1221; and they presently supplanted the antient establishments in the
veneration of the people, and usurped many of the prerogatives, honours,
and profits of the sacerdotal office. As long as they retained their
original character, and practised, to any great extent, the rigid
morality and discipline which they professed, so long did their
influence continue without diminution, and the clamours of the monks and
the priests assailed them in vain: but prosperity soon relaxed their
zeal and soiled their purity, and within a century from the time of
their institution, they became liable to charges as serious as those
which had reduced the authority of their rivals. Accordingly, towards
the middle of the following century, the contest was conducted with
greater success on the part of the original orders; and some of the
leading prelates of the day took part in it against the Mendicants.
Oxford was naturally the field for the closest struggle, and the rising
talents of Wiclif were warmly engaged in it. About the year 1360 he is
generally believed to have first proclaimed his hostility “against the
orders of friars;” and he persisted, to the end of life, in pursuing
them with the keenest argument and the bitterest invective, denouncing
them as the authors of “perturbation in Christiandome, and of all the
evils of this worlde; and these errors shallen never be amended till the
friars be brought to freedom of the Gospel and clean religion of Jesu
Christ.”
In the year 1365 Urban V. renewed the papal claim of sovereignty over
the realm of England, which was founded on the submission rendered by
John to Innocent III. The claim was resisted by Edward III., and the
decision of his parliament confirmed, in the strongest language, the
resolution of the monarch. A zealous advocate of papacy ventured to
vindicate the pretension of the Vatican, and challenged Wiclif to reply
to his arguments. He did so; and his reply has survived the work which
gave it birth. It is not however remarkable for any power of
composition, still less can it be praised for grace or accuracy of
style; but it stands as a rude monument of his principles, and proves
that even then he was imbued with that anti-papal spirit which more
splendidly distinguished his later years. Still, he was not yet
committed as the adversary of Rome; and in a dispute, in which he was
engaged with the Archbishop of Canterbury at this very time, he appealed
from the decision of the Primate to the authority of the Pope.
Seven years afterwards, at the age of forty-eight, Wiclif was raised to
the Theological Chair at Oxford; and from this period we may date the
most memorable of his spiritual achievements. For it is a question
whether, had he died before that time, his name would have come down to
us distinguished by any peculiar characteristic from those of the other
divines and doctors of his age; but when he turned this eminence into a
vantage-ground for assailing the corruptions of his church, and thus
recommended the expressions of truth and justice by the authority of
academical dignity, his language acquired a commanding weight, and his
person a peculiar distinction, which the former would never have
possessed had he remained in an inferior station, nor the latter, had he
not employed his station for the noblest purposes: purposes which,
though they were closely connected with the welfare and stability of the
Roman Catholic communion, were seldom advocated from the pulpits of her
hierarchy, or the chairs of her professors. Had Wiclif been no more than
an eminent and dignified theologian, he would have been admired,
perhaps, and forgotten, like so many others. Had he been only a humble
pleader for the reformation of the church, his voice might never have
been heard, or it might have been extinguished by the hand of
persecution: but his rank removed him above the neglect of his
contemporaries; and his principles, thus acquiring immediate efficacy,
have secured for him the perpetual respect of a more enlightened and
grateful posterity.
At this time the various profitable devices, by which the Vatican turned
into its own channels the wealth and patronage of the church, were come
into full operation. By its provisions and reservations, and other
expedients, it had filled many valuable benefices with foreign
ecclesiastics; these, for the most part, were non-resident, and spent in
other countries the rich revenues which they derived from England. This
system had been vigorously opposed both by kings and people, but with
little effectual success; for the Pope commonly contrived to repair the
losses which he had sustained in the tempest during the interval which
succeeded it. In 1374 Edward III. dispatched an embassy to Avignon to
remonstrate on these subjects with Gregory XI., and procure the
relinquishment of his pretensions. The Bishop of Bangor was at the head
of this commission, and the name of Wiclif stood second on the list. The
negociation was protracted, and ended in no important result; and the
various arts of the Vatican triumphed over the zeal of the Reformer,
and, as some believe, over the honesty of the Bishop. Howbeit, Wiclif
obtained on that occasion a nearer insight into the pontifical
machinery, and beheld with closer eyes the secret springs which moved
it. And if he carried along with him into the presence of the vicar of
Christ no very obsequious regard for his person, or reverence for his
authority, he returned from that mission armed with more decided
principles, and inflamed with a more determined animosity. At the same
time his sovereign rewarded his services at the Papal Court by the
prebend of Aust, in the Collegiate Church of Westbury, in the diocese of
Worcester; and soon afterwards by the rectory of Lutterworth, in
Leicestershire.
After this period, his anti-papal opinions were more boldly declared,
and he became more and more distinguished as an advocate for the
Reformation of the Church. The suspicions of the hierarchy were aroused;
and whatever reasons the Prelates might have had for sometimes siding
with their sovereign against the usurpations of the Pope, they were
ill-disposed to listen to the generous remonstrances of a private
Reformer. Accordingly, at a Convocation held Feb. 3, 1377, they summoned
him to appear at St. Paul’s, to clear himself from the fatal charge of
holding erroneous doctrines. Had Wiclif trusted to no other support than
the holiness of his cause—had he thrown himself, like Huss and Jerome of
Prague, only on the mercy and justice of his ecclesiastical judges—it
might have fared as ill with him as it did with his Bohemian disciples.
But his principles, recommended as it would seem by some private
intercourse, had secured him the patronage of the celebrated John of
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, under whose protection he presented himself on
the appointed day before the assembled bishops. A tumultuous scene
ensued: and after an undignified and indecent dispute between the Duke
and the Bishop of London, the meeting dispersed without arriving at any
conclusion, or even entering on any inquiry respecting the matter
concerning which it was convened. The process against Wiclif was however
suspended; and this good result was at least obtained, though by means
more in accordance with the violent habits of the age, than with the
holiness of his cause.
In the course of the same year, while the Pope was endeavouring to
re-establish and perpetuate his dominion in fiscal matters over the
English, and the Parliament struggling to throw it off altogether,
Wiclif was again called forth as the advocate of national independence;
and he argued with great force and boldness against the legality of the
papal exactions. In this Treatise, he entered more generally into the
question, as to what were the real foundations, not only of papal but of
spiritual pretensions; he pressed the Gospel of Christ as the last
appeal in all reasonings respecting the Church of Christ; and he
contrasted the worldliness and rapacity of his Vicar with the principles
of the religion, and the character of its Divine founder. The name and
example of Christ were never very pleasing objects of reflection to the
hierarchy of that age; and the argument with which they loved to repel
such ungrateful suggestions was, the personal oppression of those who
ventured to advance them. Accordingly, the storm gathered; and four
Bulls were issued forthwith against the doctrines and person of Wiclif.
“His holiness had been informed that John Wiclif, rector of the church
of Lutterworth, and Professor of the Sacred Page, had broken forth into
a detestable insanity, and had dared to assert opinions utterly
subversive of the Church, and savouring of the perversity and ignorance
of Marsilius of Padua, and John of Ganduno, both of accursed memory.” It
was then ordained that he should be apprehended and imprisoned; and in
an address to Edward III., the arm of the flesh was invoked to
co-operate with the spiritual authorities for the suppression of this
monstrous evil. One of these Bulls was addressed to the University of
Oxford; and what may seem singular, it found there a spirit so far in
advance of the bigotry of the age, that a question was raised whether it
should be received, or indignantly rejected. After long hesitation, it
was received; but still no readiness was shown to comply with its
requisitions, nor were any measures taken to punish or degrade the
Reformer.
Howbeit, in the beginning of the year following, Wiclif presented
himself at Lambeth, before the Tribunal of the Papal Commissioners, to
meet the various charges of heretical pravity. We have no room to doubt
the wishes and intentions of his judges. But on this occasion he was
rescued from them, for the second time, by extraneous circumstances. The
populace of London, among whom his opinions may have made some progress,
and by whom his name was certainly respected, interrupted the meeting
with much clamour and violence, and showed a fierce determination to
save him from oppression. And at the same time, while the delegates were
confounded by this interference, a message was delivered to them from
the Queen Mother, prohibiting any definitive sentence against Wiclif.
Thus unexpectedly assailed, and from such different quarters, the
Prelates immediately softened their expressions, and abandoned their
design; and Wiclif returned once more in safety to the propagation of
his former opinions, and to the expression of others which had not yet
been broached by him.
The sum of those opinions might be given with tolerable accuracy, though
some of them were not perhaps propounded with perfect distinctness, and
others have been made liable to consequences which were disclaimed by
their author. In the first place, he rejected every sort of pretension,
tenet, or authority, which did not rest on the foundation of Scripture:
here he professed to fix the single basis of his whole system.
Accordingly he denounced, with various degrees of severity, many of the
popular observances of his church. He rejected auricular confession; and
declared pardons and indulgences to be no better than antichristian
devices for augmenting the power and wealth of the clergy, at the
expense of the morality of the people. He paid no respect to
excommunications and interdicts; he pronounced confirmation to be an
unnecessary ceremony, invented for the aggrandizement of the episcopal
dignity; he reprobated the celibacy of the clergy, and the imposition of
monastic vows. And in his contempt for the outward ceremonies of the
church, even to the use of Sacred music, he anticipated by more than two
centuries the principles of the Puritans. In like manner, he maintained
that bishops and priests, being one and the same order according to
their original institution, were improperly distinguished; and that the
property claimed by the clergy, being in its origin eleemosynary, was
merely enjoyed by them in trust for the benefit of the people, and was
disposable at the discretion of the secular government.
So long as Wiclif confined himself to the expression of these opinions,
though he ensured the hatred of the hierarchy, he might reckon on a
powerful party both at the Court and among the people. The objects for
which he contended were at least manifest, and his arguments generally
intelligible. But he was not content with this limited field. In his
solicitude to assail all the holds of papacy, and denounce all its
pernicious errors, he entered, in the year 1381, into a controversy
respecting the nature of the Eucharist. His opinion on this mysterious
question seems to have approached very nearly to that of Luther. He
admitted a real presence; but though he did not presume to determine the
manner, he rejected the doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Roman
Catholic sense. This was ground sufficient for a new clamour, louder and
more dangerous than all that had preceded it: not that there was
stronger argument on the side of his opponents, but because the subject,
being more obscure, was more involved in prejudice; it was more closely
connected with the religious feelings and deepest impressions of his
hearers; it affected, not their respect for a sensual and avaricious
hierarchy, but their faith in what they had been taught to consider a
vital doctrine essential to salvation. And thus it proved, not perhaps
that his enemies became more violent, but that his friends began to
waver in their support of him. The lower classes, who had listened with
delight to his anti-sacerdotal declamations, trembled when he began to
tread the consecrated ground of their belief. His noble patrons, if they
were not thus sensibly shocked, perceived at least the impolicy of
contending in that field; and John of Lancaster especially commanded him
to retire from it.
With the sincerity of a zealot he persisted, and in the course of May,
1382, a Synod was held by Courtney, who had been just promoted to the
primacy, and the heresies of Wiclif became, for the third time, the
subject of ecclesiastical consultation. We have no space to pursue the
details of these proceedings. The result was, that he was summoned to
answer, before the Convocation at Oxford, respecting certain erroneous
doctrines, the most prominent of which was that regarding the Eucharist.
He prepared to defend them. And it was then that the Duke of Lancaster,
who had been his faithful protector throughout all his previous
troubles—whether it was that he sincerely differed with Wiclif on that
particular question, or whether he was unwilling to engage in a struggle
with the whole hierarchy, supported by much popular prejudice, for the
sake of an abstract opinion, which might appear to him entirely void of
any practical advantage—withdrew his support, and abandoned the Reformer
to his own resources. Yet not then was his resolution shaken. In two
Confessions of Faith, which he then produced, he asserted his adherence
to his expressed doctrines. And though one of them is so perplexed with
scholastic sophistry, as to have led some to imagine that it was
intended to convey a sort of retractation, yet it was not so interpreted
by his adversaries, six of whom immediately entered the lists against
it. Neither did it persuade his judges of his innocence. He was
condemned—but not, as the annals of that age would have led us to
expect, to death. And whether the praise of this moderation be due to
the Prelates who forbore so far to press their enmity, or to the State,
which might have refused to sanction the vengeance of the Prelates,
Wiclif was merely condemned to banishment from the University of Oxford.
He retired in peace to his rectory at Lutterworth, and there spent the
two remaining years of his life in the pursuit of his theological
studies and the discharge of his pastoral duties.
The greater part of the opinions by which he was distinguished were so
entirely at variance with the principles and prejudices of his age, that
our wonder is not at their imperfect success, but at their escape from
immediate extinction. Having thus escaped, however, and taken root in no
inconsiderable portion of the community, they were such as to secure by
their own strength and boldness their own progress and maturity. Neither
was their author neglectful of the methods proper to ensure their
dissemination. For in the first place, by his translation of the Sacred
Book on which he supposed them to rest, he increased the means of
ascertaining their truth, or at least the spuriousness of the system
which they opposed. In the next, he sent forth numerous missionaries,
whom he called his “Poor Priests,” for the express purpose of
propagating his doctrines; and thus they acquired some footing even in
his own generation. In succeeding years, the sect of Lollards, in a
great measure composed of his disciples, professed and perpetuated his
tenets; and by their undeviating hostility to the abuses of Rome,
prepared the path for the Reformation.
Nor were the fruits of his exertions confined to his native country. It
is certain that his works found their way, at a very early period, into
Bohemia, and kindled there the first sparks of resistance to the
established despotism. The venerable Huss proclaimed his adherence to
the principles, and his reverence for the person, of the English
Reformer; and he was wont in his public discourses to pray, that “on his
departure from this life, he might be received into those regions
whither the soul of Wiclif had gone; since he doubted not that he was a
good and holy man, and worthy of a heavenly habitation.” The memory of
Huss is associated by another incident with that of his master. The same
savage Council which consigned the former to the flames, offered to the
other that empty insult, which we may receive as an expression of
malignant regret that he had been permitted to die in peace. It
published an edict, “That the bones and body of Wiclif should be taken
from the ground, and thrown far away from the burial of any church.”
After a long interval of hesitation, this edict was obeyed. Thirty years
after his death, his grave was violated, and his ashes contemptuously
cast into a neighbouring brook. On this indignity, Fuller makes the
following memorable reflection:—“The brook did convey his ashes in Avon;
Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; they into the main ocean.
And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblems of his doctrine, which now
is dispersed all the world over.”
The date of Wiclif’s death renders the authenticity of his portraits in
some degree uncertain, and we are not able to trace the history of any
which exist. But that some memorials were preserved in his features, in
illuminations or otherwise, we may conclude from the general resemblance
which is to be traced in two different pictures of him—that from which
our print is engraved, and that at King’s College, Cambridge, engraved
in ‘Rolt’s Lives of the Reformers,’ and Verheiden, ‘Præstantium
Theologorum Effigies, &c.,’ 1602.
[Illustration: [Lutterworth Church.]]
[Illustration]
CORTEZ.
Perhaps no great revolution has ever been effected by means apparently
so inadequate to the end proposed, as in the first establishment of the
Spanish monarchy on the continent of America. The immense importance of
that revolution, and its intimate connexion with the history of
geographical discovery, warrant us in assigning a place in our Gallery
to a representative of the rude and daring men by whom the mighty
conquest was effected. Of these, Fernando Cortez claims the first place.
It is proper to mention, in explanation of what might seem a capital
omission in our work, that no authentic likeness is known to exist of
Columbus: a man raised above those who followed him across the Atlantic,
no less by the purity of his motives, than by the originality of his
daring career.
Columbus, however, did not colonize the American continent: his
settlement was in Hispaniola. But the Spaniards soon took possession of
other islands in the group of the Antilles. In 1511 Diego Velasquez
annexed the most important of them, Cuba, to the Spanish crown, and was
rewarded with the appointment of Governor. Eager to gain fresh wealth
and honour, he equipped a squadron of discovery, in 1518, which tracked
the southern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and brought home so inviting
a report, that he determined to attempt the conquest of the country. But
he was greatly embarrassed in the choice of a commanding officer. To
conduct the enterprise himself was no part of his scheme: at the same
time he was very desirous to appropriate to himself the advantages
likely to accrue from its successful issue. It was no easy matter to
find a person qualified by talent and courage to assume the command of
such an enterprise; yet so humble in rank, or so devoid of ambition, as
to give no umbrage to the governor’s jealousy. After much hesitation, he
invested Cortez with the chief command as his lieutenant. The early
history and character of this remarkable man are clearly and concisely
told by Dr. Robertson.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._
CORTEZ.
_From a Picture in the Florence Gallery._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
“He was born at Medelin, a small town in Estremadura, in the year 1485,
and descended from a family of noble blood, but of very moderate
fortune. Being originally destined by his parents to the study of the
law, as the most likely method of bettering his condition, he was sent
early to the university of Salamanca, where he imbibed some tincture of
learning. But he was soon disgusted with an academic life, which did not
suit his ardent and restless genius, and retired to Medelin, where he
gave himself up entirely to active sports and martial exercises. At this
period of life he was so impetuous, so overbearing, and so dissipated,
that his father was glad to comply with his inclination, and send him
abroad as an adventurer in arms. There were in that age two conspicuous
theatres on which such of the Spanish youth as courted military glory
might display their valour: one in Italy, under the command of the Great
Captain; the other in the New World. Cortez preferred the former, but
was prevented by indisposition from embarking with a reinforcement of
troops sent to Naples. Upon this disappointment he turned his views
towards America, whither he was allured by the prospect of the
advantages which he might derive from the patronage of Ovando, the
Governor of Hispaniola, who was his kinsman. When he landed at St.
Domingo, in 1504, his reception was such as equalled his most sanguine
hopes, and he was employed by the Governor in several honourable and
lucrative stations. These, however, did not satisfy his ambition; and in
the year 1511 he obtained permission to accompany Diego Velasquez in his
expedition to Cuba. In this service he distinguished himself so much,
that, notwithstanding some violent contests with Velasquez, occasioned
by some trivial events, unworthy of remembrance, he was at length taken
into favour, and received an ample concession of lands and of Indians,
the recompense usually bestowed upon adventurers in the New World.
“Though Cortez had not hitherto acted in high command, he had displayed
such qualities in several scenes of difficulty and danger, as raised
universal expectation, and turned the eyes of his countrymen towards
him, as one capable of performing great things. The turbulence of youth,
as soon as he found objects and occupations suited to the ardour of his
mind, gradually subsided, and settled into a habit of regular
indefatigable activity. The impetuosity of his temper, when he came to
act with his equals, insensibly abated, by being kept under restraint,
and mellowed into a cordial soldierly frankness. These qualities were
accompanied with calm prudence in concerting his schemes, with
persevering vigour in executing them, and with what is peculiar to
superior genius, the art of gaining the confidence and governing the
minds of men. To all which were added the inferior accomplishments that
strike the vulgar, and command their respect; a graceful person, a
winning aspect, extraordinary address in martial exercises, and a
constitution of such vigour as to be capable of enduring any fatigue.
“As soon as Cortez was mentioned to Velasquez by his confidants, he
flattered himself that he had at length found what he had hitherto
sought in vain, a man with talents for command, but not an object for
jealousy. Neither the rank, nor the fortune of Cortez, as he imagined,
were such that he could aspire at independence. He had reason to believe
that by his own readiness to bury ancient animosities in oblivion, as
well as his liberality in conferring several recent favours, he had
already gained the good-will of Cortez; and hoped, by this new and
unexpected mark of confidence, that he might attach him for ever to his
interest.”