long
paper of instructions, in which earnestness and irony were strangely
blended, he directed the ambassador to treat his good brother as if he were
still exclusively devoted to the interests of England; and to urge upon
him, on the ground of this fresh delay, that the interview should not take
place at all.[601]

"Our pleasure is," he wrote, "that ye shall say--that we be not a little
moved in our heart to see our good brother and us, being such princes of
Christendom, to be so handled with the pope, so much to our dishonour, and
to the pope's and the emperor's advancement; seeming to be at the pope's
commandment to come or tarry as he or his cardinals shall appoint; and to
depend upon his pleasure when to meet--that is to say, when he list or
never. If our good brother and we were either suitors to make request, the
obtaining whereof we did much set by, or had any particular matter of
advantage to entreat with him, these proceedings might be the better
tolerated; but our good brother having no particular matter of his own, and
being ... that [no] more glory nor surety could happen to the emperour than
to obtain the effect of the three articles moved by the pope and his
cardinals, we think it not convenient to attend the pleasure of the pope,
to go or to abyde. We could have been content to have received and taken at
the pope's hand, jointly with our good brother, pleasure and friendship in
our great cause; [but] on the other part, we cannot esteem the pope's part
so high, as to have our good brother an attendant suitor therefore ...
desiring him, therefore, in anywise to disappoint for his part the said
interview; and if he have already granted thereto--upon some new good
occasion, which he now undoubtedly hath--to depart from the same.

"For we, ye may say, having the justness of our cause for us, with such an
entire and whole consent of our nobility and commons of our realm and
subjects, and being all matters passed, and in such terms as they now be,
do not find such lack and want of that the pope might do, with us or
against us, as we would for the obtaining thereof be contented to have a
French king our so perfect a friend, to be not only a mediator but a suitor
therein, and a suitor attendant to have audience upon liking and after the
advice of such cardinals as repute it among pastymes to play and dally with
kings and princes; whose honour, ye may say, is above all things, and more
dear to us in the person of our good brother, than is any piece of our
cause at the pope's hands. And therefore, if there be none other thing but
our cause, and the other causes whereof we be advertised, our advice,
counsel, special desire also and request is, [that our good brother shall]
break off the interview, unless the pope will make suit to him; and
[unless] our said good brother hath such causes of his own as may
particularly tend to his own benefit, honour, and profit--wherein he shall
do great and singular pleasure unto us; _giving to understand to the pope,
that me know ourselves and him both, and look to be esteemed accordingly._"

Should it appear that on receipt of this communication, Francis was still
resolved to persevere, and that he had other objects in view to which Henry
had not been made privy, the ambassadors were then to remind him of the
remaining obligations into which he had entered; and to ascertain to what
degree his assistance might be calculated upon, should the pope pronounce
Henry deposed, and the emperor attempt to enforce the sentence.

After forwarding these instructions, the king's next step was to anticipate
the pope by an appeal which would neutralise his judgment should he venture
upon it; and which offered a fresh opportunity of restoring the peace of
Christendom, if there was true anxiety to preserve that peace. The hinge of
the great question, in the form which at last it assumed, was the validity
or invalidity of the dispensation by which Henry had married his brother's
widow. Being a matter which touched the limit of the pope's power, the pope
was himself unable to determine it in his own favour; and the only
authority by which the law could be ruled, was a general council. In the
preceding winter, the pope had volunteered to submit the question to this
tribunal; but Henry believing that it was on the point of immediate
solution in another way, had then declined, on the ground that it would
cause a needless delay. He was already married, and he had hoped that
sentence might be given in his favour in time to anticipate the publication
of the ceremony. But he was perfectly satisfied that justice was on his
side; and was equally confident of obtaining the verdict of Europe, if it
could be fairly pronounced. Now, therefore, under the altered
circumstances, he accepted the offered alternative. He anticipated with
tolerable certainty the effect which would be produced at Rome, when the
news should arrive there of the Dunstable divorce; and on the 29th of June,
he appealed formally, in the presence of the Archbishop of York, from the
pope's impending sentence, to the next general council.[602]

Of this curious document the substance was as follows:--It commenced with a
declaration that the king had no intention of acting otherwise than became
a good Catholic prince; or of injuring the church or attacking the
privileges conceded by God to the Holy See. If his words could be lawfully
shown to have such a tendency he would revoke, emend, and correct them in a
Catholic spirit.

The general features of the case were then recapitulated. His marriage with
his brother's wife had been pronounced illegal by the principal
universities of Europe, by the clergy of the two provinces of the Church of
England, by the most learned theologians and canonists, and finally, by the
public judgment of the church.[603] He therefore had felt himself free;
and, "by the inspiration of the Host High, had lawfully married another
woman." Furthermore, "for the common weal and tranquillity of the realm of
England, and for the wholesome rule and government of the same, he had
caused to be enacted certain statutes and ordinances, by authority of
parliaments lawfully called for that purpose." "Now, however," he
continued, "we fearing that his Holyness the Pope ... having in our said
cause treated us far otherwise than either respect for our dignity and
desert, or the duty of his own office required at his hands, and having
done us many injuries which we now of design do suppress, but which
hereafter we shall be ready, should circumstances so require, to divulge
... may now proceed to acts of further injustice, and heaping wrong on
wrong, may pronounce the censures and other penalties of the spiritual
sword against ourselves, our realm, and subjects, seeking thereby to
deprive us of the use of the sacraments, and to cut us off, in the sight of
the world, from the unity of the church, to the no slight hurt and injury
of our realm and subjects:

"Fearing these things, and desiring to preserve from detriment not only
ourselves, our own dignity and estimation, but also our subjects, committed
to us by Almighty God; to keep them in the unity of the Christian faith,
and in the wonted participation in the sacraments; that, when in truth they
be not cut off from the integrity of the church, nor can nor will be so cut
off in any manner, they may not appear to be so cut off in the estimation
of men; [desiring further] to check and hold back our people whom God has
given to us, lest, in the event of such injury, they refuse utterly to obey
any longer the Roman Pontiff, as a hard and cruel pastor: [for these
causes] and believing, from reasons probable, conjectures likely, and words
used to our injury by his Holiness the Pope, which in divers manners have
been brought to our ears, that some weighty act may be committed by him or
others to the prejudice of ourselves and of our realm;--We, therefore, in
behalf of all and every of our subjects, and of all persons adhering to us
in this our cause, do make our appeal to the next general council, which
shall be lawfully held, in place convenient, with the consent of the
Christian princes, and of such others as it may concern--not in contempt of
the Holy See, but for defence of the truth of the Gospel, and for the other
causes afore rehearsed. And we do trust in God that it shall not be
interpreted as a thing ill done on our part, if preferring the salvation of
our soul and the relief of our conscience to any mundane respects or
favours, we have in this cause regarded more the Divine law than the laws
of man, and have thought it rather meet to obey God than to obey man."[604]

By the appeal and the causes which were assigned for it, Henry pre-occupied
the ground of the conflict; he entrenched himself in the "debateable land"
of legal uncertainty; and until his position had been pronounced untenable
by the general voice of Christendom, any sentence which the pope could
issue would have but a doubtful validity. It was, perhaps, but a slight
advantage; and the niceties of technical fencing might soon resolve
themselves into a question of mere strength; yet, in the opening of great
conflicts, it is well, even when a resort to force is inevitable, to throw
on the opposing party the responsibility of violence; and Henry had been
led, either by a refinement of policy, or by the plain straightforwardness
of his intentions, into a situation where he could expect without alarm the
unrolling of the future.

The character of that future was likely soon to be decided. The appeal was
published on the 29th of June; and as the pope must have heard, by the
middle of the month at latest, of the trial and judgment at Dunstable, a
few days would bring an account of the manner in which he had received the
intelligence. Prior to the arrival of the couriers, Bennet, with the
assistance of Cardinal Tournon, had somewhat soothed down his exasperation.
Francis, also, having heard that immediate process was threatened, had
written earnestly to deprecate such a measure;[605] and though he took the
interference "very displeasantly,"[606] the pope could not afford to lose,
by premature impatience; the fruit of all his labour and diplomacy, and had
yielded so far as to promise that nothing of moment should be done. To this
state of mind he had been brought one day in the second week of June. The
morning after, Bennet found him "sore altered." The news of "my Lord of
Canterbury's proceedings" had arrived the preceding night; and "his
Holiness said that [such] doings were too sore for him to stand still at
and do nothing."[607] It was "against his duty towards God and the world to
tolerate them." The imperialist cardinals, impatient before, clamoured that
the evil had been caused by the dilatory timidity with which the case had
been handled from the first.[608] The consistory sate day after day with
closed doors;[609] and even such members of it as had before inclined to
the English side, joined in the common indignation. "Some extreme process"
was instantly looked for, and the English agents, in their daily interviews
with the pope, were forced to listen to language which it was hard to bear
with equanimity. Bennet's well-bred courtesy carried him successfully
through the difficulty; his companion Bonner was not so fortunate. Bonner's
tongue was insolent, and under bad control. He replied to menace by
impertinence; and on one occasion was so exasperating, that Clement
threatened to burn him alive, or boil him in a caldron of lead.[610] When
fairly roused, the old man was dangerous; and the future Bishop of London
wrote to England in extremity of alarm. His letter has not been found, but
the character of it may be perceived from the reassuring reply of the king.
The agents, Henry said, were not to allow themselves to be frightened; they
were to go on calmly, with their accustomed diligence and dexterity,
disputing the ground from point to point, and trust to him. Their cause was
good, and, with God's help, he would be able to defend them from the malice
of their adversaries.[611]

Fortunately for Bonner, the pope's passion was of brief duration, and the
experiment whether Henry's arm could reach to the dungeons of the Vatican
remained untried. The more moderate of the cardinals, also, something
assuaged the storm; and angry as they all were, the majority still saw the
necessity of prudence. In the heat of the irritation, final sentence was to
have been pronounced upon the entire cause, backed by interdict,
excommunication, and the full volume of the papal thunders. At the close of
a month's deliberation they resolved to reserve judgement on the original
question, and to confine themselves for the present to revenging the insult
to the pope by "my Lord of Canterbury." Both the king and the archbishop
had disobeyed a formal inhibition. On the 12th of July, the pope issued a
brief, declaring Cranmer's judgment to have been illegal, the English
process to have been null and void, and the king, by his disobedience, to
have incurred, _ipso facto_, the threatened penalties of excommunication.
Of his clemency he suspended these censures till the close of the following
September, in order that time might be allowed to restore the respective
parties to their old positions: if within that period the parties were not
so restored, the censures would fall.[612] This brief was sent into
Flanders, and fixed in the usual place against the door of a church in
Dunkirk.

Henry was prepared for a measure which was no more than natural. He had
been prepared for it as a possibility when he married. Both he and Francis
must have been prepared for it on their meeting at Calais, when the French
king advised him to marry, and promised to support him through the
consequences. His own measures had been arranged beforehand, and he had
secured himself in technical entrenchments by his appeal. After the issue
of the brief, however, he could allow no English embassy to compliment
Clement by its presence on his visit to France. He "knew the pope," as he
said. Long experience had shown him that nothing was to be gained by
yielding in minor points; and the only chance which now remained of
preserving the established order of Christendom, was to terrify the Vatican
court into submission by the firmness of his attitude. For the present
complications, the court of Rome, not he, was responsible. The pope, with a
culpable complacency for the emperor, had shrunk from discharging a duty
which his office imposed upon him; and the result had been, that the duty
was discharged by another. Henry could not blame himself for the
consequences of Clement's delinquency. He rather felt himself wronged in
having been driven to so extreme a measure against his will. He resolved,
therefore, to recall the embassy, and once more, though with no great hope
that he would be successful, to invite Francis to fulfil his promise, and
to unite with himself in expressing his resentment at the pope's conduct.

His despatch to the Duke of Norfolk on this occasion was the natural sequel
of what he had written a few weeks previously. That letter had failed
wholly of its effect. The interview was resolved upon for quite other
reasons than those which were acknowledged, and therefore was not to be
given up. A promise, however, had been extracted, that it should be given
up, if in the course of the summer the pope "innovated anything" against
the King of England; and Henry now required, formally, that this engagement
should be observed. "A notorious and notable innovation" had been made, and
Francis must either deny his words, or adhere to them. It would be evident
to all the world, if the interview took place under the present
circumstances, that the alliance with England was no longer of the
importance with him which it had been; that his place in the struggle, when
the struggle came, would be found on the papal side.

The language of Henry throughout this paper was very fine and noble. He
reminded Francis that substantially the cause at issue was the cause of all
princes; the pope claiming a right to summon them to plead in the courts of
Rome, and refusing to admit their exemption as sovereign rulers. He had
been required not only to undo his marriage, and cancel the sentence of
divorce, but, as a condition of reconciliation with the Holy See, to undo
also, the Act of Appeals, and to restore the papal jurisdiction. He desired
it to be understood, with emphasis, that these points were all equally
sacred, and the repeal of the act was as little to be thought of as the
annulling the marriage. "The pope," he said, "did inforce us to excogitate
some new thing, whereby we might be healed and relieved of that continual
disease, to care for our cause at Rome, where such defence was taken from
us, as by the laws of God, nature, and man, is due unto us. Hereupon
depended the wealth of our realm; hereupon consisted the surety of our
succession, which by no other means could be well assured." "And
therefore," he went on, "you [the Duke] shall say to our good brother, that
the pope persisting in the ways he hath entered, ye must needs despair in
any meeting between the French king and the pope, to produce any such
effect as to cause us to meet in concord with the pope; but we shall be
even as far asunder as is between yea and nay. For to the pope's enterprise
to revoke or put back anything that is done here, either in marriage,
statute, sentence, or proclamation[613]--of which four members is knit and
conjoined the surety of our matter, nor any can be removed from the other,
lest thereby the whole edifice should be destroyed--we will and shall, by
all ways and means say nay, and declare our nay in such sort as the world
shall hear, and the pope feel it. Wherein ye may say our firm trust,
perfect hope, and assured confidence is, that our good brother will agree
with us; as well for that it should be partly dishonourable for him to see
decay the thing that was of his own foundation and planting: as also that
it should be too much dishonourable for us--having travelled so far in this
matter, and brought it to this point, that all the storms of the year
passed, it is now come to harvest, trusting to see shortly the fruit of our
marriage, to the wealth, joy, and comfort of all our realm, and our own
singular consolation--that anything should now be done by us to impair the
same, and to put our issue either in peril of bastardy, or otherwise
disturb that [which] is by the whole agreement of our realm established for
their and our commodity, wealth, and benefit. And in this determination ye
know us to be so fixed, and the contrary hereof to be so infeasible, either
at our hands, or by the consent of the realm, that ye must needs despair of
any order to be taken by the French king with the pope. For if any were by
him taken wherein any of these four pieces should be touched--that is to
say, the marriage of the queen our wife, the revocation of the Bishop of
Canterbury's sentence, the statute of our realm, or our late proclamation,
which be as it were one--and as walls, covering, the foundation make a
house, so they knit together, establish, and make one matter--ye be well
assured, and be so ascertained from us, that in no wise we will relent, but
will, as we have before written, withstand the same. Whereof ye may say
that ye have thought good to advertise him, to the intent he make no
farther promise to the pope therein than may be performed."

The ambassadors were the more emphatically to insist on the king's
resolution, lest Francis, in his desire for conciliation, might hold out
hopes to the pope which could not be realised. They were to say, however,
that the King of England still trusted that the interview would not take
place. The see of Rome was asserting a jurisdiction which, if conceded,
would encourage an unlimited usurpation. If princes might be cited to the
papal courts in a cause of matrimony, they might be cited equally in other
causes at the pope's pleasure; and the free kingdoms of Europe would be
converted into dependent provinces of the see of Rome. It concerned alike
the interest and the honour of all sovereigns to resist encroachments which
pointed to such an issue; and, therefore, Henry said he hoped that his good
brother would use the pope as he had deserved, "doing him to understand his
folly, and [that] unless he had first made amends, he could not find in his
heart to have further amity with him."

If notwithstanding, the instructions concluded, "all these persuasions
cannot have place to let the said meeting, and the French king shall say it
is expedient for him to have in his hands the duchess,[614] under pretence
of marriage for his son, which he cannot obtain but by this means, ye shall
say that ye remember ye heard him say once he would never conclude that
marriage but to do us good, which is now infaisible; and now in the voice
of the world shall do us both more hurt in the diminution of the reputation
of our amity than it should do otherwise profit. Nevertheless, [if] ye
cannot let his precise determination, [ye] can but lament and bewail your
own chance to depart home in this sort; and that yet of the two
inconvenients, it is to you more tolerable to return to us nothing done,
than to be present at the interview and to be compelled to look patiently
upon your master's enemy."

After having entered thus their protest against the French king's conduct,
the embassy was to return to England, leaving a parting intimation of the
single condition under which Henry would consent to treat. If the pope
would declare that "the matrimony with the Lady Catherine was and is
nought, he should do somewhat not to be refused;" except with this
preliminary, no offer whatever could be entertained.[615]

This communication, as Henry anticipated, was not more effectual than the
former in respect of its immediate object. At the meeting of Calais the
interests of Francis had united him with England, and in pursuing the
objects of Henry he was then pursuing his own. The pope and the emperor had
dissolved the coalition by concessions on the least dangerous side. The
interests of Francis lay now in the other direction, and there are few
instances in history in which governments have adhered to obligations
against their advantage from a spirit of honour, when the purposes with
which they contracted those obligations have been otherwise obtained. The
English embassy returned as they were ordered; the French court pursued
their way to Marseilles; not quarrelling with England; intending to abide
by the alliance, and to give all proofs of amity which did not involve
inconvenient sacrifices; but producing on the world at large by their
conduct the precise effect which Henry had foretold. The world at large,
looking to acts rather than to words, regarded the interview as a
contrivance to reconcile Francis and the emperor through the intervention
of the pope, as a preliminary for a packed council, and for a holy war
against the Lutherans[616]--a combination of ominous augury to Christendom,
from the consequences of which, if Germany was to be the first sufferer,
England would be inevitably the second.

Meanwhile, as the French alliance threatened to fail, the English
government found themselves driven at last to look for a connection among
those powers from whom they had hitherto most anxiously disconnected
themselves. At such a time. Protestant Germany, not Catholic France, was
England's natural friend. The Reformation was essentially a Teutonic
movement; the Germans, the English, the Scotch, the Swedes, the Hollanders,
all were struggling on their various roads towards an end essentially the
same. The same dangers threatened them, the same inspiration moved them;
and in the eyes of the orthodox Catholics they were united in a black
communion of heresy. Unhappily, though this identity was obvious to their
enemies, it was far from obvious to themselves. The odium theologicum is
ever hotter between sections of the same party which are divided by
trifling differences, than between the open representatives of antagonist
principles; and Anglicans and Lutherans, instead of joining hands across
the Channel, endeavoured only to secure each a recognition of themselves at
the expense of the other. The English plumed themselves on their orthodoxy.
They were "not as those publicans," heretics, despisers of the keys,
disobedient to authority; they desired only the independence of their
national church, and they proved their zeal for the established faith with
all the warmth of persecution. To the Germans national freedom was of
wholly minor moment, in comparison with the freedom of the soul; the
orthodoxy of England was as distasteful to the disciples of Luther as the
orthodoxy of Rome--and the interests of Europe were sacrificed on both
sides to this foolish and fatal disunion. Circumstances indeed would not
permit the division to remain in its first intensity, and their common
danger compelled the two nations into a partial understanding. Yet the
reconciliation, imperfect to the last, was at the outset all but
impossible. Their relations were already embittered by many reciprocal acts
of hostility. Henry VIII. had won his spurs as a theologian by an attack on
Luther. Luther had replied by a hailstorm of invectives. The Lutheran books
had been proscribed, the Lutherans themselves had' been burnt by Henry's
bishops. The Protestant divines in Germany had attempted to conciliate the
emperor by supporting the cause of Catherine; and Luther himself had spoken
loudly in condemnation of the king. The elements of disunion were so many
and so powerful, that there was little hope of contending against them
successfully. Nevertheless, as Henry saw, the coalition of Francis and the
emperor, if the pope succeeded in cementing it, was a most serious danger,
to which an opposite alliance would alone be an adequate counterpoise; and
the experiment might at least be tried whether such an alliance was
possible. At the beginning of August, therefore, Stephen Vaughan was sent
on a tentative mission to the Elector of Saxe, John Frederick, at
Weimar.[617] He was the bearer of letters containing a proposal for a
resident English ambassador; and if the elector gave his consent, he was to
proceed with similar offers to the courts of the Landgrave of Hesse and the
Duke of Lunenberg.[618] Vaughan arrived in due time at the elector's court,
was admitted to audience and delivered his letters. The prince read them,
and in the evening of the same day returned for answer a polite but wholly
absolute refusal. Being but a prince elector, he said, he might not aspire
to so high an honour as to be favoured with the presence of an English
ambassador. It was not the custom in Germany, and he feared that if he
consented he should displease the emperor.[619] The meaning of such a reply
delivered in a few hours was not to be mistaken, however disguised in
courteous language. The English emissary saw that he was an unwelcome
visitor, and that he must depart with the utmost celerity. "The elector,"
he wrote,[620] "thirsted to have me gone from him, which I right well
perceived by evident tokens which declared unto me the same." He had no
anxiety to expose to hazard the toleration which the Protestant dukedoms as
yet enjoyed from the emperor, by committing himself to a connection with a
prince with whose present policy he had no sympathy, and whose conversion
to the cause of the Reformation he had as yet no reason to believe
sincere.[621]

The reception which Vaughan met with at Weimar satisfied him that he need
go no further; neither the Landgrave nor the Duke of Lunenberg would be
likely to venture on a course which the elector so obviously feared. He,
therefore, gave up his mission, and returned to England.

The first overtures in this direction issued in complete failure, nor was
the result wholly to be regretted. It taught Henry (or it was a first
commencement of the lesson) that so long as he pursued a merely English
policy he might not expect that other nations would embroil themselves in
his defence. He must allow the Reformation a wider scope, he must permit it
to comprehend within its possible consequences the breaking of the chains
by which his subjects' minds were bound--not merely a change of jailors.
Then perhaps the German princes might return some other answer.

The disappointment, however, fell lightly; for before the account of the
failure had reached England, an event had happened, which, poor as the king
might be in foreign alliances, had added most material strength to his
position in England. The full moment of that event he had no means of
knowing. In its immediate bearing it was matter for most abundant
satisfaction. On the seventh of September, between three and four in the
afternoon, at the palace of Greenwich, was born a princess, named three
days later in her baptism, after the king's mother, Elizabeth.[622] A son
had been hoped for. The child was a daughter only; yet at least Providence
had not pronounced against the marriage by a sentence of barrenness; at
least there was now an heir whose legitimacy the nation had agreed to
accept. Te Deums were sung in all the churches; again the river decked
itself in splendour; again all London steeples were musical with bells. A
font of gold was presented for the christening. Francis, in compensation
for his backslidings, had consented to be godfather; and the infant, who
was soon to find her country so rude a stepmother, was received with all
the outward signs of exulting welcome. To Catherine's friends the offspring
of the rival marriage was not welcome, but was an object rather of bitter
hatred; and the black cloud of a sister's jealousy gathered over the cradle
whose innocent occupant had robbed her of her title and her expectations.
To the king, to the parliament, to the healthy heart of England, she was an
object of eager hope and an occasion for thankful gratitude; but the seeds
were sown with her birth of those misfortunes which were soon to overshadow
her, and to form the school of the great nature which in its maturity would
re-mould the world.

Leaving Elizabeth for the present, we return to the continent, and to the
long-promised interview, which was now at last approaching. Henry made no
further attempt to remonstrate with Francis; and Francis assured him, and
with all sincerity, that he would use his best efforts to move the pope to
make the necessary concessions. The English embassy meanwhile was
withdrawn. The excommunication had been received as an act of hostility, of
which Henry would not even condescend to complain; and it was to be
understood distinctly that in any exertions which might be made by the
French king, the latter was acting without commission on his own
responsibility. The intercession was to be the spontaneous act of a mutual
friend, who, for the interests of Christendom, desired to heal a dangerous
wound; but neither directly nor indirectly was it to be interpreted as an
expression of a desire for a reconciliation on the English side.

It was determined further, on the recal of the Duke of Norfolk, that the
opportunity of the meeting should be taken to give a notice to the pope of
the king's appeal to the council; and for this purpose, Bennet and Bonner
were directed to follow the papal court from Rome. Bennet never
accomplished this journey, dying on the route, worn out with much
service.[623] His death delayed Bonner, and the conferences had opened for
many days before his arrival. Clement had reached Marseilles by ship from
Genoa, about the 20th of October. As if pointedly to irritate Henry, he had
placed himself under the conduct of the Duke of Albany.[624] He was
followed two days later by his fair niece, Catherine de Medici; and the
preparations for the marriage were commenced with the utmost swiftness and
secrecy. The conditions of the contract were not allowed to transpire, but
they were concluded in three days; and on this 25th of October the pope
bestowed his precious present on the Duke of Orleans, he himself performing
the nuptial ceremony, and accompanying it with his paternal benediction on
the young pair, and on the happy country which was to possess them for its
king and queen. France being thus securely riveted to Rome, other matters
could be talked of more easily. Francis made all decent overtures to the
pope in behalf of Henry; if the pope was to be believed indeed, he was
vehemently urgent.[625] Clement in turn made suggestions for terms of
alliance between Francis and Charles, "to the advantage of the Most
Christian king;"[626] and thus parried the remonstrances. The only point
positively clear to the observers, was the perfect understanding which
existed between the King of France and his spiritual father.[627] Unusual
activity was remarked in the dockyards; Italian soldiers of fortune were
about the court in unusual numbers, and apparently in favour.[628] An
invasion of Lombardy was talked of among the palace retinue; and the
emperor was said to distrust the intentions of the conference. Possibly
experience had taught all parties to doubt each other's faith. Possibly
they were all in some degree waiting upon events; and had not yet resolved
upon their conduct.

In the midst of this scene arrived Doctor Bonner, in the beginning of
November, with Henry's appeal. He was a strange figure to appear in such a
society. There was little probity, perhaps, either in the court of France,
or in their Italian visitors: but of refinement, of culture, of those
graces which enable men to dispense with the more austere excellences of
character--which transform licentiousness into elegant frailty, and
treachery and falsehood into pardonable finesse--of these there was very
much: and when a rough, coarse, vulgar Englishman was plunged among these
delicate ladies and gentlemen, he formed an element which contrasted
strongly with the general environment. Yet Banner, perhaps, was not without
qualifications which fitted him for his mission. He was not, indeed,
virtuous; but he had a certain downright honesty about him, joined with an
entire insensibility to those finer perceptions which would have interfered
with plain speaking, where plain speaking was desirable; he had a broad,
not ungenial humour, which showed him things and persons in their genuine
light, and enabled him to picture them for us with a distinctness for which
we owe him lasting thanks.

He appeared at Marseilles on the 7th of November, and had much difficulty
in procuring an interview. At length, weary of waiting, and regardless of
the hot lead with which he had been lately threatened, he forced his way
into the room where "the pope was standing, with the Cardinals De Lorraine
and Medici, ready apparelled with his stole to go to the consistory."

"Incontinently upon my coming thither," he wrote to Henry,[629] "the pope,
whose sight is incredulous quick, eyed me, and that divers times; making a
good pause in one place; at which time I desired the datary to advertise
his Holiness that I would speak with him; and albeit the datary made no
little difficulty therein, yet perceiving that upon refusal I would have
gone forthwith to the pope, he advertised the pope of my said desire. His
Holiness dismissing as then the said cardinals, and letting his vesture
fall, went to a window in the said chamber, calling me unto him. At which
time I showed unto his Holiness how that your Highness had given me express
and strait commandment to intimate unto him how that your Grace had
solemnly provoked and appealed unto the general council; submitting
yourself to the tuition and defence thereof; which provocation and appeal I
had under authentic writings then with me, to show for that purpose. And
herewithal I drew out the said writing, showing his said Holiness that I
brought the same in proof of the premises, and that his Holiness might see
and perceive all the same. The pope having this for a breakfast, only
pulled down his head to his shoulders, after the Italian fashion, and said
that because he was as then fully ready to go into the consistory, he would
not tarry to hear or see the said writings, but willed me to come at
afternoon."

The afternoon came, and Bonner returned, and was admitted. There was some
conversation upon indifferent matters; the pope making good-natured
inquiries about Bennet, and speaking warmly and kindly of him.

"Presently," Bonner continues, "falling out of that, he said that he
marvelled your Highness would use his Holiness after such sort as it
appears ye did. I said that your Highness no less did marvel that his
Holiness having found so much benevolence and kindness at your hands in all
times past, would for acquittal show such unkindness as of late he did. And
here we entered in communication upon two points: one was that his
Holiness, having committed in times past, and in most ample form, the cause
into the realm, promising not to revoke the said commission, and over that,
to confirm the process and sentence of the commissaries, should not at the
point of sentence have advoked the cause, retaining it at Rome--forasmuch
as Rome was a place whither your Highness could not, ne yet ought,
personally to come unto, and also was not bound to send thither your
proctor. The second point was, that your Highness's cause being, in the
opinion of the best learned men in Christendom, approved good and just, and
so [in] many ways known unto his Holiness, the same should not so long have
retained it in his hands without judgment.

"His Holiness answering the same, as touching the first point, said that if
the queen (meaning the late wife of Prince Arthur, calling her always in
his conversation the queen) had not given an oath refusing the judges as
suspect, he would not have advoked the matter at all, but been content that
it should have been determined and ended in your realm. But seeing she gave
that oath, appealing also to his court, he might and ought to hear her, his
promise made to your Highness, which was qualified, notwithstanding. As
touching the second point, his Holiness said that your Highness only was
the default thereof, because ye would not send a proxy to the cause. These
matters, however, he said, had been many times fully talked upon at Rome;
and therefore [he] willed me to omit further communication thereupon, and
to proceed to the doing of such things that I was specially sent for.

"Whereupon making protestation of your Highness's mind and intent towards
the see apostolic--not intending anything to do in contempt of the same--I
exhibited unto his Holiness the commission which your Highness had sent
unto me; and his Holiness delivering it to the datary, commanded him to
read it; and hearing in the same the words (referring to the injuries which
he had done to your Highness), he began to look up after a new sort, and
said, 'O questo et multo vero! (this is much true!)' meaning that it was
not true indeed. And verily, sure not only in this, but also in many parts
of the said commission, he showed himself grievously offended; insomuch
that, when those words, 'To the next general council which shall be
lawfully held in place convenient,' were read, he fell in a marvellous
great choler and rage, not only declaring the same by his gesture and
manner, but also by words: speaking with great vehemence, and saying, 'Why
did not the king, when I wrote to my nuncio this year past, to speak unto
him for this general council, give no answer unto my said nuncio, but
referred him for answer to the French king? at what time he might perceive
by my doing, that I was very well disposed, and much spake for it.' 'The
thing so standing, now to speak of a general council! Oh, good Lord! but
well! his commission and all his other writings cannot be but welcome unto
me;' which words methought he spake willing to hide his choler, and make me
believe that he was nothing angry with their doings, when in vary deed I
perceived, by many arguments, that it was otherwise. And one among others
was taken here for infallible with them that knoweth the pope's conditions,
that he was continually folding up and unwinding of his handkerchief, which
he never doth but when he is tickled to the very heart with great choler."

At length the appeal was read through; and at the close of it Francis
entered, and talked to the pope for some time, but in so low a voice that
Bonner could not hear what was passing. When he had gone, his Holiness said
that he would deliberate upon the appeal with the consistory, and after
hearing their judgments would return his answer.

Three days passed, and then the English agent was informed that he might
again present himself. The pope had recovered his calmness. When he had
time to collect himself, Clement could speak well and with dignity; and if
we could forget that his conduct was substantially unjust, and that in his
conscience he knew it to be unjust, he would almost persuade us to believe
him honest. "He said," wrote Bonner, "that his mind towards your Highness
always had been to minister justice, and to do pleasure to you; albeit it
hath not been so taken: and he never unjustly grieved your Grace that he
knoweth, nor intendeth hereafter to do. As concerning the appeal, he said
that, forasmuch as there was a constitution of Pope Pius, his predecessor,
that did condemn and reprove all such appeals, he did therefore reject your
Grace's appeal as frivolous, forbidden, and unlawful." As touching the
council, he said generally, that he would do his best that it should meet;
but it was to be understood that the calling a general council belonged to
him, and not to the King of England.

The audience ended, and Bonner left the pope convinced that he intended, on
his return to Rome, to execute the censures and continue the process
without delay. That the sentence which he would pronounce would be against
the king appeared equally certain.

It appeared certain, yet after all no certain conclusion is possible.
Francis I., though not choosing to quarrel with the see of Rome to do a
pleasure to Henry, was anxious to please his ally to the extent of his
convenience; at any rate, he would not have gratuitously deceived him; and
still less would he have been party to an act of deliberate treachery. When
Bonner was gone he had a last interview with the pope, in which he urged
upon him the necessity of complying with Henry's demands; and the pope on
this occasion said that he was satisfied that the King of England was
right; that his cause was good; and that he had only to acknowledge the
papal jurisdiction by some formal act, to find sentence immediately
pronounced in his favour. Except for his precipitation, and his refusal to
depute a proxy to plead for him, his wishes would have been complied with
long before. In the existing posture of affairs, and after the measures
which had been passed in England with respect to the see of Rome, he
himself, the pope said, could not make advances without some kind of
submission; but a single act of acknowledgment was all which he
required.[630]

Extraordinary as it must seem, the pope certainly bound himself by this
engagement: and who can tell with what intention? To believe him sincere
and to believe him false seems equally impossible. If he was persuaded that
Henry's cause _was_ good, why did he in the following year pronounce
finally for Catherine? why had he imperilled so needlessly the interests of
the papacy in England? why had his conduct from the beginning pointed
steadily to the conclusion at which he at last arrived? and why throughout
Europe were the ultramontane party, to a man, on Catherine's side? On the
other hand, what object at such a time can be conceived for falsehood? Can
we suppose that he designed to dupe Henry into submission by a promise
which he had predetermined to break? It is hard to suppose even Clement
capable of so elaborate an act of perfidy; and it is, perhaps, idle to
waste conjectures on the motives of a weak, much-agitated man. He was,
probably, but giving a fresh example of his disposition to say at each
moment whatever would be most agreeable to his hearers. This was his
unhappy habit, by which he earned for himself a character for dishonesty, I
labour to think, but half deserved.

If, however, Clement meant to deceive, he succeeded, undoubtedly, in
deceiving the French king. Francis, in communicating to Henry the language
which the pope had used, entreated him to reconsider his resolution. The
objection to pleading at Rome might be overcome; for the pope would meet
him in a middle course. Judges could be appointed, who should sit at
Cambray, and pass a sentence in condemnation of the original marriage; with
a definite promise that their sentence should not again be called in
question. To this arrangement there could be no reasonable objection; and
Francis implored that a proposal so liberal should not be rejected.
Sufficient danger already threatened Christendom, from heretics within and
from the Turks without; and although the English parliament were agreed to
maintain the second marriage, it was unwise to provoke the displeasure of
foreign princes. To allow time for the preliminary arrangements, the
execution of the censures had been further postponed; and if Henry would
make up the quarrel, the French monarch was commissioned to offer a league,
offensive and defensive, between England, France, and the Papacy. He
himself only desired to be faithful to his engagements to his good brother;
and as a proof of his good faith, he said that he had been offered the
Duchy of Milan, if he would look on while the emperor and the pope attacked
England.[631]

This language bears all the character of sincerity; and when we remember
that it followed immediately upon a close and intimate communication of
three weeks with Clement, it is not easy to believe that he could have
mistaken the extent of the pope's promises. We may suppose Clement for the
moment to have been honest, or wavering between honesty and falsehood; we
may suppose further that Francis trusted him because it was undesirable to
be suspicious, in the belief that he was discharging the duty of a friend
to Henry, and of a friend to the church, in offering to mediate upon these
terms.

But Henry was far advanced beyond the point at which fair words could move
him. He had trusted many times, and had been many times deceived. It was
not easy to entangle him again. It mattered little whether Clement was weak
or false; the result was the same--he could not be trusted. To an open
English understanding there was something monstrous in the position of a
person professing to be a judge, who admitted that a cause which lay before
him was so clear that he could bind himself to a sentence upon it, and
could yet refuse to pronounce that sentence, except upon conditions. It was
scarcely for the interests of justice to leave the distribution of it in
hands so questionable.

Instead, therefore, of coming forward, as Francis hoped, instead of
consenting to entangle himself again in the meshes of diplomatic intrigue,
the king returned a peremptory refusal.

The Duke of Norfolk, and such of the council as dreaded the completion of
the schism, assured d'Inteville, the French ambassador, that for themselves
they considered Francis was doing the best for England which could be done,
and that they deprecated violent measures as much as possible; but in all
this party there was a secret leaning to Queen Catherine, a dislike of
Queen Anne and the whole Boleyn race, and a private hope and belief that
the pope would after all be firm. Their tongues were therefore tied. They
durst not speak except alone in whispers to each other; and the French
ambassador, who did dare, only drew from Henry a more determined expression
of his resolution.

As to his measures in England, the king said, the pope had begun the
quarrel by issuing censures and by refusing to admit his reasons for
declining to plead at Rome. He was required to send a proctor, and was told
that the cause should be decided in favour of whichever party was so
represented there. For the sake of all other princes as well as himself, he
would send no proctor, nor would he seem to acquiesce in the pretences of
the papal see. The King of France told him that the pope admitted the
justice of his cause. Let the pope do justice, then. The laws passed in
parliament were for the benefit of the commonwealth, and he would never
revoke them. He demanded no reparation, and could make no reparation. He
asked only for his right, and if he could not obtain it, he had God and
truth on his side, and that was enough. In vain d'Inteville answered
feebly, that his master had done all that was in his power; the king
replied that the French council wished to entangle him with the pope; but
for his own part he would never more acknowledge the pope in his pretended
capacity. He might be bishop of Rome, or pope also, if he preferred the
name; but the see of Rome should have no more jurisdiction in England, and
he thought he would be none the worse Christian on that account, but rather
the better. Jesus Christ he would acknowledge, and him only, as the true
Lord of Christian men, and Christ's word only should be preached in
England. The Spaniards might invade him as they threatened. He did not fear
them. They might come, but they might not find it so easy to return.[632]

The King had taken his position and was prepared for the consequences. He
had foreseen for more than a year the possibility of an attempted invasion;
and since his marriage, he had been aware that the chances of success in
the adventure had been discussed on the Continent by the papal and imperial
party. The pope had spoken of his censures being enforced, and Francis had
revealed to Henry the nature of the dangerous overtures which had been made
to himself. The Lutheran princes had hurriedly declined to connect
themselves in any kind of alliance with England; and on the 25th of
September, Stephen Vaughan had reported that troops were being raised in
Germany, which rumour destined for Catherine's service.[633] Ireland, too,
as we shall hear in the next chapter, was on the verge of an insurrection,
which had been fomented by papal agents.

Nevertheless, there was no real danger from an invasion, unless it was
accompanied with an insurrection at home, or with a simultaneous attack
from Scotland; and while of the first there appeared upon the surface no
probability, with Scotland a truce for a year had been concluded on the 1st
of October.[634] The king, therefore, had felt himself reasonably secure.
Parliament had seemed unanimous; the clergy were submissive; the nation
acquiescent or openly approving;[635] and as late as the beginning of
November, 1533, no suspicion seems to have been entertained of the spread
of serious disaffection. A great internal revolution had been accomplished;
a conflict of centuries between the civil and spiritual powers had been
terminated without a life lost or a blow struck. Partial murmurs there had
been, but murmurs were inevitable, and, so far as the government yet knew,
were harmless. The Scotch war had threatened to be dangerous, but it had
been extinguished. Impatient monks had denounced the king from the pulpits,
and disloyal language had been reported from other quarters, which had
roused vigilance, but had not created alarm. The Nun of Kent had forced
herself into the royal presence with menacing prophecies; but she had
appeared to be a harmless dreamer, who could only be made of importance by
punishment. The surface of the nation was in profound repose. Cromwell,
like Walsingham after him, may perhaps have known of the fire which was
smouldering below, and have watched it silently till the moment came at
which to trample it out; but no symptom of uneasiness appears either in the
conduct of the government or in the official correspondence. The
organisation of the friars, the secret communication of the Nun with
Catherine and the Princess Mary, with the papal nuncio, or with noble lords
and reverend bishops, was either unknown, or the character of those
communications was not suspected. That a serious political conspiracy
should have shaped itself round the ravings of a seeming lunatic, to all
appearance had not occurred as a possibility to a single member of the
council, except to those whose silence was ensured by their complicity.

So far as we are able to trace the story (for the links of the chain which
led to the discovery of the design's which were entertained, are something
imperfect), the suspicions of the government were first roused in the
following manner:

Queen Catherine, as we have already seen, had been called upon, at the
coronation of Anne Boleyn, to renounce her title, and she had refused. Mary
had been similarly deprived of her rank as princess; but either her
disgrace was held to be involved in that of her mother, or some other
cause, perhaps the absence of immediate necessity, had postponed the demand
for her own personal submission. As, however, on the publication of the
second marriage, it had been urged on Catherine that there could not be two
queens in England, so on the birth of the Princess Elizabeth, an analogous
argument required the disinheritance of Mary. It was a hard thing; but her
mother's conduct obliged the king to be peremptory. She might have been
legitimatised by act of parliament, if Catherine would have submitted. The
consequences of Catherine's refusal might be cruel, but they were
unavoidable.

Mary was not with her mother. It had been held desirable to remove her from
an influence which would encourage her in a useless opposition; and she was
residing at Beaulieu, afterwards New Hall, in Essex, under the care of Lord
Hussey and the Countess of Salisbury. Lord Hussey was a dangerous guardian;
he was subsequently executed for his complicity in the Pilgrimage of Grace,
the avowed object of which was the restoration of Mary to her place as
heir-apparent. We may believe, therefore, that while under his surveillance
she experienced no severe restraint, nor received that advice with respect
to her conduct which prudence would have dictated. Lord Hussey, however,
for the present enjoyed the confidence of the king, and was directed to
inform his charge, that for the future she was to consider herself not as
princess, but as the king's natural daughter, the Lady Mary Tudor. The
message was a painful one; painful, we will hope, more on her mother's
account than on her own; but her answer implied that, as yet, Henry VIII.
was no object of especial terror to his children.

"Her Grace replied," wrote Lord Hussey to the council in communicating the
result of his undertaking,[636] that "she could not a little marvel that I
being alone, and not associate with some other the king's most honourable
council, nor yet sufficiently authorised neither by commission not by any
other writing from the King's Highness, would attempt to declare such a
high enterprise and matter of no little weight and importance unto her
Grace, in diminishing her said estate and name; her Grace not doubting that
she is the king's true and legitimate daughter and heir procreate in good
and lawful matrimony; [and] further adding, that unless she were advertised
from his Highness by his writing that his Grace was so minded to diminish
her estate, name, and dignity, which she trusteth his Highness will never
do, she would not believe it."

Inasmuch as Mary was but sixteen at this time, the resolution which she
displayed in sending such a message was considerable. The early English
held almost Roman notions on the nature of parental authority, and the tone
of a child to a father was usually that of the most submissive reverence.
Nor was she contented with replying indirectly through her guardian. She
wrote herself to the king, saying that she neither could nor would in her
conscience think the contrary, but that she was his lawful daughter born in
true matrimony, and that she thought that he in his own conscience did
judge the same.[637]

Such an attitude in so young a girl was singular, yet not necessarily
censurable. Henry was not her only parent, and if we suppose her to have
been actuated by affection for her mother, her conduct may appear not
pardonable only, but spirited and creditable. In insisting upon her
legitimacy, nevertheless, she was not only asserting the good name and fame
of Catherine of Arragon, but unhappily her own claim to the succession to
the throne. It was natural that under the circumstances she should have
felt her right to assert that claim; for the injury which she had suffered
was patent not only to herself, but to Europe. Catherine might have been
required to give way that the king might have a son, and that the
succession might be established in a prince; but so long as the child of
the second marriage was a daughter only, it seemed substantially monstrous
to set aside the elder for the younger. Yet the measure was a harsh
necessity; a link in the chain which could not be broken. The harassed
nation insisted above all things that no doubt should hang over the future,
and it was impossible in the existing complications to recognise the
daughter of Catherine without excluding Elizabeth, and excluding the prince
who was expected to follow her. By asserting her title, Mary was making
herself the nucleus of sedition, which on her father's death would lead to
a convulsion in the realm. She might not mean it, but the result would not
be affected by a want of purpose in herself; and it was possible that her
resolution might create immediate and far more painful complications. The
king's excommunication was imminent, and if the censures were enforced by
the emperor, she would be thrust into the unpermitted position of her
father's rival.

The political consequences of her conduct, notwithstanding, although
evident to statesmen, might well be concealed from a headstrong, passionate
girl. There was no suspicion that she herself was encouraging any of these
dangerous thoughts, and Henry looked upon her answer to Lord Hussey and her
letter to himself as expressions of petulant folly. Lord Oxford, the Earl
of Essex, and the Earl of Sussex were directed to repair to Beaulieu, and
explain to her the situation in which she had placed herself.

"Considering," wrote the king to them, "how highly such contempt and
rebellion done by our daughter and her servants doth touch not only us, and
the surety of our honour and person, but also the tranquillity of our
realm; and not minding to suffer the pernicious example hereof to spread
far abroad, but to put remedy to the same in due time, we have given you
commandment to declare to her the great folly, temerity, and indiscretion
that she hath used herein, with the peril she hath incurred by reason of
her so doing. By these her ungodly doings hitherto she hath most worthily
deserved our high indignation and displeasure, and thereto no less pain and
punition than by the order of the laws of our realm doth appertain in case
of high treason, unless our mercy and clemency should be shewed in that
behalf. [If, however, after] understanding our mind and pleasure, [she
will] conform herself humbly and obediently to the observation of the same,
according to the office and duty of a natural daughter, and of a true and
faithful subject, she may give us cause hereafter to incline our fatherly
pity to her reconciliation, her benefit and advancement."[638]

The reply of Mary to this message is not discoverable; but it is certain
that she persisted in her resolution, and clung either to her mother's
"cause" or to her own rank and privilege, in sturdy defiance of her father.
To punish her insubordination or to tolerate it was equally difficult; and
the government might have been in serious embarrassment had not a series of
discoveries, following rapidly one upon the other, explained the mystery of
these proceedings, and opened a view with alarming clearness into the
under-currents of the feeling of the country.

Information from time to time had reached Henry from Rome, relating to the
correspondence between Catherine and the pope. Perhaps, too, he knew how
assiduously she had importuned the emperor to force Clement to a
decision.[639] No effort, however, had been hitherto made to interfere with
her hospitalities, or to oblige her visitors to submit to scrutiny before
they could be admitted to her presence. She was the mistress of her own
court and of her own actions; and confidential agents, both from Rome,
Brussels, and Spain, had undoubtedly passed and repassed with reciprocal
instructions and directions.

The crisis which was clearly approaching had obliged Henry, in the course
of this autumn, to be more watchful; and about the end of October, or the
beginning of November,[640] two friars were reported as having been at
Bugden, whose movements attracted suspicion from their anxiety to escape
observation. Secret agents of the government, who had been "set" for the
purpose, followed the friars to London, and notwithstanding "many wiles and
cautells by them invented to escape," the suspected persons were arrested
and brought before Cromwell. Cromwell, "upon examination" could gather
nothing from them of any moment or great importance; but, "entering on
further communication," he said, "he found one of them a very seditious
person, and so committed them to ward." The king was absent from London,
but had left directions that, in the event of any important occurrence of
the kind, Archbishop Cranmer should be sent for; but Cranmer not being
immediately at hand, Cromwell wrote to Henry for instructions; inasmuch as,
he said, "it is undoubted that they (the monks) have intended, and would
confess, some great matter, if they might be examined as they ought to
be--that is to say, by pains."

The curtain here falls over the two prisoners; we do not know whether they
were tortured, whether they confessed, or what they confessed; but we may
naturally connect this letter, directly or indirectly, with the events
which immediately followed. In the middle of November we find a commission
sitting at Lambeth, composed of Cromwell, Cranmer, and Latimer, ravelling
out the threads of a story, from which, when the whole was disentangled, it
appeared that by Queen Catherine, the Princess Mary, and a large and
formidable party in the country, the king, on the faith of a pretended
revelation, was supposed to have forfeited the crown; that his death,
either by visitation of God or by visitation of man, was daily expected;
and that whether his death took place or not, a revolution was immediately
looked for, which would place the princess on the throne.

The Nun of Kent, as we remember, had declared that if Henry persisted in
his resolution of marrying Anne, she was commissioned by God to tell him
that he should lose his power and authority. She had not specified the
manner in which the sentence would be carried into effect against him. The
form of her threats had been also varied occasionally; she said that he
should die, but whether by the hands of his subjects, or by a providential
judgment, she left to conjecture;[641] and the period within which his
punishment was to fall upon him was stated variously at one month or at
six.[642] She had attempted no secresy with these prophecies; she had
confined herself in appearance to words; and the publicity which she
courted having prevented suspicion of secret conspiracy, Henry quietly
accepted the issue, and left the truth of the prophecy to be confuted by
the event. He married. The one month passed; the six months passed;
eight--nine months. His child was born and was baptised, and no divine
thunder had interposed; only a mere harmless verbal thunder, from a poor
old man at Rome. The illusion, as he imagined, had been lived down, and had
expired of its own vanity.

But the Nun and her friar advisers were counting on other methods of
securing the fulfilment of the prophecy than supernatural assistance. It is
remarkable that hypocrites and impostors as they knew themselves to be,
they were not without a half belief that some supernatural intervention was
imminent; but the career on which they had entered was too fascinating to
allow them to forsake it when their expectation failed them. They were
swept into the stream which was swelling to resist the Reformation, and
allowed themselves to be hurried forward either to victory or to
destruction.

The first revelation being apparently confuted by facts, a second was
produced as an interpretation of it; which, however, was not published like
the other, but whispered in secret to persons whose dispositions were
known.[643]

"When the King's Grace," says the report of the commissioners, "had
continued in good health, honour, and prosperity more than a month, Dr.
Bocking shewed the said Nun, that as King Saul, abjected from his kingdom
by God, yet continued king in the sight of the world, so her said
revelations might be taken. And therefore the said Nun, upon this
information, forged another revelation, that her words should be
understanded to mean that the King's Grace should not be king in the
reputation or acceptation of God, not one month or one hour after that he
married the Queen's Grace that now is. The first revelation had moved a
great number of the king's subjects, both high and low, to grudge against
the said marriage before it was concluded and perfected; and also induced
such as were stiffly bent against that marriage, daily to look for the
destruction of the King's Grace within a month after he married the Queen's
Grace that now is. And when they were deluded in that expectation, the
second revelation was devised not only as an interpretation of the former,
but to the intent to induce the king's subjects to believe that God took
the King's Grace for no king of this realm, and that they should likewise
take him for no righteous king, and themselves not bounden to be his
subjects; which might have put the King and the Queen's Grace in jeopardy
of their crown and of their issue, and the people of this realm in great
danger of destruction."[644]

It was no light matter to pronounce the king to be in the position of Saul
after his rejection; and read by the light of the impending
excommunication, the Nun's words could mean nothing but treason. The
speaker herself was in correspondence with the pope; she had attested her
divine commission by miracles, and had been recognised as a saint by an
Archbishop of Canterbury; the regular orders of the clergy throughout the
realm were known to regard her as inspired; and when the commission
recollected that the king was threatened further with dying "a villain's
death;" and that these and similar prophecies were carefully written out,
and were in private circulation through the country, the matter assumed a
dangerous complexion: it became at once essential to ascertain how far, and
among what classes of the state, these things had penetrated. The Friars
Mendicant were discovered to be in league with her, and these itinerants
were ready-made missionaries of sedition. They had privilege of vagrancy
without check or limit; and owing to their universal distribution and the
freemasonry among themselves, the secret disposition of every family in
England was intimately known to them. No movement, therefore, could be
securely over-looked in which these orders had a share; the country might
be undermined in secret; and the government might only learn their danger
at the moment of explosion.

No sooner, therefore, were the commissioners in possession of the general
facts, than the principal parties--that is to say, the Nun herself and five
of the monks of Christ Church at Canterbury--with whom her intercourse was
most constant, were sent to the Tower to be "examined"--the monks it is
likely by "torture," if they could not otherwise be brought to confession.
The Nun was certainly not tortured. On her first arrest, she was obstinate
in maintaining her prophetic character; and she was detected in sending
messages to her friends, "to animate them to adhere to her and to her
prophecies."[645] But her courage ebbed away under the hard reality of her
position. She soon made a full confession, in which her accomplices joined
her; and the half-completed web of conspiracy was ravelled out. They did
not attempt to conceal that they had intended, if possible, to create an
insurrection. The five monks--Father Bocking, Father Rich, Father Rysby,
Father Dering, and Father Goold--had assisted the Nun in inventing her
"Revelations;" and as apostles, they had travelled about the country to
communicate them in whatever quarters they were likely to be welcome. When
we remember that Archbishop Warham had been a dupe of this woman, and that
even Wolsey's experience and ability had not prevented him from believing
in her power, we are not surprised to find high names among those who were
implicated. Vast numbers of abbots and priors, and of regular and secular
clergy, had listened eagerly; country gentlemen also, and London merchants.
The Bishop of Rochester had "wept for joy" at the first utterances of the
inspired prophetess; and Sir Thomas More, "who at first did little regard
the said revelations, afterwards did greatly rejoice to hear of them."[646]
We learn, also, that the Nun had continued to _communicate with "the Lady
Princess Dowager" and "the Lady Mary, her daughter."_[647]

These were names which might have furnished cause for regret, but little
for surprise or alarm. The commissioners must have found occasion for other
feelings, however, when among the persons implicated were found the
Countess of Salisbury and the Marchioness of Exeter, with their chaplains,
households, and servants; Sir Thomas Arundel, Sir George Carew, and "many
of the nobles of England."[648] A combination headed by the Countess of
Salisbury, if she were supported even by a small section of the nobility,
would under any circumstances have been dangerous; and if such a
combination was formed in support of an invasion, and was backed by the
blessings of the pope and the fanaticism of the clergy, the result might be
serious indeed. So careful a silence is observed in the official papers on
this feature of the Nun's conspiracy, that it is uncertain how far the
countess had committed herself; but she had listened certainly to avowals
of treasonable intentions without revealing them, which of itself was no
slight evidence of disloyalty; and that the government were really alarmed
may be gathered from the simultaneous arrest of Sir William and Sir George
Neville, the brothers of Lord Latimer. The connection and significance of
these names I shall explain presently; in the meantime I return to the
preparations which had been made by the Nun.

As the final judgment drew near--which, unless the king submitted, would be
accompanied, with excommunication, and a declaration that the English
nation was absolved from allegiance,--"the said false Nun," says the
report, "surmised herself to have made a petition to God to know, when
fearful war should come, whether any man should take my Lady Mary's part or
no; and she feigned herself to have answer by revelation that no man should
fear but that she should have succour and help enough; and that no man
should put her from her right that she was born unto. And petitioning next
to know when it was the pleasure of God that her revelations should be put
forth to the world, she had answer that knowledge should be given to her
ghostly father when it should be time."[649]

With this information Father Goold had hastened down to Bugden, encouraging
Catherine to persevere in her resistance;[650] and while the imperialists
at Rome were pressing the pope for sentence (we cannot doubt at Catherine's
instance), the Nun had placed herself in readiness to seize the opportunity
when it offered, and to blow the trumpet of insurrection in the panic which
might be surely looked for when that sentence should be published.

For this purpose she had organised, with considerable skill, a corps of
fanatical friars, who, when the signal was given, were simultaneously to
throw themselves into the midst of the people, and call upon them to rise
in the name of God. "To the intent," says the report, "to set forth this
matter, certain spiritual and religious persons were appointed, as they had
been chosen of God, to preach the false revelations of the said Nun, when
the time should require, if warning were given them; and some of these
preachers have confessed openly, and subscribed their names to their
confessions, that if the Nun had so sent them word, they would have
preached to the king's subjects that the pleasure of God was that they
should take him no longer for their king; and some of these preachers were
such as gave themselves to great fasting, watching, long prayers, wearing
of shirts of hair and great chains of iron about their middle, whereby the
people had them in high estimation of their great holiness,--and this
strait life they took on them by the counsel and exhortation of the said
Nun."[651]

Here, then, was the explanation of the attitude of Catherine and Mary.
Smarting under injustice, and most naturally blending their private quarrel
with the cause of the church, they had listened to these disordered visions
as to a message from heaven, and they had lent themselves to the first of
those religious conspiracies which held England in chronic agitation for
three quarters of a century. The innocent Saint at Bugden was the
forerunner of the prisoner at Fotheringay; and the Observant friars, with
their chain girdles and shirts of hair, were the antitypes of Parsons and
Campion. How critical the situation of England really was, appears from the
following letter of the French ambassador. The project for the marriage of
the Princess Mary with the Dauphin had been revived by the Catholic party;
and a private arrangement, of which this marriage was to form the
connecting link, was contemplated between the Ultramontanes in France, the
pope, and the emperor.

_D'Inteville to Cardinal Tournon._[652]

"MY LORD,--You will be so good as to tell the Most Christian king that the
emperor's ambassador has communicated with the old queen. The emperor sends
a message to her and to her daughter, that he will not return to Spain till
he has seen them restored to their rights.

"The people are so much attached to the said ladies that they will rise in
rebellion, and join any prince who will undertake their quarrel. You
probably know from other quarters the intensity of this feeling. It is
shared by all classes, high and low, and penetrates even into the royal
household.

"The nation is in marvellous discontent. Every one but the relations of the
present queen, is indignant on the ladies' account. Some fear the overthrow
of religion; others fear war and injury to trade. Up to this time, the
cloth, hides, wool, lead, and other merchandise of England have found
markets in Flanders, Spain, and Italy; now it is thought navigation will be
so dangerous that English merchants must equip their ships for war if they
trade to foreign countries; and besides the risk of losing all to the
enemy, the expense of the armament will swallow the profits of the voyage.
In like manner, the emperor's subjects and the pope's subjects will not be
able to trade with England. The coasts will be blockaded by the ships of
the emperor and his allies; and at this moment men's fears are aggravated
by the unseasonable weather throughout the summer, and the failure of the
crops. There is not corn enough for half the ordinary consumption.

"The common people, foreseeing these inconveniences, are so violent against
the queen, that they say a thousand shameful things of her, and of all who
have supported her in her intrigues. On them is cast the odium of all the
calamities anticipated from the war.

"When the war comes, no one doubts that the people will rebel as much from
fear of the dangers which I have mentioned, as from the love which is felt
for the two ladies, and especially for the Princess. She is so entirely
beloved that, notwithstanding the law made at the last Parliament, and the
menace of death contained in it, they persist in regarding her as Princess.
No Parliament, they say, can make her anything but the king's daughter,
born in marriage; and so the king and every one else regarded her before
that Parliament.

"Lately, when she was removed from Greenwich, a vast crowd of women, wives
of citizens and others, walked before her at their husbands' desire,
weeping and crying that notwithstanding all she was Princess. Some of them
were sent to the Tower, but they would not retract.

"Things are now so critical, and the fear of war is so general, that many
of the greatest merchants in London have placed themselves in communication
with the emperor's ambassador, telling him, that if the emperor will
declare war, the English nation will join him for the love they bear the
Lady Mary.

"You, my Lord, will remember that when you were here, it was said you were
come to tell the king that he was excommunicated, and to demand the hand of
the Princess for the Dauphin. The people were so delighted that they have
never ceased to pray for you. We too, when we arrived in London, were told
that the people were praying for us. They thought our embassy was to the
Princess. They imagined her marriage with the Dauphin had been determined
on by the two kings, and the satisfaction was intense and universal.

"They believe that, except by this marriage, they cannot possibly escape
war; whereas, can it be brought about, they will have peace with the
emperor and all other Christian princes. They are now so disturbed and so
desperate that, although at one time they would have preferred a husband
for her from among themselves, that they might not have a foreign king,
there now is nothing which they desire more. Unless the Dauphin will take
her, they say she will continue disinherited; or, if she come to her
rights, it can only be by battle, to the great incommodity of the country.
The Princess herself says publicly that the Dauphin is her husband, and
that she has no hope but in him. I have been told this by persons who have
heard it from her own lips.

"The emperor's ambassador inquired, after you came, whether we had seen
her. He said he knew she was most anxious to speak with us; she thought we
had permission to visit her, and she looked for good news. He told us,
among other things, that she had been more strictly guarded of late, by the
orders of the queen that now is, who, knowing her feeling for the Dauphin,
feared there might be some practice with her, or some attempt to carry her
off.

"The Princess's ladies say that she calls herself the Dauphin's wife. A
time will come, she says, when God will see that she has suffered pain and
tribulation sufficient; the Dauphin will then demand her of the king her
father, and the king her father will not be able to refuse.

"The lady who was my informant heard, also, from the Princess, that her
governess, and the other attendants whom the queen had set to watch her,
had assured her that the Dauphin was married to the daughter of the
emperor; but she, the Princess, had answered it was not true--the Dauphin
could not have two wives, and they well knew that she was his wife: they
told her that story, she said, to make her despair, and agree to give up
her rights; but she would never part with her hopes.

"You may have heard of the storm that broke out between her and her
governess when we went to visit her little sister. She was carried off by
force to her room, that she might not speak with us; and they could neither
pacify her nor keep her still, till the gentleman who escorted us told her
he had the king's commands that she was not to show herself while we were
in the house. You remember the message the same gentleman brought to you
from her, and the charge which was given by the queen.

"Could the king be brought to consent to the marriage, it could be a fair
union of two realms, and to annex Britain to the crown of France would be a
great honour to our Sovereign; the English party desire nothing better; the
pope will be glad of it; the pope fears that, if war break out again,
France will draw closer to England on the terms which the King of England
desires; and he may thus lose the French tribute as he has lost the
English. He therefore will urge the emperor to agree, and the emperor will
assist gladly for the love which he bears to his cousin.

"If the emperor be willing, the King of England can then be informed; and
he can be made to feel that, if he will avoid war, he must not refuse his
consent. The king, in fact, has no wish to disown the Princess, and he
knows well that the marriage with the Dauphin was once agreed on.

"Should he be unwilling, and should his wife's persuasions stil have
influence with him, he will hesitate before he will defy, for her sake, the
King of France and the emperor united. His regard for the queen is less
than it was, and diminishes every day. He has a new fancy,[653] as you are
aware."

The actual conspiracy, in the form which it had so far assumed, was rather
an appeal to fanaticism than a plot which could have laid hold of the
deeper mind of the country; but as an indication of the unrest which was
stealing over the minds of men, it assumed an importance which it would not
have received from its intrinsic character.

The guilt of the principal offenders admitted of no doubt. As soon as the
commissioners were satisfied that there was nothing further to be
discovered, the Nun, with the monks, was brought to trial before the Star
Chamber; and conviction followed as a matter of course.[654]

The unhappy girl finding herself at this conclusion, after seven years of
vanity, in which she had played with popes, and queens, and princesses, and
archbishops, now, when the dream was thus rudely broken, in the revulsion
of feeling could see nothing in herself but a convicted impostor. We need
not refuse to pity her. The misfortunes of her sickness had exposed her to
temptations far beyond the strength of an ordinary woman: and the guilt
which she passionately claimed for herself rested far more truly with the
knavery of the Christ Church monks and the incredible folly of Archbishop
Warham.[655] But the times were too stern to admit of nice distinctions. No
immediate sentence was pronounced, but it was thought desirable for the
satisfaction of the people that a confession should be made in public by
the Nun and her companions. The Sunday following their trial they were
placed on a raised platform at Paul's Cross by the side of the pulpit, and
when the sermon was over they one by one delivered their "bills" to the
preacher, which by him were read to the crowd.[656]

After an acknowledgment of their imposture the prisoners were remanded to
the Tower, and their ultimate fate reserved for the consideration of
parliament, which was to meet in the middle of January.

The chief offenders being thus disposed of, the council resolved next that
peremptory measures should be taken with respect to the Princess Mary.[657]
Her establishment was broken up, and she was sent to reside as the Lady
Mary in the household of the Princess Elizabeth--a hard but not unwholesome
discipline.[658] As soon as this was done, being satisfied that the leading
shoot of the conspiracy was broken, and that no immediate danger was now to
be feared, they proceeded leisurely to follow the clue of the Nun's
confession, and to extend their inquiries. The Countess of Salisbury was
mentioned as one of the persons with whom the woman had been in
correspondence. This lady was the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother
of Edward IV. Her mother was a Neville, a child of Richard the Kingmaker,
the famous Earl of Warwick, and her only brother had been murdered to
secure the shaking throne of Henry VII. Margaret Plantagenet, in recompense
for the lost honours of the house, was made Countess of Salisbury in her
own right. The title descended from her grandfather, who was Earl of
Salisbury and Warwick; but the prouder title had been dropped as suggestive
of dangerous associations. The Earldom of Warwick remained in abeyance, and
the castle and the estates attached to it were forfeited to the Crown. The
countess was married after her brother's death to a Sir Richard Pole, a
supporter and relation[659] of the king; and when left a widow she received
from Henry VIII. the respectful honour which was due to the most nobly born
of his subjects, the only remaining Plantagenet of unblemished descent. In
his kindness to her children the king had attempted to obliterate the
recollection of her brother's wrongs, and she had been herself selected to
preside over the household of the Princess Mary. During the first twenty
years of Henry's reign the countess seems to have acknowledged his
attentions with loyal regard, and if she had not forgotten her birth and
her childhood, she never connected herself with the attempts which during
that time were made to revive the feuds of the houses. Richard de la Pole,
nephew of Edward IV.,[660] and called while he lived "the White Rose," had
more than once endeavoured to excite an insurrection in the eastern
counties; but Lady Salisbury was never suspected of holding intercourse
with him; she remained aloof from political disputes, and in lofty
retirement she was contented to forget her greatness for the sake of the
Princess Mary, to whom she and her family were deeply attached. Her
relations with the king had thus continued undisturbed until his second
marriage. As the representative of the House of York she was the object of
the hopes and affections of the remnants of their party, but she had
betrayed no disposition to abuse her influence, or to disturb the quiet of
the nation for personal ambition of her own.

If it be lawful to interpret symptoms in themselves trifling by the light
of later events, it would seem as if her attitude now underwent a material
change. Her son Reginald had already quarrelled with the king upon the
divorce. He was in suspicious connection with the pope, and having been
required to return home upon his allegiance, had refused obedience. His
mother, and his mother's attached friend, the Marchioness of Exeter, we now
find among those to whom the Nun of Kent communicated her prophecies and
her plans. It does not seem that the countess thought at any time of
reviving her own pretensions; it does seem that she was ready to build a
throne for the Princess Mary out of the ruined supporters of her father's
family. The power which she could wield might at any moment become
formidable. She had two sons in England, Lord Montague and Sir Geoffrey
Pole. Her cousin, the Marquis of Exeter, a grandson himself of Edward
IV.,[661] was, with the exception of the Duke of Norfolk, the most powerful
nobleman in the realm; and he, to judge by events, was beginning to look
coldly on the king.[662] We find her surrounded also by the representatives
of her mother's family--Lord Abergavenny, who had been under suspicion when
the Duke of Buckingham was executed, Sir Edward Neville, afterwards
executed, Lord Latimer, Sir George and Sir William Neville, all of them
were her near connections, all collateral heirs of the King-maker,
inheriting the pride of their birth, and resentfully conscious of their
fallen fortunes. The support of a party so composed would have added
formidable strength to the preaching friars of the Nun of Kent; and as I
cannot doubt that the Nun was endeavouring to press her intrigues in a
quarter where disaffection if created would be most dangerous, so the lady
who ruled this party with a patriarchal authority had listened to her
suggestions; and the repeated interviews with her which were sought by the
Marchioness of Exeter were rendered more than suspicious by the secresy
with which these interviews were conducted.[663]

These circumstances explain the arrest, to which I alluded above, of Sir
William and Sir George Neville, brothers of Lord Latimer. They were not
among "the many noblemen" to whom the commissioners referred; for their
confessions remain, and contain no allusion to the Nun; but they were
examined at this particular time on general suspicion; and the arrest,
under such circumstances, of two near relatives of Lady Salisbury,
indicates clearly an alarm in the council, lest she might be contemplating
some serious movements. At any rate, either on her account or on their own,
the Nevilles fell under suspicion, and while they had no crimes to reveal,
their depositions, especially that of Sir William Neville, furnish singular
evidence of the temper of the times.

The confession of the latter begins with an account of the loss of certain
silver spoons, for the recovery of which Sir William sent to a wizard who
resided in Cirencester. The wizard took the opportunity of telling Sir
William's fortune: his wife was to die, and he himself was to marry an
heiress, and be made a baron; with other prospective splendours. The wizard
concluded, however, with recommending him to pay a visit to another dealer
in the dark art more learned than himself, whose name was Jones, at Oxford.

"So after that," said Sir William [Midsummer, 1532], "I went to Oxford,
intending that my brother George and I should kill a buck with Sir Simon
Harcourt, which he had promised me; and there at Oxford, in the said
Jones's chamber, I did see certain stillatories, alembics, and other
instruments of glass, and also a sceptre and other things, which he said
did appertain to the conjuration of the four kings; and also an image of
white metal; and in a box, a serpent's skin, as he said, and divers books
and things, whereof one was a book which he said was my Lord Cardinal's,
having pictures in it like angels. He told me he could make rings of gold,
to obtain favour of great men; and said that my Lord Cardinal had such; and
promised my said brother and me, either of us, one of them; and also he
showed me a round thing like a ball of crystal.

"He said that if the King's Grace went over to France [the Calais visit of
October, 1532], his Grace should marry my Lady Marchioness of Pembroke
before that his Highness returned again; and that it would be dangerous to
his Grace, and to the most part of the noblemen that should go with him;
saying also that he had written to one of the king's council to advise his
Highness not to go over, for if he did, it should not be for his Grace's
profit."

The wizard next pretended that he had seen a vision of a certain room in a
tower, in which a spirit had appeared with a coat of arms in his hand, and
had "delivered the same to Sir William Neville." The arms being described
as those of the Warwick family, Sir William, his brother, and Jones rode
down from Oxford to Warwick, where they went over the castle. The wizard
professed to recognise in a turret chamber the room in which he had seen
the spirit, and he prophesied that Sir William should recover the earldom,
the long-coveted prize of all the Neville family.

On their return to Oxford, Jones, continues Sir William, said further,
"That there should be a field in the north about a se'n-night before
Christmas, in which my Lord my brother [Lord Latimer] should be slain; the
realm should be long without a king; and much robbery would be within the
realm, specially of abbeys and religious houses, and of rich men, as
merchants, graziers, and others; so that, if I would, he at that time would
advise me to find the means to enter into the said castle for mine own
safeguard, and divers persons would resort unto me. _None of Cadwallader's
blood_, he told me, _should reign more than twenty-four years;_ and also
that Prince Edward [son of Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou, killed at
Tewkesbury], had issue a son which was conveyed over sea; and there had
issue a son which was yet alive, either in Saxony or Almayne; and that
either he or the King of Scots should reign next after the King's Grace
that now is. To all which I answered," Sir William concluded, "that there
is nothing which the will of God is that a man shall obtain, but that he of
his goodness will put in his mind the way whereby he shall come by it; and
that surely I had no mind to follow any such fashion; and that, also, the
late Duke of Buckingham and others had cast themselves away by too much
trust in prophecies, and other jeoparding of themselves, and therefore I
would in no wise follow any such way. He answered, if I would not, it would
be long ere I obtained it. Then I said I believed that well, and if it
never came, I trusted to God to live well enough."[664]

Sir George Neville confirmed generally his brother's story, protesting that
they had never intended treason, and that "at no time had he been of
counsel" when any treason was thought of.[665]

The wizard himself was next sent for. The prophecies about the king he
denied wholly. He admitted that he had seen an angel in a dream giving Sir
William Neville the shield of the earldom in Warwick Castle, and that he
had accompanied the two brothers to Warwick, to examine the tower. Beyond
that, he said that he knew nothing either of them or of their intentions.
He declared himself a good subject, and he would "jeopard his life" to make
the philosopher's stone for the king in twelve months if the king pleased
to command him. He desired "no longer space than twelve months upon silver
and twelve and a half upon gold;" to be kept in prison till he had done it;
and it would be "better to the King's Grace than a thousand men."[666]

The result of these examinations does not appear, except it be that the
Nevilles were dismissed without punishment; and the story itself may be
thought too trifling to have deserved a grave notice. I see in it, however,
an illustration very noticeworthy of the temper which was working in the
country. The suspicion of treason in the Neville family may not have been
confirmed, although we see them casting longing looks on the lost
inheritance of Warwick; but their confessions betray the visions of
impending change, anarchy, and confusion, which were haunting the popular
imagination. A craving after prophecies, a restless eagerness to search
into the future by abnormal means, had infected all ranks from the highest
to the lowest; and such symptoms, when they appear, are a sure evidence of
approaching disorder, for they are an evidence of a present madness which
has brought down wisdom to a common level with folly. At such times, the
idlest fancy is more potent with the mind than the soundest arguments of
reason. The understanding abdicates its functions; and men are given over,
as if by magic, to the enchantments of insanity.

Phenomena of this eccentric kind always accompany periods of intellectual
change. Most men live and think by habit; and when habit fails them, they
are like unskilful sailors who have lost the landmarks of their course, and
have no compass and no celestial charts by which to steer. In the years
which preceded the French Revolution, Cagliostro was the companion of
princes--at the dissolution of paganism the practicers of curious arts, the
watches and the necromancers, were the sole objects of reverence in the
Roman world;--and so, before the Reformation, archbishops and cardinals saw
an inspired prophetess in a Kentish servant girl; Oxford heads of colleges
sought out heretics with the help of astrology; Anne Boleyn blessed a basin
of rings, her royal fingers pouring such virtue into the metal that no
disorder could resist it;[667] Wolsey had a magic crystal; and Cromwell,
while in Wolsey's household, "did haunt to the company of a wizard."[668]
These things were the counterpart of a religion which taught that slips of
paper, duly paid for, could secure indemnity for sin. It was well for
England that the chief captain at least was proof against the epidemic--no
random scandal seems ever to have whispered that such delusions had touched
the mind of the king.[669]

While the government were prosecuting these inquiries at home, the law at
the Vatican had run its course; November passed, and as no submission had
arrived, the sentence of the 12th of July came into force, and the king,
the queen, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were declared to have incurred
the threatened censures.

The privy council met on the 2nd of December, and it was determined in
consequence that copies of the "Act of Appeals," and of the king's
"provocation" to a general council, should be fixed without delay on every
church door in England. Protests were at the same time to be drawn up and
sent into Flanders, and to the other courts in Europe, "to the intent the
falsehood and injustice of the Bishop of Rome might appear to all the
world." The defences of the country were to be looked to; and "spies" to be
sent into Scotland to see "what they intended there," "and whether they
would confeder themselves with any outward princes." Finally, it was
proposed that the attempt to form an alliance with the Lutheran powers
should be renewed on a larger scale; that certain discreet and grave
persons should be appointed to conclude "some league or amity with the
princes of Germany"--"that is to say, the King of Poland, the King of
Hungary,[670] the Duke of Saxony, the Duke of Bavaria, the Duke of
Brandenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, and other potentates."[671] Vaughan's
mission had been merely tentative, and had failed. Yet the offer of a
league, offensive and defensive, the immediate and avowed object of which
was a general council at which the Protestants should be represented, might
easily succeed where vague offers of amity had come to nothing. The
formation of a Protestant alliance, however, would have been equivalent to
a declaration of war against Catholic Europe; and it was a step which could
not be taken, consistently with the Treaty of Calais,--without first
communicating with Francis.

Henry, therefore, by the advice of the council, wrote a despatch to Sir
John Wallop, the ambassador at Paris, which was to be laid before the
French court. He explained the circumstances in which he was placed, with
the suggestion which the council had made to him. He gave a list of the
princes with whom he had been desired by his ministers to connect
himself--and the object was nothing less than a coalition of Northern
Europe. He recapitulated the injuries which he had received from the pope,
who at length was studying "to subvert the rest and peace of the realm;"
"yea, and so much as in him was, utterly to destroy the same." The nobles
and council, he said, for their own sake as well as for the sake of the
kingdom, had entreated him to put an end, once for all, to the pope's
usurpation; and to invite the Protestant princes, for the universal weal of
Christendom, to unite in a common alliance. In his present situation he was
inclined to act upon this advice. "As concerning his own realm, he had
already taken such order with his nobles and subjects, as he would shortly
be able to give to the pope such a buffet as he never had heretofore;" but
as a German alliance was a matter of great weight and importance,
"although," he concluded, "we consider it to be right expedient to set
forth the same with all diligence, yet we intend nothing to do therein
without making our good brother first privy thereunto. And for this cause
and consideration only, you may say that we have at this time addressed
these letters unto you, commanding you to declare our said purpose unto our
good brother, and to require of him on our behalf his good address and best
advice. Of his answer we require you to advertise us with all diligence,
for according thereunto we intend to attemper our proceedings. We have
lately had advertisements how that our said good brother should, by the
labour of divers affectionate Papists, be minded to set forth something
with his clergy in advancement of the pope and his desires. This we cannot
believe that he will do."[672]

The meaning of this letter lies upon the surface. If the European powers
were determined to leave him no alternative, the king was prepared to ally
himself with the Lutherans. But however he might profess to desire that
alliance, it was evident that he would prefer, if possible, a less extreme
resource. The pope had ceased to be an object of concern to him; but he
could not contemplate, without extreme unwillingness, a separation from the
orderly governments who professed the Catholic faith. The pope had injured
him; Francis had deceived him; they had tempted his patience because they
knew his disposition. The limit of endurance had been reached at length;
yet, on the verge of the concluding rupture, he turned once more, as if to
offer a last opportunity of peace.

The reply of Francis was an immediate mission of the Bishop of Bayonne (now
Bishop of Paris), first into England, and from England to Rome, where he
was to endeavour, to the best of his ability, to seam together the already
gaping rent in the church with fair words--a hopeless task--the results of
which, however, were unexpectedly considerable, as will be presently seen.

Meanwhile, on the side of Flanders, the atmosphere was dubious and
menacing. The refugee friars, who were reported to be well supplied with
money from England, were labouring to exasperate the people, Father Peto
especially distinguishing himself upon this service.[673] The English
ambassador, Sir John Hacket, still remained at Brussels, and the two
governments were formally at peace; but when Hacket required the
queen-regent to forbid the publication of the brief of July in the
Netherlands, he was met with a positive refusal. "M. Ambassador," she said,
"the Emperor, the King of Hungary, the Queen of France, the King of
Portugal, and I, understand what are the rights of our aunt--our duty is to
her--and such letters of the pope as come hither in her favour we shall
obey. Your master has no right to complain either of the emperor or of
myself, if we support our aunt in a just cause."[674] At the same time,
formal complaints were made by Charles of the personal treatment of Queen
Catherine, and the clouds appeared to be gathering for a storm. Yet here,
too, there was an evident shrinking from extremities. A Welsh gentleman had
been at Brussels to offer his services against Henry, and had met with
apparent coldness. Sir John Hacket wrote, on the 15th of December, that he
was assured by well-informed persons, that so long as Charles lived, he
would never be the first to begin a war with England, "which would rebound
to the destruction of the Low Countries."[675] A week later, when the
queen-regent was suffering from an alarming illness, he said it was
reported that, should she die, Catherine or Mary, if either of them was
allowed to leave England, would be held "meet to have governance of the Low
Countries."[676] This was a generous step, if the emperor seriously
contemplated it. The failure of the Nun of Kent had perhaps taught him that
there was no present prospect of a successful insurrection. In his conduct
towards England, he was seemingly governing himself by the prospect which
might open for a successful attack upon it. If occasion offered to strike
the government in connection with an efficient Catholic party in the nation
itself, he would not fail to avail himself of it.[677] Otherwise, he would
perhaps content himself with an attitude of inactive menace; unless menaced
himself by a Protestant confederation.

Amidst these uneasy symptoms at home and abroad, parliament re-assembled on
the 15th of January. It was a changed England since these men first came
together on the fall of Wolsey. Session after session had been spent in
clipping the roots of the old tree which had overshadowed them for
centuries. On their present meeting they were to finish their work, and lay
it prostrate for ever. Negotiations were still pending with the See of
Rome, and this momentous session had closed before the final catastrophe.
The measures which were passed in the course of it are not, therefore, to
be looked upon as adopted hastily, in a spirit of retaliation, but as the
consistent accomplishment of a course which had been deliberately adopted,
to reverse the positions of the civil and spiritual authority within the
realm, and to withdraw the realm itself from all dependence on a foreign
power.

The Annates and Firstfruits' Bill had not yet received the royal assent;
but the pope had refused to grant the bulls for bishops recently appointed,
and he was no longer to receive payment for services which he refused to
render. Peter's pence were still paid, and might continue to be paid, if
the pope would recollect himself; but, like the Sibyl of Cuma, Henry
destroyed some fresh privilege with each delay of justice, demanding the
same price for the preservation of what remained. The secondary streams of
tribute now only remained to the Roman See; and communion with the English
church, which it was for Clement to accept or refuse.

The circumstances under which the session opened were, however, grave and
saddening. Simultaneously with the concluding legislation on the church,
the succession to the throne was to be determined in terms which might,
perhaps, be accepted as a declaration of war by the emperor; and the affair
of the Nun of Kent had rendered necessary an inquiry into the conduct of
honoured members of the two Houses, who were lying under the shadow of high
treason. The conditions were for the first time to be plainly seen under
which the Reformation was to fight its way. The road which lay before it
was beset not merely with external obstacles, which a strong will and a
strong hand could crush, but with the phantoms of dying faiths, which
haunted the hearts of all living men; the superstitions, the prejudices,
the hopes, the fears, the passions, which swayed stormily and fitfully
through the minds of every actor in the great drama.

The uniformity of action in the parliament of 1529, during the seven years
which it continued, is due to the one man who saw his way distinctly,
Thomas Cromwell. The nation was substantially united in the divorce
question, could the divorce be secured without a rupture with the European
powers. It was united also on the necessity of limiting the jurisdiction of
the clergy, and cutting short the powers of the consistory courts. But in
questions of "opinion" there was the most sensitive jealousy; and from the
combined instincts of prejudice and conservatism, the majority of the
country in a count of heads would undoubtedly have been against a
separation from Rome.

The clergy professed to approve the acts of the government, but it was for
the most part with the unwilling acquiescence of men who were without
courage to refuse. The king was divided against himself. Nine days in ten
he was the clear-headed, energetic, powerful statesman; on the tenth he was
looking wistfully to the superstition which he had left, and the clear
sunshine was darkened with theological clouds, which broke in lightning and
persecution. Thus there was danger at any moment of a reaction, unless
opportunity was taken at the flood, unless the work was executed too
completely to admit of reconsideration, and the nation committed to a
course from which it was impossible to recede. The action of the
conservatives was paralysed for the time by the want of a fixed purpose.
The various parts of the movement were so skilfully linked together, that
partial opposition to it was impossible; and so long as the people had to
choose between the pope and the king, their loyalty would not allow them to
hesitate. But very few men actively adhered to Cromwell. Cromwell had
struck the line on which the forces of nature were truly moving--the
resultant, not of the victory of either of the extreme parties, but of the
joint action of their opposing forces. To him belonged the rare privilege
of genius, to see what other men could not see; and therefore he was
condemned to rule a generation which hated him, to do the will of God, and
to perish in his success. He had no party. By the nobles he was regarded
with the same mixed contempt and fear which had been felt for Wolsey. The
Protestants, perhaps, knew what he was, but he could only purchase their
toleration by himself checking their extravagance. Latimer was the only
person of real power on whose friendship he could calculate, and Latimer
was too plain spoken on dangerous questions to be useful as a political
supporter.

The session commenced on the 15th of January.

The first step was to receive the final submission of convocation. The
undignified resistance was at last over, and the clergy had promised to
abstain for the future from unlicensed legislation. To secure their
adherence to their engagements, an act[678] was passed to make the breach
of that engagement penal; and a commission of thirty-two persons, half of
whom were to be laymen, was designed for the revision of the Canon
law.[679]

The next most important movement was to assimilate the trials for heresy
with the trials for other criminal offences. I have already explained at
length the manner in which the bishops abused their judicial powers. These
powers were not absolutely taken away, but ecclesiastics were no longer
permitted to arrest _ex officio_ and examine at their pleasure. Where a
charge of heresy was to be brought against a man, presentments were to be
made by lawful witnesses before justices of the peace; and then, and not
otherwise, he might fall under the authority of the "ordinary." Secret
examinations were declared illegal. The offender was to be tried in open
court, and, previous to his trial, had a right to be admitted to bail,
unless the bishop could show cause to the contrary to the satisfaction of
two magistrates.[680]

This was but a slight instalment of lenity; but it was an indication of the
turning tide. Limited as it was, the act operated as an effective check
upon persecution till the passing of the Six Articles Bill.

Turning next to the relations between England and Rome, the parliament
reviewed the Annates Act,[681] which had been left unratified in the hope
that the pope might have consented to a compromise, and that "by some
gentle ways the said exaction might have been redressed and reformed." The
expectation had been disappointed. The pope had not condescended to reply
to the communication which had been made to him, and the act had in
consequence received the royal assent. An alteration had thus become
necessary in the manner of presentation to vacant bishoprics. The anomalies
of the existing practice have been already described. By the Great Charter
the chapters had acquired the right of free election. A _congé d'élire_ was
granted by the king on the occurrence of a vacancy, with no attempt at a
nomination. The chapters were supposed to make their choice freely, and the
name of the bishop-elect was forwarded to the pope, who returned the
Pallium and the Bulls, receiving the Annates in exchange. The pope's part
in the matter was now terminated. No Annates would be sent any longer to
Rome, and no Bulls would be returned from Rome. The appointments lay
between the chapters and the crown; and it might have seemed, at first
sight, as if it would have been sufficient to omit the reference to the
papacy, and as if the remaining forms might continue as they were. The
chapters, however, had virtually long ceased to elect freely; the crown had
absorbed the entire functions of presentation, sometimes appointing
foreigners,[682] sometimes allowing the great ecclesiastical ministers to
nominate themselves;[683] while the rights of the chapters, though existing
in theory, were not officially recognised either by the pope or by the
crown. The king affected to accept the names of the prelates-elect, when
returned to him from Rome, as nominations by the pope; and the pope, in
communicating with the chapters, presented them with their bishops as from
himself.[684] The papal share in the matter was a shadow, but it was
acknowledged under the forms of courtesy; the share of the chapters was
wholly and absolutely ignored. The crisis of a revolution was not the
moment at which their legal privileges could be safely restored to them.
The problem of re-arrangement was a difficult one, and it was met in a
manner peculiarly English. The practice of granting the _congé d'élire_ to
the chapters on the occurrence of a vacancy, which had fallen into
desuetude, was again adopted, and the church resumed the forms of liberty:
but the licence to elect a bishop was to be accompanied with the name of
the person whom the chapter was required to elect; and if within twelve
days the person so named had not been chosen, the nomination of the crown
was to become absolute, and the chapter would incur a Premunire.[685]

This act, which I conceive to have been more arbitrary in form than in
intention, was followed by a closing attack upon the remaining "exactions"
of the Bishop of Rome. The Annates were gone. There were yet to go,
"Pensions, Censes, Peter's Pence, Procurations, Fruits, Suits for
Provision, Delegacies and Rescripts in causes of Contention and Appeals,
Jurisdictions legatine--also Dispensations, Licenses, Faculties, Grants,
Relaxations, Writs called Perinde valere, Rehabilitations, Abolitions,"
with other unnamed (the parliament being wearied of naming them) "infinite
sorts of Rules, Briefs, and instruments of sundry natures, names, and
kinds." All these were perennially open sluices, which had drained England
of its wealth for centuries, returning only in showers of paper, and the
Commons were determined that streams so unremunerative should flow no
longer. They conceived that they had been all along imposed upon, and that
the "Bishop of Rome was to be blamed for having allured and beguiled the
English nation, persuading them that he had power to dispense with human
laws, uses, and customs, contrary to right and conscience." If the king so
pleased, therefore, they would not be so beguiled any more. These and all
similar exactions should cease; and all powers claimed by the Bishop of
Rome within the realm should cease, and should be transferred to the crown.
At the same time they would not press upon the pope too hardly; they would
repeat the same conditions which they had offered with the Annates. He had
received these revenues as the supreme judge in the highest court in
Europe, and he might retain his revenues or receive compensation for them,
if he dared to be just. It was for himself to resolve, and three months
were allowed for a final decision.

In conclusion, the Commons thought it well to assert that they were
separating, not from the church of Christ, but only from the papacy. A
judge who allowed himself to be overawed against his conscience by a
secular power, could not any longer be recognised; but no thing or things
contained in the act should be afterwards "interpreted or expounded, that
his Grace (the king), his nobles and subjects, intended by the same to
decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's church in anything
concerning the articles of the Catholic faith of Christendom, or in any
other things declared by the Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary
for salvation; but only to make an ordinance, by policies necessary and
convenient, to repress vice, and for the good conservation of the realm in
peace, unity, and tranquillity, from ravin and spoil--ensuing much the old
antient customs of the realm in that behalf."[686]

The most arduous business was thus finished--the most painful remained. The
Nun of Kent and her accomplices were to be proceeded against by act of
parliament; and the bill of their attainder was presented for the first
time in the House of Lords, on the 18th of February. The offence of the
principal conspirators was plainly high treason; their own confessions
removed uncertainty; the guilt was clear--the sentence was inevitable. But
the fault of those who had been listeners only was less easy of
measurement, and might vary from comparative innocence to a definite breach
of allegiance.

The government were unwilling to press with severity on the noble lords and
ladies whose names had been unexpectedly brought to light; and there were
two men of high rank only, whose complicity it was thought necessary to
notice. The Bishop of Rochester's connection with the Nun had been culpably
encouraging; and the responsibility of Sir Thomas More was held also to be
very great in having countenanced, however lightly, such perilous schemers.

In the bill, therefore, as it was first read, More and Fisher found
themselves declared guilty of misprision of treason. But the object of this
measure was rather to warn than to punish, nor was there any real intention
of continuing their prosecution. Cromwell, under instructions from the
king, had communicated privately with both of them. He had sent a message
to Fisher through his brother, telling him that he had only to ask for
forgiveness to receive it;[687] and he had begged More through his
son-in-law, Mr. Roper, to furnish him with an explicit account of what had
passed at any time between himself and the Nun,[688] with an intimation
that, if honestly made, it would be accepted in his favour.

These advances were met by More in the spirit in which they were offered.
He heartily thanked Cromwell, "reckoning himself right deeply beholden to
him;"[689] and replied with a long, minute, and evidently veracious story,
detailing an interview which he had held with the woman in the chapel of
Sion Monastery. He sent at the same time a copy of a letter which he had
written to her, and described various conversations with the friars who
were concerned in the forgery. He did not deny that he had believed the Nun
to have been inspired, or that he had heard of the language which she was
in the habit of using respecting the king. He protested, however, that he
had himself never entertained a treasonable thought. He told Cromwell that
"he had done a very meritorious deed in bringing forth to light such
detestable hypocrisy, whereby every other wretch might take warning, and be
feared to set forth their devilish dissembled falsehoods under the manner
and colour of the wonderful work of God."[690] More's offence had not been
great. His acknowledgments were open and unreserved; and Cromwell laid his
letter before the king, adding his own intercession that the matter might
be passed over. Henry consented, expressing only his grief and concern that
Sir Thomas More should have acted so unwisely.[691] He required,
nevertheless, as Cromwell suggested, that a formal letter should be
written, with a confession of fault, and a request for forgiveness. More
obeyed; he wrote, gracefully reminding the king of a promise when he
resigned the chancellorship, that in any suit which he might afterwards
have to his Grace, either touching his honour or his profit, he should find
his Highness his good and gracious lord.[692] Henry acknowledged his claim;
his name was struck out of the bill, and the prosecution against him was
dropped.

Fisher's conduct was very different; his fault had been far greater than
More's, and promises more explicit had been held out to him of forgiveness.
He replied to these promises by an elaborate and ridiculous defence--not
writing to the king, as Cromwell desired him, but vindicating himself as
having committed no fault; although he had listened eagerly to language
which was only pardonable on the assumption that it was inspired, and had
encouraged a nest of fanatics by his childish credulity. The Nun "had
showed him not," he said, "that any prince or temporal lord should put the
king in danger of his crown." He knew nothing of the intended insurrection.
He believed the woman to have been a saint; he supposed that she had
herself told the king all which she had told to him; and therefore he said
that he had nothing for which to reproach himself.[693] He was unable to
see that the exposure of the imposture had imparted a fresh character to
his conduct, which he was bound to regret. Knowingly or unknowingly, he had
lent his countenance to a conspiracy; and so long as he refused to
acknowledge his indiscretion, the government necessarily would interpret
his actions in the manner least to his advantage.

If he desired that his conduct should be forgotten, it was indispensable
that he should change his attitude, and so Cromwell warned him. "Ye
desire," the latter wrote, "for the passion of Christ, that ye be no more
quickened in this matter; for if ye be put to that strait ye will not lose
your soul, but ye will speak as your conscience leadeth you; with many more
words of great courage. My Lord, if ye had taken my counsel sent unto you
by your brother, and followed the same, submitting yourself by your letter
to the King's Grace for your offences in this behalf, I would have trusted
that ye should never be quickened in the matter more. But now where ye take
upon you to defy the whole matter as ye were in no default, I cannot so far
promise you. Wherefore, my Lord, I would eftsoons advise you that, laying
apart all such excuses as ye have alleged in your letters, which in my
opinion be of small effect, ye beseech the King's Grace to be your gracious
lord and to remit unto you your negligence, oversight, and offence
committed against his Highness in this behalf; and I dare undertake that
his Highness shall benignly accept you into his gracious favour, all matter
of displeasure past afore this time forgotten and forgiven."[694]

Fisher must have been a hopelessly impracticable person. Instead of
following More's example, and accepting well-meant advice, he persisted in
the same tone, and drew up an address to the House of Lords, in which he
repeated the defence which he had made to Cromwell. He expressed no sorrow
that he had been engaged in a criminal intrigue, no pleasure that the
intrigue had been discovered; and he doggedly adhered to his assertions of
his own innocence.[695]

There was nothing to be done except to proceed with his attainder. The bill
passed three readings, and the various prisoners were summoned to the Star
Chamber to be heard in arrest of judgment. The Bishop of Rochester's
attendance was dispensed with on the ground of illness, and because he had
made his defence in writing.[696] Nothing of consequence was urged by
either of the accused. The bill was most explicit in its details, going
carefully through the history of the imposture, and dwelling on the
separate acts of each offender. They were able to disprove no one of its
clauses, and on the 12th of March it was read a last time. On the 21st it
received the royal assent, and there remained only to execute the sentence.
The Nun herself, Richard Masters, and the five friars being found guilty of
high treason, were to die; the Bishop of Rochester, Father Abel, Queen
Catherine's confessor, and four more, were sentenced for misprision of
treason to forfeiture of goods and imprisonment. All other persons
implicated whose names did not appear, were declared pardoned at the
intercession of Queen Anne.[697]

The chief offenders suffered at Tyburn on the 21st of April, meeting death
calmly, as it appears; receiving a fate most necessary and most
deserved,[698] yet claiming from us that partial respect which is due to
all persons who will risk their lives in an unselfish cause. For the Nun
herself, we may feel even a less qualified regret. Before her death she was
permitted to speak a few words to the people, which at the distance of
three centuries will not be read without emotion.

"Hither am I come to die," she said, "and I have not been the only cause of
mine own death, which most justly I have deserved; but also I am the cause
of the death of all these persons which at this time here suffer. And yet I
am not so much to be blamed, considering that it was well known unto these
learned men that I was a poor wench without learning; and therefore they
might have easily perceived that the things which were done by me could not
proceed in no such sort; but their capacities and learning could right well
judge that they were altogether feigned. But because the things which I
feigned were profitable unto them, therefore they much praised me, and bare
me in hand that it was the Holy Ghost and not I that did them. And I being
puffed up with their praises, fell into a pride and foolish fantasye with
myself, and thought I might feign what I would, which thing hath brought me
to this case, and for the which I now cry God and the King's Highness most
heartily mercy, and desire all you good people to pray to God to have mercy
on me, and on all them that here suffer with me."[699]

And now the closing seal was to be affixed to the agitation of the great
question of the preceding years. I have said that throughout these years
the uncertainty of the succession had been the continual anxiety of the
nation. The birth of a prince or princess could alone provide an absolute
security; and to beget a prince appeared to be the single feat which Henry
was unable to accomplish. The marriage so dearly bought had been followed
as yet only by a girl; and if the king were to die, leaving two daughters
circumstanced as Mary and Elizabeth were circumstanced, a dispute would
open which the sword only could decide. To escape the certainty of civil
war, therefore, it was necessary to lay down the line of inheritance by a
peremptory order; to cut off resolutely all rival claims; and in
legislating upon a matter so vital, and hitherto so uncertain and
indeterminate, to enforce the decision with the most stringent and exacting
penalties. From the Heptarchy downwards English history furnished no fixed
rule of inheritance, but only a series of precedents of uncertainty; and
while at no previous time had the circumstances of the succession been of a
nature so legitimately embarrassing, the relations of England with the pope
and with foreign powers doubly enhanced the danger. But I will not use my
own language on so important a subject. The preamble of the Act of
Succession is the best interpreter of the provisions of that act.

"In their most humble wise show unto your Majesty your most humble and
obedient subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons, in
this present parliament assembled; that since it is the natural inclination
of every man gladly and willingly to provide for the safety of both his
title and succession, although it touch only his private cause; we
therefore, most rightful and dreadful Sovereign Lord, reckon ourselves much
more bounden to beseech and intreat your Highness (although we doubt not of
your princely heart and wisdom, mixed with a natural affection to the same)
to foresee and provide for the most perfect surety of both you and of your
most lawful successors and heirs, upon which dependeth all our joy and
wealth; in whom also is united and knit the only mere true inheritance and
title of this realm without any contradiction. We, your said most humble
and obedient servants, call to our remembrance the great divisions which in
times past hath been in this realm by reason of several titles pretended to
the imperial crown of the same; which some time and for the most part
ensued by occasion of ambiguity, and [by] doubts then not so perfectly
declared but that men might upon froward intents expound them to every
man's sinister appetite and affection after their senses; whereof hath
ensued great destruction and effusion of man's blood, as well of a great
number of the nobles as of other the subjects and specialty inheritors in
the same. The greatest occasion thereof hath been because no perfect and
substantial provision by law hath been made within this realm itself when
doubts and questions have been moved; by reason whereof the Bishops of Rome
and See Apostolic have presumed in times past to invest who should please
them to inherit in other men's kingdoms and dominions, which thing we your
most humble subjects, both spiritual and temporal, do much abhor and
detest. And sometimes other foreign princes and potentates of sundry
degrees, minding rather dissension and discord to continue in the realm
than charity, equity, or unity, have many times supported wrong titles,
whereby they might the more easily and facilly aspire to the superiority of
the same.

"The continuance and sufferance of these things, deeply considered and
pondered, is too dangerous and perilous to be suffered any longer; and too
much contrary to unity, peace, and tranquillity, being greatly reproachable
and dishonourable to the whole realm. And in consideration thereof, your
said subjects, calling further to their remembrance, that the good unity,
peace, and wealth of the realm, specially and principally, above all
worldly things, consisteth in the surety and certainty of the procreation
and posterity of your Highness, in whose most Royal person at this time is
no manner of doubt, do therefore most humbly beseech your Highness that it
may be enacted, with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and
the Commons in this present parliament assembled--

"1. That the marriage between your Highness and the Lady Catherine, widow
of the late Prince Arthur, be declared to have been from the beginning,
null, the issue of it illegitimate, and the separation pronounced by the
Archbishop of Canterbury good and valid.

"2. That the marriage between your Highness and your most dear and entirely
beloved wife, Queen Anne, be established and held good, and taken for
undoubtful, true, sincere, and perfect, ever hereafter."[701]

The act then assumed a general character, laying down a table of prohibited
degrees, within which marriage might not under any pretence be in future
contracted; and demanding that any marriage which might already exist
within those degrees should be at once dissolved. After this provision, it
again returned to the king, and fixed the order in which his children by
Queen Anne were to succeed. The details of the regulations were minute and
elaborate, and the rule to be observed was the same as that which exists at
present. First, the sons were to succeed with their heirs. If sons failed,
then the daughters, with their heirs; and, in conclusion, it was resolved
that any person who should maliciously do anything by writing, printing, or
other external act or deed to the peril of the king, or to the prejudice of
his marriage with Queen Anne, or to the derogation of the issue of that
marriage, should be held guilty of high treason; and whoever should speak
against that marriage, should be held guilty of misprision of
treason--severe enactments, such as could not be justified at ordinary
times, and such as, if the times had been ordinary, would not have been
thought necessary--but the exigencies of the country could not tolerate an
uncertainty of title in the heir to the crown; and the title could only be
secured by prohibiting absolutely the discussion of dangerous questions.

The mere enactment of a statute, whatever penalties were attached to the
violation of it, was still, however, an insufficient safeguard. The recent
investigation had revealed a spirit of disloyalty, where such a spirit had
not been expected. The deeper the inquiry had penetrated, the more clearly
appeared tokens, if not of conspiracy, yet of excitement, of doubt, of
agitation, of alienated feeling, if not of alienated act. All the symptoms
were abroad which provide disaffection with its opportunity; and in the
natural confusion which attended the revolt from the papacy, the
obligations of duty, both political and religious, had become indefinite
and contradictory, pointing in all directions, like the magnetic needle in
a thunderstorm.

It was thought well, therefore, to vest a power in the crown, of trying the
tempers of suspected persons, and examining them upon oath, as to their
willingness to maintain the decision of parliament. This measure was a
natural corollary of the statute, and depended for its justification on the
extent of the danger to which the state was exposed. If a difference of
opinion on the legitimacy of the king's children, or of the pope's power in
England, was not dangerous, it was unjust to interfere with the natural
liberty of speech or thought. If it was dangerous, and if the state had
cause for supposing that opinions of the kind might spread in secret so
long as no opportunity was offered for detecting their progress, to require
the oath was a measure of reasonable self-defence, not permissible only,
but in a high degree necessary and right.

Under the impression, then, that the circumstances of the country demanded
extraordinary precautions, a commission was appointed, consisting of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, and the
Duke of Suffolk; and these four, or any three of them, were empowered to
administer, at the pleasure of the king, "to all and singular liege
subjects of the realm," the following oath:--

"Ye shall swear to bear your faith, truth, and obedience only to the King's
Majesty, and to the heirs of his body, according to the limitation and
rehearsal within the statute of succession; and not to any other within
this realm, or foreign authority, prince, or potentate: and in case any
oath be made or hath been made by you to any other person or persons, that
then you do repute the same as vain and annihilate: and that to your
cunning, wit, and utmost of your power, without guile, fraud, or other
undue means, ye shall observe, keep, maintain, and defend this act above
specified, and all the whole contents and effects thereof; and all other
acts and statutes made since the beginning of this present parliament, in
confirmation or for due execution of the same, or of anything therein
contained. And thus ye shall do against all manner of persons, of what
estate, dignity, degree, or condition soever they be; and in no wise do or
attempt, or to your power suffer to be done or attempted, directly or
indirectly, any thing or things, privily or apertly, to the let, hindrance,
damage, or derogation thereof, by any manner of means, or for any pretence
or cause, so help you God and all saints."[702]

With this last resolution the House rose, having sat seventy-five days, and
despatched their business swiftly. A week later, the news arrived from Rome
that there too all was at length over; that the cause was decided, and
decided against the king. The history of the closing catastrophe is as
obscure as it is strange, and the account of the manner in which it was
brought about is unfortunately incomplete in many important particulars.
The outline only can be apprehended, and that very imperfectly.

On the receipt in Paris of the letter in which Henry threatened to organise
a Protestant confederacy, Du Bellay, in genuine anxiety for the welfare of
Christendom, had volunteered his services for a final effort. Not a moment
was to be lost, for the courts of Rome were already busy with the great
cause; but the king's evident reluctance to break with the Catholic powers,
gave room for hope that something might still be done; and going in person
to England, the bishop had induced Henry, at the last extremity, either to
entrust him with representative powers, or else to allow him after all to
make some kind of concession. I am unable to learn the extent to which
Henry yielded, but that an offer was made of some kind is evident from the
form of the story.[703] The winter was very cold, but the bishop made his
way to Rome with the haste of good will, and arrived in time to stay
judgment, which was on the point of being pronounced. It seemed, for the
moment, as if he would succeed. He was permitted to make engagements on the
part of Henry; and that time might be allowed for communication with
England, the pope agreed to delay sentence till the 23rd of March. This
bishop's terms were approved by the king, and a courier was sent off with
letters of confirmation; Sir Edward Karne and Dr. Revett following
leisurely, with a more ample commission. The stone which had been
laboriously rolled to the summit of the hill was trembling on the brink,
and in a moment might rebound into the plain.

But this was not to be the end. Some accidental cause delayed the courier;
the 23rd of March came, and he had not arrived. Du Bellay implored a
further respite. The King of England, he said, had waited six years; it was
not a great thing for the papal council to wait six days. The cardinals
were divided; but the Spanish party were the strongest, and when the votes
were taken carried the day. The die was cast, and the pope, in spite of
himself, his promises, and his conscience, drove at length upon the rocks
to which he had been so long drifting.[704] In deference to the opinion of
the majority of the cardinals, he pronounced the original marriage to have
been valid, the dispensation by which it was permitted to have been legal;
and, as a natural consequence, Henry, King of England, should he fail in
obedience to this judgment, was declared to be excommunicate from the
fellowship of the church, and to have forfeited the allegiance of his
subjects.

Lest the censures should be discredited by a blank discharge, engagements
were entered into, that within four months of the promulgation of the
sentence, the emperor would invade England, and Henry should be
deposed.[705] The imperialists illuminated Rome; cannon were fired;
bonfires blazed; and great bodies of men paraded the streets with shouts of
"the Empire and Spain."[706] Already, in their eager expectation, England
was a second Netherlands, a captured province under the regency of
Catherine or Mary.

Two days later, the courier arrived. The pope, at the entreaties of the
Bishop of Paris, re-assembled the consistory, to consider whether the steps
which had been taken should be undone. They sat debating all night, and the
result was nothing. No dependence could be placed on the cardinals, Du
Bellay said, for they spoke one way, and voted another.[707]

Thus all was over. In a scene of general helplessness the long drama
closed, and, what we call accident, for want of some better word, cut the
knot at last over which human incapacity had so vainly laboured. The Bishop
of Paris retired from Rome in despair. On his way back, he met the English
commissioners at Bologna, and told them that their errand was hopeless, and
that they need not proceed. "When we asked him," wrote Sir Edward Karne to
the king, "the cause of such hasty process, he made answer that the
imperialists at Rome had strengthened themselves in such a manner, that
they coacted the said Bishop of Rome to give sentence contrary to his own
mind, and the expectation of himself and of the French king. He showed us
also that the Lady Princess Dowager sent lately, in the month of March
past, letters to the Bishop of Rome, and also to her proctors, whereby the
Bishop of Rome was much moved for her part. The imperials, before the
sentence was given, promised, in the emperor's behalf, that he would be the
executor of the sentence."[708]

This is all which we are able to say of the immediate catastrophe which
decided the fate of England, and through England, of the world. The deep
impenetrable falsehood of the Roman ecclesiastics prevents us from
discovering with what intentions the game of the last few weeks or months
had been played; it is sufficient for Englishmen to remember that, whatever
may have been the explanation of his conduct, the pope, in the concluding
passage of his connection with this country, furnished the most signal
justification which was ever given for the revolt from an abused authority.
The supreme judge in Christendom had for six years trifled with justice,
out of fear of an earthly prince; he concluded these years with uniting the
extreme of folly with the extreme of improbity, and pronounced a sentence,
willingly or unwillingly, which he had acknowledged to be unjust.

Charity may possibly acquit Clement of conscious duplicity. He was one of
those men who waited upon fortune, and waited always without success; who
gave his word as the interest of the moment suggested, trusting that it
might be convenient to observe it; and who was too long accustomed to break
his promises to look with any particular alarm on that contingency. It is
possible, also,--for of this Clement was capable--that he knew from the
beginning the conclusion to which he would at last be driven; that he had
engaged himself with Charles to decide in Catherine's favour as distinctly
as he had engaged himself with Francis to decide against her; and that all
his tortuous scheming was intended either to weary out the patience of the
King of England, or to entangle him in acknowledgments from which he would
not be able to extricate himself.

He was mistaken, certainly, in the temper of the English nation; he
believed what the friars told him; and trusting to the promises of
disaffection, insurrection, invasion--those _ignes fatui_ which for sixty
years floated so delusively before the Italian imagination, he imagined,
perhaps, that he might trifle with Henry with impunity. This only is
impossible, that, if he had seriously intended to fulfil the promises which
he had made to the French king, the accidental delay of a courier could
have made so large a difference in his determination. It is not possible
that, if he had assured himself, as he pretended, that justice was on the
side against which he had declared, he would not have availed himself of
any pretext to retreat from a position which ought to have been intolerable
to him.

The question, however, had ended, "as all things in this world do have
their end." The news of the sentence arrived in England at the beginning of
April, with an intimation of the engagements which had been entered upon by
the imperial ambassador for an invasion. Du Bellay returned to Paris at the
same time, to report the failure of his undertaking; and Francis,
disappointed, angry, and alarmed, sent the Duke of Guise to London with
promises of support if an attempt to invade was really made, and with a
warning at the same time to Henry to prepare for danger. Troops were
gathering in Flanders; detachments were on their way out of Italy, Germany,
and Bohemia, to be followed by three thousand Spaniards, and perhaps many
more; and the object avowed for these preparations was wholly
incommensurate with their magnitude.[709] For his own sake Francis could
not permit a successful invasion of England, unless, indeed, he himself was
to take part in it; and therefore, with entire sincerity, he offered his
services. The cordial understanding for which Henry had hoped was at an
end; but the political confederacy remained, which the interests of the two
countries combined for the present to preserve unbroken.

Guise proposed another interview at Calais between the sovereigns. The king
for the moment was afraid to leave England,[710] lest the opportunity
should be made use of for an insurrection; but prudence taught him, though
disappointed in Francis, to make the best of a connection too convenient to
be sacrificed. The German league was left in abeyance till the immediate
danger was passed, and till the effect of the shock in England itself had
been first experienced. He gladly accepted, in lieu of it, an offer that
the French fleet should guard the Channel through the summer; and
meanwhile, he collected himself resolutely, to abide the issue, whatever
the issue was to be.

The Tudor spirit was at length awake in the English sovereign. He had
exhausted the resources of patience; he had stooped even to indignity to
avoid the conclusion which had come at last. There was nothing left but to
meet defiance by defiance, and accept the position to which the pope had
driven him. In quiet times occasionally wayward and capricious, Henry, like
Elizabeth after him, reserved his noblest nature for the moment of danger,
and was ever greatest when peril was most immediate. Woe to those who
crossed him now, for the time was grown stern, and to trifle further was to
be lost. The suspended act of parliament was made law on the day (it would
seem) of the arrival of the sentence. Convocation, which was still sitting,
hurried through a declaration that the pope had no more power in England
than any other bishop.[711] Five years before, if a heretic had ventured so
desperate an opinion, the clergy would have shut their ears and run upon
him: now they only contended with each other in precipitate obsequiousness.
The houses of the Observants at Canterbury and Greenwich, which had been
implicated with the Nun of Kent, were suppressed, and the brethren were
scattered among monasteries where they could be under surveillance. The Nun
and her friends were sent to execution.[712] The ordnance stores were
examined, the repairs of the navy were hastened, and the garrisons were
strengthened along the coast. Everywhere the realm armed itself for the
struggle, looking well to the joints of its harness and to the temper of
its weapons.

The commission appointed under the Statute of Succession opened its
sittings to receive the oaths of allegiance. Now, more than ever, was it
necessary to try men's dispositions, when the pope had challenged their
obedience. In words all went well: the peers swore; bishops, abbots,
priors, heads of colleges swore[713] with scarcely an exception,--the
nation seemed to unite in an unanimous declaration of freedom. In one
quarter only, and that a very painful one, was there refusal. It was found
solely among the persons who had been implicated in the late conspiracy.
Neither Sir Thomas More nor the Bishop of Rochester could expect that their
recent conduct would exempt them from an obligation which the people
generally accepted with good will. They had connected themselves, perhaps
unintentionally, with a body of confessed traitors. An opportunity was
offered them of giving evidence of their loyalty, and escaping from the
shadow of distrust. More had been treated leniently; Fisher had been
treated far more than leniently. It was both fair and natural that they
should be called upon to give proof that their lesson had not been learnt
in vain; and, in fact, no other persons, if they had been passed over,
could have been called upon to swear, for no other persons had laid
themselves open to so just suspicion.

Their conduct so exactly tallied, that they must have agreed beforehand on
the course which they would adopt; and in following the details, we need
concern ourselves only with the nobler figure.

The commissioners sate at the archbishop's palace at Lambeth; and at the
end of April, Sir Thomas More received a summons to appear before
them.[714] He was at his house at Chelsea, where for the last two years he
had lived in deep retirement, making ready for evil times. Those times at
length were come. On the morning on which he was to present himself, he
confessed and received the sacrament in Chelsea church; and "whereas," says
his great-grandson, "at other times, before he parted from his wife and
children, they used to bring him to his boat, and he there kissing them
bade them farewell, at this time he suffered none of them to follow him
forth of his gate, but pulled the wicket after him, and with a heavy heart
he took boat with his son Roper."[715] He was leaving his home for the last
time, and he knew it. He sat silent for some minutes, and then, with a
sudden start, said, "I thank our Lord, the field is won." Lambeth Palace
was crowded with people who had come on the same errand with himself. More
was called in early, and found Cromwell present with the four
commissioners, and also the Abbot of Westminster. The oath was read to him.
It implied that he should keep the statute of succession in all its parts,
and he desired to see the statute itself. He read it through, and at once
replied that others might do as they pleased; he would blame no one for
taking the oath; but for himself it was impossible. He would swear
willingly to the part of it which secured the succession to the children of
Queen Anne.[716] That was a matter on which parliament was competent to
decide, and he had no right to make objections. If he might be allowed to
take an oath to this portion of the statute in language of his own, he
would do it; but as the words stood, he would "peril his soul" by using
them. The Lord Chancellor desired him to re-consider his answer. He retired
to the garden, and in his absence others were called in; among them the
Bishop of Rochester, who refused in the same terms. More was then recalled.
He was asked if he persisted in his resolution; and when he replied that he
did, he was requested to state his reasons. He said that he was afraid of
increasing the king's displeasure, but if he could be assured that he might
explain himself safely he was ready to do so. If his objection could then
be answered to his satisfaction, he would swear; in the meantime, he
repeated, very explicitly, that he judged no one--he spoke only for
himself.

An opening seemed to be offered in these expressions which was caught at by
Cranmer's kind-hearted casuistry. If Sir Thomas More could not condemn
others for taking the oath, the archbishop said, Sir Thomas More could not
be sure that it was sin to take it; while his duty to his king and to the
parliament was open and unquestioned.

More hesitated for an instant, but he speedily recovered his firmness. He
had considered what he ought to do, he said; his conscience was clear about
it, and he could say no more than he had said already. They continued to
argue with him, but without effect; he had made up his mind; the victory,
as he said, had been won.

Cromwell was deeply affected. In his passionate regret, he exclaimed, that
he had rather his only son had lost his head than that More should have
refused the oath. No one knew better than Cromwell that intercession would
be of no further use; that he could not himself advise the king to give
way. The parliament, after grave consideration, had passed a law which they
held necessary to secure the peace of the country; and two persons of high
rank refused obedience to it, whose example would tell in every English
household. Either, therefore, the act was not worth the parchment on which
it was written, or the penalties of it must be enforced: no middle way, no
compromise, no acquiescent reservations, could in such a case be admitted.
The law must have its way.

The recusants were committed for four days to the keeping of the Abbot of
Westminster; and the council met to determine on the course to be pursued.
Their offence, by the act, was misprision of treason. On the other hand,
they had both offered to acknowledge the Princess Elizabeth as the lawful
heir to the throne; and the question was raised whether this offer should
be accepted. It was equivalent to a demand that the form should be altered,
not for them only, but for every man. If persons of their rank and
notoriety were permitted to swear with a qualification, the same privilege
must be conceded to all. But there was so much anxiety to avoid
extremities, and so warm a regard was personally felt for Sir Thomas More,
that this objection was not allowed to be fatal. It was thought that
possibly an exception might be made, yet kept a secret from the world; and
the fact that they had sworn under any form might go far to silence
objectors and reconcile the better class of the disaffected.[717] This view
was particularly urged by Cranmer, always gentle, hoping, and
illogical.[718] But, in fact, secresy was impossible. If More's discretion
could have been relied upon, Fisher's babbling tongue would have trumpeted
his victory to all the winds. Nor would the government consent to pass
censure on its own conduct by evading the question whether the act was or
was not just. If it was not just, it ought not to be: maintained at all; if
it was just, there must be no respect of persons.

The clauses to which the bishop and the ex-chancellor declined to bind
themselves were those which declared illegal the marriage of the king with
Catherine, and the marriage legal between the king and Queen Anne. To
refuse these was to declare Mary legitimate, to declare Elizabeth
illegitimate, and would do more to strengthen Mary's claims than could be
undone by a thousand oaths. However large might be More's estimate of the
power of parliament, he could have given no clear answer--and far less
could Fisher have given a clear answer--if they had been required to say
the part which they would take, should the emperor invade the kingdom under
the pope's sanction. The emperor would come to execute a sentence which in
their consciences they believed to be just; how could they retain their
allegiance to Henry, when their convictions must be with the invading army?

What ought to have been done let those say who disapprove of what was
actually done. The high character of the prisoners, while it increased the
desire, increased the difficulty of sparing them; and to have given way
would have been a confession of a doubtful cause, which at such a time
would not have been dangerous, but would have been fatal. Anne Boleyn is
said to have urged the king to remain peremptory;[719] but the following
letter of Cromwell's explains the ultimate resolution of the council in a
very reasonable manner. It was written to Cranmer in reply to his
arguments for concession.

"My Lord, after mine humble commendation, it may please your Grace to be
advertised that I have received your letter, and showed the same to the
King's Highness; who, perceiving that your mind and opinion is, that it
were good that the Bishop of Rochester and Master More should be sworn to
the act of the king's succession, and not to the preamble of the same,
thinketh that if their oaths should be taken, it were an occasion to all
men to refuse the whole, or at least the like. For, in case they be sworn
to the succession, and not to the preamble, it is to be thought that it
might be taken not only as a confirmation of the Bishop of Rome's
authority, but also as a reprobation of the king's second marriage.
Wherefore, to the intent that no such things should be brought into the
heads of the people, by the example of the said Bishop of Rochester and
Master More, the King's Highness in no wise willeth but that they shall be
sworn as well to the preamble as to the act. Wherefore his Grace specially
trusteth that ye will in no wise attempt to move him to the contrary; for
as his Grace supposeth, that manner of swearing, if it shall be suffered,
may be an utter destruction to his whole cause, and also to the effect of
the law made for the same."[720]

Thus, therefore, with much regret the council decided--and, in fact, why
should they have decided otherwise? They were satisfied that they were
right in requiring the oath; and their duty to the English nation obliged
them to persevere. They must go their way; and those who thought them wrong
must go theirs; and the great God would judge between them. It was a hard
thing to suffer for an opinion; but there are times when opinions are as
dangerous as acts; and liberty of conscience was a plea which could be
urged with a bad grace for men who, while in power, had fed the stake with
heretics. They were summoned for a last time, to return the same answer as
they had returned before; and nothing remained but to pronounce against
them the penalties of the statute, imprisonment at the king's pleasure, and
forfeiture. The latter part of the sentence was not enforced. More's family
were left in the enjoyment of his property. Fisher's bishoprick was not
taken from him. They were sent to the Tower, where for the present we leave
them.

Meanwhile, in accordance with the resolution taken in council on the and of
December,[721] but which seems to have been suspended till the issue of the
trial at Rome was decided, the bishops, who had been examined severally on
the nature of the papal authority, and whose answers had been embodied in
the last act of parliament, were now required to instruct the clergy
throughout their dioceses--and the clergy in turn to instruct the
people--in the nature of the changes which had taken place. A bishop was to
preach each Sunday at Paul's Cross, on the pope's usurpation. Every secular
priest was directed to preach on the same subject week after week, in his
parish church. Abbots and priors were to teach their convents; noblemen and
gentlemen their families and servants; mayors and aldermen the boroughs. In
town and country, in all houses, at all dinner-tables, the conduct of the
pope and the causes of the separation from Rome were to be the one subject
of conversation; that the whole nation might be informed accurately and
faithfully of the grounds on which the government had acted. No wiser
method could have been adopted. The imperial agents would be busy under the
surface; and the mendicant friars, and all the missionaries of
insurrection. The machinery of order was set in force to counteract the
machinery of sedition.

Further, every bishop, in addition to the oath of allegiance, had sworn
obedience to the king as Supreme Head of the Church;[722] and this was the
title under which he was to be spoken of in all churches of the realm. A
royal order had been issued, "that all manner of prayers, rubrics, canons
of Mass books, and all other books in the churches wherein the Bishop of
Rome was named, or his presumptuous and proud pomp and authority preferred,
should utterly be abolished, eradicated, and rased out, and his name and
memory should be never more, except to his contumely and reproach,
remembered; but perpetually be suppressed and obscured."[723]

Nor were these mere idle sounds, like the bellow of unshotted cannon; but
words with a sharp, prompt meaning, which the king intended to be obeyed.
He had addressed his orders to the clergy, because the clergy were the
officials who had possession of the pulpits from which the people were to
be taught; but he knew their nature too well to trust them. They were too
well schooled in the tricks of reservation; and, for the nonce, it was
necessary to reverse the posture of the priest and of his flock, and to set
the honest laymen to overlook their pastors.

With the instructions to the bishops circulars went round to the sheriffs
of the counties, containing a full account of these instructions, and an
appeal to their loyalty to see that the royal orders were obeyed. "We," the
king wrote to them, "seeing, esteeming, and reputing you to be of such
singular and vehement zeal and affection towards the glory of Almighty God,
and of so faithful, loving, and obedient heart towards us, as you will
accomplish, with all power, diligence, and labour, whatsoever shall be to
the preferment and setting forth of God's word, have thought good, not only
to signify unto you by these our letters, the particulars of the charge
given by us to the bishops, but also to require and straitly charge you,
upon pain of your allegiance, and as ye shall avoid our high indignation
and displeasure, [that] at your uttermost peril, laying aside all vain
affections, respects, and other carnal considerations, and setting only
before your eyes the mirrour of the truth, the glory of God, the dignity of
your Sovereign Lord and King, and the great concord and unity, and
inestimable profit and utility, that shall by the due execution of the
premises ensue to yourselves and to all other faithful and loving subjects,
ye make or cause to be made diligent search and wait, whether the said
bishops do truly and sincerely, without all manner of cloke, colour, or
dissimulation, execute and accomplish our will and commandment, as is
aforesaid. And in case ye shall hear that the said bishops, or any other
ecclesiastical person, do omit and leave undone any part or parcel of the
premises, or else in the execution and setting forth of the same, do coldly
and feignedly use any manner of sinister addition, wrong interpretation, or
painted colour, then we straitly charge and command you that you do make,
undelayedly, and with all speed and diligence, declaration and
advertisement to us and to our council of the said default.

"And forasmuch as we upon the singular trust which we have in you, and for
the special love which we suppose you bear towards us, and the weal and
tranquillity of this our realm, have specially elected and chosen you among
so many for this purpose, and have reputed you such men as unto whose
wisdom and fidelity we might commit a matter of such great weight and
importance: if ye should, contrary to our expectation and trust which we
have in you, and against your duty and allegiance towards us, neglect, or
omit to do with all your diligence, whatsoever shall be in your power for
the due performance of our pleasure to you declared, or halt or stumble at
any part or specialty of the same; Be ye assured that we, like a prince of
justice, will so extremely punish you for the same, that all the world
beside shall take by you example, and beware contrary to their allegiance
to disobey the lawful commandment of their Sovereign Lord and Prince.

"Given under our signet, at our Palace of Westminster, the 9th day of June,
1534."[724]

So Henry spoke at last. There was no place any more for nice distinctions
and care of tender consciences. The general, when the shot is flying,
cannot qualify his orders with dainty periods. Swift command and swift
obedience can alone be tolerated; and martial law for those who hesitate.

This chapter has brought many things to a close. Before ending it we will
leap over three months, to the termination of the career of the pope who
has been so far our companion. Not any more was the distracted Clement to
twist his handkerchief, or weep, or flatter, or wildly wave his arms in
angry impotence; he was to lie down in his long rest, and vex the world no
more. He had lived to set England free--an exploit which, in the face of so
persevering an anxiety to escape a separation, required a rare genius and a
combination of singular qualities. He had finished his work, and now he was
allowed to depart.

In him, infinite insincerity was accompanied with a grace of manner which
regained confidence as rapidly as it was forfeited. Desiring sincerely, so
far as he could be sincere in anything, to please every one by turns, and
reckless of truth to a degree in which he was without a rival in the world,
he sought only to escape his difficulties by inactivity, and he trusted to
provide himself with a refuge against all contingencies by waiting upon
time. Even when at length he was compelled to act, and to act in a distinct
direction, his plausibility long enabled him to explain away his conduct;
and, honest in the excess of his dishonesty, he wore his falsehood with so
easy a grace that it assumed the character of truth. He was false,
deceitful, treacherous; yet he had the virtue of not pretending to be
virtuous. He was a real man, though but an indifferent one; and we can
refuse to no one, however grave his faults, a certain ambiguous sympathy,
when in his perplexities he shows us features so truly human in their
weakness as those of Clement VII.

       *       *       *       *       *

NOTES.

[1] Printed in FOXE, vol. iv. p. 659, Townsend's edition.

[2] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 4.

[3] Bishop Latimer, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, suggested another purpose
which this act might answer. One of his audience, writing to the Mayor of
Plymouth, after describing the exceedingly disrespectful language in which
he spoke of the high church dignitaries, continues, "The king," quoth he,
"made a marvellous good act of parliament that certain men should sow every
of them two acres of hemp; but it were all too little were it so much more
to hang the thieves that be in England."--_Suppression of the Monasteries_,
Camden Society's publications, p. 38.

[4] 32 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

[5] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

[6] _Antiquities of Hengrave_, by Sir T. GAGE.

[7] See especially 2 Hen. VII. capp. 16 and 19.

[8] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 9.

[9] See especially the 4th of the 5th of Elizabeth.

[10] 10 Ed. III. cap. 3.

[11] Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. (edit. 1817), pp. 227-8.

[12] "The artificers and husbandmen make most account of such meat as they
may soonest come by and have it quickliest ready. Their food consisteth
principally in beef, and such meat as the butcher selleth, that is to say,
mutton, veal, lamb, pork, whereof the one findeth great store in the
markets adjoining; besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of fruit, fowls
of sundry sorts, as the other wanteth it not at home by his own provision,
which is at the best hand and commonly least charge. In feasting, this
latter sort--I mean the husbandmen--do exceed after their manner,
especially at bridals and such odd meetings, where it is incredible to tell
what meat is consumed and spent."--HARRISON'S _Description of England_, p.
282.

The Spanish nobles who came into England with Philip were astonished at the
diet which they found among the poor.

"These English," said one of them, "have their houses made of sticks and
dirt, but they fare commonly so well as the king."--Ibid. p. 313.

[13] _State Papers_, Hen. VIII. vol. ii. p. 10.

[14] HALL, p. 646.

[15] 25 Ed. III. cap. I.

[16] _Statutes of the Realm_, vol. i. p. 199.

[17] 3 Ed. IV. cap. 2.

[18] 10 Hen. VI. cap. 2.

[19] STOW'S _Chronicle._

[20] _Statutes of Philip and Mary._

[21] From 1565 to 1575 there was a rapid and violent rise in the prices of
all kinds of grain. Wheat stood at four and five times its earlier rates;
and in 1576, when Harrison wrote, was entirely beyond the reach of the
labouring classes. "The poor in some shires," he says, "are enforced to
content themselves with rye or barley, yea, and in time of dearth many with
bread made either of peas, beans, or oats, or of all together and some
acorns among, of which scourge the poorest do soonest taste, sith they are
least able to provide themselves of better. I will not say that this
extremity is oft so well seen in time of plenty as of dearth, but if I
should I could easily bring my trial. For, albeit that there be much more
ground eared now almost in every place than hath been of late years, yet
such a price of corn continues in each town and market, that the artificer
and poor labouring man is not able to reach to it, but is driven to content
himself with beans, peas, oats, tares, and lentils."--HARRISON, p. 283. The
condition of the labourer was at this period deteriorating rapidly. The
causes will be described in the progress of this history.

[22] _Chronicle_, p.568.

[23] 33 Hen. VIII. cap. II. The change in the prices of such articles
commenced in the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., and continued till
the close of the century. A discussion upon the subject, written in 1581 by
Mr. Edward Stafford, and containing the clearest detailed account of the
alteration, is printed in the _Harleian Miscellany_, vol. ix. p.139, etc.

[24] Leland, _Itin._, vol. vi. p.17. In large households beef used to be
salted in great quantities for winter consumption. The art of fatting
cattle in the stall was imperfectly understood, and the loss of substance
in the destruction of fibre by salt was less than in the falling off of
flesh on the failure of fresh grass. The Northumberland Household Book
describes the storing of salted provision for the earl's establishment at
Michaelmas; and men now living can remember the array of salting tubs in
old-fashioned country houses. So long as pigs, poultry, and other articles
of food, however, remained cheap and abundant, the salt diet could not, as
Hume imagines, have been carried to an extent injurious to health; and
fresh meat, beef as well as mutton, was undoubtedly sold in all markets the
whole year round in the reign of Henry VIII., and sold at a uniform price,
which it could not have been if there had been so much difficulty in
procuring it. Latimer (_Letters_, p.412), writing to Cromwell on Christmas
Eve, 1538, speaks of his winter stock of "beeves" and muttons as a thing of
course.

[25] STAFFORD'S _Discourse on the State of the Realm_. It is to be
understood, however, that these rates applied only to articles of ordinary
consumption. Capons fatted for the dinners of the London companies were
sometimes provided at a shilling apiece. Fresh fish was also extravagantly
dear, and when two days a week were observed strictly as fasting days, it
becomes a curious question to know how the supply was kept up. The inland
counties were dependent entirely on ponds and rivers. London was provided
either from the Thames or from the coast of Sussex. An officer of the
Fishmongers' Company resided at each of the Cinque Ports whose business it
was to buy the fish wholesale from the boats and to forward it on
horseback. Three hundred horses were kept for this service at Rye alone.
And when an adventurous fisherman, taking advantage of a fair wind, sailed
up the Thames with his catch and sold it first hand at London Bridge, the
innovation was considered dangerous, and the Mayor of Rye petitioned
against it.

Salmon, sturgeon, porpoise, roach, dace, flounders, eels, etc., were caught
in considerable quantities in the Thames, below London Bridge, and further
up, pike and trout. The fishermen had great nets that stretched all across
Limehouse-reach four fathoms deep.

Fresh fish, however, remained the luxury of the rich, and the poor were
left to the salt cod, ling, and herring brought in annually by the Iceland
fleet.

Fresh herrings sold for five or six a penny in the time of Henry VIII., and
were never cheaper. Fresh salmon five and six shillings apiece. Roach,
dace, and flounders from two to four shillings a hundred. Pike and barbel
varied with their length. The barbel a foot long sold for five-pence, and
twopence was added for each additional inch: a pike a foot long sold for
sixteen pence, and increased a penny an inch.--_Guildhall MSS. Journals_
12, 13, 14, 15.

[26] "When the brewer buyeth a quarter of malt for two shillings, then he
shall sell a gallon of the best ale for two farthings; when he buyeth a
quarter malt for four shillings, the gallon shall be four farthings, and so
forth... and that he sell a quart of ale upon his table for a farthing."--
Assize of Brewers: from a MS. in Balliol College, Oxford.

By an order of the Lord Mayor and Council of the City of London, in
September, 1529, the price of a kilderkin of single beer was fixed at a
shilling, the kilderkin of double beer at two shillings; but this included
the cask; and the London brewers replied with a remonstrance, saying that
the casks were often destroyed or made away with, and that an allowance had
to be made for bad debts. "Your beseechers," they said, "have many city
debtors, for many of them which have taken much beer into their houses
suddenly goeth to the sanctuary, some keep their houses--some purchase the
king's protection, and some, when they die, be reckoned poor, and of no
value, and many of your said beseechers be for the most part against such
debtors remediless and suffer great losses."

They offered to supply then: customers with sixteen gallon casks of single
beer for eleven pence, and the same quantity of double beer for a shilling,
the cask included. And this offer was accepted.

The corporation, however, returned two years after to their original order.
_Guildhall Records_, MS. Journal 13, pp. 210, 236.

[27] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 14.

The prices assessed, being a maximum, applied to the best wines of each
class. In 1531, the mayor and corporation "did straitly charge and command
that all such persons as sold wines by retail within the city and liberties
of the same, should from henceforth sell two gallons of the best red wine
for eightpence, and not above; the gallon of the best white wine for
eightpence, and not above; the pottle, quart, and pint after the same rate,
upon pain of imprisonment."

The quality of the wine sold was looked into from time to time, and when
found tainted, or unwholesome, "according to the antient customs of the
city," the heads of the vessels were broken up, and the wines in them put
forth open into the kennels, in example of all other offenders. _Guildhall
MS._ Journals 12 and 13.

[28] _Sermons_, p.101.

[29] See HARRISON, p. 318. At the beginning of the century farms let for
four pounds a year, which in 1576 had been raised to forty, fifty, or a
hundred. The price of produce kept pace with the rent. The large farmers
prospered; the poor forfeited their tenures.

[30] The wages were fixed at a maximum, showing that labour was scarce, and
that its natural tendency was towards a higher rate of remuneration.
Persons not possessed of other means of subsistence were punishable if they
refused to work at the statutable rate of payment; and a clause in the act
of Hen. VIII. directed that where the practice had been to give lower
wages, lower wages should be taken. This provision was owing to a
difference in the value of money in different parts of England. The price
of bread at Stratford, for instance, was permanently twenty-five per cent.
below the price in London. (Assize of Bread in England: _Balliol MS_.) The
statute, therefore, may be taken as a guide sufficiently conclusive as to
the practical scale. It is of course uncertain how far work was constant.
The ascending tendency of wages is an evidence, so far as it goes, in the
labourer's favour; and the proportion between the wages of the household
farm servant and those of the day labourer, which furnishes a further
guide, was much the same as at present. By the same statute of Henry VIII.
the common servant of husbandry, who was boarded and lodged at his master's
house, received 16s. 8d. a year in money, with 4s. for his clothes; while
the wages of the out-door labourer, supposing his work constant, would have
been £5 a year. Among ourselves, on an average of different counties, the
labourer's wages are £25 to £30 a year, supposing his work constant. The
farm servant, unless in the neighbourhood of large towns, receives about
£6, or from that to £8.

Where meat and drink was allowed it was calculated at 2d. a day, or 1s. 2d.
a week. In the household of the Earl of Northumberland the allowance was
2-1/2d. Here, again, we observe an approach to modern proportions. The
estimated cost of the board and lodging of a man servant in an English
gentleman's family is now about £25 a year.

[31] Mowers, for instance, were paid 8d. a day.--_Privy Purse Expenses of
Henry VIII._

[32] In 1581 the agricultural labourer, as he now exists, was only
beginning to appear. "There be such in the realm," says Stafford, "as live
only by the labour of their hands and the profit which they can make upon
the commons."--STAFFORD'S _Discourse_. This novel class had been called
into being by the general raising of rents, and the wholesale evictions of
the smaller tenantry which followed the Reformation. The progress of the
causes which led to the change can be traced from the beginning of the
century. Harrison says he knew old men who, comparing things present with
things past, spoke of two things grown to be very grievous--to wit, "the
enhancing of rents, and the daily oppression of copyholders, whose lords
seek to bring their poor tenants almost into plain servitude and misery,
daily devising new means, and seeking up all the old, how to cut them
shorter and shorter; doubling, trebling, and now and then seven times
increasing their fines; driving them also for every trifle to lose and
forfeit their tenures, by whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand
and is maintained, to the end they may fleece them yet more: which is a
lamentable hearing."--_Description of England_, p.318.

[33] HALL, p. 581. Nor was the act in fact observed even in London itself,
or towards workmen employed by the Government. In 1538, the Corporation of
London, "for certain reasonable and necessary considerations," assessed the
wages of common labourers at 7d. and 8d. the day, classing them with
carpenters and masons.--_Guildhall MSS. Journal_ 14, fol. 10. Labourers
employed on Government works in the reign of Hen. VIII. never received less
than 6d. a day, and frequently more.--_Chronicle of Calais_, p. 197, etc.
Sixpence a day is the usual sum entered as the wages of a day's labour in
the innumerable lists of accounts in the Record Office. And 6d. a day again
was the lowest pay of the common soldier, not only on exceptional service
in the field, but when regularly employed in garrison duty. Those who doubt
whether this was really the practice, may easily satisfy themselves by
referring to the accounts of the expenses of Berwick, or of Dover, Deal, or
Walmer Castles, to be found in the Record Office in great numbers. The
daily wages of the soldier are among the very best criteria for determining
the average value of the unskilled labourer's work. No government gives
higher wages than it is compelled to give by the market rate.

[34] The wages of the day labourer in London, under this act of Elizabeth,
were fixed at 9d. the day, and this, after the restoration of the
depreciated currency.--_Guildhall MSS. Journal_ 18, fol. 157, etc.

[35] 4 Hen. VII. cap. 16. By the same parliament these provisions were
extended to the rest of England. 4 Hen. VII. cap. 19.

[36] HALL, p. 863.

[37] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 22.

[38] There is a cause of difficulty "peculiar to England, the increase of
pasture, by which sheep may be now said to devour men and unpeople not only
villages but towns. For wherever it is found that the sheep yield a softer
and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even
those holy men the abbots, not contented with the old rents which their
farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do
no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good. They stop the
course of agriculture.... One shepherd can look after a flock which will
stock an extent of ground that would require many hands if it were ploughed
and reaped. And this likewise in many places raises the price of corn. The
price of wool is also risen ... since, though sheep cannot be called a
monopoly, because they are not engrossed by one person; yet they are in so
few hands, and these are so rich, that as they are not prest to sell them
sooner than they have a mind to it, so they never do it till they have
raised the price as high as possible."--Sir THOMAS MORE'S _Utopia_,
Burnet's Translation, pp. 17-19.

[39] I find scattered among the _State Papers_ many loose memoranda,
apparently of privy councillors, written on the backs of letters, or on
such loose scraps as might be at hand. The following fragment on the
present subject is curious. I do not recognise the hand:--

"Mem. That an act may be made that merchants shall employ their goods
continually in the traffic of merchandise, and not in the purchasing of
lands; and that craftsmen, also, shall continually use their crafts in
cities and towns, and not leave the same and take farms in the country; and
that no merchant shall hereafter purchase above £40 lands by the
year."--_Cotton MS._ Titus, b. i. 160.

[40] When the enclosing system was carried on with greatest activity and
provoked insurrection. In expressing a sympathy with the social policy of
the Tudor government, I have exposed myself to a charge of opposing the
received and ascertained conclusions of political economy. I disclaim
entirely an intention so foolish; but I believe that the science of
political economy came into being with the state of things to which alone
it is applicable. It ought to be evident that principles which answer
admirably when a manufacturing system capable of indefinite expansion
multiplies employment at home--when the soil of England is but a fraction
of its empire, and the sea is a highway to emigration--would have produced
far different effects, in a condition of things which habit had petrified
into form, when manufactures could not provide work for one additional
hand, when the first colony was yet unthought of, and where those who were
thrown out of the occupation to which they had been bred could find no
other. The tenants evicted, the labourers thrown out of employ, when the
tillage lands were converted into pastures, had scarcely an alternative
offered them except to beg, to rob, or to starve.

[41] _Lansdowne MS._ No. I. fol. 26.

[42] GIUSTINIANI'S _Letters from the Court of Henry VIII_.

[43] Ibid.

[44] 22 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

[45] Under Hen. VI. the household expenses were £23,000 a year--Cf.
_Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council_, vol. vi. p. 35. The
particulars of the expenses of the household of Hen. VIII. are in an MS. in
the Rolls House. They cover the entire outlay except the personal
expenditure of the king, and the sum total amounts to £14,365 10s. 7d. This
would leave above £5000 a year for the privy purse, not, perhaps,
sufficient to cover Henry's gambling extravagances in his early life.
Curious particulars of his excesses in this matter will be found in a
publication wrongly called _The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Eighth_.
It is a diary of general payments, as much for purposes of state as for the
king himself. The high play was confined for the most part to Christmas or
other times of festivity, when the statutes against unlawful games were
dispensed with for all classes.

[46] 18 Hen. VI. cap. 11.

[47] 4 Hen. VII. cap. 12.

[48] During the quarter sessions time they were allowed 4s. a day.--Ric.
II. xii. 10.

[49] The rudeness of the furniture in English country houses has been dwelt
upon with much emphasis by Hume and others. An authentic inventory of the
goods and chattels in a parsonage in Kent proves that there has been much
exaggeration in this matter. It is from an MS. in the Rolls House.

_The Inventory of the Goods and Catales of Richd. Master, Clerk, Parson of
Aldington, being in his Parsonage on the 20th Day of April, in the 25th
Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King Henry VIII._

  _Plate_
  Silver spoons, twelve.

  _In the Hall_
  Two tables and two forms.
  Item, a painted cloth hanging at the upper part of the hall.
  Item, a green banker hung on the bench in the hall.
  Item, a laver of laten.

  _In the Parlour_
  A hanging of old red and green saye.
  Item, a banker of woven carpet of divers colours.
  Item, two cushions.
  Item, one table, two forms, one cupboard, one chair.
  Item, two painted pictures and a picture of the names of kings of England
      pinned on the said hanging.

  _In the Chamber on the North Side of the said Parlour_
  A painted hanging.
  Item, a bedstedyll with a feather bed, one bolster, two pillows, one
      blanket,
      one roulett of rough tapestry, a testner of green and red saye.
  Item, two forms.
  Item, one jack to set a basin on.

  _In the Chamber over the Parlour_
  Two bedsteads.
  Item, another testner of painted cloth.
  Item, a painted cloth.
  Item, two forms.

  _At the Stairs' Hed beside the Parson's Bedchamber_
  One table, two trestylls, four beehives.

  _In the Parson's Lodging-chamber_
  A bedstedyll and a feather bed, two blankets, one payr of sheets, one
      coverlet of tapestry lined with canvas, one bolster, one pillow with
      a pillocote.
  Item, one gown of violet cloth lined with red saye.
  Item, a gown of black cloth, furred with lamb.
  Item, two hoods of violet cloth, whereof one is lined with green
      sarsenet.
  Item, one jerkyn of tawny camlet.
  Item, a jerkyn of cloth furred with white.
  Item, a jacket of cloth furred.
  Item, a sheet to put in cloth.
  Item, one press.
  Item, a leather mail.
  Item, one table, two forms, four chairs, two trestylls.
  Item, a tester of painted cloth.
  Item, a pair of hangings of green saye, with two pictures thereupon.
  Item, one cupboard, two chests.
  Item, a little flock bed, with a bolster and a coverlet.
  Item, one cushion, one mantell, one towel, and, by estimation, a pound
      of wax candles.
  Item, Greek books covered with boards, 42.
  Item, small books covered with boards, 33.
  Item, books covered with leather and parchment, 38.

  _In the said Chest in the said Chamber_
  Three pieces of red saye and green.
  Item, one tyke for a bolster, two tykes for pillows.
  Item, a typpett of cloth.
  Item, diaper napkins, 4, diaper towels, 2.
  Item, four pairs of sheets, and one shete, two tablecloths.

  _In the other Chest in the same Chamber_
  One typpett of sarsenett.
  Item, two cotes belonging to the crosse of Underbill, whereupon hang
      thirty-three pieces of money, rings, and other things, and three
      crystal stones closed in silver.

  _In the Study_
  Two old boxes, a wicker hamper full of papers.

  _In the Chamber behind the Chimney_
  One seam and a half of old malt.
  Item, a trap for rats.
  Item, a board of three yards length.

  _In the Chamber next adjoining westwards_
  One bedstedyll, one flock bed, one bolster.
  One form, two shelf boards, one little table, two trestylls, two awgyes,
      one
      nett, called a stalker, a well rope, five quarters of hemp.

  _In the Buttery_
  Three basins of pewter, five candlesticks, one ewer of lateen, one
      chafing
      dish, two platters, one dish, one salter, three podingers [?
          porringer],
      a saltseller of pewter, seven kilderkyns, three keelers, one form,
          five
      shelves, one byn, one table, one glasse bottell.

  _In the Priest's Chamber_
  One bedstedyll, one feather bed, two forms, one press.

  _In the Woman's Keeping_
  Two tablecloths, two pairs of sheets.

  _In the Servant's Chamber_
  One painted hanging, a bedstedyll, one feather bed, a press, and a shelf.

  _In the Kitchen_
  Eight bacon flitches, a little brewing lead, three brass pots, three
      kettles,
      one posnett, one frying-pan, a dripping-pan, a great pan, two
          trivetts,
      a chopping knife, a skimmer, one fire rake, a pothanger, one
          pothooke,
      one andiron, three spits, one gridiron, one firepan, a coal rake of
          iron,
      two bolts [? butts], three wooden platters, six boldishes, three
          forms,
      two stools, seven platters, two pewter dishes, four saucers, a
          covering
      of a saltseller, a podynger, seven tubbs, a caldron, two syffs, a
          capon
      cope, a mustard quern, a ladder, two pails, one beehive.

  _In the Mill-house_
  Seven butts, two cheeses, an old sheet, an old brass pan, three
      podyngers,
      a pewter dish.

  _In the Boulting-house_
  One brass pan, one quern, a boulting hutch, a boulting tub, three little
      tubbys, two keelers, a tolvett, two boulters, one tonnell.

  _In the Larder_
  One sieve, one bacon trough, a cheese press, one little tub, eight
      shelves,
      one graper for a well.

  _Wood_
  Of tall wood ten load, of ash wood a load and a half.

  _Poultry_
  Nine hens, eight capons, one cock, sixteen young chickens, three old
      geese, seventeen goslings, four ducks.

  _Cattle_
  Five young hoggs, two red kyne, one red heifer two years old, one bay
      gelding lame of spavins, one old grey mare having a mare colt.

  _In the Entries_
  Two tubbs, one trough, one ring to bear water and towel, a chest to keep
  cornes.

  _In the same House_
  Five seams of lime.

  _In the Woman's Chamber_
  One bedstedyll of hempen yarn, by estimation 20 lbs.

  _Without the House_
  Of tyles, ----, of bricks, ----, seven planks, three rafters, one ladder.

  _In the Gate-house_
  One form, a leather sack, three bushels of wheat.

  _In the Still beside the Gate_
  Two old road saddles, one bridle, a horse-cloth.

  _In the Barn next the Gate_
  Of wheat unthrashed, by estimation, thirty quarters, of barley
      unthrashed,
      by estimation, five quarters.

  _In the Cartlage_
  One weene with two whyles, one dung-cart without whyles, two shod-whyles,
      two yokes, one sledge.

  _In the Barn next the Church_
  Of oats unthrashed, by estimation, one quarter.

  _In the Garden-house_
  Of oats, by estimation, three seams four bushels.

  _In the Court_
      Two racks, one ladder.

[50] Two hundred poor were fed daily at the house of Tomas Cromwell. This
fact is perfectly authenticated. Stowe the historian, who did not like
Cromwell, lived in an adjoining house, and reports it as an eye
witness.--_See_ STOWE'S _Survey of London._

[51] HARRISON'S _Description of Britain_.

[52] The Earl and Countess of Northumberland breakfasted together alone at
seven. The meal consisted of a quart of ale, a quart of wine, and a chine
of beef: a loaf of bread is not mentioned, but we hope it may be presumed.
On fast days the beef was exchanged for a dish of sprats or herrings, fresh
or salt.--_Northumberland Household Book_, quoted by Hume.

[53] Some notice of the style of living sometimes witnessed in England in
the old times may be gathered from the details of a feast given at the
installation of George Neville, brother of Warwick the King Maker, when
made Archbishop of York.

The number of persons present including servants was about 3500.

The provisions were as follow--

  Wheat, 300 quarters.
  Ale, 300 tuns.
  Wine, 104 tuns.
  Ipocras, 1 pipe.
  Oxen, 80.
  Wild bulls, 6.
  Muttons, 1004.
  Veal, 300.
  Porkers, 300.
  Geese, 3000.
  Capons, 2300.
  Pigs, 2000.
  Peacocks, 100.
  Cranes, 200.
  Kids, 200.
  Chickens, 2000.
  Pigeons, 4000.
  Conies, 4000.
  Bitterns, 204.
  Mallards and teals, 4000.
  Heronshaws, 4000.
  Fesants, 200.
  Partridges, 500.
  Woodcocks, 400.
  Plovers, 400.
  Curlews, 100.
  Quails, 100.
  Egrets, 1000
  Rees, 200.
  Harts, bucks, and roes, 400 and odd.
  Pasties of venison, cold, 4000.
  Pasties of venison, hot, 1506.
  Dishes of jelly, pasted, 1000.
  Plain dishes of jelly, 4000.
  Cold tarts, baken, 4000.
  Cold custards, 4000.
  Custards, hot, 2000.
  Pikes, 300.
  Breams, 300.
  Seals, 8.
  Porpoises, 4.

[54] LATIMER'S _Sermons_, p. 64.

[55] _Statutes of the Realm_, 1 Ed. VI. cap. 12.

[56] HOOKER'S _Life of Sir Peter Carew_.

[57] In a subsequent letter he is described as learning French, etymology,
casting of accounts, playing at weapons, and other such exercises.--ELLIS,
third series, vol. i. p. 342-3.

[58] It has been objected that inasmuch as the Statute Book gives evidence
of extensive practices of adulteration, the guild system was useless, nay,
it has been even said that it was the cause of the evil. Cessante causâ
cessat effectus;--when the companies lost their authority, the adulteration
ought to have ceased, which in the face of recent exposures will be
scarcely maintained. It would be as reasonable to say that the police are
useless because we have still burglars and pickpockets among us.

[59] Throughout the old legislation, morality went along with politics and
economics, and formed the life and spirit of them. The fruiterers in the
streets were prohibited from selling plums and apples, because the
apprentices played dice with them for their wares, or because the
temptation induced children and servants to steal money to buy. When
Parliament came to be held regularly in London, an order of Council fixed
the rates which the hotel-keeper might charge for dinners. Messes were
served for four at twopence per head; the bill of fare providing bread,
fish, salt and fresh, two courses of meat, ale, with fire and candles. And
the care of the Government did not cease with their meals, and in an
anxiety that neither the burgesses nor their servants should be led into
sin, stringent orders were issued against street-walkers coming near their
quarters.--_Guildhall MSS. Journals_ 12 and 15.

The sanitary regulations for the city are peculiarly interesting. The
scavengers, constables and officers of the wards were ordered, "on pain of
death," to see all streets and yards kept clear of dung and rubbish and all
other filthy and corrupt things. Carts went round every Monday, Wednesday,
and Saturday, to carry off the litter from the houses, and on each of those
days twelve buckets of water were drawn for "every person," and used in
cleaning their rooms and passages.

Particular pains were taken to keep the Thames clean, and at the mouth of
every sewer or watercourse there was a strong iron grating two feet
deep.--_Guildhall MSS. Journal_ 15.

[60] And not in England alone, but throughout Europe.

[61] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 25.

[62] Ibid.

[63] Ibid.

[64] 22 Hen. VIII. cap. 4; 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 5.

[65] _Statut. Winton._ 13 Edw. I. cap. 6.

[66] 12 Rich. II. cap. 6: 11 Hen. IV. cap. 4.

[67] ELLIS'S _Original Letters_, first series, vol. i. p. 226.

[68] It has been stated again and again that the policy of Henry the Eighth
was to make the crown despotic by destroying the remnants of the feudal
power of the nobility. How is such a theory to be reconciled with statutes
the only object of which was the arming and training of the country
population, whose natural leaders were the peers, knights, and gentlemen?
We have heard too much of this random declamation.

[69] 33 Hen. VIII. cap. 9.

[70] From my experience of modern archery I found difficulty in believing
that these figures were accurately given. Few living men could send the
lightest arrow 220 yards, even with the greatest elevation, and for
effective use it must be delivered nearly point blank. A passage in
HOLINSHED'S _Description of Britain_, however, prevents me from doubting
that the words of the statute are correct. In his own time, he says that
the strength of the English archers had so notoriously declined that the
French soldiers were in the habit of disrespectfully turning their backs,
at long range, "bidding them shoot," whereas, says Holinshed, "had the
archers been what they were wont to be, these fellows would have had their
breeches nailed unto their buttocks." In an order for bowstaves, in the
reign of Henry the Eighth, I find this direction: "Each bowstave ought to
be _three fingers thick_ and squared, and _seven feet long_: to be got up
well polished and without knots."--Butler to Bullinger: _Zurich Letters_.

[71] Page 735, quarto edition.

[72] The Personages, Dresses, and Properties of a Mystery Play, acted at
Greenwich, by command of Henry VIII. _Rolls House MS._

[73] Hall says "collar of the _garter_ of St. Michael," which, however, I
venture to correct.

[74] Rich. II. 12, cap. 7, 8, 9; Rich. II. 15, cap. 6.

[75] _Lansdowne MSS._ 1, fol. 26.

[76] Injunctions to the Monasteries: BURNET'S _Collect._ pp. 77-8.

[77] Letter of Thomas Dorset to the Mayor of Plymouth: _Suppression of the
Monasteries_, p. 36.

[78] "Divers of your noble predecessors, kings of this realm, have given
lands to monasteries, to give a certain sum of money yearly to the poor
people, whereof for the ancienty of the time they never give one penny.
Wherefore, if your Grace will build to your poor bedemen a sure hospital
that shall never fail, take from them these things.... Tie the holy idle
thieves to the cart to be whipped, naked, till they fall to labour, that
they, by their importunate begging take not away the alms that the good
charitable people would give unto us sore, impotent, miserable people, your
bedemen."--FISH'S _Supplication_: FOXE, vol. iv. p. 664.

[79] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 25.

[80] Roads, harbours, embankments, fortifications at Dover and at Berwick,
etc.--STRYPE's _Memorials_, vol. 1. p. 326 and 419.

[81] It is to be remembered that the criminal law was checked on one side
by the sanctuary system, on the other by the practice of benefit of clergy.
Habit was too strong for legislation, and these privileges continued to
protect criminals long after they were abolished by statute. There is
abundant evidence that the execution of justice was as lax in practice as
it was severe in theory.

[82] 27 Ed. III. stat. 1; 38 Ed. III. stat. 2; 16 Rich. cap. 5.

[83] 25 Ed. III. stat. 4; stat. 5, cap. 22; 13 Rich. II. stat. 2, cap. 2; 2
Hen. IV. cap. 3; 9 Hen. IV. cap. 8.

[84] See p. 42.

[85] _Lansdowne MS._ 1, fol. 26; STOW'S _Chron._ ed. 1630, p. 338.

[86] 2 Hen. IV. cap. 3; 9 Hen. IV. cap. 8.

[87] 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15.

[88] Hen. VII. cap. 4. Among the miscellaneous publications of the Record
Commission, there is a complaint presented during this reign, by the
gentlemen and the farmers of Carnarvonshire, accusing the clergy of
systematic seduction of their wives and daughters.

[89] Hen. IV. cap. 15.

[90] MORTON'S _Register_, MS. Lambeth. See vol. ii. cap. 10, of the second
edition of this work for the results of Morton's investigation.

[91] MORTON'S _Register_; and see WILKINS'S _Concilia_, vol. iii. pp.
618-621.

[92] Quibus Dominus intimavit qualis infamia super illos in dictâ civitate
crescit quod complures eorundem tabernas pandoxatorias, sive caupones
indies exerceant ibidem expectando fere per totum diem. Quare Dominus
consuluit et monuit eosdem quod in posterum talia dimittant, et quod
dimittant suos longos crines et induantur togis non per totum apertis.

[93] The expression is remarkable. They were not to dwell on the offences
of their brethren coram laicis qui semper clericis sunt infesti.--WILKINS,
vol. iii. p. 618.

[94] Johannes permissione divinâ Cantuar. episcop. totius Angliæ primas cum
in præsenti convocatione pie et salubriter consideratum fuit quod nonnulli
sacerdotes et alii clerici ejusdem nostræ provinciæ in sacris ordinibus
constituti honestatem clericalem in tantum abjecerint ac in comâ tonsurâque
et superindumentis suis quæ in anteriori sui parte totaliter aperta
existere dignoscuntur, sic sunt dissoluti et adeo insolescant quod inter
eos et alios laicos et sæculares viros nulla vel modica comæ vel habituum
sive vestimentorum distinctio esse videatur quo fiet in brevi ut a multis
verisimiliter formidatur quod sicut populus ita et sacerdos erit, et nisi
celeriori remedio tantæ lasciviæ ecclesiasticarum personarum quanto ocyus
obviemus et clericorum mores hujusmodi maturius compescamus, _Ecclesia
Anglicana quæ superioribus diebus vitâ famâ et compositis moribus floruisse
dignoscitur nostris temporibus quod Deus avertat, præcipitanter ruet_;

Desiring, therefore, to find some remedy for these disorders, lest the
blood of those committed to him should be required at his hands, the
archbishop decrees and ordains,--

Ne aliquis sacerdos vel clericus in sacris ordinibus constitutus togam
gerat nisi clausam a parte anteriori et non totaliter apertam neque utatur
ense nec sicâ nec zonâ aut marcipio deaurato vel auri ornatum habente.
Incedent etiam omnes et singuli presbyteri et clerici ejusdem nostræ
provinciæ coronas et tonsuras gerentes aures patentes ostendendo juxta
canonicas sanctiones.--WILKINS, vol. iii. p. 619.

[95] See WARHAM'S _Register_, MS. Lambeth.

[96] 21 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.

[97] ROY'S _Satire against the Clergy_, written about 1528, is so
plain-spoken, and goes so directly to the point of the matter, that it is
difficult to find a presentable extract. The following lines on the bishops
are among the most moderate in the poem:--

  "What are the bishops divines--
  Yea, they can best skill of wines
  Better than of divinity;
  Lawyers are they of experience,
  And in cases against conscience
  They are parfet by practice.
  To forge excommunications,
  For tythes and decimations
  Is their continual exercise.
  As for preaching they take no care,
  They would rather see a course at a hare;
  Rather than to make a sermon
  To follow the chase of wild deer,
  Passing the time with jolly cheer.
  Among them all is common
  To play at the cards and dice;
  Some of them are nothing nice
  Both at hazard and momchance;
  They drink in golden bowls
  The blood of poor simple souls
  Perishing for lack of sustenance.
  Their hungry cures they never teach,
  Nor will suffer none other to preach," etc.

[98] LATIMER'S _Sermons_, pp. 70, 71.

[99] A peculiarly hateful form of clerical impost, the priests claiming the
last dress worn in life by persons brought to them for burial.

[100] Fitz James to Wolsey, FOXE, vol. iv. p. 196.

[101] _Supplication of the Beggars_; FOXE, vol. iv. p. 661. The glimpses
into the condition of the monasteries which had been obtained in the
imperfect visitation of Morton, bear out the pamphleteer too completely.
See chapter x. of this work, second edition.

[102] FOXE, vol. iv. p. 658.

[103] 13 Ric. II. stat. ii. c. 2; 2 Hen. IV. c. 3; 9 Hen. IV. c. 8. Lingard
is mistaken in saying that the Crown had power to dispense with these
statutes. A dispensing power was indeed granted by the 12th of the 7th of
Ric. II. But by the 2nd of the 13th of the same reign, the king is
expressly and by name placed under the same prohibitions as all other
persons.

[104] HALL, p. 784.

[105] 25 Hen. VIII. c. 22.

[106] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24. Speech of Sir Ralph Sadler in parliament,
_Sadler Papers_, vol. iii. p. 323.

[107] Nor was the theory distinctly admitted, or the claim of the house of
York would have been unquestionable.

[108] 25 Hen. VIII. c. 22, Draft of the Dispensation to be granted to Henry
VIII. _Rolls House MS._ It has been asserted by a writer in the _Tablet_
that there is no instance in the whole of English history where the
ambiguity of the marriage law led to a dispute of title. This was not the
opinion of those who remembered the wars of the fifteenth century. "Recens
in quorundam vestrorum animis adhuc est illius cruenti temporis memoria,"
said Henry VIII. in a speech in council, "quod a Ricardo tertio cum avi
nostri materni Edwardi quarti statum in controversiam vocâsset ejusque
heredes regno atque vitâ privâsset illatum est."-WILKINS'S _Concilia_, vol.
iii. p. 714. Richard claimed the crown on the ground that a precontract
rendered his brother's marriage invalid, and Henry VII. tacitly allowed the
same doubt to continue. The language of the 22nd of the 25th of Hen. VIII.
is so clear as to require no additional elucidation; but another distinct
evidence of the belief of the time upon the subject is in one of the papers
laid before Pope Clement.

"Constat, in ipso regno quam plurima gravissima bella sæpe exorta,
confingentes ex justis et legitimis nuptiis quorundam Angliæ regum
procreatos illegitimos fore propter aliquod consangunitatis vel affinitatis
confictum impedimentum et propterea inhabiles esse ad regni
successionem."--_Rolls House MS._; WILKINS'S _Concilia_, vol. iii. p. 707.

[109] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24.

[110] _Appendix 2 to the Third Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public
Records_, p. 241.

[111] _Sadler Papers_, vol. iii. p. 323.

[112] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24.

[113] _Four Years at the Court of Henry the Eighth_, vol. ii. pp. 315-16.

[114] Sir Charles Brandon, created Duke of Suffolk, and married to Mary
Tudor, widow of Louis XII.

[115] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24.

[116] The treaty was in progress from Dec. 24, 1526, to March 2, 1527 [LORD
HERBERT, pp. 80, 81], and during this time the difficulty was raised. The
earliest intimation which I find of an intended divorce was in June, 1527,
at which time Wolsey was privately consulting the bishops.--_State Papers_
vol. i. p. 189.

[117] It was for some time delayed; and the papal agent was instructed to
inform Ferdinand that a marriage which was at variance a jure et
laudabilibus moribus could not be permitted nisi maturo consilio et
necessitatis causâ.--Minute of a brief of Julius the Second, dated March
13, 1504, _Rolls House MS_.

[118] LORD HERBERT, p. 114.

[119] LORD HERBERT, p. 117, Kennett's edition. The act itself is printed in
BURNET'S _Collectanea_, vol. iv. (Nares' edition) pp. 5, 6. It is dated
June 27, 1505. Dr. Lingard endeavours to explain away the renunciation as a
form. The language of Moryson, however, leaves no doubt either of its
causes or its meaning. "Non multo post sponsalia contrahuntur," he says,
"Henrico plus minus tredecim annos jam nato. Sed rerum non recte inceptarum
successus infelicior homines non prorsus oscitantes plerumque docet quid
recte gestum quid perperam, quid factum superi volunt quid infectum.
Nimirum Henricus Septimus nullâ ægritudinis prospecta causâ repente in
deteriorem valetudinem prolapsus est, nec unquam potuit affectum corpus
pristinum statum recuperare. Uxor in aliud ex alio malum regina omnium
laudatissimia non multo post morbo periit. Quid mirum si Rex tot irati
numinis indiciis admonitus coeperit cogitare rem male illis succedere qui
vellent hoc nomine cum Dei legibus litem instituere ut diutius cum homine
amicitiam gerere possent. Quid deinceps egit? Quid aliud quam quod decuit
Christianissimum regem? Filium ad se accersiri jubet, accersitur. Adest,
adsunt et multi nobilissimi homines. Rex filium regno natum hortatur ut
secum una cum doctissimis ac optimis viris cogitavit nefarium esse putare
leges Dei leges Dei non esse cum papa volet. Non ita longâ oratione usus
filium patri obsequentissimum a sententiâ nullo negotio abduxit. Sponsalia
contracta infirmantur, pontificiæque auctoritatis beneficio palam
renunciatum est. Adest publicus tabellio--fit instrumentum. Rerum gestarum
testes rogati sigilla apponunt. Postremo filius patri fidem se illam uxorem
nunquam ducturum."--_Apomaxis_ RICARDI MORYSINI. Printed by Berthelet,
1537.

[120] See LINGARD, sixth edition, vol. iv. p. 164.

[121] HALL, p. 507.

[122] He married Catherine, June 3, 1509. Early in the spring of 1510 she
miscarried.--_Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII._ vol. i. p. 83.

Jan. 1, 1511. A prince was born, who died Feb. 22.--HALL.

Nov. 1513. Another prince was born, who died immediately.--LINGARD, vol.
iv, p. 290.

Dec. 1514. Badoer, the Venetian ambassador, wrote that the queen had been
delivered of a still-born male child, to the great grief of the whole
nation.

May 3, 1515. The queen was supposed to be pregnant. If the supposition was
right, she must have miscarried.--_Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII._
vol. i. p. 81.

Feb. 18, 1516. The Princess Mary was born.

July 3, 1518. "The Queen declared herself quick with child." (Pace to
Wolsey: _State Papers_, vol. i. p. 2,) and again miscarried.

These misfortunes we are able to trace accidentally through casual letters,
and it is probable that these were not all. Henry's own words upon the
subject are very striking:--

"All such issue male as I have received of the queen died incontinent after
they were born, so that I doubt the punishment of God in that behalf. Thus
being troubled in waves of a scrupulous conscience, and partly in despair
of any issue male by her, it drove me at last to consider the estate of
this realm, and the danger it stood in for lack of issue male to succeed me
in this imperial dignity."--CAVENDISH, p. 220.

[123] "If a man shall take his brother's wife it is an unclean
thing. He hath uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be
childless."--_Leviticus_ xx. 21. It ought to be remembered, that if the
present law of England be right, the party in favour of the divorce was
right.

[124] _Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne_, LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[125] Legates to the Pope, printed in BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 40.

[126] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 117.

[127] _Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne_, LEGRAND, vol. iii.; HALL, 669.

[128] They were shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo.

[129] _State Papers_, vol. vii. pp. 18, 19.

[130] The fullest account of Wolsey's intentions on church reform will be
found in a letter addressed to him by Fox, the old blind Bishop of
Winchester, in 1528. The letter is printed in STRYPE'S _Memorials Eccles._
vol. i. Appendix 10.

[131] _Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne_, LEGRAND, vol. iii. It is not
uncommon to find splendid imaginations of this kind haunting statesmen of
the 16th century; and the recapture of Constantinople always formed a
feature in the picture. _A Plan for the Reformation of Ireland_, drawn up
in 1515, contains the following curious passage: "The prophecy is, that the
King of England shall put this land of Ireland into such order that the
wars of the land, whereof groweth the vices of the same, shall cease for
ever; and after that God shall give such grace and fortune to the same king
that he shall with the army of England and of Ireland subdue the realm of
France to his obeysance for ever, and shall rescue the Greeks, and recover
the great city of Constantinople, and shall vanquish the Turks and win the
Holy Cross and the Holy Land, and shall die Emperor of Rome, and eternal
blisse shall be his end."--_State Papers_, vol. ii. pp. 30, 31.

[132] Knight to Henry: _State Papers_, vol. vii. pp. 2, 3.

[133] Wolsey to Cassalis: Ibid. p. 26.

[134] The dispensing power of the popes was not formally limited. According
to the Roman lawyers, a faculty lay with them of granting extraordinary
dispensations in cases where dispensations would not be usually
admissible--which faculty was to be used, however, dummodo causa cogat
urgentissima ne regnum aliquod funditus pereat; the pope's business being
to decide on the question of urgency.--Sir Gregory Cassalis to Henry VIII.,
Dec. 26, 1532. _Rolls House MS._

[135] Knight and Cassalis to Wolsey: BURNET'S _Collect._ p. 12.

[136] STRYPE'S _Memorials_, vol. i., Appendix p. 66.

[137] Sir F. Bryan and Peter Vannes to Henry; _State Papers_, vol. vii. p.
144.

[138] STRYPE'S _Memorials_, Appendix, vol. i. p. 100.

[139] Ibid. Appendix, vol. i. pp. 105-6; BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 13.

[140] Wolsey to the Pope, BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 16: Vereor quod tamen
nequeo tacere, ne Regia Majestas, humano divinoque jure quod habet ex omni
Christianitate suis his actionibus adjunctum freta, postquam viderit sedis
Apostolicæ gratiam et Christi in terris Vicarii clementiam desperatam
Cæsaris intuitu, in cujus manu neutiquam est tam sanctos conatus reprimere,
ea tunc moliatur, ea suæ causæ perquirat remedia, quæ non solum huic Regno
sed etiam aliis Christianis principibus occasionem subministrarent sedis
Apostolicæ auctoritatem et jurisdictionem imminuendi et vilipendendi.

[141] BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 20. Wolsey to John Cassalis: "If his
Holyness, which God forbid, shall shew himself unwilling to listen to the
king's demands, to me assuredly it will be but grief to live longer, for
the innumerable evils which I foresee will then follow. One only sure
remedy remains to prevent the worst calamities. If that be neglected, there
is nothing before us but universal and inevitable ruin."

[142] Gardiner and Fox to Wolsey; STRYPE'S _Memorials_, vol. i. Appendix,
p. 92.

[143] His Holiness being yet in captivity, as he esteemed himself to be, so
long as the Almayns and Spaniards continue in Italy, he thought if he
should grant this commission that he should have the emperour his perpetual
enemy without any hope of reconciliation. Notwithstanding he was content
rather to put himself in evident ruin, and utter undoing, than the king or
your Grace shall suspect any point of ingratitude in him; heartily desiring
with sighs and tears that the king and your Grace which have been always
fast and good to him, will not now suddenly precipitate him for ever: which
should be done if immediately on receiving the commission your Grace should
begin process. He intendeth to save all upright thus. If M. de Lautrec
would set forwards, which he saith daily that he will do, but yet he doth
not, at his coming the Pope's Holiness may have good colour to say, "He was
required of the commission by the ambassador of England, and denying the
same, he was, eftsoons, required by M. de Lautrec to grant the said
commission, inasmuch as it was but a letter of justice." And by this colour
he would cover the matter so that it might appear unto the emperour that
the pope did it not as he that would gladly do displeasure unto the
emperour, but as an indifferent judge, that could not nor might deny
justice, specially being required by such personages; and immediately he
would despatch a commission bearing date after the time that M. de Lautrec
had been with him or was nigh unto him. The pope most instantly beseecheth
your Grace to be a mean that the King's Highness may accept this in a good
part, and that he will take patience for this little time, which, as it is
supposed, will be but short.--Knight to Wolsey and the King, Jan. 1,
1527-8: BURNET _Collections_, 12, 13.

[144] Such at least was the ultimate conclusion of a curious discussion.
When the French herald declared war, the English herald accompanied him
into the emperor's presence, and when his companion had concluded, followed
up his words with an intimation that unless the French demands were
complied with, England would unite to enforce them. The Emperor replied to
Francis with defiance. To the English herald he expressed a hope that peace
on that side would still be maintained. For the moment the two countries
were uncertain whether they were at war or not. The Spanish ambassador in
London did not know, and the court could not tell him. The English
ambassador in Spain did not leave his post, but he was placed under
surveillance. An embargo on Spanish and English property was laid
respectively in the ports of the two kingdoms; and the merchants and
residents were placed under arrest. Alarmed by the outcry in London, the
king hastily concluded a truce with the Regent of the Netherlands, the
language of which implied a state of war; but when peace was concluded
between France and Spain, England appeared only as a contracting party, not
as a principal, and in 1542 it was decided that the antecedent treaties
between England and the empire continued in force.--See LORD HERBERT;
HOLINSHED; _State Papers_, vols. vii. viii. and ix.; with the treaties in
RYMER, vol. vi. part 2.

[145] Gardiner to the King: BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 426.

[146] Duke of Suffolk to Henry the Eighth: _State Papers_, vol. vii, p.
183.

[147] Duke of Suffolk to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 183.

[148] HALL, p. 744.

[149] When the clothiers of Essex, Kent, Wiltshire, Suffolk, and other
shires which are clothmaking, brought cloths to London to be sold, as they
were wont, few merchants or none bought any cloth at all. When the
clothiers lacked sale, then they put from them their spinners, carders,
tuckers, and such others that lived by clothworking, which caused the
people greatly to murmur, and specially in Suffolk, for if the Duke of
Norfolk had not wisely appeased them, no doubt but they had fallen to some
rioting. When the king's council was advertised of the inconvenience, the
cardinal sent for a great number of the merchants of London, and to them
said, "Sirs, the king is informed that you use not yourselves like
merchants, but like graziers and artificers; for where the clothiers do
daily bring cloths to the market for your ease, to their great cost, and
then be ready to sell them, you of your wilfulness will not buy them, as
you have been accustomed to do. What manner of men be you?" said the
cardinal. "I tell you that the king straitly commandeth you to buy their
cloths as beforetime you have been accustomed to do, upon pain of his high
displeasure."--HALL, p. 746.

[150] LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 157. By manners and customs he was referring
clearly to his intended reformation of the church. See the letter of Fox,
Bishop of Winchester (STRYPE'S _Memorials_, vol. ii. p. 25), in which
Wolsey's intentions are dwelt upon at length.

[151] Ibid. pp. 136, 7.

[152] _State Papers_, vol. vii. pp. 96, 7.

[153] Wolsey to Cassalis: Ibid. p. 100.

[154] State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 106, 7

[155] Ibid. p. 113.

[156] Ibid. vii. p. 113.

[157] Take the veil.

[158] Instruction to the Ambassadours at Rome: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p.
136.

[159] _Letters of the Bishop of Bayanne_, LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[160] LEGRAND, vol. iii. 231.

[161] Instrucion para Gonzalo Fernandez que se envoie a Ireland al Conde de
Desmond, 1529.--MS. Archives at Brussels.--_The Pilgrim_, note 1, p. 169.

[162] Henrici regis octavi de repudiandâ dominâ Catherinâ oratio Idibus
Novembris habita 1528.

Veneranda et chara nobis præsulum procerum atque consiliariorum cohors quos
communis reipublicæ atque regni nostri administrandi cura conjunxit. Haud
vos latet divinâ nos Providentiâ viginti jam ferme annis hanc nostram
patriam tantâ felicitate rexisse ut in illâ ab hostilibus incursionibus
tuta semper interea fuerit et nos in his bellis quæ suscepimus victores
semper evasimus; et quanquam in eo gloriâri jure possumus majorem
tranquillitatem opes et honores prioribus huc usque ductis socculis,
nunquam subditis a majoribus parentibusque nostris Angliâ regibus quam a
nobis provenisse, tamen quando cum hâc gloriâ in mentem una venit ac
concurrit mortis cogitatio, veremur ne nobis sine prole legitimâ
decedentibus majorem ex morte nostrâ patiamini calamitatem quam ex vitâ
fructum ac emolumentum percepistis. Recens enim in quorundam vestrorum
animis adhuc est illius cruenti temporis memoria quod a Ricardo tertio cum
avi nostri materni Edwardi Quarti statum in controversiam vocasset ejusque
heredes regno atque vitâ privâsset illatum est. Tum ex historiis notæ sunt
illæ diræ strages quæ a clarissimis Angliæ gentibus Eboracensi atque
Lancastrensi, dum inter se de regno et imperio multis ævis contenderent,
populo evenerunt. Ac illæ ex justis nuptiis inter Henricum Septimum et
dominam Elizabetham clarissimos nostros parentes contractis in nobis inde
legitimâ natâ sobole sopitæ tandem desierunt. Si vero quod absit, regalis
ex nostris nuptiis stirps quæ jure deinceps regnare possit non nascatur,
hoc regnum civilibus atque intestinis se versabit tumultibus aut in
exterorum dominationem atque potestatem veniet. Nam quanquam formâ atque
venustate singulari, quæ magno nobis solatio fuit filiam Dominam Mariam ex
nobilissimâ foeminâ Dominâ Catherinâ procreavimus, tamen a piis atque
eruditis theologis nuper accepimus quia eam quæ Arturi fratris nostri
conjux ante fuerat uxorem duximus nostras nuptias jure divino esse vetitas,
partumque inde editum non posse censeri legitimum. Id quod eo vehementius
nos angit et excruciat, quod cum superiori anno legatos ad conciliandas
inter Aureliensem ducem et filiam nostram Mariam nuptias ad Franciscum
Gallorum regem misissemus a quodam ejus consiliario responsum est,
"antequam de hujusmodi nuptiis agatum inquirendum esse prius an Maria
fuerit filia nostra legitima; constat enim 'inquit,' quod exdominâ
Catherinâ fratris sui viduâ cujusmodi nuptiæ jure divino interdictæ sunt
suscepta est." Quæ oratio quanto metu ac horrore animum nostrum turbaverit
quia res ipsa æternæ tam animi quam corporis salutis periculum in se
continet, et quam perplexis cogitationibus conscientiam occupat, vos quibus
et capitis aut fortunæ ac multo magis animarum jactura immineret, remedium
nisi adhibere velitis, ignorare non posse arbitror. Hæc una res--quod Deo
teste et in Regis oraculo affirmamus--nos impulit ut per legatos
doctissimorum per totum orbem Christianum theologorum sententias
exquireremus et Romani Pontificis legatum verum atque æquum judicium de
tantâ causâ laturum ut tranquillâ deinceps et intergâ conscientiâ in
conjugio licito vivere possimus accerseremus. In quo si ex sacris litteris
hoc quo viginti jam fere annis gavisi sumus matrimonium jure divino
permissum esse manifeste liquidoque constabit, non modo ob conscientiæ
tranquillitatem, verum etiam ob amabiles mores virtutesque quibus regina
prædita et ornata est, nihil optatius nihilque jucundius accidere nobis
potest. Nam præterquam quod regali atque nobili genere prognata est, tantâ
præterea comitate et obsequio conjugali tum cæteris animi morumque
ornamentis quæ nobilitatem illustrant omnes foeminas his viginti annis sic
mihi anteire visa est ut si a conjugio liber essem ac solutus, si jure
divino liceret, hanc solam præ cæteris foeminis stabili mihi jure ac
foedere matrimoniali conjungerem. Si vero in hoc judicio matrimonium
nostrum jure divino prohibitum, ideoque ab initio nullum irritumque fuisse
pronuncietur, infelix hic meus casus multis lacrimis lugendus ac
deplorandus erit. Non modo quod a tam illustris et amabilis mulieris
consuetudine et consortio divertendum sit, sed multo magis quod specie ad
similitudinem veri conjugii decepti in amplexibus plusquam fornicariis tam
multos annos trivimus nullâ legitimâ prognatâ nobis sobole quæ nobis
mortuis hujus inclyti regni hereditatem capessat.

Hæ nostræ curæ istæque solicitudines sunt quæ mentem atque conscientiam
nostram dies noctesque torquent et excurciant, quibus auferendis et
profligandis remedium ex hâc legatione et judicio opportunum quærimus.
Ideoque vos quorum virtuti atque fidei multum attribuimus rogamus ut certum
atque genuinum nostrum de hâc re sensum quem ex nostro sermone percepistis
populo declaretis: eumque excitetis ut nobiscum una oraret ut ad
conscientiæ nostræ pacem atque tranquillitatem in hoc judicio veritas
multis jam annis tenebris involuta tandem patefiat.--WILKINS'S _Concilia_,
vol. iii. p. 714.

[163] HALL, _Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne_, LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[164] LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[165] Ibid. vol. iii. pp. 232, 3.

[166] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 120; Ibid. p. 186.

[167] BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 41.

[168] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 193.

[169] The Emperor could as little trust Clement as the English, and to the
last moment could not tell how he would act.

"Il me semble," wrote Inigo di Mendoza to Charles on the 17th of June,
1529,--"il me semble que Sa Sainteté differe autant qu'il peut ce qu'
auparavant il avoit promis, et je crains qu'il n'ait ordonné aux legatz ce
qui jusques à present avoit resté en suspens qu'ils procedent par la
première commission. Ce qui faisant votre Majesté peut tenir la Reine
autant que condamné."--_MS. Archives at Brussels._

The sort of influence to which the See of Rome was amenable appears in
another letter to the Emperor, written from Rome itself on the 4th of
October. The Pope and cardinals, it is to be remembered, were claiming to
be considered the supreme court of appeal in Christendom.

"Si je ne m'abuse tous ou la pluspart du Saint College sont plus
affectionnez à vostre dite Majesté que à autre Prince Chrestien: de vous
escrire, Sire, particulièrement toutes leurs responses seroit chose trop
longue. Tant y a que elles sont telles que votre Majesté a raison doubt
grandement se contenter d'icelles.

"... Seulement diray derechief à vostre Majesté, et me souvient l'avoir
dict plusieurs fois, qu'il est en vostre Majesté gaigner et entretenir
perpetuellement ce college en vostre devotion en distribuant seulement
entre les principaulx d'eulx en pensions et benefices la somme de vingt
mille ducas, l'ung mille, l'autre deulx ou trois mille. Et est cecy chose,
Sire, que plus vous touche que à autre Prince Chrestien pour les affaires
que vostre Majesté a journellement à despescher en ceste court."--M. de
Præt to Charles V. August 5th, 1529. MS. Ibid.

[170] LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 377.

[171] Ibid. vol. iii. p. 374.

[172] Ibid. vol. iii. p. 355.

[173] Ibid.

[174] Memorandum relating to the Society of Christian Brethren. _Rolls
House MS._

[175] DALABER'S _Narrative_, printed in FOXE, vol. iv. Seeley's Ed.

[176] All authorities agree in the early account of Henry, and his letters
provide abundant proof that it is not exaggerated. The following
description of him in the despatches of the Venetian ambassador shows the
effect which he produced on strangers in 1515:--

"Assuredly, most serene prince, from what we have seen of him, and in
conformity, moreover, with the report made to us by others, this most
serene king is not only very expert in arms and of great valour and most
excellent in his personal endowments, but is likewise so gifted and adorned
with mental accomplishments of every sort, that we believe him to have few
equals in the world. He speaks English, French, Latin, understands Italian
well; plays almost on every instrument; sings and composes fairly; is
prudent, and sage, and free from every vice."--_Four Years at the Court of
Henry VIII._ vol. i. p. 76.

Four years later, the same writer adds,--

"The king speaks good French, Latin, and Spanish; is very religious; hears
three masses a day when he hunts, and sometimes five on other days; he
hears the office every day in the queen's chamber--that is to say, vespers
and complins."--Ibid. vol. ii. p. 312. William Thomas, who must have seen
him, says,

"Of personage he was one of the goodliest men that lived in his time; being
high of stature, in manner more than a man, and proportionable in all his
members unto that height; of countenance he was most amiable; courteous and
benign in gesture unto all persons and specially unto strangers; seldom or
never offended with anything; and of so constant a nature in himself that I
believe few can say that ever he changed his cheer for any novelty how
contrary or sudden so ever it were. Prudent he was in council and
forecasting; most liberal in rewarding his faithful servants, and even unto
his enemies, as it behoveth a prince to be. He was learned in all sciences,
and had the gift of many tongues. He was a perfect theologian, a good
philosopher, and a strong man at arms, a jeweller, a perfect builder as
well of fortresses as of pleasant palaces, and from one to another there
was no necessary kind of knowledge, from a king's degree to a carter's, but
he had an honest sight in it."--_The Pilgrim_ p. 78.

[177] Exposition of the Commandments, set forth by Royal authority, 1536.
This treatise was drawn up by the bishops, and submitted to, and revised
by, the king.

[178] SAGUDINO'S _Summary. Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII._ vol. ii.
P. 75.

[179] "The truth is, when I married my wife, I had but fifty pounds to live
on for me and my wife so long as my father lived, and yet she brought me
forth every year a child."--Earl of Wiltshire to Cromwell: ELLIS, third
series, vol. iii. pp. 22, 3.

[180] BURNET, vol. i. p. 69.

[181] Thomas Allen to the Earl of Shrewsbury: LODGE'S _Illustrations_, vol.
i. p. 20.

[182] Earl of Northumberland to Cromwell: printed by LORD HERBERT and by
BURNET.

[183] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 7.

[184] Since these words were written, I have discovered among the Archives
of Simancas what may perhaps be some clue to the mystery, in an epitome of
a letter written to Charles V. from London in May, 1536:---

"His Majesty has letters from England of the 11th of May, with certain news
that the paramour of the King of England, who called herself queen, has
been thrown into the Tower of London for adultery. The partner of her guilt
was an organist of the Privy Chamber, who is in the Tower as well. An
officer of the King's wardrobe has been arrested also for the same offence
with her, and one of her brothers for having been privy to her offences
without revealing them. They say, too, that if the adultery had not been
discovered, the King was determined to put her away, having been informed
by competent witnesses that she was married and had consummated her
marriage nine years before, with the Earl of Northumberland."

[185] ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 131.

[186] Wyatt's Memorials, printed in Singer's CAVENDISH, p. 420.

[187] ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 132.

[188] ELLIS, first series, vol. i. p. 135. "My Lord, in my most humblest
wise that my poor heart can think, I do thank your Grace for your kind
letter, and for your rich and goodly present; the which I shall never be
able to deserve without your great help; of the which I have hitherto had
so great plenty, that all the days of my life I am most bound of all
creatures, next to the King's Grace, to love and serve your Grace. Of the
which I beseech you never to doubt that ever I shall vary from this thought
as long as any breath is in my body."

[189] CAVENDISH _Life of Wolsey,_ p. 316. Singer's edition.

[190] CAVENDISH, pp. 364, 5.

[191] _Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne_, LEGRAND, vol. iii. pp. 368, 378,
etc.

[192] See HALE'S _Criminal Causes from the Records of the Consistory Court
of London._

[193] Petition of the Commons, infra, p. 191, etc.

[194] Reply of the Ordinaries to the petition of the Commons, infra, p.
202, etc.

[195] Petition of the Commons. 23 Hen. VIII. c. 9.

[196] HALE'S _Criminal Causes,_ p.4.

[197] An Act that no person committing murder, felony, or treason should be
admitted to his clergy under the degree of sub-deacon.

[198] In May, 1528, the evil had become so intolerable, that Wolsey drew
the pope's attention to it. Priests, he said, both secular and regular,
were in the habit of committing atrocious crimes, for which, if not in
orders, they would have been promptly executed; and the laity were
scandalised to see such persons not only not degraded, but escaping with
complete impunity. Clement something altered the law of degradation in
consequence of this representation, but quite inadequately.--RYMER, vol.
vi. part 2, p. 96.

[199] Thomas Cowper et ejus uxor Margarita pronubæ horribiles, et instigant
mulieres ad fornicandum cum quibuscunque laicis, religiosis, fratribus
minoribus, et nisi fornicant in domo suâ ipsi diffamabunt nisi voluerint
dare eis ad voluntatem eorum; et vir est pronuba uxori, et vult relinquere
eam apud fratres minores pro peccatis habendis.--HALE, _Criminal Causes,_
p. 9.

Joanna Cutting communis pronuba at præsertim inter presbyteros fratres
monachos et canonicos et etiam inter Thomam Peise et quandam Agnetam,
etc.--HALE, _Criminal Causes,_ p. 28.

See also Ibid. pp. 15, 22, 23, 39, etc.

In the first instance the parties accused "made their purgation" and were
dismissed. The exquisite corruption of the courts, instead of inviting
evidence and sifting accusations, allowed accused persons to support their
own pleas of not guilty by producing four witnesses, not to disprove the
charges, but to swear that they believed the charges untrue. This was
called "purgation."

Clergy, it seems, were sometimes allowed to purge themselves simply on
their own word.--HALE, p. 22; and see the Preamble of the 1st of the 23rd
of Henry VIII.

[200] Complaints of iniquities arising from confession were laid before
Parliament as early as 1394.

"Auricularis confessio quæ dicitur tam necessaria ad salvationem hominis,
cum fictâ potestate absolutionis exaltat superbiam sacerdotum, et dat illis
opportunitatem secretarum sermocinationum quas nos nolumus dicere, quia
domini et dominæ attestantur quod pro timore confessorum suorum non audent
dicere veritatem; et in tempore confessionis est opportunum tempus
procationis id est of wowing et aliarum secretarum conventionum ad
peccata mortalia. Ipsi dicunt quod sunt commissarii Dei ad judicandum de
omni peccato perdonandum et mundandum quemcunque eis placuerint. Dicunt
quod habent claves coeli et inferni et possunt excommunicare et benedicere
ligare et solvere in voluntatem eorum; in tantum quod pro bussello vel 12
denariis volunt vendere benedictionem coeli per chartam et clausulam de
warrantiâ sigillitâ sigillo communi. Ista conclusio sic est in usu quod non
eget probatione aliquâ."--Extract from a Petition presented to Parliament:
WILKINS, vol. iii. p. 221.

This remarkable paper ends with the following lines:--

  "Plangunt Anglorum gentes crimen Sodomorum
  Paulus fert horum sunt idola causa malorum
  Surgunt ingrati Giezitæ Simone nati
  Nomine prælati hoc defensare parati
  Qui reges estis populis quicunque præstis
  Qualiter his gestis gladios prohibere potestis."

See also HALE, p. 42, where an abominable instance is mentioned, and a
still worse in the _Suppression of the Monasteries,_ pp. 45-50.

[201] HALE, p. 12.

[202] Ibid. pp. 75, 83; _Suppression of the Monasteries,_ p. 47.

[203] Ibid. p. 80.

[204] Ibid. p. 83.

[205] I have been taunted with my inability to produce more evidence. For
the present I will mention two additional instances only, and perhaps I
shall not be invited to swell the list further.

1. In the State Paper Office is a report to Cromwell by Adam Bekenshaw, one
of his diocesan visitors, in which I find this passage:--

"There be knights and divers gentlemen in the diocese of Chester who do
keep concubines and do yearly compound with the officials for a small sum
without monition to leave their naughty living."

2. In another report I find also the following:--

"The names of such persons as be permitted to live in adultery and
fornication for money:--

  "The Vicar of Ledbury.
  The Vicar of Brasmyll.
  The Vicar of Stow.
  The Vicar of Cloune.
  The Parson of Wentnor.
  The Parson of Rusbury.
  The Parson of Plowden.
  The Dean of Pountsbury.
  The Parson of Stratton.
  Sir Matthew of Montgomery.
  Sir ---- of Lauvange.
  Sir John Brayle.
  Sir Morris of Clone.
  Sir Adam of Clone.
  Sir Pierce of Norbury.
  Sir Gryffon ap Egmond.
  Sir John Orkeley.
  Sir John of Mynton.
  Sir John Reynolds.
  Sir Morris of Knighton, priest.
  Hugh Davis.
  Cadwallader ap Gern.
  Edward ap Meyrick.
  With many others of the diocese of Hereford."

The originals of both these documents are in the State Paper Office. There
are copies in the Bodleian Library.--_MS. Tanner,_ 105.

[206] Skelton gives us a specimen of the popular criticisms:--

  "Thus I, Colin Clout,
  As I go about,
  And wondering as I walk,
  I hear the people talk:
  Men say for silver and gold
  Mitres are bought and sold:
  A straw for Goddys curse,
  What are they the worse?

  "What care the clergy though Gill sweat,
  Or Jack of the Noke?
  The poor people they yoke
  With sumners and citacions,
  And excommunications.
  About churches and markets
  The bishop on his carpets
  At home soft doth sit.
  This is a fearful fit,
  To hear the people jangle.
  How wearily they wrangle!
  But Doctor Bullatus

  "Parum litteratus,
  Dominus Doctoratus
  At the broad gate-house.
  Doctor Daupatus
  And Bachelor Bacheleratus,
  Drunken as a mouse
  At the ale-house,
  Taketh his pillion and his cap
  At the good ale-tap,
  For lack of good wine.
  As wise as Robin Swine,
  Under a notary's sign,
  Was made a divine;
  As wise as Waltham's calf,
  Must preach in Goddys half;
  In the pulpit solemnly;
  More meet in a pillory;
  For by St. Hilary
  He can nothing smatter
  Of logic nor school matter.

  "Such temporal war and bate
  As now is made of late
  Against holy church estate,
  Or to mountain good quarrels;
  The laymen call them barrels
  Full of gluttony and of hypocrisy,
  That counterfeits and paints
  As they were very saints.

  "By sweet St. Marke,
  This is a wondrous warke,
  That the people talk this.
  Somewhat there is amiss.
  The devil cannot stop their mouths,
  But they will talk of such uncouths
  All that ever they ken
  Against spiritual men."

I am unable to quote more than a few lines from ROY'S _Satire_. At the
close of a long paragraph of details an advocate of the clergy ventures to
say that the bad among them are a minority. His friend answers:--

  "Make the company great or small,
  Among a thousand find thou shall
  Scant one chaste of body or mind."

[207] Answer of the Bishops to the Commons' Petition: _Rolls House MS._

[208] Joanna Leman notatur officio quod non venit ad ecclesiam parochialem;
et dicit se nolle accipere panem benedictum a manibus rectoris; et vocavit
eum "horsyn preste."--HALE, p. 99.

[209] HALE, p. 63.

[210] Ibid. p. 98.

[211] Ibid. p. 38.

[212] Ibid. p. 67.

[213] Ibid. p. 100.

[214] CAVENDISH, _Life of Wolsey_, p. 251.

[215] HALL, p. 764.

[216] Ibid. p. 764.

[217] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 361.

[218] 6 Hen. VIII. cap. 16.

[219] The session lasted six weeks only, and several of the subjects of the
petition were disposed of in the course of it, as we shall see.

[220] The MS. from which I have transcribed this copy is itself imperfect,
as will be seen in the "reply of the Bishops," which supplies several
omitted articles. See p. 137, et seq. It is in the Rolls House.

[221] The penny, as I have shown, equalled, in terms of a poor man's
necessities, a shilling. See chap. i.

[222] See instance's in HALE: p, 62, _Omnium Sanctorum in muro_.--M.
Gulielmus Edward curatus notatur officio quod recusat ministrare sacramenta
ecelesiastica ægrotantibus nisi prius habitis pecuniis pro suo labore: p.
64, _St. Mary Magdalen_.--Curatus notatur officio prbpter quod recusavit
solemnizare matrrimonium quousque habet pro hujusmodi solemnizatione, _3s.
8d._; and see pp. 52, 75.

[223] I give many instances of this practice in my sixth chapter. It was a
direct breach of the statute of Henry IV., which insists on all
examinations for heresy being conducted in open court. "The diocesan and
his commissaries," says that act, "shall openly and judicially proceed
against persons arrested."--2 Hen. IV. c. 15.

[224] Again breaking the statute of Hen. IV., which limited the period of
imprisonment previous to public trial to three months.--2 Hen. IV. c. 15.

[225] To be disposed of at Smithfield. Abjuration was allowed once. For a
second offence there was no forgiveness.

[226] Petition of the Commons. _Rolls House MS._

[227] See STRYPE, _Eccles. Memorials_, vol. i. p. 191-2,--who is very
eloquent in his outcries upon his subject.

[228] _Answer of the Bishops_, p. 204, etc.

[229] Explanations are not easy; but the following passage may suggest the
meaning of the House of Commons:--"The holy Father Prior of Maiden Bradley
hath but six children, and but one daughter married yet of the goods of the
monastery; trusting shortly to marry the rest."--Dr. Leyton to Cromwell:
_Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 58.

[230] Reply of the Bishops, infra.

[231] CAVENDISH, _Life of Wolsey_, p. 390. MORE'S _Life of More_, p. 109.

[232] Populus diu oblatrans. Fox to Wolsey. STRYPE, _Eccl. Mem._ vol. i.
Appendix, p. 27.

[233] RYMER, vol. vi. part 2, p. 119.

[234] The answer of the Ordinaries to the supplication of the worshipful
the Commons of the Lower House of Parliament offered to our Sovereign Lord
the King's most noble Grace.--_Rolls House MS._

[235] The terms of the several articles of complaint are repeated verbally
from the petition. I condense them to spare recapitulation.

[236] 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15; 2 Hen. V. cap. 7.

[237] An Act that no person shall be cited out of the diocese in which he
dwells, except in certain cases. It received the Royal assent two years
later. See 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 9.

[238] 21 Hen. VIII. cap. 5. An Act concerning fines and sums of money to be
taken by the ministers of bishops and other ordinaries of holy church for
the probate of testaments.

[239] HALE, _Precedents_, p. 86.

[240] Ibid.

[241] 21 Hen. VIII. cap. 6. An Act concerning the taking of mortuaries, or
demanding, receiving, or claiming the same.

In Scotland the usual mortuary was, a cow and the uppermost cloth or
counterpane on the bed in which the death took place. A bishop reprimanding
a suspected clergyman for his leaning toward the Reformation, said to
him:--

"My joy, Dean Thomas, I am informed that ye preach the epistle and gospel
every Sunday to your parishioners, and that ye take not the cow nor the
upmost cloth from your parishioners; which thing is very prejudicial to the
churchmen. And therefore, Dean Thomas, I would ye took your cow and upmost
cloth, or else it is too much to preach every Sunday, for in so doing ye
may make the people think we should preach likewise."--CALDERWOOD, vol. i.
p. 126.

The bishop had to burn Dean Thomas at last, being unable to work conviction
into him in these matters.

[242] 21 Hen. VIII. cap. 13. An Act that no spiritual person shall take
farms; or buy and sell for lucre and profit; or keep tan-houses or
breweries. And for pluralities of benefices and for residence.

[243] HALL, p. 767.

[244] Ibid. 766

[245] Ibid. 767.

[246] Ibid. 766.

[247] Ibid. 768.

[248] So reluctant was he, that at one time he had resolved, rather than
compromise the unity of Christendom, to give way. When the disposition of
the court of Rome was no longer doubtful, "his difficultatibus permotus,
cum in hoc statu res essent, dixerunt qui ejus verba exceperunt, post
profundam secum de universo negotio deliberationem et mentis agitationem,
tandem in hæc verba prorupisse, se primum tentâsse illud divortium
persuasum ecclesiam Romanam hoc idem probaturum--quod si ita ilia
abhorreret ab illâ sententiâ ut nullo modo permittendum censeret se nolle
cum eâ contendere neque amplius in illo negotio progredi."

Pole, on whose authority we receive these words, says that they were heard
with almost unanimous satisfaction at the council board. The moment of
hesitation was, it is almost certain, at the crisis which preceded or
attended Wolsey's fall. It endured but for three days, and was dispelled by
the influence of Cromwell, who tempted both the king and parliament into
their fatal revolt.--POLI _Apologia ad Carolum Quintum_.

[249] LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 446. The censures were threatened in the first
brief, but the menace was withdrawn under the impression that it was not
needed.

[250] Ibid. The second brief is dated March 7, and declares that the king,
if he proceeds, shall incur ipso facto the greater excommunication; that
the kingdom will fall under an interdict.

[251] Cranmer was born in 1489, and was thus forty years old when he first
emerged into eminence.

[252] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 226.

[253] Je croy qu'il ne feist en sa vie ceremonie qui luy touchast si prés
du coeur, ne dont je pense qu'il luy doive advenir moins du bien. Car
aucunes fois qu'il pensoit qu'on ne le regardast, il faisoit de si grands
soupirs que pour pesante que fust sa chappe, il la faisoit bransler à bon
escient.--_Lettre de M. de Gramont, Evêque de Tarbès._ LEGRAND, vol. iii.
p. 386.

[254] ELLIS, _Third Series_, vol. ii. p. 98. "In the letters showed us by
M. de Buclans from the emperor, of the which mention was made in ciphers,
it was written in terms that the French king would offer unto your Grace
the papalite of France vel Patriarchate, for the French men would no more
obey the Church of Rome."--Lee to Wolsey.

[255] A ce qu'il m'en a declaré des fois plus de trois en secret, il seroit
content que le dit mariage fust ja faict, ou par dispense du Legat
d'Angleterre ou autrement; mais que ce ne fust par son autorité, in aussi
diminuant sa puissance, quant aux dispenses, et limitation de droict
divin.--_Dechiffrement de Lettres de M. de Tarbès._--LEGRAND, vol. iii. p.
408.

[256] LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 408.

[257] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 230.

[258] The Bishop of Tarbès to the King of France. LEGRAND, vol. iii. p.
401.

[259] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 234.

[260] Ibid. p. 235.

[261] We demand a service of you which it is your duty to concede; and your
first thought is lest you should offend the emperor. We do not blame _him_.
That in such a matter he should be influenced by natural affection is
intelligible and laudable. But for that very reason we decline to submit to
so partial a judgment.--Henry VIII. to the Pope: BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p.
431.

[262] LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 394.

[263] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 317.

[264] For Croke's Mission, see BURNET, vol. i. p. 144 e.

[265] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 241.

[266] Friar Pallavicino to the Bishop of Bath. _Rolls House MS._

[267] Croke and Omnibow to the King. _Rolls House MS._

[268] Generalis magister nostri ordinis mandavit omnibus suæ religionis
professoribus, ut nullus audeat de auctoritate Pontificis quicquam loqui.
Denique Orator Cæsareus in talia verba prorupit, quibus facile cognovi ut
me a Pontifice vocari studeat et tunc timendum esset saluti meæ. Father
Omnibow to Henry VIII. _Rolls House MS._

[269] BURNET'S _Collect._ p. 50. Burnet labours to prove that on Henry's
side there was no bribery, and that the emperor was the only offender; an
examination of many MS. letters from Croke and other agents in Italy leads
me to believe that, although the emperor only had recourse to intimidation,
because he alone was able to practise it, the bribery was equally shared
between both parties.

[270] LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 458. The Grand Master to the King of
France:--De l'autre part, adventure il n'est moins a craindre, que le Roy
d'Angleterre, irrité de trop longues dissimulations, trouvast moyen de
parvenir a ses intentions du consentement de l'Empereur, et que par
l'advenement d'un tiers _se fissent ami, Herode et Pilate_.

[271] Ibid. vol. iii. p. 467, etc.

[272] Letter from the King of France to the President of the Parliament of
Paris. _Rolls House MS._

[273] Letter from Reginald Pole to Henry VIII. _Rolls House MS._

[274] Pole to Henry VIII. _Rolls House MS._

[275] BURNET, _Collectanea_, p. 429.

[276] _State Papers_, vol. i. p. 377.

[277] BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 436; _State Papers_, vol. i. p. 378.

[278] It is not good to stir a hornet's nest.

[279] BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 431.

[280] Ibid. p. 48.

[281] Preface to LATIMER'S _Sermons_. Parker Society's edition, p. 3.

[282] "King Harry loved a man," was an English proverb to the close of the
century. See SIR ROBERT NAUNTON'S _Fragmenta Regalia_, London, 1641, p. 14.

[283] Sir George Throgmorton, who distinguished himself by his opposition
to the Reformation in the House of Commons.

[284] BURNET'S _Collect_, p. 429.

[285] _A Glasse of Truth._

[286] Ibid. p. 144.

[287] 35 Ed. I.; 25 Ed. III. stat. 4; stat. 5, cap. 22; 27 Ed. III. stat.
1; 13 Ric. II. stat. 2, cap. 2; 16 Ric. II. cap. 5; 9 Hen. IV. cap. 8.

[288] CAVENDISH, p. 276.

Gardiner has left some noticeable remarks on this subject.

"Whether," he says, "a king may command against a common law or an act of
parliament, there is never a judge or other man in the realm ought to know
more by experience of that the laws have said than I.

"First, my Lord Cardinal, that obtained his legacy by our late Sovereign
Lord's requirements at Rome, yet, because it was against the laws of the
realm, the judges concluded the offence of Premunire, which matter I bare
away, and took it for a law of the realm, because the lawyers said so, but
my reason digested it not. The lawyers, for confirmation of their doings,
brought in the case of Lord Tiptoft. An earl he was, and learned in the
civil laws, who being chancellor, because in execution of the king's
commandment he offended the laws of the realm, suffered on Tower Hill. They
brought in examples of many judges that had fines set on their heads in
like cases for transgression of laws by the king's commandment, and this I
learned in that case.

"Since that time being of the council, when many proclamations were devised
against the carriers out of corn, when it came to punish the offender, the
judges would answer it might not be by the law, because the Act of
Parliament gave liberty, wheat being under a price. Whereupon at last
followed the Act of Proclamations, in the passing whereof were many large
words spoken."

After mentioning other cases, he goes on:--

"I reasoned once in the parliament house, where there was free speech
without danger, and the Lord Audely, to satisfy me, because I was in some
secret estimation, as he knew, 'Thou art a good fellow, Bishop,' quoth he;
'look at the Act of Supremacy, and there the king's doings be restrained to
spiritual jurisdiction; and in another act no spiritual law shall have
place contrary to a common law, or an act of parliament. And this were
not,' quoth he, 'you bishops would enter in with the king, and by means of
his supremacy order the laws as ye listed. But we will provide,' quoth he,
'that the premunire shall never go off your heads.' This I bare away then,
and held my peace."--Gardiner to the Protector Somerset: _MS. Harleian_,
417.

[289] 13 Ric. II. stat. 2, cap. 2. Et si le Roi envoie par lettre on en
autre maniere a la Courte du Rome al excitacion dascune person, parount que
la contrarie de cest estatut soit fait touchant ascune dignité de Sainte
Eglise, si celuy qui fait tiel excitacion soit Prelate de Sainte Eglise,
paie au Roy le value de ses temporalitees dun an. The petition of
parliament which occasioned the statute is even more emphatic: Perveuz tout
foitz que par nulle traite ou composition a faire entre le Seint Pere le
Pape et notre Seigneur le Roy que riens soit fait a contraire en prejudice
de cest Estatute a faire. Et si ascune Seigneur Espirituel ou Temporel ou
ascune persone quiconque de qu'elle condition q'il soit, enforme, ensence
ou excite le Roi ou ses heirs, l'anientiser, adnuller ou repeller cest
Estatut a faire, et de ceo soit atteint par due proces du loy que le
Seigneur Espirituel eit la peyne sus dite, etc.--_Rolls of Parliament_,
Ric. II. 13.

[290] Even further, as chancellor the particular duty had been assigned to
him of watching over the observance of the act.

Et le chancellor que pur le temps serra a quelle heure que pleint a luy ou
a conseill le Roy soit fait d'ascunes des articles sus ditz par ascune
persone que pleindre soy voudra granta briefs sur le cas ou commissions a
faire au covenables persones, d'oier et terminer les ditz articles sur
peyne de perdre son office et jamais estre mys en office le Roy et perdre
mille livres a lever a l'oeps le Roy si de ce soit atteint par du
proces.--_Rolls of Parliament_, Ric. II. 13.

[291] BURNET, vol. iii. p. 77. See a summary of the acts of this
Convocation in a sermon of Latimer's preached before the two Houses in
1536. LATIMER'S _Sermons_, p. 45.

[292] The king, considering what good might come of reading of the New
Testament and following the same; and what evil might come of the reading
of the same if it were evil translated, and not followed; came into the
Star Chamber the five-and-twentieth day of May; and then communed with his
council and the prelates concerning the cause. And after long debating, it
was alleged that the translations of Tyndal and Joy were not truly
translated, and also that in them were prologues and prefaces that sounded
unto heresy, and railed against the bishops uncharitably. Wherefore all
such books were prohibited, and commandment given by the king to the
bishops, that they, calling to them the best learned men of the
universities, should cause a new translation to be made, so that the people
should not be ignorant of the law of God.--HALL, p. 771. And see WARHAM'S
_Register_ for the years 1529-1531. MS. Lambeth.

[293] 22 Hen. VIII. cap. 15.

[294] BURNET, vol. iii. p. 78.

[295] _State Papers_, vol. vii. 457.

[296] Memoranda relating to the Clergy: _Rolls House MS._

[297] BURNET, vol. iii. p. 80.

[298] The King's Highness, having always tender eyes with mercy and pity
and compassion towards his spiritual subjects, minding of his high goodness
and great benignity so always to impart the same unto them, as justice
being duly administered, all rigour be excluded; and the great benevolent
minds of his said subjects [having been] largely and many times approved
towards his Highness, and specially in their Convocation and Synod now
presently being in the Chapter House of Westminster, his Highness, of his
said benignity and high liberality, in consideration that the said
Convocation has given and granted unto him a subsidy of one hundred
thousand pounds, is content to grant his general pardon to the clergy and
the province of Canterbury, for all offences against the statute and
premunire.--22 Hen. VIII. cap. 15.

[299] BURNET, vol. 1. p. 185.

[300] An instance is reported in the Chronicle of the Grey Friars ten years
previously. The punishment was the same as that which was statutably
enacted in the case of Rouse.

[301] HALL, p. 781.

[302] Most shocking when the _wrong persons_ were made the victims; and
because clerical officials were altogether incapable of detecting the
_right persons_, the memory of the practice has become abhorrent to all
just men. I suppose, however, that, if the _right persons_ could have been
detected, even the stake itself would not have been too tremendous a
penalty for the destroying of human souls.

[303] 22 Hen. VIII. cap. 10.

[304] See a very curious pamphlet on this subject, by SIR FRANCIS PALGRAVE.
It is called _The Confessions of Richard Bishop, Robert Seymour, and Sir
Edward Neville, before the Privy Council, touching Prophecie, Necromancy,
and Treasure-trove_.

[305] Miscellaneous Depositions on the State Of the Country: _Rolls House
MS._

[306] See the Preamble of the Bill against conjurations, witchcraft,
sorceries, and enchantments.--33 Hen. VIII. cap. 8.

Also "the Bill touching Prophecies upon Arms and Badges."--33 Hen. VIII.
cap. 14.

A similar edict expelled the gipsies from Germany. At the Diet of Spires,
June 10, 1544.

Statutum est ne vagabundum hominum genus quos vulgo Saracenos vocant per
Germaniam oberrare sinatur _usu enim compertum est eos exploratores et
proditores esse.--State Papers_, vol. ix. p. 705.

[307] ELLIS, first series, vol. ii. p. 101.

[308] Bulla pro Johanne Scot, qui sine cibo et potu per centum et sex dies
vixerat.--RYMER, vol. vi. part 2, p. 176.

[309] BUCHANAN, _History of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 156.

[310] _Letter of Archbishop Cranmer._--ELLIS, second series, vol. ii. p.
314.

[311] _Statutes of the Realm._ 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.

[312] Extracts from a Narrative containing an Account of Elizabeth Barton:
_Rolls House MS._

[313] _Statutes of the Realm._

[314] _Rolls House MS._

[315] Ibid.

[316] _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 19.

[317] Ibid.

[318] Proceedings connected with Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._

[319] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.

[320] Ibid.

[321] Ibid.

[322] _Cranmer's Letter._ ELLIS, third series, vol. iii. p. 315.

[323] More to Cromwell: BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 350.

[324] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.

[325] Confessions of Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._ Sir Thomas More
gave her a double ducat to pray for him and his. BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p.
352. Moryson, in his _Apomaxis_, declares that she had a regular
understanding with the confessors at the Priory. When penitents came to
confess, they were detained while a priest conveyed what they had
acknowledged to the Nun; and when afterwards they were admitted to her
presence, she amazed them with repeating their own confessions.

[326] The said Elizabeth subtilly and craftily conceiving the opinion and
mind of the said Edward Bocking, willing to please him, revealed and showed
unto the said Edward that God was highly displeased with our said sovereign
lord the king for this matter; and in case he desisted not from his
proceeding in the said divorce and separation, but pursued the same and
married again, that then within one month after such marriage, he should no
longer be king of this realm; and in the reputation of Almighty God he
should not be a king one day nor one hour, and that he should die a
villain's death. Saying further, that there was a root with three branches,
and till they were plucked up it should never be merry in England:
interpreting the root to be the late lord cardinal, and the first branch to
be the king our sovereign lord, the second the Duke of Norfolk, and the
third the Duke of Suffolk.--25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.

[327] Revelations of Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._ In the epitome of
the book of her Revelations it is stated that there was a story in it "of
an angel that appeared, and bade the Nun go unto the king, that infidel
prince of England, and say that I command him to amend his life, and that
he leave three things which he loveth and pondereth upon, _i.e._, that he
take none of the pope's right nor patrimony from him; the second that he
destroy all these new folks of opinion and the works of their new learning;
the third, that if he married and took Anne to wife, the vengeance of God
should plague him; and as she sayth she shewed this unto the king."--Paper
on the Nun of Kent: _MS. Cotton, Cleopatra_, E 4.

[328] ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 137. Warham had promised to marry
Henry to Anne Boleyn. The Nun frightened him into a refusal by a pretended
message from an angel.--_MS._ ibid.

[329] The Nun hath practised with two of the pope's ambassadors within this
realm, and hath sent to the pope that if he did not do his duty in
reformation of kings, God would destroy him at a certain day which he had
appointed. By reason whereof it is supposed that the pope hath showed
himself so double and so deceivable to the King's Grace in his great cause
of marriage as he hath done, contrary to all truth, justice, and equity. As
likewise the late cardinal of England, and the Archbishop of Canterbury,
being very well-minded to further and set at an end the marriage which the
King's Grace now enjoyeth, according to their spiritual duty, were
prevented by the false revelations of the said Nun. And that the said
Bishop of Canterbury was so minded may be proved by divers which knew then
his towardness.--Narrative of the Proceedings of Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls
House MS._

[330] Note of the Revelations of Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._

[331] HALL, p. 780.

[332] RYMER, vol. vi. p. 160. We are left to collateral evidence to fix the
place of this petition, the official transcriber having contented himself
with the substance, and omitted the date. The original, as appears from the
pope's reply (LORD HERBERT, p. 145), bore the date of July 13; and unless a
mistake was made in transcribing the papal brief, this was July, 1530. I
have ventured to assume a mistake, and to place the petition in the
following year, because the judgment of the universities, to which it
refers, was not completed till the winter of 1530; they were not read in
parliament till March 30, 1531; and it seems unlikely that a petition of so
great moment would have been presented on an incomplete case, or before the
additional support of the House of Commons had been secured. I am far from
satisfied, however, that I am right in making the change. The petition must
have been drawn up (though it need not have been presented) in 1530; since
it bears the signature of Wolsey, who died in the November of that year.

[333] Mademoiselle de Boleyn est venue; et l'a le Roy logée en fort beau
logis; et qu'il a faict bien accoustrer tout auprés du sien. Et luy est la
cour faicte ordinairement tous les jours plus grosse que de long temps elle
ne fut faicte a la Royne. Je crois bien qu'on veult accoutumer par les
petie ce peuple à l'endurer, afin que quand ivendra à donner les grands
coups, il ne les trouve si estrange. Toutefois il demeure tous jours
endurcy, et croy bien qu'il feroit plus qu'il ne faict si plus il avoit de
puissance; mais grand ordre se donne par tout.--Bishop of Bayonne to the
Grand Master: LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 231.

[334] HALL, p. 781.

[335] It seems to have been his favourite place of retirement. The gardens
and fishponds were peculiarly elaborate and beautiful.--Sir John Russell to
Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office._

[336] Also it is a proverb of old date--"The pride of France, the treason
of England, and the war of Ireland, shall never have end." _State Papers_,
vol. ii. p. 11

[337] There was a secret ambassador with the Scots king from the emperour,
who had long communicated with the king alone in his privy chamber. And
after the ambassador's departure the king, coming out into his outer
chamber, said to his chancellor and the Earl Bothwell, "My lords, how much
are we bounden unto the emperour that in the matter concerning our style,
which so long he hath set about for our honour, that shall be by him
discussed on Easter day, and that we may lawfully write ourself Prince of
England and Duke of York." To which the chancellor said, "I pray God the
pope confirm the same." The Scots king answered, "Let the emperour
alone."--Earl of Northumberland to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, vol. iv. p.
599.

[338] HALL, p. 783.

[339] "The bishop was brought in desperation of his life."--_Rolls House
MS._, second series, 532. This paper confirms Hall's account in every
point.

[340] HALL, p. 796.

[341] BURNET, vol. iii. p. 115.

[342] Warham was however fined £300 for it.--HALL, 796. A letter of Richard
Tracy, son of the dead man, is in the _MS. State Paper Office_, first
series, vol. iv. He says the King's Majesty had committed the investigation
of the matter to Cromwell.

[343] LATIMER'S _Sermons_, p. 46.

[344] Cap. iii.

[345] 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.

[346] 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 9.

[347] Be it further enacted that no archbishop or bishop, official,
commissary, or any other minister, having spiritual jurisdiction, shall
ask, demand, or receive of any of the king's subjects any sum or sums of
money for the seal of any citizen, but only threepence sterling.--23 Hen.
VIII. cap. 9.

[348] 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 10.--By a separate clause all covenants to defraud
the purposes of this act were declared void, and the act itself was to be
interpreted "as beneficially as might be, to the destruction and utter
avoiding of such uses, intents, and purposes."

[349] Annates or firstfruits were first suffered to be taken within the
realm for the only defence of Christian people against infidels; and now
they be claimed and demanded as mere duty only for lucre, against all right
and conscience.--23 Hen. VIII. cap. 20.

[350] 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 20.

[351] It hath happened many times by occasion of death unto archbishops or
bishops newly promoted within two or three years after their consecration,
that their friends by whom they have been holpen to make payment have been
utterly undone and impoverished.--23 Henry VIII. cap. 20.

[352] _M. de la Pomeroy to Cardinal Tournon._

"London, March 23, 1531-2.

"My Lord,--I sent two letters to your lordship on the 20th of this month.
Since that day Parliament has been prorogued, and will not meet again till
after Easter.

"It has been determined that the Pope's Holiness shall receive no more
annates, and the collectors' office is to be abolished. Everything is
turning against the Holy See, but the King has shown no little skill; the
Lords and Commons have left the final decision of the question at his
personal pleasure, and the Pope is to understand that, if he will do
nothing for the King, the King has the means of making him suffer. The
clergy in convocation have consented to nothing, nor will they, till they
know the pleasure of their master the Holy Father; but the other estates
being agreed, the refusal of the clergy is treated as of no consequence.

"Many other rights and privileges of the Church are abolished also, too
numerous to mention."--MS. Bibliot. Impér. Paris.

[353] STRYPE, _Eccles. Mem._, vol. i. part 2, p. 158.

[354] Ibid.

[355] Sir George Throgmorton, Sir William Essex, Sir John Giffard, Sir
Marmaduke Constable, with many others, spoke and voted in opposition to the
government. They had a sort of club at the Queen's Head by Temple Bar,
where they held discussions in secret, "and when we did commence," said
Throgmorton, "we did bid the servants of the house go out, and likewise our
own servants, because we thought it not convenient that they should hear us
speak of such matters."--Throgmorton to the King: _MS. State Paper Office._

[356] 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 20.

[357] Printed in STRYPE, _Eccles. Mem._, vol. i. p. 201. Strype, knowing
nothing of the first answer, and perceiving in the second an allusion to
one preceding, has supposed that this answer followed the third and last,
and was in fact a retractation of it. All obscurity is removed when the
three replies are arranged in their legitimate order.

[358] STRYPE, _Eccles. Mem._, vol. i. p. 199, etc.

[359] 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 20.

[360] STOW, p. 562.

[361] "In connection with the Annates Act, the question of appeals to Rome
had been discussed in the present session. Sir George Throgmorton had
spoken on the papal side, and in his subsequent confession he mentioned a
remarkable interview which he had had with More.

"After I had reasoned to the Bill of Appeals," he said, "Sir Thomas More,
then being chancellor, sent for me to come and speak with him in the
parliament chamber. And when I came to him he was in a little chamber
within the parliament chamber, where, as I remember, stood an altar, or a
thing like unto an altar, whereupon he did lean and, as I do think, the
same time the Bishop of Bath was talking with him. And then he said this to
me, I am very glad to hear the good report that goeth of you, and that ye
be so good a Catholic man as ye be. And if ye do continue in the same way
that ye begin, and be not afraid to say your conscience, ye shall deserve
great reward of God, and thanks of the King's Grace at length, and much
worship to yourself."--Throgmorton to the King: _MS. State Paper Office_.

[362] In part of it he speaks in his own person. Vide supra, cap. 3.

[363] BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 435.

[364] Note of the Revelations of Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._

[365] It has been thought that the Tudor princes and their ministers
carried out the spy system to an iniquitous extent,--that it was the great
instrument of their Machiavellian policy, introduced by Cromwell, and
afterwards developed by Cecil and Walsingham. That both Cromwell and
Walsingham availed themselves of secret information, is unquestionable,--as
I think it is also unquestionable that they would have betrayed the
interests of their country if they had neglected to do so. Nothing, in
fact, except their skill in fighting treason with its own weapons, saved
England from a repetition of the wars of the Roses, envenomed with the
additional fury of religious fanaticism. But the agents of Cromwell, at
least, were all volunteers;--their services were rather checked than
encouraged; and when I am told, by high authority, that in those times an
accusation was equivalent to a sentence of death, I am compelled to lay so
sweeping a charge of injustice by the side of a document which forces me to
demur to it. "In the reign of the Tudors," says a very eminent writer, "the
committal, arraignment, conviction, and execution of any state prisoner,
accused or _suspected, or under suspicion of being suspected_ of high
treason, were only the regular terms in the series of judicial
proceedings." This is scarcely to be reconciled with the 10th of the 37th
of Hen. VIII., which shows no desire to welcome accusations, or exaggerated
readiness to listen to them.

"Whereas," says that Act, "divers malicious and evil disposed persons of
their perverse, cruel, and malicious intents, minding the utter undoing of
some persons to whom they have and do bear malice, hatred, and evil will,
have of late most devilishly practised and devised divers writings, wherein
hath been comprised that the same persons to whom they bear malice should
speak traitorous words against the King's Majesty, his crown and dignity,
or commit divers heinous and detestable treasons against the King's
Highness, where, in very deed, the persons so accused never spake nor
committed any such offence; by reason whereof divers of the king's true,
faithful, and loving subjects have been put in fear and dread of their
lives and of the loss and forfeiture of their lands and chattels--for
reformation hereof, be it enacted, that if any person or persons, of what
estate, degree, or condition he or they shall be, shall at any time
hereafter devise, make, or write, or cause to be made any manner of writing
comprising that any person has spoken, committed, or done any offence or
offences which now by the laws of this realm be made treason, or that
hereafter shall be made treason, and do not subscribe, or cause to be
subscribed, his true name to the said writing, and within twelve days next
after ensuing do not personally come before the king or his council, and
affirm the contents of the said writings to be true, and do as much as in
him shall be for the approvement of the same, that then all and every
person or persons offending as aforesaid, shall be deemed and adjudged a
felon or felons; and being lawfully convicted of such offence, after the
laws of the realm, shall suffer pains of death and loss and forfeiture of
lands, goods, and chattels, without benefit of clergy or privilege of
sanctuary to be admitted or allowed in that behalf."

[366] Accusation brought by Robert Wodehouse, Prior of Whitby, against the
Abbot, for slanderous words against Anne Boleyn: _Rolls House MS._

[367] Deposition of Robert Legate concerning the Language of the Monks of
Furness: _Rolls House MS._

[368] ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 254.

[369] Father Forest hath laboured divers manner of ways to expulse Father
Laurence out of the convent, and his chief cause is, because he knoweth
that Father Laurence will preach the king's matter whensoever it shall
please his Grace to command him.--Ibid. p. 250.

[370] Ibid. p. 251.

[371] Lyst to Cromwell. Ibid. p. 255. STRYPE, _Eccles. Memor._, vol. i.
Appendix, No. 47.

[372] STOW'S _Annals_, p. 562. This expression passed into a proverb,
although the words were first spoken by a poor friar; they were the last
which the good Sir Humfrey Gilbert was heard to utter before his ship went
down.

[373] Vaughan to Cromwell: _State Papers,_ vol. vii. p. 489-90. "I learn
that this book was first drawn by the Bishop of Rochester, and so being
drawn, was by the said bishop afterwards delivered in England to two
Spaniards, being secular and laymen. They receiving his first draught,
either by themselves or some other Spaniards, altered and perfinished the
same into the form that it now is; Peto and one Friar Elstowe of
Canterbury, being the only men that have and do take upon themselves to be
conveyers of the same books into England, and conveyers of all other things
into and out of England. If privy search be made, and shortly, peradventure
in the house of the same bishop shall be found his first copy. Master More
hath sent oftentimes and lately books unto Peto, in Antwerp--as his book of
the confutation of Tyndal, and of Frith's opinion of the sacrament, with
divers other books. I can no further learn of More's practices, but if you
consider this well, you may perchance espy his craft. Peto laboureth
busylier than a bee in the setting forth of this book. He never ceaseth
running to and from the court here. The king never had in his realm
traitors like his friars--[Vaughan wrote "clergy." The word in the original
is dashed through, and "friars" is substituted, whether by Cromwell or by
himself in an afterthought, I do not know]--and so I have always said, and
yet do. Let his Grace look well about him, for they seek to devour him.
They have blinded his Grace."

[374] ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 262, etc.

[375] The wishes of the French Court had been expressed emphatically to
Clement in the preceding January. Original copies of the two following
letters are in the Bibliothèque Impérial at Paris:--

_The Cardinal of Lorraine to Cardinal ---- at Rome._

"Paris, Jan. 8, 1531-2.

"RIGHT REVEREND FATHER AND LORD IN CHRIST.--After our most humble
commendations--The King of England complains loudly that his cause is not
remanded into his own country; he says that it cannot be equitably dealt
with at Rome, where he cannot be present. He himself, the Queen, and the
other witnesses, are not to be dragged into Italy to give their evidence;
and the suits of the Sovereigns of England and France have always hitherto
been determined in their respective countries.

"Nevertheless, by no entreaty can we prevail on the Pope to nominate
impartial judges who will decide the question in England.

"The King's personal indignation is not the only evil which has to be
feared. When these proceedings are known among the people, there will,
perhaps, be a revolt, and the Apostolic See may receive an injury which
will not afterwards be easily remedied.

"I have explained these things more at length to his Holiness, as my duty
requires. Your affection towards him, my lord, I am assured is no less than
mine. I beseech you, therefore, use your best endeavours with his Holiness,
that the King of England may no longer have occasion to exclaim against
him. In so doing you will gratify the Most Christian King, and you will
follow the course most honourable to yourself and most favourable to the
quiet of Christendom.

"From Abbeville."

_Francis the First to Pope Clement the Seventh._

"Paris, Jan. 10, 1531-2.

"MOST HOLY FATHER,--You are not ignorant what our good brother and ally the
King of England demands at your hands. He requires that the cognisance of
his marriage be remanded to his own realm, and that he be no further
pressed to pursue the process at Rome. The place is inconvenient from its
distance, and there are other good and reasonable objections which he
assures us that he has urged upon your Holiness's consideration.

"Most Holy Father, we have written several times to you, especially of late
from St. Cloud, and afterwards from Chantilly, in our good brother's
behalf; and we have further entreated you, through our ambassador residing
at your Court, to put an end to this business as nearly according to the
wishes of our said good brother as is compatible with the honour of
Almighty God. We have made this request of you as well for the affection
and close alliance which exist between ourselves and our brother, as for
the filial love and duty with which we both in common regard your Holiness.

"Seeing, nevertheless, Most Holy Father, that the affair in question is
still far from settlement, and knowing our good brother to be displeased
and dissatisfied, we fear that some great scandal and inconvenience may
arise at last which may cause the diminution of your Holiness's authority.
There is no longer that ready obedience to the Holy See in England which
was offered to your predecessors; and yet your Holiness persists in citing
my good brother the King of England to plead his cause before you in Rome.
Surely it is not without cause that he calls such treatment of him
unreasonable. We have ourselves examined into the law in this matter, and
we are assured that your Holiness's claim is unjust and contrary to the
privilege of kings. For a sovereign to leave his realm and plead as a
suitor in Rome, is a thing wholly impossible,[377] and therefore, Holy
Father, we have thought good to address you once more in this matter. Bear
with us, we entreat you. Consider our words, and recall to your memory what
by letter and through our ministers we have urged upon you. Look promptly
to our brother's matter, and so act that your Holiness may be seen to value
and esteem our friendship. What you do for him, or what you do against him,
we shall take it as done to ourselves.

"Holy Father, we will pray the Son of God to pardon and long preserve your
Holiness to rule and govern our Holy Mother the Church.--FRANCIS."

[376] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 428. LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[377] Chose beaucoup plus impossible que possible.

[378] LORD HERBERT, p. 160. RYMER, vol. vi. part ii. p. 171.

[379] Francis seems to have desired that the intention of the interview
should be kept secret. Henry found this impossible. "Monseigneur," wrote
the Bishop of Paris to the Grand Master, "quant à tenir la chose secrette
comme vous le demandez, il est mal aisé; combien que ce Roy fust bien de
cest advis, sinon qu'il le treuve impossible; car a cause de ces provisions
et choses, qu'il fault faire en ce Royaulme, incontinent sera sceu a
Londres, et de la par tout le monde. Pourquoy ne faictes vostre compte
qu'on le puisse tenir secret.

"Monseigneur, je sçay veritablement et de bon lieu que le plus grant
plaisir que le Roy pourroit faire au Roy son frere et a Madame Anne, c'est
que le dit seigneur m'escripre que je requiere le Roy son dit frere qu'il
veuille mener la dicte Dame Anne avec luy a Callais pour la veoir et pour
la festoyer, afin qu'ils ne demeurrent ensembles sans compagnie de dames,
pour ce que les bonnes cheres en sont tous jours meilleures: mais il
fauldroit que en pareil le Roy menast la Royne de Navarre à Boulogne, pour
festoyer le Roy d'Angleterre.

"Quant à la Royne pour rien ce Roy ne vouldroit qu'elle vint: Il häit cest
habillement à l'Espagnolle, tant qu'il luy semble veoir un diable. Il
desireroit qu'il pleust au Roy mener à Boulogne, messeigneurs ses enfans
pour les veoir.

"Surtout je vous prie que vous ostez de la court deux sortes de gens, ceulx
qui sont imperiaulx, s'aucuns en y a, et ceux qui ont la reputation d'estre
mocqueurs et gaudisseurs, car c'est bien la chose en ce monde autant häie
de ceste nation."--Bishop of Paris to the Grand Master: LEGRAND, vol. iii.
pp. 555, 556.

[380] Sir Gregory Cassalis to Henry VIII.: BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 433.
Valde existimabam necessarium cum hoc Principe (_i.e._, Francis) agere ut
duobus Cardinalibus daret in mandatis ut ante omnes Cardinalis de Monte
meminissent, eique pensionem annuam saltem trium millium aureorum ex
quadraginta millibus quæ mihi dixerat velle in Cardinales distribuere,
assignaret. Et Rex quidem hæc etiam scribi ad duos Cardinales jussit
secretario Vitandri. Quicum ego postmodo super iis pensionibus sermonem
habui, cognovique sic in animo Regem habere ut duo Cardinales cum Romæ
fuerint, videant, qui potissimum digni hâc Regiâ sint liberalitate; in
eosque quum quid in Regno Galliæ ecclesiasticum vacare contigerit ex
meritis uniuscujusque pensiones conferantur. Tunc autem nihil in promptu
haberi quod Cardinali de Monte dari possit--verum Regio nomine illi de
futuro esse promittendum quod mihi certe summopere displicuit; et
secretario Vitandri non reticui ostendens pollicitationes hujusmodi centies
jam Cardinali de Monte factas fuisse; et modo si iterum fiant nihil
effecturas nisi ut illius viri quasi ulcera pertractent; id quod Vitandris
verum esse fatebatur pollicitusque est se, quum Rex a venatu rediisset
velle ei suadere ut Cardinalem de Monte aliquâ presenti pensione
prosequatur; quâ quidem tibi nihil conducibilius aut opportunius fieri
possit.

[381] _State Papers_, vol. iv. p. 612.

[382] Ibid, p. 616.

[383] The _State Papers_ contain a piteous picture of this business, the
hereditary feuds of centuries bursting out on the first symptoms of
ill-will between the two governments, with fire and devastation.--_State
Papers_, vol. iv. p. 620-644.

[384] If the said Earl of Angus do make unto us oath of allegiance, and
recognises us as Supreme Lord of Scotland, and as his prince and sovereign,
we then, the said earl doing the premises, by these presents bind ourself
to pay yearly to the said earl the sum of one thousand pounds
sterling.--Henry VIII. to the Earl of Angus: _State Papers_, vol. iv. p.
613.

[385] A letter of Queen Catherine to the Emperor, written on the occasion
of this visit, will be read with interest:--

"HIGH AND MIGHTY LORD,--Although your Majesty is occupied with your own
affairs and with your preparations against the Turk, I cannot,
nevertheless, refrain from troubling you with mine, which perhaps in
substance and in the sight of God are of equal importance. Your Majesty
knows well, that God hears those who do him service, and no greater service
can be done than to procure an end in this business. It does not concern
only ourselves--it concerns equally all who fear God. None can measure the
woes which will fall on Christendom, if his Holiness will not act in it and
act promptly. The signs are all around us in new printed books full of lies
and dishonesty--in the resolution to proceed with the cause here in
England--in the interview of these two princes, where the king, my lord, is
covering himself with infamy through the companion which he takes with him.
The country is full of terror and scandal; and evil may be looked for if
nothing be done, and inasmuch as our only hope is in God's mercy, and in
the favour of your Majesty, for the discharge of my conscience, I must let
you know the strait in which I am placed.

"I implore your Highness for the service of God, that you urge his Holiness
to be prompt in bringing the cause to a conclusion. The longer the delay
the harder the remedy will be.

"The particulars of what is passing here are so shocking, so outrageous
against Almighty God, they touch so nearly the honour of my Lord and
husband, that for the love I bear him, and for the good that I desire for
him, I would not have your Highness know of them from me. Your ambassador
will inform you of all."--Queen Catherine to Charles V. September 18.--MS.
Simancas.

The Emperor, who was at Mantua, was disturbed at the meeting at Boulogne,
on political grounds as well as personal. On the 24th of October he wrote
to his sister, at Brussels.

_Charles the Fifth to the Regent Mary._

Mantua, October 16, 1532.

I found your packets on arriving here, with the ambassadors' letters from
France and England. The ambassadors will themselves have informed you of
the intended conference of the Kings. The results will make themselves felt
ere long. We must be on our guard, and I highly approve of your precautions
for the protection of the frontiers.

As to the report that the King of England means to take the opportunity of
the meeting to marry Anne Boleyn, I can hardly believe that he will be so
blind as to do so, or that the King of France will lend himself to the
other's sensuality. At all events, however, I have written to my ministers
at Rome, and I have instructed them to lay a complaint before the Pope,
that, while the process is yet pending, in contempt of the authority of the
Church, the King of England is scandalously bringing over the said Anne
with him, as if she were his wife.

His Holiness and the Apostolic See will be the more inclined to do us
justice, and to provide as the case shall require.

Should the King indeed venture the marriage--as I cannot think he will--I
have desired his Holiness not only not to sanction such conduct openly, but
not to pass it by in silence. I have demanded that severe and fitting
sentence be passed at once on an act so wicked and so derogatory to the
Apostolic See.--_The Pilgrim_, p. 89.

[386] There can be little doubt of this. He was the child of the only
intrigue of Henry VIII. of which any credible evidence exists. His mother
was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Blunt, an accomplished and most
interesting person; and the offspring of the connection, one boy only, was
brought up with the care and the state of a prince. Henry FitzRoy, as he
was called, was born in 1519, and when six years old was created Earl of
Nottingham and Duke of Richmond and Somerset, the title of the king's
father.

In 1527, before the commencement of the disturbance on the divorce, Henry
endeavoured to negotiate a marriage for him with a princess of the imperial
blood; and in the first overtures gave an intimation which could not be
mistaken, of his intention, if possible, to place him in the line of the
succession. After speaking of the desire which was felt by the King of
England for some connection in marriage of the Houses of England and Spain,
the ambassadors charged with the negotiation were to say to Charles, that--

"His Highness can be content to bestow the Duke of Richmond and Somerset
(who is near of his blood, and of excellent qualities, and is already
furnished to keep the state of a great prince, _and yet may be easily by
the king's means exalted to higher things_) to some noble princess of his
near blood."--ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 121.

He was a gallant, high-spirited boy. A letter is extant from him to Wolsey,
written when he was nine years old, begging the cardinal to intercede with
the king, "for an harness to exercise myself in arms according to my
erudition in the Commentaries of Cæsar."--Ibid. p. 119.

He was brought up with Lord Surrey, who has left a beautiful account of
their boyhood at Windsor--their tournaments, their hunts, their young
loves, and passionate friendship. Richmond married Surrey's sister, but
died the year after, when only seventeen; and Surrey revisiting Windsor,
recalls his image among the scenes which they had enjoyed together, in the
most interesting of all his poems. He speaks of

  The secret grove, which oft we made resound
  Of pleasant plaint and of our ladies' praise;
  Recording oft what grace each one had found,
  What hope of speed, what dread of long delays.
  The wild forest; the clothed holts with green;
  With reins availed, and swift y-breathed horse,
  With cry of hounds, and merry blasts between,
  Where we did chase the fearful hart of force.
  The void walls eke that harboured us each night,
  Wherewith, alas! reviveth in my breast
  The sweet accord, such sleeps as yet delight
  The pleasant dream, the quiet bed of rest;
  The secret thought imparted with such trust.
  The wanton talk, the divers change of play,
  The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just,
  Wherewith we past the winter nights away.

[387] Compare LORD HERBERT with A Paper of Instructions to Lord Rochfort on
his Mission to Paris: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 427, etc.; and A
Remonstrance of Francis I. to Henry VIII.: LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 571, etc.
It would be curious to know whether Francis ever actually wrote to the pope
a letter of which Henry sent him a draft. If he did, there are expressions
contained in it which amount to a threat of separation. In case the pope
was obstinate Francis was to say, "Lors force seroit de pourvoir audict
affaire, par autres voyes et façons, qui peut etre, ne vous seroint gueres
agreable."--_State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 436.

[388] A nostre derniere entrevue sur la fraternelle et familiere
communication que nous eusmes ensemble de noz affaires venant aux nostres,
Luy declarasmes comme a tord et injustment nous estions affligez, dilayez,
et fort ingratemeut manniez et troublez, en nostre dicte grande et pesante
matiere de marriage par la particuliere affection de l'empereur et du pape.
Lesquelz sembloient par leurs longues retardations de nostre dicte matiere
ne sercher autre chose, sinon par longue attente et laps de temps, nous
frustrer malicieusement du propoz, qui plus nous induict a poursuivir et
mettre avant la dicte matiere; c'est davoir masculine succession et
posterite en laquelle nous etablirons (Dieu voulant) le quiet repoz et
tranquillite de notre royaulme et dominion. Son fraternel, plain, et entier
advis (et a bref dire le meilleur qui pourroit estre) fut tel; il nous
conseilla de ne dilayer ne protractor le temps plus longuement, mais en
toute celerite proceder effectuellement a laccomplisment et consummation de
nostre marriage.--Henry VIII. to Rochfort: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p.
428-9.

[389] The extent of Francis's engagements, as Henry represents them, was
this:--He had promised qu'en icelle nostre dicte cause jamais ne nous
abandonneroit quelque chose que sen ensuyst; ainsi de tout son pouvoir
l'establiroit, supporteroit, aideroit et maintiendroit notre bon droict, et
le droict de la posterite et succession qui sen pourroit ensuyr; et a tous
ceulz qui y vouldroyent mettre trouble, empeschement, encombrance, ou y
procurer deshonneur, vitupere, ou infraction, il seroit enemy et adversaire
de tout son pouvoir, de quelconque estat qu'il soit, fust pape ou
empereur,--avecque plusieurs autres consolatives paroles. This he wished
Francis to commit to paper. Car autant de fois, que les verrions, he says,
qui seroit tous les jours, nous ne pourrions, si non les liscent, imaginer
et reduire a notre souvenance la bonne grace facunde et geste, dont il les
nous prononçait, et estimer estre comme face a face, parlans avecque
luy.--_State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 437. Evidently language of so wide a
kind might admit of many interpretations.

[390] LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 571, etc.

[391] Note of the Revelations of Eliz. Barton: _Rolls House MS. Suppression
of the Monasteries_, p. 17.

The intention was really perhaps what the nun said. An agent of the
government at Brussels, who was watching the conference, reported on the
12th of November:--"The King of England did really cross with the intention
of marrying; but, happily for the emperor, the ceremony is postponed. Of
other secrets, my informant has learned thus much. They have resolved to
demand as the portion of the Queen of France, Artois, Tournay, and part of
Burgundy. They have also sent two cardinals to Rome to require the Pope to
relinquish the tenths, which they have begun to levy for themselves. If his
Holiness refuse, the King of England will simply appropriate them
throughout his dominions. Captain ---- heard this from the king's proctor
at Rome, who has been with him at Calais, and from an Italian named
Jeronymo, whom the Lady Anne has roughly handled for managing her business
badly. She trusted that she would have been married in September.

"The proctor told her the Pope delayed sentence for fear of the Emperor.
The two kings, when they heard this, despatched the cardinals to quicken
his movements; and the demand for the tenths is thought to have been
invented to frighten him.

"They are afraid that the Emperor may force his Holiness into giving
sentence before the cardinals arrive. Jeronymo has been therefore sent
forward by post to give him notice of their approach, and to require him to
make no decision till they have spoken with him."--_The Pilgrim_, p. 89.

[392] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.

[393] Revelations of Eliz. Barton: _Rolls House MS._

[394] _State Papers_, vol. vii. pp. 435, 468.

[395] Letter from ----, containing an account of an interview with his
Holiness: _Rolls House MS._

[396] This proposal was originally the king's (see chapter 2), but it had
been dropped because one of the conditions of it had been Catherine's
"entrance into religion." The pope, however, had not lost sight of the
alternative, as one of which, in case of extremity, he might avail himself;
and, in 1530, in a short interval of relaxation, he had definitely offered
the king a dispensation to have two wives, at the instigation, curiously,
of the imperialists. The following letter was written on that occasion to
the king by Sir Gregory Cassalis:--

Serenissime et potentissime domine rex, domine mi supreme humillimâ
commendatione premissâ, salutem et felicitatem. Superioribus diebus
Pontifex secreto, veluti rem quam magni faceret, mihi proposuit conditionem
hujusmodi; concedi posse vestræ majestati, ut duas uxores habeat; cui dixi
nolle me provinciam suscipere eâ de re scribendi, ob eam causam quod
ignorarem an inde vestræ conscientiæ satisfieri posset quam vestra majestas
imprimis exonerare cupit. Cur autem sic responderem, illud in causâ fuit,
quod ex certo loco, unde quæ Cæsariani moliantur aucupari soleo exploratum
certumque habebam Cæsarianos illud ipsum quærere et procurare. Quem vero ad
finem id quærant pro certo exprimere non ausim. Id certe totum vestræ
prudentiæ considerandum relinquo. Et quamvis dixerim Pontifici, nihil me de
eo scripturum, nolui tamen majestati vestræ hoc reticere; quæ sciat omni me
industriâ laborâsse in iis quæ nobis mandat exequendis et cum Anconitano
qui me familiariter uti solet, omnia sum conatus. De omnibus autem me ad
communes literas rejicio. Optime valeat vestra majestas.--Romæ die xviii.
Septembris, 1530.

Clarissimi vestrai Majestatis, Humillimus servus,

GREGORIUS CASSALIS,

--LORD HERBERT, p. 140.

[397] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 394, etc.

[398] The obtaining the opinion in writing of the late Cardinal of Ancona,
and submitting it to the emperor. This minister, the most aged as well as
the most influential member of the conclave, had latterly been supposed to
be inclined to advise a conciliatory policy towards England; and his
judgment was of so much weight that it was thought likely that the emperor
would have been unable to resist the publication of it, if it was given
against him. At the critical moment of the Bologna interview this cardinal
unfortunately died: he had left his sentiments, however, in the hands of
his nephew, the Cardinal of Ravenna, who, knowing the value of his legacy,
was disposed to make a market of it. It was a knavish piece of business.
The English ambassadors offered 3000 ducats; Charles bid them out of the
field with a promise of church benefices to the extent of 6000 ducats; he
did not know precisely the terms of the judgment, or even on which side it
inclined, but in either case the purchase was of equal importance to him,
either to produce it or to suppress it. The French and English ambassadors
then combined, and bid again with church benefices in the two countries, of
equal value with those offered by Charles, with a promise of the next
English bishopric which fell vacant, and the original 3000 ducats as an
initiatory fee. There was a difficulty in the transaction, for the cardinal
would not part with the paper till he had received the ducats, and the
ambassadors would not pay the ducats till they had possession of the paper.
The Italian, however, proved an overmatch for his antagonists. He got his
money, and the judgment was not produced after all.--_State Papers_, vol.
vii. pp. 397-8, 464. BURNET, vol. iii. p. 108.

[399] Bennet to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 402.

[400] Sir Gregory Cassalis to the King: _Rolls House M.S._, endorsed by
Henry, Litteræ in Pontificis dicta declaratoriæ quæ maxime causam nostram
probant.

[401] There was a tradition (it cannot be called more), that no Englishman
could be compelled against his will to plead at a foreign tribunal. "Ne
Angli extra Angliam litigare cogantur."

[402] Henry VIII. to the Ambassadors with the Pope: _Rolls House M.S._

[403] Ibid.

[404] So at least the English government was at last convinced, as appears
in the circular to the clergy, printed in BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 447,
etc. I try to believe, however, that the pope's conduct was rather weak
than treacherous.

[405] So at least Cranmer says; but he was not present, nor was he at the
time informed that it was to take place.--ELLIS, first series, vol. ii. p.
32. The belief, however, generally was, that the marriage took place in
November; and though Cranmer's evidence is very strong, his language is too
vague to be decisive.

[406] Individual interests have to yield necessarily and justly to the
interests of a nation, provided the conduct or the sacrifice which the
nation requires is not sinful. That there would have been any sin on Queen
Catherine's part if she had consented to a separation from the king, was
never pretended; and although it is a difficult and delicate matter to
decide how far unwilling persons may be compelled to do what they ought to
have done without compulsion, yet the will of a single man or woman cannot
be allowed to constitute itself an irremovable obstacle to a great national
good.

[407] It is printed by LORD HERBERT, and in LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[408] LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 558, etc.

[409] Ye may show unto his Holiness that ye have heard from a friend of
yours in Flanders lately, that there hath been set up certain writings from
the See Apostolic, in derogation both of justice and of the affection
lately showed by his Holiness unto us; which thing ye may say ye can hardly
believe to be true, but that ye reckon them rather to be counterfeited. For
if it should be true, it is a thing too far out of the way, specially
considering that you and other our ambassadors be there, and have heard
nothing of the matter. We send a copy of these writings unto you, which
copy we will in no wise that ye shall show to any person which might think
that ye had any knowledge from us nor any of our council, marvelling
greatly if the same hath proceeded indeed from the pope; [and] willing you
expressly not to show that ye had it of us.--_State Papers_, vol. vii. p.
421.

[410] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 454.

[411] Sir John Wallop to Henry: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 422.

[412] Francis represented himself to Henry as having refused with a species
of bravado. "He told me," says Sir John Wallop, "that he had announced
previously that he would consent to no such interview, unless your Highness
were also comprised in the same; and if it were so condescended that your
Highness and he should be then together, yet you two should go after such a
sort and with such power that you would not care whether the pope and
emperor would have peace or else _coups de baston_."--Wallop to Henry, from
Paris, Feb. 22. But this was scarcely a complete account of the
transaction; it was an account only of so much of it as the French king was
pleased to communicate. The emperor was urgent for a council. The pope,
feeling the difficulty either of excluding or admitting the Protestant
representatives, was afraid of consenting to it, and equally afraid of
refusing. The meeting proposed to Francis was for the discussion of this
difficulty; and Francis, in return, proposed that the great Powers, Henry
included, should hold an interview, and arrange beforehand the conclusions
at which the council should arrive. This naïve suggestion was waived by
Charles, apparently on grounds of religion. LORD HERBERT, Kennet's Edit. p.
167.

[413] The emperor's answer touching this interview is come, and is, in
effect, that if the pope shall judge the said interview to be for the
wealth and quietness of Christendom, he will not be seen to dissuade his
Holiness from the same; but he desired him to remember what he showed to
his Holiness when he was with the same, at what time his Holiness offered
himself for the commonwealth to go to any place to speak with the French
king.--Bennet to Henry VIII.; _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 464.

[414] The estrapade was an infernal machine introduced by Francis into
Paris for the better correction of heresy. The offender was slung by a
chain over a fire, and by means of a crane was dipped up and down into the
flame, the torture being thus prolonged for an indefinite time. Francis was
occasionally present in person at these exhibitions, the executioner
waiting his arrival before commencing the spectacle.

[415] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.

[416] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 12

[417] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 441.

[418] D'Inteville to Francis the First: MS. Bibliothèque Impérial,
Paris--_Pilgrim_, p. 92.

[419] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.

[420] He had been selected as Warham's successor; and had been consecrated
on the 30th of March, 1533. On the occasion of the ceremony when the usual
oath to the Pope was presented to him, he took it with a declaration that
his first duty and first obedience was to the crown and laws of his own
country. It is idle trifling, to build up, as too many writers have
attempted to do, a charge of insincerity upon an action which was forced
upon him by the existing relation between England and Rome. The Act of
Appeals was the law of the land. The separation from communion with the
papacy was a contingency which there was still a hope might be avoided.
Such a protest as Cranmer made was therefore the easiest solution of the
difficulty. See it in STRYPE'S _Cranmer_, Appendix, p. 683.

[421] BURNET, Vol. iii. pp. 122-3

[422] Bennet to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 402. Sir Gregory
Cassalis to the same: _Rolls House MS._

[423] BURNET, vol. iii. p. 123.

[424] Ibid. vol. i. p. 210.

[425] See _State Papers_, vol. i. pp. 415, 420, etc.

[426] BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 22. It is very singular that in the
original Bull of Julius, the expression is "forsan consummavissetis;" while
in the brief, which, if it was genuine, was written the same day, and
which, if forged, was forged by Catherine's friends, there is no forsan.
The fact is stated absolutely.

[427] LORD HERBERT, p. 163. BURNET. vol. iii. p. 123.

[428] _State Papers_, vol. i. pp. 390. 391.

[429] Ye therefore duly recognising that it becometh you not, being our
subject, to enterprise any part of your said office in so weighty and great
a cause pertaining to us being your prince and sovereign, without our
licence obtained so to do; and therefore in your most humble wise ye
supplicate us to grant unto you our licence to proceed.--_State Papers_,
vol. i. p. 392.

[430] _State Papers_, vol. i. p. 392.

[431] Cromwell to the King on his Committal to the Tower: BURNET,
_Collectanea_, p. 500.

[432] So at least she called him a few days later.--_State Papers_, vol. i.
p. 420. We have no details of her words when she was summoned; but only a
general account of them.--_State Papers_, vol. i. p. 394-5.

[433] The words of the sentence may be interesting:--"In the name of God,
Amen. We, Thomas, by Divine permission Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of
all England, and Legate of the Apostolic See, in a certain cause of inquiry
of and concerning the validity of the marriage contracted and consummated
between the most potent and most illustrious Prince, our Sovereign Lord,
Henry VIII., by the grace of God King of England and France, Defender of
the Faith, and Lord of Ireland, and the most serene Princess, Catherine,
daughter of his Most Catholic Majesty, Ferdinand, King of Spain, of
glorious memory, we proceeding according to law and justice in the said
cause which has been brought judicially before us in virtue of our office,
and which for some time has lain under examination, as it still is, being
not yet finally determined and decided; having first seen all the articles
and pleas which have been exhibited and set forth of her part, together
with the answers made thereto on the part of the most illustrious and
powerful Prince, Henry VIII.; having likewise seen and diligently inspected
the informations and depositions of many noblemen and other witnesses of
unsuspected veracity exhibited in the said cause; having also seen and in
like manner carefully considered not only the censures and decrees of the
most famous universities of almost the whole Christian world, but likewise
the opinions and determinations both of the most eminent divines and
civilians, as also the resolutions and conclusions of the clergy of both
Provinces of England in Convocation assembled, and many other wholesome
instructions and doctrines which have been given in and laid before us
concerning the said marriage; having further seen and in like manner
inspected all the treaties and leagues of peace and amity on this account
entered upon and concluded between Henry VII., of immortal fame, late King
of England, and the said Ferdinand, of glorious memory, late King of Spain;
having besides seen and most carefully weighed all and every of the acts,
debates, letters, processes, instruments, writs, arguments, and all other
things which have passed and been transacted in the said cause at any time;
in all which thus seen and inspected, our most exact care in examining, and
our most mature deliberation in weighing them hath by us been used, and all
other things have been observed by us, which of right in this matter were
to be observed; furthermore, the said most illustrious Prince, Henry VIII.,
in the forementioned cause, by his proper Proctor having appeared before
us, but the said most serene Lady Catherine in contempt absenting herself
(whose absence we pray that the divine presence may compensate) [cujus
absentia Divinâ repleatur præsentiâ. Lord Herbert translates it, "whose
absence may the Divine presence attend," missing, I think, the point of the
Archbishop's parenthesis] by and with the advice of the most learned in the
law, and of persons of most eminent skill in divinity whom we have
consulted in the premises, we have found it our duty to proceed to give our
final decree and sentence in the said cause, which, accordingly, we do in
this manner.

"Because by acts, warrants, deductions, propositions, exhibitions,
allegations, proofs and confessions, articles drawn up, answers of
witnesses, depositions, informations, instruments, arguments, letters,
writs, censures, determinations of professors, opinions, councils,
assertions, affirmations, treaties, and leagues of peace, processes, and
other matters in the said cause, as is above mentioned, before us laid,
had, done, exhibited, and respectively produced, as also from the same and
sundry other reasons, causes, and considerations, manifold arguments, and
various kinds of proof of the greatest evidence, strength, and validity, of
which in the said cause we have fully and clearly informed ourselves, we
find, and with undeniable evidence and plainness see that the marriage
contracted and consummated, as is aforesaid, between the said most
illustrious Prince, Henry VIII., and the most serene Lady Catherine, was
and is null and invalid, and that it was contracted and consummated
contrary to the law of God: therefore, we, Thomas, Archbishop, Primate, and
Legate aforesaid, having first called upon the name of Christ for direction
herein, and having God altogether before our eyes, do pronounce sentence,
and declare for the invalidity of the said marriage, decreeing that the
said pretended marriage always was and still is null and invalid; that it
was contracted and consummated contrary to the will and law of God, that it
is of no force or obligation, but that it always wanted, and still wants,
the strength and sanction of law; and therefore we sentence that it is not
lawful for the said most illustrious Prince, Henry VIII., and the said most
serene Lady Catherine, to remain in the said pretended marriage; and we do
separate and divorce them one from the other, inasmuch as they contracted
and consummated the said pretended marriage de facto, and not de jure; and
that they so separated and divorced are absolutely free from all marriage
bond with regard to the foresaid pretended marriage, we pronounce, and
declare by this our definitive sentence and final decree, which we now
give, and by the tenour of these present writings do publish. May 23rd,
1533."--BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 68, and LORD HERBERT.

[434] HALL.

[435] Ibid.

[436] Ibid. p. 801. Hall was most likely an eye-witness, and may be
thoroughly trusted in these descriptions. Whenever we are able to test him,
which sometimes happens, by independent contemporary accounts, he proves
faithful in the most minute particulars.

[437] FOXE, vol. v. p. III.

[438] Northumberland to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, vol. iv. pp. 598-9.

[439] Hawkins to Henry VIII.: Ibid. vol. vii. p. 488.

[440] BURNET. vol. iii. p. 115.

[441] _State Papers_, vol. i. p. 398.

[442] Papers relating to the Nun of Kent: _Rolls House MS._

[443] ELLIS, first series, vol. ii. p. 43.

[444] _Cotton M.S._ Otho X, p. 199. _State Papers_, vol. i. p. 397.

[445] _State Papers_, vol. i. p. 403.

[446] Cromwell had endeavoured to save Frith, or at least had been
interested for him. Sir Edmund Walsingham, writing to him about the
prisoners in the Tower, says:--"Two of them wear irons, and Frith weareth
none. Although he lacketh irons, he lacketh not wit nor pleasant tongue.
His learning passeth my judgment. Sir, as ye said, it were great pity to
lose him if he may be reconciled."--Walsingham to Cromwell: _M.S. State
Paper Office_, second series, vol. xlvi.

[447] ELLIS, first series, vol. ii. p. 40.

[448] "The natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and
not here, it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one
time in more places than one." The argument and the words in which it is
expressed were Frith's.--See FOXE, vol. v. p. 6.

[449] The origin of the word Lollards has been always a disputed question.
I conceive it to be from Lolium. They were the "tares" in the corn of
Catholicism.

[450] 35 Ed. I.; Statutes of Carlisle, cap. 1-4.

[451] Ibid.

[452] 25 Ed. III. stat. 4. A clause in the preamble of this act bears a
significantly Erastian complexion: _come seinte Eglise estoit founde en
estat de prelacie deins le royaulme Dengleterre par le dit Roi et ses
progenitours, et countes, barons, et nobles de ce Royaulme et lours
ancestres, pour eux et le poeple enfourmer de la lei Dieu._ If the Church
of England was held to have been, founded not by the successors of the
Apostles, but by the king and the nobles, the claim of Henry VIII. to the
supremacy was precisely in the spirit of the constitution.

[453] 38 Ed. III. stat. 2; 3 Ric. II. cap. 3; 12 Ric. II. cap. 15; 13 Ric.
II. stat. 2. The first of these acts contains a paragraph which shifts the
blame from the popes themselves to the officials of the Roman courts. The
statute is said to have been enacted en eide et confort du pape qui moult
sovent a estee trublez par tieles et semblables clamours et impetracions,
et qui y meist voluntiers covenable remedie, si sa seyntetee estoit sur ces
choses enfournee. I had regarded this passage as a fiction of courtesy like
that of the Long Parliament who levied troops in the name of Charles I. The
suspicious omission of the clause, however, in the translation of the
statutes which was made in the later years of Henry VIII. justifies an
interpretation more favourable to the intentions of the popes.

[454] The abbots and bishops decently protested. Their protest was read in
parliament, and entered on the Rolls. _Rot. Parl._ iii. [264] quoted by
Lingard, who has given a full account of these transactions.

[455] 13 Ric. II. stat. 2.

[456] See 16 Ric. II. cap. 5.

[457] This it will be remembered was the course which was afterwards
followed by the parliament under Henry VIII. before abolishing the payment
of first-fruits.

[458] Lingard says, that "there were rumours that if the prelates executed
the decree of the king's courts, they would be excommunicated."--Vol. iii.
p. 172. The language of the act of parliament, 16 Ric. II. cap. 5, is
explicit that the sentence was pronounced.

[459] 16 Ric. II. cap. 5.

[460] Ibid.

[461] Ibid.

[462] LEWIS, _Life of Wycliffe_.

[463] If such _scientia media_ might be allowed to man, which is beneath
certainty and above conjecture, such should I call our persuasion that he
was born in Durham.--FULLER'S _Worthies_, vol. i. p. 479.

[464] _The Last Age of the Church_ was written in 1356. See LEWIS, p. 3.

[465] LELAND.

[466] LEWIS, p. 287.

[467] 1 Ric. II. cap. 13.

[468] WALSINGHAM, 206-7, apud LINGARD. It is to be observed, however, that
Wycliffe himself limited his arguments strictly to the property of the
clergy. See MILMAN'S _History of Latin Christianity_, vol. v. p. 508.

[469] WALSINGHAM, p. 275, apud LINGARD.

[470] 5 Ric. II. cap. 5.

[471] WILKINS, _Concilia_, iii. 160-167.

[472] _De Heretico comburendo._ 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15.

[473] STOW, 330, 338.

[474] _Rot. Parl._ iv. 24, 108, apud LINGARD; RYMER, ix. 89, 119, 129, 170,
193; MILMAN, Vol. v. p. 520-535.

[475] 2 Hen. V. stat. 1, cap. 7.

[476] There is no better test of the popular opinion of a man than the
character assigned to him on the stage; and till the close of the sixteenth
century Sir John Oldcastle remained the profligate buffoon of English
comedy. Whether in life he bore the character so assigned to him, I am
unable to say. The popularity of Henry V., and the splendour of his French
wars, served no doubt to colour all who had opposed him with a blacker
shade than they deserved: but it is almost certain that Shakspeare, though
not intending Falstaff as a portrait of Oldcastle, thought of him as he was
designing the character; and it is altogether certain that by the London
public Falstaff was supposed to represent Oldcastle. We can hardly suppose
that such an expression as "my old lad of the castle," should be
accidental; and in the epilogue to the Second Part of _Henry the Fourth_,
when promising to reintroduce Falstaff once more, Shakspeare says, "where
for anything I know he shall die of the sweat, for Oldcastle died a martyr,
and this is not the man." He had, therefore, certainly been supposed to _be
the man_, and Falstaff represented the English conception of the character
of the Lollard hero. I should add, however, that Dean Milman, who has
examined the records which remain to throw light on the character of this
remarkable person with elaborate care and ability, concludes emphatically
in his favour.

[477] Two curious letters of Henry VI. upon the Lollards, written in 1431,
are printed in the _Archæologia_, vol. xxiii. p. 339, etc. "As God
knoweth," he says of them, "never would they be subject to his laws nor to
man's, but would be loose and free to rob, reve, and dispoil, slay and
destroy all men of thrift and worship, as they proposed to have done in our
father's days; and of lads and lurdains would make lords."

[478] Proceedings of an organised Society in London called the Christian
Brethren, supported by voluntary contributions, for the dispersion of
tracts against the doctrines of the Church: _Rolls House MS._

[479] HALE'S _Precedents_. The London and Lincoln Registers, in FOXE, vol.
iv.; and the MS. Registers of Archbishops Morton and Warham, at Lambeth.

[480] KNOX'S _History of the Reformation in Scotland_.

[481] Also we object to you that divers times, and specially in Robert
Durdant's house, of Iver Court, near unto Staines, you erroneously and
damnably read in a great book of heresy, all [one] night, certain chapters
of the Evangelists, in English, containing in them divers erroneous and
damnable opinions and conclusions of heresy, in the presence of divers
suspected persons.--Articles objected against Richard Butler--London
Register: FOXE, vol. iv. p. 178.

[482] FOXE, vol. iv. p. 176.

[483] MICHELET, _Life of Luther_, p. 71.

[484] Ibid.

[485] Ibid. p. 41.

[486] WOOD'S _Athenæ Oxonienses_.

[487] FOXE, vol. iv. p. 618.

[488] The suspicious eyes of the Bishops discovered Tyndal's visit, and the
result which was to be expected from it.

On Dec. 2nd, 1525, Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, then king's
almoner, and on a mission into Spain, wrote from Bordeaux to warn Henry.
The letter is instructive:

"Please your Highness to understand that I am certainly informed as I
passed in this country, that an Englishman, your subject, at the
solicitation and instance of Luther, with whom he is, hath translated the
New Testament into English; and within few days intendeth to return with
the same imprinted into England. I need not to advertise your Grace what
infection and danger may ensue hereby if it be not withstanded. This is the
next way to fulfil your realm with Lutherians. For all Luther's perverse
opinions be grounded upon bare words of Scripture, not well taken, ne
understanded, which your Grace hath opened in sundry places of your royal
book. All our forefathers, governors of the Church of England, hath with
all diligence forbid and eschewed publication of English Bibles, as
appeareth in constitutions provincial of the Church of England. Nowe, sure,
as God hath endued your Grace with Christian courage to sett forth the
standard against these Philistines and to vanquish them, so I doubt not but
that he will assist your Grace to prosecute and perform the same--that is,
to undertread them that they shall not now lift up their heads; which they
endeavour by means of English Bibles. They know what hurt such books hath
done in your realm in times past."--Edward Lee to Henry VIII.: ELLIS, third
series, vol. ii. p. 71.

[489] Answer of the Bishops: _Rolls House MS._ See cap. 3.

[490] Answer of the Bishops, vol. i. cap. 3.

[491] See, particularly, _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 302.

[492] Proceedings of the Christian Brethren: _Rolls House MS._

[493] See the letter of Bishop Fox to Wolsey: STRYPE'S _Memorials_, vol. i.
Appendix.

[494] Particulars of Persons who had dispersed Anabaptist and Lutheran
Tracts: _Rolls House MS._

[495] Dr. Taylor to Wolsey: _Rolls House MS._ Clark to Wolsey: _State
Papers_, vol. vii. pp. 80, 81.

[496] ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 189.

[497] Memoirs of Latimer prefixed to _Sermons_, pp. 3, 4; and see STRYPE'S
_Memorials_, vol. i.

[498] FOXE, vol. v. p. 416.

[499] Tunstall, Bishop of London, has had the credit hitherto of this
ingenious folly, the effect of which, as Sir Thomas More warned him, could
only be to supply Tyndal with money.--HALL, 762, 763. The following letter
from the Bishop of Norwich to Warham shows that Tunstall was only acting in
canonical obedience to the resolution of his metropolitan:--

"In right humble manner I commend me unto your good Lordship, doing the
same to understand that I lately received your letters, dated at your manor
of Lambeth, the 26th day of the month of May, by the which I do perceive
that your Grace hath lately gotten into your hands all the books of the New
Testament, translated into English, and printed beyond the sea; as well
those with the glosses joined unto them as those without the glosses.

"Surely, in myn opinion, you have done therein a gracious and a blessed
deed; and God, I doubt not, shall highly reward you therefore. And when, in
your said letters, ye write that, insomuch as this matter and the danger
thereof, if remedy had not been provided, should not only have touched you,
but all the bishops within your province; and that it is no reason that the
holle charge and cost thereof should rest only in you; but that they and
every of them, for their part, should advance and contribute certain sums
of money towards the same: I for my part will be contented to advance in
this behalf, and to make payment thereof unto your servant, Master William
Potkyn.

"Pleaseth it you to understand, I am well contented to give and advance in
this behalf ten marks, and shall cause the same to be delivered shortly;
the which sum I think sufficient for my part, if every bishop within your
province make like contribution, after the rate and substance of their
benefices. Nevertheless, if your Grace think this sum not sufficient for my
part in this matter, your further pleasure known, I shall be as glad to
conform myself thereunto in this, or any other matter concerning the
church, as any your subject within your province; as knows Almighty God,
who long preserve you. At Hoxne in Suffolk, the 14th day of June, 1527.
Your humble obedience and bedeman,

"R. NORWICEN."

[500] FOXE, vol. iv.

[501] The papal bull, and the king's licence to proceed upon it, are
printed in _Rymer_, vol. vi. part ii. pp. 8 and 17. The latter is explicit
on Wolsey's personal liberality in establishing this foundation. Ultro et
ex propriâ liberalitate et munificentiâ, nec sine gravissimo suo sumptu et
impensis, collegium fundare conatur.

[502] Would God my Lord his Grace had never been motioned to call any
Cambridge man to his most towardly college. It were a gracious deed if they
were tried and purged and restored unto their mother from whence they came,
if they be worthy to come thither again. We were clear without blot or
suspicion till they came, and some of them, as Master Dean hath known a
long time, hath had a shrewd name.--Dr. London to Archbishop Warham: _Rolls
House MS._

[503] Dr. London to Warham: _Rolls House MS._

[504] DALABER'S _Narrative._

[505] Clark seems to have taken pupils in the long vacation. Dalaber at
least read with him all one summer in the country.--Dr. London to Warham:
_Rolls House MS._

[506] The Vicar of Bristol to the Master of Lincoln College, Oxford: _Rolls
House MS._

[507] Dr. London to Warham: _Rolls House MS._

[508] Radley himself was one of the singers at Christchurch: London to
Warham. _MS._

[509] Dr. London to Warham: _Rolls House MS._

[510] On the site of the present Worcester College. It lay beyond the walls
of the town, and was then some distance from it across the fields.

[511] Christchurch, where Dalaber occasionally sung in the quire. Vide
infra.

[512] Some part of which let us read with him. "I send you forth as sheep
in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as
doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils, and
they will scourge you in their synagogues; and ye shall be brought before
governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the
gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye
shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall
speak; for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which
speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death; and
the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents,
and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my
name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Whosoever
shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which
is in heaven. Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny
before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace
on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man
at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be
they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is
not worthy of me. He that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy
of me. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of
me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for
my sake shall find it."

[513] Rector of Lincoln.

[514] Warden of New College.

[515] The last prayer.

[516] Dr. Maitland, who has an indifferent opinion of the early
Protestants, especially on the point of veracity, brings forward this
assertion of Dalaber as an illustration of what he considers their
recklessness. It seems obvious, however, that a falsehood of this kind is
something different in kind from what we commonly mean by unveracity, and
has no affinity with it. I do not see my way to a conclusion; but I am
satisfied that Dr. Maitland's strictures are unjust. If Garret was taken,
he was in danger of a cruel death, and his escape could only be made
possible by throwing the bloodhounds off the scent. A refusal to answer
would not have been sufficient; and the general laws by which our conduct
is ordinarily to be directed, cannot be made so universal in their
application as to meet all contingencies. It is a law that we may not
strike or kill other men, but occasions rise in which we may innocently do
both. I may kill a man in defence of my own life or my friend's life, or
even of my friend's property; and surely the circumstances which dispense
with obedience to one law may dispense equally with obedience to another.
_If_ I may kill a man to prevent him from robbing my friend, why may I not
deceive a man to save my friend from being barbarously murdered? It is
possible that the highest morality would forbid me to do either. I am
unable to see why, if the first be permissible, the second should be a
crime. Rahab of Jericho did the same thing which Dalaber did, and on that
very ground was placed in the catalogue of saints.

[517] A cell in the Tower, the nature of which we need not inquire into.

[518] FOXE, vol. v. p. 421.

[519] Dr. London to the Bishop of Lincoln: _Rolls House MS._

[520] Ibid.

[521] Dr. Forman, rector of All Hallows, who had himself been in trouble
for heterodoxy.

[522] Dr. London to the Bishop of Lincoln, Feb. 20, 1528: _Rolls House MS._

[523] Now Cokethorpe Park, three miles from Stanton Harcourt, and about
twelve from Oxford. The village has disappeared.

[524] Vicar of All Saints, Bristol, to the Rector of Lincoln: _Rolls House
MS._

[525] The Vicar of All Saints to the Rector of Lincoln: _Rolls House MS._

[526] Dr. London to the Bishop of Lincoln: _Rolls House MS._

[527] Long extracts from it are printed in FOXE, vol. iv.

[528] Another of the brethren, afterwards Bishop of St. David's, and one of
the Marian victims.

[529] Bishop of Lincoln to Wolsey, March 5, 1527-8: _Rolls House MS._: and
see ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 77.

[530] ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 77.

[531] With some others he "was cast into a prison where the saltfish lay,
through the stink whereof the most part of them were infected; and the said
Clark, being a tender young man, died in the same prison."--FOXE, vol. iv.
p. 615.

[532] London to Warham: _Rolls House MS._

[533] Petition of the Commons, vol. i. cap. 3.

[534] Ibid. And, as we saw in the bishops' reply, they considered their
practice in these respects wholly defensible.--See _Reply of the Bishops_,
cap. 3.

[535] Petition of the Commons, cap. 3.

[536] Hen. V. stat. 1.

[537] He had been "troublesome to heretics," he said, and he had "done it
with a little ambition;" for "he so hated this kind of men, that he would
fie the sorest enemy that they could have, if they would not
repent."--MORE'S _Life of More_, p. 211.

[538] See FOXE:, vol. iv. pp. 689, 698, 705.

[539] 2 Hen. V. stat. 1.

[540] John Stokesley.

[541] Petition of Thomas Philips to the House of Commons: _Rolls House MS._

[542] Ibid.

[543] FOXE, vol. v. pp. 29, 30.

[544] The circumstances are curious. Philips begged that he might have the
benefit of the king's writ of corpus cum causâ, and be brought to the bar
of the House of Commons, where the Bishop of London should be subpoenaed to
meet him. [Petition of Thomas Philips: _Rolls House MS._] The Commons did
not venture on so strong a measure; but a digest of the petition was sent
to the Upper House, that the bishop might have an opportunity of reply. The
Lords refused to receive or consider the case: they replied that it was too
"frivolous an affair" for so grave an assembly, and that they could not
discuss it. [_Lords' Journals_, vol. i. p. 66.] A deputation of the Commons
then waited privately upon the bishop, and being of course anxious to
ascertain whether Philips had given a true version of what had passed, they
begged him to give some written explanation of his conduct, which might be
read in the Commons' House. [_Lords' Journals_, vol. i. p. 71.] The request
was reasonable, and we cannot doubt that, if explanation had been possible,
the bishop would not have failed to offer it; but he preferred to shield
himself behind the judgment of the Lords. The Lords, he said, had decided
that the matter was too frivolous for their own consideration; and without
their permission, he might not set a precedent of responsibility to the
Commons by answering their questions.

This conduct met with the unanimous approval of the Peers. [_Lords'
Journals_, vol. i. p. 71. Omnes proceres tam spirituales quam temporales
unâ, voce dicebant, quod non consentaneum fuit aliquem procerum prædictorum
alicui in eo loco responsurum.] The demand for explanation was treated as a
breach of privilege, and the bishop was allowed to remain silent. But the
time was passed for conduct of this kind to be allowed to triumph. If the
bishop could not or would not justify himself, his victim might at least be
released from unjust imprisonment. The case was referred to the king: and
by the king and the House of Commons Philips was set at liberty.

[545] Petition of John Field: _Rolls House MS._

[546] Jan. 1529-30.

[547] Illegal. See 2 Hen. V. stat. 1.

[548] Seventh Sermon before King Edward. First Sermon before the Duchess of
Suffolk.

[549] FOXE, vol. iv. p. 649.

[550] Articles against James Bainham: FOXE, vol. iv. p. 703.

[551] FOXE, vol. iv. p. 702.

[552] Ibid. vol. iv. p. 705.

[553] Ibid. vol. iv. p. 694.

[554] HALL, p. 806; and see FOXE, vol iv. p. 705.

[555] Instructions given by the Bishop of Salisbury: BURNET'S
_Collectanea_, p. 493.

[556] From a Letter of Robert Gardiner: FOXE, vol. iv. p. 706.

[557] LATIMER'S _Sermons_, p. 101.

[558] Latimer speaks of sons and daughters.--Ibid. p. 101.

[559] Ibid.

[560] Where the Cornish rebels came to an end in 1497.--BACON'S _History of
Henry the Seventh_.

[561] LATIMER'S _Sermons_, p. 197.

[562] On which occasion, old relations perhaps shook their heads, and made
objection to the expense. Some such feeling is indicated in the following
glimpse behind the veil of Latimer's private history:--

"I was once called to one of my kinsfolk," he says ("it was at that time
when I had taken my degree at Cambridge); I was called, I say, to one of my
kinsfolk which was very sick, and died immediately after my coming. Now,
there was an old cousin of mine, which, after the man was dead, gave me a
wax candle in my hand, and commanded me to make certain crosses over him
that was dead; for she thought the devil should run away by and bye. Now, I
took the candle, but I could not cross him as she would have me to do; for
I had never seen it before. She, perceiving I could not do it, with great
anger took the candle out of my hand, saying, 'It is pity that thy father
spendeth so much money upon thee;' and so she took the candle, and crossed
and blessed him; so that he was sure enough."--LATIMER'S _Sermons_, p. 499.

[563] "I was as obstinate a papist as any was in England, insomuch that,
when I should be made Bachelor of Divinity, my whole oration went against
Philip Melancthon and his opinions."--LATIMER'S _Sermons_, p. 334.

[564] _Jewel of Joy_, p. 224, et seq.: Parker Society's edition. LATIMER'S
_Sermons_, p. 3.

[565] LATIMER'S _Remains_, pp. 27-31.

[566] Ibid. pp. 308-9.

[567] LATIMER to Sir Edward Baynton: _Letters_, p. 329.

[568] _Letters_, p. 323.

[569] He thought of going abroad. "I have trust that God will help me," he
wrote to a friend; "if I had not, I think the ocean sea should have divided
my Lord of London and me by this day."--_Remains_, p. 334.

[570] Latimer to Sir Edward Baynton.

[571] See Latimer's two letters to Sir Edward Baynton: _Remains_, pp.
322-351.

[572] "As ye say, the matter is weighty, and ought substantially to be
looked upon, even as weighty as my life is worth; but how to look
substantially upon it otherwise know not I, than to pray my Lord God, day
and night, that, as he hath emboldened me to preach his truth, so he will
strengthen me to suffer for it.

"I pray you pardon me that I write no more distinctly, for my head is [so]
out of frame, that it would be too painful for me to write it again. If I
be not prevented shortly, I intend to make merry with my parishioners, this
Christmas, for all the sorrow, _lest perchance I never return to them
again_; and I have heard say that a doe is as good in winter as a buck in
summer."--Latimer to Sir Edward Baynton, p. 334.

[573] LATIMER'S _Remains_, p. 334.

[574] Ibid. p. 350.

[575] "I pray you, in God's name, what did you, so great fathers, so many,
so long season, so oft assembled together? What went you about? What would
ye have brought to pass? Two things taken away--the one that ye (which I
heard) burned a dead man,--the other, that ye (which I felt) went about to
burn one being alive. Take away these two noble acts, and there is nothing
else left that ye went about that I know," etc., etc.--Sermon preached
before the Convocation: LATIMER'S _Sermons_, p. 46.

[576] "My affair had some bounds assigned to it by him who sent for me up,
but is now protracted by intricate and wily examinations, as if it would
never find a period; while sometimes one person, sometimes another, ask me
questions, without limit and without end."--Latimer to the Archbishop of
Canterbury: _Remains_, p. 352.

[577] _Remains_, p. 222.

[578] _Sermons_, p. 294.

[579] The process lasted through January, February, and March.

[580] _Sermons_, p. 294.

[581] He subscribed all except two--one apparently on the power of the
pope, the other I am unable to conjecture. Compare the Articles
themselves--printed in LATIMER'S _Remains_, p. 466--with the Sermon before
the Convocation.--_Sermons_, p. 46; and BURNET, vol. iii. p. 116.

[582] Nicholas Glossop to Cromwell: ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 237.

[583] Where he was known among the English of the day as Master Frisky-all.

[584] See FOXE. vol. v. p. 392.

[585] Eustace Chappuys to Chancellor Granvelle: _MS. Archiv. Brussels:
Pilgrim_, p. 106.

[586] See Cromwell's will in an appendix to this chapter. This document,
lately found in the Rolls House, furnishes a clue at last to the
connections of the Cromwell family.

[587] Are we to believe Foxe's story that Cromwell was with the Duke of
Bourbon at the storming of Rome in May, 1527? See FOXE, vol. v. p. 365. He
was with Wolsey in January, 1527. See ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 117.
And he was again with him early in 1528. Is it likely that he was in Italy
on such an occasion in the interval? Foxe speaks of it as one of the random
exploits of Cromwell's youth, which is obviously untrue; and the natural
impression which we gather is, that he was confusing the expedition of the
Duke of Bourbon with some earlier campaign. On the other hand Foxe's
authority was Cranmer, who was likely to know the truth; and it is not
impossible that, in the critical state of Italian politics, the English
government might have desired to have some confidential agent in the Duke
of Bourbon's camp. Cromwell, with his knowledge of Italy and Italian, and
his adventurous ability, was a likely man to have been sent on such an
employment; and the story gains additional probability from another legend
about him, that he once saved the life of Sir John Russell, in some secret
affair at Bologna. See FOXE, vol. v. p. 367. Now, although Sir John Russell
had been in Italy several times before (he was at the Battle of Pavia, and
had been employed in various diplomatic missions), and Cromwell might thus
have rendered him the service in question on an earlier occasion, yet he
certainly was in the Papal States, on a most secret and dangerous mission,
in the months preceding the capture of Rome. _State Papers_, vol. vi. p.
560, etc. The probabilities may pass for what they are worth till further
discovery.

[588] A damp, unfurnished house belonging to Wolsey, where he was ordered
to remain till the government had determined upon their course towards him.
See CAVENDISH.

[589] CAVENDISH, pp. 269-70.

[590] Ibid. p. 276.

[591] Chappuys says, that a quarrel with Sir John Wallop first introduced
Cromwell to Henry. Cromwell, "not knowing how else to defend himself,
contrived with presents and entreaties to obtain an audience of the king,
whom he promised to make the richest sovereign that ever reigned in
England."--Chappuys to Granvelle: _The Pilgrim_, p. 107.

[592] Or Willyams. The words are used indifferently.

[593] The clause enclosed between brackets is struck through.

[594] Struck through.

[595] Mary, widow of Louis of Hungary, sister of the emperor, and Regent of
the Netherlands.

[596] She was much affected when the first intimation of the marriage
reached her. "I am informed of a secret friend of mine," wrote Sir John
Hacket, "that when the queen here had read the letters which she received
of late out of England, the tears came to her eyes with very sad
countenance. But indeed this day when I spake to her she showed me not such
countenance, but told me that she was not well pleased.

"At her setting forward to ride at hunting, her Grace asked me if I had
heard of late any tidings out of England. I told her Grace, as it is true,
that I had none. She gave me a look as that she should marvel thereof, and
said to me, 'Jay des nouvelles qui ne me semblent point trop bonnes,' and
told me touching the King's Highness's marriage. To the which I answered
her Grace and said, 'Madame, je ne me doute point syl est faict, et quand
le veult prendre et entendre de bonne part et au sain chemyn, sans porter
faveur parentelle que ung le trouvera tout lente et bien raysonnable par
layde de Dieu et de bonne conscience.' Her Grace said to me again,
'Monsieur l'ambassadeur, c'est Dieu qui le scait que je vouldroye que le
tout allysse bien, mais ne scaye comment l'empereur et le roy mon frere
entendront l'affaire car il touche a eulx tant que a moy.' I answered and
said, 'Madame, il me semble estre assuree que l'empereur et le roy vostre
frere qui sont deux Prinssys tres prudens et sayges, quant ilz auront
considere indifferentement tout l'affaire qu ilz ne le deveroyent
prendre que de bonne part.' And hereunto her Grace made me answer,
saying, 'Da quant de le prendre de bonne part ce la, ne sayge M.
l'ambassadeur.'"--Hacket to the Duke of Norfolk: _State Papers_, vol. vii.
p. 452.

[597] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 457.

[598] Sir Gregory Cassalis to the Duke of Norfolk. Ad pontificem accessi et
mei sermonis illa summa fuit, vellet id præstare ut serenissimum regem
nostrum certiorem facere possemus, in suâ causâ nihil innovatum iri. Hic
ille, sicut solet, respondit, nescire se quo pacto possit Cæsarianis
obsistere,--_State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 461.

[599] Bennet to Henry: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 462.

[600] Ibid.

[601] Letter undated, but written about the middle of June: _State Papers_,
vol. vii. p. 474

[602] Of the Archbishop of York, not of Canterbury: which provokes a
question. Conjectures are of little value in history, but inasmuch as there
must have been some grave reason for the substitution, a suggestion of a
possible reason may not be wholly out of place. The appeal in itself was
strictly legal; and it was of the highest importance to avoid any
illegality of form. Cranmer, by transgressing the inhibition which Clement
had issued in the winter, might be construed by the papal party to have
virtually incurred the censures threatened, and an escape might thus have
been furnished from the difficulty in which the appeal placed them.

[603] Publico ecclesiæ judicio.

[604] RYMER, vol. vi. part 2, p. 188.

[605] The French king did write unto Cardinal Tournon (not, however, of his
own will, but under pressure from the Duke of Norfolk), very instantly,
that he should desire the pope, in the said French king's name, that his
Holyness would not innovate anything against your Highness any wise till
the congress: adding, withal, that if his Holyness, notwithstanding his
said desire, would proceed, he could not less do, considering the great and
indissoluble amity betwixt your Highnesses, notorious to all the world, but
take and recognise such proceeding for a fresh injury.--Bennet to Henry
VIII.: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 468.

[606] Ibid. p. 469.

[607] Ibid. p. 469.

[608] Ibid. p. 470.

[609] Ibid. p. 467, note, and p. 470.

[610] BURNET, vol. i. p. 221.

[611] We only desire and pray you to endeavour yourselves in the execution
of that your charge--easting utterly away and banishing from you such fear
and timorousness, or rather despair, as by your said letters we perceive ye
have conceived--reducing to your memories in the lieu and stead thereof, as
a thing continually lying before your eyes and incessantly sounded in your
ears, the justice of our cause, which cannot at length be shadowed, but
shall shine and shew itself to the confusion of our adversaries. And we
having, as is said, truth for us, with the help and assistance of God,
author of the same, shall at all times be able to maintain you.--Henry
VIII. to Bonner: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 485.

[612] Bonner to Cromwell: Ibid. vol. vii. p. 481.

[613] The proclamation ordering that Catherine should be called not queen,
but Princess Dowager.

[614] Catherine de Medici.

[615] Henry VIII. to the Duke of Norfolk: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 493.

[616] Sir John Racket, writing from Ghent on the 6th of September,
describes as the general impression that the Pope's "trust was to assure
his alliance on both sides." "He trusts to bring about that his Majesty the
French king and he shall become and remain in good, fast, and sure alliance
together; and so ensuring that they three (the Pope, Francis, and Charles
V.) shall be able to reform and set good order in the rest of Christendom.
But whether his Unhappiness's--I mean his Holiness's--intention, is set for
the welfare and utility of Christendom, or for his own insincerity and
singular purpose, I remit that to God and to them that know more of the
world than I do."--Hacket to Cromwell: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 506.

[617] John the Magnanimous, son of John the Steadfast, and nephew of the
Elector Frederick, Luther's first protector.

[618] _State Papers_, vol. vii. pp. 499-501.

[619] Princeps Elector ducit se imparem ut Regiæ Celsitudinis vel aliorum
regum oratores eâ lege in aulâ suâ degerent; vereturque ne ob id apud
Cæsaream majestatem unicum ejus Dominum et alios male audiret, possetque
sinistre tale institutum interpretari.--Reply of the Elector: _State
Papers_, vol. vii. p. 503.

[620] Vaughan to Cromwell: _State Papers_, vol vii. p. 509.

[621] I consider the man, with other two--that is to say, the Landgrave von
Hesse and the Duke of Lunenberg--to be the chief and principal defenders
and maintainers of the Lutheran sect: who considering the same with no
small difficulty to be defended, as well against the emperor and the
bishops of Germany, his nigh and shrewd neighbours, as against the most
opinion of all Christian men, feareth to raise any other new matter whereby
they should take a larger and peradventure a better occasion to revenge the
same. The King's Highness seeketh to have intelligence with them, as they
conjecture to have them confederate with him; yea, and that against the
emperor, if he would anything pretend against the king.--Here is the thing
which I think feareth the duke.--Vaughan to Cromwell: _State Papers_, vol.
vii. pp. 509-10.

[622] HALL, p. 805.

[623] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 512.

[624] The Duke of Albany, during the minority of James V., had headed the
party in Scotland most opposed to the English. He expelled the
queen-mother, Margaret, sister of Henry; he seized the persons of the two
young princes, whom he shut up in Stirling, where the younger brother died
under suspicion of foul play (_Despatches of_ GIUSTINIANI, vol. i. p. 157);
and subsequently, in his genius for intrigue, he gained over the queen
dowager herself in a manner which touched her honour.--Lord Thomas Dacre to
Queen Margaret: ELLIS, second series, vol. i. p. 279.

[625] Ex his tamen, qui hæc a Pontifice, audierunt, intelligo regem
vehementissime instare, ut vestræ majestatis expectatione satisfiat
Pontifex.--Peter Vannes to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 518.

[626] _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 520.

[627] Hoc dico quod video inter regem et pontificem conjunctissime et
amicissime hic agi.--Vannes to Cromwell: Ibid.

[628] Vannes to Cromwell: Ibid. pp. 522-3.

[629] BURNET, _Collectanea_, p. 436.

[630] Letter of the King of France: LEGRAND, vol. iii. Reply of Henry:
FOXE, vol. v. p. 110.

[631] Commission of the Bishop of Paris: LEGRAND, vol. iii; BURNET, vol.
iii. p. 128; FOXE, vol. v. p. 106-111. The commission of the Bishop of
Bayonne is not explicit on the extent to which the pope had bound himself
with respect to the sentence. Yet either in some other despatch, or
verbally through the Bishop, Francis certainly informed Henry that the Pope
had promised that sentence should be given in his favour. We shall find
Henry assuming this in his reply; and the Archbishop of York declared to
Catherine that the pope "said at Marseilles, that if his Grace would send a
proxy thither he would give sentence for his Highness against her, because
that he knew his cause to be good and just."--_State Papers_, vol. i. p.
421.

[632] MS. Bibl. Impér. Paris.--_The Pilgrim_, pp. 97, 98. Cf. FOXE, vol. v.
p. 110.

[633] I hear of a number of Gelders which be lately reared; and the opinion
of the people here is that they shall go into England. All men there speak
evil of England, and threaten it in their foolish manner.--Vaughan to
Cromwell: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 511.

[634] RYMER, vol. vi. part 2, p. 189.

[635] Parties were so divided in England that lookers-on who reported any
one sentiment as general there, reported in fact by their own wishes and
sympathies. D'Inteville, the French ambassador, a strong Catholic, declares
the feeling to have been against the revolt. Chastillon, on the other hand,
writing at the same time from the same place (for he had returned from
France, and was present with d'Inteville at the last interview), says, "The
King has made up his mind to a complete separation from Rome; and the lords
and the majority of the people go along with him."--Chastillon to the
Bishop of Paris: _The Pilgrim_, p. 99.

[636] STRYPE, _Eccles. Memor._, vol. i. p. 224.

[637] Instructions to the Earls of Oxford, Essex, and Sussex, to
remonstrate with the Lady Mary: _Rolls House MS._

[638] Ibid.

[639] On the 15th of November, Queen Catherine wrote to the Emperor, and
after congratulating him on his successes against the Turks, she continued,

"And as our Lord in his mercy has worked so great a good for Christendom by
your Highness's hands, so has he enlightened also his Holiness; and I and
all this realm have now a sure hope that, with the grace of God, his
Holiness will slay this second Turk, this affair between the King my Lord
and me. Second Turk, I call it, from the misfortunes which, through his
Holiness's long delay, have grown out of it, and are now so vast and of so
ill example that I know not whether this or the Turk be the worst. Sorry am
I to have been compelled to importune your Majesty so often in this matter,
for sure I am you do not need my pressing. But I see delay to be so
calamitous, my own life is so unquiet and so painful, and the opportunity
to make an end now so convenient, that it seems as if God of his goodness
had brought his Holiness and your Majesty together to bring about so great
a good. I am forced to be importunate, and I implore your Highness for the
passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, that in return for the signal benefits
which God each day is heaping on you, you will accomplish for me this great
blessing, and bring his Holiness to a decision. Let him remember what he
promised you at Bologna. The truth here is known, and he will thus destroy
the hopes of those who persuade the King my Lord that he will never pass
judgment."--Queen Catherine to Charles V.: _MS. Simancas_, November 15,
1533.

[640] Letter to the King, giving an account of certain Friars Observants
who had been about the Princess Dowager: _Rolls House MS._

[641] We remember the northern prophecy, "In England shall be slain the
decorate Rose in his mother's belly," which the monks of Furness
interpreted as meaning that "the King's Grace should die by the hands of
priests."--Vol. i. cap. 4.

[642] Statutes of the Realm, 25 Henry VIII. cap. 12. State Papers relating
to Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._ Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury,
to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 20.

[643] Thus Cromwell writes to Fisher: "My Lord, [the outward evidences
that she was speaking truth] moved you not to give credence to her, but
only the very matter whereupon she made her false prophecies, to which
matter ye were so affected--as ye be noted to be on all matters which
ye once enter into--that nothing could come amiss that made for that
purpose."--_Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 30.

[644] Papers relating to the Nun of Kent: _Rolls House MS._

[645] Ibid.

[646] Ibid.

[647] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.

[648] Papers relating to the Nun of Kent: _Rolls House MS._ 25 Hen. VIII.
cap. 12. The "many" nobles are not more particularly designated in the
official papers. It was not desirable to mention names when the offence was
to be passed over.

[649] Report of the Commissioners--Papers relating to the Nun of Kent:
_Rolls House MS._

[650] Goold, says the Act of the Nun's attainder, travelled to Bugden, "to
animate the said Lady Princess to make commotion in the realm against our
sovereign lord; surmitting that the said Nun should hear by revelation of
God that the said Lady Catherine should prosper and do well, and that her
issue, the Lady Mary, should prosper and reign in the realm."--25 Henry
VIII. cap. 13.

[651] Report of the Proceedings of the Nun of Kent: _Rolls House MS._

[652] MS. Bibliot. Impér., Paris. The letter is undated. It was apparently
written in the autumn of 1533.

[653] Il a des nouvelles amours. In a paper at Simancas, containing Nuevas
de Inglaterra, written about this time, is a similar account of the dislike
of Anne and her family, as well as of the king's altered feelings towards
her. Dicano anchora che la Anna è mal voluta degli Si. di Inghilterra si
per la sua superbia, si anche per l'insolentia e mali portamenti che fanno
nel regno li fratelli e parenti di Anna; e che per questo il Re non la
porta la affezione que soleva per che il Re festeggia una altra Donna della
quale se mostra esser inamorato, e molti Si. di Inghilterra lo ajutano nel
seguir el predito amor per deviar questo Re dalla pratica di Anna.

[654] HALL.

[655] "I, dame Elizabeth Barton," she said, "do confess that I, most
miserable and wretched person, have been the original of all this mischief,
and by my falsehood I have deceived all these persons (the monks who were
her accomplices), and many more; whereby I have most grievously offended
Almighty God, and my most noble sovereign the King's Grace. Wherefore I
humbly, and with heart most sorrowful, desire you to pray to Almighty God
for my miserable sins, and make supplication for me to my sovereign for his
gracious mercy and pardon."--Confession of Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House
MS._

[656] Papers relating to Elizabeth Barton: Ibid.

[657] _State Papers_, vol. i. p. 415.

[658] A curious trait in Mary's character may be mentioned in connection
with this transfer. She had a voracious appetite; and in Elizabeth's
household expenses an extra charge was made necessary of £26 a year for the
meat breakfasts and meat suppers "served into the Lady Mary's
chamber."--Statement of the expenses of the Household of the Princess
Elizabeth: _Rolls House MS._

[659] He is called _frater consobrinus_. See FULLER'S _Worthies_, vol. iii.
p. 128.

[660] He was killed at the battle of Pavia.

[661] Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, married Catherine, daughter of Edward.

[662] Believe me, my lord, there are some here, and those of the greatest
in the land, who will be indignant if the Pope confirm the sentence against
the late Queen.--D'Inteville to Montmorency: _The Pilgrim_, p. 97.

[663] She once rode to Canterbury, disguised as a servant, with only a
young girl for a companion.--Depositions of Sir Geoffrey Pole: _Rolls House
MS._

[664] Confession of Sir William Neville: _Rolls House MS._

[665] Confession of Sir George Neville: Ibid.

[666] Confession of the Oxford Wizard: Ibid.

[667] Queen Anne Boleyn to Gardiner: BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 355. Office
for the Consecration of Cramp Rings: Ibid.

[668] So at least the Oxford Wizard said that Sir William Neville had told
him.--Confession of the Wizard: _Rolls House MS._ But the authority is not
good.

[669] Henry alone never listened seriously to the Nun of Kent.

[670] John of Transylvania, the rival of Ferdinand. His designation by the
title of king in an English state paper was a menace that, if driven to
extremities, Henry would support him against the empire.

[671] Acts of Council: _State Papers_, vol. i. pp. 414-15.

[672] Henry VIII. to Sir John Wallop: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 524.

[673] Stephen Vaughan to Cromwell: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 517.
Vaughan describes Peto with Shakespearian raciness. "Peto is an ipocrite
knave, as the most part of his brethren be; a wolf; a tiger clad in a
sheep's skin. It is a perilous knave--a raiser of sedition--an evil
reporter of the King's Highness--a prophecyer of mischief--a fellow I would
wish to be in the king's hands, and to be shamefully punished. Would God I
could get him by any policy--I will work what I can. Be sure he shall do
nothing, nor pretend to do nothing, in these parts, that I will not find
means to cause the King's Highness to know. I have laid a bait for him. He
is not able to wear the clokys and cucullys that be sent him out of
England, they be so many."

[674] Hacket to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 528.

[675] Ibid. p. 530.

[676] Hacket to Cromwell: _State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 531.

[677] So at least Henry supposed, if we may judge by the resolutions of the
Council "for the fortification of all the frontiers of the realm, as well
upon the coasts of the sea as the frontiers foreanenst Scotland." The
fortresses and havens were to be "fortefyed and munited;" and money to be
sent to York to be in readiness "if any business should happen."--Ibid.
vol. i. p. 411.

[678] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 19.

[679] A design which unfortunately was not put in effect. In the hurry of
the time it was allowed to drop.

[680] 25 Henry VIII. cap. 14.

[681] 23 Henry VIII. cap. 20.

[682] At this very time Campeggio was Bishop of Salisbury, and Ghinucci,
who had been acting for Henry at Rome, was Bishop of Worcester. The Act by
which they were deprived speaks of these two appointments as _nominations_
by the king.--25 Henry VIII. cap. 27.

[683] Wolsey held three bishoprics and one archbishopric, besides the abbey
of St. Albans.

[684] Thus when Wolsey was presented, in 1514, to the See of Lincoln, Leo
X. writes to his beloved son Thomas Wolsey how that in his great care for
the interests of the Church, "Nos hodie Ecclesiæ Lincolniensi, te in
episcopum et pastorem præficere intendimus." He then informs the Chapter of
Lincoln of the appointment; and the king, in granting the temporalities,
continues the fiction without seeming to recognise it:--"Cum dominus summus
Pontifex nuper vacante Ecclesiâ cathedrali personam fidelis clerici nostri
Thomæ Wolsey, in ipsius Ecclesiæ episcopum præfecerit, nos," etc.--See the
Acts in RYMER, vol. vi. part 1, pp. 55-7.

[685] 25 Henry VIII. cap. 20. The pre-existing, unrealities with respect to
the election of bishops explain the unreality of the new arrangement, and
divest it of the character of wanton tyranny with which it appeared _primâ
facie_ to press upon the Chapters. The history of this statute is curious,
and perhaps explains the intentions with which it was originally passed. It
was repealed by the 2nd of the 1st of Edward VI. on the ground that the
liberty of election was merely nominal, and that the Chapters ought to be
relieved of responsibility when they had no power of choice. Direct
nomination by the crown was substituted for the _congé d'élire_, and
remained the practice till the reaction under Mary, when the indefinite
system was resumed which had existed before the Reformation. On the
accession of Elizabeth, the statute of 25 Henry VIII. was again enacted.
The more complicated process of Henry was preferred to the more simple one
of Edward, and we are naturally led to ask the reason of so singular a
preference. I cannot but think that it was this. The Council of Regency
under Edward VI. treated the Church as an institution of the State, while
Henry and Elizabeth endeavoured (under difficulties) to regard it under its
more Catholic aspect of an organic body. So long as the Reformation was in
progress, it was necessary to prevent the intrusion upon the bench of
bishops of Romanising tendencies, and the deans and chapters were therefore
protected by a strong hand from their own possible mistakes. But the form
of liberty was conceded to them, not, I hope, to place deliberately a body
of clergymen in a degrading position, but in the belief that at no distant
time the Church might be allowed without danger to resume some degree of
self-government.

[686] 25 Henry VIII. cap. 21.

[687] I sent you no heavy words, but words of great comfort; willing your
brother to shew you how benign and merciful the prince was; and that I
thought it expedient for you to write unto his Highness, and to recognise
your offence and to desire his pardon, which his Grace would not deny you
how in your age and sickness.--Cromwell to Fisher: _Suppression of the
Monasteries_, p. 27.

[688] Sir Thomas More to Cromwell: BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 350.

[689] Ibid.

[690] Ibid.

[691] More to Cromwell: STRYPE'S _Memorials_, vol. i. Appendix, p. 195.

[692] More to the King: ELLIS, first series, vol. ii. p. 47.

[693] Cromwell to Fisher: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 27, et seq.

[694] _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 27, et seq.

[695] John Fisher to the Lords in Parliament: ELLIS, third series, vol. ii.
p. 289.

[696] _Lords' Journals_, p. 72.

[697] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.

[698] In a tract written by a Dr. Moryson in defence of the government,
three years later, I find evidence that a distinction was made among the
prisoners, and that Dr. Bocking was executed with peculiar cruelty. "Solus
in crucem actus est Bockingus," are Moryson's words, though I feel
uncertain of the nature of the punishment which he meant to designate.
"Crucifixion" was unknown to the English law; and an event so peculiar as
the "crucifixion" of a monk would hardly have escaped the notice of the
contemporary chroniclers. In a careful diary kept by a London merchant
during these years, which is in MS. in the Library of Balliol College,
Oxford, the whole party are said to have been hanged.--See, however,
_Morysini Apomaxis_, printed by Berthelet, 1537.

[699] HALL, p. 814.] The inferior confederates were committed to their
prisons with the exception only of Fisher, who, though sentenced, found
mercy thrust upon him, till by fresh provocation the miserable old man
forced himself upon his fate.[700

[700] LORD HERBERT says he was pardoned; I do not find, however, on what
authority: but he was certainly not imprisoned, nor was the sentence of
forfeiture enforced against him.

[701] This is the substance of the provisions, which are, of course, much
abridged.

[702] _Lords' Journals_, vol. i. p. 82. An act was also passed in this
session "against the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome." We trace it in
its progress through the House of Lords. (_Lords' Journals_, Parliament of
1533-4.) It received the royal assent (ibid.), and is subsequently alluded
to in the both of the 28th of Henry VIII., as well as in a Royal
Proclamation dated June, 1534; and yet it is not on the Roll, nor do I
anywhere find traces of it. It is not to be confounded with the act against
payment of Peter's Pence, for in the _Lords' Journals_ the two acts are
separately mentioned. It received the royal assent on the 30th of March,
while that against Peter's Pence was suspended till the 7th of April. It
contained, also, an indirect assertion that the king was Head of the
English Church, according to the title which had been given him by
Convocation. (King's Proclamation: FOXE, vol. v. p. 69.) For some cause or
other, the act at the last moment must have been withdrawn.

[703] See BURNET, vol. i. pp. 220-1: vol. iii p. 135; and LORD HERBERT. Du
Bellay's brother, the author of the memoirs, says that the king, at the
bishop's entreaty, promised that if the pope would delay sentence, and send
"judges to hear the matter, he would himself forbear to do what he proposed
to do"--that is, separate wholly from the See of Rome. If this is true, the
sending "judges" must allude to the "sending them to Cambray," which had
been proposed at Marseilles.

[704] See the letter of the Bishop of Bayonne, dated March 23, in LEGRAND.
A paraphrase is given by BURNET, vol. iii. p. 132.

[705] Promisistis predecessori meo quod si sententiam contra regem Angliæ
tulisset, Cæsar illum infra quatuor menses erat invasurus, et regno
expulsurus.--_State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 579.

[706] Letter of Du Bellay in LEGRAND.

[707] Ibid.

[708] Sir Edward Karne and Dr. Revett to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, vol.
vii. pp. 553-4.

[709] State Papers, vol. vii. p. 560, et seq.

[710] His Highness, considering the time and the malice of the emperour,
cannot conveniently pass out of the realm--since he leaveth behind him
another daughter and a mother, with their friends, maligning his
enterprises in this behalf--who bearing no small grudge against his most
entirely beloved Queen Anne, and his young daughter the princess, might
perchance in his absence take occasion to excogitate and practise with
their said friends matters of no small peril to his royal person, realm,
and subjects.--_State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 559.

[711] LORD HERBERT.

[712] I mentioned their execution in connection with their sentence; but it
did not take place till the 20th of April, a month after their attainder:
and delay of this kind was very unusual in cases of high treason. I have
little doubt that their final sentence was in fact pronounced by the pope.

[713] The oaths of a great many are in RYMER, vol. vi. part 2, p. 195, et
seq.

[714] His great-grandson's history of him (_Life of Sir Thomas More,_, by
CRESACRE MORE, written about 1620, published 1627, with a dedication to
Henrietta Maria) is incorrect in so many instances that I follow it with
hesitation; but the account of the present matter is derived from Mr.
Roper, More's son-in-law, who accompanied him to Lambeth, and it is
incidentally confirmed in various details by More himself.

[715] MORE'S _Life of More_, p. 232.

[716] More held extreme republican opinions on the tenure of kings, holding
that they might be deposed by act of parliament.

[717] MORE'S _Life of More_, p. 237.

[718] BURNET, vol. i. p. 255.

[719] MORE'S _Life of More_, p. 237.

[720] Cromwell to the Archbishop of Canterbury: _Rolls House MS._

[721] _State Papers_, vol. i. p. 411, et seq.

[722] Royal Proclamation, June, 1534.

[723] Ibid.

[724] FOXE, vol. v. p. 70.





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