King Henry did not follow this suggestion precisely, but he took
away the property of the religious orders for the expenses of his
many wives and mistresses, and forced the clergy in England to
forswear obedience to the Pope and make his royal self their
spiritual head. This was the beginning of the Anglican Church, as
distinguished from the Catholic; a beginning of which the
Anglican clergy are not so proud as they would like to be. When I
was a boy, they taught me what they called "church history", and
when they came to Henry the Eighth they used him as an
illustration of the fact that the Lord is sometimes wont to
choose evil men to carry out His righteous purposes. They did not
explain why the Lord should do this confusing thing, nor just how
you were to know, when you saw something being done by a
murderous adulterer, whether it was the will of the Lord or of
Satan; nor did they go into details as to the motives which the
Lord had been at pains to provide, so as to induce his royal
agent to found the Anglican Church. For such details you have to
consult another set of authorities--the victims of the
plundering.
When I was in college my professor of Latin was a gentleman with
bushy brown whiskers and a thundering voice of which I was often
the object--for even in those early days I had the habit of
persisting in embarrassing questions. This professor was a devout
Catholic, and not even in dealing with ancient Romans could he
restrain his propaganda impulses. Later on in life he became
editor of the "Catholic Encyclopedia", and now when I turn its
pages, I imagine that I see the bushy brown whiskers, and hear
the thundering voice: "Mr. Sinclair, it is so because I tell you
it is so!"
I investigate, and find that my ex-professor knows all about King
Henry the Eighth, and his motives in founding the Church of
England; he is ready with an "economic interpretation", as
complete as the most rabid muckraker could desire! It appears
that the king wanted a new wife, and demanded that the Pope
should grant the necessary permission; in his efforts to browbeat
the Pope into such betrayal of duty, King Henry threatened the
withdrawal of the "annates" and the "Peter's pence". Later on he
forced the clergy to declare that the Pope was "only a foreign
bishop", and in order to "stamp out overt expression of
disaffection, he embarked upon a veritable reign of terror".
In Anglican histories, you are assured that all this was a work
of religious reform, and that after it the Church was the pure
vehicle of God's grace. There were no more "holy idell theves",
holding the land of England and plundering the poor. But get to
know the clergy, and see things from the inside, and you will
meet some one like the Archbishop of Cashell, who wrote to one of
his intimates:
I conclude that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat,
drink and grow fat, rich and die; which laudable example I
propose for the remainder of my days to follow.
If you say that might be a casual jest, hear what Thackeray
reports of that period, the eighteenth century, which he knew
with peculiar intimacy:
I read that Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and gracious King's
favorite) sold a bishopric to a clergyman for 5000 pounds. (She
betted him the 5000 pounds that he would not be made a bishop,
and he lost, and paid her.) Was he the only prelate of his time
led up by such hands for consecration? As I peep into George II's
St. James, I see crowds of cassocks pushing up the back-stairs of
the ladies of the court; stealthy clergy slipping purses into
their laps; that godless old king yawning under his canopy in his
Chapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing.
Discoursing about what?--About righteousness and judgment? Whilst
the chaplain is preaching, the king is chattering in German and
almost as loud as the preacher; so loud that the clergyman
actually burst out crying in his pulpit, because the defender of
the faith and the dispenser of bishoprics would not listen to
him!